Few statements of Jesus have been more persistently misunderstood or misused than His citation of Psalm 82 in John 10:34, where He declares, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?”¹

Critics have frequently appealed to this text as evidence that Jesus denied His own deity, reduced Himself to the status of a mere human judge, or even endorsed a doctrine of human divinization.

These criticisms collapse under careful historical, literary, and juridical analysis.

When Jesus’ words are examined within their Jewish legal context, their scriptural background, and the immediate polemical setting of John 10, the passage emerges not as a retreat from divinity but as one of the most forceful defenses of His divine identity recorded in the Gospels.

The key to understanding Jesus’ argument resides in a recognized rabbinic method of reasoning known as qal wa-ḥomer, an argument from the lesser to the greater.

This form of logic was common in first-century Jewish legal discourse and appears repeatedly throughout Scripture. Its structure is straightforward: if a principle holds true in a lesser or subordinate case, then it must hold all the more in a greater or superior one.

Jesus employs this reasoning frequently in His teaching, appealing to shared assumptions His audience already accepts in order to expose the inconsistency of their objections.²

In John 10, He uses this method with great precision.

The immediate context of Jesus’ statement cannot be ignored. The exchange occurs during the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, where Jesus has just made the clear claim, “I and the Father are one.”³

The reaction of the Jewish leaders is instantaneous and unambiguous. They take up stones to execute Him, explaining plainly that their charge is blasphemy: “because You, being a man, make Yourself God.”⁴

There is no misunderstanding on their part. They recognize that Jesus is claiming equality with God in essence and authority. It is in response to this accusation—not in retreat from it—that Jesus appeals to Scripture.

Jesus cites Psalm 82:6, a text well known to His audience. In its original setting, Psalm 82 depicts God standing in judgment over Israel’s rulers, rebuking them for injustice and corruption.

These persons are called elohim, a term that in this context refers not to divine beings by nature but to human judges entrusted with the administration of God’s law.⁵ Their designation as “gods” is functional and representative, grounded in the fact that they exercised delegated authority and spoke on God’s behalf.

The psalm itself immediately clarifies that these “gods” are mortal and accountable: “Nevertheless, you will die like men.”⁶ Far from exalting them, the passage condemns them.

Jesus’ appeal to this psalm establishes the lesser premise of His argument. Scripture itself, which His opponents regard as inviolable, applies the term “gods” to unjust, mortal men simply because the word of God came to them.

Jesus emphasized this point by affirming that “Scripture cannot be broken.”⁷

This assertion carries important weight. By invoking the authority of Scripture, Jesus binds His opponents to the logical consequences of their own hermeneutic commitments.

If they accept Psalm 82 as the Word of God—and they do—then they must acknowledge that the use of divine terminology in certain contexts does not automatically constitute blasphemy.

Having established the lesser case, Jesus advances to the greater.

He contrasts Himself with the judges of Psalm 82, not by identifying with them, but by distinguishing Himself categorically from them. They merely received the word of God; He is the One whom “the Father sanctified and sent into the world.”⁸

Their authority was derivative and corrupted; His mission is consecrated and divine.

The logic is unmistakable. If Scripture can call corrupt human judges “gods” without violating monotheism or committing blasphemy, then how can it be blasphemous for the One uniquely set apart by the Father to call Himself the Son of God?

This is the heart of the qal wa-ḥomer argument. Jesus does not argue downward from divinity to humanity; He argues upward from delegated authority to intrinsic sonship. His reasoning exposes the incoherence of the accusation against Him. The charge of blasphemy cannot stand without simultaneously indicting Scripture itself.

In effect, Jesus places His accusers in an impossible position: either they must reject Psalm 82 and undermine the authority of the Law they claim to defend, or they must concede that their charge against Him is illegitimate.

Crucially, Jesus does not stop with this legal argument. He immediately returns to the empirical and theological grounds of His divine claim, appealing to His works as evidence of His unique relationship with the Father.

“If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works.”⁹

These works are not presented as mere miracles but as manifestations of divine action, confirming that “the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.”¹⁰

This mutual indwelling goes far beyond anything attributed to the judges of Psalm 82. It is a claim of shared essence and unity, consistent with the prologue of John’s Gospel, where the Word is identified as both distinct from God and fully God.¹¹

The broader Johannine context reinforces this reading. Throughout the Gospel, Jesus consistently distinguishes Himself from all other recipients of revelation. Moses delivered the Law; Jesus embodies grace and truth.¹² Prophets spoke God’s word; Jesus speaks as the Word made flesh.¹³

To interpret John 10:34 as a denial of deity would place this passage in direct contradiction with the theological trajectory of the entire Gospel, including Jesus’ climactic affirmation before Thomas, “My Lord and my God.”¹⁴ Such a contradiction is neither textually nor theologically plausible.

Early Christian interpreters recognized this immediately.

Justin Martyr appealed to Psalm 82 to demonstrate that Scripture’s use of divine terminology did not undermine monotheism, while insisting that Christ alone possesses true deity by nature.¹⁵

Athanasius cited John 10 to show that Jesus’ sonship is not honorary but ontological, grounded in eternal generation rather than delegated authority.¹⁶

Augustine in the same way, emphasized that the judges were called gods by participation, whereas Christ is God by essence.¹⁷

These early Christian church leaders describe continuity with the Jewish legal logic Jesus Himself employed, not later theological invention. Modern attempts to use John 10:34 to support doctrines of human divinization or to relativize Jesus’ claims to deity fail on every front.

They ignore the immediate polemical context, detach the citation from Psalm 82’s rebuke of human judges, and reverse the direction of Jesus’ argument. Instead of moving from the lesser to the greater, such interpretations flatten the distinction entirely, collapsing Christ into the category of those He explicitly transcends. This is not exegesis but eisegesis.

When the passage is allowed to speak on its own terms, its meaning is clear. Jesus does not evade the charge of blasphemy by redefining Himself downward. He dismantles the charge by exposing its inconsistency with Scripture, while simultaneously reaffirming His unique identity as the Son sent from the Father.

The argument from the lesser to the greater functions not as a defense born of weakness, but as a judicial demonstration of authority. Jesus stands before His accusers as both the faithful interpreter of the Law and the One to whom the Law ultimately bears witness.

Thus, the statement “you are gods” serves not to diminish Christ, but to magnify Him. It reveals that even within Israel’s Scriptures, categories exist that anticipate a greater fulfillment.

If corrupt judges could bear divine titles in a limited, representational sense, then the One who perfectly reveals the Father, performs the works of God, and shares eternal unity with Him stands in a category altogether His own.

Far from retreating from His claim, Jesus presses it home with irrefutable logic, leaving His opponents without excuse and His readers with yet another testimony to His divine identity.

Jesus is making it clear to the Pharisees, He is Yahweh from the Hebrew Scriptures.

Sources and Citations

¹ John 10:34; Psalm 82:6.

² Matthew 7:11; Matthew 12:11–12; Hebrews 9:13–14.

³ John 10:30.

⁴ John 10:33.

⁵ Psalm 82:1; Exodus 21:6; Exodus 22:8–9, where elohim refers to judges.

⁶ Psalm 82:7.

⁷ John 10:35.

⁸ John 10:36.

⁹ John 10:37–38.

¹⁰ John 10:38.

¹¹ John 1:1–3.

¹² John 1:17.

¹³ John 1:14.

¹⁴ John 20:28.

¹⁵ Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 124.

¹⁶ Athanasius, Against the Arians, II.23–24.

¹⁷ Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 48.

Categories: Robert Clifton Robinson