Jewish critics often charge that the New Testament “turns a man into God,” smuggling pagan ideas into Israel’s faith. Scripture tells a different story. The Bible rejects the idea of human beings climbing up to become gods. It also witnesses — again and again — to the Holy One freely stooping down to reveal Himself, sometimes in strikingly human ways. The question is not, “Can a man become God?” but, “May God, who is Spirit, reveal Himself to us in a fully human life if He wills?” The Hebrew Scriptures consistently answer: yes. The messianic hope ripens within that very logic.
How the Tanakh Prepares Us for God-With-Us
God appears and speaks “face to face”
• Eden: “They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden…” (Genesis 3:8).
• Abraham: “The LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre… three men were standing near him… Abraham remained standing before the LORD” (Genesis 18:1–3, 22). Abraham addresses one of the three as “my Lord,” offers Him a meal, and the narrative continues to call this visitor “the LORD.”
• Sinai and beyond: Israel cannot bear the unmediated voice (Deuteronomy 5:23–27), yet the text also says “the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend” (Exodus 33:11).
• Covenant meal: “They saw the God of Israel… they beheld God, and they ate and drank” (Exodus 24:10–11).
• The “angel of the LORD” who speaks as God and receives worship (e.g., Exodus 3:2–6; Judges 13:17–22).
These are not pagan men becoming divine; they are moments of divine self-disclosure. If the LORD can dine with Abraham for an afternoon, Scripture leaves room for the LORD to dwell among us for years in the Messiah.
The Messiah bears divine names and prerogatives
• “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). The promised child is hailed with titles that belong to God.
• “From ancient days” (Micah 5:2). The ruler from Bethlehem has origins “from of old” — language Jewish commentators have connected with eternity.
• “The LORD is our righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:5–6). The righteous Branch — the Davidic king — will be called by the divine Name itself. In the Tanakh, YHWH is not given as a personal name to creatures.
• “One like a son of man” receives everlasting dominion and is served with a verb (pelach in Aramaic) used for divine service (Daniel 7:13–14). The scene locates an exalted humanlike figure within the very rule of God.
God alone is Savior—and yet the Messiah saves
“I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior” (Isaiah 43:11, cf. Isaiah 45:21; Hosea 13:4). If the Messiah brings final forgiveness and deliverance — as the prophets foretell — either he shares in God’s own identity, or Scripture contradicts itself. The biblical resolution is that God Himself will save His people, and He will do so messianically.
Second Temple and Rabbinic Witnesses
The New Testament did not invent high claims for the Messiah in a vacuum.
• Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q246, the “Son of God” text, late Second Temple period) call a coming figure “Son of God” and “Son of the Most High”—pre-Christian Jewish language echoing Danielic hopes.
• Targumic and midrashic voices sometimes read key passages messianically and with divine coloring. For example, rabbinic tradition lists names or titles of the Messiah including “The LORD our righteousness” (from Jeremiah 23:6). Various midrashim exalt the Messiah above patriarchs and even Moses, anticipating a figure who carries divine authority to save and to teach.
• Talmud’s Sukkah 52a links Zechariah 12:10 to “Messiah son of Joseph” who is slain, evoking national mourning “as for an only son.” However one interprets such texts, they keep alive a two-stage pattern: suffering and glory, concealment and kingship.
Medieval Jewish mysticism later speaks of Metatron — an exalted heavenly agent described with astounding language (royal authority, heavenly throne, covenant mediation). While the Zohar and related texts are much later than the New Testament and use symbols that require care, their very existence shows that Jewish thought wrestled with how God’s transcendence and nearness meet — often personified.
The Messiah as God’s Own Self-Revelation
Gather the threads: God appears and speaks; the Messiah is promised with divine names and everlasting rule; only God saves and forgives. The tapestry that emerges is not of a human ascending to divinity, but of the LORD descending to redeem — God with us. When the New Testament presents Yeshua in these terms, it is not smuggling foreign gods into Israel’s story; it is claiming that Israel’s God has kept Israel’s promises in Israel’s Messiah.
Key Texts — Walk Through Them Slowly
Genesis 18 — God at the tent
Abraham lifts his eyes and sees three men. He addresses one as “my Lord,” serves a meal, and the text names this visitor “the LORD” who speaks, promises, and judges. If God can take a seat under a tree to speak of a promised son, He can take on a human nature to keep that promise in the Son.
Jeremiah 23:5–6 — The Name upon the king
A Davidic “Branch” brings justice and safety, and “this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’” In Jeremiah 33:16, a similar title adorns the restored city; both king and city are so suffused with God’s saving presence that His Name marks them. The messianic conclusion stands: salvation comes as God Himself draws near.
Micah 5:2 — The ancient one born at Bethlehem
The ruler’s origins are “from ancient days.” In Jewish commentary (e.g., Radak), this has been read of the Messiah’s eternal source. Bethlehem gives him a cradle; heaven gives him his beginningless being.
Zechariah 12:10 — The pierced One whom they mourn
“I will pour out… a spirit of compassion… so that, when they look on me, on the one whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him.” God speaks in the first person of being looked upon in a pierced one. However one resolves textual nuances, the shock remains: national repentance focuses on a once-pierced, now-revealed figure bound up with God’s own identity.
Daniel 7:13–14 — The Human One on the clouds
Riding the clouds is a divine signature in the Hebrew Bible; here “one like a son of man” does so, receives universal service, and shares the Ancient of Days’ eternal kingdom. The earliest Jewish believers saw in Yeshua’s resurrection and exaltation the unveiling of this very Son of Man.
Yeshua’s Own Claims and Deeds (Within Israel’s Monotheism)
• “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). He reaches for the divine “I AM” and applies it to himself within Israel’s sacred story.
• “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). Not one person, but one in essence, mind, and action — the unity of doing the Father’s works.
• “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). In Yeshua, the invisible God becomes visible without ceasing to be God.
• Authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:1–12). “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” — exactly the point. He heals as a sign that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive.
• Receiving worship (Matthew 14:33; 28:9, 17) while also directing all glory to the Father — precisely the pattern you would expect if the Son shares the Father’s divine identity.
Why Necessity, Not Novelty
Salvation: If only God saves, and the Messiah saves, the Messiah must be God-with-us — not a rival deity, but God’s own saving presence in human life.
Revelation: If we are to “know the LORD” as Jeremiah’s new covenant promises (Jeremiah 31:34), God must come near in a way we can see, hear, and follow.
Atonement: Animal blood could only cover; a righteous human could not bear the world’s sin. The once-for-all sacrifice must be of infinite worth — Divine self-offering in the Servant who bears our iniquity.
Common Objections — Honest Replies
Objection: “Calling the Messiah ‘the LORD’ is only honorific.”
Reply: Scripture gives human beings God-honoring names (e.g., Daniel, “God is my judge”), but Jeremiah 23:6 uniquely places the divine Name — the LORD our righteousness — upon the Davidic king in a way bound to salvation and safety. The prophets are careful with the Name; here, its bestowal underscores God’s saving presence in the Messiah.
Objection: “Metatron proves Judaism rejects incarnation.”
Reply: Metatron arises in late mystical literature and should not be pressed literally. Its very existence, however, shows a persistent Jewish wrestling with how the transcendent God acts within creation through an exalted mediator. The New Testament claims Yeshua is not one mediator among many symbols but the concrete, historical revelation of God.
A word to my Jewish brothers
If Yeshua is truly God-with-us, then humility, worship, and trust are the fitting responses. Humility — because God stooped to us. Worship — because the Son shares the Father’s glory. Trust — because the One who made all things has entered our suffering to heal it from the inside.
You need not embrace every flourish of later Christian rhetoric (e.g., “Trinity”) to be able to feel the force of this: a teacher whose life radiated moral clarity, whose death carried transforming power, and whose resurrection claim has shaken empires and transformed hearts—leaving only three possibilities: deceived, deluded, or divine. The earliest disciples staked everything on the third. Their reading of Scripture was not an afterthought but an unveiling: “Were not our hearts burning within us…?” (Luke 24:32)
Conclusion
The Messiah must be God — not because a man climbed to heaven, but because the God of Israel promised to come down as He did in Eden (Genesis 3): to reveal Himself, to forgive decisively, and to reign through a human life. In Yeshua, the Tanakh’s theophanies, titles, and promises converge. He is the LORD our righteousness.
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