John 10:34-36

‘Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are gods'? (Psalms 82:6). If he called them gods to whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world ‘you are blaspheming' because I said I am the Son of God?'

We should note that ‘Law' is here used in the wider sense of the Scriptures, God's instruction. This was an accepted usage. The description ‘ your  Law' brings out the great emphasis that they themselves placed on them. Jesus is emphasising that what He is arguing comes from their own Law, the Law that they claim to treasure so much. In the Psalm the phrase pictures God sitting among the judges of Israel, or their angelic representatives, calling on them to deal justly and protect the weak. Thus they were, as it were, seen as standing in the place of God, as ‘elohim', heavenly representatives (compare how angels were called the ‘sons of the elohim' in Genesis 6:2; Genesis 6:4; Job 1:6; Job 2:1; Job 38:7). They were the council of God, giving God's verdict, speaking God's words. They were, as it were, ‘gods' for they acted in the name of God.

So even weak, mortal men (and the Psalm makes clear in John 10:7 that is what they were) could be called ‘gods' (acting like ‘elohim', a word sometimes also used of angels as the heavenly court) when they heard His word and acted and spoke in His name, because they were acting in unity with God and as the earthly counterpart of the heavenly court. Furthermore God was delivering His word through them. Now if the application of the term ‘god' to such a person was not to be looked on as blasphemy, how could its application to the teacher and judge come from God?. Indeed it was Scriptural. (Jesus reinforced this by reminding them that by their own interpretation not a single passage of Scripture (he graphe) could be broken but must be held in its entirety).

Not that Jesus was not just comparing Himself with these men. He is revealing Himself as the One ‘whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world'. He is not just a man, even a man in authority, hearing God's word and passing it on. He has been uniquely set apart by God and sent into the world to deliver God's word. Indeed, as we know from John 1, He  is  God's word. He is the Son of God, possibly a Messianic title but if so given deeper significance by Jesus. Thus He has even more right to have the term ‘god' applied to Him. Why then do they accuse Him of blasphemy?

So the contrast between these judges and Jesus is apparent. The word came to them, but in contrast He IS the Word. The judges were selected from among the people and consecrated, but Jesus was uniquely prepared above and consecrated, and then sent. The judges were ‘sons of the Most High' but He is the true Son of God, the ‘only-begotten'.

It is clear that Jesus was now seeking to stop their precipitate action by confusing them with words and making them think again. On the whole the time for reasoning with them was past. He had made clear the truth about Himself and they had rejected it. So let them go away and think over all He had said. Perhaps then they would see that He was in fact greater than the judges who receive God's word and act in God's Name, greater than the kings of Judah who stood in for God on earth. But that has been revealed in His teaching and His ‘works', not by the application to Him of the term ‘God'. Yet He did not want them just to go away and say ‘Oh, he is just a man after all' so He continued.

‘And the Scripture cannot be broken.' Jesus argument only held if this was so. Thus He is confirming His own view that every word of Scripture is reliable and cannot be ‘broken', that is, cannot be altered or changed or repudiated in any way. Thus does He confirm His own belief in the full plenary verbal inspiration of the word of God. (To suggest that He spoke ‘Ad hominem' would be to accuse Him of deceit in order to obtain His purpose, for the whole of His argument depended on the truth of the statement).