Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and 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’?”
In this passage, Jesus quotes from Psalm 82 to challenge the Jewish leadership’s charge of blasphemy. They stand with rocks in hand, ready to stone Him to death, but Jesus undermines their sanctimony. The Hebrew word “gods” in the psalm is Elohim, which is normally refers to God Himself but can have other uses. Psalm 82 is a challenge to the leaders of its own day, acknowledging that they have God given spiritual authority that they must use for justice because, after all, they are only human and they’ll face their own judgement before God. There is a certain amount of irony in calling these unjust judges “gods”. Jesus argues, if these guys were called gods for their authority and leadership from God, certainly the Father’s dedication and commissioning gives Me more right to call Myself the Son of God.
Lest you think Jesus is softening a claim to His divinity, He doubles down on His claim from verse 30, “I and the Father are one,” in verses 37 and 38:
“If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
To read between the lines, “I’m saying I’m God and it’s not blasphemy because all the evidence points to it.” The Jewish leadership gets the point: with hard hearts, they immediately try to arrest Him.
