The following excerpt is taken from the monumental work titled The Incarnate Christ and His Critics: A Biblical Defense, authored by Robert M. Bowman Jr. & J. Ed Komoszewski, published by Kregel Academic, Grand Rapids, MI, 2024, Part 3: The Name of Jesus: Jesus’ Divine Names, Chapter 21: Could Jesus Be One of the Gods?, pp. 404-407.
In my estimation this is THE best and most comprehensive exposition and defense of the biblical basis for the Deity of Christ. Every serious Trinitarian Christian student of the Holy Bible, apologist, and/or theologian must have this book in the library.
“IF HE CALLED THEM GODS . . .” (JOHN 10:34–36)
We now move to considering whether the New Testament writings support the notion of a category of “gods,” other than false gods, into which Christ might be placed. As we mentioned earlier, Psalm 82 has played a significant role in debates over the deity of Christ because of Christ’s own reference to the psalm:
The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” 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’?” (John 10:33–36)
Unitarians tend to lean very heavily on this passage to trump all of the biblical evidence for the deity of Christ.38 Latter-day Saints, on the other hand, interpret both this passage and Psalm 82 as support for their belief in the (potential) deity of all humanity.39 These diverse theological uses of both Psalm 82 and John 10 might suggest the need for careful consideration before using these texts as proof texts for a particular doctrine.
In current biblical scholarship, John 10:34–36 is one of the most controversial passages in the New Testament—and not because of its supposed difficulty for orthodox theology. One of the difficult questions concerns what view, if any, of the identity of the “gods” in Psalm 82 is presupposed in John 10:34–36. The dominant theory today is that John 10 reflects the view (documented only in later Jewish literature) that the “gods” were the Israelites when they received the law at Mount Sinai.40 However, we agree with Andrew Lincoln that John 10 does not clearly refer to that interpretation of Psalm 82 and that Jesus’ argument can be understood without settling this question.41
The more important question is how Psalm 82 fits into Jesus’ response to his Jewish critics who accused him of blasphemy. Many people understand John 10:34–36 to be arguing that if others (whoever they were) could rightly be called “gods” in Psalm 82, then Jesus could also rightly call himself a god or God’s son. This way of reading John 10:34–36 assumes that the term “gods” is used affirmatively in Psalm 82:6, which we have shown is incorrect. Does John 10:34–36 mistakenly assume such a reading of Psalm 82:6, and if not, how is Jesus using the Psalm in his argument?
A helpful insight comes from an older, largely neglected article in 1964 by Lutheran scholar Richard Jungkuntz. Most interpreters assume that the statement “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35b) means simply that Scripture is true. While agreeing with that principle, Jungkuntz argues that John 10:35b means something more: that Scripture cannot go unfulfilled.42 Note the parallel between the following two sayings of Jesus in John’s Gospel:
“If [ei] on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken [lythē], are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well?” (John 7:23)
“If [ei] he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken [lythēnai]—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’?” (John 10:35–36)
In these texts, “breaking” Scripture does not mean merely denying its truth but causing it to be unfulfilled. The verb luō and the synonymous verb kataluō in a few other places also have this meaning of causing Scripture to be unfulfilled (Matt. 5:17; John 5:18). The implication is that in John 10:35, Jesus was saying that Psalm 82:6 must be fulfilled in some way. The aside, “and Scripture cannot be broken,” which normally is something that would not have needed to be said in a discussion among Jews, apparently was made to indicate that the text pointed forward to a genuine if surprising fulfillment.
We see how Jesus interpreted this fulfillment of Psalm 82 in his concluding rhetorical question in John 10:36. Whatever those gods were, Scripture did not call them “gods” for no purpose. What those so-called gods failed to be, Jesus really was. They were unrighteous; Jesus was “consecrated” (John 10:36a). They did not genuinely represent God; Jesus, who was sent by the Father (10:36a), did. They failed to live up to the titles of “gods” and “sons of the Most High” (synonymous in the context of Psalm 82:6); Jesus really was “the Son of God” (10:36b). Thus, Jesus’ argument was not, “They were rightly called gods, and so am I,” but rather, “Their failure as ‘gods’ is stated in Scripture to point forward to me coming from the Father as his real Son.” On this reading of John 10:34–36, the “gods” of Psalm 82 are contrasted with Jesus in a sort of “reverse typology” roughly analogous to the way Paul contrasts Adam as the source of sin and death with Christ as the source of righteousness and eternal life (Rom. 5:12–19; 1 Cor. 15:21–22).
If Jesus was not claiming deity, it would have been easy enough to have said something like, “I’m not God; I’m just one of his many sons.” He never did. Whatever the precise nuance of Christ’s argument, he was clearly placing himself in a category of one—not arguing that he belonged in the same category as the “gods” of Psalm 82. Jesus was not, as his critics claimed, a man who was “making himself ” God; he was God’s Son whom the Father had sent by making him a man (cf. John 1:14).
ARE THERE GENUINE “GODS” IN THE NEW TESTAMENT?
If John 10:34 does not refer to a group of genuine “gods” subordinate to God the Creator, are there any such references in the New Testament? The answer to this question is emphatically no. The Greek word theos (“God,” “a god,” or “gods”) occurs 1,317 times in the New Testament. Remarkably, there are only eight occurrences of the noun in a plural form (John 10:34, 35; Acts 7:40; 14:11; 19:26; 1 Cor. 8:5 [bis]; Gal. 4:8) and at most only eight that in English we would translate as “god” with a lowercase g (Acts 7:43; 12:22; 19:27; 28:6; 2 Cor. 4:4; Phil. 3:19; and possibly Acts 17:23a; 2 Thess. 2:4).43 We have already seen that John 10:34–35 does not refer to a group of beings as legitimate “gods.” There is no debate over the fact that at least most of the remaining texts refer unmistakably to false gods. There is, however, debate over Paul’s statement, “For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’” (1 Cor. 8:5). Notoriously, Joseph Smith cited this text (in his usual authoritarian style) to prove his doctrine of the plurality of Gods:
Paul says there are Gods many and Lords many; and that makes a plurality of Gods, in spite of the whims of men. . . . You know and I testify that Paul had no allusion to the heathen gods. I have it from God, and get over it if you can.44
LDS scholars have sometimes presented a softer claim, arguing that in 1 Corinthians 8:5 Paul was not referring exclusively to heathen or idolatrous gods. Such a qualification of Joseph’s position is forced on them by the explicit references to idols that frame Paul’s statement (see 1 Cor. 8:4, 7). In order to infer genuine gods from verse 5 along with the admitted pagan gods, Richard Draper and Michael Rhodes appeal to the Greek word hōsper there, translating it “as in fact.”45 The problem with this argument is not the translation “as in fact” but their assumption that “many gods” means that there are many beings that are rightly affirmed to be gods. There are “in fact” many gods, but the question is whether these gods deserve to be called by that name.
Paul answers no to that question in the immediate context in two ways. First, he qualifies his reference to other gods and lords by saying, “although there may be so-called gods” (1 Cor. 8:5a). The Greek word translated “so-called” in several of the major contemporary English versions (ESV, NABRE, NET, NRSV, etc.), legomenoi, makes it clear that these objects of religious devotion are only called gods (by their devotees).
Second, Paul contrasts these other “gods” and “lords” with “one God, the Father” and “one Lord, Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 8:6). He has already affirmed that “there is no God but one” (8:4); now he expands on that confession by including Jesus Christ alongside the Father. Latter-day Saints, however, think that Paul qualified this confession to allow that there are other gods by saying “yet for us” (8:6a). In their view, “for us” in 1 Corinthians 8:6a contrasts our one God and one Lord with the many gods and many lords that rule other earths or worlds. The Father and the Son are the one God and one Lord for “this earth,” but there are many gods and lords for other worlds.46
Nothing in the context of 1 Corinthians 8:6 supports this LDS interpretation. To the contrary, the “us” in context refers to well-informed believers, in contrast to unbelievers and new converts who may not fully understand the issue. Thus, Paul had just written, “we know that ‘an idol has no real existence,’ and that ‘there is no God but one’” (8:4). The affirmation that “we know . . . that ‘there is no God but one’” is then repeated and elaborated in Paul’s statement, “yet for us there is one God the Father . . .” (8:6). Paul is saying that although there are indeed many “so-called gods” (8:5), that is, objects of worship called gods by unbelievers, we recognize only one God, one Lord.47
The New Testament, then, makes no positive, affirmative references to a group of “gods.” The word theos in the New Testament always refers either to the one true God or (a surprisingly few times) to false gods. There is no third category of lesser “gods.”
38. E.g., Buzzard and Hunting, Doctrine of the Trinity, 45–46, 87, 125, 220, 291–92, 309.
39. See Daniel C. Peterson, “‘Ye Are Gods’: Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the Divine Nature of Humankind,” in The Disciple as Scholar: Essays on Scripture and the Ancient World in Honor of Richard Lloyd Anderson, ed. Stephen D. Ricks, Donald W. Parry, and Andrew H. Hedges (Provo, UT: FARMS at BYU, 2000), 471–594.
40. See Jerome H. Neyrey, “‘I Said: You Are Gods’: Psalm 82:6 and John 10,” JBL 108 (1989): 647–63; Menahem Kister, “Son(s) of God: Israel and Christ: A Study of Transformation, Adaptation, and Rivalry,” in Son of God: Divine Sonship in Jewish and Christian Antiquity, ed. Garrick V. Allen, Kai Akagi, Paul Sloan, and Madhavi Nevader (University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, 2019), 188–224 (esp. 200–203).
41. Andrew T. Lincoln, The Gospel according to Saint John, BNTC (London: Continuum, 2005), 307.
42. Richard Jungkuntz, “An Approach to the Exegesis of John 10:34–36,” CTM 35, no. 9 (Oct. 1964): 559–60.
43. In Acts 17:23a, Paul uses an altar “to an unknown god” (NET) as an object lesson for his proclamation about the true God the Athenians did not know. Second Thessalonians 2:4 can be taken to mean that the man of lawlessness will proclaim himself “to be God” (most translations) or “to be a god” (NABRE, NWT), but either way the man of lawlessness is a false god.
44. Smith, History of the Church, 6:475.
45. Richard D. Draper and Michael D. Rhodes, Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, BYU NT Commentary (Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 2017), 413.
46. Draper and Rhodes, Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, 413.
47. For more on 1 Corinthians 8:6, see pp. 496–500, 608–12.
FURTHER READING
The Meaning of “Lord” in 1 Corinthians 8:6
1 COR. 8 AND JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES
REV. 3:14 REVISITED… ONE MORE TIME!
Answering Islam Blog 
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