Why did the Jews accuse Jesus of making himself equal to God when He said "My Father"?

tonychanyt said:

John 5:

What were those Jews thinking? How could calling God "my Father" mean that Jesus implied equality with God?

The Jews did not object to the wording "My Father". It had precedents in the Hebrew Scripture, 2 Samuel 7:


Psalm 89:

The Jews objected to the way Jesus applied the phrase "my Father" in a unique sense that God was literally His Father as a spiritual reality, not a metaphor, that He was literally the Son of God. The following was how Jesus defined the Son in the immediate context, John 5:21-23:

1. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so, the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.
2. Moreover, the Father judges no one but has entrusted all judgment to the Son
3. that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.
4. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.

So, the Jews accused Jesus of making himself equal to God when He said "My Father" in John 5:17. And rightly so.

In the wider context, 5 chapters later, Jesus claimed in John 10:


The Jews rightly accused Jesus of implying that he was God.

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tonychanyt said:

Why did the Jews accuse Jesus of making himself equal to God when He said "My Father"?

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