John 10:32-41 (ESVST)
Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” 33 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.”
In the last message after Jesus told the Jews that “I and the Father are one”, the Jews started to pick up stones in order to stone him. Jesus then asked them a question before they could stone him and said to them that he had done many good works from God, for which of them are they stoning him. Their answer was simply that they are not stoning him for the good works but rather they are stoning him because although he is a man, he makes himself equal with God.
34 Jesus answered them, “ Is it not written in your Law, ‘ I said, you are gods ’?
Jesus here quotes
Psalms 82:6 (ESVST)
I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you;
35 If he called them gods to whom the word of God came — and Scripture cannot be broken — 36 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 Psa 82, God is commanding the judges or magistrates of Israel to judge fairly and not oppress the weak. This word used here is a Hebrew word ’ “lohiym” a masculine plural noun meaning God, gods, judges or angels. Occurring more than 2, 600 times in the Old Testament. In Psa 82:1 God indicates that he is among these gods, referring to the judges and in verse 2 he asks them how long they will continue to judge unfairly. To me this simply meant that God was saying that these are the people by whom, I God is using to pass on my judgement to the people of Israel. Judges are supposed to represent God’s judgment on earth and they must disperse it justly. Hence little gods.
Jesus is therefore saying if these people who have recieved the word of God can be called gods and the scripture cannot be broken, meaning the scripture is true and contains no error, then why is it so difficult to accept that the one whom God has set apart and send into this world is a Son of God. How can that be blasphemy.
37 If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; 38 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.” 39 Again they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.
Jesus said to them that if he was not doing the works of God, then they must not beleive him but if he is, then even if they don’t beleive him, they must at least beleive the works that he does, so that they may know that God is in him and he is in God. Again explaining to them that he and God are of one essence and they are in agreement. As expected once more, they wanted to arrest him to stone him.
40 He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing at first, and there he remained. 41 And many came to him. And they said, “ John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.”
Since it was not yet Jesus’s time to suffer physical harm at their hands, he managed to escape them and go across the river Jordan and he remained there. Many came to him because they said that everything that John the Baptist said about Jesus was true.