Was Jesus of Nazareth a person who believed that Scripture says what it means and means what it says (poetic texts and hyperbole aside)? Well, according to John 10:34-36, Jesus was clearly a fundamentalist: a man who believed in the fundamental basis of the Bible (as distinct from the media’s application of “fundamentalists” to religious fanatics intent on destroying the time proven democratic laws and institutions of Western societies)
The Pharisees were the religious fundamentalists in the days of Jesus. wanted to stone him for saying, “I and my Father are one.” From the context it is clear that Jesus had meant “one in unity”; single-minded in relation to the care of God’s “sheep”, i.e. His people, which He had placed in the care of Jesus (John 17:22). Jesus had not stated that he was God but they had misinterpreted his words. Jesus answered, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’?” (Psalm 82:6)
Jesus then said, “He (the inspired psalmist) called them gods to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken). Do you say of him whom the Father has sanctified (set apart for sacred service) and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming’, because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?”
The ‘gods’ were the magistrates who applied the Law of Moses, which was both civil and religious. They spoke for God and so were called ‘gods’ — just as God told Moses that he would be to Aaron “as God” (Exodus 4:16). God would put His words into the mouth of Moses (i.e. would inspire him) and Aaron would then speak them to the people.
This sequence is known by bible scholars as Agency. Notice how the Lord’s argument hinges on the use of a single word “gods”. Jesus then underlined the established fact by stating “And the Scripture cannot be broken”! I say again: The words of Jesus in John 10:34-36 are not a matter of his divinity but rather his unity of purpose with his Father in caring for “the sheep”: God’s precious people. Yet again the prejudiced Pharisees had misunderstood the meaning.
It is now more than 2,000 years since our Lord made this statement, and those who hate God and Jesus have done everything they could to ‘break’ the words of the Bible and have failed. The Bible (NT Greek: “biblios”: “a collection of books bound together under one cover”) is much like a bookshelf, in that it holds books of many and varied kinds.
Rationalistic theologians have succeeded in damaging the faith of those who had no understanding of these differences in the sixty-six books of the Bible. They will answer for that in the Judgement. In the meantime, let’s put our faith in the unbreakable words of God and of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. “What does the grain have in common with the chaff?”