David Wood DESTROYS Alex O'Connor On Jesus's Divine Claims

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]That is absolutely brutal. Guess what?

[00:00:02]They get mad, they don't get violent.

[00:00:06]Which is what happens. When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him.

[00:00:10]But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven. Have they gotten violent yet?

[00:00:15]Looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Look, he said, I see heaven open and the Son of Man, remember that? The Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. Welcome back everyone. Good to have you here again.

[00:00:32]So, what you are about to watch is a debate that genuinely stopped me in my tracks.

[00:00:38]David Wood and Alex O'Connor go head-to-head over one of the most debated questions in religious history.

[00:00:47]Did Jesus actually claim to be God?

[00:00:52]David comes in with a framework rooted deep in first-century Jewish culture.

[00:00:57]And Alex pushes back with some arguments that are going to make you think hard, regardless of where you stand.

[00:01:05]Stay with this one all the way through because the second half is where things get really intense and the arguments start hitting differently. Also, I genuinely want to know where in the world are you watching this from? Drop your city or country in the comments. I love seeing how far this reaches. All right, let's get into it.

[00:01:25]Thank you, Alex. In my opening statement, I showed that in the first century, there was an interesting discussion within Judaism about the two powers in heaven. They had various ways of dealing with this.

[00:01:37]And we can see why when we read passages like Genesis 22, the story of Abraham and Isaac.

[00:01:46]But the Lord But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, "Abraham, Abraham." "Here I am," he replied.

[00:01:54]Wait, no. Then God said, "Take your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on the mountain on a mountain I will show you."

[00:02:05]So, this is God saying to Abraham, "Take your son."

[00:02:11]Verse 11, "But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, Abraham, Abraham." This is when he starts to do it. "Here I am," he replied. "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now that I know Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son."

[00:02:29]So, this is the angel of the Lord saying, "You haven't withheld from me your only son."

[00:02:36]And it was God who who ordered Abraham to do this.

[00:02:40]So, we have we have situations like this and I argue that Jesus enters the discussion when they're confused about the two powers in heaven and claims to be one of them.

[00:02:50]And so, there we looked at what Jesus says, what Jesus does, what his friends say, what his friends do, what his enemies say, and what his enemies do.

[00:02:58]Alex seems to suggest that the there could be some sort of angel or something like this or even a person who's in who's endowed with this kind of divine authority. I got problems with this even even here in Genesis.

[00:03:14]So, look at what they said. Then the Lord's Genesis 33, "Then the Lord said to Moses, leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob saying, I will give it to your descendants. I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, and Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go with you because you are stiff-necked people and and I might destroy you on the way." Who was accompanying them and guiding them?

[00:03:39]Well, the angel of the Lord.

[00:03:41]But here he says, "I'm not going with you this time."

[00:03:44]So, this is the Lord speaking. It's not the angel of the Lord. You say, "Oh, this is the Lord." This is the Lord speaking. This is the Lord speaking.

[00:03:49]Says, "I'm not going up with you now."

[00:03:50]When it was the angel of the Lord who was accompanying them. So, these are the sorts of things you have.

[00:03:55]And people tried to figure out how to deal with this. And they came up with again, with all sorts of ways and Jesus entered the picture and claimed to be one of the two powers in heaven.

[00:04:07]So, what Jesus says. We went through three examples of Jesus claiming to be one of the two powers. He's the divine son of the Father. He's the Lord of King David. And he's the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. And we saw how people reacted to him claiming to be the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven.

[00:04:27]In response, Alex was quoting Psalm 82 and then Jesus using this using this passage. So, let's go ahead and take a look at this.

[00:04:39]So, they accused Jesus of claiming to be God.

[00:04:43]Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your law, I have said you are gods?

[00:04:46]If he called them gods to whom the word of God came and scripture cannot be set aside, what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world?" So, Jesus is sent into the world according to this passage. "Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said I am God's son?"

[00:05:02]This is not and I have no idea how you would ever read the Gospel of John like this, let alone anything else Jesus said. This is not Jesus saying, "What?

[00:05:11]You're misunderstanding. I'm just a regular dude."

[00:05:15]Again, if you if if this were the only verse in there, maybe because if if given the rest of what we read in the Gospel of John and the rest of the Gospels, Jesus is not claiming to be a regular guy.

[00:05:25]He's using a legal technicality here that they should be aware of. They're saying, "Hey, here's what you're claiming. You're claiming to be the Son of God. This means you're claiming to be equal to God and so on and therefore this is blasphemy."

[00:05:37]Whatever your background or beliefs, this opening section is worth paying close attention to because David Wood does something that most people in this conversation completely skip over. He does not start with Jesus. He does not start with the New Testament. He goes all the way back into the foundations of ancient Jewish scripture to show that the theological tension at the center of this debate was not something Christians created. It was already sitting there unresolved for centuries before Jesus was ever born.

[00:06:10]Here is what you have to understand about the ancient Jewish world. The understanding of God was not as straightforward as people assume.

[00:06:19]You had passages in Genesis where God gives a direct command and then the angel of the Lord appears and speaks in the first person using the same authority claiming the same personal stake in the outcome.

[00:06:32]David Wood walks through the story of Abraham and Isaac and points out something that is genuinely easy to miss on a casual read.

[00:06:41]The angel of the Lord says to Abraham, "You haven't withheld from me your only son." Not from God.

[00:06:49]From me. And the original command came from God himself. So, the question that ancient Jewish scholars were wrestling with was real and it was serious. Who exactly is speaking in these passages?

[00:07:01]This is what makes David's framework so compelling to examine.

[00:07:05]He's not asking you to accept a conclusion. He is showing you that the question itself has roots that go far deeper than most people realize.

[00:07:16]Two distinct divine figures.

[00:07:19]Both acting with full authority. Both speaking as God. And nobody in the ancient world had cleanly resolved what that meant.

[00:07:29]David then builds his six-point framework. What does Jesus say? What does Jesus do? What do his friends say and do? What do his enemies say and do?

[00:07:38]And he identifies three specific ways Jesus positioned himself within that unresolved tension.

[00:07:47]As the divine son of the Father.

[00:07:49]As the Lord of King David.

[00:07:52]And as the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. When Alex brings in John chapter 10 and Psalm 82 to argue that Jesus was deflecting the divine claim rather than making one, David's response is worth sitting with.

[00:08:07]He does not dismiss the passage.

[00:08:09]He reframes what Jesus was actually doing within it.

[00:08:14]Jesus was not saying he was just a regular person. He was making a legal argument. You cannot execute someone for using a divine title unless you can demonstrate that the title is false.

[00:08:25]That is a completely different kind of statement. And understanding that distinction as David presents it changes how the entire exchange reads. The title is not from God. That it's not true.

[00:08:36]That it's false. Have you done that? No.

[00:08:39]Okay, you can't kill me. You can't just say there's a claim and therefore we will kill you over it. So, it's a legal technicality. Again, if you're if you're somehow reading this as see, Jesus is just claiming to be a regular guy, well.

[00:08:53]All right.

[00:08:53]>> [clears throat] >> So, we have John 17:5.

[00:08:56]"And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began." Why? Alex quoted John 17 to show that Jesus is a just claim just claiming some some regular relationship that we can all have with God or something along those lines. What does Jesus say in the same chapter that Alex is quoting?

[00:09:12]"And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began."

[00:09:19]That sounds like Jesus is claiming to have glory with the Father before the world began. Doesn't sound like he's claiming to be a regular guy. Doesn't sound like he's saying, "Oh, you guys are just misunderstanding everything I said. It's just one big misunderstanding."

[00:09:31]So, what Jesus does.

[00:09:33]What Jesus does.

[00:09:35]We've looked at it. He I think he said he's going to respond to it. So, what does Jesus do? He's the judge. He's the final judge of all people, according to him.

[00:09:44]Again, the Old Testament says that Yahweh is the one who's going to sit on his throne in judgment. Jesus said, "Yeah, that's me."

[00:09:52]The Old Testament says that that Yahweh is the one who raises the dead. Jesus says that he's the one who raises the dead at the resurrection. The people in their graves are going to hear the voice of the son of God.

[00:10:04]Now, that is very strange if that's Oh, that's how we all are. We're all going to be raised from the dead by the son of God. If that's him saying, "Oh, we're all just the same and you know, we we can all you you'll be in me and I'll be in you."

[00:10:14]Very strange way of putting things.

[00:10:18]What his friends say? Now, this is interesting. Alex quotes Stephen in Acts 7.

[00:10:24]Now, this is This is an awesome passage because this this kind of proves everything I was saying in my opening statement. Look at this.

[00:10:30]So, Stephen rebukes the Jewish leaders in the harshest terms you can possibly rebuke someone. Watch what he says. You stiff-necked people, your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors. You always resist the Holy Spirit. Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the righteous one, and now you have betrayed and murdered him. You who have received the law that was given through angels, but have not obeyed it.

[00:11:01]That is absolutely brutal. Guess what?

[00:11:04]They get mad, they don't get violent.

[00:11:07]Watch what happens. When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him.

[00:11:11]But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven. Have they gotten violent yet?

[00:11:17]Looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Look, he said, "I see heaven open and the son of man." Remember that?

[00:11:28]The son of man standing at the right hand of God.

[00:11:31]Oh, you got God and then just someone else.

[00:11:34]How many powers in heaven?

[00:11:38]When do they get upset? Watch Watch when they get upset.

[00:11:43]I see I see heaven open and the son of man standing at the right hand of God.

[00:11:47]Two powers in heaven and Jesus is one of them. Now, watch how they react.

[00:11:51]At this, they covered their ears and yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.

[00:11:59]Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of young man named Saul. When do they get violent?

[00:12:04]When he says Jesus is one of the two powers in heaven. That's what That's exactly That is the precise moment when they get violent.

[00:12:13]Jesus is one of the two powers in heaven.

[00:12:16]This is the section where the debate shifts in a way that is genuinely fascinating to watch from an analytical standpoint.

[00:12:24]David Wood takes a passage that Alex himself brought into the debate and shows that the very same chapter contains a line that cuts directly against the interpretation Alex was building.

[00:12:37]Alex had been using John chapter 17 to argue that the relationship Jesus described with the Father was the same kind of relational unity he wanted his disciples to eventually share. A model of spiritual closeness rather than a claim of divine identity.

[00:12:56]But David pulls out verse 5 of that same chapter where Jesus says this, "Glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began." Think carefully about what that sentence is actually saying.

[00:13:11]Jesus is not requesting something new.

[00:13:14]He is asking for something to be restored, a glory that existed before creation, before time itself had begun.

[00:13:23]From a purely textual standpoint, that is not the language of a prophet asking for God's favor. That is not the language of a servant requesting elevation. That is the language of someone describing a pre-existing relationship with God that predates the entire created order. And that sits in the same chapter Alex was using to support his position. Then David moves to the Acts chapter 7 account. And this is where the evidence becomes particularly striking regardless of where you land theologically. Stephen is standing before the Sanhedrin and delivers what is honestly one of the most confrontational speeches in the entire New Testament. He calls them stiff-necked. He tells them their ancestors rejected every prophet sent to them.

[00:14:13]He tells them they themselves betrayed and destroyed the righteous one.

[00:14:17]That is as harsh a rebuke as you can give a religious authority. And the crowd gets angry. They gnash their teeth.

[00:14:25]But they do not move. And then Stephen looks upward and says he sees the son of man standing at the right hand of God.

[00:14:33]David asks what I think is the most analytically important question in this entire segment.

[00:14:39]At what precise moment does the crowd go from furious to taking action?

[00:14:45]Not when Stephen insults them.

[00:14:46]Not when he accuses their entire history of rejecting God's messengers.

[00:14:52]The moment they cover their ears and rush toward him is the exact moment he places Jesus alongside God as a second divine figure.

[00:15:01]David put it plainly.

[00:15:04]That is the precise moment when they get violent.

[00:15:07]Jesus is one of the two powers in heaven.

[00:15:10]Whatever conclusion you draw from that, the reaction itself is documented, and it tells you something significant about how the people present understood what was being claimed. So, keep in mind this actually supports me, right? I mean, this is one of Well, this this is one of the early Christians who gets stoned to death for saying that Jesus is one of the two powers in heaven. And if you're thinking he's just just a just a regular guy hanging out in heaven, first of all, um you might want to check uh about someone being in the presence of God and what sort of person you'd have to be. But look look what look what uh look what he I mean, oops, do I have it?

[00:15:49]Oh, I don't have it. Right right after right after this is when when uh Stephen I don't have it on slide. Uh right after this is when Stephen looks up and says what?

[00:15:59]"Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."

[00:16:01]That's just a regular guy in the presence of God up there? No, that's someone who receives the spirits of people.

[00:16:09]That a regular guy?

[00:16:12]So, Alex thinks this is just God endowing someone with authority. Um does not look like that. Jesus seems to be the authority here, and this not only gets Stephen killed, this sets Paul on a rampage.

[00:16:25]Paul says, "I have to wipe this stuff out." Why?

[00:16:28]We're told in the book of Acts what really sets Paul off. Uh when Ananias is told that Paul is coming, well, Saul back then, he says that he's been told to apprehend everyone who calls on this name.

[00:16:46]Why is that an issue? Calling on the name. That's That's how you describe prayer in the Old Testament. Calling on the name. Calling on the name of Yahweh.

[00:16:54]And Paul sees the Christians calling on the name of Jesus the way they're supposed to call on the name of Yahweh.

[00:17:01]Why is this relevant? Paul converts to Christianity about 2 years after the crucifixion.

[00:17:07]When is this taking place?

[00:17:10]This is not something that happens 50 or 60 years after the time of Jesus. We have Christians calling on the name of Jesus as they call on the name of Yahweh, and we can trace it to within 2 years of Jesus' crucifixion. So, if this is a misunderstanding, that's a pretty big misunderstanding, and Jesus must be the worst communicator of all time.

[00:17:32]Uh Alex brings up the Septuagint the the Septuagint responding to John. I didn't uh I I didn't uh rely on the passages he's responding to. Uh but if you want to go to the Septuagint in in terms of uh interpreting uh interpreting the claims of the New Testament, let's go to Luke. Luke 6:46. Why do you Jesus says, "Why do you call me Lord Lord and do not do what I say?"

[00:17:55]You want to talk about the Septuagint?

[00:17:58]There's only one other There's only one other place outside the outside the Gospels where they use this Lord Lord.

[00:18:06]That's the Septuagint.

[00:18:08]And it's a translation of Adonai Yahweh.

[00:18:14]God.

[00:18:15]Adonai Yahweh. So, that's the Lord Yahweh.

[00:18:19]But in Greek, they would translate Adonai and Yahweh as Kurios. So, it's Kurios Kurios in the Sep- in the Septuagint.

[00:18:27]And here Jesus says, "Why do you call me Lord Lord and not do what I say?" And so, if you want to if you want to interpret Jesus based on the Septuagint claiming to be Yahweh, there you go.

[00:18:36]There it is. And it's in the Gospel of Luke.

[00:18:40]So, at the end of the day, uh the claim is that everything is just some sort of big misunderstanding.

[00:18:46]This is very very very strange to me because he's basically saying Jesus was not a good communicator.

[00:18:54]You know, you you think about the Beatitudes and the the Sermon on the Mount and parable the prodigal son and the parable the good Samaritan and the golden rule and so on and so on and so on.

[00:19:07]Jesus seems like the best communicator of all time.

[00:19:11]He's a He's careful about what he's saying, and sometimes he unveils things in different ways, but when he he makes a point, seems people get his point. Uh if all of his followers just seem to misunderstand him and start worshiping him and praying to him, making doxologies for him and so on, putting their liturgy around him, then you're saying Jesus was just a terrible terrible communicator. And that, I have to say, is the one option I cannot accept here. And this final section is where David Wood presents what I think is the hardest part of this entire debate to argue against, and it has less to do with theology and more to do with basic historical logic.

[00:19:57]Stephen faces the ultimate consequence for what he said and right before that moment, he looks up and directs his final words to Jesus directly, Lord Jesus.

[00:20:09]Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

[00:20:11]David asks a straightforward question about that.

[00:20:14]Is that how someone speaks to a figure who has simply been granted delegated authority?

[00:20:20]Because in the entire framework of ancient Jewish practice, calling on the name of God in prayer was one of the most sacred and exclusive acts a Jewish person could perform.

[00:20:32]It was not something directed toward a human being, not toward an angel, not toward any intermediary figure, no matter how exalted. And here is Stephen, a first-century Jewish man raised in that exact tradition, using those final words for Jesus. Then David brings in a historical detail that I find genuinely underappreciated in these conversations.

[00:20:57]Before Paul became one of the most influential voices in early Christianity, he was actively working to stop the movement entirely. And what specifically drove that response, according to the book of Acts, was that these early believers were calling on the name of Jesus in the same way Jewish people were supposed to call on the name of Yahweh.

[00:21:19]Here is why the timeline matters so much.

[00:21:23]Paul's conversion happened roughly 2 years after the crucifixion, which means this practice was already established, already widespread enough to be a serious concern within 2 years of Jesus's death.

[00:21:35]This was not a belief that slowly developed over generations. It was not a theological position that emerged from centuries of church tradition. Within 2 years, people who had grown up in strict Jewish monotheism were already treating Jesus with the kind of reverence reserved exclusively for God.

[00:21:55]That historical point is worth sitting with, regardless of your personal conclusions. These were not people who came from a tradition that casually redirected worship. Jewish monotheism at that time was one of the most firmly held religious identities in the ancient world. The idea that a large group of people from that background would begin calling on the name of Jesus the way they called on the name of Yahweh within 2 years, with no record of widespread confusion or correction, raises a serious historical question about what those people understood Jesus to have claimed during his lifetime.

[00:22:35]David closes with an argument that lands on pure reasoning.

[00:22:39]If everyone around Jesus, both the people who followed him and the people who opposed him, all walked away with the same conclusion about what he was claiming, and if Jesus never clearly corrected that conclusion while he was alive, then the only alternative explanation is that Jesus was somehow unable to communicate one basic point clearly.

[00:23:03]David then lists the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Golden Rule.

[00:23:11]By any honest measure, Jesus left behind some of the most memorable and clearly understood teaching in all of recorded history. Why the idea that this same person failed to correct a fundamental misunderstanding about his own identity consistently across multiple years and audiences is the one explanation David says he simply cannot accept. And as a matter of pure logic, that is a position worth seriously considering. So, what do you guys think of this? Leave your thoughts down in the comments. Please like and subscribe, and I will see you in the next video.