There is no mention of Jesus being God in the Holy Bible. He refers to himself as the Son of Man or coming from One who sent Him. Can it be elaborated?

While reading the Holy Bible, it is important that we keep in mind that these books were written by first century Jews. The culture in which they lived and the time period all determines the way they present Christ and more importantly it would affect the way Christ revealed himself to them. For certain, one wouldn’t find Jesus proclaiming “I am God”, but he does express the same fact, at times, using subtle language that only a first century Jew would understand and also by taking a more direct approach that even a person living in the twenty first century can read and come to the knowledge that Jesus indeed claimed to be God.

What did the Apostles and the NT writers say about Christ?

John

Apostle John while writing his gospel takes his time to introduce Jesus as God and does so by making use of already existing philosophical and biblical backgrounds. By talking about “the Word” he presents an already known concept of Logos – the divine reason implicit in the cosmos, ordering it and giving it form and meaning – God himself. John then goes on to distinguish between the Word from the Father by saying “the Word was with God” (i.e. they are not the same Person) and yet sharing the same nature (the Word was God). Furthermore he tells us that this “Word became flesh and lived among us”. Here he is presenting two concepts to the readers. First the word “flesh” which points towards the human nature of the incarnation and second the expression “lived among us” which refers to the time in the history of the Israelites when God dwelled among them in the wilderness. John then asserts that it is through the Word that became flesh (God himself) that we receive grace that supersedes the one promised through the Old Covenant and finally he presents Jesus Christ as being the one through whom grace and truth comes into the world, thus proclaiming that Jesus is indeed the Word, who though can be distinguished from the Father shares the same nature, that of God.  

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and lived among us…From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ… – John 1:1-17

Paul

St. Paul while appealing to the Philipians to have “the same mind” asks them to imitate Christ’s humility and service who even though was equal to God, emptied himself to become a servant to all. 

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God – Philippians 2:5-6

St. Paul’s understanding of Christ’s nature is clearly portrayed in his letter to the Colossians and are among the clearest assertions of Christ’s deity in the New Testament 

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell – Colossians 1:19

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily – Colossians 2:9

In the first verse (Colossians 1:19) he explains why Christ is completely divine and in the second (Colossians 2:9) he makes it clear that Christ was at the same time both fully human and fully divine.  

The Letter to the Hebrews 

The author makes use of seven quotations from the Old Testament in his introduction to support the exalted description of Christ and in doing so presents Jesus as the eternal God in verses 3, 8, 10 and 11. 

He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. – Hebrews 1:3

But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of your kingdom. – Hebrews 1:8

In the beginning, Lord, you founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands; they will perish, but you remain – Hebrews 1:10-11

Peter

Peter’s understanding of Christ’s nature is seen in his second letter where he calls Jesus as “God and Saviour”. 

To those who have received a faith as precious as ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ – 2 Peter 1:1

Thomas

St. Thomas in his famous declaration after having the direct experience of the reality of the risen Jesus – My Lord and my God! (John 20:28) – gives the climactic confession of faith in John’s Gospel.

What does Christ say about himself?

In John 5:17-18 we find the Jews up in arms to kill Jesus. But what made them so agitated that they were ready to kill a fellow Jew. The answer lies in the reply given by Jesus when he was persecuted for healing during the Sabbath – “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” Those who heard him understood the meaning of this simple yet clear statement. To us it means very little as we are born and brought up in a Christian culture, where calling God as one’s own Father is the norm. But this was not the case among first century Jews. To them Jesus, by calling God his own Father, was making himself equal to God and Jesus by saying so was revealing himself to be so. 

Another such incident is seen in John 8:58-59, where we again see the crowd riled up to stone Jesus. What caused this? His reply – “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.” In proclaiming himself “I am”, Jesus indeed takes to himself the name God the Father used in revealing himself to Moses (Exodus 3:14). Here too, it is possible that we may not see the true meaning due to our lack of understanding of Jewish culture in the first century, but not those who were present there. They too like in previous case understood the claim made by Jesus and “picked up stones to throw at him.” 

For the next one it is so clear that no understanding of Jewish culture is required to understand what Christ is claiming. When asked by the Jews whether he is the Messiah (John 10:24), Jesus replies very clearly that he and the Father are one and the same (John 10:30). Here too we see the Jews picking up stones to stone Jesus because as per them He though only a human being, was making himself equal to God (John 10:33). 

Let’s now look at the response given by Christ to Thomas at his declaration (John 20:28) – “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (John 20: 29). He doesn’t correct Thomas by saying – “Sorry, you are mistaken”- but instead blesses those who would believe in Him to be the eternal God without having such an experience.

The reader might have noticed that I have only used the Gospel of John to show that Jesus indeed claimed to be God. This is because, in recent times, there have been those who claim that Jesus is being presented as God only in John’s Gospel and not so in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke). This is why an entirely different section dedicated to answering this seemed appropriate. 

Christ’s claim to be God in the Synoptic Gospels 

In Matthew 5:21-28 we see Jesus placing his words on par with the Word of God by using the formula – “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times…But I say to you…” – thereby indirectly telling his audience that he is equal to God. It is also in stark contrast to the formula used by the OT prophets who always made it clear that it was God’s words and not of their own making – “The word of the Lord came to me, saying…” (Jeremiah 1:11, Ezekiel 18:1 etc). 

Jesus forgives sins (Matthew 9:2; Mark 2:5; Luke 7:48) which only God can do (Isaiah 43:25) and by doing so reveals his identity to his listeners (Matthew 9:3; Mark 2:7). 

He (the Son of Man) is also seen as the one who will be judging the world (Matthew 25:31-46) which again is a prerogative which belongs only to God (Joel 3:12). 

Jesus, the Son of Man, declares in Mark 2:28 that He is “lord even of the sabbath.” For a Jew the Sabbath belonged only to God (Leviticus 23:3) and hearing such a statement would mean only one thing – Jesus is claiming to be God. 

Perhaps the most straightforward incident where Jesus is clear about his divinity is when He is being questioned by the high priest in Mark 14:61-64. When asked whether He is the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One, Jesus responds by saying – “I am; and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power,’ and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven.’” Here not only is Jesus taking the divine name “I AM” (Exodus 3:14) but is also pointing towards Daniel 7:13-14 which the Jews understood as portraying the authority of God. The proclamation is so radical that the high priest tears his robe and says that there is no need of any witness as this statement alone makes Jesus deserving the death penalty in their eyes. Jesus was not deserving the death penalty because He claimed to be the Messiah, as the Jews already had a notion of a human Messiah and where waiting for his coming, but because he claimed to be something more, God himself. 

It is clear that throughout the NT Jesus is consistently presented as someone who in all aspects is equal to God and for this very reason He can never be seen as merely a good moral teacher or yet another prophet of God.  

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about Him being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” – C. S. Lewis