Jesus explains His own Identity and Purpose

Sayings of Jesus from the Bible which explain His own identity as God and Man and His purpose in coming into the world.

Everything Jesus said and did points to Jesus being God in human form. Jesus spoke of himself, his Father and his Spirit as God indicating all three personalities are One God and are eternal and divine. He spoke of himself as the Son, not in the sense of God's offspring, but in the sense of exact likeness to His Father. Jesus was God taking a human body and becoming man but still in Himself was God. He came into the world as a man to reveal God to humanity, to preach the message of eternal life through repentance and belief in Him and to offer his life as God's way of dealing with mankind's sin. Jesus said that His Father so loved the world that it was His Father's will that the Son of God should suffer so that man could be redeemed.

The triune nature of God is not something that can be fully comprehended. God as one God, yet three divine personalities: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, all fully God, uncreated and infinite, inseparable, perfectly united and equally equipped with the same divine life and nature, and yet distinct and having difference in activity. Scripture makes no attempt to explain the Trinity but it does seem to give the sense that the Father is the Divine Author, the Son is the Divine Executive and the Spirit is the Divine Enabler. In both creation and salvation we have the Father making known His Will, the Son carrying out His Father's Will and doing it in the power and with the enabling of the Spirit. There remains great mystery but the core of Christianity is that Jesus always was and is fully God but became and is still, fully Man. Jesus is God the Father's Man and man's, God. People may say this is too strange to believe. It can only be received through faith but if you struggle with this do you accept that man himself has three elements to his personality? We are mind, body and spirit; all have the same personal identity and are inseparable, at least in this life, yet there are distinctions.

Jesus in His own words, explaining his identity and purpose

1. Identity

As the Son of God, Jesus is eternally existing outside space and time but has come into the world and time at the direction of the Father, and then will leave the world and time, returning back to where he came from. At his trial Jesus said claimed that he was the Son of God by answering the High Priest "You have said it":

I came out and have come from God. For I haven't come of myself, but he sent me.
John 8:42

Jesus said to them, Most certainly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM.
John 8:58

I came from the Father, and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.
John 16:28

The high priest answered him, "I adjure you by the living God, that you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God." Jesus said to him, "You have said it."
Matthew 26:64,65

2. Purpose

Jesus came for a purpose which was to preach the good news of the Kingdom of God. This was the reason he was sent and it was an urgent mission. The good news was that the Kingdom of God (eternal life under the loving rule and dominion of Jesus in his Kingdom) was available to men through repentance and belief in Jesus. Jesus often chose to refer to himself by the title "Son of Man". This he did to show he was human as well as God. It was also a reference to Daniel Chapter 7 showing that Jesus was identifying himself with the promised Messiah and the King of Israel:

But he said to them, I must preach the good news of God's Kingdom to the other cities also. For this reason I have been sent.
Luke 4:43

I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. The night is coming, when no one can work.
John 9:4

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.
Luke 19:10

3. Jesus takes God's name

Jesus declares his mission in seven ways and uses the name of God, "I AM" (or "I AM WHO I AM" or, "I AM HE WHO IS"), to show his Deity. Finally he takes the name Alpha and Omega, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty:

Each of these statements represents a description of how Jesus is God and the answer to all our human needs:

Jesus said to them, Most certainly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM.
John 8:58

Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will not be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
John 6:35

While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
John 9:5

Jesus therefore said to them again, Most certainly, I tell you, I am the sheep's door. I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved, and will go in and go out, and will find pasture.
John 10:7,9

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
John 10:11

Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?
John 11:25,26

Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.
John 14:6

I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer.
John 15:1

They answered him, "Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus said to them, "I am he." Judas also, who betrayed him, was standing with them.
John 18:5

Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, including those who pierced him. All the tribes of the earth will mourn over him. Even so, Amen. "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."
Revelation 1:7,8

I am the first and the last, and the Living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever. Amen. I have the keys of Death and of Hades.
Revelation 1:17b,18

4. His Humanity

Though he is God and specifically the Son of God, Jesus identifies himself with humanity, as Man and the Son of Man. In doing this, Jesus accepts the common experiences and limitations of man:

Jesus accepts:

But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
Mark 13:32

Jesus said to him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.
Luke 9:58

But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, "This man does not cast out demons, except by Beelzebul, the prince of the demons."
Matthew 12:27

No one knows the Son, except the Father; neither does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and he to whom the Son desires to reveal him.
Matthew 11:27

Then he said to them, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here, and watch with me.
Matthew 26:38

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Matthew 14:40

Then he came to his disciples, and said to them, Sleep on now, and take your rest. Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise, let's be going. Behold, he who betrays me is at hand.
Matthew 26:45,46

5. His Deity

Jesus, identifies himself as God and explains his relationship to God (his Father). The titles Father and Son are not to be thought as indicating the Son is the offspring of the Father, but rather that both are of the same likeness:

I and the Father are one.
John 10:30

He who has seen me has seen the Father.
John 14:9

Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me.
John 14:11

For God didn't send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him.
John 3:17

6. Jesus explains his Mission:

This mission:

But Jesus answered them, My Father is still working, so I am working, too.
John 5:17

For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom he desires.
John 5:21

I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Matthew 9:13

For the Son of Man also came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Mark 10:45

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.
Luke 19:10

No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended out of heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
John 3:13-15

I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in the darkness.
John 14:46

But he said to them It is I. (or, I am He) Don't be afraid.
John 6:20