How can Jesus be God if Numbers 23:19 says God is not a man?
Balaam was hired to curse Israel, and instead he found himself saying that God does not lie and does not go back on His word. Some read that line as a flat denial that God could ever be a man — which would rule out Jesus being God in human flesh — so the question is what Balaam was actually claiming, and what Scripture says happened when the Son came into the world.
The Point Balaam Was Making
The words sit inside a contrast. Balaam is not defining what God is able to become; he is setting God's reliability against the way people behave.
F. B. HoleOf man it can be said, "they go astray from birth, speaking lies" (Ps. 58:3). What is more, the wisest of men often commit themselves to actions that turn out to be wrong, and they have to repent and take it back. Now it is impossible for God to lie, as we are told in Titus 1:2, and His word stands, so that when He speaks, He makes it good.
What Hung On It
The subject in Numbers 23 is a blessing that a hired prophet was being paid to cancel. Balaam's statement about God's character is the reason he cannot do it.
C. H. MackintoshIsrael's blessedness and security are made to depend, not on themselves, but upon the truth and faithfulness of Jehovah. This places Israel on safe ground. God must be true to Himself. Is there any power that can possibly stop Him from fulfilling His word and oath? Surely not. "He has blessed; and I cannot reverse it." God will not, and Satan cannot reverse the blessing.
Unchanging Nature, Unchanging Counsels
The reason God's word holds is not a rule imposed on Him from outside. It comes from what He is.
F. G. PattersonHis unalterable counsels are as unchangeable as His own nature.
The Hidden Step In The Objection
The objection runs: Jesus was clearly a man, and this verse says God is not a man, so Jesus is not God. One writer traces where that argument quietly slips.
Leslie M. GrantSome have pointed to the lowly, suffering character of the Lord Jesus, His weariness at the well of Sychar (John 4:6), His sleeping on a pillow (Mark 4:38), His strong crying and tears (Heb. 5:7), His fourteen prayers in Luke's Gospel showing humble dependence upon God, and many other things that prove He is truly and fully Man. Since this is true, they assume that He cannot be God. This assumption is mere human reasoning. Does their intellect decide what God can and cannot do? They give God no credit for being greater and wiser than they are.
The Testimony That He Is God
The claim about Jesus is not built on one disputed text. It rests on how the Gospels present Him from the first chapter onward.
William KellyThe very first chapter of the first Gospel proves Jesus to be not only the Messiah by descent, but God and Jehovah. He is Emmanuel, or God with us (Isaiah 7); and He would save His people, Jehovah's people, from their sins. He could say, "Before Abraham was, I am," the ever-existing One... No Christian doubts but affirms that He, the Word and Son, became man, but also that He was eternally God.
Becoming Man Without Ceasing To Be God
Nothing was surrendered when He came. The two statements in John's opening chapter are held together, not traded off.
A. J. PollockHow God the Son could become Man, and yet in becoming Man never cease to be God, and yet be one undivided Person, is surely past the creature's understanding, but it is the truth as presented in Scripture. We have the clear statements: "The Word was God" (John 1:1). "The Word became flesh" (John 1:14).
The Two Things Balaam Denied
Balaam denied that God lies and that God has to change His mind. Test the man Jesus by exactly those two things.
Michael HardtOur Lord was never defiled. His vow was never broken. His life was one of unbroken dedication to His God... Our Lord could not sin. He was fully Man, but He had no fallen nature. He was "tempted in all things in like manner, sin apart" (Heb. 4:5).
"Son Of Man" On His Own Lips
Jesus used that very phrase of Himself, and in His mouth it carried a claim.
J. N. DarbyThe name which He took habitually and by preference was that of Son of man. This name had a much wider meaning and announced the right to a power and a lordship far more extensive than those of the Son of David; it put Christ into close relationship with all men, but asserted His right to all the glory that belonged to the Son of man according to the counsels of God.
Summary
- Subject — Balaam's line is about God keeping His word: men lie and retract, God cannot.
- Security — Its purpose was to prove a blessing could not be cancelled, since God must be true to Himself.
- Step — The objection adds a step Scripture never takes: that because Jesus is truly Man, He cannot be God.
- Statement — Scripture states both plainly — the Word was God, and the Word became flesh — one undivided Person.
- Standing — What Balaam denied of God was never true of Jesus: no lie, no retraction, no sin. The word still stands.