Accused of making himself God, Jesus answers with a psalm that widens the claim to everyone.
The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shown you; for which of these do you stone me? They answered, For a good work we stone you not, but for blasphemy; because you, being a man, make yourself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
— John 10:31–34
Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
They pick up stones. The charge is blasphemy: you, being a man, make yourself God. And the answer is not a denial and not a defence. It is a citation. Psalm 82: I said, ye are gods. He points at their own scripture and reminds them it says the thing about everyone.
The humor is in the widening. Later translation narrowed the teaching by a single definite article, the Son where the Greek has a son, and a claim that was an invitation became a claim that was a fence. Read the passage and notice that the man being stoned is not pulling rank. He is handing rank out. There is something of the cosmic giggle in it, the last reading of this course arriving early: the whole crowd bending down for stones, and the accused pointing out, mildly, that the psalm they grew up on had already let everyone in.
Where today did you narrow an invitation into a fence, and what would it take to reopen it?