RE: As long as God made Jesus the sole means of salvation it’s a distinction without a difference if he is actually God or was just given the power over our salvation by God. Either way you need Jesus.
If Jesus were merely a good man as some claim and as many in this survey believe, then He had a sin nature and was not perfect. In that case, His death and resurrection would have no power to save anyone.
No, that’s not what I am saying. If everything else is true about Jesus (virgin birth, without sin, etc), but he isn’t “technically” God, but instead was just given dominion by God over our salvation. It changes nothing. In the end you still need Jesus to be saved. The fact that he is sitting at the right hand of God and isn’t God himself isn’t pertinent to salvation.
When Jesus said, before Abraham was, I am. There are two possibilities here. Either he was telling the truth, or he was lying. If he was lying, then there is no way anyone could call him a prophet, a good teacher, or a good man, and he should be completely ignored. On the other hand, if he was telling the truth, (and I believe he was) then we have no choice, but to fall at his feet and worship him, but he never left us with the option of considering him, as merely a teacher, a prophet or a good man. No way.
That the Pharisees understood exactly what he was claiming, is clear, by virtue of the fact, that they took up stones to throw at him. They knew EXACTLY what he was claiming.