Short answer: Yes.
Way longer answer: He does, but he never states the specific words
John 4.25-26, 28-29 GNT - 25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah will come, and when he comes, he will tell us everything.”
- 26 Jesus answered, “I am he, I who am talking with you.”
- 28 Then the woman left her water jar, went back to the town, and said to the people there, 29 “Come and see the man who told me everything I have ever done. Could he be the Messiah?”
Jesus’s statement can either be translated “I’m the one talking to you” or “I am; the one talking to you.” But either way he clearly means he’s the Messiah of whom
Likewise when Jesus’s best student Simon Peter also identified him as Messiah:
Matthew 16.13-17, 20 GNT - 13 Jesus went to the territory near the town of Caesarea Philippi, where he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
- 14 “Some say John the Baptist,” they answered. “Others say Elijah, while others say Jeremiah or some other prophet.”
- 15 “What about you?” he asked them. “Who do you say I am?”
- 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
- 17 “Good for you, Simon son of John!” answered Jesus. “For this truth did not come to you from any human being, but it was given to you directly by my Father in heaven.”
- 20 Then Jesus ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
Again, Jesus doesn’t straight-up call himself Messiah, and doesn’t need to: Peter did. And Jesus praised him, and told him he got this knowledge from the Father; it’s true. He never tells his students Peter was wrong; in fact why would he say laudatory things about Peter if he were wrong?
But: Shut up about it. We’re keeping this info private for now.
But it certainly was no secret. Plenty of other people recognized Jesus is Messiah, and used all the usual biblical euphemisms for Messiah there was.
Messiah (Heb.
So Israelis would call Jesus “king.”
People also called Jesus “son of God.”
Psalm 2.7-9 GNT - 7 “I will announce,” says the king, “what the Lord has declared.
- He said to me: ‘You are my son;
- today I have become your father.
- 8 Ask, and I will give you all the nations;
- the whole earth will be yours.
- 9 You will break them with an iron rod;
- you will shatter them in pieces like a clay pot.’ ”
Once you learn Messiah means king, and learn to recognize all this Messianic language, when you read the gospels you’ll see it everywhere. Doesn’t matter how much Jesus tried to keep it quiet.