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Is Jesus God?

To answer this question we need to look at the Scriptures, and we must be careful to consider each verse in context, and in the light of other Scriptures. Especially we need to look at the New Testament in the light of the Old, for Jesus and the Apostles all looked on the Old Testament as the Word of God.

1). We will first of all consider the teaching of Paul.

In Philippians 2 we have a clear statement of the fact that Jesus is called by the Name of the God of the Old Testament. First however we need some background information. When God revealed Himself to Moses He revealed Himself under the name ‘the I am’ (Exodus 3.14). (The Hebrew is Eyeh). Then in Exodus 6 He relates this to His covenant name Yahweh (the ‘He is’, third person singular where Eyeh is first person singular). We do not know how this name was pronounced because it was so sacred that to pronounce it meant instant death. All we know are the four consonants that make up the name, YHWH. This was the sacred name, the Name above every name. When a Jew or an Israelite read the Scriptures and came to the divine name he would substitute for it adonai (‘Lord’) or elohim (‘God’). Thus God in the Old Testament was known as the ‘I am’ and as YHWH, but spoken of as Adonai (‘Lord’). Thus the name JHWH was translated into Greek in the Septuagint in 2nd Century BC as Kurios (‘Lord’).

So when Paul speaks in Philippians 2 of Jesus as having ‘been in the form of God’ (in essence sharing Godhood), and emptying Himself to take ‘the form of a servant’ (in essence sharing servitude), being ‘made in the likeness of man’, and then being exalted to receive ‘the Name which is above every name’, we know that this latter was the name of YHWH. This is a clear statement that being essentially God, Jesus became man, and having suffered death on the cross for man, was raised to again be essentially revealed as God, having the Name above every name, YHWH. Because of this every tongue will confess that Jesus is Kurios (the Greek equivalent of JHWH). In the light of the background, familiar to Paul and his readers, there could be no clearer statement that Jesus and the ‘I Am’ of the Old Testament are One. Furthermore in Titus 2.13 he speaks of ‘the appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ’.

In 2 Corinthians 4.4 Paul can speak of ‘Christ, who is the image of God’, and thus fully reveals what God is like, and adds ‘we preach Christ Jesus as LORD’. Again the reference is clear to anyone familiar with the Hebrew background.

This reference to Jesus as ‘the image of God’ (the One Who reveals what God is like) is again made in Colossians 1.15-17 where He is described as ‘the image of the invisible God’ thus removing any suggestion that the image spoken of is physical. Here also He is referred to as ‘The Firstborn’ (prototokos). This word comes from Greek philosophy where it refers to the Logos (‘the eternal reason’) with the idea that the Logos is eternal and not created, and is the source of all things. We note especially that Jesus is the Firstborn not the first created, thus being equated with the eternal ‘Reason’. We are also told that as the Firstborn He created all things both visible and invisible, is before all things (thus eternally existent), and holds all things together. Thus He is revealed as the Creator of the Old Testament.

Hebrews 1.2-3 again emphasises His uniqueness. He is ‘the outshining of the glory of God, the stamped out image (the exact representation) of his substance’ and is the One through Whom all things were made and Who upholds all things by His powerful command. Thus the One Who spoke and it was done in Genesis 1 is Jesus. It is difficult to think of any way of putting it that could more clearly declare His full deity. Yet at the same time it is made clear that He is not the whole of the Godhead.

The Apostle John further stresses His Godhood. ‘In the beginning the Word (Logos) was already in existence, and the Word (Logos) was face to face with God in personal communion (pros with the accusative), and what God was the Word (Logos) was’ (John 1.1), and this Word (Logos) ‘became flesh and dwelt among us’ (John 1.14). It is sometimes argued by those with little knowledge of Greek that the lack of the definite article on theos (‘God’) in the third clause of 1.1 somehow suggests a lessening in His divinity (as though there could be levels of Godhood). However to have put in the definite article (‘the’) would have been incorrect, firstly because in Greek it would have meant John was saying that Jesus was all there was of the Godhead, i.e. that ‘Jesus’ and ‘God’ were exact equivalents, and secondly because it ignores that the very purpose of the lack of article is to show that theos is used adjectivally to mean ‘of the stuff of Godhood’. As theos has been used in the second clause, to use it in the third clause adjectivally quite clearly makes the use of theos refer to the essential nature of God. Thus John depicts Jesus as the creative Word Who made all things (John 1.3), the Creator of Genesis 1, and of the essence of the Godhead.

But does Jesus make such claims for Himself? It is often asked ‘why did Jesus not say plainly that He was God’. In order to answer this we must consider the position. Firstly why did Jesus come as He did? Why did God not just appear in majesty and glory and overawe people so that they obeyed and followed Him? The answer is because that was not the kind of response that He wanted. (Such an approach was in essence what Satan suggested to Jesus that He take in the Temptation, an approach Jesus rejected - Matthew 4 and Luke 4). God was concerned with man’s moral and spiritual condition, and that could not be changed by these methods.

And suppose that Jesus had stood up and said, ‘I am God’, without manifesting such awesome power, what would have happened? Quite apart from the fact that He would immediately have been stoned to death for blasphemy, He would also have been dismissed as a crank. So what He did was take the sensible approach. He let men see His life, His powerful works, and His teaching so that it would gradually dawn on those who were willing to consider that He was the unique Son of God. Thus John could later say of Him, ‘We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten (monogenous) of the Father’ (John 1.14), and add ‘no man has seen God at any time, the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known’. (This latter is according to the very earliest manuscripts. Later the word Son was introduced to render it ‘the only begotten Son’, but the latter says the same thing).

But Jesus did gradually and carefully reveal His full Godhead. In John 5.17 Jesus spoke of God as ‘my Father’ in such a way that the listeners saw it as a claim to equality with God (5.17 with 19). In John 8 He clearly revealed Himself as the ‘I am’ (8.58). In both cases his hearers, who heard His original words, and who knew Greek and Aramaic better than any modern day person, recognised it as a claim to Godhood and in the latter case took up stones to stone him (which they would not have done easily as it was against Roman law and Roman soldiers would be near). He also used the phrase ‘I am’ significantly in John 8.24, 28 showing that they must recognise in Him the ‘I am’.

In John 14 Jesus again makes clear His Godhood when He is finally preparing His disciples for what lies ahead. ‘If you had known me you would have known my Father also, and from now on you know Him and have seen Him --- he who has seen me has seen the Father. Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me, or else believe for the very works sake’ (14.7-9). Such claims in context can only signify Godhood or else they are blasphemy for He is equating Himself with the Father.

Thus in His final words at the Last Supper Jesus says that to have known Him is to know the Father (John 14.7), that to have seen Him is to have seen the Father (John 14.9), that those who are loved by the Father are equally loved by Him (John 14.21), as though that was equivalent, that if a man loves Jesus, the Father will love him, and both Jesus and the Father will come to dwell in them (John 14.23), and that men have both seen and hated both Him and His Father, and that he who hates Him hates the Father (15.23-24). This can only be seen as putting Him ‘on the divine side of reality’, for without that significance His claims are blasphemy. This is why Thomas can call Him - “my Lord and my God” (20.28)

Furthermore the title Son of God is applied to Him in such a way as to show His uniqueness. Here we must be careful. In the Old Testament both Israel as a whole (Exodus 4.22), and especially the kings of Israel (2 Samuel 7.14; Psalm 89.27; Psalm 2.7) were described as God’s son by adoption. It is very possible that Psalm 2.7 was a coronation Psalm describing the new king as attaining this status by a ‘begetting’ at his coronation which symbolises adoption, but this is always seen as by adoption and not by becoming divine. Thus the term ‘son of God’ could be seen as a Messianic title. But descriptions of Jesus go beyond this. Jesus is called ‘the only begotten from the Father’ (John 1.14) and ‘God only begotten’ or ‘the only begotten Son’ (John 1.18). Thus His unique sonship is declared, and Paul in Galatians 4.4 speaks of God ‘sending forth His Son’, thus declaring Him to be the pre-existent Son. Indeed in his epistle John tells us that in this way was God’s love revealed towards us, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him (1 John 4.7). This is Sonship in a much deeper sense than that declared in the Old Testament where there is no such idea.

This unique Sonship is stressed further by Jesus when He speaks of ‘My Father’, a phrase seen by the Jews as a claim to equality with God, an idea that Jesus never denied (see John 20.17 - where the contrast with ‘your Father’ is deliberate - Matthew 7.21; 10.32-33 and often in Matthew, see especially Mathew 11.27; Luke 2.49; 10.22; 22.29; John 2.16; 5.17, 43; 6.32, 65; 8.19, 28, 38, 49, 54; 10.18, 25, 29, 32, 37; 12.26; regularly in 14-16; 18.11; 20.21). This contrasts with His use of ‘your Father’ (Matthew 5.16, 45, 48; 6.1, 4, 6, 8, 14 and often; Luke 6.36; 12.32; John 20.17), and He never speaks of ‘our Father’, although Christians in prayer are to say ‘our Father’ (Matthew 6.9). So He clearly sees Himself to be in a unique relationship with the Father.

Thus it is quite clear that to be a genuine Christian (as opposed to being a ‘good’ person) involves believing in the full deity of Christ. 'For in Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead in a bodily form' (Colossians 2.9)