Jesus as God: Clearing the Ground

This video is the first in a series of videos explaining and defending the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth. Before going on to other videos in this series, I strongly recommend watching this one in its entirety, as it clears the ground of Biblical objections that Jesus of Nazareth is the God of monotheism incarnate.

Like James White, I think there is truly no question as to what the New Testament teaches on this subject. When one lays aside traditions, prejudices, and other outside influences, the answer to the question is plain and unambiguous. Think for a moment of some of the titles and descriptions used of Jesus.

He is the Lamb of God, the Son of God, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. He is the Word of God, he is the Risen Lord. He is the Creator of All Things, Sustainer of All Things, the One for whom all things were made. He is worshipped by angels and men, and in fact all of creation itself. He is the object of prayer and the author and finisher of our faith. He is given the name which is above every name, so at the name of Jesus every knee bows and every tongue swears allegiance. All the fullness of deity dwells in him in bodily form, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in him, and every thought is to be taken captive in obedience to him. Paul describes him as our great God and Savior, the Eternally Blessed God. John records Jesus' own words, calling himself the I Am, and John speaks of Jesus as the Word who existed eternally and is as to his being absolute deity. Thomas confesses him as his Lord and his God. Peter calls him God and Lord, and the early church prays to him and suffers in his name. Lord, God, Creator, Savior, Lamb of God, Risen and Coming King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Truly there is no question of the New Testament's teaching on the deity of Christ.

So why is it that Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, and Jewish antimissionaries say that the New Testament teaches otherwise?

I think it is because they allow their own beliefs and prejudices to overthrow the plain testimony of Scripture. To an antimissionary, the idea that God could enter into his own creation in physical form is so scandalous that the New Testament writers could not have believed it.. Only by assuming the falsity of Christianity, ignoring the context of the New Testament, and inserting what you seek to prove could you make statements as absurd as those made by these antimissionaries.

When I say that Jesus is God, I am not saying that Jesus is The Father. Such is not the belief of historic Christianity, nor is it the testimony of the New Testament. Therefore, all the passages that distinguish Jesus from the Father are not denials of the deity of Jesus. The apostle Paul plainly distinguished between the Father and the Son, and yet plainly said that in Jesus, all the fullness of deity (theotetos, a word meaning that which makes God God) dwells in bodily form in Colossians 2:9.

Christianity is a monotheistic religion, always has been, always will be. We believe in one and only one God. We affirm that Yahweh is denying from the category of god anyone but himself in Isaiah 45, when he says "I am Yahweh and there is no other. Besides me there is no god." The word god in this passage means that there are no other gods, and is not just referring to idols. Interpreting it as "besides me there is no idol" makes no sense. There were lots of idols. But there is only one God.

Likewise in Isaiah 44: "I am Yahweh who made all things, who alone streched out the heavens, who speard out the earth by myself" God acted alone in creation, without the aid of any other gods, and God does not share His glory with anyone. There is no true god with a small g.

Therefore, any arguments that there is one major God, the Father, and that Jesus is a lesser deity fail, because they contradict the plain testimony of Isaiah. The option that Jesus is a god with a lowercase g is simply not open to anyone who believes in the inerrancy and infallability of the Bible. He is not the great archangel Michael or anyone else.

When Paul teaches the deity of Christ, he is not proclaiming Jesus to be a second god, but was a trinitarian monotheist like the rest of us. A confusion arises when the antimissionary confuses monotheism with unitarianism. Monotheism is the belief that there is one being that is God, unitarianism is the belief that God is one person. Being and person do not mean the same thing. We make the distinction every day. Being is what you are. Person is who you are. Trinitarian monotheism teaches that in the one being that is God, there are three distinct persons. This is made clearest in Matthew's baptismal formula where Jesus instructs his disciples to baptize in the name (singular) of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). The word for name "nouma" appears once in the verse. You do not baptize in the name of God, a prophet, and a force. Instead, the three persons share the one, divine, trinitarian name of Yahweh.

The statement "there is one true God" is not the same as saying "the Father alone is God" These are two separate statements with two different meanings. Therefore, such passages as Isaiah 43, which states that "Before me was no god formed nor will there be any after me" or 1 kings 8:60 which says Yahweh is God and there is no other, or Deuteronomy 6 "Hear O Israel, Yahweh your God, Yahweh is one" establish monotheism but do not establish unitarianism. We believe that the Triune God is the one and only, and that no God came before Him and none will come after Him. Such statements that there is one God are not denials of the Trinity.

But what about 1 Corinthians 8:6 when Paul says that there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist? Is this saying that only the Father is God and that the Son is not? Such erroneous reasoning would mean that the Father is not Lord. Yet in Luke chapter 2, Jesus was presented in the Temple to the Lord, and in Revelation 4, the Father is called Lord. It would also mean that God did not create all things by himself, contradicting Isaiah. And for those who object and say that "through him" means that Jesus is only a passive agent in creation, may I remind you that in Romans 11:36, Paul speaks of Yahweh when he says "From him and to him and through him are all things." Also, the Greek word for Lord, kurios, is the term that the Greek Septuagint uses in place of the Hebrew name Yahweh. In this passage, Paul is taking the Shema and applying it to both the Father and the Son.

Numerous other errors made by those who attempt to deny the deity of Christ are based on their failure or refusal to allow for the Biblical teaching that Jesus was both God and Man. The eternal and divine word became flesh as in John 1:14. They cite passages such as Mark 13:32 where Jesus denies that he knows the day or the hour of his return. This is divine knowledge, and not within his self-limited knowledge. They also cite passages such as Numbers 23:19, 1 Samuel 15:29 and Hosea 11:9 which all say that God is not a man.

Not only do they fail to point out that the incarnation had not yet taken place, the Word had not yet taken on flesh, but the whole point of all of these verses was to point out that God is superior to any mere human. And Jesus was no mere human.

In John 14:28, Jesus said that the disciples should have rejoiced that he was returning to the Father, because the Father was greater, meaning in a greater position in heaven than the Son was while on Earth. The Son voluntarily took the position where he set aside the independent use of his divine perogatives, which include divine knowledge. To say that Jesus cannot be God because he set aside the independent use of his divine knowledge makes about as much sense as saying that the Father is not God because he does not know what it is like to be a human or to eat food. The Father and the Son took about different roles in bringing about the redemption of God's people. They distinguish the difference between the Father and the Son but do not tell us that the Son is any less deity.

In John 5, Jesus said the Son can do nothing of Himself unless it is something he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does. Does this mean that the Son who is elsewhere described as having all power and authority has no power or authority? Of course not. Jesus is not denying his power or deity, but is describing the absolute and perfect unity that exists between the Father and the Son. The Father, too, can do nothing apart from the Son. This is why in that same chapter, the Son claims the same divine right to be active on the Sabbath day as the Father. This is also why he says that he and the Father are one, meaning unified in their mission and purpose, just as he wants the disciples to be unified in their own mission and purpose.

In 1 Corinthians 11:3 The head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Does that mean Christ is not God? Of course not. This is like arguing that I am a nobody and nobody's perfect so I'm perfect. The word God in the New Testament can have more than one meeting. It can mean deity. It can mean the Triune God as a whole, or it can mean The Father. In this case it means the Father. Of all the New Testament writers, Paul has been the most explicit in calling Jesus God, which we will get into in a later video. Does this mean that Jesus is inferior in some way to the Father? By that logic, it would also mean that the woman is an inferior being to the man. But man and woman both bear the image and likeness of God. We are equal in our worth. Instead, this passage just explains that men and women play different roles, just as the Father and the Son took on different roles. It does not mean they are anything less than equal in their being.

In John 20:17, Jesus speaks after his resurrection from the dead of the Father as his God. Such words make perfect sense in the context of Scripture. What else do we expect the resurrected Christ to say? Is the holy one an atheist? Jesus was resurrected from the dead, and is still the God Man. Hence, he speaks of his Father and his God. And within only a few verses, Thomas will express the faith of all true believers, when he bows in adoration to the risen Jesus and calls the Risen One "Ha kurios mu kai ha theos mu" which means "The Lord of me and the God of me"

In John 17:3, Jesus prays to the Father, calling Him "the only true God" Those that deny the deity of Christ pass over the fact that according to the passage, eternal life means knowing both the Father and the Son. And they also ignore the testimony to the deity of Christ found two verses later. To those who think that Jesus is a mere creature, how is it that eternal life is merited through knowing God and a mere creature, joined on equal footing with his creator? And why is it two verses later, when Christ asks the Father to "restore to me the glory that we shared together before the world was"? What creature shares the glory of the Father before creation? Saying that there is only one true God is not the same as saying the Father alone is deity. This again confuses monotheism with unitarianism.

In Mark 10:17-18, a man calls Jesus a good teacher, and Jesus responds "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone?" If this was a denial of his deity, Jesus should have said "Do not call me good." Instead, Jesus points out that the young man does not know with whom he is dealing. Remember that Jesus already claimed to be able to forgive sins in Mark chapter 2 verses 5 through 7, which is a divine priviledge.

In John 10, Jesus almost gets himself stoned to death when he claims in front of his fellow Jews, "I and the Father are one." They responded "You, being a man, make yourself God" and were about to stone Jesus when he responded quoting Psalm 82: "Is it not written in your Law, 'I said, you are gods'" If he called them gods to whom the word of God came, and Scripture cannot be broken, you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming' because I said 'I am the Son of God'? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father"

Is Jesus denying his divinity here, or worse, claiming that we are all divine? That's quite an interpretive stretch. Jesus was being charged with blasphemy, and wanted to avoid getting on the Sanhedrin's hit list prematurely. He had two ways of doing this: 1. By denying that he claimed to be God, or 2. By showing that it is not necessarily blasphemy to claim to be God. Jesus chose option 2. He said that it is not blasphemy to call someone god if they deserve the title, and Jesus deserves the title, and then said "the Father is in me and I in the Father." If Jesus was denying his deity in this passage, why is it they tried to arrest him for blasphemy anyway in verse 39? Why didn't they just say "ok, as long as you are not claiming to be God. Just a misunderstanding"? Instead, they tried to seize him. They did not believe Jesus was denying his deity, so why should we?

Nor does Psalm 82 teach that men are gods. This psalm is a song of lament over unjust and oppressive rulers. It is these wicked tyrants that the Psalmist sarcastically calls gods, who will nevertheless die like men.

Finally, in Philippians 2, Jesus, who was in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be held on to, but made himself nothing, taking on the form of a servant. Does this emptying "kineo" mean that Jesus gave up his divinity? Not at all. He made himself nothing by taking the form of a servant and giving up the independent use of his divine perogatives. It describes how the glorious one seen in Isaiah chapter 6 can be seen walking among us.

In any case, most of these misunderstandings come from either reading short phrases from the Bible in total isolation, ignoring what is written around it, or from assuming that God cannot take on corporeal form, in other words, that an omnipotent God who can do anything cannot do something.