Is Jesus God?

The deity of our Lord Jesus Christ is one of the most vital truths to be found in the Scriptures; many writers inspired by the Holy Spirit of God enlarge upon this holy theme. The blessed God Himself sets His seal on this precious truth in that remarkable utterance — "Unto the Son He (God) saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever" (Hebrews 1:8). Critics have sought to weaken the importance of this verse by saying it is "just a quotation from Psalm 45," but the vocative case us used — one Person addressing Another, the "God of truth" addressing the Son as God! The Lord's own references to His deity are many, including the assertion of His Sonship to the erstwhile blind man of John 9, and of His Messiahship to the Samaritan woman of John 4. Again, we have that truly magnificent statement in John 8, "Before Abraham was I AM," — the Name so frequently used to express the eternal character of the blessed God; a Name which in an atmosphere of hatred and betrayal shone with a power and glory before which men could not stand (see John chapter 18). The simple, yet powerful, monosyllables of John's gospel assert the deity of our Lord in a way which is beyond all questioning — "the Word was with God, and the Word was God"; "All things were made by Him;" "In Him was life; and the life was the light of men." Eternally divine, the mighty Creator in whom life is inherent! We bow in adoration and worship, the volume of which is increased as we contemplate the apostle Paul's words in Colossians 1 — "Who is the beginning, firstborn from among the dead, that He might have the first place in all things; for in Him all the fullness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell" (New trans.). These are but a few of the very many Scriptures which plainly teach the deity of our Lord.

The opening words of the first verse carry us back to the most remote moment that our minds are capable of conceiving: the moment when there began the first thing that ever had a beginning: the moment on the further side of which there was only — GOD. In that moment of "beginning" the Word "was," that is, existed. He did not begin then; He existed then. His eternal Being is proclaimed, and we are carried back before the opening words of Genesis 1. Further He was "with God." Our minds are still back at that remote moment, and we discover that then He was possessed of distinct Personality. The Word is not a title of the Godhead in a general way, apart from any special distinction, for in being "with God" a special, distinctive place is definitely stated.

This being so, the reasoning mind would be inclined to argue: then we cannot speak of the Word as being God in any full or proper sense; even if He is not exactly a creature, seeing He existed before creation. Such reasoning is flatly contradicted by the closing words of verse 1, "the Word was God." Essential Deity was His. Attempts have been made to weaken the force of this great statement, and translate it, "the Word was Divine," or, "the Word was a god," based upon the omission of the definite article; i.e., it does not say, "the Word was the God." But we are told by those who know the Greek that there is in that language no indefinite article, and the word translated "God" is a strong one, denoting proper and absolute Deity; and had it stated that the Word was the God, it would have confined Deity to the Word and excluded therefrom the other Persons of the Godhead. The words are chosen with Divine exactitude: the Word was properly and absolutely God.

How you can say the scriptures do not say He is God, I do not understand: they do over and over again, directly and indirectly, in equivalent terms. I have not quoted "God manifest in the flesh," "Christ who is over all, God blessed for ever," as critics may reason about them. The last, however (Rom. 9:5) is as plain a testimony as can well be conceived, and the language such as makes it impossible to apply it to any one but Christ. Is it not singular that you should have passed over all the passages I have referred to, and only quoted what shews that Christ was truly a man, which nobody denies - without which, indeed, His Godhead is of no avail to us? I cannot in the compass of a note pretend to discuss fully such a subject. But all scripture confirms the truth, that Jesus is Jehovah. John the Baptist was "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord" - that is, Jehovah (Isa. 40): so Luke 7:27, from Malachi 3:1: so Luke 1:76: so when He says to the leper, "I will, be thou clean." In Isaiah 66:15 Jehovah comes with fire and the sword, but we know it is Christ who comes. What is the meaning of Micah 5:2? Who is Jehovah's fellow? (Zech. 13:7.) The cleansing of the leper was Jehovah's work: the feeding of the five thousand, a reference to the Psalms speaking of Jehovah; and though done as Son of man (Luke 9:10-17 and following) accomplished Psalm 132:15, spoken of Jehovah. He not only works miracles, which God can enable any one, if He pleases, to do, but He confers the power of working them by His own power on others, which man cannot do (Luke 9). All these I refer to as confirmations of the direct statements of scripture that He is God, and they are consistent with no other doctrine. And they might be multiplied by reference to every page of the gospel. He quickens whom He will (John 5:21); can that be said of a mere man, a creature? The Old Testament declares that Jehovah was to come, and His way be prepared, but this was Christ. Hebrews 12:25-26, shew positively that Christ is the Jehovah of mount Sinai.

Proving He was Man, proves nothing; we all believe it as fundamental truth: but was He only a man? Clearly not: He was "the Word:" He "came down from heaven." What was He then before He became a man? He claims to be One with the Father (John 10:30) - can a creature? If He was not a creature He was God; or we have one not created at all, of independent existence in Himself, yet not God, which is confusion and impossible. "By him were all things created:" who did that? He is the Firstborn of the creation, because He created it: all things, moreover, consist by Him (Col. 1:16). He was "in the beginning," and then by him were all things made that are made (John 1:1-3). He, then, was not made: are there two Gods? He laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of His hands; they perish, but He remains. (Heb. 1:8-11) All the angels of God are to worship Him (ver. 6). "Blessed are all they that put their trust in him" (Ps. 2:12), but "cursed be the man that trusts in man" (Jer. 17:5). He and the Father are one: can any creature say that?

I find, then, that He is called God before He came into the world (John 1), after He came into the world - "God with us." He created all things, and "by him all things consist," is to be worshipped as the first and the last, Alpha and Omega - which is the express title of the Almighty, King of kings and Lord of lords, the Ancient of days: and, lest we should think Him some inferior God, we are told that all the fulness of the Godhead (θεότητος) dwelt in Him bodily (Col. 2:9). The moral teaching of scripture confirms it. "Christ is all" to the Christian, so that if He be not God, God is nothing. The object of the supreme devotion of the heart, I am to live to Him (2 Cor. 5:15); is this to a creature? This is the real question: Is He the creature or the Creator? No Christian denies that He is true, very Man, and that He has taken a place inferior to the Father; but for this He made Himself of no reputation when in the form of God, and took upon Him the form of a servant: no creature could do that; he is one by nature.

Deniers of our Lord's deity have sought to avoid the force of this by treating this as a mere exclamation, addressed to no one in particular, but the record distinctly states that the words were said to the Lord, the form of them in the original being very emphatic, since he used the definite article twice. The risen Jesus was the Lord and the God to him. And what is more significant still, the Lord replied, "Thomas … thou hast believed." Beyond all question then He treated Thomas' joyful exclamation as faith laying hold of FACT. In other words, He accepted the confession as being true. There is no greater sin than for a mere man to accept Divine honours or adulation, as witness the drastic smiting of Herod, recorded in Acts 12. When John fell down before a holy angel as about to worship him, the instant reply was, "See thou do it not" (Rev. 22:9). Instead of rebuking Thomas, Jesus approved of his confession and called it faith.

• He received worship. When Herod, a mere man, was worshipped immediately God smote him and he was eaten up with worms (Acts 12:23 ). When Cornelius came to Peter and worshipped him Peter refused this worship (Acts 10:25 -26). Paul and Barnabas also (Acts 14:11 -17), even angels refuse worship (Rev. 19:10, 22:9), only fallen angels accept worship (e.g. Satan himself in the temptation) but the Lord Jesus accepted worship (e.g. Matt. 28:17, John 9:38 ).

The last words of this verse, "My Father is greater than I," have been made into an occasion of stumbling to some. But here we have speaking the Word made flesh, and He speaks in His estate as the lowly Man upon earth. Hence in position or station the Father was greater than He, whilst as to being and nature He and the Father were one.

280 John 14:28. — "The Father is greater than I." Cf., of course, the words of the Athanasian Creed so-called: "inferior to the Father as touching His manhood." Men of intellectual pretension — Unitarians and their followers — sometimes read Scripture very superficially. These words in the fourth Gospel are constantly used by such in support of their theory that our Lord was inferior in essence (nature) to the Father. But He is here speaking of station. "I go unto the Father." The reference is plainly to His exaltation on Ascension, after that He had first humbled Himself in becoming Son of man. He is then given a name above every name (Phil. 2:9). It has nothing whatever to do with His nature. Cf. Bernard, p. 171. The alleged repudiation of Ascension in the Johannine record (cf. note on 20:17) is part of current rubbish of "critical exposition" popularised in such books as the last of Wernle.

It is worthy of note that the ancient Arian heresy, and its modern revival under “Pastor” Russell and Judge Rutherford and “Jehovah's Witnesses,” had and has a similar basis of reasoning. They avoid the supposed difficulty by an even worse explanation: that the Son is not properly God, but the first of all God's creatures, and the Creator of all else beneath Him. Our simple statement is that neither this theory nor that of our author is needed, for the difficulty lies only in their false reasoning.

Such objectors pay no attention to those many Scriptures that plainly declare that Christ is God as well as Man. For example, Colossians 2:9 says, "In Him all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily form. 1 John 5:20, speaking of the Lord Jesus, states "this is the true God, and eternal life." Read also John 1:1, Hebrews 1:8, John 5:23, etc.