Does the Bible Teach that Jesus is God?

In our own day of biblical illiteracy, who has not heard the rhetorical question: “Where in the Bible is it ever plainly said that Jesus is God?” The challenge is ironically couched in biblicism. Suddenly, the skeptic cares deeply about what the Bible has to say! The demand is for the exact formula. Unlike the famous ecumenical creeds that chose exact word expression for the sake of more careful distinctions, the man who denies Christ by torturing words undermines the purpose of exact expression. He does so in order to restrict thought, and so to hide precision.

We proceed by a different method. We reject the formulaic premise and show that there are several different ways that the New Testament teaches the deity of Christ. I have arranged them into six categories, with a few example texts under each. If the Bible teaches any of these six things—let alone all six—then the Bible teaches that Jesus is God. The premise behind this is that none of these six things could be true unless Jesus is God. That being the case, the premise may have to be defended in each case, depending on whether or not our audience perceives that.

First, divine worship offered to Jesus.

Think of those passages in Scripture when people attempted to worship the Apostles (e.g., Acts 14:11-15), or when God’s own people even attempted to worship angelic beings (e.g., Rev. 19:10; 20:8-9). What happened in these cases? The one who would have worshiped them was rebuked. Why? Because both apostles and angels are mere creatures. Yet, whether by command, description, or simply accepting such worship, the following passages show that Jesus is most certainly not a mere creature that ought not be worshiped. He says,

that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him (Jn. 5:23)

When Jesus pointed back to the prophet—Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him (Jn. 12:41)—this references the scene where it was said, “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne” (Isa. 6:1). Jesus is identifying Himself as that LORD in Isaiah’s vision.

Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” (Jn. 20:28)

And when they saw him they worshiped him (Mat. 28:17).

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phi. 2:9-11).

And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him” (Heb. 1:6).

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped (Rev. 5:13-14) 

No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him (Rev. 22:3).

Without getting into the specific exegesis of any of these texts, all of them plainly render glory to Christ that God had said belongs only to God (Ex. 20:3; Isa. 48:11). Naturally, Jesus agreed with this God-only direction of worship: “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve” (Luke 4:8).

Second, divine attributes used to describe Jesus.

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him (Mat. 11:27)

Here in one verse Jesus claims for Himself a unique relationship to the Father that includes possessing sovereign authority over all things, exclusive whole knowledge of God, and sovereign will over who is saved.

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me (Mat. 28:18).

Lest such passages be dismissed as only showing Christ’s uniquely exalted status us Man, recall that this next passage was one verse removed from their worship of Him.

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (Jn. 8:12; cf. 9:5).

I am the resurrection and the life (Jn. 11:25).

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (Jn. 14:6).

The use of ἐγώ εἰμι was a signal to the observant Jew that the divine Name was in view here. It is the construction used in the LXX for “I AM that I AM” in Exodus 3:14. By itself, those words simply mean “I am.” However, in a first person singular, the verb by itself is what usually carries the whole meaning. In each of these sayings in John’s Gospel, ἐγώ is added for emphasis.

Third, divine names given to Jesus.

While the end of Matthew 28 has already been cited in the other two categories, it is worth noting again. Specifically, the singular “name” that Matthew uses for the baptismal formula in verse 19. Of course he was relaying Jesus’s own words. The reverence with which the people of Israel treated the name of God was often even reflected in saying “the Name” rather than spelling it out. It was the verbal version of the written tetragrammaton in which יהוה‎ is rendered by our English Bibles by the capital letters LORD. Of all four Gospels, Matthew was written to the Israelite context, correcting the contemporary idea of King and kingdom. He knew what he was doing by this inclusion. Elsewhere we are told,

In him was life, and the life was the light of men (Jn. 1:4)

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True … and the name by which he is called is The Word of God (Rev. 19:11, 13)

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1:8)

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end (Rev. 21:6; cf. 22:13).  

Fourth, divine actions performed by Jesus.

There are certain things that only God can do. Only God can create out of nothing. Only God can restore life. Only God can forgive sins. Only God can be omnipresent. Only God can be acting from before the foundation of the world till the present. Only God can be sovereign over all powers of darkness, and reconcile all things to His own goodness and justice in the end. Yet the following passages give just such a list of accomplishments to Jesus Christ.

All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made (Jn. 1:3)

Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked (Jn. 5:9).

But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God (Jn. 5:17-18, 29)

And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Mat. 28:20)

He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone? (Mk. 2:7)

yet for us 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 (1 Cor. 8:6).

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross (Col. 1:16-20).

Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe (Jude 5).

That last one is particularly interesting, because by the acts of rescuing that ancient people from Egypt and judging the generation in the wilderness, we have another way that the New Testament calls Jesus that same God who is called ‘God’ in this or that Old Testament passage.

Fifth, the direct claims of Jesus.

While other passages explored overlap with the words of Jesus, there are some that must have its own category devoted to them, such as these four.

I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins” (Jn. 8:24).

Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am (Jn. 8:58).

I and the Father are one (Jn.10:30).

Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? (Jn. 14:9-10) 

Thus it is not even true that Jesus, in particular, does not claim to be God. Clearly He does. It is worth noting that the several times in the Gospels that the Pharisees picked up stones to kill Jesus, it was because He was equating Himself with God. In other words, that is how the most informed contemporaries understood His words. We have already seen that the John 5 text draws that out in the most explicit manner:

This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God (Jn. 5:18).

These experts in the Torah understood the claims Jesus was making about the relationship with His Father, His authority to forgive sins, and His claims to restore life and judge the world—that these were claims to be God. They were hardly subtle claims. From a first century Jewish perspective, these claims were explicit. At some point we must ask whether modern skeptics who are unfamiliar with the Bible as a whole are better judges of what these words and actions meant than those who stared directly at Jesus and were hostile toward Him.

Sixth, The direct claims of his apostles.

Finally, in those places that we would expect to be more clear about doctrine—whether in the epistles or in those places in the Gospels where the inspired author is wedding explanation to narration—we receive our most concise formulations. I have long held the opinion that much of the higher critics’ animus toward Paul’s letters, Hebrews, and John’s Gospel, has nothing whatsoever to do with material evidence against their authorship, and everything to do with the most lofty things they claim. For example,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God (Jn. 1:1-2)

No one has ever seen God; God the only Son, who6 is at the Father’s side, he has made him known (Jn. 1:18)

To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen (Rom. 9:5).

the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ (Ti. 2:13).

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power (Heb. 1:3)

Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped (Phi. 2:5-6)

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (Col. 2:9)

And we know that the Son of God has come and rhas given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life (1 Jn. 5:20).

Such verses are too clear to dismiss. The challenge demanding that the Christian show where the Bible claims the deity of Christ is made by people who do not know the Bible.

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