16. Is Jesus God?
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
C.S. LEWIS
There is more confusion around the person of Jesus Christ than any other figure in human history. While most people readily accept that Jesus was a man, many will rage if you claim that He is more than a man.
But was He?
And if so, what’s the evidence?
First, Jesus understood Himself to be divine. He claimed to be the eternal Yahweh (John 8:58). He claimed equality with God (John 5:18; 10:30). He openly accepted worship (Matthew 8:2; 9:18; 14:33; 15:31; Mark 5:6; John 9:38; 20:28). He forgave sin (Matthew 9:2; Luke 7:47-48; John 8:11). He even expected His disciples to pray in His name (John 14:13-14).
Second, the disciples believed Jesus was divine. Thomas called Him God (John 20:28). John wrote, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God” (John 1:1). Matthew referred to Jesus as “Immanuel,” which means “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). Paul wrote of Jesus, “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9). And that is just a mere sampling.
Third, God the Father recognized the divinity of Christ. In Hebrews 1:8 we read, “Of the Son [God] says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.” In this verse the Father is calling Jesus, His Son, God. Pretty powerful!
Finally, the early church believed Jesus was divine. This is seen through their writings and creedal documents such as the Nicene and Chalcedonian Creeds. For example, the Chalcedonian Creed of 451 exclaims that Jesus is “truly God and truly man.” That is to say that He’s one person with two natures: human and divine. He’s man and He’s more than a man. He’s the God-man.
That’s the story of Jesus.
His disciples.
The Father.
And church history.
It’s our story too, Christian.
Jesus is more than a man.
Memory Verse
We wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13).
Question to Consider
What’s at stake if we relegate Jesus to being merely a man?
One-Minute Apologist Video
J. Warner Wallace, “Did Jesus Think Jesus Was God?”