Was Jesus Really God-Part 8

Today we will be wrapping up our study on the Deity of Jesus. We will close with what others had to say about this subject, or the thoughts they expressed concerning it. We won’t just talk about what those friendly to our Lord said, thought, and wrote; Jesus’ enemies also expressed themselves concerning the claims Jesus made.

The Writers of the Bible Clearly Describe Jesus as Being Divine

Time and time again, various writers of Holy Scripture describe the Divinity of Jesus Christ. We are working under the premise here that The Bible as we have it today is, in fact, inspired by God. Therefore if the writers of Scripture call Jesus God, then it is just as if God the Father called Jesus God. The only way to escape this conclusion is to deny that ,as Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.”

One of the most clear descriptions of the Deity of Jesus Christ is contained in the opening words of the John Chapter 1. In this passage, The Word clearly refers to Jesus, as context makes clear. In Verse 1, we are told “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That clearly states that Jesus is Eternal and that He is also God. On into Verse 14 we see “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”

God Himself said Jesus was God in Hebrews 1:8. That entire chapter is a good summation of God comparing Jesus to anything else He created, and how Jesus is superior to all created beings..

Isaiah said the child born would, in addition to all the other things He would be called, would also be called “Mighty God” and “Everlasting Father” in Isaiah 9:6.

John 5:23 teaches we should worship the Son just like the Father.

Philippians 2:5-7 describes Jesus as “being in the form of God”

Timothy 3:16 says “God was  manifested in the flesh”

Writing to Titus, Paul said in Titus 2:3  that we are “looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ”

So it goes on, time after time, numerous passages clearly show that the writers of Holy Scripture considered Jesus Christ to be Divine. And if we believe in the inspiration of the Bible, we can only come to the conclusion that God the Father is clearly informing us that Jesus the Son is also divine.

Jesus enemies clearly understood that He was claiming to be God

In this section, we will discuss briefly the concept of Jesus’ own claims to deity. Earlier, we talked about what our Lord Himself had to say about it; now we will discuss how others, specifically His enemies, perceived some of the things Jesus said and did. They had no doubt whatsoever just what Jesus was claiming. In fact, they often wanted to kill Him for claiming to be God, since that claim was considered blasphemy and punishable by death.

In John Chapter 10 Jesus was walking and teaching with the Jews in the Temple and gave them His teaching where He made the claim “I and My Father are one“,: and the Jews wanted to stone him. When Jesus asked then why they wanted to kill him they replied in Verse 33, “For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.”

In fact, blasphemy was the only crime for which Jesus was actually convicted at his various “trials” before His Crucifixion. In Mark 14:61-64 Jesus and the High Priest had the following conversation.

“But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest rent his clothes, and saith, What need we any further witnesses? Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye? And they all condemned him to be guilty of death.”

The Jews of the day understood that to forgive sins was a claim to be God, since only God could forgive sin. In Mark Chapter 2 we can again see the story of the paralyzed man who was lowered through the roof of the house where Jesus was preaching so that Jesus could heal him. In Verse 5 note, “When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.”  The scribes quickly realized just what Jesus was saying here and though in their minds, “Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only?” in Verse 7. Actually Jesus’ ability to read their thoughts was also a claim to Divine nature, as who is omniscient, or all knowing, but God?

 Conclusion

If we use the Bible as our source of information, and of course we should, of we believe the Bible is the all sufficient rule of faith and practice, then we can only come to one conclusion on this issue. And that conclusion is that Jesus was, and is, 100% fully God.

The only way we, or anybody else, can deny that conclusion is to simply toss out as untrue vast sections of the Holy Scriptures. Then we head down that slippery slope we have discussed before, of disregarding portions of the Word of God because they do not fit with our pre-conceived notions of God which we each have in our minds.

This is yet another case of us having the choice to accept God as He has revealed Himself to us in His Word, or continue trying to create a god which we find appealing in our own minds.

More importantly we can choose to accept salvation on God’s terms, in the way He has stated it must occur: repentance and belief on His Son Jesus Christ, or our own feeble efforts to somehow be good enough to earn our way in to God’s Grace.