At the centre of Christian life and faith is the Person of Jesus Christ. The Bible says that there is no other name by which we can be saved, but that of Jesus. It says he is the Way to the Father, and no-one can come to the Father but by him. It says, very fundamentally, that eternal life is to know Jesus Christ. There is no doubt that a true understanding of who Jesus is and what he has done for us is vital to salvation, and that is why every cult and false religion attempts to bring Jesus down from his proper place and reduce him to something less than he revealed himself to be.
In these last days, the Bible warns us that many would come in his name claiming to point the way to him, or even to be him. It warns us in very strong terms indeed that we must beware of deception in this area. We do not want to experience the awful disillusion of those who face Jesus on that day in this manner:
"Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!". [Matt. 7.22-23]
It is essential that we know who our Lord is, in all his majesty, deity and humanity.
It can come as a surprise to read what Paul says in 2 Corinthians as he rebukes the Christians in that city for turning away from the truth of the gospel:
For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. [2 Cor. 11.4]
Another Jesus? A different spirit, a different gospel? What is Paul talking about here? He states clearly that the Christians in Corinth were listening to false teachers, accepting ideas about Jesus that were contrary to what Paul had taught. We can see in our own day how easily such ideas are accepted by well-meaning believers. Jesus is seen as a great teacher, but his commands concerning carrying the Cross daily are watered down. He is "accepted" as Lord, but kept out of the deepest and hidden places of our hearts and minds. We want to be saved, but we don't want to die. Perhaps it would be useful to take another look at the Author of our salvation and see if there is something we need to see. After all, John says that:
This is how we know that we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. [1 Jn. 1.5-6]
This is where we should begin. If we claim to be in Christ, we must walk as he did. A quick examination of the New Testament makes it clear how central the person of Jesus Christ is to the gospel. He is the foundation, the cornerstone, and a true understanding of who he is, is essential to salvation, as he himself said:
"If you do not believe that I am, you will indeed die in your sins". [Jn. 8.24]
"I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me". [Jn. 14.6]
The earliest preaching of the gospel made it plain to all:
"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved". [Acts 4.12]
The claims he made for himself, and those made on his behalf in the earliest days of the church, make it essential that we have a proper grasp of who Jesus is. Otherwise, we cannot enter fully into all he has done for us and all he has called us to be in him.
From the earliest times, the Christian church has understood that central to an understanding of who Jesus is, is the doctrine of the Trinity. The teaching that Jesus was God made flesh lies at the heart of the gospel, and has always been the distinguishing mark of believers. It is surely significant that every single heretical cult, from the Mormons to the Bahai, as well as all the other world religions, refuse to accept the Trinity, denying the deity of Jesus. He is considered by some to be a great Prophet, a Teacher of Righteousness, but not God. People claim to accept his great moral teachings, but refuse to accept who he claimed to be. They point out that the term "Trinity" does not appear in the Bible, and this is taken to indicate that it was not part of early Christian belief. But the word Trinity was coined to try and express in human speech what it is that we find revealed in the Scriptures concerning the nature of God. People can easily accept that God is our Father, and can grasp that the Spirit is somehow God in action. But how does Jesus fit into the picture? Since the Bible is our authority, it is important that we ask of it some essential questions: What does it say about Jesus? What did he say about himself? And what did his followers say about him?
There can be no doubt that Jesus saw himself as someone who was quite distinct from the Father and the Holy Spirit. He constantly referred to his Father, spoke to his Father, and lived in continual submission to the Father's will. He promised that he would send the Spirit, who could not come until Jesus returned to the Father. Now, the Scriptures are also extremely clear on another point: there is only one God. Although demons, powerful people, or even things such as wealth, may be considered "gods" and worshipped as "gods", in truth there is only one God, the Almighty One, the Creator and Lord of all things. The prophet Isaiah wrote over and over again what God told him:
"This is what the Lord says -Israel's King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God." [Is. 44.6]"Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one." [Is. 44.8]
"I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God." [Is. 45.8]
Furthermore, the Lord declares openly that, as the only God, as the First and the Last, he will not share his glory with another [Isaiah 42.8]. He is the only Creator, the one who laid out the heavens and the earth by himself:
"I am the Lord , who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself." [Is. 44.24]
Almighty God, who alone made the heavens and the earth, who is the First and the Last, is also the only Saviour:
"I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no saviour." [Is. 43.11]
The Scriptures cannot lie. They proclaim openly that there is but one God, the Almighty. The New Testament, too, states clearly that there is only one Lord, and yet Jude refers to Jesus as "Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord". [Jude 4]. Only God is Sovereign and there is only one Lord. Why then, does this Scripture apply to Jesus the titles of the one God? But this is not the only time we find this happening. Over and over again, Jesus is given titles that the Almighty God of the Old Testament has taken for himself. Isaiah states that God alone created all things, echoing Genesis 1.1: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth". Yet in John 1.1-3 we read:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made."
The identity of the Word is revealed in verses 14 and 17:
The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth...grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the only Son, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.
What a statement this is: the Word was God, and yet was with God. God alone made the heavens and the earth, and yet Jesus, the Word, made everything that has been made. How can this be? Because he is God. There are not two Creators.
The man who wrote those words under the inspiration of the Spirit was John, the beloved apostle, the man who knew Jesus best of all his earthly friends. But there are other witnesses also. Paul, a man who was very sensitive to the Scriptures, a Hebrew of the Hebrews and learned in the Law and the Prophets, made this astonishing statement about Jesus:
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [Col. 1.15-17]
Those who deny the divinity of Jesus generally argue that Jesus is here described as the "firstborn over all creation", and citing the verse in John that says the Word was with God, read this as meaning that Jesus was created first by God, who then created everything else through him.
This is twisting the Scripture to make it say what it does not say. The word "firstborn", means that Jesus is supreme over creation, or as Revelations 3.14 calls him, "the ruler of God's creation", not that he was the first created being. Paul clearly says Jesus "is before all things", not "was" before, but "is". Why is he supreme? Because he made everything, because he is the invisible God made visible, the "image of the invisible God". As John said: "No one has ever seen God, but God the only Son...has made him known". John and Paul agree completely that Jesus made everything. All creation was not only made by him, but exists for him. Neither can it be said that God simply made the heavens and earth through Jesus as some kind of inferior creator, for he says clearly in Isaiah 44.24 that he "alone stretched out the heavens and ...spread out the earth by myself". One has to ask, therefore: are there two Creators? No, but there is more than one person at work. How did God create? Did he do anything? No, he spoke and it was.
And God said, "Let there be light", and there was light. [Gen. 1.3]
God said. What does one say? One says words. God spoke the Word, and it came to be. How does one speak? By breathing out a sound. The word for "breath" is the same as the word for "spirit". The Father breathed the Word, and it was so. Here are the Father, the Word and the Spirit working in unity to create.
It is very interesting that in the account of creation given in Genesis 1, we find God apparently talking to someone as he creates. Throughout the process of creation from verse 1 to verse 25, the Scriptures record: "And God said, "Let there be...and there was..." However, when it comes time to create man, the format changes and we read in verse 25:
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness....So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
The strange mix of singular and plural is immediately striking. God said, "let us create man in our image, in our likeness." The Hebrew is plural here; God is a plural and intends to make man in that image. To add to the confusion, God created him in his image, but male and female he created them. What is this saying? There is something about God that we are told from the beginning of revelation: that in him there is plurality of some kind, and that plurality is somehow reflected in the fact that mankind is made of male and female. What is man, but a plurality of body, soul and spirit? We know that each of us has a physical body that is me. But me is more than my body. The body can be paralysed, but me still thinks and feels and reacts. My soul is my personality, my inner self, quite apart from my body. We know, too, that our spirits were dead in sin until we were reborn into newness of life. So in our very selves we find the image of God, unity in plurality, separate, but one. Can this help to explain how the Father and Jesus can be one and yet separate? How the Holy Spirit can be "sent" by both Jesus and the Father, and yet be the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, according to the Scriptures?
The Lord Almighty told us through Isaiah that he is "the First and the Last" [Isaiah 44.6 and 48.12].
Listen to me, O Jacob, Israel, whom I have called: I am he; I am the first and I am the last. My own hand laid the foundations of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens.
But in the Book of Revelation, Jesus repeatedly calls himself by
this title:
I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever. [Rev. 1.17-18]These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again. [Rev. 2.8]
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. [Rev. 22.13]
This last verse adds another piece to the puzzle. Jesus not only calls himself the First and the Last, but also the Alpha and Omega (which is really saying the same thing, only in Greek!). But in Revelation 1.8, there is a very definite statement made:
"I am the Alpha and the Omega", says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty".
Now all Christian Bibles recognize that this last verse is Jesus speaking to John. But just in case such a clear claim to deity is misread as coming from the Father, Jesus again repeats in chapter 22 that he is the Alpha and the Omega, the one called the Lord God, and the Almighty, in chapter 1. There is no way around the fact that in the Book of Revelation Jesus is quoted as calling himself the Lord God, the Almighty. By taking to himself the title of First and Last, he has already made claims that have to be taken seriously. As with the Creator, we must ask: are there two Firsts and Lasts, two Almighty's?
We have seen that both Paul and John have recognised the deity of Jesus in their writings, and John records Jesus claiming such a position for himself in the Revelation. Paul says of him that:
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things in earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. [Col. 1.19- 20]
Those who deny his divinity believe that many of these Scriptures were changed in later years to conform to the Trinity doctrine. They believe that Jesus never considered himself God, merely the "Son of God", which they take to mean something less than God. Did Jesus ever make such a claim when he was alive? And what did he mean by the term "Son of God"?
During his ministry on earth, Jesus was constantly running foul of the religious leaders of the Jews. The Pharisees and Teachers of the Law finally put him on trial, convicted him, and had him executed at the hands of the Roman authorities. Jesus lived a perfect life and taught with love and authority, so why did they find him so offensive? It is important to realize that the charge they brought against him at his trial was blasphemy. They accused him of claiming to be God himself! This was not something they dreamed up on their own. On a number of occasions during his ministry, the people had taken up stones to stone him for that very offense. In the Gospels we find a record of the on-going debate between Jesus and the priests on this issue.
In Luke 5.20, we read of the paralysed man who was brought to Jesus for healing. Jesus said to him: "Friend, your sins are forgiven". Immediately, the Pharisees were offended. They knew that only God could forgive sins, so this statement was blasphemy. To prove that he did have authority to forgive sins, Jesus healed the man. When he spoke of his Father, the Pharisees recognised that he was claiming a special relationship with God. Although they could claim that God was their Father [John 8.41], they knew Jesus was saying something different. In John 5, it is recorded that they began to look for ways 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]
Jesus often referred to that fact that he and the Father were one. There are those who believe that this simply meant that they were "of one mind". The Pharisees knew better. In John 10, when Jesus said: "I and the Father are one", they took up stones to kill him. Why? "...for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God". [Jn. 10.30-33] Throughout the Gospel of John, there is an increasing tension between Jesus and the Pharisees on this point. In John 5, they object because he claims equality with God. In John 10, they accuse him of claiming to be God. The discussions they had with Jesus left them with no doubt at all what he was saying. In John 8, Jesus stated what was to them the supreme blasphemy. He had told them that Abraham had seen his day. The Pharisees laughed at him.
"You are not yet fifty years old", the Jews said to him, "and you have seen Abraham!" "I tell you the truth", Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!" At this, they picked up stones to stone him. [Jn. 8.57-59]
What bothered them so much about this statement? It was that phrase, "I AM". The greatest revelation that the Israelites had received from God was given through Moses in Exodus 3.14. Moses had asked God what he should call him before his people. God had answered:
I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you....This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.
This name, "I AM", expressed the unchanging, immortal nature of God, and was held in the highest reverence by the Israelites ever afterwards. They would not speak the name of God, and even in the Christian era, whenever the name I AM occurs in the Scriptures, it is rendered as: "the LORD". In Hebrew, the word is YHWH, usually rendered Yahweh, or Jehovah. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the phrase is translated EGO EIMI, which is the very phrase Jesus uses when he says, "Before Abraham was born, I AM". No wonder the Pharisees wanted to kill him, he was calling himself by God's own name.
To add to his claims, Jesus expected that God would share his glory with him. Isaiah, as we have seen, had stated unequivocally that Almighty God would not share his glory with anyone. [Isaiah 42.8] Why then, would Jesus ask the Father to give him again "the glory I had with you before the world began"? [John 17.5] Not only did he expect to receive the glory due to God, he accepted worship as God! When the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples, Thomas was absent. The poor man declared that he would not believe in the Resurrection unless he examined the wounds of crucifixion. The next week, Jesus appeared again and invited Thomas to inspect the marks of the nails and spear. Thomas simply fell to his knees and said: "My Lord and my God!" [John 20.28] How could anything be more direct? And yet, some say that Thomas wasn't worshipping Jesus, he was just swearing in shock and surprise! I think that if Thomas was going to react in shock, it would have been as soon as Jesus appeared, not a few moments later after he had spoken. If he was swearing, one might expect Jesus to rebuke Thomas for such behaviour; but instead, he accepted Thomas' words and announced: "Because you have seen me, you have believed". What had Thomas believed? That Jesus was his Lord and his God. Was Thomas right to believe it? Jesus said that those who believed even though they had not actually seen the risen Lord were blessed. God does not bless us for believing what is untrue. No, Jesus promised blessing to those who would believe what Thomas had come to believe, ie., that Jesus is our Lord and our God.
Jesus, then, has taken to himself the names and titles of God. He is the Creator, the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, the great I AM. There was another title he accepted and acknowledged during his ministry: Christ, the Anointed One, the Messiah. The Samaritan woman said to him:
"I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us". Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he". [Jn. 4.25-26]
John the Baptist had announced that he was preparing the way for the Lord, fulfilling the prophecies concerning the coming of the Messiah. He pointed to Jesus and said: "This is the one I was talking about". Who was the Messiah? There is some debate over what exactly the Jews were expecting of the Messiah, but the prophets were quite clear:
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. [Is. 9.6]
We know that the son promised by God in Isaiah was Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ. And he is called Mighty God. There are those who say that "Mighty God" is not "Almighty God", as if there could be a lesser God in addition to the Father. No, there is only one God, and Jesus is to be called Mighty God, and Everlasting Father! Even more, he is to be called Wonderful Counsellor, the name later applied to the Holy Spirit. What is this prophecy saying, if not that the promised Messiah will be God himself? And Jesus claimed to be the Messiah.
The Pharisees were not confused on this issue either. At his trial, they demanded of Jesus that he admit once and for all if he were the Christ, the Son of God. Now they knew what Son of God meant in that context, for when he unequivocally stated that he was indeed the Christ, they tore their clothes and declared him guilty of blasphemy! [Matthew 26.63-66; Mark 14.61-64]
Once this fact is recognized, then the full meaning of many other Scriptures becomes clear. In John 1.5 we read:
And we are in him who is true - even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. [1 Jn. 5.20]
The second Letter of Peter is directed:
To those who through the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours. [2 Pt. 1.1]
James constantly uses the title Lord interchangeably when referring to the Father or Jesus. In James 1.1, and 2.1, for example, he refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. In 3.9, he mentions our Lord and Father. In 5.7, he advises that we wait patiently for the Lord's coming, meaning the second coming of Jesus. In 5.10 he notes that the Old Testament prophets spoke in the name of the Lord, while in 5.14, he urges that we pray over the sick in the name of the Lord. We read in 5.11 that Job received the Lord's compassion and mercy. Now, as Paul says, there is but one Lord. James calls Jesus Lord, and the Father Lord, without distinction. It is usually only because of the context that we can tell which he is talking about. That is the essence of the Godhead. The Letter to the Hebrews says:
But about the Son he says,Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever. [Heb. 1.8]
Note that: "about the Son he says..O God". We have already seen many instances of Paul referring to Jesus as God; but to add to the list is no burden. In Titus, Paul again happily assigns the title "Saviour" to both Jesus and God. For example, in 1.3, he says "the command of God our Saviour", while in the next sentence he refers to "Christ Jesus our Saviour". In 2.10, he again calls God "our Saviour", while, most spectacularly, in 2.13 he combines the two:
...while we wait for the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Then again he reverts to "the love of God our Saviour" in 3.4, and "through Jesus Christ our Saviour" in 3.6. So far as Paul was concerned, Jesus is God our Saviour, the only Saviour, apart from whom there is no salvation. Or, as Jesus put it:
If you do not you believe that I am, you will indeed die in your sins. [Jn. 8.24]
So there is a unanimous verdict written for our instruction in all the letters of the New Testament: Paul, Peter, John, Jude and the writer to the Hebrews all agree that Jesus is God.
But there was another false idea put about concerning Jesus. There were those who believed that he was God indeed, but denied that he was truly human. These people considered that only the spiritual was holy, the flesh was evil and could never be redeemed. This idea still has an effect on our thinking today. Christians tend to feel very ambivalent about the sensual, unwilling to discuss too deeply the feelings, desires and pleasures that come with being human. They forget that God made them with all the senses they possess. And, though the Enemy works to corrupt the pleasures God created them to know, they remain gifts of God to his people. As John Calvin said: God made the apple tree and its fruit to be nutritious: he did not have to make them delicious to the taste, fragrant to the nose, and beautiful to the eye. But he did make them to appeal to our senses, as he did with everything in his creation. But such false ideas about the sensual world led people to deny that God, the Holy and Perfect Lord, could ever have taken on sinful flesh to become man. Instead, they taught that Jesus only seemed to be human, that his body was an illusion, a shell that he took on in order to be seen by men and through which he could communicate with them. But they could not bring themselves to believe that he was really human.
Nevertheless, the gospel is very plain about this. "The Word became flesh and lived among us". Jesus could be tired, hungry and thirsty. He could eat and drink, and even after his resurrection, he could cook breakfast for his disciples and join them in their meal. He emphasised the fact that, following the resurrection, he was still a man with a body of flesh and bones [Luke 24.37-43]. In his first letter, John deals extensively with the false teaching that Jesus had not come in the flesh. He begins by laying great stress on the evidence of the senses:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched - this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. [1 Jn. 1.1]
John makes his point with great emphasis in chapter 4 where he states quite unequivocally:
Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist. [1 Jn. 4.2-3]
John, then, agrees with Paul that there is another Jesus being preached, another spirit leading people astray from the true gospel. These two doctrines are inseparable: Jesus is God, and Jesus is Man. The gospel is that God became flesh to buy us back for himself, to transfer us from the kingdom of darkness, to the kingdom of the Son.
This is what the Scriptures teach so clearly. But men are reluctant to accept anything that does not seem reasonable to their limited intellects. The wisdom of God is foolishness to man. They insist on asking questions long after the Word has spoken. The Lord encourages honest inquiry, but once he has spoken, that is all that is to be said. For he will answer any honest question we have, in order to help us understand his revelation of himself. For example, we may ask: if Jesus is the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, the Creator, the Messiah, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, etc., then why did he pray to the Father, talk about the Father, claim he was obeying the Father and stated that the Father was greater than he? Even more important, why is it so important to believe that Jesus is God? What is it about the deity of Jesus that puts him at the centre of faith and salvation? To properly deal with these issues, it is important that we have an understanding of what it took to save the human race, what is the great salvation into which we have entered.
