Is Jesus God? Did Jesus claim to be God? Is the deity of Christ biblical? - Podcast Episode 151

It's like I should have prayed a little harder about technical difficulties today. Welcome to the got questions podcast today. We're going to be diving into a question maybe starting a little series of what are the super like really important questions we call on the website the crucial questions and Today, we're gonna be discussing the question of is Jesus God and does the scriptures teach that Jesus is God what does the Bible say about the deity of Christ and Probably in the coming weeks.

We're gonna be jumping into the second most common division between biblical Christianity and the cult which would be salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, so if you deny either the deity of Christ or Salvation by faith alone through grace on Christ alone.

You're denying an essential of the faith that basically Is the dividing line between a Division or denomination of Christianity and what we'd call a cult but today the deity of Christ is going to be our topic of conversation and this is one that I mean was debated very early on in Church history a lot of the very early church fathers were writing about this a lot some of the early church councils.

This is the major item of debate because this granted it's difficult to understand. How could Jesus who was? Truly a human being Also be God. But today our focus is going to be primarily be what does the Bible say?

What are the scriptures that deal with this you both on the positive side the ones that? Clearly state that Jesus is God and there's some other ones that people point to uh, I Read this verse. It kind of sounds like saying Jesus is not God.

So join me today is Jeff the Administrator of Bible ref comm and Kevin the managing editor for got questions ministry. So when we start off This episode with so Kevin once you go first, what do you think is the strongest?

The Deity of Christ in Isaiah 6 and John 12

Biblical argument for the deity of Christ.

Well, there are several strong ones I'll just I'll share the one that I normally go to first, you know, this is my go-to passage. It's actually two passages that we have to compare. We start in Isaiah chapter 6 this famous passage where the prophet Isaiah is called and commissioned by God and in this passage Isaiah sees a vision of The Lord high and lifted up and the train of his robe fills the temple and it's a very majestic powerful scene as God is sitting on his throne and the angels are flying about worshiping him and The the pillars of the the temple are shaking and smoke fills the temple and it's a quite all Inducing sight.

In fact, Isaiah is scared for his life. I'm undone I'm ruined because my eyes have seen the Lord Almighty He says and he he he calls the Lord by his covenant name. Yahweh that I have seen Yahweh and He's he's terrified and then God in the same passage God forgives Isaiah's sin and Then he commissions the prophet sends him out for a lifetime of service.

And so we've got this this very splendid and majestic scene of God on his throne worshiped by the angels forgiving sin and commissioning prophets and So here's the Lord God Almighty on his throne now we Keep our bookmark there and we go to the New Testament and in John chapter 12 Jesus is is going through his ministry and there are some people who are persisting in unbelief.

They just will not believe Jesus message they will not believe who Jesus says he is Even after all the miracles that they have seen and so John as he records this incident this particular Conversation that he's having with the people He quotes from Isaiah 6 that place where we just put the bookmark.

John quotes Isaiah 6.

To.

To explain why the people are persisting in their unbelief and then in verse 41 John 12 41 John writes this. Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus glory and spoke about him. This is mind-boggling to me because as John quotes Isaiah 6 which is Obviously about Yahweh on his throne John then says that person that Isaiah saw sitting on the throne worshiped by the angels forgiving sin and commissioning the Prophet.

That person was Jesus specifically Jesus and so you've got Yahweh.

Equals.

Jesus the God of the Old Testament the the one true God of Israel. That is Jesus. Jesus is God in the flesh and I I just love the How scripture fits together and how the New Testament is helping to explain the old and and how we have Jesus Being the incarnate God.

I just I love that passage.

The Consistent Biblical Theme of Jesus’ Divinity

For me. I like the idea of looking at the Bible as a whole. Context something that's very important looking at everything that the Bible has to say and for me it really comes down to that idea that There are some verses in Scripture that you can look at like the one you just mentioned Kevin that's Got a lot of weight behind it for what it implies.

But we also talk about how there are times where we look at things in Scripture and we can say yeah. But if you just take that one thing by itself and you don't look at the whole context. One of the things that I see is that there is this constant consistent theme in Scripture that Just it's a drumbeat that's constantly in there over and over and over.

Such that you see this brought up either implicitly or explicitly. Over and over again. There's these themes that we keep seeing in Scripture these ideas and I wanted to bring up just a couple scriptures.

I'm only gonna mention one for each of these categories just for the sake of time. But in each of these we can come up with many examples that the Bible affirms that Jesus is God. In places like John 1 1 to 2 it Implies something like that in places like Matthew 1 23 the Old Testament makes some hints about that.

I don't think the Old Testament Explicitly presents the the concept as much as some people think but it's in there and that's places like Isaiah 9 6 Talks about Jesus being unified with the Father. Matthew 28 19.

John 14 16 Jesus being eternal in Colossians 117 Jesus being everlasting. John 8 58 Existing before anything else existed or was created. John 3 13 31 Jesus claiming to be God. John 5 17 18 places where Jesus says and does things that as we've said other people recognized as blasphemy.

When he said it, it wasn't like people just went. Oh, that's nice. They recognized that what he was saying had implications that they didn't appreciate using I am terminology. Jesus does that very often he claims to forgive sins.

In Luke chapter 5 people recognize Jesus is God. In John 20 people worship Jesus as God. In Luke 24 people pray to Jesus in Acts chapter 7. We just see all of these things over and over and over as this consistent Theme and this is where if we want to look at the Bible and say, okay, let me take scriptures that I could take out Fortune cookie style and say that they support the idea that Jesus was not God and then I'm gonna do the same thing with all These that say he is God you have this mountain of evidence on the side of Jesus being Divine so and that doesn't even get into theological consistency and necessity for salvation and all these other things.

So for me the thing that I find the most compelling when I'm looking at that is just that this undercurrent of Jesus being Literally God is found in so much of Scripture in so many places and so consistently.

That you you basically cannot read the Bible.

Without.

Encountering and being faced with that idea.

Jesus’ “I Am” Sayings, Hebrews 1, and the Explicit Claims of Deity

Excellent points Jeff and Kevin. Typically when I go to the deity of Christ I'll go with some verses in John, but Jeff I know you mentioned at least in passing and to me it's like a John 8 58 where Jesus says before Abraham was born I am this is Jesus using the both the Old Testament name for God from Exodus 3 14 also claiming eternality or at least pre-existence and the reaction of the Jews indicates What exactly Jesus was saying?

They take up stones to stone him. Similarly in John 10 30 Jesus says I and the Father are one so people will point to this Oh, Jesus wasn't saying he's God. He's saying that he and God were united as and they were on the same page.

Well again in this passage The Jews take up stones to stone and they say because you a mere man claimed to be God so here Jesus is very clearly making these claims and Something that people will often point to is like I Don't see anywhere in the Bible of Jesus saying the precise words.

I am God and left. That's the correct statement. There's no exact quote of Jesus in those three words. But in these two passages Jesus making statements that everyone around him knew exactly what he was saying.

He was saying He's claiming to be God and to me another passage that really stands out is in Hebrews Chapter 1 verse 8. Here's the God the Father speaking. This is about the Son referring to Jesus God says your throne Oh God will last forever and ever a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom then it goes on Here is God the Father referring to Jesus the Son Referring to him as God.

This is a clear explicit statement of Jesus deity here and it's Hebrews and with the especially the beginning chapters of Hebrews talking about Jesus superiority over Everything else in creation because he's not Part of creation.

He is the creator. So now there are many many scriptures in the New Testament that Explicitly say that Jesus is God if you understand them in the proper context and based on the reactions of the people around him.

The Word Was God and the Word Became Flesh

So, what about Jeff and Kevin what are some other ones that stand out to you too or that you have found to be a Particularly convincing to you in studying the deity of Christ.

Well, one of them that has already been alluded to is John chapter 1. How John? Starts off his gospel with a declaration of the deity of Jesus Christ. And that's a theme that we see carried through the whole of the gospel of John.

But the the first first words are in the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God and. So in this statement John's revealing at least three things about the word the logos.

The.

The Word of God here is in the beginning. So when the world was created, I mean there echoes here of Genesis 1 1 and in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and John starts off with in the beginning was the word and so when the world was created there is the word and he is already existing and He existed with God.

John says he was he was there on a level with with God and He was in fact God. Very clear statement. The word was God.

So.

Eternally with God distinct somehow from the Father and Yet equal to the Father and then a little bit later on in this same passage in John chapter 1 the word the logos is very clearly identified as Jesus Christ the word became flesh Verse 14 and dwelt among us.

We beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father that special relationship that special Son of God that Makes him equal with God. So we have a we have shades of the Trinity being presented here as we have somehow a distinction between the Father and the Son, but we have.

Equality.

Among the members of the Trinity as well as Jesus is God the word is God the word was made flesh and that of course the Incarnation as Jesus the God man walked among us.

Kevin I appreciate that one. I also like the idea that in I think verse 3 There's also a statement there where the Bible explicitly says that nothing was made that was made Without him, which is a very curious distinction To make to explicitly sort of make a mention of saying everything that was created Was not created without him, which is a very sophisticated way of saying that Jesus is identical With God he is not a created Thing he's not a created being everything that was created Was created through or with him.

So I I do like that one a lot. I also like looking at some of the statements that Jesus makes that I think as somebody who appreciates Rhetorical type questions the Socratic method things like that. Some of the things that Jesus says that people sometimes take as a counter to his divinity I think helped to prove it when he's challenged at one point to give an answer to somebody about being saved and The person refers to him as good master or good teacher and Jesus makes the comment where he says Why do you call me good?

There's no one good, but God. Some people think that's a way of Jesus saying but I'm not God but in the context of the conversation. It's actually exactly the opposite. It's it's Jesus saying you realize there's no one good, but God are you?

Do you realize exactly what it is that you're saying? And then as he goes through the conversation He gives this person an indication of something that he particularly needs to do In order to demonstrate saving faith and that person doesn't want to do it.

So the answer actually from that person is well, no, I I really don't. So in in moments like that, even Jesus is saying and doing things that represent Who he is and what it means? Another thing that I think for me is really important is the idea of how Jesus divinity fits into salvation and what it means and Again, this is not the kind of thing that necessarily just leaps off of the page when we're reading the Bible but as we look at what salvation is and what salvation means Book of Hebrews talks about this idea that in order for the plan of salvation to work to make any sense You have to have the sacrifice that is absolutely perfect.

You have to have a sacrifice that is infinitely valuable, but you also have to have a sacrifice that is truly representative of Humanity and the only way for that to happen is for that sacrifice that example to be fully human and Fully divine, right?

And that also opens up the idea that it does create a sacrifice that really does pay the penalty it does remove the question of God subjecting people to things that are Unfair or unreasonable or that he doesn't understand or that he's just allowing us to suffer all these other things come together in this sort of Venn diagram that just meets at one point between these two circles where Jesus is fully God and fully human.

And I think seeing that and understanding that is another thing that's really potent in us grasping what that means. For the divinity of Christ.

Absolutely, and we'll dive a little bit more into the why the deity of Christ is important before we close today because that We always want to get practical. I mean we Trust me the three of us love discussing the theology of the deity of Christ.

But we also want to get to the the why does it matter. But maybe one last little piece of biblical evidence there are two verses that Aren't always brought into the debate that to me are powerful arguments.

That's Titus 2 13 and also 2nd Peter 1 1 where in both of these verses Paul or in Peter, right and they say our God and Savior Jesus Christ and the construction in the Greek indicates that both God and Savior are referring to Jesus Christ, it's not our great God and our Savior.

No, it's our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. So two very clear statements there as well that point to Jesus being God and Then Jeff you made a great point in the importance of it. I've heard it explained to me that Jesus had to be.

Huge.

Fully human so that he could die had to be fully God so that death would be a Infinite value to cover the sins of the whole world. I go first John to Jesus that Jesus is the atoning sacrifice not just for ours only but for the sins of the entire world.

So G the only way that Jesus death could be sufficient to atone for the sins of the entire world is if he was God. No human being no angel no created being could possibly Pay that infinite debt. God could do it.

So it's the for salvation. The deity of Christ is is vitally important and a lot of people don't understand that they view the deed of Christ is like a theological point to argue but don't realize is how Crucially important it is that we would not have salvation if Jesus were not.

God incarnate and that is an important thing to remember because when we talk about the importance of the doctrine the statements that Jesus makes and the way people respond to them if they are Responding to him because they're offended at what he says.

It's clear that he's making statements that don't leave room for a whole lot of misinterpretation. This this is something that's important enough that it needs to be Understood. It's also good to remember that when we talk about whether or not this is important this particular issue was the subject of most of the early controversies of the church and This was the thing that most of your big arguments and councils and so on and so forth were discussing now.

Some people will look at that and say see it was a new idea and people didn't really believe it. But it's the opposite in these councils. Basically people were not arguing about whether or not Jesus was God and there were some people who argued that and that was part of some of the conversations.

But for the most part the discussion was about how do we actually understand? Jesus divinity it was not saying well it was Jesus God or was Jesus not God. No, it was all a question of did he become God?

Did he always serve as God? Was he half and half was he one sometimes and the other time there was just no question about him being divine. It was just a question of trying to untangle exactly what that meant.

How do we talk about it? How do we? Discuss it. So it is extremely important and On a popular level we've heard people who've brought up ideas. That suggest that that you you don't really have a reasonable option when it comes to this the the way that the The concept of salvation and sin and Jesus and his own statements come together you kind of forced into a corner where you can either say, okay, he was a Megalomaniac who maybe had some good ideas, but he was crazy enough that I don't really have to listen.

Or he was a liar so I don't have to listen to him or he was telling the truth and Something in there about him being sane and moral but not being God despite the things that he said. Just doesn't make a whole lot of sense and some of that works for some people some of it.

It doesn't but it's very much an important idea if we don't understand precisely what it means that Jesus is God and God incarnate then all The things that he said all the things that he did everything we understand about salvation becomes really difficult to understand.

Another point that to me I'd introduced at the beginning how the deity of Christ is probably in addition to salvation by grace alone through faith on in Christ alone is the dividing point between historical biblical Christianity and what we refer to as cults.

Every major cult out there whether it's the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons or countless others they all deny the horse historical doctrine of the deity of Christ and Then from that if you deny that Jesus is God therefore you do not have an infinite and eternal Payment for sin therefore it is not sufficient to cover sin.

Therefore you have to do your own good works To essentially add to or complement Christ's sacrifice. So that's when you throw out the deity of Christ it has implications for your entire view of salvation if Christ isn't God.

Therefore I have to do my own works to add to what he did in order to be saved So that the two go hand in hand. If Jesus was God which we firmly absolutely believe scripture teaches Then his death was absolutely sufficient paid for all of our sins.

Therefore. All we must do is receive that In-faith and then our works are not something we contribute to salvation But rather something we do out of gratitude for the salvation that Christ has already accomplished, but if Christ isn't God then we must Do good works in order to earn salvation because Christ's death would not be Sufficient to pay for our sin debt.

So no the deity of Christ is not just a theological Conversation for theologians to quibble over no, this is Goes to the very heart of the gospel how Christ saved us and whether we can truly trust that that sacrifice was sufficient To pay for the penalty penalties for not only our sins or for the sins of the entire world.

So the fact of the matter is that Jesus had to be God in order for us to have salvation.

The Lamb of God, the Trinity, and Why the Doctrine Matters for Salvation

The.

There's only one person who can provide that perfect Sacrifice there's only one perfect Lamb of God and that is Jesus Christ. When? Don't know when they were doing the Old Testament sacrifices all through the Old Testament period.

It was very. It was very specific that the lamb had to be without blemish without spot had to be a perfect lamb had to be the best. And when Jesus shows up in the New Testament John the Baptist the the forerunner to the Messiah he points to Jesus and says behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and so.

Right there. We've got that connection to that perfect unblemished sacrifice of the Old Testament but now being fulfilled in the ultimate sacrifice the final sacrifice for sin the only sacrifice for sin that was going to be permanent and Lasting and that is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

He had to be perfect and because we are all tainted by sin Jesus has to be that perfect sacrifice. If I if I die, then I'm simply, you know. That's the consequence of my own sin and that's true for every single human being who's ever lived or will live when we die.

We are simply suffering the consequences for our own sin, but Jesus had no sin because he is God in the flesh. He had no sin of his own and so when he died when he was murdered on that cross. He was paying not for his sin.

He had no sin to pay for he was paying for our sin and It is the deity of Christ and his perfection his holiness that allows his sacrifice. To cover the sins of all of us who trust in him and We just praise the Lord one of these days.

Every knee will bow every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Jesus is God in the flesh and we praise him eternally for his salvation that he provided.

Yeah, Kevin, I like that you bring up that idea that in the end everyone's going to acknowledge everyone's going to know everyone's going to see because I this this idea of Christ and his Divinity is something that it just gets down to that absolute sovereignty this this Authority that God really has and I think that that is one of the reasons why people tend towards wanting to push back on Jesus's divinity and sometimes I don't think it's even Deliberate.

There's a lot of well-meaning people who I think want to resist the idea of Jesus being divine for sincere Theological reasons, but I also know that if we can push back at the idea of Jesus literally being God It gives us more room to be able to say well then the things he said are just the statements of a man.

You know, then I can I can put them on the par with any other great Thinker where I can say great that person may have been the greatest moral philosopher in history, but he was still just a man. He was just a person but Jesus is really God then that means everything.

He said is absolutely truth and absolutely Perfect and everything that he expects of me. I'm expect to do and It means that everything I am everything that I can do is owed To God and to what he says and to what he expects and that's a big that's a big deal.

That does not sit well with our human philosophy in the way we like to approach things so it's it's not just important because of what it suggests for the theology of Salvation in the biblical sense, but on a personal level it confronts us with something that really does Matter how a person interprets the deity of Jesus Christ has personal meaning that's got a lot at stake behind it.

Absolutely the Stakes couldn't be higher on it on a question like this. In this recording this episode. We've mentioned to kind of in passing some that there are some verses in the Bible that Seem to teach otherwise that Jesus is not God.

Most of those are in the Gospels an example of Jesus being displaying his full humanity or Jesus praying to God the Father those type of things or Jesus saying something To God that point of all this.

How could he be God and yet be praying to God those type of things. Or even we mentioned earlier the? the bridge on route it comes to Jesus and says Why do you call me good only God is good those type of things.

But you also have to look at these from the perspective of the Trinity and that yes, Jesus is God. Yes, the Father is God. Yes. The Holy Spirit is God yet. There's only one God so there's. We can't perfectly explain This the mystery of the Trinity and that how can Jesus be God and the Father be God?

That doesn't mean that those truths cannot both be true.

Jesus.

Having a relationship with the Father It does not contradict the fact that Jesus is also God rises. We're relying on the power of the Holy Spirit does not contradict him being God. The incarnation was a unique period in which Jesus became fully human and he remains eternally fully human.

So in his humility in his humanity like Philippians to talk about Christ emptying himself that there are some differences between how Christ was during his humanity during his incarnation then he is for he was for all the attorney before that and Afterwards and that some unique things happen in that time period that don't happen now.

Christ is again in perfect fellowship with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. God doesn't. Jesus did not have to pray to him to set an example for so there's lots of different ways you can understand those but don't look at those verses as contradictions to the fact that Jesus is God and the multitude of scriptures that point to Jesus deity just Understand this is Jesus relating to God the Father in his humanity set an example for us and how to pray.

How to rely on God those type of things. Maybe we can do another episode in the future kind of dealing specifically with some of these passages. But yes, there are some Bible verses some scriptures that Do seem if taken out of context taken out of the overall Overarching theme of scripture do seem to teach that Jesus is not God.

But as Jeff said earlier against the overwhelming weight of the countless scriptures that point to Jesus deity It's important to understand these verses in light of each other so right not a easy topic to discuss but Crucially important again to summarize.

Let me just say Scripture is explicitly clear in teaching the deity of Christ. Jesus is fully God. He is the Word of God that what was God was with God from eternity who became flesh. He is the Great God and Savior he is Amen God whose throne lasts forever and ever.

So Jesus is God and that has tremendous implications for our salvation. If Jesus were not God He could not be the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. You placing your faith in him us placing our faith in him would not be sufficient for salvation if Jesus were not God.

So Theological importance. It's fascinating to Scott to discuss to study. It's interesting to even try to figure out like the early church councils How could Jesus fully be God? How exactly did that work?

But Perhaps not to say more important, but equally as important Jesus had to be God in terms of our salvation. It's only the perfect Lamb of God only an infinite being Could pay the penalties for the sins of the whole world so The deity of Christ is something we are to study.

It's also something weird to embrace something weird to rejoice over because is the deity of Christ. That means that Jesus death on the cross and resurrection are the perfect and complete sacrifice for our sins providing for our forgiveness and Granting us entrance into heaven if we receive that payment by grace through faith.

So this has been the got questions podcast on one of our most frequent questions. But also one of the most important questions on is Jesus this God Got questions Bible as answers and we'll help you find them.