We Christians believe that the One who died for us on Golgotha is truly God as well as truly Man. This doctrine is one of the foundation truths of Christianity.
When Pliny wrote to the Emperor Trajan in the second century, he reported that the Christians at their meetings “sang a hymn to Christ as a god.” Pliny’s idea of deity is no doubt different from ours, but what he wrote is clear evidence of divine worship being paid to Christ, even at the pain of torture and death. At the same time, Ignatius, on his way to die at Rome, wrote of “our God Jesus Christ being in the Father.”
Evidence in the New Testament
The canonical documents of the first century contain explicit statements of this doctrine. The very first sentence of one of them contains in its terse and pointed clauses the words, “The Word was God.” This same prologue further adds, “and the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us,” so declaring the Godhead of the Person who became known in history as Jesus (Jn. 1:1, 14).
In the first and last verses of 2 Peter there are plain statements of Peter’s views. In one he speaks of “the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ,” and in the other of “the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Every reader would apply all the titles in the latter sentence to the Redeemer, and the comparable phraseology of the former accentuates what the grammatical construction demands as the correct understanding. That is, that Jesus Christ is both Lord and God. Paul, similarly, wrote to Titus of “the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
In John’s commentary on his Gospel, he practically concludes with “We are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” The antecedent to the pronoun “this ” is Jesus Christ. The writer to the Hebrews plainly addresses the Son as God: “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.”
The doctrine of the deity of our Lord is implicit everywhere in the New Testament. Think of His claim in Revelation 22:13, “I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” Here Christ uses phrases that only God can (and does, Rev. 1:8, R.V.) use to show His “otherness.” How could our Lord be first, if there is another before Him?
In Hebrews 1:10-12, there are applied to Christ words which in the Psalm quoted (102:24-27) are stated of God. The use of the name “Lord” connects with the apostolic custom of taking Old Testament statements about Jehovah and applying them to Christ. This shows how fundamental was their conception of the absolute deity of the Lord. (Paul, Rom. 10:13; Joel 2:32; Peter, l Pet. 2:3; Ps. 34:8; John, Jn. 12:41; Isa. 6:3.)
Could any words be stronger than Colossians 2:9, “In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”?
Old Testament Evidence
However the Jews may have interpreted, or misinterpreted, the prophecies of the Old Testament, we see that they set forth and substantiate the teaching of the deity of Messiah. Statements and mysteries find their counterpart and answer in Jesus of Nazareth. 1) Isaiah 9:6 could never be wholly applied to any but Him and it gives Him the title “The Mighty God.” 2) The Immanuel prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 is deliberately translated from Hebrew to Greek in Matthew 1:23 to show that the Babe to be born was God among us. 3) The Jehovah-Righteousness of Jeremiah 23:5-6 was exhibited to be our Lord (1 Cor. 1:30).
At the beginning of God’s revelation in the Old Testament were the mysterious plurals of Genesis 1:26; 3:22, but the mystery is all made plain in the New Testament light of the divinity of our Lord. The mysterious Angel of Jehovah also finds His elucidation in Jesus the Son of God.
Purpose of John
The deity of our Lord is not only explicit and implicit in the words of Scripture generally, but also particularly in the life and ways of our Lord in the four Gospel records. Indeed, one of these four was written for the express purpose of proving the deity of Jesus, as well as proving His Messiahship (John 20:30-31).
The proof is worked out in detail in the narrative which commences, immediately after the prologue, in chapter 1:19.
Notice what proof John adduces. In the first section (1:19-2:11), he shows first the inspired witness of the last and greatest of the Old Testament prophets to the pre-existence and divine Sonship of Christ (vv. 30, 34). Then he follows with the “experimental” witness of those who knew Jesus earliest in His public life to the same two things (vv. 48-49). Thirdly, he brings out the witness of the works of Christ manifesting the glory of His deity by an act of creative power (2:11).
Then in the next section (2:13-4:54), John brings out in Judea the Lord’s own witness to His heavenly origin and unique Sonship (3:13, 16; 2:16) and John the Baptist’s witness to the same two things (3:31-35). In Samaria, there is the experimental witness of the woman and the men of Sychar to His Messiahship. In Galilee, there is another working proof of His deity in the sign recorded (4:54). This last is distinctly joined to the former sign at Cana, and the remaining miracles recorded in this Gospel are like these two and chosen for this very purpose. The two main evidences of deity are power to create and power to bestow life. These are enunciated in chapter 1:3-4 immediately after the statement of our Lord’s deity. All the miracles recorded in John fall into one or other of these categories, and so prove His deity.
Briefly, chapters 1-12, in addition to these signs and their explanations by our Lord, show the rising claims of Christ, and the Jewish reactions to them. They knew exactly what He meant. (Examine 5:18; 8:58; 9:35-38; 10:30-33; 11:25; 12:44-45.)
In the conversations with the disciples in the upper room afterwards (“No created being could speak as Christ here speaks”), and in the prayer of chapter 17, we meet the same gigantic claims (e.g., 14:9; 17:5).
Finally, adducing the detailed fulfillment of prophecy in the trial and death of Christ, he concludes with an account of the Resurrection which culminates in Thomas unequivocally acknowledging Jesus as “Lord and God” (20:28).
What the Deity of Christ Involves
The doctrine of the deity of Christ involves, among other things:
1. His eternal existence (Jn. 1:1-2).
2. Omniscience (Jn. 21:17; Acts 1:24).
3. Omnipotence (Phil. 3:21).
4. Omnipresence (Mt. 18:20; Jn. 3:13).
5. Universal Lordship (Acts 10:36; Rev. 19:16).
6. His possession of all things (Jn. 16: 15).
7 Infinitude, equal with the Father (Mt. 11:27).
It involves, on our part:
1. Living unto Him as we live unto God (2 Cor. 5:15; Gal. 2:19).
2. Trusting Him as we trust God (Jn. 14:1).
3. Praying to Him as to God (Jn. 14:14, R.V.; 1 Jn. 5:13-15).
4. Invoking His name in worship (1 Cor. 1:2; Jn. 5:23; Rev. 5:12).
The Jews accused Him of being a man who was “making himself God.” We have found in Him, God “being made in the likeness of men and . . . found in fashion as a man” (Phil. 2:5-8).