[The text below represents an edited transcript of this Tomorrow’s World program.]
Who Do You Think Jesus Is?
Ask five different people about Jesus Christ and you’ll likely get five different opinions. However, one question sits at the heart of the religion that bears His name: Is Jesus God?
And today, we’re going to answer that question. Don’t go away!
Overwhelming Historical Evidence That Jesus Christ Was a Real Person
Greetings, and welcome to Tomorrow’s World, where we help you to make sense of your world through the pages of the Bible. We’re glad you’re here, and today’s question is one of the most important questions you could ever ask: Is Jesus God?
This question about Jesus is important. Estimates indicate around 2.4 billion people in the world claim Christianity as their religion—almost half-a-billion more than claim Islam and more than a billion more than claim Hinduism. Yet, even as almost one-third of the planet claims a religion centered on the person of Jesus Christ, many of those same people disagree on exactly who He really was.
For some, even some claiming to be Christian, Jesus was simply a man—a Jewish teacher in the first century, who just happened to have an outsized impact on world culture. The late Shelby Spong, a bishop in the Episcopal Church, was quite famous for his stance that Jesus was not actually God, was not born from a virgin, and was never resurrected.
Other religions claiming to be Christian teach different things about Jesus’ divinity. Some teach that Jesus was a created being, like the angels. Some identify Him with the archangel Michael. Others claim that Jesus and the Devil were brothers in the past. And others, further, claim that Jesus and the Father are the very same person, and not two separate divine persons, at all.
Outside of nominal Christianity, ideas vary, as well. Some religions consider Jesus to have been a holy man, or wise guru, or even a prophet, but not truly divine in the way God is divine. Others consider Him a manifestation of God, like an avatar, or some sort of ascended master in the manner of new age teachings.
And then, there are those who don’t think He ever existed—as if He were a figment of the imagination, or a fiction created in the first century to form the basis of a new religion.
Perhaps we should tackle this question first, in the event some of you have been infected by this pernicious lie.
There is abundant evidence that Jesus of Nazareth did, indeed, exist. Even if we treat the New Testament not as Scripture, but as a mere human product of history, just like Homer’s Iliad or Caesar’s commentaries, it provides abundant evidence that Jesus was a real person, going back to within two or three decades of His life. We even have a fragment from the gospel of John, the famous Rylands Library Papyrus P52, that dates back to within a handful of years after the Apostle John is believed to have written it.
And, outside of the New Testament, a number of secular historical records refer to Jesus and the impact of His teachings and example in the first century. The contemporary Jewish historian Josephus, the Roman historian Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger all speak of Jesus Christ as a real person—much too early in the historical record for some imaginary account to have taken hold so profoundly.
In fact, one of the most effective defenders of the very real existence of Jesus Christ is New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman. While Ehrman has publicly declared that he does not believe Jesus was divine, does not believe in the supernatural, and does not consider himself a Christian, he is just as clear that the evidence for Jesus’ existence is overwhelming.
Referring to those who claim Jesus’ existence is just a myth, Ehrman writes,
“It is fair to say that mythicists as a group, and as individuals, are not taken seriously by the vast majority of scholars in the field of New Testament, early Christianity, ancient history, and theology” (Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, 2012. p. 20).
In fact, almost all scholars, secular and religious alike, tend to agree. As Ehrman summarizes,
“Despite the enormous range of opinion, there are several points on which virtually all scholars of antiquity agree. Jesus was a Jewish man, known to be a preacher and teacher, who was crucified (a Roman form of execution) in Jerusalem during the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was the governor of Judea” (p. 12).
In short, those who say that Jesus never existed should be taken as seriously as those who say the tooth fairy or Santa Claus do exist.
Facts are facts. And the man Jesus of Nazareth did live and walk this earth around two thousand years ago in Judea, teaching around the Sea of Galilee and in Jerusalem.
But is that where the story ends? A great teacher dies in His early thirties and just happens to have a religion founded in His name? Or was Jesus more than a man?
Jesus Christ Was God in the Flesh—but Also Preincarnate
And the question at the heart of our discussion today—is Jesus God?—is either true or false. So, which is it?
Admittedly, that idea that Jesus could be God, like God the Father is God, is a large and audacious claim, to be sure! And the only way to know is to let God, Himself, reveal the answer to us.
Let the scholars and skeptics have their opinions and debate their conclusions. What should concern us is what God says of Jesus. What DOES God’s word say? Was Jesus merely a man? Or, perhaps, something greater than a man but less than God, like an angel? Or was He truly GOD in the flesh?
The Bible answers these questions plainly: JESUS IS GOD!
In fact, His identity as God was declared long before He was even born!
In his gospel, Matthew explains that Jesus’ virgin birth had been prophesied long before by Isaiah:
“So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,’ which is translated, ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:22–23).
That’s right: Jesus is, literally, “God with us”!
The Apostle John, in his gospel account, explains this in some detail. Let’s read it in John 1, beginning in verse 1:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:1–5).
The “Word”—or, in Greek, the “Logos” or “Spokesman”—is the One who became Jesus Christ. In the event it is not clear, John specifies a few verses later:
And the Word became 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 (John 1:14).
John is plain. The One now known as Jesus Christ had been with God and was, Himself, God also! He had been with God in eternity past, before Creation existed. In fact, in His final Passover on this earth, Jesus prayed that after His crucifixion He would be returned to this state of glory with His Father—back to the state of eternal co-existence they had known before He became flesh. We read it in John 17 and verse 5, where Jesus prays,
“And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5).
Yes, existing in eternity past with the One we now call the Father, Jesus, too, was God! John calls Him the Word, or the Logos in Greek. This is because He has always been the Spokesman for God, representing the Father’s will and the Father’s word. Jesus says this in John 12:
“For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak” (John 12:49).
Jesus plainly knew who He was—one of the two divine members of the God Family. During His ministry, he made numerous statements illustrating this—so clearly that Jewish authorities sought to stone Him for what they saw as blasphemous claims.
In John 8, for instance, Jesus speaks of the ancient patriarch Abraham, beginning in verse 56:
“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”
Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?”
“Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:56-58).
There should be no doubt about this statement! Jesus did NOT say, “Before Abraham was, I was.” He said “before Abraham was, I AM.” That otherwise-ungrammatical statement is a direct call-back to God’s statement to Moses:
“And God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14).
The Jews of Jesus’ day understood His claim and sought to stone Him for it. Later, He makes a similar claim of His own divinity. We see this in John 10:
“I and My Father are one.”
Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him.
Jesus answered them, “Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?”
The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God” (John 10:30–33).
Yes, Jesus knew who He was—and the religious leaders of His day understood exactly what His claims meant!
Not only did Jesus understand who He was, His first century followers did, as well. And if He is anything less than God, then the core beliefs, practices, and truths of Christianity become a lie.
God Created All Things Through Jesus Christ—His Son, the Word, the Savior.
In Colossians 2:2, the Apostle Paul referred to “the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ.” Yes, the godhead consists of the Father and Christ—the two members of the God family.
Speaking of Jesus Christ, Paul writes earlier in Colossians 1, beginning in verse 16:
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist (Colossians 1:16–17).
Such words echo what we read earlier from John chapter 1, that “all things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” That is a very thorough statement!
Henry Ford is properly credited with creating the “Model T” in America, but others were the hands that accomplished the work. So, too, God the Father is our Creator, yet the Bible makes plain whose hands, as it were, did the work: those of the One who became Jesus Christ! All was created through Him and for Him.
Jesus Christ is, in a real way, our Creator, just as the Father is! Together, they are the reason that Genesis 1:26 says, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness….” Because there were TWO God beings speaking! In fact, the Hebrew word translated “God” in this passage, Elohim, is unusual for being a singular word that is plural in form—another hint that there is more to “God” than meets the eye!
Paul is just as blatant in Ephesians 3 and verse 9, where he says he seeks “to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ.”
These passages and others make it clear that Jesus Christ is not an angel, not even the archangel Michael. Note Hebrews 1 and verse 5,
For to which of the angels did He ever say: “You are My Son, today I have begotten You”? And again: “I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son”? (Hebrews 1:5).
And, too, verse 13,
But to which of the angels has He ever said: “Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool”? (Hebrews 1:13).
These are rhetorical questions, because the answer is meant to be obvious: To NONE of the angels has God ever said this! They have only been spoken to the Father’s co-creator, who was with God and who was God—the one we now call Jesus Christ.
In fact, all the vital truths at the very heart of the faith of the Bible depend on the truth that Jesus is God.
Consider, how is it that Jesus Christ has standing to die in our stead for our sins? He has that standing because, as our Creator, He can take that responsibility on Himself.
And how is it that His life is sufficient to pay for all of our sins? It is because, as God, His life is worth infinitely more than all of our lives combined—an eternal life given as the payment for the eternal death we’ve earned.
And so, our Creator became a human being, born of a woman, to be able to die and pay that penalty. In explaining this, the Apostle Paul, again, explains just who Jesus really is. Read with me in Philippians 2, where some translations don’t always communicate the fullness of what Paul is saying [vv. 5–8]:
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:5–8).
The New King James’ phrasing here about not considering it “robbery to be equal with God” and “making Himself of no reputation” is awkward, and other translations take it differently.
For instance, the English Standard Version translates verses 6 and 7 this way, saying that Christ, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”
Although He existed in glory with God from eternity past, He did not consider that something He had to desperately cling to, but, instead, was willing to empty Himself of His divine prerogatives and become just like us, His creation, to serve us with His life and death.
The awe-inspiring truth of Jesus Christ—the Word, the divine Spokesman of the God Family—is truly humbling to consider. He lowered Himself from glory to become like us, all so that He might one day lift us up to join Him and His Father in that same glory!
But understanding this profound truth about the identity of Jesus is more than an academic exercise.
The God of the Old Testament and the Son of God Are One and the Same.
When we understand who Jesus really is, it is no wonder that the Apostle Thomas, upon seeing the resurrected Christ, called Him “my Lord and My God!” And it is also no wonder that those living under the Family of God in the Millennial reign of the Kingdom of God will refer to Him as “Mighty God” (Isaiah 9:6).
The Word, the Logos, the divine Spokesman for the God Family willingly set aside the indescribable glory, power, and majesty He had eternally shared with the Father to live a perfect human life, set us an example of righteousness, and become our perfect sacrifice so that we might be cleansed of our sins. Then, three days and three nights later, after His death, He was, in the words of Paul, “declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4).
Yet, many who claim to be Christians seek to avoid the full implications of Jesus’ identity as God.
For instance, many write off the God of the Old Testament as cruel and heartless—unlike Jesus, who is seen as loving and merciful. And God’s commandments are often slandered as too restrictive and harsh.
Yet, consider—who was it who thundered the Ten Commandments to ancient Israel on Mount Sinai and served as the Commander of the Army of the Lord, as He called Himself to Joshua?
The Apostle Paul makes the matter clear. We see this in 1 Corinthians 10, beginning in verse 1:
Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ(1 Corinthians 10:1–4).
Yes, it was Jesus Christ—as the divine Logos or Spokesman—who thundered the Ten Commandments!
Consider: Exodus 33 and 34 explain that Moses saw God from behind with His own eyes. And the account of Exodus 24 is even more explicit:
Then Moses went up, also Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity (Exodus 24:9–10).
Note, it says plainly “they saw the God of Israel.” Yet compare that to John 1:18, which says, “No one has seen God at any time,” and Jesus’ words of John 6:46:
“Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father.”
Yes, the elders of Israel saw God, but they did not see the Father. Rather, the Member of the God Family they saw was the One who would become the Son, the divine Logos!
So, if it was Jesus Christ who spoke those Ten Commandments, including the Sabbath command, should they not mean more to followers of Jesus Christ than they seem to mean to most self-proclaimed Christians today?
And consider, too, our ultimate destiny. In 1 John 3 and verse 2, note what the Apostle writes to us:
Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2).
If we are to become like Christ is now, and Christ now possesses the glory He had with the Father before the world was, then what does that say about the glorious future existence ahead for those who await His return? And what does it say about Jesus’ prayer on His last Passover that His followers may one day be one, just as He and his Father are?
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