Not a slogan, and not something a council dreamed up centuries later. The claim is written into the New Testament from its first lines, by Jewish believers who would never have called a man God lightly.
Is Jesus God? Yes. The New Testament calls Him God outright, gives Him the divine name, credits Him with creating everything, and shows Jewish monotheists worshiping Him.
He is fully God and fully human, the eternal Son, one of the three Persons of the one God who is Father, Son and Spirit. And because He is God, Jesus is the clearest look at God anyone will ever get.
What Jesus said about Himself is covered in did Jesus claim to be God. This page asks the wider question: what does the whole New Testament say He is, and do the hard verses hold up against it?
John opens with the same words that open the Greek translation of Genesis: en archē, in the beginning. Before he says anything about a carpenter from Nazareth, he takes you behind creation and tells you who was already there.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
John 1:1Three statements in one verse. The Word already existed when the beginning began. The Word was with God, distinct, face to face with the Father. And the Word was God, sharing everything that makes God who He is. Then verse 14 brings it down to earth: the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.
Kai, and. Theos, God. Ēn, was. Ho logos, the Word. Greek puts God first in the clause for emphasis, which is why a very literal rendering reads “and God was the Word.”
Theos has no definite article here. Greek often drops it on a noun that describes the subject, especially when that noun comes before the verb. It tells you what the Word is, without making the Word and the Father the same Person.
Ēn is a continuous past tense. In the beginning the Word already was. John saves the word became (egeneto) for verse 14, when the Word becomes flesh.
John is precise about two things at once: the Word is God, and the Word is not the Father. He closes the prologue the same way, calling Jesus “the one and only Son, who is himself God” (John 1:18). More in Jesus is the Word and the incarnation of Jesus.
Jesus rarely announced His identity in a sentence. He did what, in a first century Jewish setting, only God was allowed to do, and let people respond the way you only respond to God. Some fell on their knees. Others picked up stones.
“Before Abraham was born, I am!” Not I was. He takes the name God gave Moses at the bush (Exodus 3:14), and the crowd reached for stones. More in I am who I am.
“I and the Father are one.” His opponents did not hear teamwork. They picked up stones, they said, “because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
He told a paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” The teachers of the law asked the right question: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Only God forgives what was done to God.
After the storm, “those who were in the boat worshiped him.” After the resurrection, “they worshiped him; but some doubted.” Peter refused worship (Acts 10:26). An angel refused it (Revelation 22:9). Jesus never did.
“Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’”
John 20:28Some say Thomas was just exclaiming in surprise. To me, that is a stretch. He says it to Jesus, and a devout Jew tossing God's name around would have earned a correction. Instead Jesus answers, “Because you have seen me, you have believed,” and blesses everyone who makes the same confession after him. The Bible either means what it says or it does not.
Jesus did divine things, accepted divine worship, and was condemned for it. His opponents understood the claim better than some of His admirers do today.
Every post here is free to read. If this one helped you, you can help keep it that way. Pick an amount and finish on Stripe's secure checkout.
Change your amount, update your card, or cancel anytime. Enter the email you give with and Stripe sends you a secure link.
Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
A popular line says the church turned a Jewish teacher into God at the Council of Nicaea in 325. The letters say otherwise. Paul wrote Philippians and Colossians roughly thirty years after the resurrection, and they already use the highest terms there are.
“Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”
Philippians 2:6 to 7Every knee will bow and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord. That line comes from Isaiah 45:23, where God says, “Before me every knee will bow.” Paul takes a sentence God spoke about Himself and gives it to Jesus.
The Son is “the image of the invisible God.” Everything was created in Him, through Him and for Him. A chapter later: “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” Not some of it. All of it.
The Son is “the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being.” Then Paul quotes Psalm 45 and says it is spoken about the Son: “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever.” The Father calls the Son God. We believe Paul wrote Hebrews (Timothy appears in 13:23, and the early Eastern church received it as his), though some scholars see it differently.
Paul calls Jesus “our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” In the Greek, one article covers both titles, so God and Savior name one Person. Peter uses the same construction in 2 Peter 1:1.
Around AD 112, Pliny the Younger, the Roman governor of Bithynia, wrote to the emperor Trajan that Christians “were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god.” He was no believer, just reporting what his interrogations turned up.
So Nicaea did not invent the deity of Jesus. When Arius, a priest in Alexandria, taught that the Son was the highest created being, the church answered with words it still confesses: “true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.” They were defending what believers had sung for two centuries.
Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims and thoughtful skeptics read these same pages and conclude Jesus is not God. They are not foolish or dishonest, and their verses really are in the text. So here is each one at its strongest, then in context.
A man calls Jesus good teacher. Jesus answers, “Why do you call me good?” and says no one is good except God alone. So, the argument goes, Jesus is denying that He is God.
Jesus never says I am not good. He makes the man weigh his own words. If only God is good, and the man is right to call Jesus good, he is closer to the truth than he knows. Then Jesus tells him to sell everything and follow Him.
Jesus says, “the Father is greater than I.” Greater, the argument goes, means less than God.
He says it the night before the cross, having taken “the very nature of a servant” (Philippians 2:7), about to return to the glory He shared with the Father before the world began (John 17:5). Greater in position, not a different kind of being. A father outranks his son and is no more human.
The New World Translation renders the last clause “and the Word was a god.” Since theos has no article, Witnesses argue, the Word is divine only in a lesser sense.
Theos lacks the article in John 1:6, 12 and 13 too, and nobody translates those “a god.” A lesser god also collides with Isaiah 45:22: “I am God, and there is no other.”
Colossians 1:15 calls Jesus “the firstborn over all creation,” which the Arian reading takes as first created. The New World Translation even adds the word other four times in verses 16 and 17.
Firstborn is a title of rank and inheritance. God says of David, “I will appoint him to be my firstborn” (Psalm 89:27). And Paul explains his word in the next breath: for in Him all things were created. Creator and heir, not first product.
In Psalm 89:27, who does God appoint as His firstborn?
David was the youngest of Jesse's sons (1 Samuel 16:11), yet God calls him firstborn. The word names rank and inheritance, which is exactly how Paul uses it of Jesus in Colossians 1:15.
And if Jesus is God, who was He praying to? The Father, one Person speaking to another within the one God. See the Trinity in the Bible.
Sound of Heaven believes Jesus is God. Not a god, not the highest creature, not a prophet the church later promoted. He is fully God and fully human in one Person, the eternal Son. We hold that without hedging.
There is an error on the other side too. Some sincere Christians say Father, Son and Spirit are three ways one God shows up, like one man who is a father, a son and a husband. That is modalism, and it is wrong. At the Jordan the Son stands in the water, the Spirit descends and the Father speaks, all at once (Matthew 3:16 to 17). These are real relationships between real Persons. More in is God and Jesus the same person.
And a correction aimed at a sermon you may have heard. Jesus did not come to calm down an angry Father who wanted to destroy you. That picture splits God in two, a gentle Son in front of a harsh God, and it gets used on anxious people to keep them afraid. If Jesus is God, there is no different God hiding behind Him.
Faith here does not mean switching off your mind. Faith grows out of evidence. Jesus is who He said He is because He did what He said He would do, and the resurrection is the hinge. A dead teacher can be admired. A risen Lord has to be answered.
Jesus is not less than God and not the Father in disguise. He is God the Son, equal with the Father, and the one who shows you the Father.
This is more than a debate topic. If Jesus is God, then Jesus is the final and perfect revelation of God. Not one prophet among many. The last word.
“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”
John 14:9Hebrews opens by saying God spoke through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but has now spoken by His Son (Hebrews 1:1 to 2). The prophets gave real but partial glimpses, and some of what people wrote about God carried their own fears and wars with it. Jesus does not throw the Old Testament away. He clarifies it. When a passage paints God in a way that looks nothing like Jesus, Jesus gets the final say.
So look at what He does. He touches lepers. He eats with people the religious crowd wrote off. He forgives the men driving the nails. That is not a softer side of God. That is God. And His Kingdom is not something we wait for. He reigns now, and He invites you in today.
You do not need perfect theology to come to Him. Thomas started with doubt and ended on his knees. Tell Him what you believe and what you are not sure of yet. He is kind about the difference. If you would like someone to pray with you, send us a prayer request, or come see us in Deer Park on a Sunday.
For related reading, see is Jesus the Son of God, the I am statements, Jesus is Lord, the names of Jesus, what God looks like, who God is and what we believe.
Jesus is God: called God by John, Thomas and Paul, bearing the divine name, worshiped by Jewish monotheists, distinct from the Father yet equal with Him, and the one place to look to see exactly what God is like.
Doubt is not a dead end. Send us your question or a prayer request, and someone from Sound of Heaven will walk through it with you.
Both. Is Jesus God? The New Testament says yes. John 1:1 says the Word was God, Thomas calls Him my Lord and my God in John 20:28, and Titus 2:13 calls Him our great God and Savior. In Jesus' case, Son of God does not mean a lesser being. His opponents heard it as a claim to equality with God (John 5:18). He is God the Son, sharing the Father's nature fully.
Not in those exact words. But He said things a first century Jew could only hear one way. He said before Abraham was born, I am, taking the name God gave Moses. He forgave sins committed against God. He said He and the Father are one, and His opponents tried to stone Him because, in their words, He claimed to be God. He accepted worship and blessed Thomas for calling Him God.
In John 14:28 Jesus is speaking the night before the cross, in His humbled state. Philippians 2 says He made Himself nothing and took the very nature of a servant. In that role the Father is greater in position. It does not make the Son a lesser kind of being. The same Gospel opens by saying the Word was God, and records Jesus returning to the glory He shared with the Father before the world began.
No. Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Jesus is God's first creation, a mighty spirit being, but not Almighty God. Their New World Translation renders John 1:1 as the Word was a god and adds the word other to Colossians 1:16 and 17. We disagree, because the same Greek pattern elsewhere in John 1 is never translated that way, and Scripture rules out a second, lesser god. Most Witnesses are sincere, and the conversation is worth having with kindness.
He was praying to the Father. Christians do not believe Jesus is the Father. We believe in one God who exists as three distinct Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. When the Son prays, one Person is speaking to another within the life of the one God. That is why Jesus can say I and the Father are one and also pray to Him. It only looks like a contradiction if you assume God is a single Person.