Brentwood Baptist Church
People finding God

IS JESUS REALLY GOD?

Christians believe that the answer to this question is certainly YES!

Before we immediately give the answer, “Of course Jesus was God!” it is important to realise that it took the Early Church a couple of centuries to agree on that truth. The reason for this was simple. The Jews believed there was only one God. Every day they recited in their prayers, “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.” (Deut 6:4) Jewish monotheism stood out against the polytheism of Greeks, Romans and Eastern Mystery Religions. So it was very difficult for Jewish Christians to recognise that Jesus of Nazareth was not only human but also divine. Indeed it took almost four centuries for the whole church to recognise God as Three in One, a Holy Trinity. We should bear in mind that when the gospels speak of Jesus as “the Son of God” NOBODY during Jesus’s lifetime would have understood that title to mean “God the Son, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity”.  

We should also remember that before the resurrection NOBODY who saw and listened to Jesus immediately said, “This man is God”. His miracles were not taken as proof of Jesus’s divinity. Indeed Jesus refused to give any such proof or sign. For us with hindsight and the eye of faith there were glimpses in Jesus’s ministry and His teaching that He was more than a man. But we should not expect that “not yet Christians” will be convinced by Bible verses alone that Jesus Christ is Lord and God. That recognition needs the revealing work of the Holy Spirit. The three passages which do declare the divinity of Christ unambiguously are John 20:28, John 1:1-4 and Philippians 2:6-8. These assure us that we can safely accept that other “glimpses” also reveal His divine nature.

The apostle Paul was convinced that Jesus's resurrection was proof that Jesus was indeed God. See Romans 1:1-4.
 

And Jesus Himself claimed to be God in a number of statements in John’s Gospel. See John 6:35; 8:12; 8:58; 10:7; 10:11; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1. It is very significant that “I am” (usually translated in our Bibles as “the LORD”) was the name by which God revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14) and that God was pictured as the Shepherd in Psalm 23. When Jesus said "I am the Good Shepherd", He was indeed claiming to be God

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