Is Jesus God?

What the Bible says

The New Testament testifies to Jesus’ deity in many ways. The clearest is the opening of John’s Gospel.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:1

“With God” means the Word is distinct from the Father. “Was God” means he shares the Father’s deity. John goes on to say that this Word became flesh and lived among us (John 1:14). In verse 18 he writes that “the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is at the Father’s side, has made Him known” (John 1:18). It should be said that manuscripts divide here between “the only God” and “the only Son,” and scholars still debate the reading. John 1:1 above and John 20:28 below are enough to make John’s meaning plain.

Jesus’ own words and actions point the same way. In a dispute with his hearers he said:

“Truly, truly, I tell you,” Jesus declared, “before Abraham was born, I am!”

John 8:58

“I am” recalls the name God gave Moses at the burning bush: “I AM WHO I AM” (Exod 3:14). His hearers understood him, and they picked up stones. On another occasion Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.” They answered:

“We are not stoning You for any good work,” said the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because You, who are a man, make Yourself out to be God.”

John 10:33

Jesus also forgave sins. When he told a paralysed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven,” the scribes thought, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:5-7). They were right about that. Sin is above all an offence against God, and only God can pardon it. The disciples in the boat worshiped him and said, “Truly You are the Son of God!” (Matt 14:33). The Greek word for worship can also mean bowing in homage, but when Cornelius bows to Peter, or John to an angel, each refuses it (Acts 10:25-26; Rev 19:10). Jesus did not turn it away.

The apostles’ letters confess the same thing.

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form.

Col 2:9

But about the Son He says: “Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever, and justice is the scepter of Your kingdom.

Heb 1:8

Colossians 1:15-20 says that all things were created through him. Hebrews 1:3 calls him “the exact representation of His nature,” who is “upholding all things by His powerful word.” Titus 2:13 speaks of “our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” Many translations read Romans 9:5 the same way, though scholars divide over where that sentence breaks. At the end of John’s Gospel, Thomas stands before the risen Jesus and says:

Thomas replied, “My Lord and my God!”

John 20:28

Jesus did not correct him. He received the confession.

The church's witness

The church set this confession down in a creed in the fourth century. Arius, a presbyter in Alexandria, taught that the Son was the highest of created beings, made before all else, but not eternal and not of the same being as the Father. Many found this persuasive. It came from a serious wish to protect the belief that God is one and cannot be divided. But the Council of Nicaea in 325 rejected it, and Athanasius defended the faith against it for most of his life. The creed confesses the Son as “true God from true God,” begotten, not made, of one being with the Father The Nicene Creed. Athanasius’ reasoning was simple. A creature cannot save us. Only God can join us to God again.

The Fathers read the same point in Scripture. Gregory comments on John 8:58 that Jesus did not say “I was” but “I am,” because “Divinity has no past or future, but always the present,” as in the divine name given in Exodus Gregory.

Matthew Henry, on John 10:30, writes that Jesus’ words prove “he claimed Divine power and perfection equally with the Father” Matthew Henry.

In the original languages

Theos (θεός) is the Greek word for “God.” In John 1:1 the Word was “with God” and “was God,” and the second “God” has no article. On this basis some translations render it “a god.” But in Greek a predicate noun placed before the verb normally lacks the article, and most scholars think the sentence says that the Word is God in nature, which fits both grammar and context. John goes on to say that “through Him all things were made” (John 1:3): the Word stands on the Creator’s side, not among created things.

Kyrios (κύριος) means “lord.” In daily life it could be a polite title, but the Greek Old Testament used it for God’s name, the LORD. So when Jewish Christians said “Jesus is Lord,” the weight of it was great. Philippians says that God gave him “the name above all names” and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Phil 2:9-11).

Common objections

“Jesus never said he was God.” There is truth in this. In the Gospels Jesus never says in those exact words, “I am God,” and many scholars think the strongest claims in John reflect the church’s later reflection. But it does not follow that he made no claim to deity. The reaction of his hearers is the evidence. In John they picked up stones because he made himself equal with God. In Mark, which most scholars take to be the earliest Gospel, the scribes counted his forgiving of sins as blasphemy. The high priest turned his answer at the trial against him (Mark 14:61-62). Jesus spoke of himself as before Abraham and one with the Father. He may have avoided the plain title to prevent misunderstanding, since even “Messiah” stirred political hopes. This is an interpretation, but the weight of the evidence is not light.

“Didn’t he say, ‘The Father is greater than I’?” This is the most common biblical objection, and it cannot be waved away. Jesus did say:

You heard Me say, ‘I am going away, and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.

John 14:28

Arius’ followers used this verse to argue that the Son is lesser. The church did not deny the verse. It read it differently. The Son took the form of a servant in the incarnation, so as man he is less than the Father, while in his divinity he is equal. Augustine puts it this way: “the form of God which is not lost, is greater than the form of a servant which was put on” Augustine. Hilary offers another reading: the Father is greater as the giver, yet “He to whom unity with that giver is given, is not the less” Hilary. The church thought this reading fits the rest of John’s Gospel. Not everyone is persuaded by it, and the argument has continued through history.

“Then are there two Gods?” The church never loosened the confession that God is one. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God, distinct as persons. This mystery is treated further in What is the Trinity?. To call Jesus God is not to say there are two gods. It is to say that the Son is within the one God’s own life.

Going further

To confess Jesus as God is first a comfort. God did not stay far away. He came as one who knows our weakness. It also leaves a question. If he is God, what weight do his words and his call carry?

You might ask yourself some questions. Is my difficulty with this confession caused by certain verses, or by the thought that “a man cannot be God”? If it is true that God became a man, how would I come to treat God? Have I ever read the Gospels as Thomas came, with an honest question?

To read further, see Who is Jesus? and What is the Trinity?. Reading John 1 and Philippians 2 side by side is a good place to start.