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Was Jesus Christ merely a “good man” or was He more than man? The second century Gnostics and their modern counterparts (i.e., the Jehovah’s Witness sect, the Unitarians, etc.) say He was merely a created being or a man. Unitarians hold that He was a Son of God but that anyone else could be such as He was if they desired to strongly enough. Such doctrines are blasphemy to those who understand and respect the teaching of Scripture. To say that Jesus Christ is Deity is to say that He is possessed of the fullest Godhood, the very eternal nature and existence and the same Divinity as the Father.
The claims and evidence for the Deity of Jesus begin long before He was born in Bethlehem of Judea. The Son to be born of a virgin was to be named “Immanuel,” meaning “God is with us or among us” (Isa. 7:14). By inspiration, Matthew applied these words to Jesus (Mat. 1:23). Again, prophesying the coming of the Prince of Peace, Isaiah called Him “Mighty God,” and ”Everlasting Father” 700 years before he was born (Isa. 9:16). Either Isaiah was guilty of blasphemy (in which case his prophetic work is totally disallowed) for applying these names and titles that belong only to Deity to Jesus Christ, or those who deny Christ His true Deity are blasphemers. Which shall it be?
John’s Gospel account opens with a declaration of Christ’s Deity: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). He then identifies the Word as the incarnate Son of God: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” (John 1:14). During His work on earth, Jesus was fully conscious of His Deity. He said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30) and “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father (John 14:9). He claimed the power to forgive sins, which the Pharisees correctly attributed only to God (Luke 5:21–24). He claimed all authority in Heaven and on earth (Mat. 28:18).
His Deity is proclaimed frequently and consistently in the New Testament epistles. It is a prominent part of the Pentecost sermon (Acts 2:32–36). Paul said of Him, “For in Him were all things created, in the Heavens and upon the earth…and he is before all things and in Him all things consist” (Col. 1:16–17). Jesus is said to be the “effulgence of His (God’s DM) glory, and the very image of His substance (Heb. 1:3). These are only samplings of the Biblical claim for the Deity of Christ.
[Note: I wrote this article for, and it was published in the “Bible Thoughts” Column for the Hood County News, Granbury, Texas, June 29, 1980.]
Attribution: From thescripturecache.com; Dub McClish, owner and administrator.
