After our stirring discussion on the flight to Los Angeles, we agreed to look into this business of the nature of Christ—whether he is God or not, that is. In keeping with this I discovered and read the appendix in What Does the Bible Really Teach (which I received from your friends) entitled “The Truth About the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” I found this to be a very good representation of your perspective, concisely presenting many of the same verses you referenced. Since it was in writing, I was able to ponder its thoughts and search the scriptures more carefully than our conversation allowed. (We both experienced how frustrating it can be to have a thought from the Bible but not quite have the ability to find its reference or be able to quote it verbatim.)
I hope, after such inquiry, to have come to clear understanding of What Does the Bible Really Teach and what the Bible really does teach. I have found that the Bible says (and means) that the Father is God, and the Spirit is God, and the Son is God. Therefore Jesus is indeed deity. Whereas I admit that I am at least somewhat biased in my interpretation of scripture, as any person with a worldview must be, I believe honestly that my conclusion is founded solidly on Biblical evidence. I urge you to wait a moment in shutting the possibility out of Christ being God, only long enough to give sincere and searching look at this evidence, and join with me in praying to God in the name of Jesus Christ that he would indeed reveal to us the fullness of who He is.
With a prayerful mind, I present the evidence to support my conclusion in the pages that follow. With this evidence I am not attempting to demonstrate that Christ did not have humanity, for we agree he clearly did. Rather I will focus solely on the point that he also possessed complete divinity. No matter how “beyond us” this is, it is clear in scripture. Christ was 100% God, 100% man. I’m not going to undertake a rationalization of this that will allow complete comprehension. (I don’t fully understand it myself!) But as John Piper says, “It is not for us to tell God how it is, but to accept how it is.” What I will attempt is not to make sense of it, but simply show using the Bible which we hold in common that, holding honestly and completely to it, one cannot let go of either part of Christ.
I hope you will take the time to read it. (After all, I took the time to write it! No copy/pasting!) I would love to hear what you thought of it. What are your first reactions? Your thoughts? How else do you explain such scriptures (for I do indeed want to know if there is another equally satisfying way around them)? Has your belief changed in any way? Do you have further questions for me? I look forward to your reply, if it pleases you to send one. I only ask that you not let this issue slide underneath the table, because it is, as we said at the end of our conversation, of utmost weight to our faith—the faith around which we have centered our hope, and our very lives.
May God bless you and keep you, and make his face shine on you, and give you peace. In the name of Christ, your fellow truth-seeker,
Ben
The principle evidence used by both Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christians is John 1:1. However, because any direct scriptural interpretation of this verse depends on a confident knowledge of Greek, and both sides have translations resulting from their interpreting of this verse, I cannot use this verse as evidence; neither can a Jehovah’s Witness. That means that the paragraph with the subhead “’The Word was God’” is rendered obsolete.
In the “Get More Facts” section, I agree that “to grasp the meaning of John 1:1, you can look into the Gospel of John for more information on Jesus’ position.” The second paragraph quotes John 1:18 as evidence that Christ cannot be God since many saw Christ but “no one has seen God.” But look at the second part of the verse, which the article failed to mention—it is arranged as a contrast to the first part, and it says, “[but] the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” Christ then, is the “image of the invisible God,” the visible part of the invisible, the manifestation of the otherwise incomprehensible, the communicated message from the inscrutable source. Therefore the article presents a logically false dilemma resolved after the semicolon in the verse.
The next argument on page 203 says, “the Word was also ‘with God.’ But how can someone be ‘with’ someone and at the same time ‘be’ that person?” I object that this is imposing what the scripture can or cannot mean, based on human logic. We must rather take it at its word. The real question is the one asked on the previous page: “Is the idea of the Trinity found there [in the Bible]?” Keep reading the evidence in this letter…
The next argument the article makes is that “Jesus making a clear distinction between himself and his heavenly Father.” However, this statement is irrelevant, it is beside the point. As I said in the introduction, the Trinity does not deny that Jesus is the Son of God at all; anyone who accuses a Trinitarian of this belief is misinformed. Using John 20:31 (page 203) is void for the same reason – we agree that Christ is the Son of God, even while he is part of God. In the same way, a Trinitarian does not deny the truth of Psalm 90:2 and Acts 7:55 (the “extra proof” on page 204). Proving that Christ is distinct from God does not detract at all from the deity of Christ according to the Trinity, because the doctrine of the Trinity embraces both of these apparently contradictory statements.[1]
The last piece of evidence in the article is from Matthew 24:36: “Concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father.” I found this the most compelling bit of evidence presented in the article—it’s a good point. If Christ is not here all-knowing, then how he can share in the omniscient nature of God? My answer comes from the fact that God often causes himself to appear to us in human ways. That is, there are other instances of him masking his omnipotence and omniscience. For example, Exodus 32:14, Genesis 6:6. If God can regret, if he can change his mind, then he can also “not know” something. I challenge someone to resolve the totality of Jehovah’s human-like personifications in the Bible! They are a mystery; we must believe that He reveals himself in these ways for a good reason.
John 1:2-3
“He was in the beginning with God”
And we know that “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Therefore, at the point when Jehovah created, Jesus already was. Simply was. Existent.
To clarify consider Jude 1:25: “to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” All glory went to Jehovah through Christ before all time. (See also John 17:5) That means even before any number of billions and billions of years that the two might have spent together before the rest of creation, because years is still time, regardless of how far it is removed from the present. We’re talking of the eternal past here – and only deity dwelt in eternity past.
“All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”
· One might reason, “certainly the maker is naturally excluded from ‘all things’ that are made – concluding that “all other things” is the implied meaning.
· That is why the New World Translation marks this as “all [other] things”; however, “other” is not in the Greek – it is inserted (hence the brackets) in order to make the interpretation consistent.
· John apparently understood that potential line of reasoning also, because he rephrased himself to clarify. “And apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”
o Why did he repeat himself and add emphasis? He wanted to reemphasize the “not created” status of the Word
o Without Him, nothing was made that is in the “made” category
o If He is in the “made” category, then he must have made himself
o If you don’t exist, you can’t bring yourself into being
o Therefore he can’t be in that category!
John 1:18
“No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”
This verse is quoted in “The Truth About the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” However, some overlooked truth in this very passage points to the deity of Christ. He, the Word spoken of (consider context), who is in the bosom of the Father, is called “God”! How then, since the Father is Jehovah, God Almighty, can God be in his bosom?
And furthermore, how is God begotten? This must not be creation or birth, but an issuing forth of the essence, which has been present for eternity. For God was and is and is to come; there is never a time when God was not. This is a compelling mystery. I think it is the mystery called the Trinity we are running into.
Genesis 3:5, 18:1-19:1, and 32:24-32
One more thought on “no one has seen God”—people have seen Him! Now if God has never been seen, then we have a contradiction. But if it was Christ, “who has revealed” or “explained” the Father, and he is truthfully referred to as Jehovah in these passages, then we have a way to avoid contradiction.
· “They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” (Genesis 3:5) How can the Lord God Almighty descend from his throne, where he reigns with power over creation, to walk about in the garden like a human? However, if the pre-incarnate Christ were here in the garden “in the cool of the day” then the divine sovereignty can remain uncompromised.
· Genesis chapter 18, especially noting verses 1, 22, 33, and 19:1. God here appears with two angels to Abraham and talks to Him in the form of a man, before going down to Sodom. He is referred to as a man and yet when Abraham talks to him, the text refers to the man as Jehovah.
· Genesis 32:24-32. Jacob here wrestles with Jehovah as with a man. He asked the man’s name but his response was only “why do you ask my name?” – That’s the same kind of enigmatic response that Moses got when he asked Jehovah, “Who should I tell them has sent me to you?” Because of this Jacob realized with awe who he had been wrestling with and said he had seen Jehovah face to face.
Jehovah Himself manifested himself as a man in the Old Testament, even before He so manifested himself in the New Testament through Jesus. If these passages are true, it would require a man to be God and God to be a man. I believe that the one spoken of here is the Second Person of the Trinity – Jesus Christ, appearing before his coming. (This view is not just mine – it is agreed upon by =many protestant theologians.)
Isaiah 9:6
“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on his shoulders; and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”
A child will be born, incarnate on earth, and yet he will be Mighty God, Eternal Father? This is a miracle indeed! And we agree that it is Jesus Christ who is the Messiah prophesied about in this scripture. Do I believe enough to call him all the names that “he shall be called”?
John 7:37-38 (considered with Jeremiah 2:13)
“Now on the last day, the great day of the fast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:37-38)
“For my people have committed two great evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)
How then can Christ and Jehovah both claim to be the fountain of living water? The fountain is the source, not the channel. Living water cannot flow “from” God “through” or “by” Jesus, because the fountainhead is the source! We know that the Spirit flows forth from One source only, and scripturally we see that Christ is the source, and Jehovah is the source. They must then be One.
John 20:28-29
Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”
If Thomas called Jesus “my God” in error, how could Jesus have accepted this praise? For Christ knows that Jehovah’s name is Jealous, and that he will have no gods before Him? (Even his most beloved created thing.) Christ, being such a servant of the Father, could not have accepted praise – wanting praise as Jehovah was the very sin that the Enemy fell prey to!
John 8:57-59 and John 10:30-33
“So the Jews said to Him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.’ Therefore they picked u stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.” John 8:57-59
“’I and the Father are one.’… The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, ‘I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?’ The Jews answered Him, ‘For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.’” John 10:30-33
These passages again reinforce the fact that Christ’s words were often interpreted as claims of Godhood, of being Jehovah, and he never attempted to negate, clarify, or correct this interpretation. Instead he suffered persecution at the hands of the Jews because he would not recant his statements! Who would propagate a misunderstanding – especially one that it would have greatly pleased him to correct.
If Christ was anything less than God, no matter how much his beloved son, he ought to have responded by denying the misunderstanding. Consider how Paul and Barnabas responded when people (seeing their miracles) took them for Deity:
“When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they raised their voice, saying in the Lycaonian language, ‘The gods have become like men and have come down to us.’… But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their robes and rushed out into the crowd, crying out and saying, ‘Men why are you doing these things? We are also men of the same nature as you, and preach the gospel to you that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them…’” Acts 14:11, 14-15
But Christ did not respond this way – when his statements in John were taken by the audience to mean, “I am God”, he by his response repeatedly said, “Yes, you heard me right.”
Colossians 1:15-19
When Christ is referred to as “firstborn of all creation” in verse 15 and “the firstborn from the dead” in verse 18, both context and history tell us that the meaning of the terms is not that of being “born first” but of having “first place” – highest rank and priority. “Firstborn of all creation” is followed by “For by him all things were created…through him and for him” which indicates that he is the reason for creation (priority).
“He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” He is before all things. Simple language.
“He is also head of the body, the church” Again, rank is the theme here.
“And He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself will come to have first place in everything”
Here is proof that “firstborn” does not mean literal, temporal birth, but rank. By his power Christ caused all other raising from the dead. Paul is praising the fact that Christ is top dog. If we take it literally, then that is not true, for Christ raised Lazarus from the dead before he raised himself. But in the Middle East culture of the day, “firstborn” had the connotation of rank, not of literal “birth,” because being the firstborn was a special right and privilege (double inheritance, etc.). So these verses do not say that Christ was actually born.
Instead I take this passage to be a beautiful praise of the deity of God, because Christ created “all things, both in the heavens and on earth.” How can Christ, if he existed before this “all things,” have dwelt somewhere other than the heavens or the earth? “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Created beings need a “somewhere.” So I don’t think Christ is part of this “all things” but rather the only uncreated Being.
These all things were created “for him.” But is not Jehovah concerned ultimately with his glory – did he not make the world and everything for himself? Then how is the whole point of creation one of his created beings?
John 14:8-9
“Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.’ Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?’”
If anyone who has seen Christ has seen the fullness of God the Father, how can you say they are one in purpose only? If I go as an ambassador to the U.N., unswervingly intent on the same goals as the president, even then, can I say that he who has seen me has seen the president? No, I can never assert myself to be the true president unless I am he.
Colossians 2:9
“For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form”
But Jesus is more accurately “fully like” God, having his attributes, one might say, according to the New World Translation. If Jesus Christ is fully like God, he must possess all of his attributes. The problem is there are many absolute attributes of God for which there is only a stark “yes” or “no.” For example, if he is holy, he must be fully so, there is no “partially holy.” Does he therefore share in God’s (1) omnipotence, (2) omniscience, (3) omnipresence, (4) eternality, (5) perfection, and (6) pure agape love? If Jesus does not share in these attributes, I ask how he really shares in the nature of the Father at all? If Jesus does share in these attributes with God, then I ask how there could have ever been a time when he did not? (Look at that list again and grasp it.) For how could the Father, at that point lacking that which is eternal, perfect, and all-powerful (Christ), at the same time be perfect and complete? So to be really like God is necessarily an eternal and absolute status, not something that can be gained (or lost).
Hebrews 7:1-3
“For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God….without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, he remains a priest perpetually.”
Here having “no beginning of days” is equated with “being like the son of God.” I take this to mean that the Son of God had no beginning of days, but existed “perpetually.” And if he had no beginning of days, then he could not have been created.
Another Train of Thought
Is God love? If yes,
Has he always been so? If yes,
How many persons does it take for love to exist? At least two, right?
Did he exist by himself in eternity past? If yes, then,
How then could he have possessed love without any object outside himself to love?
But if God existed in three (or at least two according to the argument) persons, then love could have existed within himself, between the members of the Trinity, His heart could be stirred with selfless love, for the Father could love the Son, and the Son love the father, and the Spirit love them also, and they the Spirit, for all eternity past.
In Conclusion
Why do I go through all this trouble to hang on the nature of Christ? Because our salvation rests on Him, it is a doctrinal essential that cannot be tampered with. If Christ is created, he is nothing more than the greatest of angels (the next highest level of existence to God). His sacrifice is less than divine and thus cannot appease God’s wrath. If he was merely man, then you have said that it is possible for a man to be good enough to get to heaven, and if we only follow after the one who did, we can share in the attainment of paradise. That is effort based. Works based. It is man getting to God – but the gospel is the exact opposite! The gospel is God Himself reaching his Right Hand down into history and coming to man. God reaching down, not man climbing up. If Christ is not God, not matter if he is only a hair away, he is a world away, and he becomes a “successful archetype” – like Buddha. If Christ is God, then our salvation is through faith in God; if Christ is man, then our salvation is through faith in man.
It’s that simple, when you boil it down to the core. I believe that Christ must be deity for the good news to work. As for me, God has caught me up in salvation threefold – the Holy Spirit is the hand behind me that pushes me upward, Christ is the road on which I walk, and the Father is my glorious destination. May the triune God enlighten your eyes to see his true nature in the face of Christ. For his sake, in his name, by his power I pray, Amen.
I know it’s incomprehensible, but that is exactly the point where faith comes in. So now, Jess, I urge you to believe.
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became his counselor?
Romans 11:33-34
Great is the Lord, and worthy of praise; his greatness is unfathomable.
Psalm 145:3
Ben Taylor 