The Divinity of Jesus According to the Apostles

        “There was a time when He was not” is the claim of one of the eldest heretics, Arius; and many other different types of heretics that followed in his footsteps - That is, in re-interpreting the New Testament in a way that makes it seem that Jesus might not be fully God from the beginning. Today, this same claim is made by many atheists, pagans, and other heretics today. But do the claims hold up? Does the New Testament deny that Jesus is God? Does the New Testament not claim that Jesus is God?

        Before exploring all the passages that speak of the deity of the Lord Jesus, it is of the utmost importance to understand a couple of fundamental principles of the divinity of Jesus and how the New Testament communicates. First of all, just as no one needs to assert that they are human in their own biography, neither does the Lord Jesus Messiah have to assert his own divinity when His actions so clearly present it. Second of all, the New Testament was written by Jewish authors who used Jewish concepts, and at the time of Jesus, there were many Jews who had already come to the conclusion that the Messiah would be God incarnate from careful study of the Hebrew Bible (See the Self-Glorification Hymn from the Dead Sea Scrolls; 1 Enoch 45:3-4; 69:26-28; Wisdom of Solomon 7:24-26; Sirah 24:7-11 Psalm 110, and Daniel 7). Third, the New Testament was written by Jews who had an understanding of these Hebrew Bible concepts and attributed them to Jesus but often in subtle ways. Fourth, when they do attribute these attributes to Him, it is often not as clear or given as much context as a contemporary Westerner would like because of the high-context culture of the authors - In other words, they presumed that their readers already had some understanding of the concepts that they used to point to the divinity of Jesus.

        Concerning the nature of the Lord Jesus, it can be quite confusing having to map His divinity and make sense of it with many passages where He claims that even “the Son of Man does not know the hour” (Matthew 24:36) or something else ambiguous. It should be noted that the Lord humbled Himself by becoming a servant and took on a human nature that was in a Hypostatic Union with His divine nature. This idea is complex in and of itself, and due to this reason, and so will not be the focus of this essay; however, one must understand that the Lord was still fully God and man and so sometimes would refer to Himself only when He was in His humbled hypostatic state. Further, because of the complexity of the doctrine of the Trinity found in the Bible, there is an even further level of complication that will not be elaborated on in this essay due to its focus. This all going to say, Jesus was divine and the New Testament makes this clear to those who have taken the time to search such Sacred Scriptures but these Scriptures must be searched carefully with the intent of fully understanding God as He presents Himself and not simply in the way in which we wish to search or study them. Although there is much complexity to the nature of Jesus due to His transcendence, this does not in any way imply He is any less divine.

        Without any further ado, one Should turn first to the author of the earliest New Testament writings: Paul. After much experience in the ministry, he writes one of his most famous epistles: Romans. And in Romans 10, one sees him say, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). In this verse, one sees that Paul claims Jesus is Lord: but does he refer to him as the LORD [Yahweh] as if he would use the Hebrew divine name or merely as his master? Which term he has in mind is made ambiguous by the fact that the letter survives in Greek and the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible has one term for Yahweh (the Divine Name of God) and another for simply stating that one is a master (‘Adonai’) - This Greek term is ‘Kurios’. In the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the translators represented both Hebrew terms as this one Greek term so which Hebrew term Paul has in mind is not clear when one looks at this passage on its own. However, it is made clear by the following verses that Paul equates him with Yahweh: “For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, ‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’” (Romans 10:10-13). One sees in verse 13, that Paul quotes from the book of Joel where the divine name, Yahweh, is used (Joel 2:32). So, in Paul stating that everyone who calls on Yahweh’s name to salvation being found in one’s confession of Jesus’ name, he makes Jesus out to be God.

In another earlier instance, Paul, when writing his first letter to the Church at Corinth, goes on in the eighth chapter to provide clarity on the issue of food sacrificed to idols. He first says, “Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that ‘no idol in the world really exists,’ and that ‘there is no God but one’” (1 Corinthians 8:4). He goes on to make a reference to one of the most sacred prayers of the Jews, the Shema: “Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as in fact there are many gods and many lords— yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1 Corinthians 8:5-6). Here, Paul has referred to Shema but added Jesus into it. The whole point of the Shema being that “the LORD our God, the LORD is one.” Here, Paul has made it clear that both the Father and Jesus are equally the One God who brought about our very existence.

A little bit after even Romans, one has a letter of his to the Colossians making a similar claim. The fifteenth verse of the first chapter says, “He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15). This verse refers to Jesus as the image of the invisible God, obviously referring to God making mankind in his own image in Genesis 1. It should be noted that the idea of Jesus being the firstborn is in no way a reference to procreation as many humans first think but of someone who gets a share in all of the possessions of the Father. In other words, Jesus shares all of the divine attributes of the Father as His truest image. One knows that this is not a claim to some type of creation of Jesus but of Jesus always existing and creating things because of the following verses: “For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:16). Here, Paul is making the claim that Jesus is the agent through which Yahweh created all of the other gods and humans that would go on to rule the other nations. This means that Jesus could not be a human nor god but must be God Himself that created such things. If that did not make it clear enough, it continues: “He himself is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). In other words, Jesus was not created but was always working with the Father to hold creation together. Again, He is referred to as the firstborn when Paul says, “He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He might come to have first place in everything”  (Colossians 1:18). He even continues to say that the fulness of God was within Him in the conclusion of this epic poem: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:19-20). Not only does the surrounding context of the Epistle to the Colossians make Jesus’ status as firstborn clear, but it is made all the more explicit when one considers the claims of a contemporary of Paul who wrote Philosophy about a firstborn image of God that was one with God as well: Philo of Alexandria. Philo refers to Zechariah’s prophecy of the coming Messiah when he comments on the verse:

I have also heard of one of the companions of Moses having uttered such a speech as this: “Behold, a man whose name is the East!” A very novel appellation indeed, if you consider it as spoken of a man who is compounded of body and soul; but if you look upon it as applied to that incorporeal being who in no respect differs from the divine image, you will then agree that the name of the east has been given to him with great felicity. For the Father of the universe has caused him to spring up as the eldest son, whom, in another passage, he calls the firstborn; and he who is thus born, imitating the ways of his father, has formed such and such species, looking to his archetypal patterns.

(On the Confusion of Tongues 62-63)

Philo also speaks of a firsborn of the Father in terms of His inheriting the nature and power of the Father and not about his limitation.

Paul does not speak of Christ being God only in his public epistles, but also in his private, as is expressed in Titus: “We wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). Paul explicitly refers to Jesus as not just his savior or a god, but his great God. Not only is the deity of Christ fully and clearly expressed in the Pauline Epistles, but in the entirety of the New Testament. When one turns the page from the last of the Pauline Epistles to the Book of Hebrews, they will first read:

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. (Hebrews 1:1-4)

Again, the Son, Jesus, is spoken of as the heir of all things and the person through whom all things were created. He is referred to as being the exact imprint/expression/mold of God himself. He is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high - An obvious allusion to the Son of Man from the apocalypse of Daniel 7 and the lord from Psalm 110. Finally, He is already superior to the angels; who is already more superior than the angels than God Himself? While the entirety of the Epistle of Hebrews goes to great lengths to clearly express the deity of Christ, there are other books that also make it quite clear.

        Even in James, the one related to Jesus, does one read about Him, again, being referred to as Lord. He writes, “My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” (James 2:1). No prophet, priest, or king is ever referred to as glorious lord: not Solomon, David, Moses, or even the unfallen Adam. In fact, James refers to the Father in the same way by also calling Him lord in chapter 3: “With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God” (James 3:9). In chapter five verse eight, he again refers to the coming of the Lord (Which one can know is speaking of the coming of the Lord Jesus by other New Testament passages) and then speaks of the Lord’s encounter with Job three verses later - Meaning Jesus had to have had an encounter with Job.

In the same way, Peter exhorts believers to “Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord” (1 Peter 3:15). Peter tells believers to sanctify/set apart as holy Christ as lord. Whether or not Peter is referring to Jesus with the idea of the divine name in mind, it should be noted that nowhere in the entirety of the Scriptures is anyone commanded to set anyone apart as holy after they had already left earth. Even his second epistle begins with him calling Jesus God: “To those who have received a faith as precious as ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:1). In the next series of epistles, one reads, “Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; everyone who confesses the Son has the Father also” (1 John 2:22-23). This verse most clearly makes the Son [Jesus] equal with the Father by saying that he who denies the Son denies the Father and he who confesses the Son has the Father. Again, equating Christ equal to God. In fact, this verse makes anyone who denies Jesus one who denies truth itself. Jesus is the very fact of existence in this verse so that denying Him means denying everything.

Even after this, Jude, in the fourth verse of his epistle, writes, “For certain intruders have stolen in among you, people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 4). In another classic allusion to Psalm 110 where the LORD speaks to the lord, Jude refers to Jesus as lord with two different Greek words - One of which is sometimes used in the Septuagint in place of the divine name.

        In the Apocalypse, John writes about Jesus appearing to him in Revelation 1:13 and he claims, “‘Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades. Now write what you have seen, what is, and what is to take place after this” (Revelation 1:17-19). Jesus is referring to Himself as the imminent one as he is “the first and the last” (a title suspiciously similar to the title “I AM” or “I WILL BE”). Not only do such statements recall the Divine Name (which only God used for Himself) but it also refers back to God’s own claim to divinity in Isaiah: “This is what the Lord says, He who is the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of armies: / ‘I am the first and I am the last, / And there is no God besides Me’” (Isaiah 44:6-7). If only God can claim to be the first and the last according to the Old Testament, then John is quite clearly making Jesus out as God Himself. And this claim is only the first of many others that are all throughout the book commonly called Revelation.

        The first gospel account in the order of the contemporary New Testament, the book of Matthew, presents Jesus as God among mankind before his own birth. Matthew 1:20-23 states:

But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

 “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

    and they shall name him Emmanuel,”

which means, “God is with us.” (Matthew 1:20-23).

Jesus is literally referred to as being God with us. But if that was not clear enough, there are many other instances. For even in the Gospel Account of Mark, Jesus is claimed to have walked in the chaotic seas that the Jews knew only the Spirit of God had power over as found in Genesis 1:2. Mark reads, “But when they saw him [Jesus] walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out” (Mark 1:49). The word translated ghost literally means spirit. This is an obvious allusion to the spirit of God having power over the seas on the very first pages of the Bible. In fact, in the Account of Matthew, Peter can only walk on the waters while Jesus still walks on the seas (Matthew 8:23-27). The narrative makes this distinction so as to show that though Peter walks on the physical makeup of the sea, he does not walk over the whole sea metaphysically speaking - Only God Himself has the power to walk over the chaotic

On the topic of primordial chaos seas, consider the baptism of Jesus as attested to by Luke: “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with You I am well pleased’” (Luke 3:21-22). Again, Jesus comes in and out of the chaos waters just as in the second day of creation (where the waters were split and then Adam and Eve were placed on safe ground - Genesis 1:6-12; 26-30) and the Ark of Noah resting on safe ground as he is saved through the waters and the Israelites come in and out of the Reed Sea on their exodus. The dove is also there as it was sent from the Ark of Noah and as the Spirit hovered over the waters on the very first pages of the Bible (Genesis 1:2). And from heaven, the Father shows His great love for the Son before He has even begun His ministry or done anything. This clear picture of the deity of Jesus is found in all gospel accounts: the picture of new creation that came with all of the preceding patriarchs that had to first show their trust in God came upon Jesus before He did a thing.

In case none of those passages did not seem enough to prove the point, one can turn to the gospel written the latest - The Gospel According to John. In the very beginning, it states, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). It goes on later to say, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). This being a clear reference to Jesus. In other words, The Word is God and is Jesus, making Jesus God. Besides this, Jesus also refers to Himself as the Temple (John 2:19-20) - Which would mean He is the special presence of God on Earth - and claims that “Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am’” (John 8:58). Even those around Him find this to be a claim of equality to God and are so offended that they pick up stones to stone Him with (John 8:59). In John 5:17, Jesus makes this claim: “‘My Father is still working, and I also am working’” (John 5:17). The text says directly after, “For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the Sabbath but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God” (John 5:18). The narrative in John explicitly shows how the Jews thought that Jesus claimed Himself to be equal to God.

Not only did John prove the point that Jesus was equal to God as being His very Word but this very statement that “the Word was God” (John 1:1) is even found among Jewish writers of John’s day that did not even believe in God. Again, Philo of Alexandria equates the Word of God to God Himself. He says:

There is one true God only: but they who are called Gods, by an abuse of language, are numerous; on which account the holy scripture on the present occasion indicates that it is the true God that is meant by the use of the article, the expression being, “I am the God (ho Theos);” but when the word is used incorrectly, it is put without the article, the expression being, “He who was seen by thee in the place,” not of the God, but simply “of God”; and what he here calls God is his most ancient word, not having any superstitious regard to the position of the names, but only proposing one end to himself, namely, to give a true account of the matter. (On Dreams, That They are God-Sent Book 1, 229-230)

Even the Jewish contemporaries of John had conceptions of the Word of God being equated with God Himself. Others, imagined it was His Wisdom - And they would even state that His Wisdom would come to live among us (just like in the Gospel According to John). The pseudepigraphical Wisdom of Solomon states:

For wisdom is more mobile than any motion;

because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things.

For she is a breath of the power of God

and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;

therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her.

For she is a reflection of eternal light,

a spotless mirror of the working of God,

and an image of his goodness.

Although she is but one, she can do all things,

and while remaining in herself, she renews all things. (Wisdom of Solomon 7:24-27)

According to the pseudonymous author of this text, wisdom is a perfect picture of God, is all-powerful, and renews everything.

These are statements that a biblically monotheistic Jew would not dare to make about any other person than God - And they didn’t. Jewish contemporary and even coming before the incarnation spoke not only of Wisdom being God Himself, but coming to live among humans. See, for example, The Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sirach:

Among all these I sought a resting place;

    in whose inheritance should I abide?

“Then the Creator of all things gave me a command,

    and my Creator pitched my tent.

He said, ‘Encamp in Jacob,

    and in Israel receive your inheritance.’

Before the ages, in the beginning, he created me,

    and for all the ages I shall not cease to be.

In the holy tent I ministered before him,

    and so I was established in Zion.

Thus in the beloved city he gave me a resting place,

    and in Jerusalem was my domain. (Sirach 24:7-11)

Sirach again speaks of Wisdom as existing before time itself (again, an idea only attributed to God) and being the One who ministered to Israel in the Tabernacle (who was actually God). This Wisdom is said to eventually come to Zion to rest among Israel. What’s even more astonishing is that this is said by a Jew living in the land under occupation! Having meditated on the Hebrew Scriptures, he came to the conclusion that the very Wisdom of God would come to live among humans.

The author of 1 Enoch agrees with this sentiment, and even uses similar language in his claims, saying that Wisdom had already come to live among humans but left because of its sinfulness. However, he speaks about her returning again (making it even clearer that the idea among Jews of Wisdom’s residence among humanity was an eschatological opinion and not that it had already taken place). It says:

Wisdom could not find a place in which she could dwell;

But a place was found for her in the heavens.

Then Wisdom went out to dwell with the children of the people,

But she found no dwelling place.

So Wisdom returned to her place

And she settled permanently among the angels.

Then iniquity went out of her rooms,

And found whom she did not expect.

And she dwelt with them,

Like rain in a desert,

Like dew on a thirsty ground. (1 Enoch 42:1-3)

1 Enoch also has explicit statements about an exalted human one. It states:

On that day Mine Elect One shall sit on the throne of glory

And shall try their works,

And their places of rest shall be innumerable.

And their souls shall grow strong within them when they see Mine Elect Ones,

And those who have called upon My glorious name:

Then will I cause Mine Elect One to dwell among them. (1 Enoch 45:3-4)

This Elect One sits on the throne of glory and He is made the eschatological judge of all. Further, people are to call on His name. Finally, as in the texts before this one, the Elect One will come to dwell among humankind. Though the ideas of an Elect One being raised up on the Throne of Glory which only God sits on is quite biblical (Daniel 7; Psalm 110), it is not the least bit biblical that people find salvation by calling on any name other than God’s (refer to earlier in Romans). Again, 1 Enoch also refers to this exalted Elect One as the Son of Man (again, the title that Jesus most often used for Himself):

And from henceforth there shall be nothing corruptible;

For that Son of Man has appeared,

And has seated himself on the throne of his glory,

And all evil shall pass away before his face,

And the word of that Son of Man shall go forth. (1 Enoch 69:29)

This elect Son of Man is seated, again, on not just any throne but that of glory. His word is imminent and evil flees from His presence. Who else can such things be said about? It is astonishing not only that orthodox Jews could come to such conclusions before having encountered Christ but also that there were a multitude of texts that had this same conception. On top of all of that, the fact that these types of texts circulated in Jewish circles as much as it did makes a statement to its orthodoxy and its biblical basis. The imagery of these poems not only reflects the ideas of all of John’s works. See, for example, how in his first epistle, he states that “God is Love” (John 4:16). In Christian thinking and even the thought of much of Second-Temple Judaism, God is His own attributes: whether that’s His Wisdom, His Word, or, even, as Paul will say, His own Power (1 Corinthians 1:24).

Some sophists, however, might argue that He did not intend to argue for His own deity. However, even these might be surprised to hear the argument that Jesus makes for His own deity (and its even from the Hebrew Bible):

While Jesus was teaching in the temple, he said, “How can the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David? David himself, by the Holy Spirit, declared,

‘The Lord said to my Lord,

“Sit at my right hand,

    until I put your enemies under your feet.”’

David himself calls him Lord; so how can he be his son?” And the large crowd was listening to him with delight. (Mark 12:35-37)

Jesus goes out of His way, in this passage, to show how the scribes had altogether misunderstood the Messiah by diminishing His deity. He then goes back to the Hebrew Bible to show how even that shows that they are wrong. Jesus did not only have a following that claimed He was divine - He at times argued it Himself. And when Jesus argued for His deity, He argued for it based on the Hebrew Scriptures.

Also interesting about Jesus is that when He preaches and teaches, He never says “thus says the LORD” as all the prophets of the Hebrew Bible did. He would always say “truly, truly, I tell you” as if His statement and its authority came from Him. He did not have to claim that the the Word of the LORD came to Him to tell Him anything because He believed Himself to be the Word of the LORD.

Besides this passage is the fact that Jesus most often refers to Himself as the exalted Son of Man from Daniel seven that sits on a throne next to Yahweh. This very passage was one of many that even inspired Second-Temple Jews before the time of Jesus to predict that the coming Messiah would be divine (remember the earlier cited sources). In fact, even when soldiers come to take Him to His trial for execution, John records:

Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, “Whom are you looking for?”  They answered, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus replied, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they stepped back and fell to the ground. (John 18:4-6)

Jesus uses the divine name that only God used (Eh -Yeh in Hebrew) and all of the soldiers came to fall back at such words. Unlike the Tetragramaton - The word ‘Yahweh’ that had gone out of use during the Babylonian exile in order for the Jews to revere the name of the LORD, Jesus uses a word even more holy: the name that only God used for Himself. In fact, it is only given to Moses when he asks for God’s name:

Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”... God furthermore said to Moses, “This is what you shall say to the sons of Israel: ‘The LORD [Yahweh], the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is the name for all generations to use to call upon Me. (Exodus 3:13-15)

Notice how Yahweh introduces Himself using the name ‘I AM’ but only tells Moses to call Him the LORD? In fact, all throughout the Hebrew Bible, no other prophet uses this title to refer to God - It is only this time that this name is used for God and it is by God Himself (because only God is Himself). It is a statement to His immanence and how His own existence depends on anything. It would actually be contradictory for Jesus to make such a claim and use this name or for the New Testament authors to present Him as making a claim to His imminence if they believed there was a time when He was not.

        In conclusion, Jesus is the LORD God prophesied in the Hebrew Bible and is clearly referred to as such in the New Testament writings. Although the divine nature of Jesus was very complex and passages that speak of this complexity often confuse the contemporary Western reader, it should be expected that a transcendent God cannot be understood as simply as ones would like. In fact, the complexities and seemingly contradictory statements within the same writings seem to add to the fact that the New Testament authors shared Jesus’ own claims as they were despite the tension that they had with them.