The Divinity of Jesus of Nazareth by Tamice Namae

If Jesus of Nazareth is not Lord, then He is either a liar or a lunatic. The divinity of Jesus is perhaps the most important aspect of His identity and the cornerstone of our worship. If Jesus is not divine then our singing is in vain, our obedience is for nought and our faith is futile. Christians minds through the ages have grappled with this question struggling not only to answer the question of if Christ was divine during his time on the earth, but how he was divine. The patristics left us with a plethora of creeds and treatises that give us a small glimpse into the fight for the identity of Christ and against false ideas about his nature. This paper will attempt to show the ways in which Christ can clearly be seen as divine in the gospels as well as why the orthodox confessions of our faith needed to be established. In addition to that the paper will seek to show why belief in the divinity of Jesus is imperative for our lives and our ministries.   

The general argument in the field of historical criticism is that Jesus never claimed to be God in the gospels but that this was an identity that was projected on to Him by his followers after his death. Some argue that there are no significant claims made by Jesus in the synoptics that are remotely similar to the claims in the book of John.  For this reason scholars believe that the divine identity of Christ Jesus was constructed later by those who followed Him in order to set themselves apart among the other Jewish sects of the time. In an interview with NPR Bart Ehrman, author of How Jesus Became God states:

…Jesus himself didn't call himself God and didn't consider himself God and that none of his disciples had any inkling at all that he was God. The way it works is that you do find Jesus calling himself God in the Gospel of John, our last Gospel. Jesus says things like: Before Abraham was, I am, and I and the father are one, and if you've seen me, you've see the father.

These are all statements that you find only in the Gospel of John, and that's striking because we have earlier Gospels, and we have the writings of Paul, and in none of them is there any indication that Jesus said such things about him. I think it's completely implausible that Matthew, Mark and Luke would not mention that Jesus called himself God if that's what he was declaring about himself. That would be a rather important point to make.

So this is not an unusual view among scholars. It's simply the view that the Gospel of John is providing a theological understand of Jesus that is not what was historically accurate…

The mistake Ehrman makes here is that he basis his conclusion in the efforts of modern scholarship to explain how the timeframe of various pericopes led to the eventual belief systems that undergird Christianity. A better course of action in answering the question is to consider the Jewish understanding of divinity and whether or not what Christ demonstrates in the synoptic gospels is in any way similar to what Christ declares in John’s account.

For Israel and the subsequent Jewish way of thinking divinity was not so couched in metaphysical realities but in attributes which a being upon possessing would then be qualified as divine. Over and over again in the Old Testament we watch the people of Israel develop an understanding of who YHWH is based upon what YHWH does. He is the God who sees, He is the God who keeps covenant, He is the God who is most high, He is the God who delivers, He is the God who hears and who will act, He is the God who shows mercy to generations, He is the God remembers. God’s actions in Israel’s history could also be seen as qualifiers or criterion for divinity. Richard Baukhum puts it this way in the article God Crucified:

The intention of New Testament Christology, throughout the texts, is to include Jesus in the Unique Divine Identity as Jewish monotheism understood it. The writers do this deliberately and comprehensively by using precisely those characteristics of divine identity on which Jewish monotheism focused in characterizing God as unique.

What can be readily observed in be synoptic gospels is that Jesus demonstrates the same qualities and characteristics as YHWH in both explicit and implicit ways. He demonstrates power over creation and receives worship, He heals and he delivers, he offers salvation and forgiveness. These are actions that are reserved for YHWH alone and thus for Christ to demonstrate not only the ability but the authority to do them is a testament to His identity.

Armed with an understanding of these truths we turn now to their importance as the basis of our faith. As Donald MacLeod puts it: it is on the deity that Christian life and devotion were built, and it was on the deity that opponent concentrated their attacks.

It would seem that a large part of the resistance to the divinity of Christ is due to issues of obedience. If Christ if God, then He is also judge and the judgement will be based not only on his words but on his life. If Jesus is God then He must be obeyed. As long as Jesus remains a prophetic figure from History, there is no real consequence for indifference toward Him. Secondly, if Jesus is not God, then we are not truly saved. The debt of our sin was owed to God and thus if it is not God who came to save us, then the work of a mere human would be glaringly ineffectual and extremely presumptuous. God alone saves and if Jesus Christ is not God then he cannot save. This is what paul writes in His letter to Timothy:

This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind,Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all—this was attested at the right time.

It is precisely upon the confession of Jesus’ identity that we are saved. As ministers of the gospel, we cannot afford to take the fight for Christ’s identity lightly. For the divinity of Jesus is what makes Him Lord and eventually every knee will bow and confess this truth. We must prepare those in our ministries and under our leadership to fight the good fight of faith as it relates to this reality because unfaithfulness in the area has dire and eternal consequences.

Bibliography

2 Timothy. In Holy Bible: NRSV, New Revised Standard Version. New York: Harper Bibles, 2007. 2:4-7

Bauckham, Richard. God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 2002.

"How Jesus Became God." Interview with Bart D. Ehrman by Terry Gross. Fresh Air. NPR. April 7, 2014.

Macleod, Donald. "Chapter 2/The Pre-Existence of Christ." In The Person of Christ, 70. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998.