Is Jesus God ? Think About It !

That the Chris­tian­i­ty of today rests sole­ly on the the doc­trine of Jesus Christ, that he was God in human form and died on the cross as a suf­fer­ing deityEmery H. Ban­croft, Chris­t­ian The­ol­o­gy, Zon­der­van Pub­lish­ing House (1975), p. 95 – 156 need no longer be explained. 

How­ev­er, there is hard­ly a sin­gle state­ment where Jesus^(P) had explic­it­ly stat­ed that he is God, although Chris­tians do bring out var­i­ous pas­sages in order to force this interpretation.

Did Jesus Claim To Be God ?

Did Jesus^(P) real­ly make state­ments of his (alleged) deity regard­ing his sta­tus, the words, the will and the pow­er he used ? We urge you to con­sult your own Bible and ver­i­fy that the fol­low­ing con­clu­sions are not drawn out of context.

Words

John 7:16 — ​“Jesus answered them and said, ​‘My doc­trine is not mine, but His who sent me.’ ”

John 14:24 — ​“He who does not love me does not keep my words ; and the word which you hear is not mine but The Father’s who sent me.”

John 12:49 — ​“For I have not spo­ken on my own author­i­ty ; but the Father who sent me gave me a com­mand, what I should say and what I should speak.”

Will

John 4:34 — ​“Jesus said to them, ​‘My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to accom­plish His work.’ ”

John 6:38 — ​“For I have come down from heav­en, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.”

Luke 22:42 — ​“Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from me ; nev­er­the­less not my will, but Yours, be done.”

Matthew 20:23 — “…But sit­ting at my right hand or my left is not mine to give. That is for those to whom it has been reserved by my Father.”

Pow­er

John 5:19 — ​“Ver­i­ly, ver­i­ly I say unto you, the Son can do noth­ing of him­self, but what he seeth the Father do…”

John 5:30 — ​“I can of myself do noth­ing. As I hear, I judge ; and my judg­ment is right­eous, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the Father who sent me.”

John 8:42 — ​“Jesus said to them, ​‘If God were your Father, you would love me, for I pro­ceed­ed and came forth from God ; I came not of my own accord, but He sent me.’ ”

John 15:2 — ​“My Father takes away every branch in me that bears not fruit ; he purges it ; that it may bring forth more fruit.” Here, we see Jesus’ acknowl­edge­ment that he is an impe­fect sin­ner just like the rest of us ; he too must be purged and purified.

John 8:31 — ​“You are deter­mined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God??? This verse is one of the most explic­it state­ments of Jesus deny­ing divin­i­ty for it clear­ly defines Jesus’ posi­tion that he is sub­ject to God and not God Him­self. One only has to ask a sim­ple ques­tion : Does God hears the truth from Himself ?

Knowl­edge

Mark 13:32 — ​“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heav­en, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

Matthew 24:36 — ​“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heav­en, but My Father only.”

John 7:16 — So Jesus answered them, ​“My teach­ing is not mine, but His who sent me.”

We quick­ly notice that accord­ing to the Bib­li­cal Jesus, God is omni­scient, but Jesus is not. God has a supe­ri­or intel­lect to Jesus ; in oth­er words, God knows some­thing that Jesus does not know. This is anoth­er clear proof that they are not equal beings.

Mosa­ic Law

The next few quotes from the Bible show us that Jesus^(P) was a devout and learned Jew, a rabbi :

“Jesus returned in the pow­er of the Spir­it to Galilee, and his rep­u­ta­tion spread through­out the region. He was teach­ing in their syn­a­gogues, and all were loud in his praise. He came to Nazareth where he had been reared, and enter­ing the syn­a­gogue on the sab­bath as he was in the habit of doing, he stood up to do the read­ing.” (Luke 4:14 – 16)

The wor­ship of God was always focal in his life, even as a child. The sec­ond chap­ter of Luke tells us a very touch­ing sto­ry of Jesus^(P) as a pre­co­cious­ly wise child of twelve, sit­ting for days among the schol­ars. His fam­i­ly had acci­den­tal­ly left him in Jerusalem after their annu­al vis­it for the Passover. Near­ly fran­tic, they searched for him :

“On the third day they came upon him in the tem­ple sit­ting in the midst of the teach­ers, lis­ten­ing to them and ask­ing them ques­tions. All who heard him were amazed at his intel­li­gence and his answers. When his par­ents saw him they were aston­ished, and his moth­er said to him : ​“Son, why have you done this to us ? You see that your father and I have been search­ing for you in sor­row.” He said to them : ​“Why did you search for me ? Did you not know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:46 – 49)

As he grew, ​“Jesus…progressed steadi­ly in wis­dom and age and grace before God and men” (Luke 2:52). After he had matured, his opin­ion was sought, though per­haps not always respect­ful­ly, by tra­di­tion­al Jews. An exam­ple of this is John’s nar­ra­tion of the adul­ter­ous woman brought to Jesus for judgment.

Though they addressed him as ​“Teacher,” they tried to trap him into say­ing some­thing which they could use against him. As he straight­ened up from where he had been writ­ing on the ground, he issued his famous judge­ment : ​“Let him with­out sin cast the first stone.” Though they had come to trap him, the scribes and Phar­isees could not argue and drift­ed away, leav­ing the woman with­out harm­ing her. Even those who were hos­tile to his teach­ings respect­ed him.

Vis­i­bil­i­ty

While thou­sands saw Jesus and heard his voice, Jesus him­self said that this could not be done with God when he said :

John 1:18 — ​“No man hath seen God at any time.”

John 5:37 — ​“Ye have nei­ther heard His voice at any time nor seen His shape.”

John 4:24 — ​“God is a spir­it and they that wor­ship Him must wor­ship Him in spir­it and in truth.”

Sta­tus

Jesus’ state­ments through­out the Bible sug­gest that any idea of exalt­ing him to divin­i­ty was unthink­able. Per­haps the clear­est indi­ca­tion we have that Jesus^(P) and God are not equal, and there­fore not one and the same, come again from the mouth of Jesus^(P) him­self who said these fol­low­ing words :

Matthew 7:21 — ​“Not every­one who says to me, ​‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the king­dom of heav­en, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven.” 

Jesus^(P) would not even accept the praise of a man who called him good :

Mark 10:18 — ​“And Jesus said to him, ​‘Why do you call me good ? No one is good but God alone.’ ”

If Jesus^(P) would not even allow him­self to be called good, he cer­tain­ly would not claim divine qualities.

Sub­ju­ga­tion To The Father

Mark 12:29 — Jesus^(P) said ​“Hear O Israel : The Lord our God is one Lord.” The words ​“our God” indi­cate that Jesus^(P) had a high­er God over him, a stronger God than him. Jesus^(P) did­n’t say ​“Your God”. He said ​“our God”, which includes Jesus as the cre­ation of God.

Oth­er sim­i­lar quotes :

Luke 22:42 — “…not my will but Thine be done”

John 5:30 — ​“I seek not mine own will but the will of the Father which has sent me.”

John 7:16 — ​“Jesus said : ​‘My doc­trine is not my own ; it comes from Him who sent me.’ ”

John 7:28 – 29 — “…I have not come of myself. I was sent by One who has the right to send, and Him you do not know. I know Him because it is from Him I come ; He sent me.”

John 8:50 — ​“And I do not seek my own glo­ry ; there is One who seeks and judges.”

John 10:29 — ​“My Father is greater than all.”

John 14:28 — ​“My Father is greater than I.”

John 8:42 — ​“I pro­ceed­ed forth and came from God, nei­ther came I of myself but He sent me.”

Matthew 10:40 ; Mark 9:37 ; Luke 9:48 ; John 13:20 — ​“Who­ev­er wel­comes me wel­comes, not me, but Him who sent me.”

John 20:17 — “…Go to my broth­ers and tell them, ​‘I am ascend­ing to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”

If the above still would not con­vince you that Jesus is sub­ject to the Father, per­haps the next words of Jesus would defi­nate­ly prove that the One who sends is greater than the one who was sent :

“Jesus said ; ​‘Tru­ly, tru­ly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his mas­ter ; nei­ther one who is sent greater than the One who sent him.’ ” (John 13:16)

That Jesus^(P) would admit that he did not come into the world on his own ini­tia­tive but was direct­ed to do so, that he would acknowl­edge anoth­er being as greater than him­self, and that he would negate his own will in def­er­ence to affirm­ing the will of anoth­er, give clear proof that Jesus is not the Supreme One and there­fore Jesus is not God.

Con­clu­sion : Is Jesus God ?

So who was Jesus^(P) then ? A man who told the truth which he heard from God.

In oth­er words, he was a mes­sen­ger of God. 

When a clear state­ment like this is issued from the lips of Jesus, why wran­gle with the pas­sages that are not so clear, and try to twist them to mean the oppo­site of what Jesus has been say­ing in oth­er clear vers­es all along ?

Any­one who wish to con­vince them­selves that Jesus^(P) is God should look for clear evi­dence in the Bible to show that Jesus^(P) is God. But the clear evi­dence is to the con­trary. The Bible teach­es again and again that Jesus^(P) is not God, but a ser­vant of God (e.g. Matthew 12:18).

In the very next chap­ter of John 9:35, Jesus^(P) declares that he is the Son of Man. And any­one who knows the Bible as the Israelites to whom Jesus spoke will know that a son of man can­not be God. The Bible declares that God is nei­ther a man nor a son of manNum­bers 23:19 :

“How can he be called clean that is born of a woman ? Behold even the moon, and it shineth not ; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight. How much less man, that is a worm ? and the son of man, which is a worm?” (Job 25:4 – 6)

There has long been a great deal of debate among Chris­t­ian the­olo­gians and schol­ars regard­ing the divin­i­ty of Jesus. This debate has inten­si­fied in recent years, and there seems to be an increas­ing­ly open con­cern over the truth of this doctrine. 

Some Chris­tians had even con­clud­ed that :

Jesus was (as he is pre­sent­ed in Acts 2:21) ​‘a man approved by God’ for a spe­cial role with­in the divine pur­pose, and…the lat­er con­cep­tion of him as God incar­nate, the Sec­ond Per­son of the Holy Trin­i­ty liv­ing a human life, is a mytho­log­i­cal or poet­ic way of express­ing his sig­nif­i­cance for us.John Hick (ed.), The Myth Of God Incar­nate, The West­min­ster Press (1977), p. ix

It is clear that Jesus^(P) fol­lowed the Mosa­ic law and did not claim divin­i­ty. Accord­ing to the Bible, he was nei­ther omni­scient nor omnipotent. 

Giv­en the fact that nowhere in the Bible do we see a direct iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of Jesus as God, and that Jesus^(P) strong­ly upheld all the com­mand­ments and empha­sized the First Com­mand­ment, we can only con­clude that the doc­trine of Jesus’ divin­i­ty has no foun­da­tion in the scrip­ture nor in the life and teach­ings of Jesus^(P), and that this con­cept is an inno­va­tion in Chris­t­ian doc­trine.

And only God knows best. 

Appen­dix : Theophilus Lind­sey’s ​“A List of False Read­ing of the Scripture”

The fol­low­ing are the ques­tions extract­ed from Theophilus Lind­sey’s (1723−1808) A List of the False Read­ings of the Scrip­tures, and the Mis­trans­la­tions of the Eng­lish BibleAdapt­ed from Muham­mad ​‘Ata ur-Rahim, Jesus A Prophet of Islam, p. 166. Lind­sey asked those who wor­shipped Jesus^(P) what their reac­tion would be if Jesus had appeared to them and asked the fol­low­ing questions :

• Why did you address your devo­tions to me ? Did I ever direct you to do it, or pro­pose myself as an object of reli­gious worship ? 
• Did I not uni­form­ly and to the last set you an exam­ple myself of pray­ing to the Father, to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God ? (John 20:17)
• When my dis­ci­ples request­ed me to teach them to pray (Luke 11:1 – 2), did I teach them to pray to myself or to any oth­er per­son but the Father ?
• Did I ever call myself God, or tell you that I was the mak­er of the world and to be worshipped ? 

Lind­sey’s belief in the Divine Uni­ty is evi­dent from these words of his :

The Infi­nite Cre­ator should be wor­shipped in all places for He is everywhere.…no place is more sacred than anoth­er, but every place sacred for the prayer. When­ev­er there is a devout hum­ble mind that looks to God, God is there. A mind free from sin is the true tem­ple of God.