In the previous post I noted that the deity of Christ is an extraordinary claim. We Christians are used to it, but to anyone else it sounds simply unbelievable. If someone today claims to be God, you plan an intervention, or you avoid him; you certainly don’t sign on as a disciple.
An extraordinary claim calls for extraordinary evidence. I’d like to marshal some of that.
Now, all of my evidence is going to be from the Bible, and that calls for another comment. What about the people who don’t believe the Bible?
Fair question. I believe that the Bible is the Word of God, although that’s an extraordinary claim too. I find that conclusion to be reasonable based on testable, falsifiable, objective evidence from the Bible itself. I’ve written another series on that here.
These days there are plenty of people who do claim to view the Bible as the Word of God—in one sense or another—who still deny the deity of Christ. I don’t find that to be a defensible position, given the overwhelming biblical evidence. In my mind I sort that evidence into five categories:
- Explicit assertions
- Divine titles and names
- Divine attributes
- Divine works
- Acceptance of worship
Let’s jump right into the first category.
I find seven places where the Bible directly and explicitly calls Jesus God.
- In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (Jn 1.1).
The context of the passage (Jn 1.14-18) makes it clear that “the Word” is Jesus. Now, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, in their New World Translation, notoriously translate “God” here as “a god.” I don’t recommend that you argue with a JW about this, because he’ll admit that he doesn’t know Greek, and, frankly, you probably don’t either, and I can’t think of anything less fruitful than two people who don’t know Greek arguing about what the Greek says. I will say that the JW translation is excusable from a first-year Greek student, but inexcusable from anyone with more Greek than that. And I’ll also note that this same chapter has four other places (Jn 1.6, 12, 13, 18) with the same construction (to be nerdy, an anarthrous use of θεος), and in all four places the JW “Bible” translates it as “God.” So they’re not even following their own [amateurish] principle. It’s abundantly clear that their translation choice in this verse is driven solely by their theology.
It says what it says.
The next proof text is in the same chapter.
- No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him (Jn 1.18 NASB95).
There’s a little wrinkle on this one: there’s a textual variant, which is why the KJV has “the only begotten Son.” I prefer the reading above, for two reasons: first, because it’s a lot easier to imagine how a scribe would change “God” to “Son,” in an attempt to explain a difficult reading (“begotten God”?!), than vice versa; and second, because “the only begotten Son,” coming right out of the famous John 3.16, would be familiar language to any scribe.
[Sidebar: I don’t think “begotten God” is a problem, because I view the underlying Greek word, monogenes, as meaning “one of a kind” rather than “only begotten.” (For an opposing view, see here.) I won’t go into that here, but if you want to talk about it, drop me an email. You don’t have to know Greek to understand the issue.]
Now, if you prefer the majority text, or the Byzantine text, or the KJV reading, I won’t criticize your choice or attempt to change your mind. That just means that you’ll have only six explicit assertions instead of seven.
- “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20.28).
These are Thomas’s words after Jesus showed him the wounds in his hands and side. Years ago I showed this passage to a Jehovah’s Witness, and he replied that actually the Greek says “My Lord of my God.” I pulled out a Greek New Testament to show him that it doesn’t, and he admitted that he didn’t know Greek. And then he suggested that maybe the translation was correct, but that Thomas meant it more as an exclamation than a description.
Hmm.
Taking the JW position, how likely is it that Jesus, the first created being, the head of all the angelic host, heard a disciple violate the Second Commandment and didn’t think that was worth addressing?
Yeah, me neither.
It says what it says.
More next time. This is gonna be a long series.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
Part 3: Deity 2 | Part 4: Deity 3 | Part 5: Deity 4 | Part 6: Deity 5 | Part 7: Deity 6 | Part 8: Deity 7 | Part 9: Deity 8 | Part 10: Deity 9 | Part 11: Humanity 1 | Part 12: Humanity 2 | Part 13: Humanity 3 | Part 14: Humanity 4 | Part 15: Unity 1 | Part 16: Unity 2 | Part 17: Unity 3
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