Part 1: Like No One Else | Part 2: Deity 1 | Part 3: Deity 2 | Part 4: Deity 3 | Part 5: Deity 4 | Part 6: Deity 5
We’ve seen that Christ, like the Father, is both omniscient and omnipresent. What about the other non-communicable attributes?
- Omnipotence
Many students of the Scripture have noticed that John organizes the first half of his Gospel around 7 “sign” miracles that he selected to demonstrate that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (Jn 20.31). Though there’s some disagreement on delineating those miracles, I see the 7 miracles that John has identified specifically as “signs” as
- Changing water to wine (Jn 2.11)
- Healing a nobleman’s son (Jn 4.54)
- Healing at the Pool of Bethesda (Jn 6.2)
- Feeding the 5000 (Jn 6.14)
- Healing the congenitally blind man (Jn 9.16)
- Raising Lazarus (Jn 12.18)
- Raising himself (Jn 2.18)
(Some would include his walking on the water and omit his resurrection, but I prefer to stick with what John actually calls “signs.”)
This is not the place to discuss each of these miracles, but I’d like to point out something about just the first two.
John begins by recounting Jesus’ changing water to wine. This involves power over chemical structure (matter), and, if he made fermented wine, as I believe he did, it involves power over time as well, since he made something old that was new.
And then John describes Jesus’ healing of the nobleman’s son. The interesting feature of this miracle is not the healing—Jesus did lots of those. Rather, it’s the distance; the boy was not in Jesus’ presence when he was healed. Jesus is not limited by geography.
So we find that Jesus holds authority over time and space—which is to say all four dimensions of the physical universe. And that’s just the first 2 of 7 sign miracles.
That’s comprehensive power.
After his ascension Jesus appears to Paul, in response to the apostle’s prayer for deliverance from his “thorn in the flesh.” He explains why he’s not going to deliver him—in this life—and then he says, “My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2Co 12.9). Now, grace is often a synonym for strength (here the two are in parallel), and Jesus tells Paul that whatever strength he needs, Jesus will have plenty.
You can’t make that promise if the number is finite.
- Immutability / Eternality
God never changes. The Scripture makes that observation about the Son as well: Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever (He 13.8). This despite the fact that his works have changed over time (Creator, Redeemer, Mediator, and King), and that at a point in time he added to his unchanging divine nature a human nature, which he will retain forever.
As I’ve noted earlier, a logical derivative from immutability is eternality, since to cease to exist would be, for God, a significant change.
And Jesus, we find, is eternal. In a statement that nearly got him executed on the spot, Jesus said to his opponents, “Before Abraham was, I am” (Jn 8.58). There’s a way to say “I was” in both Aramaic and Greek; but Jesus doesn’t say that. He says, “I am.”
Jesus’ understanding of grammar and style was not defective; he said what he meant. It’s likely, of course, that he was intentionally referring to the name by which Yahweh had revealed himself at the burning bush (Ex 3.14), which would be an even grander claim. But he is at least placing himself outside the bounds of time and in eternity.
Jesus has all the non-communicable divine attributes. That can be said only of someone who is God.
Next time we’ll look at another category of evidence—that Jesus does not only some, but all of the uniquely divine works.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
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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