Son – His Divinity

That subject is one of the most important to consider.  Indeed, if Jesus Christ is not God, then, his influence on all of us is substantially more limited.  If that is the case, Christ would be more an example of a good man for all of us… but hardly the solution to our eternal existence.

Christ was God.  The Bible does show that Christ was divine in many many ways.

In the New Testament, for example, in John 5:18 we are told that Jesus’ enemies wanted him dead because he “called God his Father, making himself equal with God.”  In the Jewish culture of the time, calling God his Father made him divine.

We see in John 8:58 that Jesus knew a lot about the father of the Jews, Abraham.  When the people around him asked how Jesus can have special knowledge of Abraham, Jesus says:  “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I Am“.  In the original language, the word chosen here invokes and applies to himself the very personal name of the Godhead, the “I Am”.  See also (Exodus 3:14).  The following verse, John 8:59 suggests that his enemies realized that Jesus was claiming to be God. They were mad like hell… “So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple” (John 8:59).

In John 20:28, we find, probably, one of the most beautiful confession of the divinity of Christ and that comes from Thomas.  This happened after Jesus rose from the dead.  You will read there that Thomas falls at Jesus’ feet, exclaiming, “My Lord and my God!”(In the Greek original language, Thomas actually used these words: Theos mou.  That means “My God”).  Jesus does not rebuke nor corrects Thomas.  Quite the declaration of Deity.

There are many other verses that demonstrate that Christ was God.  We are sharing just a few here: Philippians 2:6 (Paul says of Jesus) “[w]ho, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped” (New International Version). In other words, Jesus did not satisfy himself in staying in the format of God but agreed to become a man, leaving, for a time, his divine glory.  Cool stuff.

Also, there is an expression in Scripture: “the First and the Last”.  This expression was used by God in the Old Testament: “Thus says Yahweh, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, Yahweh of armies: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; besides me there is no god” (Is. 44:6; cf. 41:4, 48:12).  The very same expression is used for Jesus, at least 3 times: “When I saw him [Christ], I fell at his feet as though dead.  But he laid his right hand upon me, saying, ‘Fear not, I am the First and the Last” (Rev. 1:17). “And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: ‘The words of the First and the Last, who died and came to life’” (Rev. 2:8). “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense, to repay every one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22:12–13)