To understand the Jesus of the holy scriptures, we must recognize that He was both fully human and fully divine.  There are several direct scriptural claims that assert the deity of Jesus.

 

THEOS

The word for God the Father in the original Greek is “Theos.”  There are seven examples of Christ being referred to as God (“Theos”).  In each of these scripture, Christ is characterized as possessing a divine characteristic attributed to only to God the Father (“Theos”).

  • John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
  • John 1:18 “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”
  • John 20:28 “Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’”
  • Romans 9:5 “To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.”
  • Titus 2:13 “waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ…”
  • Hebrews 1:8 “But of the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.’”
  • 2 Peter 1:1 “To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:”

These seven New Testament passages clearly and explicitly refer to Jesus as God.

 

KYRIOS

The Greek word for Lord is Kyrios and is often used in the Greek to politely address a superior.  It is the equivalent of our word “sir.”  However, in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), the word  Kyrios is used 6,814 times to translate the proper name for God, “YHWH.”  Therefore, the Greek reader who was familiar with the Greek translation of the Old Testament, would have recognized the times when the word “Lord” (Kyrios) was used to refer to the Being that was the Creator and Sustainer of life – Almighty God, YHWH.

With that fact in mind, the word Kyrios is used of Christ many times in the New Testament.  Here is a sampling of these appearances:

  • Luke 1:43, “And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
  • Luke 2:11 “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
  • Matt 3:3 “For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.”’
  • Matt 22:44 (Jesus is quoting Ps 110:1, but clearly referring to Himself) “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.’”
  • 1 Corinthians 8:6 “…yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”
  • Hebrews 1:10 “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands;”
  • Revelation 19:16 “On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.”

In each of these examples, Jesus is spoken of clearly as the Lord (Kyrios) of heaven and earth who created all things and sustains them forever.  In other words, each of these is a clear claim to divinity.

 

OTHER STRONG CLAIMS TO DEITY

In addition to Jesus being referred to as both Theos and Kyrios, He made other claims that only God can make.  This section contains a few of those claims.

Jesus claims eternal existence and oneness with God (YHWH) in John 8:58 when Jesus proclaims, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”  Here, Jesus was claiming here for Himself the title “I Am” from Exodus 3:14. In doing so, He was claiming to be God.

God the Father states in Rev 1:8, “I am the Alpha and the Omega… who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”  Then Jesus directly claims equality with God the Father when He declares in Revelation 22:13, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”  Jesus is claiming to be sovereign over all of history and creation as the One who is the beginning and the end.

In John 1:1, John calls Jesus Logos or “the Word.”  He is referring to Jesus as the One whose words are so powerful that heaven and earth came into being simply by His speaking them into existence.  It is a clear link between the person of Christ and the creative work of God expressed in Psalm 33:6, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.”  In addition to this strong claim, John later explicitly states that Jesus became a man and dwelt among us (John 1:14).

Jesus called himself the “Son of Man.”  The gospels use this title for Jesus eighty-four times.  It originates from Daniel’s vision in Daniel 7 where he says, ““I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”  By calling Himself the Son of Man, Jesus was claiming to be the eternal world ruler spoken of in Daniel’s dream.  This connection was clear to the Pharisees who heard Jesus call Himself the Son of Man.  Outraged, the Pharisees charged Jesus with speaking blasphemy and insisted that He deserved death (Matt 26:65-66)

Jesus also took on the title, “Son of God,” which implies that he is the eternal, unique, heavenly Son of Almighty God (YHWH) and is equal to Him (Matt 11:25-30; 17:5; 1 Cor 15:28; Heb 1:1-3,5,8).  John 3:16 simply declares that Jesus is so great that we can trust in Him for eternal life. He also claims that He has all authority from the Father to pronounce judgment and to rule over all (John 3:36, 5:20-22, 25; 10:17; 16:15). As Son, He was sent by the Father and existed eternally before the world was made (John 3:17, 5:23; 10:36)

The writer of Hebrews states that Jesus is “the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world.” (Hebrews 1:2). He goes on to state that Jesus “is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature…” (Hebrews 1:3).  He claims Jesus is the exact duplicate of the Father, sharing the divine nature of the Father, equal to the Father in every attribute.  He finished verse 3 by stating, “He upholds the universe by the word of His power.”  Upholding the universe is something only God can do.

All of these claims combined make a strong case, affirming that Jesus is the eternal Son of God, the second member of the Trinity; He is equal to God and shares all of His divine attributes.

 

POSSESSION OF THE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY

In addition to specific and direct affirmations of Jesus’ deity all throughout the New Testament, we also see that Jesus possessed attributes that are possessed by God alone.

  • Matthew 8:26-27, Jesus demonstrated omnipotence when He stilled the storm with simply His word.
  • John 8:58, Jesus shows His eternal existence by claiming that “before Abraham, I Am.”  He makes the claim again in Revelation 22:13 when He claims to be the “Alpha and Omega.”
  • Jesus demonstrated omniscience in knowing people’s thoughts (Mark 2:8) and seeing Nathanael under the figs tree before he was in sight (John 1:48).  He also claimed He knew who would believe in Him and who would betray Him (John 6:64).  John 2:25 declares that Jesus, “himself knew what was in man” and the disciples asserted that Jesus knows all things (John 16:30).
  • In Matthew 18:20, Jesus says, “wherever two or three are gathered together in My Name, I am in the midst of them.”  This claim is only possible if Jesus is omnipresent.”
  • Jesus displays his sovereignty by forgiving sins (Mark 2:5-7), giving scripture on his own authority (Matt 5:22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44), and declaring that everyone’s eternal state will be determined by whether or not they believe in Him (John 3:36).
  • Jesus showed his immortality, or the inability to die, in John 2:19 when he proclaimed that if they destroyed this “temple,” meaning His body, He would raise it up in three days.
  • Jesus is counted worthy to be praised by the Apostle Paul in Philippians 2:9-11.  In Revelation 5:12, John claims that even the angels worship Him.

 

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Mark Stafford

Senior Pastor