Who is Jesus?

Who is Jesus? What is his relationship to God? These questions aren’t simply debates that divide one Christian from another. They’re part of what defines a Christian. Because if salvation is found only in Jesus, then whether or not we’re believing in the right Jesus is no mere doctrinal discussion. Nevertheless, before examining what Jesus said about himself, or what his apostles said about him in the New Testament, it’s important to understand the context into which Jesus was born.

The cultural, religious context into which Jesus came was absolute monotheism. That is, there is only one God in the entire universe. This doesn’t simply mean the Jews worshiped only one God (allowing that there might be another one somewhere). It also means their Scriptures (the Christian OT) insist that no other God exists. God’s name is YHWH (in English traditionally rendered as “the LORD” or “Jehovah”). There was no time when God wasn’t. Any “gods” that came into being aren’t gods in the sense that Jehovah is God. He is the only one in his category in the entire universe.

Jesus referred to the only God as “my Father” and to himself as “the Son of God.” The monotheistic Jews understood this to be a claim of equality with God. But did they understand Jesus or did they simply accuse him of saying something he didn’t intend? For that matter, do biblical Christians understand what Jesus and the Bible claim for him or do they simply hold to a tradition handed down to them? For approximately 18 months I wrestled with a similar question: Do the many passages in the Scriptures used to prove Jesus’ deity really teach that?

Convinced from childhood of the reliability of the Bible, and thus a monotheist, I also believed what I’d been taught about Jesus’ full deity. But, for a time, when I looked at specific Bible passages used to establish his deity, I wondered whether I really understood them or whether they meant something else. The same excruciating doubt kept arising with every proof text I looked at. At the same time, I (rightly) reasoned, if faith in Christ is the only way to eternal safety, it’s essential to know in whom I’m believing. Had I believed in the biblical Jesus?

The danger of proof-texting is that we pull verses out of their context to prove what we want to believe or what others tell us is true. Any text—isolated from the logical flow of thought, separated from God’s big story, removed from the rest of what God has revealed in his Word, or contorted against the way language naturally works—can mean anything we make it mean. The answer is to read the whole Bible (not simply isolated verses), to allow whole sections to flow where they will, and to do so with humility and submission to God.

By God’s grace, I concluded that the monotheistic Jews were right: Jesus was indeed claiming equality with God. The New Testament calls Jesus God, identifies Jesus as YHWH (Jehovah), shows Jesus accepting worship and taking the divine prerogative of forgiving sins, and gives him the name Jesus—“Jehovah saves”—because he, Jesus, saves. The Scripture doesn’t let us conclude that the Father and the Son are the same person; it’s not that the one God sometimes shows up as the Father and other times as the Son. Nor can we say that there are multiple Gods or even that the Son merely represents his Father. Rather, the Son, a person separate from the Father, is at the same time equal and coeternal with him. Honoring Jesus begins with honoring God as the only God, eternal, all-knowing, able to do everything he wants to do, and the Creator of everything else that exists. Honoring Jesus means recognizing him to be of full and equal deity with his Father and fleeing to him for forgiveness of sin and eternal rest. There are proof texts to support these affirmations, but it’s better to read the book as a book.

My pastor shared this message last Sunday concerning the nature of Jesus. Please consider listening!

https://www.mountcalvarybaptist.org/pages/sermons/detail/sermon/8413

Ideas for reading the Bible for the first (or hundredth) time

Have you read the Bible? If you’re going to talk about it (or even have an opinion), you probably should . . . read it . . . at least once. Here are a few ideas to help.

Pray that God will help you understand what he wrote.

Read the Bible like a book. It claims to be from God, but God used normal means of communication. Generally speaking, the rules of human language (word meanings, grammar, the ways language “works”) still apply. Different “genres” (poetry, history, etc.) function a little bit differently, just like they do in modern life.

Look for units of thought (not necessarily chapters and verses). In the epistles (which are like letters), for example, these will be paragraphs or larger sections. In the psalms (which are like songs or hymns), these will be parallel lines and lines grouped into stanzas. The extended flow of thought might include evidence, explanation or examples, parenthetical ideas, purposes, or reasons. The big thing is to break out of a “chapter and verse” mentality and follow the flow.

The historical context is important, because it sheds light on the meaning of certain statements.

Think about the big story. Any single passage of Scripture is part of the big story of God’s rescuing humanity in order to establish His kingdom.

The Bible is in two big sections. The first part is the Old Testament (“testament” means “covenant”). The second part is the New Testament. Remember that Jesus fulfills the Old Testament. The OT points to him with direct prophecy, with indirect prophecy (recurring themes, people, and institutions that are like “shadows” of Jesus, who is “the real thing”), and even with humanly impossible laws that he himself kept. The New Covenant doesn’t get rid of the writings of the Old Covenant (as if the old were now unimportant or not applicable). It is, however, “new.” The church relates to God through Jesus Christ and the New Covenant (Matthew 5:17-20; Hebrews 1:1-2).