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ArticleThe Deity of Christ
During the filming of the Exorcist the famous Swedish actor Max Von Sydow was having trouble with his lines. The director William Friedkin recalls: “I threw the script on the bed, grabbed him, and said ‘What is wrong?’ He said ‘I don’t believe in God, and I don’t believe in this,’ I said ‘But Max, you played Christ in The Greatest Story Ever Told.’ He said, ‘Yes. But I played him as a man’.” (Celebrities in Hell, p. 269).
Here is the great question - is Christ merely a man or is He God manifest in the flesh? The word deity derives from the Latin ‘deus’ (a god) and an assertion of the deity of Christ is to claim that the man who walked the dusty roads of ancient Galilee was none other than God incarnate.
There are eight lines of evidence worthy of consideration in making the case for the deity of Christ:
1. Christ possesses the attributes of deity.
There are certain characteristics that are true of God alone. Whoever has these characteristics or attributes must of necessity be God. The following divine characteristics are attributed to Christ in the Bible:
2. Christ possesses divine offices.
There are certain offices that are unique to God. In sharing these offices Christ is given equality with God by the scriptures of truth:
3. Christ possesses divine relationships.
The relationships that Christ has, as revealed in scripture, put His deity beyond doubt:
John Ch. 5 is a masterful setting forth of the deity of the Messiah. The following lines of truth are easily discernable in the passage and set forth the unity and equality of the Father and the Son:
Their unity and equality in person based on relationship (5:16-18)
Their unity and equality in action based on revelation (5:19-20)
Their unity and equality in life-giving power (5:21)
Their unity and equality in honour based on judgment (5:22-25)
Their unity and equality in possession of life (5:26-29)
John repeatedly outlines the equality of the Father and Son in stark terms:
To honour the Son = to honour the Father (John 5:23)
To know the Son = to know the Father (John 8:19)
To believe the Son = to believe the Father (John 12:44)
To see the Son = to see the Father (John 12:45, 14:9)
To receive the Son = to receive the Father (John 13:20)
To hate the Son = to hate the Father (John 15:23)
To deny the Son = to deny the Father (1 John 2:23)
4. Christ acts with all the prerogatives of deity
A prerogative of God is a right or privilege exclusive to Himself. The following divine prerogatives are attributed to Christ in scripture, thus providing further proof of His deity:
5. Christ possesses the names and titles of God
The remarkable number of parallel names between the Father and the Son is a fascinating study in itself. Here is a partial list:
God/Jehovah Title Christ
Exod 3:14 The ‘I am’ John 8:58
Psa 10:16 King Matt 21:5, Rev 17:14, Psa 2:6
Isa 44:6 First & Last Rev 1:17
Deut 10:17 Lord of Lords Rev 17:14
Isa 63:16 Redeemer Rev 5:9
Psa 78:35 Rock 1 Cor 10:4
Psa 106:21 Saviour Luke 2:11
Psa 23:1 Shepherd John 10:14
Deut 6:4 God Heb 1:8
Psa 27:1 Light John 1:4, 8:12
Seeking to circumvent this very powerful Biblical testimony to the deity of Christ some have argued that the name issue is no different than two people happening to have the same name, like two John Smiths. This argument is undone by that fact that in both Old and New Testaments the Bible is adamant that there is only one God (Deut 6:4, 1 Tim 2:5), yet this same Bible calls Jehovah God and Jesus God.
6. Christ claims to be God
In the Gospel of John seven people attest to the deity of Christ.
The seventh in the list here is the Lord Jesus Himself, which contradicts the claim of those who say that Jesus never said He was God. C.S. Lewis comments: “One attempt consists in saying that the man [Jesus] did not really say these things, but that His followers exaggerated the story, and so the legend grew up that He had said them. This is difficult because His followers were all Jews. That is, they belonged to that nation which was of all others most convinced that there was only one God – that there could not possibly be another. It is very odd that this horrible invention about a religious leader should grow up among the one people in the whole world least likely to make such a mistake. On the contrary, we get the impression that none of His immediate followers…embraced the doctrine at all easily.”
7. Christ accepted divine worship
Who receives and is worthy of worship is a ‘big issue’ in the Bible. The following people refused to be worshipped:
1. Paul (Acts 14:8-15)
2. Peter (Acts 10:25-26)
3. An angel (Rev 22:8-9)
Jesus Himself clearly stated that only God must be worshipped (Matt 4:10, Luke 4:8) yet repeatedly allowed men to worship him (Matt 14:33, 28:9, John 20:28-29). This is powerful evidence that Jesus claimed to be God. In another of those amazing parallels, Jehovah in the Old Testament says that every knee shall bow to Him (Isa 45:23). The New Testament then states that every knee shall bow at the name of Jesus (Phil 2:10). In Heb 1:6 the Father says of Christ “Let all the angels of God worship Him.”
8. Direct proof texts
The Bible categorically spells out the fact that Jesus is God again and again in the most uncertain terms in the following eleven proof texts:
1. John 1:1
“The Word was God.”
The New World Translation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses has attempted to obscure this plain statement by translating it “The Word was a god”. They claim the authority to do this on the basis of the fact that the definite article ‘the’ does not appear before the word for ‘God’ in the text. Professor Donald MacLeod comments:
“By omitting the definite article before God (theos) John is not (as Jehovah’s Witnesses and others claim) reducing his statement to the impossible level of ‘the word was a god’. He is avoiding a form of language which would have meant either ‘the word was the Father’ or ‘the Word was the godhead’. Both of these propositions would have been erroneous. John’s problem was that he had to assert the deity of the Son without prejudice to the deity of the Father and he does this, negatively by omitting the article and, positively, by going on to state, ‘The Word was with God’. The Word was not the Father. Not was the Word the only person of the godhead. The Word was God with God ” (Donald MacLeod, From Glory to Golgotha p. 140-141).
The New World Translation gives the game away further down John chapter 1 in verse 18. Here again the definite article is missing in the Greek original but nevertheless the NWT still says “No one has seen God at any time.” Clearly their tampering with verse 1 was not due to any consideration of Greek scholarship but rather to the bias of a deity denying cult.
2. Isaiah 7:14, Matt 1:23
“Emmanuel…God with us.”
At His birth the lovely name Emmanuel was pronounced over Christ. It means ‘God with us’. Literally in Greek Matt 1:23 says “The God with us.” The definite article is present in reference to Christ as God, which is the final nail in the coffin of the Watchtower’s faulty argument concerning the missing definite article in John 1:1. The same is true of the famous statement of Thomas in John 20:28, which translated literally reads, “The Lord of me and the God of me”, the definite article being present twice in his confession.
3. Isaiah 9:6
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
Note the unambiguous reference to Christ as ‘the mighty God’.
4. John 5:18
“Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.”
See the comments above under ‘His Sonship’.
5. John 8:58
“Before Abraham was: I am.”
This is more than a claim to pre-existence, where the imperfect tense would have sufficed. This is a claim to eternal existence and self-existence. The use by the Lord Jesus of the divine title the ‘I am’ (Exod 3:14) is a high claim to deity.
6. John 10:30
“I and My Father are one.”
The word ‘one’ here is in the neuter gender. It refers to a unity of essence between the Father and the Son that is spiritual, intimate and unbreakable. Attempts to interpret it to mean ‘one in purpose’ are misguided, as an examination of the violent reaction of the Jews in passage shows. John 17:11 and 21 states that there’s a similarity between Christians’ union with each other in the body of Christ and the unity of the godhead, but not a total sameness. The sameness of nature and essence of the Father and the Son is expressed in the use of the following words in the Bible:
Reference Greek Translation Meaning
a. John 1 logos The Word of God The personal manifestation of deity
b. Colossians 1 eikon The Image of God The perfect expression of God
c. Colossians 2 theotes Godhead The essence and nature of God
d. Philippians 1 morphe The form of God The exact character of God
e. Hebrews 1 charakter The express image The impress of God’s substance and essence bearing exact similarity in every way.
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7. John 14:9
“He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?”
In that Christ is the word of God, the image of God, exists in the form of God and is the express image of His person, He can rightfully say “To see Me is to see the Father.”
8. Colossians 2:9
“For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.”
Late in the first century AD false teachers called Docetists taught that while Jesus appeared human, He was really only divine (Docetism is from the Greek verb dokeo, to seem). They taught that the ‘divine Christ’ descended on Jesus at His baptism and left before the cross. This later developed into full-blown Gnosticism which flourished in Egypt in the second and third centuries. This is the background of the so-called ‘Gospels’ of Thomas, Mary, Philip and Judas, documents written by those who denied that Jesus was God manifest in the flesh. These Gnostics spoke much about ‘fullness’ and held a belief in a plethora of emanations or divine beings on an ascending scale. Where did Christ fit into this scheme? He was displaced from His true status as the Word who became flesh. Paul points out that all the fullness that the Gnostics believed existed across all the many divine emanations actually dwelt bodily in Christ! Furthermore the New Testament teaches that “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” dwell in Christ (Col 2:3). He is also spoken of as being “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
So, the totality of the power and attributes of deity – the fullness – dwells in Christ bodily. Two words are of particular interest in Colossians 2:9. Firstly, the word ‘dwelleth’ (Gk. Katoikeo) means to reside permanently. This undoes the error of the Docetists. Secondly, the word Godhead (Gk. Theotes) refers to the essence and nature of God. It is not to be confused with the similar word translated Godhead (in the KJV) in Romans 1:20 (Gk. Theiotes). This refers to the divine perfections and attributes of Divinity.
9. 1 Timothy 3:16
“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh.”
The confession of the city of Ephesus where Timothy lived was, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians” (Acts 19:28). Paul here states that the Church’s confession is that “Wonderful is revelation of the godly Christian life…God was manifest in the flesh.” Though there is some controversy as to the retention or omission of the word ‘God’ in this passage, the weight of evidence is clearly on the side of the manuscripts that read ‘theos’.
10. Hebrews 1:8
“But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.”
This mighty testimony to the deity of Christ reveals the Father calling the Son ‘God’.
11. 2 Peter 1:1 (NKJV)
“The righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
The Greek grammar used in this verse demands that one person be meant, not two. It clearly states that Jesus is God.
Problem verses
In light of the eleven clear verses above, one might legitimately wonder how the Unitarians and the cults manage to deny the Deity of Christ. They lean on a group of texts which they either take out of context, or misinterpret, or both. Here are the eight most frequently used texts, together with a Biblical rebuttal to their misuse.
1. Mark 13:32
“But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.”
Here it is argued that Christ was not omniscient and therefore must have surrendered his Deity, at least to some degree, when coming to earth. The following verses refute that idea: Matt 12:25, chs. 24-25, Luke 6:8, 9:17, John 1:47-51, 2:24-5, 4:17-18, 6:61, 64, 13:1, 11, 16:30, 18:4, 21:17, Col 2:3. So what does this verse mean? The Lord spoke of certain things that He had left in His Father’s hands such as who would sit on His left and right hand in the kingdom (Matt 20:23), and the subjugation of all His enemies (Mark 12:36). So, in coming to earth the Bible reveals that Christ temporarily and voluntarily left certain things in His Father’s hands.
Now, with reference to Christ’s knowledge, it is important to remember that omniscience means not simply knowing everything, but the ability to know everything. We know that Deity can choose not to remember (Heb 10:17). Jesus is not saying in Mark 13:32 that he cannot know the day and the hour of His return but that He chose not to know it while He was on earth. He had ability to know, but He temporarily and voluntarily chose to leave that date in the Father’s hands.
2. Mark 10:18
“Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.”
The claim here is that Jesus is saying, “I am not God so you should not be calling me good.” Again, this is to take an isolated text and attempt to overthrow the testimony of the rest of scripture. One of the basic rules of hermeneutics is that difficult verses must always be explained by simple ones, never the other way round. The explanation is quite simple. The Lord was taking up the young man on the ground on which He was approached Him. The man did not accept the Deity of Christ. He came to Jesus as one good man to another. That being the case, the Lord was simply saying, “You do not recognise Me as God, so why do you call Me good. No one is truly good but God – and you don’t think I am God.”
3. Matt 12:31
“Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.”
This text seems to imply that it is more serious to blaspheme the Holy Spirit than Jesus. That implied inequality would therefore undermine the Deity of Christ. What’s the answer? In looking at Jesus of Nazareth and hearing His teachings, it would have been relatively easy for someone to completely miss the fact that this Man was God incarnate and thus speak against Him in true ignorance. Though inexcusable, this ignorant speaking against Christ was forgivable. However, a look at the context of Matthew 12 reveals that the Lord’s statement follows on the heels of a display of multiple notable manifestations of the miraculous healing power of the Spirit of God through the ministry of Christ. Faced with this undeniable evidence of God at work in their midst, the Jewish leaders attributed the miracles to the power of Satan. This was not a charge made from ignorance. It was a deliberate rejection of the power of the Spirit of God in the ministry of Christ. Such a rejection represented the committal of the unpardonable sin. Understood properly, this verse has nothing to say about the Deity of Christ.
4. John 14:28
“My Father is greater than I.”
Perhaps this is the favourite Deity-denying verse of the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Yet two verses later the Lord expresses His oneness with the Father in clear and unmistakeable terms. So what does v28 mean? The Lord Jesus is expressing the fact that in coming to earth and taking on manhood He accepted a position and status in relation to the Father that made the Father ‘greater’. The greatness refers not to Christ’s essential nature, but to His position administratively as a result of voluntarily becoming man. The Prime Minister or President of a country is ‘greater’ that an ordinary citizen, but not ‘better’. Thus Christ declares His Father to be greater than Himself, but not better.
5. 1 Cor 11:3
“The head of Christ is God.”
This statement does not imply inequality between Christ and God, any more than the same verse implies inequality between men and women. The verse is stating that in becoming man, the Christ submitted Himself to the Father administratively, but not essentially. His was a voluntary subordination in His role as man, Messiah and Mediator, while all the time He remained (and remains) equal with the Father.
6. Luke 22:42
“Not My will but Thine be done.”
This verse seems imply that the Son’s will was different to the Father’s, leading some to use it to deny Christ’s Deity. It will help to understand this statement of Christ if we remember that there was no independence in the life of the Lord Jesus. In Jesus Christ, Satan knew he faced a man who walked in total submission to and dependence on His Father. At the core of Satan’s attempt to make Jesus turn stones into bread was not so much a challenge aimed at Christ’s ability, but rather a challenge aimed at making Christ act independently of His Father. In effect Satan was saying, “If You are the Son of God, what are you doing depending each day on the word of Your Father? Take the initiative and do Your own thing.” However, the Lord stated in John 5:19-20 that He never acted as a rival of the Father (as the Jews supposed). He repeatedly emphasised the fact that He had no separate interest to His Father’s but rather subjected His will to that of the Father from the moment of His incarnation. Note the three verses below:
“Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith…I come…to do Thy will, O God.” Heb 10:5-7
“I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” John 5:30
“For I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.” John 6:38
In other words, what the Lord said in Gethsemane was nothing new. It was a very intense and real reiteration of the guiding principle of His life on earth which highlighted of His servanthood in bowing to the sin-bearing horror of the cross. It was not a conflict of wills. When Christ asked, “If it be possible let this cup pass from Me”, He knew only too well as the Lamb foreordained before the foundation of the world that the cross was unavoidable. Note what He says to Peter a few minutes after the agony in the garden, “Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” (John 18:11). Remember also that in the upper room Christ had said, “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.” John 12:27
7. 1 Cor 15:28
“And when all things shall be subdued unto Him [Christ], then shall the Son also himself be subject unto Him [the Father] that put all things under Him [the Christ], that God may be all in all.”
Does the fact that this verse speaks of Christ being subject to the Father imply He is less than God? No. The context is the end of the millennial reign of Christ. As that 1,000 year period terminates, the mediatorial character of the kingdom will come to an end. During world history, as long as there has been any element of opposition to the supremacy of God, anything requiring subjugation, Christ has exercised governmental authority on the Father’s behalf. However, as the eternal state dawns it will no longer be a case of the Son carrying out the subjugation of all things to the Father – all will be merged in the infinite and absolute supremacy of God, the triune God, who will be everything in everything. “That is to say, not the Son carrying out a special work for the Father as previously, but God – Father Son and Holy Spirit – acting as such in all things everywhere.” W.E. Vine.
8. Phil 2:6-8
“Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.”
It has been taught from this verse that Christ gave up His deity either partially or wholly when He became man. At least a couple of Bible translations convey this faulty idea:
Good News Bible: “He always has the nature of God, but he did not think that by force he should try to remain equal with God. Instead of this, of his own free will, he gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant.”
Contemporary English Version: “Christ was truly God, but he did not try to remain equal with God. Instead he gave up everything and became a slave, when he became like one of us.”
When this verse is understood properly, word by word, it will be clearly seen that in the incarnation Christ surrendered nothing of His true and complete deity.
First we meet the word “being” (Greek, huparcho). The way this word is used in the New Testament expresses previous existence and continuing existence. For example:
So, when Paul speaks of Christ “being in the form of God”, he means to say that Christ always existed in the form of God and continued to exist in that form when He became man. At the incarnation Christ became something He had never been before (man), while never ceasing to be what He always was (God).
Then Paul uses the expression “in the form [Gk. morphe] of God”. In English the word ‘form’ has multiple meanings, from a piece of paper, to a bench, to a mood. One particular English use reflects the Greek word quite well. The character and nature of a person can be implied in the word ‘form’ as in the sentence, “The Doctor came early, true to form.” This is its sense in Phil 2:6. Christ has always and continues ever to exist in the form, the essence and nature of deity.
The verse continues, “Thought it not robbery [Gk. harpagmos] to be equal with God.” Robbery here is the noun of the Greek word harpagmos, to seize or take away. There is no thought whatsoever in this verse of the Christ relinquishing any part of His essential eternal deity. Some translate this verse 'thought it not something to be grasped'. However, Greek scholar Gordon Fee suggests that harpagmos (robbery) is not to be thought of as a thing at all. He points out that nouns ending in -mos do not ordinarily refer to a concrete expression of the verbal idea in the noun, but to the verbal idea itself. Rather, says Fee, harpagmos is an abstract noun that emphasizes the concept of 'grasping' or 'seizing'. That being the case there are two possibilities relative to Phil 2:5 both of which essentially end up saying the same thing:
1. Christ did not view His equality with God selfishly in a grasping way, but poured Himself out for us. 2. Christ did not seize upon the fact that He was equal with God (to avoid suffering and death). Harpagmos (robbery) has a cognate, harpage, which means 'booty' or 'prey'. In this passage the Greek idiom can be taken in the sense of 'a matter to be seized upon' i.e. 'taken advantage of'. So, to paraphrase Philippians 2 with this Greek background in mind: "Who though He was in the form of God did not think this divine quality should be used for His own advantage, as giving Him a reason to avoid suffering and death." This is in keeping with the context. Paul has been telling the Philippians, "You have too high an estimate of yourselves - but who are you? If anyone could have had a high estimate of Himself it was Christ - but though He was in the form of God He did not esteem that equality as putting Him beyond taking the lowly servant's place." The word esteem in v3 and think in v6 are the same in the Greek. This view of 'robbery' helps in considering the next expression – “made Himself of no reputation” or 'emptied Himself'. Just as harpagmos (robbery) needs no object for Christ to seize - so Christ did not empty himself of anything - He simply emptied Himself or poured Himself out by taking on the form of a slave. It is important to note the way the word empty (keno) is used in the New Testament in its four other occurrences:
As can be readily seen from these verses the word kenoo ‘to make empty’ is used figuratively in the sense of ‘to make void, neutralize or abase’. It is therefore a fitting word as used by Paul to describe the self-abasement of Christ.
This densely packed passage continues with the words “Took the form of a servant.” When Paul uses the word ‘morphe’ (form) again, he does not mean to imply that Christ exchanged the ‘form of God’ for the ‘form of a servant’ at the incarnation. Rather He chose to express the form of God in the form of servant.
“Made in likeness of men”. The word ‘likeness’ (Gk. homoioma) means resemblance. Christ in every way, sin apart, resembled man, because He was man, yet nothing of this likeness to man in any way compromised His deity.
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