Is Jesus God?

Greg

I once read an article on the website of a popular ministry that focuses on “creation science” (a laudable work), that was a response to Bill Schlegel renouncing trinitarianism for the truth that there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus the Christ.  This decision was costly for Schlegel, and I admire his courage.  He valued truth about Christ above a ministry position and pleasing the crowd.  Go here to visit his YouTube Channel. 

In the article from the trinitarian “creation science” ministry, the following statement was made:

“…if we deny the deity of Jesus, then we do not know the Father and, therefore, we do not have eternal life.”

As a former trinitarian myself, I would have at one time nodded in agreement with this claim.  Why? Because I heard people make comments such as this one and it fostered a sense of tribalism within me. “Real” Christians believe this, and “heretics” don’t.  Or so I thought. I would soon learn how vague and circular the terms deity and divinity are in theological jargon, and as neither are scriptural terms, I have sought to remove them from my vocabulary. 

There is no scriptural support for the claim that one must believe in the “deity” of Christ to be a Christian.  None.  The first domino to fall for me when I began studying the Trinity (instead of merely accepting as truth what others told me I was supposed to believe) was the distinct personhood of the spirit.  That broke the hold that the doctrine of the Trinity had on my mind.  I couldn’t have explained the Trinity, and by trying to understand it (an intimidating subject), I came to reject it.  But I remember listening to a prominent unitarian Christian giving a message, and commenting afterward that I liked listening to what he had to say, but I was disappointed that he denies the “deity of Christ.”   While I agreed with him about the spirit, I couldn’t agree with him about this topic.

I continued to look into the matter, and I came to realize the problems with the doctrine that Jesus is God.  Understand what I mean.  I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the Savior of mankind, the Messiah, the one to whom God has given all authority in heaven and on earth, the one who is Lord of all.  How can one exalt him any higher than that?  But I do not believe that he is ontologically God.  I do not believe he is the co-equal, co-eternal, second person of a Triune God.  The God of the Bible is Yahweh, the Father of Jesus, not a three person being or substance.  Jesus said the Father, not the Trinity, is the one true God (John 17:3).  Trinitarians will insist Jesus was not saying he was not also the one true God himself, but this is to speak theological nonsense.  Jesus specifically stated that the Father is the one true God, and made a distinction between himself and that God by saying “and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”  There have been so many theological difficulties created by past councils and institutions, and even though there was never a consensus among professing Christians, the doctrine of the Trinity became the “enforced” and “orthodox” view.  I recommend Kegan Chandler’s book, The God of Jesus, for a look at the history of this doctrine.  Since that time, there have been Christians that have lost their lives for refusing to affirm the doctrine of the Trinity.  They have been persecuted and minimalized by the religious “powers that be.”  As Sidney Hatch, a former trinitarian pastor who renounced trinitarian teaching said in a message: "The doctrine of the Trinity has not produced the fruit of the Spirit."  There is much to learn about this subject, and I urge anyone reading this to investigate the matter.

Start with the word “God.”  The word God is an ambiguous term that is used in a very narrow sense by modern day English speakers, but the term has a more flexible history.  In our English translations, the word God is used to translate the Hebrew word elohim and the Greek word theos.  In the OT scriptures the word God/god is used of Yahweh, Moses (Exodus 7:1); Israelite rulers (Psalm 82:6), the Davidic king (Psalm 45:6), and in some instances the word elohim is translated as “judges.”

In the New Testament scriptures, the word God/god is used of Satan (2 Corinthians 4:4), Paul (Acts 14:11), Jesus (Hebrews 1:8), and Jesus refers to Israelite rulers as gods by quoting the 82nd Psalm (John 10:34-35).  What does all of this tell us?  It tells us that the words elohim and theos are not words that carry an ontological significance.  It certainly reveals to us that the title-bearer is not ontologically one with Yahweh, the Most High God. 

As for the verses that are used to say that Jesus is God, that is, that he is ontologically equal to the Father, it is well known that there are textual and interpretation disputes concerning those verses (including the aforementioned Hebrews 1:8, and yes, even John 20:28 and John 1:1 – more on that to come).  Even trinitarian scholars acknowledge this.  The term God can be used, as we can gather from the examples given, as a word denoting authority.  All of those to whom the term God/god is applied are individuals that are in positions of power.  So the question then should be asked, if Jesus is ever referred to as “God/god”, in what sense is it meant?  That he is the Father himself, incarnate?  That he is one member of a three person being?  Or could it be that he is God’s representative, par excellence, and thus he can be called God/god in this authoritative but non-ontological sense?  I believe the scriptures teach that Jesus is exclusively human, a real human being, and that he has been granted a functional equality with God as the Lord of the universe.  Again I ask, how can one think higher of him than that?

The Gospel of John makes it clear that to have eternal life we must believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God (John 20:31), not that we must confess he is God the Son.  John would later write that an antichrist is one that denies that Jesus is come in the flesh, that is, that he is a real human being.  A Docetic Jesus is a Jesus that is not a real human being.  I believe that Docetism is alive and well through trinitarian teaching about Jesus.  Depending on which Trinity theory it is, Jesus is a divine being who enters a human body (this is not a real human being), or he is a two natured being, one hundred percent man and one hundred percent God (an absurdity, no matter how you look at it, and this certainly makes him not a real human being).  Neither of these explanations are scriptural.  There are many misconceptions in mainstream theology today about the one true God and his only begotten Son.   

Paul warned his readers to reject a Jesus that was different than the one he preached.  Did he preach that Jesus is God (theos), ontologically one with the Father?  Or that Jesus is Lord (kurios) over all, yet subject to his God and Father?  Does God have a God?  No, but Jesus does (and not just his “human nature”) according to Jesus himself.  Some ancient creeds and some modern day  denominational "statements of faith" claim that Jesus is "consubstantial" (of the same substance, essence, or nature) with the Father.  The scriptures teach that Jesus is a man approved by God, the man who is the mediator between God and mankind, and that he is a man in whom the fullness of God dwells.  In short, he is not a god-man, he was and is a special man empowered by God the Father.  Who will we believe?  

In the next post, I will explain why Jesus being the Son of God does not mean he is God, or that he has the same nature as God.