IS JESUS REALLY GOD?
Christians believe that
the answer to this question is certainly YES!
We should also remember
that before the resurrection NOBODY who saw and listened to
Jesus immediately said, “This man is God”. His miracles were not
taken as proof of Jesus’s divinity. Indeed Jesus refused to give
any such proof or sign. For us with hindsight and the eye of
faith there were glimpses in Jesus’s ministry and His teaching
that He was more than a man. But Christians do not expect that
everybody will be convinced by Bible verses alone that Jesus
Christ is Lord and God. The three Bible passages which do
declare the divinity of Christ unambiguously are John 20:28,
John 1:1-4 and Philippians 2:6-8. These assure us that we can
safely accept that other “glimpses” also reveal His divine
nature.
Thomas said to Jesus,
"My Lord and my God." (John 20:28)
In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all
things were made; without him nothing was made that has been
made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
(John 1:1-4)
The apostle Paul was convinced that Jesus's resurrection was
proof that Jesus was indeed God.
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an
apostle and set apart for the gospel of God - the gospel he
promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures
regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant
of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared
with power to be the Son of God, by his resurrection from the
dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 1:1-4.
Jesus Himself claimed
to be God in a number of statements in John’s
Gospel. "I and the Father are one." (John 10:30) See
also John 6:35;
8:12; 8:58; 10:7; 10:11; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1.
It is very significant that “I am” (usually translated in our
Bibles as “the LORD”) was the name by which God revealed Himself
to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14) and that God was
pictured as the Shepherd in Psalm 23. When Jesus said "I am
the Good Shepherd", He was indeed claiming to be God.
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