There I was, minding my own business, sitting on the wall at Balmoral beach in Sydney and watching my son play in the sand. It was turning out to be quite a nice day off. Then, before I knew what was happening, I found myself being pressed with questions about the state of the world by a rather zealous and determined Jehovah’s Witness.
I knew where the conversation would go once we got past the preliminaries; our different understandings of Jesus Christ would be the watershed between what he and I believed. So what should I do? Was it worth jeopardizing the prospect of a relaxing afternoon just to debate the question of Jesus’ deity? Is Jesus’ eternal sonship really something worth arguing about? What do we miss out on if we neglect or deny it?
Is doctrine worth the effort?
Before we try to answer that question, it needs to be acknowledged that many people today react against having to think through doctrinal issues for various reasons. Some have bought the lie of relativism, and so believe that it’s impossible to come to an objective knowledge of the truth (about anything!). Others believe that doctrine is divisive, and so prefer to emphasize the practical nature of Christianity. Yet others see detailed discussion of doctrine as an unhealthy sign of an overly intellectualized> faith. All three views suggest that what we need is love not knowledge, experience not dogma, morality not theology.
However, it must be asserted that authentic biblical Christianity teaches that both our behaviour and heartfelt response to God are shaped by our beliefs. That is, what we think (and therefore what we believe) ultimately determines what we do and feel. That is surely why the word of God is addressed to our minds, and why its first task is to renew them (Rom 12:2), and why intelligible communication is a prerequisite for the building of the church (1 Cor 14:1-5).1 In other words, God works through the transformation of our understanding to make us true worshippers of God in every aspect of our beings. This also highlights the seriousness of false teaching, for wrong beliefs will inevitably lead to our moral and ethical life coming unstuck, and our emotional and attitudinal responses losing their bearings.
In short, the study of doctrine dare not be neglected.
Moreover, of all the aspects of Christian doctrine there is none more central than Christology—the study of what the Bible teaches about the person and work of Jesus Christ. In fact, if there is one area of theology to get right, it is this one, because it will affect everything else (our understanding of God, our understanding of salvation, etc). The 16th-century Reformer, John Calvin expressed the point strongly:
Whoever does not know the office of Jesus Christ, can never trust in God, nor make prayers and supplications: he will always be in anxiety and doubt and dissimulation. Unless faith comes and shows the way, it is certain (I say) that we shall never have access to God. (J Calvin, The Oracles of God, translated by THL Parker, Lutterworth, London, 1947, p. 150.)
Of course, to have a full understanding of Jesus, we need to study his humanity as well as his divinity. However, my suspicion is that we have a greater need to come to terms with the latter today. Sadly, many Christians, while knowing that they should believe in Jesus’ divinity, are not sure that the Bible really teaches it, or how they would defend it if it does, or how it would affect Christian faith if somehow it turned out not to be the case. This vital aspect of Jesus’ person, then, needs to be carefully addressed—particularly in the light of a number of modern challenges, to which we now turn.
Modern challenges to Jesus’ divinity
Great, but not God
The first challenge stems from the popular idea that Jesus was ‘great’ but not ‘God’. It is expressed in different ways—that he was a great teacher, a great healer, perhaps even a great prophet (as in Islam). Whatever the case, according to this view he is not God, nor does he demand our lives and our worship. Even the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who regard Jesus as the greatest of all creatures, still do not worship him as God. Logically (to their way of thinking), the worship of Jesus must be regarded as idolatry (i.e. worshipping the creature instead of the creator).
Another subtle (and therefore highly dangerous) form of this view of Jesus comes from a number of contemporary scholars who are engaged in historical research into first-century Judaism and early Christianity. Many of these scholars are happy to speak of Jesus as “lord” and “Son of God”, but interpret these as honorific titles appropriate for great rabbis of that period of history. They are not, they believe, titles of deity.2 The deceptive problem here lies in the fact that these scholars are happy to speak as the New Testament speaks, but they do not mean what the New Testament means (as we shall see).
No monotheist would have made such a claim
The second challenge to Jesus’ divinity takes one of two forms: either it is said that no (sane) monotheist would have claimed to be God (attacking the legitimacy of Jesus’ own claims), or that no true monotheist would ever have worshipped Jesus as God (attacking the practice of the early church, or at least our understanding of their practice). The first statement, then, assumes that Jesus was insane and believed something that was totally incompatible with his entire religious heritage—that there were two Gods. The second statement acquits Jesus of madness, but contends that his followers imposed a status upon him—supposedly, by borrowing pagan ideas from the Hellenistic world of their day—and made claims for him that he himself would have rejected. Others who espouse this criticism shift the mistake from the apostles to us, claiming that it is we who have actually misunderstood the New Testament witness to Jesus. Either way, the claim is that a divine Jesus and Jewish Old Testament monotheism can’t go together.
The key assumption here is that ‘monotheism’ was a belief about the mathematical singularity of the internal being of God. This, however, was not part of the Old Testament affirmation of God’s oneness, which was fundamentally a statement about his uniqueness (cf. Deut 6:4: “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One”). Old Testament monotheism was a denial of polytheism (i.e. the belief that there are many gods) and dualism (i.e. the belief that there is a good god and a bad god). It wasn’t until well after the Christian era began (and as a reaction to it) that certain Jewish scholars argued that God’s unity involved mathematical singularity.3 However, the Old Testament leaves the question of ‘the intra-personal nature of God’s being’ open and unresolved.
What this kind of challenge also fails to realize is that neither the New Testament writers nor the early church Fathers ever saw themselves as moving away from the home-base of Jewish monotheism. They worshipped Jesus as one Lord, within their worship of the one God, the Father (see 1 Cor 8:6).4 Thus, the New Testament writers’ acknowledgement of Jesus’ divinity was not a denial of monotheism and an affirmation of dualism (or bi-theism), but the acknowledgement of a duality within the unity of God. Likewise, Trinitarianism is not Tri-theism, but an acknowledgement of God’s Tri-unity!
God and man don’t mix
The third challenge that is frequently thrown at Christians is simply the assertion that God and Man don’t mix. This objection presupposes (a priori) a view of God and a view of humanity that are incompatible. However, the question needs to be asked: who says that God and humanity can’t mix? Certainly Greek philosophical categories may suggest as much. But if it is true that “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14), then clearly these categories need to be rethought! Moreover, if we adopt a fully biblical (rather than a philosophical) view of both God (the creator) and humanity (his creature), it should not be totally surprising or incomprehensible—even if it is stunning—that God could have made humanity as a vehicle fit for his own use, with the capacity for his own indwelling.
We are all god(s)
The final challenge I want to identify comes particularly from certain advocates of the New Age movement who are happy to affirm that Jesus was/is God, but for the simple reason that we are all god or gods. This view is basically a form of pantheism—that everything is God and God is everything. Needless to say, such a view lacks any evidence, empirically speaking, and is clearly anti-biblical, totally abolishing the distinction between the creator and his creation. Such a belief can hardly be called ‘Christian faith’.
Here, then, are four challenges—coming from both outside and inside the church—to the biblical teaching regarding the divinity of Jesus. So we come to the question: is it really worth defending—worth dying for? What is at stake here? Why does it matter so much?
What’s at stake and why it matters
Our knowledge of God
The first reason why the divinity of Jesus is so crucial has to do with our knowledge of God. If Jesus is not fully divine, then he does not provide us with a full and final revelation of God. But John 1:1, 14, 18 and 14:6-10, Colossians 1:15-20, 2:9-10 and Hebrews 1:1-3, state exactly the opposite. Through Jesus Christ, the eternal and incarnate Son, we actually meet and come to know God in his fullness and finality. Thus, if Jesus Christ is the unsurpassable self-revelation of God, then he must be equal with God himself and not merely an agent or representative of God. It cannot be any other way; only God can reveal God! This indeed is what the Bible affirms (see also John 5:18, 10:30).
Furthermore, if Jesus is not the eternal Son, then God is not the eternal Father. His Fatherhood is only a figure of speech, for he has no eternal Son. Given that this is what the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe, it is not surprising that they have completely missed God’s final revelation of himself as Father, Son and Spirit, and are hung up on the Old Testament name Jehovah (which is probably better translated as Yahweh). The drastic theological consequence of all this (at least, if it were true) is that God is not inherently relational. He is, at the end of the day, a lonely ‘monad’ who needs his creation in order to have a relational dimension.
In stark contrast, the God of the Bible is a God who is said to be love (1 John 4:8), not merely to possess love. In other words, he is love in himself—eternally (cf. John 17:20-26)! This would not make sense if God is a singular being. But the reason it does make sense is because he is eternally social—he is a triune being. That is why God doesn’t need his creation in order to experience relationship, in order to be love. He has love within himself; he is love within himself! However, the glorious truth of Scripture is that he graciously chooses to share himself with his creation—even to the point of dying for it! But this is a free act. He is not driven to it, because he couldn’t bear to be alone! It is a matter of pure grace.
The certainty of our redemption
The second reason why the divine Sonship of Jesus matters so deeply has to do with the efficacy of our salvation. What do I mean by this? Many of the early church Fathers (in the third and fourth centuries) argued that if Christ was not God, he could not have redeemed us. In this, they were right, although it is not always clear on which Scriptures they based their argument. It was more an argument of logic. For this reason, it has been suggested that the argument that Christ had to be God in order to die for us is not in fact a biblical argument. The primary emphasis found in Scripture, it is suggested, is that Christ had to be human (i.e. like us in every way) in order to represent us and to die for us. Thus, it was his full humanity that enabled him to be our high priest, and so to die in our place (cf. Heb 2:17).
What then of Jesus’ divinity? Do the Scriptures ever argue that Christ had to be God to save us? The answer is “Yes!” It is the same book of Hebrews that makes the point that it was only because of the eternity of Christ’s priesthood (which is after the order of Melchizedek; without beginning and without end—Heb 7:3) that his death could provide an eternal (not just a temporal) redemption from sin (Heb 7:25, 9:12). Thus, whilst Jesus had to be a human priest in order to truly represent us, his priesthood had to be of an eternal order to deal effectively with the eternal ramifications of our sins. In other words, according to the Scriptures, he didn’t just happen to be God, he had to be God in order to save us!
A second biblical argument in support of this point is the great Old Testament hope that God himself would personally come and (directly) save his people—not by means of some other agent or messenger (Isa 40:1-11, 43:11, 59:15b-20, 63:1-9; Ezek 34:11-31). Thus, if Christ was not God, the salvation he brought was not the salvation that the Old Testament ultimately speaks about, and the world is still awaiting the direct saving intervention of God. Some have tried to get around this problem by saying that God’s intervention came through his sending of a human Messiah, and not by coming himself. However, this is a false distinction. For what the New Testament is at pains to show is that the Messiah’s coming and God’s coming are one and the same event. Moreover, the Old Testament itself intimated that this would be the case. Thus, it is little wonder that Paul unambiguously speaks of the Messiah as “God over all” (Rom 9:5) and confidently affirms that “our great God and Saviour” is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13).
The destiny of humanity
Finally, Jesus’ divinity is worth fighting for because our God-ordained destiny depends on it. What is this destiny? The writings of John and Paul make it clear that the eternal purpose of God for the humanity he created (in Christ) is that through our redemption and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we might share in the sonship of the eternal Son, and so be caught up into his relationship to the Father (John 17:20-26; Rom 8:14-30; Gal 4:4-6; Eph 1:4-5). We who are “in Christ” are called the sons or children of God. In other words, through being incorporated into Jesus by faith, we now can truly relate to God, not only as his father (Eph 1:3), but as “our Father” (Eph 1:2). While this experience of sonship is yet to be fully seen (cf. Rom 8:18-21; 1 John 3:1-3), its present reality and authenticity is testified to by the Spirit who cries that which we not otherwise dare to cry: “Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6).
This is what we were created for—to share in Christ’s relationship to the Father! It is the destiny of humanity. It was for this purpose that the Son of God shared (and continues to share) in our humanity (Heb 2:10-18). However, if Christ is a created being and not the eternal Son, then the whole thing is forfeit and the New Testament (on its own terms) promises us a complete impossibility. Thankfully, it is not so!
Meanwhile, back at Balmoral
Yes, I did give over an hour of my day off to talk to the Jehovah’s Witness about the Lord Jesus. In fact, I was happy to keep going, but he seemed to be getting flustered. Still, it was definitely worth it! I’m praying that Jesus may yet open his eyes. For as we have seen, the biblical teaching concerning Jesus’ divinity, far from being an inessential luxury doctrine, is in reality so vital that if we deny this truth, we can have no certainty at all that we either know God or his salvation. This is a truth worth fighting for!
Furthermore, even if we couldn’t see the immediate relevance of Jesus’ divinity, it would still be a doctrine in need of defending because it is what the Scriptures (and Jesus himself—see Matthew 22:41-46) teach. Thus, to deny the divinity of Jesus is either an act of ignorance or unbelief (or both). Either way, it is a very serious error, with massive consequences for both Christian theology and practice—let alone the eternal destiny of the individual who makes God out to be a liar, and chooses to worship an idol! So whether or not we can make sense of Jesus’ divinity or see why it matters (although I trust we have begun to do both), we dare not disbelieve the word of God. Rather, we must humbly submit ourselves to the truth of the God who has bought us with his own blood (cf. Acts 20:28), and worship the one who is both flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, and our Lord and our God (cf. John 20:28; Rev 5:8-14).
Endnotes
1 For an excellent treatment of this whole subject, see JRW Stott, Your Mind Matters, IVP, Leicester, 1972.
2 For those who want to explore this matter further, see PW Barnett, The Two Faces of Jesus, Hodder & Stoughton, Sydney, 1990, and NT Wright, Who was Jesus?, SPCK, London 1992.
3 In particular, the rabbinic scholar Maimonides (1135-1204), whose Thirteen Articles of Faith are accepted by Orthodox Jews today as a binding statement of belief.
4 See LW Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism, Fortress, Philadelphia, 1988.
