Is Jesus God?

Is Jesus God?
by Matt Slick

Yes, according to the Scriptures, Jesus is God. In other words, he is divine. There is only one God in all existence and he is a Trinity which is the teaching that God exists as three distinct persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the second person of the Trinity who became flesh.

John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
John 1:14, "and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us..."
John 8:24, "unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins."
John 8:58, "...before Abraham was, I am."
Exodus 3:14, "God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
Col. 2:9, "for in him dwells all the fullness of deity in bodily form."
Heb. 1:8, "But of the Son he [The Father] says, 'You're throne, O God, is forever and ever.'"
So, when we say that Jesus is God, we're using the term "God" in reference to the divine nature. Jesus is not the Trinity. He is a part of the Trinity. He is God in flesh.

Furthermore, Jesus is both divine and human. In other words, he is both God and man. God has a divine nature, and the single person Jesus possesses the divine nature as well as the human nature. This dual nature characteristic is called the hypostatic union.

Jesus is called God

After Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, Thomas, one of the disciples, doubted that he had risen. Jesus appears to him, and Thomas responds by saying to Jesus "My Lord and my God," (John 20:28). Jesus makes no correction to Thomas about what he said. Titus 2:13 tells us to wait for the coming of "our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus." In John 5:18 it says that Jesus "was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God."

In addition, we can see that Jesus is divine because he receives worship (Matthew 2:2,11; 28:9; John 9:35-38; Hebrews 1:6 and he is also prayed to (1 Corinthians 1:2 with Psalm 116:4; John 14:14; Acts 7:55-60). It is clear from the Scriptures that Jesus is considered to be God in flesh; that is, he is considered to be divine.

If Jesus is not God, we cannot be saved

Finally, the reason that Jesus is both God and man (possessing two distinct natures: divine and human), is because he needs to be a man to die for people and he needs to be divine in order to offer a sacrifice of divine value by which God the Father can be appeased. After all, we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and the consequences of our sin isseparation from God (Isaiah 59:2). We cannot be made righteous by what we do through the law (Romans 3:28). Therefore, we need someone to step in our place and do what we could not do. So, Jesus bore our sins in his body on the cross (1 Peter 2:24) after fulfilling the law perfectly (1 Peter 2:22). He lived a holy life and that is why his sacrifice is acceptable to God the Father, a sacrifice he offered on our behalf (Isaiah 53:4-6).