billybud wrote:WoVeU..Some theologians thoughts on the matterSometimes we are told that there is no verse in the New Testament that says "Jesus is God," with the implication that there is no straightforward claim to his divinity to be found in its pages. Such, however, is not the case. For instance, in the following passages the deity of Christ is either explicitly asserted or strongly implied. In,
1) Titus 2:13, Paul speaks of believers "looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus."
2) Peter opens his second epistle greeting "those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ" (2 Pet 1:1).
3) Luke records Paul's words to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:28 where he reminds them that they are overseers of "the church of God which he purchased with His own blood."
Such a statement makes no sense unless we accept the full force of the doctrine of the incarnation: Christ was God in the flesh, therefore we may speak of God shedding his own blood.
4) John testifies to Jesus (whom he calls the Word) in the foreword to his Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (Jn 1:1).
5) John goes on to say that Jesus, the Word, is "the only begotten from the Father" (Jn 1:14) and then utters the astounding claim that "no man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him" (Jn 1:18).
Thus John not only asserts Christ's deity, but also his sole ability to reveal the Father to the world. It is thus not surprising that,
6) Thomas confesses Jesus to be "My Lord and My God" in John 20:28.
7) The author of Hebrews identifies Jesus, the Son as the person about whom the Psalmist (Ps 45:6) said: "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever" (Heb 1:8).
8) James, the brother of our Lord, identifies himself as Jesus' "bond-servant" (Jas 1:1) and refers to his brother as "the glory" in James 2:1,
neither of which designations is typical of siblings or reverent Jewish believers, but both of which speak volumes about his perception of the divine nature of Christ. Such passages could be multiplied
9 - 16) (e.g. Mt 1:23, Jn 17:3, Acts 2:17 & 33, Col 2:9, 2 Thes 1:12, I Tim 1:17, and I Jn 5:20),
but the ones we have just reviewed establish the teaching of Jesus' divinity from Paul, Peter, Luke, John, Thomas, the author of Hebrews, and James-a representative selection of apostles and their understudies. All of these unambiguously and unanimously testify to the deity of our Lord.
Christ's divinity is set forth in Scripture in numerous other places and in a variety of other ways as well. First, the attributes of the one, true God of Israel are ascribed freely and without apology to Jesus by the writers of the New Testament. No first-century Jew could have done so without fully understanding the radical theological significance of such an ascription. The author of
17) Hebrews applies Psalm 102:25-26, which asserts the eternality of God, to Christ in Hebrews 1:11-12 ("you are the same, and your years will not come to an end"),
and as we have already seen John declares the Word's eternity in the prologue to his Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word." Our Lord's immutability is asserted in
18) Hebrews 13:8 where we are told that Jesus Christ is "the same yesterday, and today, and forever."
19) Jesus himself claims the attribute of omnipresence in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:20. "I am with you always," he says.
This is only possible if he is possessed of what theologians call "immensity"-an attribute of the God of Israel alone. Jesus' omniscience is regularly stressed in the Gospel records, as for instance
20) John's astounding declarations that Jesus "knew all men" and "knew what was in man" (Jn 2:24-25) or
21) Luke's almost incidental comment that Jesus knew what the Pharisees were thinking (Lk 6:8).
22) The New Testament also indicates that Christ possesses the divine attribute of sovereignty. Jesus himself claims unlimited divine authority when he announces "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth" (Mt 28:18) and
23) Paul reiterates the point when he says: "in [Christ] all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form...and he is the head over all rule and authority" (Col 2:9-10).
To claim that a person is eternal, immutable, omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent, is to claim that person to be divine-which is precisely what the New Testament does of Christ.In the New Testatment, the revelation of Christ’s divinity was gradual, discreet, and mainly indirect. One never meets a blunt statement: Christ is God. It had to be so if that faith was to find entrance with the Jews. Christ’s own testimony about Himself was explicit as to His being the Messiah and in continuity with the Old Testament expectation, through He repudiated a temporal messianic kingdom for a higher spiritual one. With regard to His divinity, His testimony was more implicit than explicit, more indirect than forthright. His works and miracles more than His words were to prove to men that He had divine power, even in another way than others had who worked miracles before. He meant to suggest that He had the power to forgive sins to the very people who thought that
24) God alone forgives sins (Mt 9.6).
In St. John’s Gospel, Christ’s testimony about His divinity is more definite, yet even here more indirect than plain. He never says in so many words, “I am God,” but He says that
25) He is one with the Father (In 10.30),
26 -28) a Son of God in a unique sense, in more than the messianic sense of the phrase (d. Jn 5.18; 16.25-28; 20.17).
He claims for Himself the prerogatives of the divine nature and confirms that claim in deeds.
29, 30) He has power over the Sabbath (Mk 2.28; 3.1-5),
31) the power to give life (In 10.10),
32) the power to judge (In 5.27).
33) All power is given Him in heaven and on earth (Mt 28.18).
34) He claims preexistence with God the Father from the beginning, before He came down to earth (In 8.58).
35) He claims for Himself unity in being and power with the Father and mutual immanence with the Father (In 14.10).
In men’s religion He claims a central place, the same as that of God the Father;
36) to believe in Him and to abide in Him means to believe and abide in God (d. Jn 15.7-8).
Thus in word and deed Jesus testified He was the Son of the Father equal with Him in divinityThe Church of apostolic times shared the faith of the eyewitnesses of Christ’s life, death, and Resurrection. The very titles of
37) Yahweh and His attributes were given to Christ, Lord of all, and not merely Messiah (d. Jn 20.28; Acts 10.36).
38) Doxologies meant to be addressed to God alone were addressed also to Christ (cf. Rom 16.27).
39) St. Paul is a witness to the faith in Christ’s preexistence as the eternal Son of God, participating in the divine nature, though appearing among men in the form of a slave (Phil 2.6).
If He nowhere explicitly calls Him God (except perhaps Rom 9.5), but only Lord and Savior, it was because to his mind God was synonymous with Father. More definite is
40) St. John’s intention of teaching that Christ Jesus is the Word incarnate: Word of God, true God, made flesh to dwell among us (In 1.1, 14):
John is explicit about the Incarnation and the divinity of Christ.
Just a re-post guys. I'm using BB's submission to check sum what I wrote.
BB, if you can recall who penned these I'd be much obliged.
