Letter to a Christian Nation 5

Posted on Saturday, November 25th, 2006 at 11:43 am

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Does the New Testament call Jesus God? Remember that Sam Harris has stated in his work Letter to a Christian Nation that the question of Christianity really centers upon who Jesus was and what he did.  Yesterday we looked at the question “Did Jesus really exist?â€?  Today we look at the question “Does the NT call Jesus God?â€?

If you have never examined the question it may be a little shocking to know that the answer is yes, but not very often.  In fact there are only eight or nine cases in the entire New Testament in which Jesus is called God.  Before looking at these a few preliminary comments are in order.

First, realize that Judaism was a very monotheistic religion.  Most Jewish people began the day by reciting the Shema which comes from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!  5 “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Because of this intense monotheism, the writers of the New Testament had to be very careful about how they spoke of Jesus for fear of confusing the Jewish readers into thinking that Jesus was another God, separate from Yahweh.

Second, think about the fact that Jesus was worshiped as God by such strong Jews as Paul, Matthew, James, and others.  What would have caused these men who had grown up saying the Shema to suddenly begin to worship someone who had been here on earth and yet still claim that they were a part of Judaism?  It is that they realized that the God spoken of in the Hebrew Bible is a unity of persons.  This point deserves lots of explanation, but will have to wait for another time.

Third, realize that there are other ways to show that one believes that a person is God.  He could be worshiped, he could answer prayer, he could fulfill prophecy that was spoken of for God alone.  In many cases the New Testament writers use this method to show that they believe that Jesus is God.  But every once in a while, Jesus is flat out called God with no other way around it.

With that background in mind let’s look at these places where Jesus is called God.  Keep several things in mind.  First, I will list the passages that I believe call Jesus God.  The passages are:  John 1:1, 1:18, 20:28; Romans 9: 5; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:8; 2 Peter 1:1 (others that are very possible are Acts 20:28 and I John 5:20).  Second, there will always be those who will insist that the NT does not call Jesus God and as a result will do all that they can to force the grammar to do anything but call Jesus God. As a result of this, each of these passages has a history of being attacked by those who simply are not willing to admit that the New Testament does indeed call Jesus God.

For the most scholarly defense of the grammar of these passages see Murray Harris’s masterpiece (an that is not too strong a word) Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus. After reading this work, if you understand the Greek language and can still deny that the NT calls Jesus God, then please drop me a line and we can have a private chat, but not until you have carefully read Harris’s work, and certainly not unless you understand the complexities of Koine Greek.

Of course the upshot of all of this is a simple statement:  Calling a person God does not make him God.  Simply because the NT called Jesus God does not really mean very much in the grand scheme of things.  Why should we believe that Jesus was God?  Tomorrow we take up the question: “Did Jesus rise from the dead?â€?  Until then, think upon these things.