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Some really silly guys did a series of videos called “Neature Walk” because they wanted to share how neat is nature! In episode one Vic sees a tree that he really likes and says, “Score! This is an aspen tree. You can that it’s an aspen tree because of the way it is.” This is either circular reasoning or an obvious statement. “Just look at this thing. You can tell it’s this thing because it looks and acts like this thing.”
I feel a lot like this when I look at the first part of our third foundational truth statement: “We believe in the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ.” (As a side note, I covered the second part of this statement—“As God’s Son, Jesus was both human and divine”—in another post, which you may find here.)
Check this out: the definition for Deity is the divine character of God, and the definition for divine means things relating to the Deity. In saying we believe Jesus is God we are really saying, “You can tell that Jesus is God because of the way He is.”
In order to make this definition work, we need evidence for both the divinity and the deity of Jesus. That being said, let me remind you of J. Warner Wallace’s instruction on faith. There is:
- Blind faith—believing in something without evidence
- Unreasonable faith—believing in something in spite of the evidence
- Reasonable faith—believing in something because of the evidence
Here is some evidence that I think makes it reasonable to believe that Jesus is divine:
- Virgin birth—Isaiah 7:14; Luke 1:34-35; Matthew 1:22-23
- Sinless life—Isaiah 53:4-6, 9; Hebrews 7:26-27; 1 Peter 2:22
- Miracles—Acts 10:38; 2:22-24
- Death, resurrection, exaltation—Isaiah 53:10-12; Philippians 2:6-8; Hebrews 1:3
(Check out all the Scriptural references listed above by clicking here.)
I think the best evidence for the Deity of Jesus is the connection He Himself made between the “Jehovah” titles of the First Testament and His “I AM” statements in the Second Testament:
- Jehovah Jireh (I Am Your Provider) → I am the Bread of Life (John 6:35)
- Jehovah Rapha (I Am Your Healing) → I am the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25-26)
- Jehovah Nissi (I Am Your Source) → I am the Vine (John 15:5)
- Jehovah Shalom (I Am Your Peace) → I am the Light of the world (John 8:12)
- Jehovah Raah (I Am Your Shepherd) → I am the Good Shepherd (John 10:11)
- Jehovah Sabaoth (I Am Your Wall Of Protection) → I am the Gate (John 10:9)
- Jehovah Tsid-kenu (I Am Your Righteousness) → I am the Way, Truth, and Life (John 14:6)
- Jehovah Shammah (I Am Here) → I am the Alpha and Omega (Revelation 1:8; 22:13).
(Check out all the Scriptural references listed above by clicking here.)
The Jewish leadership understood perfectly what Jesus was claiming! But the more pertinent question is this: Do we understand what we must do with this evidence?
We cannot claim that Jesus was born of a virgin, or lived a sinless life, or did miracles, or died and rose again and then not believe He is God. We cannot pick and choose the parts of Jesus we want.
The apostle Paul reminded us that someday “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:11-12).
Every knee will bow to Him one day: Either in worship of Jesus their Savior, or in abject terror of Jesus their Judge.
I pray that you believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior today… don’t wait another moment!
►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? ◀︎◀︎
If you’ve missed any of the other messages in our Foundational Stones series, which is exploring our foundational beliefs, you may access all of them by clicking here.
Craig T. Owens 
March 8, 2021 at 9:51 am
“‘What are we to make of this [question about the Deity of Jesus]?’ This is a question which has, in a sense, a frantically comic side. For the real question is not what are we to make of Christ, but what is He to make of us? The picture of a fly sitting deciding what it is going to make of an elephant has comic elements about it. But perhaps the questioner meant what are we to make of Him in the sense of ‘How are we to solve the historical problem set us by the recorded sayings of this Man?’
“The problem is to reconcile two things. On the one hand you have got the almost generally admitted depth of sanity of His moral teaching, which is not very seriously questioned, even by those who are opposed to Christianity. In fact, I find when I am arguing with very anti-God people that they rather make a point of saying, ‘I am entirely in favor of the moral teaching of Christianity….’
“On the one side clear, definite moral teaching. On the other, claims which, if not true, are those of a megalomaniac, compared with whom Hitler was the most sane and humble of men. There is no halfway house and there is no parallel in other religions. If you had gone to Buddha and asked him, ‘Are you the son of Bramah?’ he would have said, ‘My son, you are still in the vale of illusion.’ If you had gone to Socrates and asked, ‘Are you Zeus?’ he would have laughed at you. If you had gone to Mohammed and asked, ‘Are you Allah?’ he would first have rent his clothes and then cut your head off. If you had asked Confucius, ‘Are you Heaven?’ I think he would have probably replied, ‘Remarks which are not in accordance with Nature are in bad taste.’
“The idea of a great moral teacher saying what Christ said is out of the question. In my opinion, the only person who can say that sort of thing is either God or a complete lunatic suffering from that form of delusion which undermines the whole mind of man.” —C.S. Lewis
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March 14, 2021 at 2:07 pm
[…] It was Christ’s claims of being one with the Father that enraged the Jewish religious leadership. When He proclaimed His “I Am” statements in the New Testament, they knew He was tying Himself to the “Jehovah” titles of the Old Testament. […]
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April 5, 2021 at 6:05 am
[…] The Deity And Divinity Of Jesus […]
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