Is Jesus Truly God?

How the Bible Teaches the Divinity of Christ

Greg Lanier, Gregory R. Lanier

• Publisher: Crossway
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781433568404
• eBook ISBN: 9781433568435
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

The question of Jesus's divinity has been at the epicenter of theological discussion since the early church. At the Council of Nicea in AD 325, the church fathers affirmed that Jesus the Son of God is "true God from true God." Today, creeds such as this are professed in churches across the world, and yet there remains confusion as to who Jesus is. To some, Jesus is a radical prophet—nothing more than a footnote in history. To others, Jesus is the only Son of God, fully God and fully man—the author of history entering history.

Is Jesus Truly God? is an accessible resource, bridging the gap between the pulpit and the pew as it traces the rich roots of creedal Christology through the Scriptures, strengthening the reader's understanding of Jesus as fully God and fully man.

1

Preexistence

An Eternally Alive Son

The time-honored science-fiction trilogy Back to the Future explores what it would be like for someone to travel back in time and influence past events in such a way that would, in due course, change his own future when he is born. Though mostly pitched as comedy, the films raise intriguing questions about what it means to “exist”—and to shape reality (as when Marty McFly rescues his teenage father from a car wreck)—before you exist. While the movies fall woefully short as analogies to the eternal existence of the Son of God, they do get us thinking in the right direction.

One of the prerequisites for a full doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ is that he exists forever in the past. God is, by definition, uncreated. God cannot come into being; he exists, from eternity past to eternity future. Yet as we saw in the introduction, Jesus Christ was born as a man. For him to be divine, he somehow must also have had a real, eternal existence even prior to his human birth to Mary. This is typically called preexistence: that is, the Son of God was alive and active as a spiritual being before taking on flesh at a particular point in time. He was not just a glimmer in the mind of God, but he was (and is, and always will be) real.

The aim of this chapter is to unfold the various ways in which Scripture indeed affirms the Son’s real, active, heavenly preexistence within the Godhead. Though such preexistence is often overlooked (perhaps owing to our lack of ability to conceptualize it or to the exclusive focus in some circles on the cross of Christ), this study hopefully puts it more on the layperson’s radar.

Heavenly Origin

I begin by examining where Jesus is from.1 Though the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke—and Christmas pageants ever since—make the point clear, there was some debate about the birthplace of Jesus during his ministry. Some Jewish crowds questioned whether the Messiah (Gk. christos) was to come from Galilee, Bethlehem, or some other place (John 7:40–43).2 Jesus challenged their preconceived notions, however, when he revealed to various opponents (though cryptically at the time), “I am the living bread that came down from heaven” (6:51), and, “You are from below; I am from above” (8:23).

One does not have to look only at John’s Gospel. Paul, writing years before John’s Gospel was published, indicates that Jesus’s own view about his place of origin was accepted very early by his followers. Paul asks in Romans 10:6, “‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down).” This could, in principle, refer to Christ’s reign in heaven upon his ascension, but it may refer to his original existence in heaven. A clearer reference is found in a near parallel (Eph. 4:9–10), where Paul describes how Jesus “descended” from somewhere to earth, only to reascend to heaven later.

But even if these passages are debatable, Paul states clearly in 1 Corinthians 15:47 that the Son of God “is from heaven.” He is not from around here. He existed as a real person, though without a physical body, in the heavenly places. In John 3:31 John the Baptist (or perhaps John the apostle, depending on whether the quotation ends in 3:30 or 3:36) further affirms this by claiming that Jesus is “he who comes from above” and he “who comes from heaven” (cf. 1:15). While it is true that Jesus was physically born in Bethlehem and grew up in Nazareth, he comes from before then and from above them. He is actually from heaven.

If all this is true, one might expect there to be indications of his heavenly dwelling prior to his physical birth. And that is precisely what is found in the Old Testament.

Let us start with the most famous Old Testament vision of the heavenly court of God: Isaiah 6. The prophet Isaiah sees “the Lord sitting upon a throne,” and his “glory” is filling the heavenly temple and the earth (6:1–3). God then speaks directly to Isaiah in 6:9–10, describing the rejection the prophet will face in his ministry. Centuries later, John applies this same text to the rejection Jesus himself faces in his ministry (John 12:40). John then explains that “Isaiah said these things”—that is, Isaiah 6:9–10, which John had just quoted—because he (Isaiah) “saw his glory and spoke of him” (John 12:41). But to whom are “his” and “him” referring? In the context of the Gospel, the only possibility is Jesus. So what is John saying? Quite stunningly, the “glory” that Isaiah sees in the heavenly throne room—the radiant and inexpressible manifestation of God himself—is actually Jesus’s “glory.” In other words, John reveals that whomever it was that Isaiah glimpsed in the heavenly throne room was actually the preexistent Son of God in his glory. This is decisive apostolic evidence that the heavenly manifestation of God to an Old Testament prophet was actually the second person of the triune God.

Following Isaiah’s cue via John, we might turn to a second major heavenly vision of the Old Testament: Ezekiel 1. In his glimpse into the heavenly throne room, Ezekiel breathlessly tries to capture as best he can what cannot truly be captured in words, ranging from thrones to chariots to angelic beings. He saves the best for last, when he turns his gaze to the expanse above the heavens, where there is “the likeness of a throne” (1:26). Here, at the pinnacle of heaven, is God himself. But notice how Ezekiel describes what he sees: “Seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance” (1:26). He describes the fiery physical appearance of this human-like figure (1:27) and concludes, “Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord” (1:28). Ezekiel goes to great lengths to make clear that he is not seeing God the Father directly, for no one can see God and live (Ex. 33:20). But what is he seeing? The appearance, or the likeness, of the glory of God—which looks like a man! It is God but in human shape, reigning in heaven. Intriguingly, John uses some of these descriptors from Ezekiel 1 to describe Jesus in Revelation (1:15; 2:18), though without directly quoting it. It seems probable that this human-like manifestation of God’s glory points, once more, to the preexistent Son.

A final example is found in Daniel 7. It is well known that Jesus regularly refers to himself as “Son of Man” in the New Testament (~80x). Though there is still much debate about what Jesus means by this enigmatic phrase,3 the most likely explanation is that he is pointing us to Daniel 7, as becomes clear in Mark 13:26 and 14:62.4 In another almost indescribable scene, the prophet Daniel recounts a vision of heaven, where “thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat,” appearing with fire and hair that is white like wool (Dan. 7:9). This, of course, is God himself. But suddenly into the heavenly court appears “one...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Newsletter Signup
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Preexistence
• 2 God the Son
• 3 Christ the Kyrios
• 4 Maranatha
• 5 Three Persons
• 6 “My Lord and My God”
• Conclusion
• Selected Bibliography
• General Index
• Scripture Index