Search It Out · The Christian faith
Is Jesus God?
Our answer: Yes. The New Testament calls Jesus God, gives him God's own name and honor, and shows him accepting worship that apostles and angels refused.
Many sincere people, including Jehovah's Witnesses, believe Jesus is a created being: "a god," but not God. Others say the church made him divine centuries later. Instead of arguing, let's read together what the earliest followers of Jesus actually wrote.
The Word was God
John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:3: Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.
John 1:14: The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John opens with the first words of Genesis: "In the beginning." The Word was already there when the beginning began. He was with God, and he was God. Verse 3 says everything that was made was made through him, so he isn't one of the things that were made. Verse 14 says who he is: the Word became flesh and lived among us.
Tap a highlighted word to see its Greek: theos (God) and logos (Word).
"A god"? Check the grammar yourself
John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:6: There came a man who was sent from God. His name was John.
John 1:12: But to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God—
John 1:13: children born not of blood, nor of the desire or will of man, but born of God.
John 1:18: No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.
The New World Translation of the Jehovah's Witnesses ends verse 1 with "the Word was a god," because the Greek has no "the" before theos there. But Greek has no word for "a" at all, and theos appears without "the" again in verses 6, 12, 13 and at the start of verse 18. The New World Translation renders every one of those "God." Only verse 1 gets "a god."
Scholars explain that putting theos first, without "the," describes what the Word is: he has the very nature of God, while still being distinct from the Father (Philip Harner, Journal of Biblical Literature, 1973).
Before Abraham was, I AM
John 8:58: “Truly, truly, I tell you, Jesus declared, “before Abraham was born, I am!
John 8:59: At this, they picked up stones to throw at Him. But Jesus was hidden and went out of the temple area.
Exodus 3:14: God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
Jesus didn't say "Before Abraham was, I was." He said "I am," the name God gave Moses at the burning bush. The Greek Old Testament that Jesus' hearers knew renders Exodus 3:14 with the same words, egō eimi: "I am the One who is." They understood exactly what he claimed. They picked up stones to kill him (verse 59), the penalty for blasphemy (Leviticus 24:16).
Hebrew and Greek are different languages, so the Strong's numbers differ here. The bridge is the Greek Old Testament, which uses Jesus' exact words.
Every knee will bow
Isaiah 45:22: Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.
Isaiah 45:23: By Myself I have sworn; truth has gone out from My mouth, a word that will not be revoked: Every knee will bow before Me, every tongue will swear allegiance.
Philippians 2:10: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
Philippians 2:11: and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
In Isaiah the LORD says, "I am God, and there is no other," and swears: "Every knee will bow before Me, every tongue will swear allegiance." Paul takes those words and applies them to Jesus: at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Paul was a Jew who believed God gives his glory to no one else (Isaiah 42:8). He could only say this if Jesus is the LORD.
"Your throne, O God"
Psalm 45:6: Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever, and justice is the scepter of Your kingdom.
Hebrews 1:8: But about the Son He says: “Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever, and justice is the scepter of Your kingdom.
Hebrews 1:10: And: “In the beginning, O Lord, You laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands.
Hebrews 1 shows that the Son is greater than the angels. It quotes Psalm 45:6 to the Son: "Your throne, O God, endures forever." Then verse 10 applies Psalm 102:25 to the Son, words about the LORD who laid the foundations of the earth. The Creator and the Son are the same person.
The worship he accepted
Acts 10:25: As Peter was about to enter, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet to worship him.
Acts 10:26: But Peter helped him up. “Stand up, he said, “I am only a man myself.
Revelation 22:8: And I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had shown me these things.
Revelation 22:9: But he said to me, “Do not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God!
John 20:28: Thomas replied, “My Lord and my God!
When Cornelius fell at Peter's feet, Peter helped him up: "I am only a man." When John fell down before an angel, the angel stopped him: "Worship God!" But when Thomas said to Jesus, "My Lord and my God!", Jesus didn't correct him. He blessed everyone who would believe it without seeing (John 20:29).
Questions people often ask
“The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). Doesn’t that settle it?
Greater in role, not in nature. Paul says the Son was equal with God, then took the form of a servant and became human (Philippians 2:6-7). A father outranks his son, but he isn’t more human than his son.
Jesus called the Father “the only true God” (John 17:3).
He was setting the true God against idols, not against himself. Two verses later he asks for the glory he had with the Father before the world existed (John 17:5). God gives his glory to no one else (Isaiah 42:8).
Old Coptic translations of John 1:1 say “a god.”
Coptic is a translation made about two centuries after John wrote. John wrote in Greek, and the Greek is what counts. Coptic also uses its word for “a” differently than English does, so it doesn’t have to mean “a lesser god.”
“Colwell’s rule” doesn’t prove theos means “the God.”
That’s true, and this study doesn’t use it. The point in step 2 is different: theos here describes what the Word is, divine by nature. Greek grammarian Daniel Wallace ranks “a god” as the least likely reading of the three options.
So, what did we find?
The people who knew Jesus best were Jews who would rather die than worship anyone but the one true God. Yet they gave Jesus God's titles, God's name, God's work in creation and God's worship. That's why Christians everywhere have always confessed one God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Scripture quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible (public domain).
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