Reflection: Was Jesus God?

We are using this Easter period to explore the significance of Jesus. The key question is this: Was he really God?

Quite a lot of people think that Jesus was just a ‘nice fellow; a fine moral example’ and will not believe that Jesus is anything more than that. Unfortunately, the four biographies of Jesus recorded in the New Testament will not allow us to get away with such a weak understanding of Jesus’ significance. Here’s why:

• Jesus accepted worship as God (John 9:35-38; 20:28).
• He claimed to be able to forgive sins (Mark 2:5).
• Jesus claimed that he would judge the world (Matthew 25:31-32).
• He claimed to raise people up to everlasting life (John 6:40; 10:28).
• Jesus claimed that to have seen him, is to have seen God (John 14:8-9).
• He claimed to have always existed (John 8:58).
• Jesus’ morality was faultless, and he was without sin (1 Peter 2:22).
• Jesus fulfilled prophecy written about him hundreds of years before he came.
• The evidence that he overcame death is both unique and compelling.

It is also highly significant that even his enemies understood Jesus’ claim to be God (John 10:31-33; 19:7).

Before Jesus came to earth as a man, God introduced himself to humanity by making a covenant with Abraham. God promised that Abraham’s descendants would become ‘his people,’ i.e. the Hebrew, (or Jewish), people. The Jews were tasked with being God’s chaplains to the world (Genesis 22:18).

Three consistent themes run through the Old Testament:

1. God’s love for his people and his call for them to be his chaplains to the world.
2. God’s judgement of unfaithfulness – which, crucially, is always tempered with his promise to forgive and restore if his people repented.
3. A growing sense of anticipation of God coming to his people as the Messiah (a Hebrew word meaning “the anointed one”).

Four hundred years after the last word was written in the Old Testament, Jesus came.

The Bible is the story of God drawing progressively closer to us. First, he hangs his “business card” in the cosmos and invites us to see the order and finely balanced forces that point to his existence. Next, he comes closer and introduces us to his character through the words of the Old Testament prophets. And finally, God comes to us in person, as Jesus – both to show us what he was like… and to die and pay the price for our sins that would otherwise disbar us from his presence.

The big question is: Will you accept what Jesus has done for you in dying in your place so you can live your intended destiny with God?

Prayer:

Thank you for drawing progressively closer to us. Thank you for creation, and the order and finely balanced forces that point to your existence. Thank you for revealing your character through the words of the Old Testament prophets. Finally, thank you for coming to us in person; thank you for Jesus, who shows us what you are like… and who died and paid the price for our sins that would otherwise disbar us from your presence.