The Deity of Jesus Christ
In this lesson we are going to be looking at some of the proofs for the Deity of Jesus Christ and show why this is such an important topic for us today. There are many verses that show us Jesus was God manifest in the flesh but in this lesson, we will use three specific areas of focus for our proof. We will focus on what the word of God calls Jesus specifically by name, the resurrection from the dead, and how Jesus said that he could forgive sins.
Proofs for the Deity of Jesus Christ:
1) The names given to Jesus in the word of God.
- Jesus is called the word of God (John 1:1,14 ; 1 John 1:1 ; 5:7 ; Revelation 19:13). Note here that the word was God and became flesh and dwelt among us.
- Jesus is called the Everlasting father (Isaiah 9:6)
- Jesus’ goings are said to be of old from everlasting (Micah 5:2)
- In Exodus 3:14 God tells Moses his name is “I AM”. In John 8:58 Jesus tells the Jews, “before Abraham was I am”. They knew exactly what he was saying because they took up stones to stone him.
- In Hebrews 1:8 God is speaking and calls Jesus God.
2) The Resurrection of Jesus from the Dead
- From the above references we see that Jesus is plainly the Son of God and he is God.
- In Romans 1:4 we see that his resurrection from the dead declared him to be the Son of God.
3) Jesus said he could forgive sin
- In Mark 2;5 Jesus equates himself with God once again by telling the man his sins were forgiven. Those in the crowd were even pondering why he would say this so he answers them.
- Sin is against God and therefore God is the one that forgives sin. This is the problem the crowd was having with Jesus’ statement. But since he is God manifest in the flesh he could forgive sins.
Why is this so important for us today?
In the above examples we have seen Jesus called, the word, God, and the everlasting father, but now we must look at him being called Lord. In Psalm 110:1 David makes a statement about the Lord saying unto his Lord. Jesus quotes this and shows us that he is talking about himself Matthew 22:41-46. Therefore Jesus is Lord.
This is important because as a part of salvation we confess the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 10:9-10). It is one thing to believe that Jesus existed but we must believe that he was who he claimed to be, God, and that he died and rose again for our sins. When we do this, he has the power to forgive us of our sins because he was God manifest in the flesh. Therefore, the Deity of Jesus Christ is one of the most important doctrines for us today because our Salvation hinges upon it.