Discussion Question 2: Jesus' Divinity

You’re sharing the gospel with a student when they remark, “I like Jesus, but the actual Jesus, not the story created by Christians. Jesus was a great teacher, a voice for love. But then the church came along hundreds of years later and started saying he was a god to be worshipped.” How would you respond to this?

(Make sure you incorporate the reading from Bird in your response.)

While in the New Testament preaching it does not make explicit that Jesus is a divine person coequal in being with the Father... sharing in one divine substance, we know that numerous texts demand that Jesus is a preexistant person within the Godhead. Bird notes that Paul identifies Christ as active with the Israelites in the wilderness through the rock that followed them. That Jesus is "sent" from the Father from "heaven". In the accornym WISDOM we can see the witness of the New Testament to Jesus' deity. Jesus receives the Worship of God. Jesus participates in the Identity of God. Jesus shares the Seat of God's throne. Jesus preforms the Deeds of God. Jesus partakes of divine Ontology (the early church would use terms that did not just "elevate" a human to god-status for honorary purposes). And finally, Jesus enages in the Mission of God. God's mission requires incarnation.

I would start by saying, according to Jesus, He himself is God. While He never says, "Everyone worship me for I am God", He does say things that would in context mean the same thing. Saying I Am to a Jewish audience would be like Lebron James calling himself the G.O.A.T (greatest of all time). Lebron didn't say, I'm the best basketball player ever, but everyone in basketball culture knows what G.O.A.T stands for and would exactly know what he is saying. In the same way Jesus spoke about His divinity through ways that were clear to his audience.

I would then say, this isn't even just said by Jesus but was prophesied and inferred at minimum a thousand years before Christ was born. I would then point to passages where Jesus is shown prophetically, typologically, allegorically and through Christophany in the Old Testament. Emphasizing that the Jews were waiting for a God King to come for a long time.