I'm a Christian and I don't believe Jesus is God...

If you agree with the title of this post, please read the following and I pray it will challenge the way you see Jesus. This is the first post of mine specifically defending Christian doctrine for Christians so it may change over time as I write and learn.

I have recently come across several people that would agree to the title of this post and they have said that they cannot see why it is such a big deal. Someone I recently questioned on an online forum said they didn't see it as an important doctrine and found it hard to justify biblically. I will go over two main points: The dangers of losing this doctrine and the biblical evidence for Jesus' deity.

The Dangers of Ignoring Jesus' Deity

#1 Jesus is just a man

This might sound obvious but if Jesus is not God he is just a man. If Jesus is just a man, through his claims and even many of his teachings, he is a man who cannot be trusted. You may have heard of CS Lewis' argument that Jesus is either a lunatic, a liar or Lord - this is exactly right. Jesus taught some great things, that the last should be first, the poor should be helped and to love your enemies. He taught not to judge others but to make sure you are right with God. If Jesus only taught this sort of thing He probably would be ok to follow but only in the sense that Ghandi was followed. He should not be worshipped and that comes in at point #2.

But, the reason Jesus was executed was because he equated himself with and called himself God. He wasn't just a nice man that taught nice things. If a man claims to be God and turns out he is not God, why would you follow him - surely you should just pull out some good stuff from the teaching and ignore the man?

#2 Jesus is an idol
If you ignore the first point and still worship Jesus then you end up with a human idol. Christians who worship Christ and say they are filled with His spirit but ignore His deity cannot be keeping up with scripture. One specific reason - it goes against the commandments - You shall have no other gods before me (Deuteronomy 5). If Jesus is worth following and as he keeps pointing to scripture himself, he would not contradict 'his father' (Jesus talks about God the father a lot) in such a blatant manner. All of the New Testament books point to Jesus and tell us to put him first in our lives and worship him. If Jesus is just a man, then this is definite idolatry and contradicts much of the bible's teachings about putting God first.

#3 You can pick and choose Jesus' teachings and in turn, the bible's teachings
There are unfortunately several prominent people in the anglican church that agree with the title of this post. They obviously don't agree with CS Lewis' view. But, that means that they are ignoring parts of scripture and picking out other texts to prove their points. If you can manipulate the text around Jesus' teaching enough you can manipulate any bit of scripture to get what you want. Looking at some leaders in the anglican church (google Spong), they also deny the resurrection and many other core elements to Christianity. Once you manipulate the gospels and scripture to ignore Jesus' deity, it is the top of a slippery slope. You can then pick and choose whichever parts of the bible you want and justify whatever you want. Christianity soon becomes Ianity and a very fluffy, wishy-washy religion it is too.

The Biblical Evidence for Jesus' Deity

In a recent forum I visited and posted on, it was hinted that you had to be indoctrinated to believe Jesus was God. Biblically, apparently, it was hard to stack the evidence up for Jesus' deity. The only way I can see that there is no biblical evidence for Jesus' deity is by not reading the bible. It may sound harsh but here are a few of the passages, I won't go into all of them as there are loads:

The Gospels

Throughout the gospels Jesus refers to himself or is referred to as the Son of God. The argument against this is that all Christians are called sons of God. The difference? Other than Jesus is the Son of God and I am a son of God - Paul explains we are joint heirs of Christ, adopted sons. We are not the son. This may not specifically say Jesus is God but stay with me, it shows Jesus is more important and closer to God than we are for a start.

Matthew starts out with the birth of Christ and Joseph is told that Jesus shall be called Immanuel which means God with us - an interesting name for someone who is just a man. In Matthew 9, Jesus forgives sins and equates himself with God by calling himself the son of man - how is this God? "Son of man" refers to a prophetic image in Daniel 7. In this image the son of man is given authority over all the earth and the world worshipped him.The kingdom of the son of man's is never destroyed. Jesus knew who he was comparing himself to, the Jewish teachers of the law knew who he was comparing himself to and that is why they thought he was blasphemous. If someone equates themself with God, and is obviously not God, we should not follow them - they can only be deluded or blatant liars.

Mark chapter 13 is a prophetic glimpse of the second coming from Jesus himself. In this passage he refers to the Son of Man returning. See above for who the son of man is.

In Luke chapter 4, Jesus drives out an evil spirit. During this event the man possessed calls Jesus the Holy one of God. This seems to happen a lot as in the same chapter but in verse 41, the evil spirits seem to keep calling Jesus the son of God. Later in Luke chapter 11, Jesus is challenged by a crowd who thought he was the prince of demons. Jesus corrects them by pointing out that a demon would not drive out demons, it does not make any sense. "A kingdom divided against itself will fall ... But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you".

John 1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning...The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

Reading the whole of chapter one of John, it clearly points to Jesus. John is full of quotes from Jesus and about Jesus confirming Jesus is God. Jesus says he is the son of God but differentiates from any other son of God by saying he is 'one' with God (John 10:30).

There are also accounts in the gospels also of Jesus asking the disciples who he is (Matthew 16, Mark 8, Luke 9, and a declaration in John from Martha).  Jesus does not correct them when they call him the Christ and he then calls himself the son of man. If he isn't God then he is a deciever and not to be trusted.

Outside the Gospels

Accounts by Disciples - people that walked and talked with Jesus
In Acts there are various accounts that the disciples believed Jesus to be the Messiah that was promised in the old testament. They were under no delusion that Jesus was the son of God, son of man, who was one with God. (See Acts 5:42, Acts 7, Acts 9 and Acts 10).

Hebrews 13:8: 'Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever'. This is language that is often reserved for God like in the Psalms (Psalm 102). Man cannot be the same yesterday, today and forever. 

Written by Paul
Romans 9:5 is pretty clear: "...the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised".

I love Colossians, and if you are in any doubt as to what the early church taught about Christ read Colossians 1:15-23. If Christ was just a man, he cannot have been with God at the beginning. This is debated though by Jehovahs Witnesses as they would say Christ being a firstborn would mean Christ was created. John Piper in 'The Pleasures of God' refutes this using four reasons but the one I find useful is that firstborn in this sense is used throughout the bible (Psalm 89:27, Exodus 4:22 and Hebrews 12:23) as a place of dignity and royalty and not specifically to birth or family. If you weren't certain, Paul hammers it home with verse 19: "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him". Continuing with this theme, Paul then confirms in chapter 2, verse 9 (bear in mind this is a letter so the reader was meant to read this in one sitting) "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form". Paul was certain Christ was fully God. 

Conclusion
I have missed out many other quotes from both the gospels and the letters from the apostles. What I hope to have shown is that those that knew Jesus and those that taught in the early church later were under no illusion as to whether or not Jesus Christ was God. As William Lane Craig argues in an interview posted at bethinking.org:

"Today the majority of New Testament scholars agree that the historical Jesus deliberately stood and spoke in the place of God Himself, that he claimed that in himself the kingdom of God had come, and that he carried out a ministry of miracle-working and exorcisms as signs of that fact.  According to the German theologian Horst George Pöhlmann,

Today there is virtually a consensus . . . that Jesus came on the scene with an unheard of authority, with the claim of the authority to stand in God’s place and speak to us and bring us to salvation.  With regard to Jesus there are only two possible modes of behavior:  either to believe that in him God encounters us or to nail him to the cross as a blasphemer.  Tertium non datur. [There is no third way.]

Thus, Jesus either was who he claimed to be, or he was a blasphemous megalomaniac, which seems utterly implausible."

We cannot ignore Christ's deity as Christians. It is one of the core parts to the Christian faith and if you remove it, you might as well call yourself an atheist.

Sources:
Bible quotes are all linked to http://www.biblegateway.com/, I use the NIV translation but you can change that with the click of a button on the site.

Lewis' Trilemma - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis%27s_trilemma
William Lane Craig, The Evidence for Christianity, http://www.bethinking.org/bible-jesus/the-evidence-for-christianity.htm, Accessed 26/05/2010. 

William Lane Craig quotes: Horst Georg Pöhlmann, Abriss der Dogmatik, 3d rev. ed. (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1980), p. 230.
John Piper, The Pleasures of God, (Christian Focus Publications, LTD, 2001), Chapter 1.

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Questioning Christiainity?

Regular visitors may have noticed I have added a few more blogs to my sidebar. These are great apologetics blogs that show that Christians think about what they believe in and aren't just indoctrinated. Christians, you are allowed to use your brains - if you are questioning Christianity please do check out apologetics315.blogspot.com, str.org, martyro.blogspot.com, bethinking.org and do some research from the amazing amount of resources you can find there.