B. Jesus Christ is recognized as God

(a) He is expressly called God.

In John 1:1—Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος—the absence of the article shows Θεός to be the predicate (cf. 4:24—πνεῦμα ὁ Θεός). This predicate precedes the verb by way of emphasis, to indicate progress in the thought = ‘the Logos was not only with God, but was God’ (see Meyer and Luthardt, Comm. in loco). “Only ὁ λόγος can be the subject, for in the whole Introduction the question is, not who God is, but who the Logos is” (Godet).

Westcott in Bible Commentary, in loco—“The predicate stands emphatically first. It is necessarily without the article, inasmuch as it describes the nature of the Word and does not identify his person. It would be pure Sabellianism to say: ‘The Word was ὁ Θεός.’ Thus in verse 1 we have set forth the Word in his absolute eternal being, (a) his existence: beyond time; (b) his personal existence: in active communion with God; (c) his nature: God in essence.” Marcus Dods, in Expositor’s Greek Testament, in loco: “The Word is distinguishable from God, yet Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος—the word was God, of divine nature; not ‘a God,’ which to a Jewish ear would have been abominable, nor yet identical with all that can be called God, for then the article would have been inserted (cf. 1 John 3:4).”

In John 1:18, μονογενὴς Θεός—‘the only begotten God’ must be regarded as the correct reading, and as a plain ascription of absolute Deity to Christ. He is not simply the only revealer of God, but he is himself God revealed.

John 1:18—“No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” In this passage, although Tischendorf (8th ed.) has μονογενὴς υἱός, Westcott and Hort (with א*B*C*L Pesh. Syr.) read, μονογενὴς Θεός and the Rev. Vers. puts “the only begotten God” in the margin, though it retains “the only begotten Son” in the text. Harnack says the reading μονογενὴς Θεός is “established beyond contradiction”; see Westcott, Bib. Com. on John, pages 32, 33. Here then we have a new and unmistakable assertion of the deity of Christ. Meyer says that the apostles actually call Christ God only in John 1:1 and 20:28, and that Paul never so recognizes him. But Meyer is able to maintain his position only by calling the doxologies to Christ, in 2 Tim. 4:18, Heb. 13:21 and 2 Pet. 3:18, post-apostolic. See Thayer, N. T. Lexicon, on Θεός and on μονογενής.

In John 20:28, the address of Thomas Ὁ κύριός μου καὶ ὁ θεός μου,—‘My Lord and my God’ since it was unrebuked by Christ, is equivalent to an assertion on his own part of his claim to Deity.

John 20:28—“Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.” This address cannot be interpreted as a sudden appeal to God in surprise and admiration, without charging the apostle with profanity. Nor can it be considered a mere exhibition of overwrought enthusiasm, since it was accepted by Christ. Contrast the conduct of Paul and Barnabas when the heathen at Lystra were bringing sacrifice to them as Jupiter and Mercury (Acts 14:11–18). The words of Thomas, as addressed directly to Christ and as accepted by Christ, can be regarded only as a just acknowledgment on the part of Thomas that Christ was his Lord and his God. Alford, Commentary, in loco: “The socinian view that these words are merely an exclamation is refuted (1) by the fact that no such exclamations were in use among the Jews; (2) by the εἶπεν αὐτῷ; (3) by the impossibility of referring the ὁ κύριός μου to another than Jesus: see verse 13; (4) by the N. T. usage of expressing the vocative by the nominative with an article; (5) by the psychological absurdity of such a supposition: that one just convinced of the presence of him whom he dearly loved should, instead of addressing him, break out into an irrelevant cry; (6) by the further absurdity of supposing that, if such were the case, the Apostle John, who of all the sacred writers most constantly keeps in mind the object for which he is writing, should have recorded anything so beside that object; (7) by the intimate conjunction of πεπίστευκας.” Cf. Mat. 5:34—“Swear not … by the heaven”—swearing by Jehovah is not mentioned, because no Jew did so swear. This exclamation of Thomas, the greatest doubter among the twelve, is the natural conclusion of John’s gospel. The thesis “the Word was God” (John 1:1) has now become part of the life and consciousness of the apostles. Chapter 21 is only an Epilogue, or Appendix, written later by John, to correct the error that he was not to die; see Westcott, Bible Com., in loco. The Deity of Christ is the subject of the apostle who best understood his Master. Lyman Beecher: “Jesus Christ is the acting Deity of the universe.”

In Rom. 9:5, the clause ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων Θεὸς εὐλογητός cannot be translated ‘blessed be the God over all,’ for ὤν is superfluous if the clause is a doxology; “εὐλογητός precedes the name of God in a doxology, but follows it, as here, in a description” (Hovey). The clause can therefore justly be interpreted only as a description of the higher nature of the Christ who had just been said, τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, or according to his lower nature, to have had his origin from Israel (see Tholuck, Com. in loco).

Sanday, Com. on Rom. 9:5—“The words would naturally refer to Christ, unless ‘God’ is so definitely a proper name that it would imply a contrast in itself. We have seen that this is not so.” Hence Sanday translates: “of whom is the Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever.” See President T. Dwight, in Jour. Soc. Bib. Exegesis, 1881:22–55; per contra, Ezra Abbot, in the same journal, 1881:1–19, and Denney, in Expositor’s Gk. Test., in loco.

In Titus 2:13, ἐπιφάνειαν τῆς δόξης τοῦ μεγάλου Θεοῦ καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ we regard (with Ellicott) as “a direct, definite, and even studied declaration of Christ’s divinity” = “the … appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (so English Revised Version). Ἐπιφάνεια is a term applied specially to the Son and never to the Father, and μεγάλου is uncalled for if used of the Father, but peculiarly appropriate if used of Christ. Upon the same principles we must interpret the similar text 2 Pet. 1:1 (see Huther, in Meyer’s Com.: “The close juxtaposition indicates the author’s certainty of the oneness of God and Jesus Christ”).

Titus 2:13—“Looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ”—so the English Revised Version. The American Revisers however translate: “the glory of the great God and Savior”; and Westcott and Hort bracket the word ἡμῶν. These considerations somewhat lessen the cogency of this passage as a proof-text, yet upon the whole the balance of argument seems to us still to incline in favor of Ellicott’s interpretation as given above.

In Heb. 1:8, πρὸς δὲ τὸν υἱόν · ὁ θρόνος σου, ὁ Θεὸς, εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα is quoted as an address to Christ, and verse 10 which follows—“Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth”—by applying to Christ an Old Testament ascription to Jehovah, shows that ὁ Θεός, in verse 8, is used in the sense of absolute Godhead.

It is sometimes objected that the ascription of the name God to Christ proves nothing as to his absolute deity, since angels and even human judges are called gods, as representing God’s authority and executing his will. But we reply that, while it is true that the name is sometimes so applied, it is always with adjuncts and in connections which leave no doubt of its figurative and secondary meaning. When, however, the name is applied to Christ, it is, on the contrary, with adjuncts and in connections which leave no doubt that it signifies absolute Godhead. See Ex. 4:16—“thou shalt be to him as God”; 7:1—“See, I have made thee as God to Pharaoh”; 22:28—“Thou shalt not revile God, [marg., the judges], nor curse a ruler of thy people”; Ps. 82:1—“God standeth in the congregation of God; He judgeth among the gods” [among the mighty]; 6—“I said, Ye are gods, And all of you sons of the Most High”; 7—“Nevertheless ye shall die like men, And fall like one of the princes.” Cf. John 10:34–36—“If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came” (who were God’s commissioned and appointed representatives), how much more proper for him who is one with the Father to call himself God.

As in Ps. 82:7 those who had been called gods are represented as dying, so in Ps. 97:7—“Worship him, all ye gods”—they are bidden to fall down before Jehovah. Ann. Par. Bible “Although the deities of the heathen have no positive existence, they are often described in Scripture as if they had, and are represented as bowing down before the majesty of Jehovah.” This Verse is quoted in Heb. 1:6—“let all the angels of God worship him” i. e., Christ. Here Christ is identified with Jehovah. The quotation is made from the Septuagint, which has “angels” for “gods.” “Its use here is in accordance with the spirit of the Hebrew word, which includes all that human error might regard as objects of worship.” Those who are figuratively and rhetorically called “gods” are bidden to fall down in worship before him who is the true God, Jesus Christ. See Dick, Lectures on Theology, 1:314; Liddon, Our Lord’s Divinity, 10.

In 1 John 5:20—ἐσμὲν ἐν τῷ ἀληθινῷ, ἐν τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ. οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ἀληθινὸς Θεός—“it would be a flat repetition, after the Father had been twice called ὁ ἀληθινός, to say now again: ‘this is ὁ ἀληθινὸς Θεός.’ Our being in God has its basis in Christ his Son, and this also makes it more natural that οὗτος should be referred to υἱῷ But ought not ὁ ἀληθινός then to be without the article (as in John 1:1—Θεός ἦν ὁ λόγος? No, for it is John’s purpose in 1 John 5:20 to say, not what Christ is, but who he is. In declaring what one is, the predicate must have no article; in declaring who one is, the predicate must have the article. St. John here says that this Son, on whom our being in the true God rests, is this true God himself” (see Ebrard, Com. in loco).

Other passages might be here adduced, as Col. 2:9—“in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”; Phil. 2:6—“existing in the form of God”; but we prefer to consider these under other heads as indirectly proving Christ’s divinity. Still other passages once relied upon as direct statements of the doctrine must be given up for textual reasons. Such are Acts 20:28, where the correct reading is in all probability not ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Θεοῦ, but ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Κυρίου (so ACDE Tregelles and Tischendorf; B and א however, have τοῦ Θεοῦ. The Rev. Vers. continues to read “church of God”; Amer. Revisers, however, read “church of the Lord”—see Ezra Abbot’s investigation in Bib. Sac., 1876:313–352); and 1 Tim. 3:16, where ὃς is unquestionably to be substituted for Θεός, though even here ἐφανερώθη intimates preëxistence.

Rev. George E. Ellis, D. D., before the Unitarian Club, Boston. November, 1882—“Fifty years of study, thought and reading given largely to the Bible and to the literature which peculiarly relates to it, have brought me to this conclusion, that the book—taken with the especial divine quality and character claimed for it, and so extensively assigned to it, as inspired and infallible as a whole, and in all its contents—is an Orthodox book. It yields what is called the Orthodox creed. The vast majority of its readers, following its letter, its obvious sense, its natural meaning, and yielding to the impression which some of its emphatic texts make upon them, find in it Orthodoxy. Only that kind of ingenious, special, discriminative, and in candor I must add, forced treatment, which it receives from us liberals can make the book teach anything but Orthodoxy. The evangelical sects, so called, are clearly right in maintaining that their view of Scripture and of its doctrines draws a deep and wide division of creed between them and ourselves. In that earnest controversy by pamphlet warfare between Drs. Channing and Ware on the one side. and Drs. Worcester and Woods and Professor Stuart on the other—a controversy which wrought up the people of our community sixty years ago more than did our recent political campaign—I am fully convinced that the liberal contestants were worsted. Scripture exegesis, logic and argument were clearly on the side of the Orthodox contestants. And this was so, mainly because the liberal party put themselves on the same plane with the Orthodox in their way of regarding and dealing with Scripture texts in their bearing upon the controversy. Liberalism cannot vanquish Orthodoxy, if it yields to the latter in its own way of regarding and treating the whole Bible. Martin Luther said that the Papists burned the Bible because it was not on their side. Now I am not about to attack the Bible because it is not on my side; but I am about to object as emphatically as I can against a character and quality assigned to the Bible, which it does not claim for itself, which cannot be certified for it; and the origin and growth and intensity of the fond and superstitious influences resulting in that view we can trace distinctly to agencies accounting for, but not warranting, the current belief. Orthodoxy cannot readjust its creeds till it readjusts its estimate of the Scriptures. The only relief which one who professes the Orthodox creed can find is either by forcing his ingenuity into the proof-texts or indulging his liberty outside of them.”

With this confession of a noted Unitarian it is interesting to compare the opinion of the so-called Trinitarian, Dr. Lyman Abbott, who says that the New Testament nowhere calls Christ God, but everywhere calls him man, as in 1 Tim. 2:5—“For there is one God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus,” On this passage Prof. L. L. Paine remarks in the New World, Dec. 1894—“That Paul ever confounded Christ with God himself, or regarded him as in any way the Supreme Divinity, is a position invalidated not only by direct statements, but also by the whole drift of his epistles.”

(b) Old Testament descriptions of God are applied to him.

This application to Christ of titles and names exclusively appropriated to God is inexplicable, if Christ was not regarded as being himself God. The peculiar awe with which the term ‘Jehovah’ was set apart by a nation of strenuous monotheists as the sacred and incommunicable name of the one self-existent and covenant-keeping God forbids the belief that the Scripture writers could have used it as the designation of a subordinate and created being.

Mat. 3:3—“Make ye ready the way of the Lord”—is a quotation from Is. 40:3—“Prepare ye.… the way of Jehovah.” John 12:41—“These things said Isaiah, because he saw his glory; and he spake of him” [i. e., Christ]—refers to Is. 6:1—“In the year that King Ussiah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne.” So in Eph. 4:7, 8—“measure of the gift of Christ.… led captivity captive”—is an application to Christ of what is said of Jehovah in Ps. 68:18. In 1 Pet. 3:15, moreover, we read, with all the great uncials, several of the Fathers, and all the best versions: “sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord”; here the apostle borrows his language from Is. 8:13, where we read: “Jehovah of hosts, him shall ye sanctify.” When we remember that, with the Jews, God’s covenant-title was so sacred that for the Kethib (=“writtten”) Jehovah there was always substituted the Keri (=“read”—imperative) Adonai, in order to avoid pronunciation of the great Name, it seems the more remarkable that the Greek equivalent of ‘Jehovah’ should have been so constantly used of Christ. Cf. Rom. 10:9—“confess.… Jesus as Lord”; 1 Cor. 12:3—“no man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit.” We must remember also the indignation of the Jews at Christ’s assertion of his equality and oneness with the Father. Compare Goethe’s, “Wer dart ihn nennen?” with Carlyle’s, “the awful Unnameable of this Universe.” The Jews, it has been said, have always vibrated between monotheism and moneytheism. Yet James, the strongest of Hebrews, in his Epistle uses the word ‘Lord’ freely and alternately of God the Father and of Christ the Son. This would have been impossible if James had not believed in the community of essence between the Son and the Father.

It is interesting to note that 1 Maccabees does not once use the word Θεός, or κύριος, or any other direct designation of God unless it be οὐρανός (cf. “swear.… by the heaven’—Mat. 5:34). So the book of Esther contains no mention of the name of God, though the apocryphal additions to Esther, which are found only in Greek, contain the name of God in the first verse, and mention it in all eight times. See Bissell, Apocrypha, in Lange’s Commentary; Liddon, Our Lord’s Divinity, 93; Max Müller on Semitic Monotheism, in Chips from a German Workshop, 1:337.

(c) He possesses the attributes of God.

Among these are life, self-existence, immutability, truth, love, holiness, eternity, omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence. All these attributes are ascribed to Christ in connections which show that the terms are used in no secondary sense, nor in any sense predicable of a creature.

Life: John 1:4—“In him was life”; 14:6—“I am.… the life.” Self-existence: John 5:26—“have life in himself”; Heb. 7:16—“power of an endless life.” Immutability: Heb. 13:8—“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day, yea and forever.” Truth: John 14:6—“I am.… the truth”; Rev. 3:7—“he that is true.” Love: 1 John 3:16—“Hereby know we love” (τὴν ἀγάπην = the personal Love, as the personal Truth) “because he laid down his life for us.” Holiness: Luke 1:35—“that which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God”; John 6:69—“thou art the Holy One of God”; Heb. 7:26—“holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners.”

Eternity: John 1:1—“In the beginning was the Word.” Godet says ἐν ἀρχῇ = not ‘in eternity,’ but ‘in the beginning of the creation’; the eternity of the Word being an inference from the ἦν—the Word was, when the world was created: cf. Gen. 1:1—“In the beginning God created.” But Meyer says, ἐν ἀρχῇ here rises above the historical conception of “in the beginning” in Genesis (which includes the beginning of time itself) to the absolute conception of anteriority to time; the creation is something subsequent. He finds a parallel in Prov. 8:23—ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸ τοῦ τὴν γῆν ποιῆσαι. The interpretation ‘in the beginning of the gospel’ is entirely unexegetical; so Meyer. So John 17:5—“glory which I had with thee before the world was”; Eph. 1:4—“chose us in him before the foundation of the world.” Dorner also says that ἐν ἀρχῇ in John 1:1 is not ‘the beginning of the world,’ but designates the point back of which it is impossible to go, i. e., eternity; the world is first spoken of in verse 3. John 8:58—“Before Abraham was born, I am; cf. 1:15; Col. 1:17—“he is before all things”; Heb. 1:11—the heavens “shall perish; but thou continuest”; Rev. 21:6—“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”

Omnipresence: Mat. 28:20—“I am with you always”; Eph. 1:23—“the fulness of him that filleth all in all.” Omniscience: Mat. 9:4—“Jesus knowing their thoughts”; John 2:24, 25—“knew all men.… knew what was in man”; 16:30—“knowest all things”; Acts 1:24—“Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men”—a prayer offered before the day of Pentecost and showing the attitude of the disciples toward their Master; 1 Cor. 4:5—“until the Lord come, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts”; Col. 2:3—“in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.” Omnipotence: Mat. 28:18—“All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth”; Rev. 1:8—“the Lord God, which is and which was and which is to come, the Almighty.”

Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, 1:249–260, holds that Jesus’ preëxistence is simply the concrete form given to an ideal conception. Jesus traces himself back, as everything else holy and divine was traced back in the conceptions of his time, to a heavenly original in which it preëxisted before its earthly appearance; e. g.: the tabernacle, in Heb. 8:5; Jerusalem, in Gal. 4:25 and Rev. 21:10; the kingdom of God, in Mat. 13:24; much more the Messiah, in John 6:62—“ascending where he was before”; 8:58—“Before Abraham was born, I am”; 17:4, 5—“glory which I had with thee before the world was” 17:24—“thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” This view that Jesus existed before creation only ideally in the divine mind, means simply that God foreknew him and his coming. The view is refuted by the multiplied intimations of a personal, in distinction from an ideal, preëxistence.

Lowrie, Doctrine of St. John, 115—“The words ‘In the beginning’ (John 1:1) suggest that the author is about to write a second book of Genesis, an account of a new creation.” As creation presupposes a Creator, the preëxistence of the personal Word is assigned as the explanation of the being of the universe. The ἦν indicates absolute existence, which is a loftier idea than that of mere preëxistence, although it includes this. While John the Baptist and Abraham are said to have arisen, appeared, come into being, it is said that the Logos was and that the Logos was God. This implies coëternity with the Father. But, if the view we are combating were correct, John the Baptist and Abraham preëxisted, equally with Christ. This is certainly not the meaning of Jesus in John 8:58—“Before Abraham was born, I am”; cf. Col. 1:17—“he is before all things”—“αὐτός emphasizes the personality, while ἔστιν declares that the preëxistence is absolute existence” (Lightfoot); John 1:15—“He that cometh after me is become before me: for he was before me” = not that Jesus was born earlier than John the Baptist, for he was born six months later, but that he existed earlier. He stands before John in rank, because he existed long before John in time; 6:62—“the Son of man ascending where he was before”; 16:28—“I came out from the Father, and am come into the world.” So Is. 9:6, 7, calls Christ “Everlasting Father” = eternity is an attribute of the Messiah. T. W. Chambers, in Jour. Soc. Bib. Exegesis, 1881:169–171—“Christ is the Everlasting One, ‘whose goings forth have been from of old, even from the days of eternity’ (Micah 5:2). ‘Of the increase of his government.… there shall be no end,’ just because of his existence there has been no beginning.”

(d) The works of God are ascribed to him.

We do not here speak of miracles, which may be wrought by communicated power, but of such works as the creation of the world, the upholding of all things, the final raising of the dead, and the judging of all men. Power to perform these works cannot be delegated, for they are characteristic of omnipotence.

Creation: John 1:3—“All things were made through him”; 1 Cor. 8:6—“one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things”; Col. 1:16—“all things have been created through him, and onto him”; Heb. 1:10—“Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the works of thy hands”; 3:3, 4—“he that built all things is God” = Christ, the builder of the house of Israel, is the God who made all things; Rev. 3:14—“the beginning of the creation of God” (cf. Plato: “Mind is the ἀρχή of motion”). Upholding: Col. 1:17—“in him all things consist” (marg. “hold together”); Heb. 1:3—“upholding all things by the word of his power.” Raising the dead and judging the world: John 5:27–29—“authority to execute judgment.… all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth”; Mat. 25:31, 32—“sit on the throne of his glory; and before him shall be gathered all the nations.” If our argument were addressed wholly to believers, we might also urge Christ’s work in the world as Revealer of God and Redeemer from sin, as a proof of his deity. On the works of Christ, see Liddon, Our Lord’s Divinity, 153; per contra, see Examination of Liddon’s Bampton Lectures, 72.

Statements of Christ’s creative and of his upholding activity are combined in John 1:3, 4—Πάντα διʼ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν. ὅ γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν—“All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made. That which hath been made was life in him” (marg.). Westcott: “It would be difficult to find a more complete consent of ancient authorities in favor of any reading than that which supports this punctuation.” Westcott therefore adopts it. The passage shows that the universe 1. exists within the bounds of Christ’s being; 2. is not dead, but living; 3. derives its life from him; see Inge, Christian Mysticism, 46. Creation requires the divine presence, as well as the divine agency. God creates through Christ. All things were made, not ὐπὸ αὐτοῦ—“by him,” but διʼ αὐτοῦ—“through him.” Christian believers “Behind creation’s throbbing screen Catch movements of the great Unseen.”

Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, lv, lvi—“That which many a philosopher dimly conjectured, namely, that God did not produce the world in an absolute, immediate manner, but in some way or other, mediately, here presents itself to us with the lustre of revelation, and exalts so much the more the claim of the Son of God to our deep and reverential homage.” Would that such scientific men as Tyndall and Huxley might see Christ in nature, and, doing his will, might learn of the doctrine and be led to the Father! The humblest Christian who sees Christ’s hand in the physical universe and in human history knows more of the secret of the universe than all the mere scientists put together.

Col. 1:17—“In him all things consist,” or “hold together,” means nothing less than that Christ is the principle of cohesion in the universe, making it a cosmos instead of a chaos. Tyndall said that the attraction of the sun upon the earth was as inconceivable as if a horse should draw a cart without traces. Sir Isaac Newton: “Gravitation must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain laws.” Lightfoot: “Gravitation is an expression of the mind of Christ.” Evolution also is a method of his operation. The laws of nature are the habits of Christ, and nature itself is but his steady and constant will. He binds together man and nature in one organic whole, so that we can speak of a ‘universe.’ Without him there would be no intellectual bond, no uniformity of law, no unity of truth. He is the principle of induction, that enables us to argue from one thing to another. The medium of interaction between things is also the medium of intercommunication between minds. It is fitting that he who draws and holds together the physical and intellectual, should also draw and hold together the moral universe, drawing all men to himself (John 12:32) and so to God, and reconciling all things in heaven and earth (Col. 1:20). In Christ “the law appears, Drawn out in living characters,” because he is the ground and source of all law, both in nature and in humanity. See A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 6–12.

(e) He receives honor and worship due only to God.

In addition to the address of Thomas, in John 20:28, which we have already cited among the proofs that Jesus is expressly called God, and in which divine honor is paid to him, we may refer to the prayer and worship offered by the apostolic and post-apostolic church.

John 5:23—“that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father”; 13:14—“If ye shall ask me [so א B and Tisch. 8th ed.] anything in my name, that will I do”; Acts 7:59—“Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (cf. Luke 23:46—Jesus’ words: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit”); Rom. 10:9—“confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord”;13—“whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (cf. Gen. 4:26—“Then began men to call upon the name of Jehovah”); 1 Cor. 11:24, 25—“this do in remembrance of me” = worship of Christ; Heb. 1:6—“let all the angels of God worship him”; Phil. 2:10, 11—“in the name of Jesus every knee should bow.… every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord”; Rev. 5:12–14—“Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain to receive the power.…; 2 Pet. 3:18—“Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory”; 2 Tim. 4:18 and Heb. 13:21—“to whom be the glory for ever and ever”—these ascriptions of eternal glory to Christ imply his deity. See also 1 Pet. 3:15—“Sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord,” and Eph. 5:21—“subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.” Here is enjoined an attitude of mind towards Christ which would be idolatrous if Christ were not God. See Liddon, Our Lord’s Divinity, 266, 366.

Foster, Christian Life and Theology, 154—“In the eucharistic liturgy of the ‘Teaching’ we read: ‘Hosanna to the God of David’; Ignatius styles him repeatedly God ‘begotten and unbegotten, come in the flesh’; speaking once of ‘the blood of God’, in evident allusion to Acts 20:28; the epistle to Diognetus takes up the Pauline words and calls him the “architect and world-builder by whom [God] created the heavens’, and names him God (chap. vii); Hermas speaks of him as ‘the holy preëxistent Spirit, that created every creature’, which style of expression is followed by Justin, who calls him God, as also all the later great writers. In the second epistle of Clement (130–160, Harnack), we read: ‘Brethren, it is fitting that you should think of Jesus Christ as of God—as the Judge of the living and the dead.’ And Ignatius describes him as ‘begotten and unbegotten, passible and impassible, … who was before the eternities with the Father.’ ”

These testimonies only give evidence that the Church Fathers saw in Scripture divine honor ascribed to Christ. They were but the precursors of a host of later interpreters. In a lull of the awful massacre of Armenian Christians at Sassouan, one of the Kurdish savages was heard to ask: “Who was that ‘Lord Jesus’ that they were calling to?” In their death agonies, the Christians, like Stephen of old, called upon the name of the Lord. Robert Browning quoted, in a letter to a lady in her last illness, the words of Charles Lamb, when “in a gay fancy with some friends as to how he and they would feel if the greatest of the dead were to appear suddenly in flesh and blood once more—on the first suggestion, ‘And if Christ entered this room?’ changed his tone at once and stuttered out as his manner was when moved: ‘You see—If Shakespere entered, we should all rise; if He appeared, we must kneel.’ ” On prayer to Jesus, see Liddon, Bampton Lectures, note F; Bernard, in Hastings’ Bib. Dict., 4:44; Zahn, Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten Kirche, 9, 288.

(f) His name is associated with that of God upon a footing of equality.

We do not here allude to 1 John 5:7 (the three heavenly witnesses), for the latter part of this verse is unquestionably spurious; but to the formula of baptism, to the apostolic benedictions, and to those passages in which eternal life is said to be dependent equally upon Christ and upon God, or in which spiritual gifts are attributed to Christ equally with the Father.

The formula of baptism: Mat. 28:19—“baptising them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”; cf. Acts 2:38—“be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ”; Rom. 6:3—“baptized into Christ Jesus.” “In the common baptismal formula the Son and the Spirit are coördinated with the Father, and εἰς ὄνομα has religious significance.” It would be both absurd and profane to speak of baptizing into the name of the Father and of Moses.

The apostolic benedictions: 1 Cor. 1:3—“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”; 2 Cor. 13:14—“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.” “In the benedictions grace is something divine, and Christ has power to impart it. But why do we find ‘God,’ instead of simply ‘the Father,’ as in the baptismal formula? Because it is only the Father who does not become man or have a historical existence. Elsewhere he is specially called ‘God the Father,’ to distinguish him from God the Son and God the Holy Spirit (Gal. 1:3; Eph. 3:14; 6:23).”

Other passages: John 5:23—“that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father”; John 14:1—“believe in God, believe also in me”—double imperative (so Westcott, Bible Com., in loco); 17:3—“this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ”; Mat. 11:27—“no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him”; 1 Cor. 12:4–6—“the same Spirit.… the same Lord [Christ].… the same God” [the Father] bestow spiritual gifts, e. g., faith: Rom. 10:17—“belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ”; peace: Col. 3:15—“let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,” 2 Thess. 2:16, 17—“now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father.… comfort your hearts”—two names with a verb in the singular intimate the oneness of the Father and the Son (Lillie). Eph. 5:5—“kingdom of Christ and God”; Col. 3:1—“Christ.… seated on the right hand of God” = participation in the sovereignty of the universe,—the Eastern divan held not only the monarch but his son; Rev. 20:6—“priests of God and of Christ”; 22:3—“the throne of God and of the Lamb”; 16—“the root and the offspring of David” = both the Lord of David and his son. Hackett: “As the dying Savior said to the Father, ‘Into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46), so the dying Stephen said to the Savior, ‘receive my spirit’ (Acts 7:59).”

(g) Equality with God is expressly claimed.

Here we may refer to Jesus’ testimony to himself, already treated of among the proofs of the supernatural character of the Scripture teaching (see pages 189, 190). Equality with God is not only claimed for himself by Jesus, but it is claimed for him by his apostles.

John 5:18—“called God his own Father, making himself equal with God”; Phil. 2:6—“who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped” = counted not his equality with God a thing to be forcibly retained. Christ made and left upon his contemporaries the impression that he claimed to be God. The New Testament has left, upon the great mess of those who have read it, the impression that Jesus Christ claims to be God. If he is not God, he is a deceiver or is self-deceived, and, in either case, Christus, si non Deus, non bonus. See Nicoll, Life of Jesus Christ, 187.

(h) Further proof of Christ’s deity may be found in the application to him of the phrases: ‘Son of God,’ ‘Image of God’; in the declarations of his oneness with God; in the attribution to him of the fulness of the Godhead.

Mat. 26:63, 64—“I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou art the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said”—it is for this testimony that Christ dies. Col. 1:5—“the image of the invisible God”; Heb. 1:3—“the effulgence of his [the Father’s] glory, and the very image of his substance”; John 10:30—“I and the Father are one”; 14:9—“he that hath seen me hath seen the Father”; 17:11, 22—“that they may be one, even as we are”—ἕν, not εἷς; unum, not unus; one substance, not one person. “Unum is antidote to the Arian, sumus to the Sabellian heresy.” Col. 2:9—“in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”; cf. 1:19—“for it was the pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fulness dwell;” or (marg.) “for the whole fulness of God was pleased to dwell in him:” John 16:15—“all things whatsoever the Father hath are mine”; 17:10—“all things that are mine are thine, and thine are mine.”

Meyer on John 10:30—“I and the Father are one”—“Here the Arian understanding of a mere ethical harmony as taught in the words ‘are one’ is unsatisfactory, because irrelevant to the exercise of power. Oneness of essence, though not contained in the words themselves, is, by the necessities of the argument, presupposed in them.” Dalman, The Words of Jesus: “Nowhere do we find that Jesus called himself the Son of God in such a sense as to suggest a merely religious and ethical relation to God—a relation which others also possessed and which they were capable of attaining or were destined to acquire.” We may add that while in the lower sense there are many ‘sons of God,’ there is but one ‘only begotten Son.’

(i) These proofs of Christ’s deity from the New Testament are corroborated by Christian experience.

Christian experience recognizes Christ as an absolutely perfect Savior, perfectly revealing the Godhead and worthy of unlimited worship and adoration; that is, it practically recognizes him as Deity. But Christian experience also recognizes that through Christ it has introduction and reconciliation to God as one distinct from Jesus Christ, as one who was alienated from the soul by its sin, but who is now reconciled through Jesus’s death. In other words, while recognizing Jesus as God, we are also compelled to recognize a distinction between the Father and the Son through whom we come to the Father.

Although this experience cannot be regarded as an independent witness to Jesus’ claims, since it only tests the truth already made known in the Bible, still the irresistible impulse of every person whom Christ has saved to lift his Redeemer to the highest place, and bow before him in the lowliest worship, is strong evidence that only that interpretation of Scripture can be true which recognizes Christ’s absolute Godhead. It is the church’s consciousness of her Lord’s divinity, indeed, and not mere speculation upon the relations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that has compelled the formulation of the Scripture doctrine of the Trinity.

In the letter of Pliny to Trajan, it is said of the early Christians “quod essent soliti carmen Christo quasi Deo dicers invicem.” The prayers and hymns of the church show what the church has believed Scripture to teach. Dwight Moody is said to have received his first conviction of the truth of the gospel from hearing the concluding words of a prayer, “For Christ’s sake, Amen,” when awakened from physical slumber in Dr. Kirk’s church, Boston. These words, wherever uttered, imply man’s dependence and Christ’s deity. See New Englander, 1878:432. In Eph. 4:32, the Revised Version substitutes “in Christ” for “for Christ’s sake.” The exact phrase “for Christ’s sake” is not found in the N. T. in connection with prayer, although the O. T. phrase “for my name’s sake” (Ps. 25:11) passes into the N. T. phrase “in the name of Jesus” (Phil. 2:10); cf. Ps. 72:15—“men shall pray for him continually” = the words of the hymn: “For him shall endless prayer be made, And endless blessings crown his head.” All this is proof that the idea of prayer for Christ’s sake is in Scripture, though the phrase is absent.

A caricature scratched on the wall of the Palatine palace in Rome, and dating back to the third century, represents a human figure with an ass’s head, hanging upon a cross, while a man stands before it in the attitude of worship. Under the effigy is this ill-spelled inscription: “Alexamenos adores his God.”

This appeal to the testimony of Christian consciousness was first made by Schleiermacher. William E. Gladstone: “All I write, and all I think, and all I hope, is based upon the divinity of our Lord, the one central hope of our poor, way ward race.” E. G. Robinson: “When you preach salvation by faith in Christ, you preach the Trinity.” W. G. T. Shedd: “The construction of the doctrine of the Trinity started, not from the consideration of the three persons, but from belief in the deity of one of them.” On the worship of Christ in the authorized services of the Anglican church, see Stanley, Church and State, 333–335; Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, 514.

In contemplating passages apparently inconsistent with those now cited, in that they impute to Christ weakness and ignorance, limitation and subjection, we are to remember, first, that our Lord was truly man, as well as truly God, and that this ignorance and weakness may be predicated of him as the God-man in whom deity and humanity are united; secondly, that the divine nature itself was in some way limited and humbled during our Savior’s earthly life, and that these passages may describe him as he was in his estate of humiliation, rather than in his original and present glory; and, thirdly, that there is an order of office and operation which is consistent with essential oneness and equality, but which permits the Father to be spoken of as first and the Son as second. These statements will be further elucidated in the treatment of the present doctrine and in subsequent examination of the doctrine of the Person of Christ.

There are certain things of which Christ was ignorant: Mark 13:32—“of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” He was subject to physical fatigue: John 4:6—“Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well.” There was a limitation connected with Christ’s taking of human flesh: Phil. 2:7—“emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men”; John 14:28—“the Father is greater than I.” There is a subjection, as respects order of office and operation, which is yet consistent with equality of essence and oneness with God; 1 Cor. 15:28—“then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.” This must be interpreted consistently with John 17:5—“glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,” and with Phil. 2:6, where this glory is described as being “the form of God” and “equality with God.”

Even in his humiliation, Christ was the Essential Truth, and ignorance in him never involved error or false teaching. Ignorance on his part might make his teaching at times incomplete,—it never in the smallest particular made his teaching false. Yet here we must distinguish between what he intended to teach and what was merely incidental to his teaching. When he said: Moses “wrote of me” (John 5:46) and “David in the Spirit called him Lord” (Mat. 22:43), if his purpose was to teach the authorship of the Pentateuch and of the 110th Psalm, we should regard his words as absolutely authoritative. But it is possible that he intended only to locate the passages referred to, and if so, his words cannot be used to exclude critical conclusions as to their authorship. Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 136—“If he spoke of Moses or David, it was only to identify the passage. The authority of the earlier dispensation did not rest upon its record being due to Moses, nor did the appropriateness of the Psalm lie in its being uttered by David. There is no evidence that the question of authorship ever came before him.” Adamson rather more precariously suggests that “there may have been a lapse of memory in Jesus’ mention of ‘Zachariah, son of Barachiah’ (Mat. 23:35), since this was a matter of no spiritual import.”

For assertions of Jesus’ knowledge, see John 2:24. 25—“he knew all men … he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man;” 6:64—“Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray him”; 12:33”—“this he said, signifying by what manner of death he should die”; 21:19—“Now this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he [Peter] should glorify God”; 13:1—“knowing that his hour was come that he should depart”; Mat. 25:31—“when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory” = he knew that he was to act as final judge of the human race. Other instances are mentioned by Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 24–49: 1. Jesus’ knowledge of Peter (John 1:42); 2. his finding Philip (1:43); 3. his recognition of Nathanael (1:47–50); 4. of the woman of Samaria (4:17–19, 39); 5. miraculous draughts of fishes (Luke 5:6–9; John 21:6); 6. death of Lazarus (John 11:14); 7. the ass’s colt (Mat. 21:2); 8. of the upper room (Mark 14:15); 9. of Peter’s denial (Mat. 26:34); 10. of the manner of his own death (John 12:33; 18:32); 11. of the manner of Peter’s death (John 21:19); 12. of the fall of Jerusalem (Mat. 24:2).

On the other hand there are assertions and implications of Jesus’ ignorance: he did not know the day of the end (Mark 13:32), though even here he intimates his superiority to angels; 5:30–34—“Who touched my garments?” though even here power had gone forth from him to heal; John 11:34—“Where have ye laid him?” though here he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead; Mark 11:13—“seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereon” = he did not know that it had no fruit, yet he had power to curse it. With these evidences of the limitations of Jesus’ knowledge, we must assent to the judgment of Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, 33—“we must decline to stake the authority of Jesus on a question of literary criticism”; and of Gore, Incarnation, 195—“That the use by our Lord of such a phrase as ‘Moses wrote of me’ binds us to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as a whole, I do not think we need to yield.” See our section on The Person of Christ; also Rush Rhees, Life of Jesus, 243, 244. Per contra, see Swayne, Our Lord’s Knowledge as Man; and Crooker, The New Bible, who very unwisely claims that belief in a Kenosis involves the surrender of Christ’s authority and atonement.

It is inconceivable that any mere creature should say, “God is greater than I am,” or should be spoken of as ultimately and in a mysterious way becoming “subject to God.” In his state of humiliation Christ was subject to the Spirit (Acts 1:2—“after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit”; 10:38—“God anointed him with the Holy Spirit.… for God was with him”; Heb. 9:14—“through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God”), but in his state of exaltation Christ is Lord of the Spirit (κυρίου πνεύματος—2 Cor. 3:18—Meyer), giving the Spirit and working through the Spirit. Heb. 2:7, marg.—“Thou madest him for a little while lower than the angels.” On the whole subject, see Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 262, 351; Thomasius, Christi Person und werk, 1:61–64; Liddon, Our Lord’s Divinity, 127, 207, 458; per contra, see Examination of Liddon, 252, 294; Professors of Andover Seminary, Divinity of Christ.