One day Jesus was involved in a conversation with some Jewish religious leaders. He wasn’t pulling any punches, going so far as telling these leaders that their true father was Satan. Not the meek, mild image of Jesus some folks have is it? The leaders responded by claiming that a demon was causing Jesus to say such things.
Jesus responded, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). The leaders thought, “If Abraham saw Jesus, then Jesus has seen Abraham. And since Abraham lived 2000 years ago, this Jesus must be a very old man.” So they replied, “Wait a minute, you’re not even fifty years old, and you’ve seen Abraham?” To which Jesus gave one of his classic replies:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” (John 8:58).
Jesus is declaring that before something in the past happened (Abraham was born), something in the present is happening (“I am”). Jesus has no beginning. He has existed from eternity. As God the Son, he’s not simply eternal; he transcends time.
The Jews were thinking of Jesus in purely human terms. That’s what happens today when someone says, “I believe Jesus was a good man and a good teacher. We’d probably be better off if we did the things he said, but he was just a man.” They’re making the mistake of thinking of Jesus in purely human terms.
Jesus, though, is not just human — he’s God.
Notice also that Jesus was quoting the name God shared with Moses in Exodus 3:14. The leaders responded by trying to kill Jesus because they knew what Jesus was claiming — that he is God.
One of the most important passages in Scripture is the prologue in John’s Gospel, John 1:1-18. John writes about “the Word,” reflecting the Jewish thought that God’s utterance, his word, is both God’s purpose and his power to accomplish that purpose. Read the creation account in Genesis 1 and notice how many times you see the words, “And God said….” John is using “the Word’ to show that God was at work.
John even begins his Gospel the same way Genesis begins, “In the beginning.” John is saying that Christ existed from all eternity. He says, “and the Word was with God.” Jesus is “the Word,” God at his ultimate work, and Jesus existed eternally in the closest possible relationship with God the Father.
Then John gets to his main point, “and the Word was God.” Throughout the passage, John pictures Jesus as existing from all eternity as a distinct person who enjoyed loving fellowship with God the Father (v. 2) from eternity past. Jesus was never created. He did the creating (v. 3).
Maybe this is a good time to read John 1:1-18 and spend a few moments meditating on who Jesus is.
While John pictured Jesus as “the Word,” the phrase Jesus used most often to describe himself was “Son of Man.” See Matthew 13:41 (note “his” angels and “his” kingdom). On the surface, it may seem like Jesus was using “Son of Man” to refer to his humanity. It’s just the opposite. Jesus was pointing to Daniel 7:13-14, a passage that speaks of someone from heaven who was given eternal rule over the whole world. It was well known in Jesus’ day that this person was the Messiah. People who heard Jesus use the term “Son of Man” knew that Jesus was claiming to be God.
When Jesus appeared on trial before Caiaphas, the high priest said to Jesus, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” That’s when Jesus could have easily denied being the Messiah, admitted he was just a good teacher, and quickly cleared things up, escaping the cross. Jesus, however, replied, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:63-64). At that point, the high priest knew without a doubt that Jesus was claiming equality with the Father.
So what is the big deal about this doctrine? Why is it so important that Jesus is 100% God? Here are just two reasons:
First, because Jesus is God, we can know God in a way not possible before. By looking at Jesus, we can see God’s love and power and grace and holiness. If we know Jesus, we know God.
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? (John 14:9)
If you want to know God, look at Jesus. He’s a God of great compassion and perfect love, a God of healing and forgiveness, a God who knows about and cares about every single need in your life. He’s a God of perfect purity (Hebrews 4:15) and justice. He’s a God who meets us where we are but never allows us to stay there, always calling us to holiness (Matthew 5:48).
We must also see that the God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament. There’s a thought prevalent in the church today that Jesus was a man of grace and forgiveness, almost a correction over the Old Testament God of judgment and vengeance.
But Jesus didn’t become some wimpy God at this birth or baptism. He was God the Son from the beginning. If people would read the Bible they would see, as A. W. Tozer says, “There is certainly as much about grace and mercy and love in the Old Testament as there is in the New. There is more about hell, more about judgment and the fury of God burning with fire upon sinful men in the New Testament than in the Old” (Jesus: The Life and Ministry of God the Son, p. 32). The God of the Old Testament is the same as the God of the New Testament, and by knowing Jesus, we know God.
A second reason that it’s important to understand that Jesus is God is that no human being could have paid the penalty for our sins. Only an almighty God could do that.
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:24)
When Jesus was on the cross, he paid the penalty for my sin and your sin. The One who had no sin took on the weight of all sin. It was not merely a human teacher or prophet who hung on that cross. It was God, the Creator of all that exists, the One who holds all of Creation in his hands. It was Almighty God who paid the penalty you and I deserved to pay. No human could have done such a thing.
When we’re overwhelmed with problems, when we’re afraid and worried and hurt and lonely, and when we cry out to Jesus for help, it isn’t a mere human who hears our cries. That would be no help at all. When we cry out to Jesus, we’re seeking help from God who calmed the sea (Mark 4:35-41), from God who knew people’s thoughts (Matthew 9:4), from God who saw Nathaniel under the fig tree (John 1:48), from God who fed the 5000 (Matthew 14:13-21), and from God who raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:38-44). No human could have done any of those things.
When we cry out to Jesus, it’s God the Son who hears and responds.