1. Introduction

I was born into a Christian family with amazing parents. I became a Christian at five years old after my dad shared the gospel with me.

Before addressing the question “Is Jesus God?”, I want to begin with something far more important: the gospel itself. Whatever conclusions I reach in this study, Jesus Christ is our Savior, Lord, Messiah, and King. The gospel—the “good news”—is the message through which God saves humanity from sin and death and reconciles us to Himself.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ

The gospel is the biblical message that Jesus Christ is the promised Jewish Messiah whom God sent for the salvation of the world.

John 3:16 says:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Humanity has sinned—fundamentally, by failing to love God and one another as we should. Sin brings death and separates humanity from the life God intended for us.

Paul describes the problem and its solution in Romans 5:

“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned… For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men” (Romans 5:12, 17–18).

Sin entered the human story through Adam, and death through sin. Jesus, whom Paul later calls the “last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45), came to reverse what Adam began. Jesus showed humanity the Way, the Truth, and the Life by becoming the Way we are called to follow, embodying God’s truth, and giving his life for the world.

Jesus died to reconcile humanity to God. God then raised him from the dead, defeating the power of death and providing the hope of resurrection for everyone who belongs to Christ.

Romans 10:9–10 says:

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

The gospel promises eternal life. Those who put their faith in Jesus become children of God:

“For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith” (Galatians 3:26).

God forgives us, reconciles us to Himself, and gives us His Holy Spirit. Christianity is therefore not merely about escaping death. It is about becoming a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17)—people increasingly characterized by love of God and love of others.

God’s purpose is ultimately to conform His children to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). Peter even says that Christians will become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). Paul expresses confidence that the God who begins this transforming work will finish it:

“He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).

This gospel is the foundation for everything I write here.

And importantly, Jesus did not have to be God in order for this gospel to be true. Scripture says that God saves humanity through Jesus Christ. The question this section examines is whether Scripture actually goes further and identifies Jesus himself as God.

I have come to believe that it does not.

Why I Began Questioning Whether Jesus is God

I grew up loving God, Jesus, Scripture, and the Church. I attended a Christian college because I wanted to grow in my faith, and throughout my life I have wanted to serve God, love others, fight injustice, and share the hope of the gospel.

When I was seventeen, I was in a severe accident during a mission trip in Africa. Our van went over a mountain cliff, falling more than one hundred feet. Everyone survived, although several of us were seriously injured, including me. That experience profoundly affected me. It reminded me how short life is and strengthened my desire to spend mine following Jesus and loving God with all my heart. God eventually led me into teaching high school math, where I have been grateful for the opportunity to serve young people. I have also been blessed by wonderful churches and by Christians who have encouraged, challenged, and loved me.

I share more of my personal journey in my testimony elsewhere on this site. Here, I share these details simply because I want readers to understand the spirit in which I am asking this question. The conclusions I now hold did not arise from hostility toward Christianity or from a desire to reject the Church. I care deeply about God, Jesus, the Church, and God’s kingdom. I never expected to hold theological beliefs that many Christians would consider unorthodox.

For most of my life, I simply assumed that Jesus was God. Every Christian authority I trusted believed it. I did not understand the Trinity, but I assumed that my inability to understand it reflected the mysterious nature of God rather than any problem with the doctrine itself. I did not seriously examine whether Scripture actually taught that Jesus was God.

That began to change when I was twenty-nine. As I read the Bible, I increasingly noticed passages that did not seem to fit what I had always been taught about Jesus.

Why did Jesus pray to God?

Why does Jesus not know everything if he is God (Mark 13:32)?

Why did Jesus call the Father “the only true God” (John 17:3)?

Why did Jesus say he could do nothing from himself (John 5:19, 30)?

Why did God perform miracles through Jesus (Acts 2:22)? If Jesus was God, couldn't he just do them on his own?

Why did Jesus receive authority from God if he is God (Matthew 28:18)?

Why did Jesus have a God of his own if he is God (John 20:17; Revelation 3:12)?

Why could Jesus be tempted when Scripture says God cannot be tempted (James 1:13)?

Why did Jesus die when Scripture describes God as immortal (1 Timothy 1:17; 6:16)?

And why does the New Testament so consistently speak of God and Jesus as distinct?

At first I assumed I must be misunderstanding these passages. The overwhelming majority of Christians around me believed Jesus was God, and the doctrine had been dominant within Christianity for centuries. Surely, I thought, I must be missing something.

So I began studying.

I read Scripture carefully. I examined passages traditionally used to establish Jesus’ deity, including John 1, John 8:58, John 20:28, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, and many others. I read Trinitarian interpretations and alternative interpretations, particularly from Biblical Unitarians. I prayed. I talked with other Christians. I wrestled with the issue for years.

Eventually, my conclusion changed.

I remain fully convinced that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah, Savior, Lord, King, and the one through whom God reconciles humanity to Himself.

But I no longer believe Jesus is God. I summarized the major patterns that emerge when the New Testament is read book by book and passage by passage concerning the question: Who is Jesus? That summary is the first post on this page of my blog. Readers who want to examine the evidence in its full context can go directly to my New Testament Study Bible page and examine individual books and passages for themselves. "Part 1" of this page contains summary posts of many of the arguments I make in my larger "New Testament Study Bible".

Why This Matters

If Jesus is not God, this is not a minor theological technicality.

It affects how we understand God.

It affects how we understand Jesus.

It affects how we worship.

And I believe it profoundly affects how Christians understand ourselves.

Scripture says that Christians will ultimately become like Christ:

“We know that when he is revealed, we will be like him” (1 John 3:2).

Paul says that God predestined His children to be:

“conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29).

If Jesus is fundamentally a divine being whom humans can never truly resemble, it becomes difficult to understand the full force of these promises. We know that Christians will never become God.

But if Jesus is genuinely human—God’s uniquely exalted human Son—then Scripture’s promise that we will become like him becomes extraordinary.

Jesus becomes not merely someone whom Christians honor from an unreachable distance, but the firstborn among many brothers and sisters: the human being God intends ultimately to make us like.

This does not diminish Jesus.

To me, it magnifies what he accomplished.

If Jesus was genuinely human, then his obedience, suffering, courage, faithfulness, sacrifice, and love were genuinely human achievements accomplished through complete dependence upon God and the power of God’s Spirit. His life becomes the pattern God intends His other children to follow.

That is one of the major themes I will explore throughout this section.

If Jesus is not God, who is he?

Rejecting Jesus’ deity leaves an obvious question:

Who, then, is Jesus?

That question eventually became just as important to me as whether Jesus is God.

The New Testament calls Jesus the Messiah, Son of God, Son of Man, Lord, Savior, King, prophet, servant, mediator, High Priest, last Adam, and firstborn among many brothers.

I believe all of those titles matter. I also think Scripture reveals that Jesus preexisted his earthly life in Israel, and that this is especially evident in the book of John. I do not think this necessarily means Jesus was God, and I address what I believe Scripture reveals regarding Jesus' preexistence in "Part 2" of this section of my blog.

I also explore whether Jesus was always without sin or became perfect and purified, without sin, what Jesus’ present exalted position means, what he will be like when he returns, and what all of this means for Christians who are destined to become like him.

So this section is not simply about answering the negative question:

“Is Jesus God?”

It is ultimately about answering the much more important positive question:

“Who is Jesus?”

What about Church History?

One of the greatest obstacles I faced in reconsidering Jesus’ deity was the witness of Christian history.

How could so many Christians, over so many centuries, be wrong about something this important?

I still take that question seriously.

The early Church eventually developed the theological formulations that became orthodox Trinitarian Christianity, most famously through the fourth-century councils of Nicaea and Constantinople. That history deserves careful examination rather than dismissal. I consider it in the following articles on the “Christian History” page of this website: 10. The Witness of the Early Church: Who Is Jesus? Part 1 and 11. The Witness of the Early Church: Who Is Jesus? Part 2.

If Church history makes it difficult for you even to consider the possibility that Jesus is not God based on Scripture, I understand. I would strongly recommend reading those articles before continuing. The history is far more complex than is often assumed. Belief in the Trinity and in Jesus’ full divinity developed over centuries, and early Christians held a wide range of views concerning Jesus’ identity. Studying this history was extremely helpful for me. It helped me understand how beliefs about Jesus and the Trinity developed within the Church and made me more comfortable reconsidering traditional conclusions about who Jesus is. I think the historical evidence presented in those articles will help explain why.

History cannot ultimately determine what Scripture means. Christian history contains both tremendous faithfulness and serious error. I show this in detail on my "Christian History" page. The Church has repeatedly had to examine inherited traditions against Scripture. Christians themselves believe that theological reform is sometimes necessary when doctrine departs from God’s Word.

I therefore believe the proper question is not:

“What has the majority of Christianity believed?”

but:

“What does Scripture actually teach?”

History matters enormously. Christians, like me, who disagree with the traditional, majority Church regarding should carry that disagreement with humility and should take the historical evidence seriously.

But Scripture must have the final word.

The Premises of this Study

This section is written from several foundational convictions:

1. The Bible is God’s Word, inspired by God and completely true.

2. Human beings are fallible, including pastors, theologians, scholars, councils, traditions, and myself.

3. God does not lie and does not contradict His own revealed character.

4. Truth is internally coherent. We should not abandon reason when interpreting Scripture simply because a theological conclusion is difficult.

5. Scripture helps interpret Scripture. Difficult passages should be considered within the broader biblical witness.

6. Jesus is the Son of God, Messiah, Savior, Lord, and King of Kings. He is worthy of extraordinary praise, honor, love, obedience, and allegiance.

I realize that my conclusion that Jesus is not God is unorthodox and that many Christians would call it heresy.

I do not ask anyone to accept it because I say it.

I ask readers to examine the biblical evidence.

An Invitation to Read with Me

You may already be completely convinced that Jesus is God and that the doctrine of the Trinity is true.

I once was too.

I understand why questioning this doctrine can feel threatening. For many Christians, Jesus’ deity is deeply connected to the gospel itself, their worship, their relationship with Christ, and their understanding of salvation.

So I ask only that you consider the biblical arguments carefully.

You may read my Study Bible in section 1 of this blog and believe exactly what you believed when you began. You may read this section of my blog, "Who is Jesus?", and also retain your current beliefs. If so, I hope examining Scripture closely will strengthen your faith.

But if Scripture points somewhere different from what we have inherited, I believe Christians should be willing to follow Scripture wherever it leads.

I continue to try to approach this question with humility because I understand the enormous weight of disagreeing with the majority of the Christian Church. I continue to pray, study, listen to opposing arguments, and ask God to correct me wherever I am wrong. I welcome thoughtful feedback concerning the conclusions I make on this blog. My desire is not to be "right" but to know what is true.

That being said, after studying Scripture closely over the past four years, I have come to these conclusions:

I believe there is one God, Yahweh, and no other besides Him (Isaiah 45:5).

And I believe this is the God whom Jesus himself worshiped (John 4:22), prayed to (Hebrews 5:7), glorified (John 17:1), called “my God” (John 20:17; Revelation 3:12), and completely depended upon (John 5:19).

I believe Jesus is not this God.

He is God’s Son.

And understanding that distinction, I believe, allows us to see both God and Jesus more clearly, worship God more faithfully, honor Jesus for who he truly is, and better understand the astonishing destiny God has prepared for His other children.

May God bless you as you read, and may His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.