Is Jesus God? Introduction

I was born into a Christian family with amazing parents. I became a Christian at 5 years old after my Dad shared the gospel with me. Do you know the gospel, the “good news” about Jesus Christ? Knowing the gospel is more important than any other truth that I share in this blog, because the gospel is the means by which God saves people from their sin and death, gives eternal life, and reconciles people with Himself. Knowing this gospel also provides necessary background to why “Is Jesus God?” is such an important question to Christians. So, before continuing, I will share what the gospel is for all unfamiliar with its amazing, life-giving message.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ

The gospel, which literally means “good news”, is the biblical message that Jesus Christ is the prophesied Jewish Messiah. Jesus came to bring eternal life and reconciliation with God. 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.” While God created the world with no brokenness, pain, or death, all people, starting with Adam, the first human, have disobeyed God. This is called “sin”, and is fundamentally the failure to love God and neighbor. Romans 5:12, 17, 18 says, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man [Adam], and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned… For if, because of one man’s [Adam’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.” God sent Jesus, called the “last Adam” in the Bible (1 Corinthians 15:45) to show us the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6) - by being the Way, the Truth, and the Life. ​

Without Jesus, humanity would suffer both physical death and spiritual death apart from God forever. Jesus lived a sinless life and died to bring humanity back to God. He overcame sin, became perfect, and defeated death on the cross. While people still die now, anyone who puts their faith in Jesus will experience eternal life and live eternally with God. 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.”

God promises eternal life for all who put their faith in Jesus, who died on a cross and rose again from the dead 3 days later. God promises that all who put their faith in Jesus, while they may physically die, will rise again like Jesus and live forever with God in a perfect place with no sin, death, or suffering: a new heaven and a new earth.​

This is described in the last two chapters of the Bible, Revelation 21-22. What is more, whoever puts their faith in Jesus and what he did for humanity on the cross, believing that God raised him from the dead and that Jesus is the son of God, becomes a child of God. Galatians 3:26 says, “for in Christ Jesus you are children of God, through faith.” Christians are saved from death and judgment by Jesus and are given eternal life with God, fully forgiven by God and given the opportunity to have an intimate relationship with God. Upon becoming a Christian, Christians receive the gift of God’s Holy Spirit, who lives in them and transforms them to become exactly like Christ (2 Thessalonians 3:13, Romans 8:29).

Christianity is not just about being saved from death but about becoming a new person, one who loves God and those around them (2 Corinthians 5:17). Christ died to create a new humanity, one characterized by love of God and others, not sin and rebellion against God. The promises of the gospel include God’s promise to all Christians that they will one day share the divine nature with God (2 Peter 1:4) and be fully conformed to Christ’s image (Romans 8:29). This process of becoming like Christ is called sanctification. In Philippian 1:6 Paul says, “...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” All Christians can find great comfort from this verse, knowing that God will one day fully sanctify us and make us like Christ fully.

Notably, Jesus did not need to be God to save humanity. People have added that belief to the Bible. There is no Bible verse that says he needed to be God – or, as I will show in this blog, that says he is God.

My Story

While I certainly did not understand the depth of the truths of the gospel at 5 years old and still do not fully now as an adult, I understood the basics and see that conversation with my Dad as the start of my new life in Christ as a Christian. As I grew in my faith, I also grew in my love for the world as my family lived overseas for 3 years due to my Dad's job. He is a lawyer and is involved with fighting human trafficking. After witnessing firsthand the great needs in a much poorer country than the United States, I decided I wanted to help the poor abroad in some way when I grew up, perhaps through being involved with fighting human trafficking in some way.

When I was seventeen, while on a mission trip in Africa I was in a severe van accident. Our mission team had traveled to a nearby mountain to visit a famous site and pray for the country with a good view of the capital. When we headed back to the capital, my van, which included me and 13 others, was driven off a mountain cliff after a bus unexpectedly pulled out in front of us while we were going around a sharp turn. Myself and the other 13 in the van all survived, though 5 of us, including me, had serious injuries. I fractured my back in three places. God miraculously protected all of us as we should have died – we fell over one hundred feet down the mountain. God used this accident to draw me closer to Him. I realized that life was short and could end at any moment, and so I should choose to focus on what is most important. The most important thing, I determined, was following Jesus and loving God with all my heart. Although I was already a believer at the time, God used this accident to solidify my faith and refocus my heart to be completely surrendered to Him.

I went to a Christian college. I chose a Christian college because I wanted to grow in my faith. I thought I would in a unique way at a Christian college with Christian professors and peers. I hoped after college to follow in my Dad’s footsteps and be involved with fighting injustice, specifically the issue of human trafficking, abroad. I also hoped through the work of justice to share the gospel with those who had never heard about Jesus, well aware that many in other countries had never even heard the name of Jesus, let alone the story of Jesus in the Bible and the grace God offers through him.

 During that time, my dream to fight injustice and share the gospel overseas was redirected due to being diagnosed with a serious chronic illness. College was a very difficult time for me because of this, but God was so faithful and present in the midst of much pain and suffering. While I was disappointed that this illness shut the door to the overseas mission field, I was very grateful that God led me to begin a career as a high school math teacher. I am so grateful to God for the gift of being a teacher – while I have not been able to serve Him on the international mission field, I have been able to serve hundreds of students and help promote justice in the field of education. I have also been blessed to be part of several wonderful churches in my adult life. I am grateful for all the ways the people at these churches have encouraged and challenged me in my faith – and continue to do so. 

I share details from my story in this introduction because I want to communicate that I care deeply about God, the Church, and His kingdom, though I now do not share some of the core beliefs of orthodox Christians. The questions I ask and the conclusions I make come from a place of wanting to know God, love Him better, and further His kingdom. I never imagined I would find myself believing anything the Church would deem unorthodox, and I have not changed my mind on anything orthodox without much thought, Bible study, prayer, and many discussions with other Christians.

In this blog, I explain why I no longer believe Jesus is God and why I think the Trinity Doctrine is not from God but man-made. I never considered the Trinity Doctrine’s validity until I was 29. I took Jesus being God as unquestionable fact. I did not understand it, but every Christian I knew and respected believed it, so I just trusted them and hardly examined the Scriptures to see if the Bible proved Jesus was God. I always took my spiritual leaders, Church history, and their interpretation of the Bible on Jesus’ divinity as unquestionable truth. I knew I did not understand the Trinity or how a man could be God, but I believed it to be a mystery – an incomprehensible truth that I could not understand – as that is what other Christians told me.

However, I began to question the Trinity Doctrine at 29 when in my Bible reading I began to notice verses that seemed, to me, contrary to what I had been taught all my life about the doctrine of the Trinity and Jesus' deity.  If Jesus is not God, I do not understand why God would wait till I was 29 to give me insight regarding whether Jesus is God. I do not understand why God would not be clear on this with all other believers who are earnestly seeking Him and study their Bibles diligently, wanting to love Him with all their heart – though in my research I learned of many Christians, called biblical unitarians, who believe the Bible to be God’s Word and Jesus to be God’s Son but not God Himself. Yet this group, made up of tens of thousands of people, is still a minority. Why, I asked God, would He not be more clear to the majority Church on such an important topic – the nature of Himself?  Why, I asked God, do biblical unitarians not believe that the Holy Spirit is God? To me that seemed to be clear in Scripture. Why, I asked God, if Jesus is not God and the Holy Spirit is God, are those two central beliefs together not believed by any professing Christians (to my knowledge)?  Why would He allow such confusion, particularly given the millions of Christians who are earnestly seeking Him and wanting to follow Jesus rightly?  I continue to ask these questions now, because I do not understand why and do not have any satisfying answers. If Jesus is not God, and the Holy Spirit is, the Church appears to have made a serious error – an error allowed by God in spite of a Church of many people who truly love Him, want to understand who God is, and make it their life’s goal to follow Jesus, love God, and love others.

Yet my lack of understanding on the why behind the current state of the Church, if Jesus is not God yet the Holy Spirit is, could not, I concluded, mean Jesus was certainly God, as I believe Scripture, God’s Word, has the final word. We have an enemy who constantly and subtly seeks to deceive us. The Bible shows that Satan knows God’s Word well and twists it (consider the temptations of Jesus in Matthew 4) to deceive God’s people. The Church has needed multiple reformations throughout history when Church doctrine has deviated, intentionally or unintentionally, from Scripture. If what I write is true, a reformation is needed now, and we can rest assured God will use all of the Church’s brokenness and theological error for our good (Romans 8:28) and His kingdom.

Initially, I was fairly certain I could not be thinking correctly given the Church's almost universal witness to the contrary, but I decided to study the Bible, research, talk with others, and pray about this topic. After about 2 years of this, my mind changed. While I firmly believe in God as Father and Holy Spirit, and that the Bible is infallible and inerrant, I no longer believe that Jesus is God. I really wrestled with passages such as John 1:1-4, Colossians 1:15-23, John 20:28, John 8:58, and Hebrews 1, but I read other perspectives, mostly from biblical unitarian sources, that had interpretations I found compelling, especially given the context, from my understanding, of the entire Bible.

What are the implications if Jesus is not God? How would that change the Christian life? First, Jesus should not be worshiped as God if he is not God. I address this implication in detail in my last posts in the "Is Jesus God?" section. So: Jesus not being God would change the way we worship God. Further, I think if Satan is deceiving the Church in this way he does so to attack our identity as children of God. The Bible shows that we will be like Christ (1 John 3:2). If we really believe that Jesus is God, how could we possibly believe we will ever truly be like him? We know we are not God. But if Jesus is not God, perhaps in believing this we will more fully realize that we can be like Christ. Perhaps that truth would empower and inspire us to more fully live out our identity as children of God, Christ being the firstborn child of God (Colossians 1:15) and our brother. So: Jesus not being God would change the way we see Christ and ourselves. Finally, believing that Jesus was a man and not God would change our relationship with Jesus himself in a way Jesus would deeply appreciate if he is not God. If Jesus is not God, given the amazing and humble man he is, he would be very opposed to his Church viewing him as such; moreover, it would be very difficult for him for his Church to view him as God and treat him as God if he is not.

If Jesus is not God, I do not understand why God would allow the orthodox Church to be deceived on such a major issue for so long (since at least 325 A.D. when the Council of Nicaea, which birthed the Nicene Creed, was held). But I know we cannot understand so many of the ways of God (Isaiah 55:8), and that instead of focusing on trying to understand all His ways and why He allows certain things throughout history, we should focus on understanding His Word. God allows many, many things that we deeply struggle to understand, but we can still trust in His goodness and the truth of His Word above any human and religious tradition, no matter how long that tradition has been in place.

You may be firmly convinced in your mind that the Trinity is true and that Jesus is God. I was for a very long time. Please consider what is written here – even if your mind does not change, your faith may be strengthened as you consider alternate viewpoints. To echo my introduction letter to this blog, I welcome any and all feedback. The fact that the vast majority of the Church disagrees with me makes me wonder at times how Jesus could not be God. But then, I read Scripture and consider other interpretations of passages used to support Jesus’ deity, and I pray, and I again conclude that Jesus is not God.

This is written with the following premises:

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

2.     People are fallible.

3.     God does not lie and therefore does not contradict who He is as revealed in His Word.

4.     God is logical.

5.     Scripture helps to interpret Scripture.

6.     Jesus is the Son of God. He is our Savior, our Lord, worthy of great praise and honor, and King of Kings.

I realize that believing Jesus is not God is unorthodox and, many would say, heretical. Please consider what I write only from the lens of the Bible, as people and history are often wrong, and these topics are worth praying and thinking about as they impact right worship of God and the proclamation of the gospel. Concerning the proclamation of the gospel, one potential positive outcome, if Jesus is not God, would be that more Jews and Muslims may be interested in Christianity, as the Christian belief in Jesus’ deity has been and is a stumbling block for many that may otherwise embrace Christianity.

May God bless you and may God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. I am convinced the only way this can happen is if all people have no God but one: Yahweh.  There is no other besides Yahweh (Isaiah 45:5): the One who the Bible shows that Jesus himself worshiped (John 4:22), prayed to (Hebrews 5:7), glorified (John 17:1), and completely depended on (John 5:19).