Implication 1- God Values Love Over Knowledge

I have been asked whether I think believing Jesus is God, if he is not, is a salvation issue, so I think this is important to address.

I believe the Church, overall, has been mistaken concerning Jesus’ deity. I was mistaken about Jesus’ deity for most of my life as well. Yet the Trinitarian Christians I know have an incredible heart for God. In my experience, they sincerely love Him, want to obey Him, and want to understand His Word correctly. I do not believe their hearts are wrong simply because I believe they are mistaken on this theological question. In the same way, I have loved God for most of my life while also being mistaken about Jesus’ deity.

Therefore, I do not believe mistaken belief in Jesus’ deity is a salvation issue. God cares deeply about truth, but Scripture also places extraordinary emphasis on faith, love, obedience, and the condition of the heart. A person can be sincerely mistaken about a difficult theological issue while genuinely loving and seeking God. All that being said, it is best to have both: deep love for God and others and correct theological understanding.

In my own experience, my relationship with God did not fundamentally change when I changed my mind concerning Jesus’ deity. I stopped worshipping Jesus as God. My thoughts and words about Jesus changed to reflect what I had come to believe Scripture teaches. I also began to understand, in a way I had not before, that it is actually possible for me to become like Christ. When I believed Jesus was a God-man, I believed there was an enormous difference between who he was, who I was, and who I would become. If Jesus is genuinely human without deity, his life shows us what humanity, completely surrendered to God, can ultimately become. Suddenly, with my new understanding of who Jesus was, really becoming like Jesus seemed an actual possibility.

But the main thing in my life stayed the main thing: loving God and loving the people around me. I am confident that many Trinitarian Christians, if they became convinced from Scripture that Jesus is not God, would immediately stop worshipping Jesus as God precisely because they love God and want to worship Him rightly. The Christians I know are not intentionally trying to worship someone other than God. They worship Jesus as God because they sincerely believe Jesus actually is God.

If Jesus is not God, as I conclude, then worshipping Jesus as God is wrong. I believe it is objectively idolatrous because worship that belongs uniquely to God is being directed toward someone who is not God. But there is an enormous difference between knowingly worshipping someone instead of God and worshipping Jesus as God because a person sincerely believes Jesus actually is God.

In that sense, I believe this is generally an unintentional sin for sincere Trinitarian Christians. Scripture makes meaningful distinctions between intentional and unintentional sin (Leviticus 4:2, 13–14, 22, 27; Numbers 15:27–31). Unintentional sin still matters, but intention, knowledge, and the condition of a person's heart matter more to God.

At the end of the day, Jesus says people are known by their fruit (Matthew 7:16). Are those who claim to be Christians loving God and loving the people around them? Are they sincerely trying to worship God according to the understanding they have? Or are their lives producing the opposite?

It is no small thing to worship Jesus as God if he is not God. But Scripture also makes love central to what it means to know God. A person can understand a great deal of theology while failing profoundly in love. Conversely, a person can understand very little about "correct theology" while being extraordinarily loving.

God cares about our minds, but I believe He cares more deeply about our hearts and about what our beliefs actually produce in our lives. My experience talking with Trinitarian Christians about Jesus’ identity has generally revealed humility toward God. People have told me that they do not completely understand Jesus’ deity, that they consider the Trinity a mystery they cannot fully understand, and that they simply want to trust God, follow Him, and love Him despite not having complete clarity.

I disagree with their conclusion. I think Jesus’ identity can be understood and that Scripture is actually much clearer on this subject when all of the relevant passages are thoroughly studied together. But disagreement about theology, even a major theological point such as whether Jesus is God or not, does not mean someone's heart is opposed to God. God cares far more about our hearts than our minds, though right understanding remains very important.

The friends and family members with whom I have discussed these issues generally consider loving God and others their primary mission in life. Many are content to wait until the resurrection to understand what they currently consider the mystery of the Trinity.

I do not think sincere confusion of this kind separates someone from God. The God revealed in Scripture is merciful, gracious, patient, and kind. And Jesus’ identity can genuinely be difficult to untangle, particularly because some passages, especially in certain English translations, can appear to identify Jesus as God unless they are examined more closely in their biblical and linguistic context.

There is another important reason I do not believe this is a salvation issue: Christians receive the Holy Spirit as God's seal (Ephesians 1:13–14). I became a Christian when I was five years old after my dad shared the gospel with me. I received the Holy Spirit then when I put my faith in Christ according to the understanding I had as a child. I did not suddenly receive the Holy Spirit when I was thirty years old and finally concluded, after extensive research and prayer, that Jesus was not God. I already had the Holy Spirit. As a five-year-old, I certainly did not possess a carefully developed understanding of the salvation message. I had not thoughtfully considered whether the man who died for me was God, a God-man, or God's uniquely exalted human Messiah. Yet God did not require sophisticated theological understanding from me before receiving my childlike faith.

God honors childlike faith, love for Him according to the light we have, and love for others even while our understanding remains incomplete.

None of this means Jesus’ identity does not matter.

It does matter if Jesus is not God. If I am correct, changes in Christian worship, prayer, theology, and language are needed. Most Christians are not five-year-old children, and God does call us to seek Him and grow in understanding (Jeremiah 9; Jeremiah 29). Jesus tells us to love God with all our mind, as well as our heart and soul (Matthew 22:37).

Truth matters.

But Scripture also warns us against confusing knowledge with spiritual maturity: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.... Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known by God.” (1 Corinthians 8:1–3)

Again, it is best to have both: deep love for God and neighbor in our hearts and increasing clarity in our minds about who God and Jesus are.

This raises another question: if the Church has been substantially mistaken about Jesus’ identity, why would God allow it?

Perhaps a broader question is helpful: why does God allow human beings—including sincere Christians—to remain mistaken about important questions?”

God does not love Christians more than Muslims, Hindus, atheists, or anyone else. He shows no partiality (Acts 10:34–35; Romans 2:11). All human beings need God's grace, and all of us are capable of misunderstanding truth.

Perhaps recognizing that Christians can also be seriously mistaken over major doctrine can humble us. I put myself in this category, as I believed Jesus was God for the vast majority of my life before changing my belief. Christians are not immune to error simply because we are Christians. We all need God's mercy, correction, and grace.

I do think Christians have been given access to what is true in possessing the Bible. But if that is so, it should make us more humble, not less. Greater access to truth brings greater responsibility. If God has revealed Himself to be Spirit and not a man, for example, Christians have good reason to examine carefully any theology that appears to conflict with those revelations: such as, is Jesus actually God?

Yet I believe God's grace covers sincere mistakes in our understanding. What a Christian does with the light he or she has matters enormously. Someone who understands Scripture well enough to correctly identify Jesus but treats the people around him with hatred has missed something far more fundamental than someone who sincerely loves God and neighbor while being mistaken about a difficult theological doctrine. All of this being said, again, truth matters, and whether Jesus is God is significant. I am not arguing that Jesus’ identity is unimportant. I am arguing that correct Christology should not replace love for God and neighbor as the measure of genuine spiritual life.

Further, why would the gospel ask us to put our faith in a person who is truly human if Jesus is not God? How can a man really save us?

I think part of the beauty of the answer is precisely that Jesus really is one of us. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life because his way is the way we are all called to walk: the way of love, devotion to God, obedience, sacrifice, and complete reliance upon God.

If Jesus is truly human, we can put our faith in him as God's Messiah, Savior, and Lord while also seeing in him what humanity can actually become. His life is not the performance of a God-man possessing an inherent divine advantage unavailable to us. Jesus really lived a human life in dependence upon God.

That makes becoming like Christ far more than an inspiring metaphor. We really can become like Jesus because Jesus really is our fellow human being, even while he uniquely remains our Messiah, Savior, and Lord.

But we can become like him only as he did: by relying completely upon God and devoting ourselves to loving God and our neighbor. This is, after all, what humanity was designed to do from the beginning.

Jesus was made like us in every respect (Hebrews 2:17). Jesus did not have the advantage of secretly being God. His moral development was genuinely human. Hebrews says that he “learned obedience” through what he suffered and was “made perfect” (Hebrews 5:8–9). As I argue elsewhere, I believe Jesus truly became sinless and perfect through this process. His humanity, struggle, suffering, dependence upon God, and eventual perfection were real.

Hebrews also says that he was made like his brothers and sisters “in all things” (Hebrews 2:17). He is therefore a real human model whom we can follow, emulate, and whose image we will one day bear (Romans 8:29).

Salvation is also more than a one-way ticket to heaven. It is reconciliation with God and a transformed way of life characterized by love for God and neighbor.

Because of that, people who possess little theological knowledge may sometimes be living much closer to God's ways than we realize. Conversely, highly religious people who are confident they know God may be farther from His ways than they think if they do not truly love God and their neighbor.

I do not believe anyone will remain lost forever because I believe God ultimately intends to save everyone. 1 Timothy 2:4 says that God “wants [or "wills"] all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” Job 42:2 says, “I know that You can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” If God genuinely desires all people to be saved, and God's purposes cannot ultimately be thwarted, I believe He will eventually accomplish that desire somehow. I explain this argument much more fully in my page "What is God's plan for the world?"

One friend I was talking with concerning these issues questioned whether it really mattered if Jesus is God or not in light of the greater issue of loving God and one's neighbor.

I do think it matters.

And if I am correct that Jesus is not God, one of the people most directly affected by the Church's misunderstanding is Jesus himself.

Think about what that means. Jesus knows who he is. If he is not God, then he knows that the God he worships is someone other than himself. He knows that God sent him, empowered him, raised him, exalted him, and gave him authority. Yet much of Christian culture speaks to and about Jesus as though Jesus himself were the God whom he worships.

If Jesus is not God, that is tragic—not because Jesus does not deserve honor, but because he deserves to be honored truthfully.

Jesus deserves extraordinary praise. He is our Messiah, Savior, Lord, King, brother, and friend. He sacrificed himself for us and deserves our profound love, gratitude, loyalty, and obedience.

But Jesus is not the one who ultimately satisfies us in place of God. He is the one who leads us to God. He is our brother, friend, Savior, and Lord, who worships God with us rather than the God whom we worship.

Even for only Jesus’ sake, I think the Church should seek clarity on this issue.

Nevertheless, confusion in our minds concerning Jesus’ deity should not cause us to lose sight of the central command Jesus himself emphasized: love God and love your neighbor.

I believe we are all on a journey toward becoming like Christ. Confusion in our minds can hinder that journey, and truth can set us free. But possessing correct information while failing to love is not Christlikeness.

The Christians I know devote their lives to loving God and other people. I want us to keep the main thing the main thing, while still acknowledging the importance of seeking full clarity about who Jesus actually is.

Consider this question.

Suppose Jesus is not God, as I conclude. Who better reflects God's heart: the man or woman who understands the Bible well enough to see that Jesus is not God but treats the people around them with hatred, cruelty, and contempt, or the man or woman who sincerely believes Jesus is God yet spends their life loving God and sacrificially loving their neighbor?

I think the answer is clear.

Correct theology matters. But Scripture gives us no warrant to treat theological precision as a substitute for love, which is far more important.

It is also worth recognizing why many Christians find the question of Jesus’ deity difficult. Some English translations and traditional interpretive choices make certain passages appear much more straightforwardly supportive of Jesus’ deity than I believe the underlying Greek, Hebrew, and broader biblical context warrant. I examine these passages individually throughout my New Testament Study Bible.

A Christian who has never conducted that kind of study should therefore not automatically be treated as though he or she has consciously rejected something obvious. It is not obvious that Jesus is not God for most Christians today, given what history they are taught and how the Bible itself is translated at times.

Therefore, belief that Jesus is God, if that belief is false as I conclude, is decidedly not a salvation issue.

It is a serious theological error because truth matters and right and true worship of God matters. But there is an enormous difference between deliberate rebellion against God and sincerely misunderstanding who Jesus is while seeking to love, obey, and worship God according to the understanding one has.

God cares deeply about truth, but Scripture also places extraordinary weight on faith, love, humility, mercy, obedience, and what is happening in our hearts.

There are also enormous implications for God’s kingdom throughout the world if Christians change their view on Jesus' deity. Mainstream Judaism and Islam both reject the Christian identification of Jesus as God and strongly affirm worship of the one God alone (My Jewish Learning; Qur’an 4:171). If Jesus truly is not God, then Christians may be creating an unnecessary barrier between millions—even billions—of people and Christ by insisting that accepting Jesus requires accepting his deity. Muslims number about two billion worldwide, while the global Jewish population numbers in the tens of millions (Pew Research Center). What if people could instead encounter Jesus as Scripture presents him: God’s Messiah, Son, Savior, Lord, and the man through whom God reconciles the world to Himself? Correcting Jesus’ identity would not erase all the differences between Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, nor would it automatically cause people to follow Christ. But it could remove one of the greatest theological stumbling blocks separating these faiths and open possibilities for greater understanding and, ultimately, I believe, many more people coming to Christ. If this is true, then getting Jesus’ identity right matters not only for our worship, for Jesus himself, and for the Church—it could also have profound implications for the advancement of God’s kingdom throughout the world.

The goal, therefore, is to have both: hearts deeply devoted to God and neighbor, which I believe the Church currently has, and minds increasingly clear about who God and Jesus truly are.