Is Jesus God? Part 16: Implication 2- God Values Love Over Knowledge

I have been asked if I think believing Jesus is God, if he is not, is a salvation issue, so I thought this would be important to address. The Church, overall, has, I think, been deceived on the point of Jesus’ deity. I was deceived concerning Jesus’ deity for most of my life. Trinitarian Christians I know have an incredible heart for God: their mind is confused like mine was, I think, on this issue.  I do not believe God sees this as a salvation issue because this is not a heart issue but a mind issue, and God values love for Him and others way more than correct understanding of confusing theological topics. All that being said, it is best to have both: love for God and others and correct theological understanding.

In my own personal experience, my relationship with God did not change much when I changed my mind on Jesus’ deity. I stopped worshipping Jesus as God. My thoughts and words about Jesus changed to match my new theological perspective. But the main thing stayed the main thing: loving others around me.

I am confident that the Church as a whole, if their mind changed on this issue, would immediately stop worshipping Jesus as God because they love God and trust His Word. The true Christian Church is by and large, in my experience, earnestly seeking God and trying to understand Him and worship Him rightly. As Jesus is not God, worshipping him as God IS sin, but it is unintentional sin. So, true Christians that believe this are, from my observation, pure in heart and confused and deceived in their minds like I was. The Bible is clear that God views this type of sin very differently than intentional sin, though it is still serious.

At the end of the day, it is clear who true Christians are by their fruit (Matthew 7:16). Are those who claim to be Christians loving each other and the world, and worshipping God as best they understand how? Or are they doing the opposite? It is no small thing to worship Jesus as God if he is not, but it is a much greater thing in God’s eyes to not love others, as this is what really shows if someone knows (and is truly worshipping) God. 

God cares most about our hearts, not about whether our minds have understood what is, frankly, a fairly confusing point in Christendom: Jesus’ identity. My experience with talking with Trinitarians about Jesus’ identity has been, overall, one that reveals their humility towards God. My conversations have resulted in my fellow Christians telling me that they do not totally understand Jesus’ divinity, that the Trinity is a mystery they cannot understand, and that they just need to trust God and follow and love Him despite not fully understanding.

While I disagree – I think God can be understood on Jesus’ identity and the Bible is actually clear on this once thoroughly studied – I see a deep and humble love for God in the Christians I speak with on this topic. The friends and family I have talked to consider loving others and God to be their primary mission in life, content to wait till heaven to understand the Trinity. The God I know would not judge them for this. The God I know – the God of the Bible – is merciful, gracious, and kind, and does not judge harshly because of a lack of understanding on a confusing Christian doctrine – one that, unless you study Greek and Hebrew, in some passages clearly seems to indicate that Jesus is God (for example, Jesus worship).

What is more, Christians have the Holy Spirit, and this is our seal for salvation (Ephesians 1:13-14). I became a Christian when I was 5 years old after my Dad shared the gospel with me. I received the Holy Spirit then by putting my faith in Christ, as best as I could understand the salvation message. I did not receive the Holy Spirit when I was 31 years old when I finally concluded, after 2 years of research and prayer, that Jesus was not God because I already had the Holy Spirit. God honors and values our childlike faith, love for Him as best we understand Him, and love for others over intellectual understanding. As a 5-year-old, I certainly did not have full understanding of the salvation message, nor had I thoughtfully considered whether this man who died for me was God or not, but God gifted me with the Holy Spirit that night, and I became His daughter. 

It does matter for the Church if Jesus is not God, and changes would need to be made. It is sin (however unintentional) to worship Jesus as God and treat him as such in the way we pray, worship, and think if he is not. Most Christians are not 5 year-old-children, and God does call us to seek Him and try to understand Him (Jeremiah 9, Jeremiah 29). This is one way we can love Him with all our “mind” (Matthew 22:37). However, there are things that God cares more deeply about than us fully understanding how Jesus is not God: namely, love for others. As the Scripture says: “Knowledge puffs up, 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). Yet again, it is best to have both: deep love for God and neighbor in our hearts with clarity of mind about who God and Jesus are.

Why would God allow the Church to be deceived on this topic? Perhaps a better question is: why would He allow the WORLD to be deceived? He does not love Muslims more than Christians or Hindus more than Muslims. He does not show favoritism – He loves everyone equally. So maybe He has allowed Christians to be confused – yes, to sin against Him unintentionally – to humble us and show us that everyone in the whole world is really not that different from each other. Christians get deceived just as Muslims do – Hindus just as atheists do – we all need the grace of God. We all need help as Satan has deceived us all to some degree.

I do think Christians have the most truth, but if that is true Christians’ sin is in some ways the most grievous – we have the least excuse to not know who God really is – not a man, for example, as He says 3 times in the Old Testament, but Spirit. Yet I believe God’s grace covers the unintentional mistakes we make with our minds because He is by far most concerned with our hearts: how and whether we love those around us. Moreover, how a Christian acts with what they do understand is of way more importance to God than if a Christian is thinking clearly on all Christian doctrine.

All this being said, truth matters, and whether Jesus is God or not is significant. I am just trying to emphasize that it is by no means the most important thing to God, because the most important thing to God is loving Him and others in the light that we do have, even if we do not have complete clarity in our mind about who He is.

Why do you think the gospel of God is to put our faith in a person who is 100% man, if Jesus is not God? How can that really save us? Maybe because if we really believe that Jesus is 100% man who lived a blameless life and died for us, we can really believe that we also can do the same – because we are all children of God. Jesus is the Way, Truth, and Life because HIS way is the way we are all called to walk – the way of love, devotion to God, and complete obedience to God. We can put our faith in this man and also, given that he is not God – but a man – find the strength and courage to truly live like he did in a unique way. Not believing in Jesus’ deity reveals that we TRULY can live like Jesus – our fellow man and Lord, Jesus, did it – so can we. But only as Jesus did, by fully relying on God and devoting oneself to loving God and neighbor. This is, after all, what we were designed to do to begin with.

While Jesus did have an advantage given that he was born without the sin nature that the rest of us struggle with, coming only in the “likeness” of sinful flesh (Romans 8:3), he did not have the advantage of being God. As the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45), he was born like the first Adam: without sin. Unlike the first Adam, he always obeyed and loved God, becoming like us in all ways except for our sin (Hebrews 2:17). He is a real human model for us to follow, emulate, and whose image we will one day bear (Romans 8:29).

Salvation is not a one-way ticket to heaven, it is a way of life characterized by love of God and neighbor. People who do not know Jesus’ name may be closer to salvation than they think, and we would be wrong to judge differently. Conversely, very religious people who are confident they know God may be farther than they think – not lost, as I believe God will ensure no one remains lost – but farther from salvation than they think, if they do not truly love God and their neighbor.

As an aside, I believe God will ensure no one remains lost because of 1 Timothy 2:4, which says God “wants 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 desires all people to be saved, I believe He will accomplish this somehow as God’s purposes cannot be thwarted. I explain why I believe this fully in section 3, Universal Salvation.

One friend I was talking with concerning these issues questioned if it really mattered if Jesus is God or not, in light of the greater issue of loving God and one’s neighbor. How much does God care if we are confused on worship on this point?

I do think God cares – but I think the one who this negatively impacts the most is Jesus himself, which is, I think, tragic and horrible. Think of it: the one who lived a blameless life for us and sacrificed himself could probably barely breathe in the current Christian environment. Jesus knows he is not God, and he never will be. Even for Jesus’ sake alone, the Church must change on this topic – Jesus does not want to be worshipped as God, though he deserves great praise. Jesus is not the one who satisfies us, despite the barrage of Christian culture saying otherwise – he is our brother, friend, and Lord, who wants us to worship God with us, not be worshipped as God by us.

I believe we are all on our own journey to become like Christ, and confusion in our minds on the issue of Jesus’ deity is, yes, something that hinders, but loving others is by far more important. The Christians I know devote their lives to loving God and others: let us keep the main thing the main thing, while still acknowledging the importance of seeking full clarity on whether Jesus is God.

If you think I am wrong on this, consider, if you were God, and Jesus is not God as I conclude: who are you more concerned about? The man or woman who is hateful towards those around him or her yet understands the Bible well enough to see that Jesus is not God, or the man or woman who loves their neighbor but believes completely that Jesus is God?  Knowledge of Greek and Hebrew is almost a requirement for coming to the conclusion that Jesus is not actually God, as our English Bibles have been mistranslated at points to hold up the Trinity Doctrine.

Therefore, belief that Jesus is God, if that is false as I think, is decidedly not a salvation issue. God cares way more about us loving Him and those around us with the understanding we do have than our having complete understanding of who Jesus is in our minds. This is especially true given the difficulties English translations, as they are sometimes biased towards Jesus’ deity (shown in the "Scripture in Context" posts), of the Bible present to reaching the conclusion that Jesus is not God. God is not One to judge harshly because of understandable intellectual confusion. Nevertheless, having both love for God and others and correct theology concerning Jesus is best, and right knowledge of Jesus, particularly that he is not God, would positively impact God, Jesus, the Church, and God’s kingdom.