2. General Background

Before examining the biblical arguments concerning whether Jesus is God, it is helpful to understand some basic terminology and history surrounding the doctrine of the Trinity and the development of orthodox Christian teaching about Jesus.

1. What is the Trinity?

The doctrine of the Trinity teaches that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; yet Christianity does not teach that there are three Gods. Rather, the three persons share the one divine being or essence. In traditional Trinitarian theology, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-eternal and fully divine (Tuggy).

Traditional Christianity also teaches that Jesus Christ possesses two complete natures: one divine and one human. Jesus is therefore described as truly God and truly man. The union of these two natures in the one person of Christ is commonly called the “hypostatic union” (Council of Chalcedon).

Christians sometimes summarize this by saying that Jesus is “100% God and 100% man,” although the historic theological formulation is more precisely that Jesus is fully divine and fully human, with two natures united in one person.

2. Some important terms are not found explicitly in the Bible.

The word “Trinity” does not appear in the Bible.

The Bible also never explicitly states that Jesus has “two natures,” one divine and one human, united in one person. Likewise, the phrase “hypostatic union” does not occur in Scripture.

The phrase “God the Son” is also never used in the Bible. Scripture repeatedly calls Jesus the “Son of God,” but “God the Son” is a later theological formulation used to express the Church’s understanding of Jesus’ divine identity.

Of course, the fact that a theological word or phrase does not appear in Scripture does not, by itself, prove that the concept is unbiblical. Christians regularly use extra-biblical terminology to summarize ideas they believe Scripture teaches.

The important question is therefore not simply whether the words “Trinity,” “God the Son,” or “two natures” occur in Scripture.

The important question is whether Scripture actually teaches the concepts those later terms were created to express.

That is the question I will examine throughout this section.

3. The Apostles' Creed

One of Christianity’s oldest and most important creedal traditions is represented by what eventually became known as the Apostles’ Creed.

Despite its name, historians generally do not believe that the twelve apostles themselves wrote the Apostles’ Creed. The traditional story that each apostle contributed part of the creed developed later. However, the Apostles’ Creed grew out of a much older baptismal confession commonly called the Old Roman Symbol or Old Roman Creed. Forms of this creedal tradition can be traced back into the early centuries of Christianity, making it an important witness to very early Christian belief (Kelly).

The familiar form of the Apostles’ Creed used today developed later (Kelly).

It reads:

“I believe in God, the Father almighty,

creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit

and born of the virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died, and was buried;

he descended to the dead.

The third day he rose again from the dead.

He ascended to heaven

and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.

From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen.” (Church of England)

I affirm the Apostles’ Creed.

What is particularly interesting for this study is what the creed says—and does not say—about Jesus.

It identifies:

God as “the Father almighty.”

Jesus as “his only Son, our Lord.”

Jesus as conceived by the Holy Spirit, born, suffering, dying, rising, ascending into heaven, and sitting at the right hand of God.

It also separately confesses belief in the Holy Spirit.

The creed has a Father-Son-Spirit structure and can certainly be read within later Trinitarian theology. However, it does not contain the later language that Jesus is “God from God,” “true God from true God,” or “of one substance with the Father” (Council of Nicaea). Nor does it define Jesus as possessing two natures, divine and human (Council of Chalcedon).

Those more precise formulations emerged through later theological controversies (Ayres).

4. The Council of Nicaea and the Nicene Creed

One of the most important developments occurred at the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 (Ayres).

The council was convened during a major controversy concerning Arius, a Christian presbyter in Alexandria. Arius taught that the Son was not eternal in the same sense as the Father and was not of the same divine essence as the Father. The Son existed before the rest of creation and occupied an extraordinarily exalted position, but Arius rejected the idea that the Son was co-eternal and of the same substance as the Father (Ayres).

The Council of Nicaea rejected Arius’ teaching.

The original Nicene Creed of 325 declared the Son to be:

“God from God,

Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one substance with the Father” (Council of Nicaea).

The crucial Greek term was homoousios, meaning “of the same substance” or “consubstantial” (Council of Nicaea).

The council also explicitly rejected the claim that the Son was a creature or that there was ever a time when he did not exist (Council of Nicaea).

This was an extremely important development in the formal definition of Christian doctrine concerning Jesus.

It is also important to distinguish the original Creed of Nicaea in 325 from the longer creed commonly recited in churches today.

The creed generally called the “Nicene Creed” today is more precisely the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, associated with the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381. It retained the central Nicene declaration that Jesus is “true God from true God” and “of one substance with the Father,” while expanding other portions of the creed, particularly its confession concerning the Holy Spirit (First Council of Constantinople).

Churches in the Latin West later added the famous filioque phrase—“and the Son”—to the statement that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. That phrase was not part of the original 381 creed and eventually became one of the major theological disputes between Eastern and Western Christianity (Siecienski).

The important point for this study is that by the fourth century, the Church was using increasingly precise philosophical and theological terminology to explain exactly how Jesus could be distinct from God the Father while nevertheless being fully God (Ayres).

5. "Homoousios" and the Development of Two-Nature Christology

It is important to distinguish two related but different theological questions.

The first concerned Jesus’ relationship to God the Father:

Is the Son a created, subordinate being, or does he possess the same divine nature as the Father?

Nicaea addressed this question in 325 by using the term homoousios: the Son is “of one substance” with the Father (Council of Nicaea).

The second question concerned the relationship between divinity and humanity within Jesus himself:

If Jesus is fully divine, how is he also genuinely human?

The Church continued debating this question long after Nicaea.

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON — A.D. 451

The Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451 produced what became the classic orthodox Christian definition of Christ’s two natures. It taught that Jesus Christ is one person who exists in two natures, divine and human, which are united: “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation” (Council of Chalcedon). In other words, orthodox Christianity came to teach that Jesus is one person possessing both a complete divine nature and a complete human nature.

This is the theological framework commonly called the hypostatic union. The Bible itself does not use the phrase “hypostatic union,” nor does it state the Chalcedonian formula that Jesus exists “in two natures without confusion, change, division, or separation.” These formulations developed as the Church attempted to explain how various biblical statements about Jesus fit together (Council of Chalcedon).

THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE — A.D. 553

Debates did not end with Chalcedon. The Second Council of Constantinople in A.D. 553 further clarified the Church’s understanding that the human and divine natures of Christ belong to one person or hypostasis—Jesus Christ.

The council therefore reinforced the principle that the actions and experiences of Jesus, including his suffering and death, belong to the one person of Christ, even while orthodox theology distinguishes between what belongs to his human nature and what belongs to his divine nature (Second Council of Constantinople).

THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE — A.D. 680–681

Another major controversy concerned Jesus’ will. If Jesus has both a divine nature and a human nature, does he have one will or two? The Third Council of Constantinople, held from A.D. 680–681, concluded that Christ possesses two natural wills: a divine will and a human will (Third Council of Constantinople). This became known as dyothelitism.

Thus, over several centuries, orthodox Christianity developed an increasingly precise framework for describing Jesus:

Jesus is one person.

He possesses two natures—divine and human.

Those natures are united without confusion or separation.

And corresponding to those two natures, Jesus possesses both a divine will and a human will.

WHY THIS HISTORY MATTERS

None of this history, by itself, proves that the doctrine is either true or false. The fact that theological terminology developed over time does not mean that the theology itself must be wrong. Christians who affirm the Trinity and the hypostatic union argue that the councils were not inventing new beliefs but developing increasingly precise language to express truths already contained in Scripture.

That argument deserves to be taken seriously.

At the same time, Christians should recognize that many of the precise formulations now considered essential to orthodox Christology are not stated explicitly in the biblical text. Terms such as homoousios and “hypostatic union,” along with formulations such as “one person in two natures” and “two wills,” emerged through centuries of theological debate (Ayres; Council of Chalcedon; Third Council of Constantinople).

Christians should also understand the historical context in which these conclusions were reached. The councils did not universally represent the entire Church, imperial Roman power exerted significant influence, and the conduct surrounding some of these disputes at times stood in striking tension with the fruit of the Spirit—love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control (Ayres).

I present the historical evidence for these claims in my articles on the development of belief in Jesus’ divinity: 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.

None of this necessarily means that the councils reached the wrong conclusions. From my perspective, however, it does mean that their conclusions should not simply be assumed to be correct because they later became orthodox. Rather, this history gives us even more reason to return carefully to Scripture and ask whether the conclusions of these councils truly align with what Scripture itself teaches.

For me, that makes the biblical question especially important. The Church’s historical conclusions deserve careful consideration, but they cannot substitute for examining Scripture itself.

So as we consider whether Jesus is God, I do not believe the question should simply be:

“What did the later Church conclude?”

Nor should it simply be:

“Does the word Trinity appear in the Bible?”

Instead, we need to ask:

Does the biblical evidence actually require us to conclude that Jesus possesses the same divine essence as God the Father?

Does Scripture teach that Jesus has both a divine nature and a human nature, along with two different wills?

When Scripture describes Jesus learning, suffering, being tempted, praying, receiving authority, depending upon God, possessing limited knowledge, dying, being raised by God, worshipping God, and being exalted by God, is the best explanation that these experiences belong only to his human nature while another divine nature remains fully God? Or does Scripture present a different and simpler picture of who Jesus is?

Those are the questions I will examine in the articles that follow.