Is Jesus Christ God?

I don't think so...The bible calls Him the son of God. Never mentions a trinity, nor godman, nor does it imply that 3=1.

Originally posted by checkbaitor
I don't think so...The bible calls Him the son of God. Never mentions a trinity, nor godman, nor does it imply that 3=1.

I think you meant to say that he never calls himself God, by using the words, "I am God." Paul certainly doesn't hesitate to call him God. You also might consider reading the first chapter of John's gospel.

Giving himself the same status as God the Father
i. Matthew 10:32-33-- 32 “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.”
ii. Matthew 28:18-20-- 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
iii. John 5:17-18-- 17 Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” 18 For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
iv. John 5:23-24-- He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him. 24 “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”
v. John 6:40-- 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
vi. John 10:30-33-- 30 “I and the Father are one.” 31 Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” 33 “We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
vii. John 12:44-46-- 44 Then Jesus cried out, “When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. 45 When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me. 46 I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.
viii. John 13:20-- 20 I tell you the truth, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me.”
ix. John 14:6-11-- 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” 9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.
x. John 17:10-11-- 10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one.

Divine Title
i. Mark 14:61-64-- 61 But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” 62 “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” 63 The high priest tore his clothes. “Why do we need any more witnesses?” he asked. 64 “You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?” They all condemned him as worthy of death.
ii. John 9:35-37-- 35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.” 37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”
iii. John 3:13,17-- 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man… 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
1. Daniel 7:13-- 13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”
iv. Luke 8:39-- 39 “Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him.
v. John 19:7-- 7 The Jews insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.”

Giving himself God’s attributes
i. Omnipresence/Eternal
1. Matthew 28:18-20-- 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age
2. John 8:56-59-- 55 Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and keep his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” 57 “You are not yet fifty years old,” the Jews said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” 58 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
a. Exodus 3:14-- 14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
ii. Forgiving Sins
1. Matthew 9:1-8-- Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town. 2 Some men brought to him a paralytic, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” 3 At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, “This fellow is blaspheming!” 4 Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? 5 Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 6 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins....” Then he said to the paralytic, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” 7 And the man got up and went home. 8 When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to men.
2. Mark 2:5-7-- 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” 6 Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7 “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
3. Luke 5:17-26-- 20 When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” 21 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
iii. Accepts worship
1. John 20:28-- 28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

You can claim that Jesus wasn't God. Fine. But don't say he didn't think he was God. You have a trilemma on your hands, you must choose one of three options. Jesus was crazy, because he thought he was God, but he wasn't. He was a liar, because he knew he wasn't but he said he was God. Or, he was who he said he was.

For all intents and purposes he is God. He is a Son of God and that is all the God we need right now. Compared to anything we can get a grip on he is God. God on earth in the form of a man to live a life in the flesh. It's a remarkable story. To bad the Christians have jacked it up with a bunch of garbage.

Originally posted by kingdanwa
You can claim that Jesus wasn't God. Fine. But don't say he didn't think he was God. You have a trilemma on your hands, you must choose one of three options. Jesus was crazy, because he thought he was God, but he wasn't. He was a liar, because he knew he wasn't but he said he was God. Or, he was who he said he was.

Paraphrasing C.S. Lewis, right? Well, there is another option: that the Jesus of "reality," that is, the man who was actually give birth to and walked the earth, was all-together different from the icon fleshed out in the books of the Bible commonly known as "the Gospels." In this case, it is possible that Jesus never said he was God.

Originally posted by thesonofsaul
Paraphrasing C.S. Lewis, right? Well, there is another option: that the Jesus of "reality," that is, the man who was actually give birth to and walked the earth, was all-together different from the icon fleshed out in the books of t ...[text shortened]... In this case, it is possible that Jesus never said he was God.

I'd be interested in hearing how you would demonstrate a method for discerning what Jesus actually said. I also hope that your method would be applicable to other historical figures (Plato, Aristotle, Whitman, Shelley, Lincoln, Jefferson, etc.). Please share.

Originally posted by thesonofsaul
Paraphrasing C.S. Lewis, right? Well, there is another option: that the Jesus of "reality," that is, the man who was actually give birth to and walked the earth, was all-together different from the icon fleshed out in the books of the Bible commonly known as "the Gospels." In this case, it is possible that Jesus never said he was God.

Not really relevant to the question as it was framed, which was about what the Bible says.

It's pretty clear to me that, on that basis, Jesus did claim he was God. There's an excellent (for this purpose, anyway) book called 'Who Moved the Stone?' that examines the trial and crucifixion and convincingly demonstrates that the reason the religious authorities wanted Jesus killed was because he had claimed to be God - in their eyes, a blasphemous claim.

Originally posted by kingdanwa
I'd be interested in hearing how you would demonstrate a method for discerning what Jesus actually said. I also hope that your method would be applicable to other historical figures (Plato, Aristotle, Whitman, Shelley, Lincoln, Jefferson, etc.). Please share.

There is no such method, and if it wasn't for the Bible, or more specifically how people treat the Bible as unfailing truth there wouldn't be a need for one. No one has any problem with someone doubting the words of Plato, or that the words we accept as originating from Plato actually came from Joe Shmough, the real author. These thoughts are all fine and acceptable in the intellectual community. One of my favorite historical figures, Hannibal Barca, has come though recorded history in a very garbled way. The few remaining texts that mention him are not considered to be terribly trustworthy. Why are they doubted so much? Why, because people were not afraid to examine them, because they are not the God-book worshipped by so many faithful. No one ever asks, "could you demonstrate for me a way to find out what Hannibal really said?" No. To ask that would be silly, and while I enjoy the silly as much as the next dupe, I can't say that I admire it in this context.

So no, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I have no method like the one you request. No such method exists. All I was trying to stress is that the Bible should be treated in exactly the same way as documents pertaining to all historical figures, in the same light, with the same openness for doubt and scrutiny. We should say things like, "In the Bible Jesus said ..." or "The Bible tells us the Jesus said ... " if we insist on quoting it all the time. That is all.

... --- ...

I am not going to go through all of them, but the quotations do not lead to the self-evident
conclusion that Jesus thought he was God.

Originally posted by kingdanwa
Giving himself the same status as God the Father
i. Matthew 10:32-33-- 32 “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.”

Only attests to Jesus's ability to mediate between God and humankind, which prophets can do.

ii. Matthew 28:18-20-- 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

A later interpolation, no doubt (redactively speaking), but nonetheless, does not make the equation
that Jesus = God, only that God has given Him authority (which, again, was given on smaller
scale to prophets, such as St Peter, who could lose or bind sins on earth/heaven).

iii. John 5:17-18-- 17 Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” 18 For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Making himself equal with God implies that He is not God, but trying to be like God, not unlike
Adam and Eve during the Fall.

iv. John 5:23-24-- He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him. 24 “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”

One could say this about the prophets -- one who does not honor Moses or Elijah, say, does not
honor God.

v. John 6:40-- 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

vi. John 10:30-33-- 30 “I and the Father are one.” 31 Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” 33 “We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”

When did Jesus make this claim? Is this one of the falsehoods, perhaps, that the Jews were
spreading about Jesus, mentioned in the various scourging accounts? Notice that Jesus never
makes this claim later in the passage but iterates it (as He always did) as follows:

St John 10:36 [Jesus said to the Jews]...can you say that the one whom the Father has
sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming because I said, 'I am God's Son?'

This is an important point: Jesus does not affirm their claims that He said He was God, but
instead restates what He always stated, that He was the Son of God.

vii. John 12:44-46-- 44 Then Jesus cried out, “When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. 45 When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me. 46 I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.
viii. John 13:20-- 20 I tell you the truth, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me.”

These two have the same treatment as above in IV.

ix. John 14:6-11-- 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” 9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.

This is the introduction to the so-called Last Supper discourses, where a multitude of metaphors
and images are used. The Father is the vine grower, Jesus is the vine; I am the light who leads to
the Father; and so on. Invariably, Jesus is a vessel by which one comes to the Father. This does
not testify to equality, but inequality. Just as St John the Baptist pointed the way to Jesus, Jesus,
too, points the way to the Father.

x. John 17:10-11-- 10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one.

Does this suggest that we become Sons and Daughters of God like Jesus is Son of God? This is
what Mormons believe. Of course, the notion that the Father gave something to Jesus
necessarily suggests that Jesus didn't have it at some point. That is, that Jesus was the adopted
Son of God, or Arianism. That is to say, Jesus (the first-born of all Creation), inherited the
position of Son of God and that Christians, too, will inherit it by faithful belief.

Taking the unsafe assumption that the Gospels report history accurately (which the demonstrably
do not), none of these passages demonstrate that Jesus thought of Himself as God incarnate.
Tellingly 80% of the passages come from St John, the latest of the four canonical Gospels, who
had a very different (and more advanced) theological understanding of what Jesus was (with, say
St Mark). Even still, St John's Jesus never says in any explicit way that Jesus is God. This
interpretation was the climax of 100 years of Christianity and was the subject of debate, as the
various proto-Creeds being formed demonstrate (iterating the basic contents of an 'Orthodox' faith).

You can, of course, debate each one of my objections, and that would be fine. This is precisely
what happened in the first 3 centuries of Christianity. People were debating what Jesus really was.
Had it been self-evident from Scripture, such debate would not have happened. All of the
so-called heretical sects of Christianity had spokesmen who were well-informed Gospel scholars,
who wrote treatises and apologies in support of their non-Trinitarian position. What became the
Orthodox church wrote counter-treatises and the debate waged on.

So, any claim of the Scriptural self-evidence of Jesus's claiming that He was God is spurious indeed.

Nemesio

Originally posted by thesonofsaul
There is no such method, and if it wasn't for the Bible, or more specifically how people treat the Bible as unfailing truth there wouldn't be a need for one. No one has any problem with someone doubting the words of Plato, or that the words we accept as originating from Plato actually came from Joe Shmough, the real author. These thoughts are all fi ...[text shortened]... s us the Jesus said ... " if we insist on quoting it all the time. That is all.

... --- ...

Of course that debate was resolved by violence, when one side got control of the Roman Army through Constantine.

Originally posted by kingdanwa
I'd be interested in hearing how you would demonstrate a method for discerning what Jesus actually said. I also hope that your method would be applicable to other historical figures (Plato, Aristotle, Whitman, Shelley, Lincoln, Jefferson, etc.). Please share.

Well, it would be silly to compare the methods used for Plato and Lincoln, because the source
situation is totally different. Where we get sources, how we get them, how many of them we
have all play a huge role in determining who said what and when.

The way in which Biblical scholars make determinations about redactive layers is comparable to
the way in which they make editorial decisions about, say, Homer or Plato. Whitman, Shelley,
Lincoln, and Jefferson are all totally different, most significantly because we have, unequivocably,
writings in their own hand. Similarly, none of the figures you mention made any
extraordinary claims, like that they were the Son of God or talked to God or healed anyone.

Perhaps, as an exercise, you could explain why you disbelieve the sacred authority of the Book of
Mormon, and the prophetic status of Joseph Smith who, like Jesus, made rather extraordinary
claims about the way the world was and how a true believer ought to behave and what they should
have faith in. There were a few witnesses to Smith's 'miracles.' Do you disbelieve those?

In any event, Lucifershammer summarized, quite eloquently the general hierarchy of canonical
sources, with his discussion of Q and proto-Mark, in another thread. To start, do you disbelieve
these critical evaluations (that Sts Matthew and Luke used St Mark and Q as a means of composing
their own accounts)? If you believe it, then necessarily believe in an editorial process (for St
Luke and St Matthew differ signficantly on a number of issues). If you believe in an editorial
process, then you believe that omissions took place, and admit that additions may have taken
place as well, as well as corrections.

Nemesio

Well, if Jesus was not God then a lot of people are in a lot of trouble, as this eliminates any notion of salvation by grace.