This is the most important question of the ages. How you answer this question determines if you have a relationship with God or not. Many have sought to answer this question and many have answered it wrong. Even when Jesus was on this earth many of the Jews thought Jesus was someone from the past who was now resurrected. Some proposed Elijah, others one of the other prophets or one like the prophets. It was difficult at that time to accept Jesus as the Son of God because of Jewish preconceptions about God so they tried to come with other solutions. Most of these sound quite ridiculous to us. Very few found the correct answer. Even in our day people have this same problem with Jesus. Many people today cannot accept what the Bible says about Jesus. So instead they look for alternate explanations. He was a radical political leader. He is a great moral teacher. He was one of the prophets in a long line of prophets. He was a extreme religious zealot. Some people get a little more devious with their preception of Jesus. Some say He was a liar. He was self-deceived. He was a lunatic. Or even that He was a legend. It seems as though the speculations never end. However, none of these opinions account for Jesus’ perfect life, miracles and resurrection. It is only the account we have in the Bible that is tested and true. In the end, the attempts to explain Jesus away are way more far-fetched than to simply believe the truth.
What Does the Bible Say?
In a summary statment, the Bible clearly reveals that Jesus is the Christ, the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity. The Apostle John wrote his Gospel to demonstrate that Jesus was the Christ the Son of God and that believing in Him a person may have eternal life (John 20:30-31). It is of utmost importance that we understand that the Bible teaches that Jesus is God. John 1:1, 14 declares: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ. In verse 18 of the same chapter John states: No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known. Jesus reveals God to us; He is the One who explains God. Many are attracted to Christ because of His admirable character, His noble martyrdom, or because He was a great moral reformer. While these are good virtues, they are but byproducts of the person who was and is "Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Price of Peace" (Isa. 9:7). In Romans 9:5 Jesus is spoken of as God: Of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. In Titus 2:13, Paul is giving an exhortation and he says that we should be looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. In fact, when you carefully study the Bible there are over 35 passages that give direct affirmation that Jesus is in very nature God. If you include all of the implicit and inferential passages that relate to Jesus being God, such as His performing miracles, His forgiving sins, Him having power over the devil and demons, Him being the judge of humanity, Him possessing all the attributes of deity, Him being spoken of as the Son of God (which is also the same thing as saying He has the nature of God), Him being worshiped, etc., etc., the positive evidence is overwhelming. All these implications put together press upon any logical mind that the Bible declares that Jesus is indeed Almighty God. Thus He is worthy of all glory, worship and adoration.
What Does it Mean for Me?
The fact that the Bible teaches that Jesus is God has a direct application to every person alive. Jesus gets to the crux of the issue in John 8:24: Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He (there is no He in Greek here), so it actually reads: if you do not believe that "I am." Now to Jewish ears in the first century this would have immediately brought them back to a very familiar story in Exodus 3, when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush. Moses asked God in Exodus 3:13-14: What is His name? what shall I say to them? 14 And God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM...Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you. Jesus was identifying Himself with the I AM at the burning bush. Jesus was saying, "I am the God of the Old Testament, I am the Great I AM. I spoke to Moses in the burning bush. I AM God!" Later in the dialog in John 8, Jesus reiterates this "I AM" statement down in verse 58, and the Jews wanted to kill Him for it. They knew exactly what Jesus meant. And so in essence, Jesus was saying to them and to us today that unless a person believes that He is the One and only true God they will perish in their sins forever! That is how important this questions is. To believe in Jesus as God is a matter of eternal life or eternal damnation! Who do you say Jesus is?
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