Does the Bible say that Jesus is God?

• Bible explicitly says Jesus is God (or our God)

  Jesus is explicitly called God (or “our God”, or “Divine”) in scripture

  This page analyzes seven arguments:

  • In John 1:1 (“and the Word was God”)
  • In John 1:18 (“God the one and only”)
  • In John 20:28 (“Thomas… said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God’”)
  • In Titus 2:13 (“our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,”)
  • In 2 Peter 1:1 (“our God and Savior, Jesus Christ”)
  • In Colossians 2:9 - (“in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells”)
  • In Hebrews 1:8 (“of the Son He [God] says ‘Your throne, O God, is”)

• Jesus and God share titles & quoted roles (20+)

  Jesus and God are identified by the exact same quotes.

  This page analyzes seven examples:

  • Both “search the heart/mind”
  • Both “at my right hand” (quote)
  • Both “founded the Earth” (quote)
  • Both “through Him are all things”
  • Both “Dwell in the temple of [our] body”
  • For both, “clear the way… in the wilderness”
  • To both, we “Call on the name of the Lord”

• Philippians 2 - “He did not grasp equality with God”

  It says in Philippians 2 -- “[Jesus], although he was existing in God’s form, gave no consideration to a seizure, namely, that he should be equal to God.” [New World Translation (2013), for Jehovah's Witnesses].

  But so what? Couldn't it simply be referring to Jesus's not grasping at God's higher rank.¹

  1. Contra the unstated assumption of the JW field booklet Reasoning from the Scriptures [Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, (1985, 1989), 419], the Philippians were not attempting to seize at a higher ontological nature; they were equally human, and simply fighting over who does/should rank higher in the community of those with equal human nature. This is relevant because, contextually, Paul is using Jesus's relationship to the Father as an example of the attitude he is encouraging (v5). This entails that Jesus and God are equal “in form” (or ontological nature) as the Philippians were equal in nature, but they are unequal in rank:

     John 12:49 -- I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say (cf. Jn 14:28, 31).

     In short, unlike the Philippians, Jesus lacks the “contentiousness” (v3), “grumbling” (v14) and “selfish ambition” (v3) that the disunified Philippians displayed. Jesus consequently had equal divine nature but did not fight to have the Father's rank.