I proceed from where I left off: NEW TESTAMENT USE OF THEOS.

CHRIST AS THEOS

In this segment I will cite the texts, which the majority of NT scholars, theologians, exegetes and/or apologists affirm identify Christ as God in the fullest sense of the term, not in an attenuated, diluted sense.

THE APOSTLE JOHN

I start with what is perhaps the most famous and/or cited passage in relation to the Deity of Christ:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (kai Theos een ho Logos)… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men… The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:1-4, 9-10, 14

According to the [O]ld [T]estament, there is no other Creator God other than YHWH, nor is there any other deity who is the Source of life and spiritual illumination besides him:

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” Genesis 1:1-5

“These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.” Genesis 2:4

“Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: ‘I am the LORD, who made all things, who ALONE stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by MYSELF,’” Isaiah 44:24

“For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.” Psalm 36:9

Therefore, the only kind of God that the Word made flesh could ever be is the true God, even though he is not the same Person as the God whom has eternally existed with. That God whom the Word has eternally been with is the Father:

“Now, Father, glorify me at your own side with the glory I had at your side before the world existed… Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am so that they may see my glory—the glory you gave me because you loved me before the world’s foundation.” John 17:5 Evangelical Heritage Version (EHV)

John further describes Christ as the uniquely begotten God who perfectly explains the Father:

“No one has ever seen God; the only God (monogenes Theos), who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” John 1:18

Note how the following translations render the Greek:

“No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” New International Version (NIV)

“No one has ever seen God. God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has made God known.” Common English Bible (CEB)

John clearly implies here that whenever the OT states that people saw God, it was none other than the prehuman Son whom they were looking at:

“When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.’ Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, ‘Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.’… When he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham.” Genesis 17:1-4, 22

“And the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, ‘O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant.’… So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the LORD… And the LORD went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.” Genesis 18:1-3, 22, 33

“God spoke to Moses and said to him, ‘I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them.’” Exodus 6:2-3

“And Stephen said: ‘Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,’” Acts 7:2

“Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. There was under HIS FEET as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank. The LORD said to Moses, ‘Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.’ So Moses rose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. And he said to the elders, ‘Wait here for us until we return to you. And behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them.’ Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the LORD dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. Now the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.” Exodus 24:9-18

“And the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent and called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward. And he said, ‘Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?’” Numbers 12:5-8

“And Micaiah said, ‘Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; and the LORD said, “Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?” And one said one thing, and another said another. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, “I will entice him.” And the LORD said to him, “By what means?” And he said, “I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.” And he said, “You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.” Now therefore behold, the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the Lord has declared disaster for you.’” 1 Kings 22:19-23

“In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!’ And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: ‘Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!’” Isaiah 6:1-5

“I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said: ‘Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake, and shatter them on the heads of all the people; and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword; not one of them shall flee away; not one of them shall escape.’” Amos 9:1

Seeing that John has basically identified Jesus as that very Jehovah God that appeared to the OT saints, who created and gives life to all creation, it is therefore unsurprising that the inspired Evangelist would bookend his presentation with Thomas’ confession to the risen Jesus being his very Lord and God:

“Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.’ Thomas said TO HIM (eipen auto), ‘My Lord and my God (ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou)!’ Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’” John 20:27-29 NIV

To say that this is remarkable would be putting it mildly since the OT is clear that YHWH is the only Lord God that a believer can ever confess and trust in.

In fact, Thomas’ statement of faith is virtually identical to the following confession made by the Psalmist in respect to YHWH:

“Awake and rouse yourself for my vindication, for my cause, my God and my Lord (elohay wadonay)!” Psalm 35:23

“Awake, O Lord, and attend to my judgment, [even] to my cause, my God and my Lord (ho theos mou kai ho kyrios mou).” Psalm 34:23 LXX

Hence, the only way that Jesus can ever be described as the Lord God of believers is if he is YHWH God Almighty that became flesh.

Even the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Watchtower Bible and Tract Society implicitly acknowledge this fact!

“In its articles on JEHOVAH, the Imperial Bible Dictionary (Vol. I, p. 856) nicely illustrates the difference between Elohim (God) and Jehovah. Of the name Jehovah, it says: ‘It is everywhere a proper name, denoting the personal God and him only; whereas Elohim partakes more of the character of a common noun, denoting usually, indeed, but not necessarily nor uniformly, the Supreme…. The Hebrew may say the Elohim, the true God, in opposition to all false gods; but he never says the Jehovah, for Jehovah is the name for the true God only. He says again and again my God…; but never my Jehovah, for when he says my God, He means Jehovah. He speaks of the God of Israel, but never of Jehovah of Israel, for there is no other Jehovah. He speaks of the living God, but never of the living Jehovah, for he cannot conceive of Jehovah as other than living.’” (Aid to Bible Understanding [Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc., 1971], Jehovah. “God” and “Father” not distinctive, p. 885; bold emphasis mine)

Therefore, by confessing Jesus as his God Thomas was basically acknowledging that God’s risen Son is Jehovah Almighty Incarnate!

With that said, I cite Evangelical scholar Robert M. Bowman Jr. who explains why the term theos when applied to Jesus can only be interpreted in an absolute sense:

“… The use of words translated ‘God, god’ and ‘gods.’ When the Scripture uses words for God in a singular form, it almost always refers to Jehovah, the Lord God. The unqualified singular ‘God’ (Hebrew el or elohim; Greek theos) is always, or virtually always, used of the Almighty God. For example, the singular theos is used of God about 1,400 times in the New Testament, and of a false god only six times, always clearly so from the context (Acts 7:43; 12:22; 28:6; 2 Cor. 4:4; Phil. 3:19; 2 Thess. 2:7). Given this almost uniform usage of the singular theos for ‘God’ by all the New Testament writers, we ought to assume that this usage applies in all cases where context does not rule it out. The Bible says repeatedly that there is only God, and specifically only one true God (e.g., Isa. 43:10; 44:6-8; Jer. 10:10; John 17:3; 1 Tim. 2:5; James 2:19; 1 John 5:20). It also repeatedly states that all other so-called gods (1 Cor. 8:5) are false gods (cf. Deut. 32:31; Ps. 96:5; Isa. 41:23-24). Creatures are on occasion called ‘gods’ in the plural, usually taken to mean they are representatives of God (most notably Pss. 8:5; 82:1,6) – and even these are debated in meaning… The burden of proof is on the Jehovah’s Witness to show that in such passages as John 1:1 and John 20:28 where they admit the singular theos is used of Jesus Christ, the word does not have its customary denotation of ‘God.'” (Bowman, Jehovah’s Witnesses – Zondervan Guide to Cults and Religious Movements [Zondervan Publishing House; Grand Rapids MI, 1995], pp. 23-24; emphasis mine)

Elsewhere he writes:

“Although the Gospel of John has 21 chapters, the climax of the Gospel comes at the end of chapter 20, when the apostle Thomas confesses Jesus as his Lord and God (v. 28) and John states that the purpose of his Gospel is that people might have life through believing in Jesus as the Son of God (vv. 30-31). We see the same pattern of thought as in the prologue: Jesus is the Son of God the Father (1:14, 18) and yet he is also himself God (1:1, 18)…

“Thomas’ words echo statements addressed in the Psalms to the Lord (Jehovah), especially the following: ‘Wake up! Bestir yourself for my defense, for my cause, my God and my Lord [ho theos mou kai ho kurios mou!]’ (Ps. 35:23). These words parallel those in John 20:28 exactly except for reversing ‘God’ and ‘Lord.’ More broadly, in biblical language ‘my God’ (on the lips of a faithful believer) can refer ONLY to the Lord God of Israel. The language is as definite as it could be and identifies Jesus Christ as God himself.

“In identifying Jesus as God, Thomas, of course, was not identifying him as the Father. Earlier in the same passage, Jesus had referred to the Father as his God. It is interesting to compare Jesus’ wording with the wording of Thomas. Jesus told Mary Magdalene, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and to your God’ (theon mou kai theon humon, John 20:17). As in John 1:1 and John 1:18, the Father is called ‘God’ in close proximity to a statement affirming that Jesus is also ‘God.’ Here again, as in John 1:18, we do not see the apostle John distinguishing between the Father as ‘the God’ (ho theos) and Jesus the Son as only ‘God’ (theos without the article). In fact, whereas Jesus calls the Father ‘my God’ without the article (theon mou, 20:17), Thomas calls Jesus ‘my God’ with the article (ho theos mou, 20:28)! One could not ask for any clearer evidence that the use or nonuse of the article is irrelevant to the meaning of the word theos. What matters is how the word is used in context. In John 20:28, the apostle reports the most skeptical of disciples making the most exalted of confessions about Jesus. John expects his readers to view Thomas’s confession as a model for them to follow. Recognizing Jesus as the One who has conquered death itself for us, we too are to respond to Jesus and confess that he is our Lord and our God…

“To summarize, the Gospel of John explicitly refers to Jesus as ‘God’ three times: at the beginning of the prologue (1:1, 18) and at the climax of the book (20:28). These three strategically placed affirmations make it clear that Jesus is and always has been God. As Murray Harris puts it, ‘In his preincarnate state (1:1), in his incarnate state (1:18), and in his postresurrection state (20:28), Jesus is God. For John, recognition of Christ’s deity is the hallmark of the Christian.’” (Robert M. Bowman Jr. & J. Ed Komoszewski, Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ [Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, MI 2007], Part 3: Name Above All Names – Jesus Shares the Names of God, Chapter 12. Immanuel: God with Us, pp. 142, 143-144; emphasis mine)

Speaking of Harris, here is what this renowned NT scholar wrote in regards to Thomas’ confession:

“Although in customary Johannine and NT usage (ho) theos refers to the Father, it is impossible that Thomas and John would be personally equating Jesus with the Father, for in the immediate historical and literary context Jesus himself has explicitly distinguished himself from God his Father (John 20:17). Clearly, then, theos is a title, not a proper name. Nor is it fitting to argue that, since John aimed in his Gospel to prove merely the messiahship of Jesus (John 20:31), ho theos mou of verse 28 cannot mean ‘my God’ but must bear a diluted, descriptive sense such as ‘my divine one,’ as in F.C. Burkitt’s paraphrase, ‘It is Jesus Himself, and now I recognize Him as divine’ (48). As elsewhere in John, the title ho hyios tou theou, which is in apposition to ho Christos in John 20:31, denotes more than simply the Davidic Messiah. The Gospel was written to produce belief that Jesus was the promised Jewish Messiah and that the Messiah was none other than the ‘one and only’ Son of God who had come from the Father (John 11:42; 17:8), who shared his nature (John 1:1, 18; 10:30) and fellowship (John 1:18; 14:11), and who therefore might be appropriately be addressed and worshiped as ho theos mou. Unique sonship implies deity (John 5:18; cf. 19:7).

“Following the term kyrios used as a religious title with rich christological overtones, the title theos could scarcely bear a less exalted sense. It is inadequate, therefore, to say simply that Thomas (or John) recognized that God was active in and through Jesus, or that in Jesus the eschatological presence of God was at work. Jesus was more than God’s man appointed to become a redeemer, more than some suprahuman being who was a legitimate object of worship, more than the ‘inhistorized’ divine Agape. As used by a monotheistic Jew in reference to a person who was demonstrably human, theos will denote oneness with the Father in being (cf. John 10:30), not merely in purpose and action. In other words, Thomas’s cry expresses the substantial divinity of Jesus. Thomas has penetrated beyond the semeion–the appearance of the risen Jesus–to its implication, viz., the deity of Christ. While not couched as an ontological affirmation (su ei ho theos mou), the apostle’s exclamatory address has inescapable ontological implications. Even as it is expressed, the confession embodies less functional than ontological truth: Jesus was worshiped by Thomas as a sharer in the divine nature, not simply as a mediator of divine blessing…

“That Thomas’s cry was not an extravagant acclamation, spoken in a moment of spiritual exaltation when his exuberance exceeded his theological sense, is apparent from two facts. First, the evangelist records no rebuke of Jesus to Thomas for his worship. Jesus’ silence is tantamount to consent, for as monotheist Jews considered the human acceptance of worship as blasphemous. Thomas was not guilty of worshiping the creature over the Creator (cf. Rom. 1:25). Indeed, Jesus’ word to Thomas–pepisteukas (John 20:29a; cf. ginou… pistos in v. 27)–implies the acceptance of his confession, which is then indirectly commended to others (v. 29b). Second, John has endorsed Thomas’s confession as his own by making it his final and climactic christological affirmation before his statement of purpose, verse 31. The author found in Thomas’s cry a convenient means by which he might bring into sharp focus at the end of his Gospel, as at the beginning (John 1:1, 18), the ultimate implications of his portrait of Jesus.” (Harris, Jesus as God –The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus [Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI: first paperback edition, 1992], Chapter IV: My Lord and my God! (John 20:28), c. The Meaning of theos, pp. 124-127; emphasis mine)

I have more examples to share of Jesus being called theos absolutely and essentially in the next installment: NEW TESTAMENT USE OF THEOS PT. 3.

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