By: Scott Shifferd, Jr.
This week, an online commenter, Andrew, expressed his views and identified himself as an evangelist while denying that Jesus is God. In short, Andrew asserted that God and His Word are “two separate things in the bible,” and that the Word was God in the past tense but not in the present. Andrew said that people call Jesus “God” because people do not want to acknowledge Jesus’s carnality. Many people question that Jesus is God. Here is my response to Andrew’s comment:
Andrew,
We should not think of God as so transcendent neither to speak to man, nor call to His prophet from a fiery bush, nor come wrestle with man in angelic form. God can come in the flesh as He desires, yet remain transcendent as the Creator and omnipresent by His Spirit. The LORD the Redeemer said, “Draw near to Me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I have been there. And now the Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit” (Isa 48:16).
We should not think that God could not descend to man by coming in the flesh. The Word “was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1–2). In the beginning, “the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Throughout John 1:1–18, the Word is referenced in the past tense, so that the Word “became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father” is in the past tense too (John 1:14).
We cannot think that Jesus lost immortality in His glorified resurrected body when He ascended to God. Jesus remains “all the fullness of Deity bodily” (Col 2:9). Jesus ascended to the right hand of God as a priest forever (Ps 110:4). As the Spirit revealed, “The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.'” (Ps 110:1). We cannot deny what God said about His Son, “Let all the angels of God worship Him” (Heb 1:6). God said to His Son, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever” (Heb 1:8).
We cannot think that God’s Word can be separate from the essence of God. God is not three separate beings or gods, but three persons inseparable as one God.
We cannot deny what Jesus revealed. Christ proclaimed, “I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am you will die in your sins” (John 8:24). Jesus declared, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). Jesus is fully God and fully man.
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