The Absolute Deity Of Christ (Part 1)

The Absolute Deity Of Christ (Part 1)

For one who is in possession of the New Testament, there is scarcely a need to quote a text to prove the absolute deity of Christ. 

It is only human will that can fail to find it there; though it would be another thing entirely to say that there are no difficulties in the comprehension of it.

Of course there are difficulties!

That a babe born in Bethlehem, growing in wisdom and stature in the carpenter’s house in Nazareth should be at the same time the God of all men, this is a difficulty which no one thinks of denying. 

The Old Testament states it, and draws attention to it twice, in words that were written long before the day of Christ: The prophet in Isaiah 9:6 says "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Father of eternity, the Prince of peace." Again, another prophet in Micah 5:2 says "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall He come forth to Me who is to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting."

Could the Saviour be anyother than the very God whose ways have been from the days of eternity? 

Could God have left it to a mere creature to win our hearts away from Himself by the glory of so great a work achieved for us on the cross?

And when we realize this work, not merely as provincial, as something done in a mere corner of creation, but as under the eyes of angelic principalities and powers, "that He might show in the ages to come, the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness to us," - how impossible for it to be any other than Himself who should do this, for it to be no manifestation of God at all or a manifestation of 'an inferior/lesser God' which only exists in the mind of human rationalism or of some creature merely.

"In beginning, I was" says the Word..."The Word was with God" - a distinct Person; "and the Word was God" - a divine Person; and "the same was in the beginning with God" - always personally distinct, as always in communion with the Father. John 1:1-2.

It is not strange to see him claim to be the self-existent One, as in His words to the Jews: "Before Abraham was I AM" (John 8:58). The Jews saw this as blasphemy knowing that this is the incommunicable name of Deity, by which God revealed Himself to Moses and to Israel: "Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me to you" (Exodus 3:14). 

Being always the Word God(the Revealer), this older voice was, of course, His own. He is thus the Abiding, the Unchangeable & the Eternal One. Jehovah is but the synonym of this; and so the glory of Jehovah, which Isaiah saw in his day, is declared to be His glory: "these things said Esaias when he saw His glory, and spake of Him" (compare John 12:40-41 with Isaiah 6:1-10). 

The Old Testament thus, as well as the New, is full of His Presence; only that now He has taken that tabernacle of flesh to display His glory in, in which all His purpose to be near us, all His delights with the sons of men, have fully come out. He is now truly Immanuel, "God with us;" and the blessedness of that for us will fill eternity.

That He should claim equal honour with the Father Himself is in this way clearly intelligible, as it also declares fully who He is: "that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father" (John 5:23) is the most emphatic assertion of divine equality; which Thomas’ "my Lord and my God" (John 20:28) yields Him.

For dullness or slowness of heart to believe, Thomas may have lingered to come to this realization of the absolute deity of Christ but when he finally did, it was not an issue of debate or of a mere mental/verbal affirmation but that of a cry which he could not but let out when he contacted the divine glory..."my Lord and my God".

Earlier in John 10:30-33 Jesus had said to the Jews: "I and my Father are one" and the Jews knowing that his assertion of oneness with the Father implied that he is very God, just as the Father is, deemed it blasphemy & thus took up stones again to stone him. Same thing they did earlier in John 8:58-59 when he said to them "Before Abraham was I AM" 

Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.

These unbelieving Jews knew better than some professing christians today who are arguing about the absolute divinity of Christ as though it's an issue of debate. They knew that his claim of oneness with the Father implied equality with God.

The testimony of scripture in the epistles however, puts a seal on the issue of his divine equality, as in the mouth of two or three witnesses, a matter is established...

Philippians 2:6-7 says that "He(Christ) subsisting(existing) in the form of God, did not esteem existing in equality with God as something to be seized or held unto tightly; But emptied himself, and took upon him the form of a bond servant, and was made in the likeness of men".

Divinity or equality with God is not something that one can aspire to become or lay hold on as though it is something that can be attained.

Divinity is self existent(I AM), ever existent(I AM) with no beginning or end, such that nothing created which began at some point, can ever become or attain it.

Lucifer with his "I WILL" nursed a very lofty & futile ambition to become like the "I AM" (the most high); to become like God, equal with God, to be worshipped & honoured just as God - Isaiah 14:12-15.

He saw divinity/equality with God as something that can be seized, laid hold on or attained, and such a thought in itself was evil being a very poor estimation of divinity, deeming the mystery of Godliness or divinity as that which a creature can demystify & defy.

Christ as one who had always subsisted or existed in the form of God, as the Word who had always been God and with God, could not deem divinity or equality with God as something to be laid hold on or something to struggle to hold fast to/retain as though it could be lost. 

It was impossible for Christ to deem divinity or equality with God as something to attain, seize or lay hold on for divinity is who he is, was and had always been, so it couldn't be something he would aspire to seize or firmly hold unto in order to retain & not lose it; he thus was not afraid to empty/strip himself of that form of God to take up the form of a servant & be made in the likeness of men. 

Even when as a suffering man he cried out on the cross in the prophetic words of the Psalmist, "He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days. I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days", God reasserted his divinity like reminding him of who he is and had always been..."thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou continuest, and all of them shall grow old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end". See Psalm 102:23-27 & Hebrews 1:10-12.

The Lord's emptying of himself was a complete reversal of all that had come into creation following the lofty ambition of lucifer to be like the most high. Imagine God himself stepping down into creation and taking the form & place of a creature, even of a creature lower than angels(serving/ministering spirits); such unspeakable and unfathomable depths of humility, was the total reversal & undoing of lofty ambitions & looks amongst creatures both in heaven and on earth; it was a once & for all sentence/message that anyone not found in this path & example of humility and abasement has the sentence of condemnation, as one set to fall into perdition & damnation.