THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHESIED HIS DEITY:
"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given ...and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father..." (Isa. 9:6).
"Prepare ye the way of the LORD (Jehovah or Yahweh), make straight in the desert a highway for our God" (Isa. 40:3). John the Baptist applied this Scripture to Christ (John 1:15-27).
"Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre" (Psa. 45:6). The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews states that this refers to Christ (Heb. 1:8-9).
Psalm 110:1 uses the Divine title Adonai in a prophetic sense which the New Testament writers consistently aver to have found fulfillment in Jesus Christ (Matt. 22:41-45; Mark 12:35-37; Luke 20:41-44; Acts 2:34; Heb. 1:13; 10:12-13).
JESUS PROCLAIMED HIS OWN DEITY
In Revelation 1:8 and 21:6-7, Jesus appropriates the Divine ascription of Isaiah 41:4 and declares, "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." (Again note this self defining identity in association with his death and resurrection in Rev. 2:8.)
In Exodus 3:14, God identified Himself by the name I AM, so revealing Himself as the ever present, self-existent One. To the Jews this became a very sacred name for Deity.
Jesus repeatedly applied this name to Himself in a claim to Deity. The Jews so understood his assertion, and endeavored to kill him for having made it. For example:
A. "Before Abraham was, I AM" (John 8:58).
B. "If you believe not that I AM, ye shall die in your sins" (John 8:24). (The word "he" in the KJV is not in
in the original text. This is why it is italicized.)
C. "When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I AM" (John 8:28; again the word
"he" is an interpolation).
In Matthew 22:41-45, Jesus claims to be the Adonai of the Old Testament.
In John 10:30, Jesus states, "I and my Father are one." The Jews correctly understood this as a claim to Deity and so state in verse 33.
In John 14:8-9, Jesus additionally states, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father."
In Matthew 28:19, Christ gave the name (singular, not plural) of God as including himself.
In Matthew 19:17, Jesus answered the rich young ruler, "Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, God." Here Jesus intensely presses his claim to Deity by demanding: "If you acknowledge that I am good, you must acknowledge that I am God. If you deny that I am God, you must acknowledge that I am not good." It is a powerful assertion.
THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS ASSERT CHRIST'S DEITY
Matthew 1:22-23 states that Christ is "God with us."
Thomas, in his confession of John 20:28, states that Christ is God.
Acts 20:28 states that God purchased with Church with His own blood. This is an emphatic claim that it was Deity Who was crucifed and Who thus shed His blood on the Cross.
I Timothy 3:16 defines Christ as "God manifest in the flesh."
Titus 2:13 equates God and Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 1:8 states that the "Son" is God.
Acts 2:36 applies the Divine title to Christ.
Philippians 2:10-11 appropriates the Divine identity and prerogative of human submission given in Isaiah 45:22-23, and states that every tongue will one day acknowledge its rightful application to Jesus Christ.
The grammatical construction of I John 5:20 applies the declaration, "This is the true God" to the antecedent "His Son Jesus Christ."
SUMMARY
John 5:23 states that it is God's will that "all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father."
In keeping with this principle, it is recorded on various occasions that Christ was worshipped (Matt. 2:11; 14:33, etc.) His acceptance of such which, by his own declaration of Matthew 4:10, belongs to God alone, was but a continuation of his own assertion of divinity.
The foregoing is by no means exhaustive regarding the subject, but will adequately serve to demonstrate that the denial of Christ's full Deity is contradictory to both Scripture and teachings of Christ himself.
Burl Ratzsch
