The word ‘trinity’ is nowhere to be found in the Scripture, yet it is everywhere.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three distinct entities of One God. In fact, the reason that Jesus was ‘officially’ crucified was because of blasphemy.  He claimed to be God incarnate, not a mere man (John 10:31-33). And this brings us to our Verse of the Day:

1 John 4:15

If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.

(NIV)

Many times, when I am studying, I like to go back to the King James Version so that I can grab the meaning of the original words in Scripture.  The word we see here ‘acknowledges’ has an original meaning that includes the idea of a covenant. In other words, if we want to know the sincerity of our faith, we will enter into a Covenant with God through Jesus Christ.  But to do this, we must believe that Jesus is the Son of God. We must believe that He was not a mere man who lived perfectly, but that He was God Himself. But why is this so important?

If Jesus were a mere man such as you or I, then by what authority could He say that He has lived without sin and qualified to die for the sins of the world.  He would not have that authority. Because He is the Son of God, He speaks what the Father says (John 12:49). All that He said and taught came by the authority of the Father.  

During the early church age, there were many who were denying the deity of Christ.  There was confusion because Jesus looked like a man, ate like a man, walked like a man so the assumption was that He was a man.  Well, that was a correct assumption, but He was not a man born of man’s desire, but of God’s will (Luke 1:35). Jesus was the second Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45-47).  The first Adam did not come from man’s seed and neither did the second Adam. These are the only two men who did not come from the seed of man. But the first Adam came from the dust of the Earth and the second Adam, Jesus, came from Heaven.  So Jesus was a man as much as Adam was a man, but His substance was of Heaven, then He humbled Himself in body and mind. He had a body same as every man, then He humbled Himself like a man dependent upon the Father and the Holy Spirit which is why He would go off and pray.  He was all God choosing to live as a man. So then when He claimed to be God, it was hard for them to swallow.

His deity was proven in many different ways.  The miracles, the teachings, but mostly the prophecies.  Consider this fact. (I’m borrowing the cookie example from Intelligent Faith). The probability of Jesus fulfilling eight prophecies spoken and written down by prophets hundreds and thousands of years before his birth is 1 in 1000000000000000000. Yeah, I don’t know that number either.  It is 1 in 10 to the 17th power. If you had this many thin mint cookies from the girl scouts, it would cover every square inch of the state of Texas two feet deep!! Then, if you took one of these cookies and licked the chocolate off, then from a helicopter, blindfolded you dropped that one cookie.  Then, if you walked all through the state of texas and then stopped when you wanted to and reached down, still blindfolded, and actually picked up that one cookie you licked the chocolate off, that is 1 in 10 to the 17th power. This is the likelihood of one person fulfilling eight Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah.  But Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophecies. Boom!!!

Ok, some may think that He read the prophets and then just did what they said.  Ok, that might sound logical except that many of the prophecies were out of his control.  For example, He could not have crucified Himself. But He was beaten then crucified just as Isaiah prophecied 7 centuries before the birth of Christ.  And it wasn’t like Jesus went around committing crimes to get himself crucified. His only crime was to claim to be the Son of God. Blasphemy is claiming to be God.  For anyone else, it would have been blasphemy, but not for Jesus 🙂 And, if you remember just a few days before He was crucified, large crowds gathered to worship Him as the Messiah singing Hosanna, which means ‘save us’ (Matthew 21:9).  It would have been very difficult for Jesus to manipulate people from worship and adoration to shouting ‘Crucify Him’ (Luke 23:21). The evidence simply proves that Jesus is God.

Believing this however does not bring salvation to our heart.  Even the demons knew this (Luke 4:41), but they were not saved.  It is entering into a Covenant with the person Jesus Christ in full confidence that He is God and His words carried the authority of God.

If you are reading this, more than likely you have some belief that Jesus is God, but does your life reflect a covenant with Him?  Do you live your life in obedience to Him because you believe He has all wisdom, all power, and all authority to judge you at the end of your life?  Or are you like those who believed He was the Son of God, but never followed His teachings as if they were the Words of God?

Have you ever struggled in your faith that Jesus was God?  Have you ever talked with anyone who did not believe that Jesus was God?  Leave me a comment and let me know about it.

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Live Blessed and Be a Blessing!

Pastor Lee is a pastor and Biblical life coach.  He has been helping people through counseling, pastoring, teaching, and preaching for 20+ years.  His ministry focuses on helping people overcome the strongholds of the past and press on into God’s plan for an abundant life.  He has been married to his wife, Amy for 28 years.  He has three sons and one daughter-in-love.  For more about Pastor Lee or to get some Biblical advice, go to the About page.