Is Jesus Less Than God?

Biblegems #240

Question: If Jesus is God in human form, why did Jesus say, "the Father is greater than I"?

This question touches on one of the most profound mysteries ever: the nature of God. Jesus spoke often on this subject, and of His own unique relationship to God. The quote above comes from the Gospel of John:

         John 14:28   You heard me say, “I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.”

Jesus frequently described His relationship with God as that of father and son, as he does in this verse. God, of course, is not a human father. So, while Jesus is the son of Mary biologically, He is the Son of God spiritually. That is, God—who is spirit—took on human form in the womb of the virgin, Mary. As the Scripture says:

         Luke 1:35   The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

Taking on a human body took nothing away from who God is as Spirit. He was not diminished in any way. He did not cease to be God in Spirit; rather He revealed Himself in human form while still maintaining His eternal nature. That’s why Jesus could accurately speak of Himself as the great “I Am”—Yahweh—who called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees and who gave Moses the Ten Commandments:

         John 8:58   “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”

And yet, He could also refer to Himself in John 10:30 as a being separated from God by self-imposed physical limitations in His human form (“I” and “the Father”) — while still being perfectly united with God in the Spirit:

         John 10:30 “I and the Father are one.”

Jesus’ self-description of His uninterrupted unity with God, while acknowledging the limitations that He willingly placed upon Himself as a human being, is what captured the apostle Paul with wonder and awe:

Phil. 2:5-8   Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

The ironic thing in all this is that the very same people who say things like, “Why doesn’t God reveal Himself in a tangible, human form to prove He is God,” are often the same people who ridicule the Good News that God has indeed done just that:

         Col. 1:19-20  For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Jesus: "Firstborn" Of Creation

Biblegems #163

Question: Why is Jesus called the “firstborn” of all creation?

Col. 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

The term “firstborn” (Gk. prototokos) in the Greek New Testament is used in a variety of ways—sometimes figuratively, meaning something like “the highest,” or “best,” or “preeminent.” In that case, the word can indicate the idea of supremacy above all else, or even as pre-existing all else.

Sometimes it is used at face value, meaning simply, “firstborn.” Even then, however, the sense of “firstborn” has to do with the privileges granted to the firstborn male in the Jewish family—the one who received the “greater” or “best” share of the inheritance.

Protokos derives from the more basic Greek word, protos, which means, “before, beginning, best, chief(-est), first (of all), former.”[1] It is this fundamental meaning which is at the heart of ”firstborn.”

Fortunately, the verse does not exist in a vacuum.  The meaning of the term is found in the immediate context of the passage where it occurs, and also in the broader teaching of the entire Bible regarding the nature of Jesus.

Immediate Context

The whole point of Colossians 1:15-20 is that Jesus is not only a perfect representation of God in human form (15), but that Jesus is God in human form (19). And because Jesus is God, He has always existed, and therefore pre-exists all creation (17). Therefore, Jesus is not only “before” (protokos) all creation in time; He is “before” (protokos) all creation in importance. In fact, everything that exists came into being “through” Jesus—He is the Creator—and exists “for” Jesus’ purposes (16). Chief among Jesus’ purposes in creation is to re-establish a right relationship between Himself as the Creator and the sin-broken creation (20). This immediate context makes it clear that the term “firstborn” (protokos) is used as a title describing Jesus’ importance in relation to all creation. It is not used to mean that somehow He was the first thing God ever made. He is God, supreme above all, and the reason all else exists.

Overall Bible Context

The rest of Scripture agrees with this primary use of protokos as meaning “supreme,” “highest, or “best.”

Jesus is both God and Creator:

John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

Jesus, the radiance of God’s glory, “sustains” creation. He holds it all together:

         Heb. 1:3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word…

In His very nature, Jesus is God. Yet, out of His love for lost mankind, He “made himself” human and took the penalty for our sins upon himself that we might be forgiven and have everlasting life in him:

         Phil. 2:6-8  [Jesus], being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

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[1] Strong’s Dictionary of the Greek New Testament

Is Jesus God

Biblegems #111

Question: It is clear that Jesus was equal in position to God—but chose to be the lesser. Where do we get the concept that Jesus is God, in the personal sense? They rightly seem to be two different personal entities: What passages show that God and Jesus are “the same?”

This is a great question that gets at the very nature of the Trinity. At issue are two aspects of Jesus’ relationship to God: His personhood, and His nature.

God Is One

One of the most fundamental teachings of Scripture is that God is One:

         Deut. 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.

         Rom. 3:30 …there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.

Jesus Is God

Even though God is one, the Gospel of John opens with a declaration that Jesus is God:

         John 1:1, 14 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. …The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The Beauty of this passage is that Jesus, the Word, is declared to be God, and yet He is also declared to be with God.

In Revelation 1:8 and 21:6 God the Father calls Himself “the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end;” yet in Revelation 22:13 Jesus says of Himself that He is the “Alpha and the Omega, the First and the last the Beginning and the End.” In other words, He is God.

Three Persons—One God

The Bible teaches that God the Father, God the Spirit and God the Son are each distinct personalities within the one God. Consider the following passage:

         Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (Jn. 10:30). Here Jesus identifies Himself as God, but also as a distinct person (“I”) in relation to “the Father.” Jesus not only saw no contradiction here, but He emphasized the truth that God by His very nature is a plurality of persons. In His nature, Jesus is one with God. This is precisely what Paul teaches in Philippians:

         Phil. 2:5-7 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

Notice that Jesus is described here as being one with God in His “nature,” while on the other hand He is described as acting as an individual person who “made himself nothing.”

God is a communal being. He has conversation, love and fellowship within Himself. We see this in action in passages like…

         Gen. 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…

         Who is God speaking to? God the Father is conversing with the other two persons of the Trinity—the Holy Spirit and the Son—who share His very nature as God.

God is unique. He is complete in Himself. There is one God, who is infinitely perfect, existing eternally in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Deuteronomy 6:4, Matthew 5:48, Matthew 28:19).