The Oneness of God

Lesson 3 - Jesus is God

In our first lesson we saw how that the only number that God associated with Himself was ONE. In our second lesson we learned that the revealed name of that ONE God is Jesus. We also studied one of the most powerful scriptures on the Godhead:

Isa 9:6 For 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, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

The son that was born was Jesus Christ, and Isaiah prophesied that His name would be the mighty God, and the everlasting Father! Jesus either fulfilled all of these titles or none of these titles. Remember that to God, a name represented who a person really was, so for Jesus’ name to be called the mighty God and the everlasting Father, Jesus had to be the mighty God, and the everlasting Father.

This scripture is proof enough that Jesus is the Jehovah God of the Old Testament, but let’s look at a few other scriptural proofs that Jesus is the ONE God. There are so many other scriptural proofs that we will only be able to view a sample of them, but we will present both the Old Testament and the New Testament views on each example we use.

The Birthplace of Jesus

Micah 5:2 But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

Years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem because of Joseph having to pay taxes there, the prophet Micah prophesied that Bethlehem would be the birth place of the ruler of Israel. Jesus definitely fulfilled this prophecy, but notice what else the prophet said. The ruler’s “goings forth,” or existence would have been “from everlasting.” The many scriptures in Lesson 1 of our study emphatically declared that there was only one God and no other God, nor would there ever be another God. Only the one God can be everlasting. Jesus is the ONE God that has always been. He became flesh when He was born at Bethlehem, but He was and will always be God!

The Ministry of Jesus

Isa 35:4-6 Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you. 5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 6 Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.

Isaiah prophesied that the ONE God of the Israelites would come and save them, not another. He went on to prophesy that when God came “THEN” the blind, deaf , lame and dumb people would all receive healing. In whose ministry were all of these things fulfilled? Isaiah also went on to say that “water” and “streams” would break forth. Jesus consistently used water as a symbol of the Holy Ghost that was to come (John 4, 7:38-39). Jesus Himself claimed to the fulfillment of this scripture:

Luke 7:22 Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.

John the Baptist

Isa 40:3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

The prophet Isaiah also prophesied that when Jehovah (LORD) would come, there would first come someone preparing the way for Him as a voice crying “in the wilderness.”

Matt 3:1-3 In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, 2 And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 3 For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

Matthew wrote that John the Baptist preached in the wilderness of Judea that he was the one “crying in the wilderness” and the one who had come to “prepare the way of the Jehovah (Lord)!” Jesus was Jehovah God come to save His people!

The compound Jehovah names

Remember all of the various earlier names of God? The scripture repeatedly proves that Jesus was the one God represented by all of them. Time nor space will allow us to comprehensively list each proof of Jesus as Adonai, Elohim, Eloah, etc... , so we will give an abbreviated list of how Jesus fulfilled the attributes of Jehovah and the Jehovah compound names. Remember the scriptures in Lessons 1 and 2 that so adamantly stated that Jehovah God was ONE. If Jesus is Jehovah, then He must be the One God of the Old Testament. Even this list is not comprehensive but is a fair representation of the scriptural text:

Jehovah is . . . Jesus is . . .

Almighty - Genesis 17:1 Almighty - Revelation 1:8

I AM - Exodus 3:14-16 I AM - John 8:58

Rock - Psalm 18:2; 28:1 Rock - I Corinthians 10:4

Horn of Salvation - Psalm 18:2 Horn of Salvation - Luke 1:69

Shepherd - Psalm 23:1; Isaiah 40:10-11 Good Shepherd - John 10:11

Great Shepherd - Hebrews 13:20 Chief Shepherd - I Peter 5:4

King of Glory - Psalm 24:7-10 Lord of Glory - I Corinthians 2:8

Light - Psalm 27:1; Isaiah 60:19 Light - John 1:4-9; 8:12

Salvation - Psalm 27:1; Isaiah 12:2 Only Salvation - Acts 4:10-12

Lord of Lords - Psalm 136:3 Lord of Lords - Revelation 19:16 Holy One - Isaiah 12:6 Holy One - Acts 2:27

Lawgiver - Isaiah 33:22 Testator of the First Covenant

ie... Giver of the Law

- Hebrews 9:14-17

Judge - Isaiah 33:22 Judge - Micah 5:1; Acts 10:42

First and Last - Isaiah 41:4; 44:6; 48:12 First and Last - Revelation 1:8; 22:13

Only Savior - Isaiah 43:11; 45:21; 60:16 Savior - Titus 2:13; 3:6

Giver of Spiritual Water - Isaiah 44:3; 55:1 Giver of Living Water - John 4:10-14; 7:38-39

King of Israel - Isaiah 44:6 King of Israel - John 1:49

Only Creator - Isaiah 44:24; 45:8; 48:13 Creator of Everything - John 1:3

Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:10

Only Just God - Isaiah 45:21 Just One - Acts 7:52

Redeemer - Isaiah 54:5; 60:16 Redeemer - Galations 3:13;

Revelation 5:9

Now let’s look at a few of the Jehovah compound names. Remember there is only ONE Jehovah (Deuteronomy 6:4).

Jehovah Compound and meaning Jesus is our . . . New Testament Scripture

Jehovah-jireh (provider) Provider Hebrews 10:10-12

Jehovah-rapha (healer) Healer James 5:14-15

Jehovah-nissi (banner, victory) Victory I Corinthians 15:57

Jehovah-m’kaddesh (sanctifier) Sanctifier Ephesians 5:26

Jehovah-shalom (peace) Peace John 14:27

Jehovah-sabaoth (Lord of hosts) Lord of Hosts James 5:4-7

Jehovah-elyon (Most High) Most High Luke 1:32, 76, 78

Jehovah-raah (shepherd) Shepherd John 10:11

Jehovah-hoseenu (maker) Maker John 1:3

Jehovah-tsidkenu (righteousness) Righteousness I Corinthians 1:30

Jehovah-shammah (present) Ever Present One Matthew 28:20

Without a doubt, Jesus is the ONE Jehovah God of the Old Testament! We have seen comparative proof of this, but let’s look at some of the many New Testament scriptures that prove Jesus was God.

Thomas’ Realization

John 20:28-29 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. 29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

When Thomas finally got to touch the nail-scarred hands of Jesus, he proclaimed “My Lord (Jehovah) and my God!” Thomas finally realized who Jesus really was after touching His flesh, but notice Jesus’ proclamation of blessing in verse 29!

The Blood

Acts 20:28 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

God purchased the church with “his own blood!” But who shed blood? Jesus Christ.

Everything Else

Col 2:8-10 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. 9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. 10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:

Paul warned the church to beware of men trying to “spoil” them through “philosophy” and “tradition of men.” Paul goes on clarify what philosophy he is talking about. In verse 9 Paul states that in Jesus Christ “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily!” Paul goes on to say that Jesus is the head of every power and authority that exists! Trinitarians try to say that Jesus is simply the name of the Son and that He is IN THE GODHEAD, but the scripture teaches us that THE GODHEAD IS IN JESUS! Jesus is not the name of one of the three persons in a triune, co-equal, coexistent Godhead, but is THE name of a one God who manifests himself in different roles. “The fullness of the Godhead” dwells in Jesus, in other words, everything that God has been or will be is in Jesus including the role of the Father, the role of the Son, and the role of the Holy Spirit. The terms Father, Son and Holy Ghost are not separate Gods or persons in the Godhead but merely different manifestations and titles of the One God whose name is Jesus Christ! That is the only scriptural teaching and any other teaching falls under the “philosophy” and “tradition of men” that Paul was warning the church about!

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Without a shadow of a doubt the Old Testament and New Testament proclaim that Jesus was the One God. Now let’s think about the implications of what that really means. If Jesus was God, then that means that God became flesh because Jesus was also flesh. If God did become flesh, then there must be scriptures which bear this out. Let’s look at a few:

1 Tim 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

Many people take the word “mystery” out of this verse and use it to justify their inability to explain the non-scriptural concept of a “trinity.” Notice the colon? This verse goes on to explain what exactly the “mystery of Godliness” is: the fact that God was manifested in flesh. “Manifested” means “to make visible.” In other words God became visible by becoming flesh! “Justified” means “to make innocent” or “to free from the guilt of sin.” “Preached” here means “to have proclaimed openly in public.” “Believed” here means “to have accepted as truth.” “Received up” means “to have been taken up.” “Without controversy” means “without debate” and “great” here means “excellent and splendid.” All of these definitions are from the original Greek language.

Paul (the writer of I Timothy) always used the word “mystery” to mean something that was once hidden but that had now been revealed (Romans 11:25; 16:25 I Corinthians 2:7; 15:51 Ephesians 1:9; 3:3; 3:4; 3:9; 5:32; 6:19 Colossians 1:26; 1:27; 2:2; 4:3 II Thessalonians 2:7 I Timothy 3:9). Jesus (Mark 4:11) and John (Revelation 1:20; 10:7; 17:7) also used “mystery” this way. Nowhere in the Bible does the word “mystery” EVER mean something that is forever hidden or not understandable under Grace!

To make sure we completely understand this verse, let’s take the definitions of the words and place them back into the context:

1 Tim 3:16 (paraphrased) And without debate, splendid and excellent are the things that were once hidden but have now been revealed: God was made visible in flesh, made innocent by the Spirit, seen of angels, proclaimed openly in public to the Gentiles, accepted as truth in the world, and taken up into glory.

God was made visible in the flesh by being born of a woman, Mary. He was made innocent by the Spirit because it was the Holy Spirit that was His father, not Joseph. Had God been born to an earthly father, He would have inherited the father’s sinful bloodline. Because Jesus Christ was the one who fulfilled all of these statements, there can be no doubt Jesus Christ was God robed in flesh!

Now that we know without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is God, and that God did indeed put on flesh, let’s ask another question that can be answered by the scriptures: why did God have to come in flesh?

Col 1:14-15 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: 15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature

God, by His holy law, has always required the shedding of blood for forgiveness of humanity’s sin. In every instance from the time that God killed an animal to cover Adam and Eve at their first sin in Genesis, to the thousands of rams and goats killed and offered up at the temples under the Law, God always required blood for sins to be remitted. In fact, Hebrews 9:22 expressly states that “without shedding of blood there is no remission.” In Lesson 1 we learned that Jehovah God said there was no other Savior beside Him! If God was going to come and pay the price for the world, He would have to shed blood, but a Spirit has no blood. If He were to shed blood, then God had to become flesh! All of the required animal sacrifices throughout the Old Testament were foreshadowing of what God himself would do at Calvary. For example, when God asked Abraham to sacrifice His son, Abraham did not tell Isaac that he was going to be the sacrifice. As they walked to the place of sacrifice, Isaac asked where the sacrificial animal was and Abraham, probably unknowingly, made a very powerful statement:

Gen 22:8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

Abraham prophesied that God would provide HIMSELF A LAMB! When John the Baptist saw Jesus Christ the first time he quickly proclaimed: “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world (John 1:29)!” A beautiful truth emerges: Jesus Christ was the image of the invisible God come in flesh to shed His blood for you and I! We should be thankful that God “provided himself a lamb” by becoming flesh!

2 Cor 4:3-4 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: 4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

If there is a mystery that cannot be understood about the Godhead, it is by those who have not been baptized in Jesus’ name and filled with His Spirit! Paul goes on to say that the “god of this world” has blinded their minds lest the “light” of the gospel of Christ “who is the image of God” shine into them! Not only is Jesus God, but the body of Jesus was the image of God! Jesus was not another person in a godhead but the One God of the Old Testament robed in flesh. John 3:16 is not child abuse, but merely proof that the God of Glory put on flesh like we put on a coat! There are many other scriptures that attest to the fact that God became flesh:

2 Cor 5:19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

God was in Christ reconciling the world unto HIMSELF not to THEIRSELF!

John 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

A Spirit is invisible and the only way that we can see God is to see the flesh that He became! What does this mean? The only “person” of God that we will ever see is the glorified body of Jesus Christ! Here the term “Son” refers to the flesh that God became. In fact, everywhere in the Bible the word “Son” is used in reference to God it refers to flesh that God became! John 3:16 becomes much more meaningful with this revelation and changes from “For God so loved the world that He sent another Person to die” to “For God so loved the world that He became flesh and gave it to pay for our sins!” Compare this scripture, John 3:16, and II Corinthians 5:19 above and we find that Jesus was not a separate person in a Godhead sent by another person His Father to pay the price for sin, but that Jesus Christ was the one God of Glory inside flesh paying the price for sin himself!

Notice also the scripture says that “the Son” is in the “bosom of the Father.” “Bosom” means “the front of the body between the arms.” Since God has no other physical body except the body of Jesus Christ, then this cannot be a literal scripture, it must be a metaphor! We should always take a scripture’s literal meaning until we realized in doing so we would contradict other scripture. Colossians 1:15 above concisely stated that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God.” “The image” means only one image! We have also seen how that “the Son” always refers to the flesh that God inhabited. Thus when the scripture says that the flesh is “in the bosom of the Father” it cannot mean that one person in a triune Godhead is in the arms of another person of the Godhead, because only one of them would have a literal body with arms: the Son! If this scripture cannot be explained by a trinitarian concept, then what does it mean?

In almost every culture on earth, a hug is a symbol of love! When you hug someone, you take them into your bosom: the area in front of the body between your arms! The statement that “the Son is in the bosom of the Father” means that God became flesh because of His great love for us! Compare this interpretation of the scripture with John 3:16 and we realize that they do NOT contradict each other, but mean the same thing: For God so LOVED the world that He gave His only begotten Son; For the Father so LOVED the world that He became flesh! The point of both of these verses is God’s great LOVE for us! The Jewish writers of these passages knew that there was only one God, and they realized how magnificent it was that their God LOVED them enough to come and pay the price for their sin by becoming flesh and shedding blood!

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Most people have been taught a warped view of the Godhead that has left them with questions that cannot be answered by their twisted theology and, in so doing, hides the great truths of the scriptures! Since this lesson is probably reshaping someone’s knowledge and concept of God, let’s review what we have learned:

The One God of the Old Testament gradually revealed himself by various names and titles to mankind from Creation until Law. He revealed Himself as Jehovah to those under the Law. Throughout all of these years God required the blood of imperfect lambs and goats to be offered for the forgiveness of sin. Then the one God of the Old Testament decided to become flesh and shed His own blood to provide complete redemption for mankind! He did this by overshadowing a young, virgin Jewish girl named Mary. The baby Mary conceived was God robed in flesh and was called Jesus which means “Jehovah has become Salvation!” Thirty-three and a half years after His birth, Jesus shed His blood on Calvary thereby proving His great love for us and providing a way today that we can be freed from the bondage of sin. Jesus’ body was the very “image” of the invisible Spirit of God and His resurrected body is the only body of God that we will ever see!

John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

The Greek for “Word” in this scripture is “logos.” “Logos” means “the thought, intent, or plan.” So John 1:1 reads: “In the beginning was the thought, intent, and plan of God, and the thought, intent, and plan of God was with God, and the thought intent and plan of God was God! You cannot separate someone from their thoughts and make their thoughts and plans a separate person! “The Word” is the subject of entire chapter of John 1 so verse 3 reads: all things were made according to the thought, intent, and plan of God! What was this thought, intent, and plan of God that was continually on His mind even during Creation?

John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

The thought, intent, and plan of God was made flesh and dwelt among us! What then was this thought, intent, and plan of God? It was to come and provide redemption for humanity by shedding blood for them! God knew even in Creation that man would sin and, in His great love, already had a plan that He intended to carry out to save Him! We learned in lesson 2 that Adam was created in the image of Jesus Christ! God’s plan was to become flesh and He fulfilled that plan!

John 1:10-11 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. 11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

God was in the world and the world was made by him! Remember all of the scriptures in Lesson 1 that stated that God ALONE created the world? John could state that Jesus created the world because Jesus was God! Jehovah revealed Himself to the Jewish people, and when Jesus was born, He was born to a Jewish mother. In His three and a half year ministry, Jesus preached exclusively to the Jewish people and their offspring. When Jesus was crucified, He was crucified by His own people the Jews. Let’s sum up all of these scriptures in one sentence:

The One God of the Old Testament is the One God of the New Testament and His Name is Jesus!