Pilate said in John 19:5, when bringing Jesus before the people, “Behold the man!” Today, some people believe that Jesus was just a man. The Christian faith begins with a person, Jesus of Nazareth. He was a man. He was born. He grew up. He worked. He suffered and died, just like other men. But the crucial question is was the carpenter of Nazareth the Son of God? If He is divine, the existence of God is proved and the character of God is revealed. If He was not God in human flesh, we are left with just another man-made religion with some beautiful ideas and noble ethics, but whose uniqueness is gone.
One of the earliest doctrinal discussions in the church centered on the nature of Christ and His relationship to God the Father. Was Jesus completely God or was He less than God? As the controversy grew, Emperor Constantine acknowledged that some sort of action had to be taken. Leading bishops met together and the result was the declaration of the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 that Jesus was “of one substance with the Father.”
What we think of Christ has become the battleground of the religious world, raging between Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Humanists. It is a question that will not let the unbeliever alone, nor will it be let alone. It demands to be answered. The deity of Jesus Christ can be proven from the standpoint of His claims and His deeds. He did not talk like a mere man, nor did He act as a mere man. In a few posts, we are going to examine Jesus to prove that He was indeed God while on earth.
Kyle Campbell
