Welcome back! We are continuing to talk about the individual members of the Trinity today. Last episode was God the Father, and today we are talking about Jesus. Now Jesus as a member of the trinity. That is to say Jesus as God is something that has been debated since the early church and we have to thank the Apostle John for helping clarify that Jesus is God. Both in the Gospel of John as well as in the book of Revelation.
Let’s start with the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John opens up very similarly to Genesis. In the beginning. Here we see it continues a little differently. In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It continues down for a few verses, but what is interesting is that in verse 14, John says that eventually, this Word becomes flesh and lives with people. Not only that but verse 15 says John was testifying about this Word that became flesh. So no, it doesn’t name Jesus here, but what we see is that the Word is God, the Word becomes flesh, and that John the Baptist specifically bears witness about this Word. If we put those clues together with the fact that the Gospel of John in its entirety is talking about the events of the life of Jesus, we can safely assume that Jesus is God.
Still some people argue that the Word is not referring to Jesus at all. To that we are going to go to the book of Revelation. Chapter 2, verse 8. It’s the same as Revelation chapter 1, verses 17-18, but its a bit shorter here in chapter 2. To the Angel of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of the First and the Last. Which is God. He is the Alpha and Omega, First and Last. It continues, who died and returned to life. The First and the Last died and returned to life. John puts it very clearly. It’s God who did this thing that Jesus did. So Jesus IS God, because God did this thing that everyone who would be receiving this letter knows that Jesus did.
The debate continued on for some time after John’s death, even being a major talking point at the Council of Nicea and beyond, even to today. Rather than moving on, I want to spend the next episode exploring what Jesus reveals about the other members of the Trinity.
Dive Deeper:
John 1 • Revelation 2:8 • Isaiah 41:4
