Years ago a friend wrote, “Is Jesus God? Yes or No – Simple answer please.”
[Note: I rarely use the English word “God” because it has so much confusion associated with it. Instead I read it as it is presented in the Hebrew. El, Elohim and haElohim are all words that point us to the Creator of all things and all these should be associated with THE ultimate lawmaker and judge. A lawmaker makes statutes and ordinances and a judge makes judgments. So, when you read any one of these 3 words you must understand Who it is that these scriptures are talking about.]
Unfortunately there is no “simple answer” to the question “Is Jesus God?” Especially in the false light of the doctrines and traditions of men that we have all learned from our fathers. Years ago, before I had spent thousands of hours studying the word, I would have answered, “Most certainly, yes!” But that would not have been a learned answer. Here is my brief answer to her question.
Is Jesus God?
No – There is no “Super Jesus!” Yeshua (Jesus) is flesh just like you and me.
Yeshua said, “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mat 12:50)
Not Yeshua’s sons and daughters, but his brothers and sisters. He is making himself equal with us.
Yeshua had no special powers that enabled him to keep the commandments of Elohim perfectly. Zacharias and Elizabeth also kept Yehovah’s law perfectly and that was before Yeshua was even born.
There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God [Elohim – lawmaker/judge], walking in all the commandments and ordinances of Yehovah, blamelessly. (Luk 1:5-6)
Is Jesus God? Yehovah Says There Is No Elohim Besides Him!
Did any people ever hear the voice of THE Elohim speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live? Or did Elohim ever try to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that Yehovah, your Elohim did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown, that you might know that Yehovah Himself is Elohim; there is none other besides Him. (Deu 4:33-35)
See now that I, I am he and besides me there is no Elohim; I kill and make alive, I wound and I heal; from my hand none can deliver! (Deu 32:39)
“You are My witnesses,” says Yehovah, “and My servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no Elohim formed, nor shall there be after Me. I, even I, am Yehovah, and besides Me there is no savior. (Isa 43:10-11)
I am Yehovah, and there is no other; there is no Elohim besides Me. I will gird you, though you have not known Me, That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting That there is none besides Me. I am Yehovah, and there is no other. (Isa 45:5-6)
For thus says Yehovah. Who created the heavens? Who is THE Elohim, Who formed the earth and made it? Who has established it? Who did not create it in vain? Who formed it to be inhabited? “I am Yehovah, and there is no other.” (Isa 45:18)
“Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth! For I am Elohim, and there is no other. (Isa 45:22)
“I am Yehovah, your Elohim, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shall have no other elohim existing before My face.” (Exo 20:2-3)
Yeshua was able to say some of the things he said like, “Your sins are forgiven you” not because he was Elohim, but because he was potentially one Yehovah’s shalachim (plural of “shalach”) or “sent one.”
Eliezer, the oldest servant in Abraham’s house, was his appointed shalach. When he went to find a woman for Isaac; his words and actions had the same authority as if Abraham had said and done them himself. What he said, the things he gave, the choices he made were as if Abraham had said, given and made them. The woman Eliezer chose, was the woman Abraham chose and she was the woman Isaac took to himself.
Moses was a shalach, a “sent one,” of Yehovah. Many times he said and did things without specific instructions from Yehovah. He too “seemed” like a “God” to Aaron and Pharaoh.
Now you [Moses] shall speak to him [Aaron] and put the words in his mouth. And I [Yehovah] will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you shall do. So he shall be your spokesman to the people. And he himself shall be as a mouth for you, and you shall be to him as Elohim. (Exo 4:15-16).
So Yehovah said to Moses: “See, I have made thee Elohim to Pharaoh, and Aaron, thy brother, shall be thy prophet.” (Exo 7:1)
And Joshua, who also was a shalach, said;
Then Joshua spoke to Yehovah in the day when Yehovah delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon; and Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.” (Jos 10:12)
He was not divine, but he was a shalach of Yehovah. What he said, Yehovah did!
Is Your Litmus Test The Answer To The Question, “Is Jesus God?”
If this question about Yeshua’s deity is how we plan to discern the righteousness of those who teach us, we had better go back to the word that Yeshua, Paul, Peter James, John and Jude all taught from; and that word is Moses and the Prophets. Which Yehovah said through Isaiah;
To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. (Isa 8:20)
Is Jesus God? Yes or No – Simple Answer Please!
I refer to Yeshua/Jesus as the golden calf of the modern age; the false “God” who men choose to worship and serve instead of Yehovah.
We have learned lies, worthless and unprofitable things. Your answer to the question “Is Jesus God?” will chart your (and your families) eternal destiny. Do not answer this question for yourself without understanding what Yehovah’s eternal and unchanging word (His Torah) has to say on the subject. Yehovah has not spoken any of His words in vain and choosing NOT to believe what HE says, is a sure road to destruction.
Here are a few of the topics that I have prepared for you in my Torah 201 link.
I am He, And Besides Me There Is No Elohim
A Man Must Die For His Own Sin
Do The Gentiles Keep the Sabbath?
Hamashiach – The Anointed Priest 2