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T h e F a t h e r s K n o w B e s t
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST
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There is no doubt that the New Testament declares Jesus to be God. Even liberal and non-Christian Bible scholars will admit this. Jesus’ divinity is shown again and again. For example, in John 5:18 we are told that Jesus’ opponents sought to kill him because he "called God his Father, making himself equal with God."
In John 8:58, when quizzed about how he has special knowledge of Abraham, Jesus replies, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM"—invoking and applying to himself the personal name of God, "I AM" or "Yahweh." His audience understood exactly what he was claiming about himself. "So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple" (John 8:59). At the end of the Gospels, in John 20:28, Thomas falls at Jesus’ feet, exclaiming "My Lord and my God!" In Philippians 2:6, Paul writes of Christ Jesus "[w]ho, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped."
As the following quotations, show, the Church Fathers also recognized the divinity of Christ and were adamant in maintaining this precious truth.
The Huleatt Manuscript
"She poured it [the perfume] over his [Jesus’] hair when he sat at the table. But, when the disciples saw it, they were indignant. . . . God, aware of this, said to them: ‘Why do you trouble this woman? She has done [a beautiful thing for me" (Huleatt Manuscript fragments 1–3 [A.D. 50]).
Ignatius
"Ignatius, also called Theophorus, to the Church at Ephesus in Asia . . . predestined from eternity for a glory that is lasting and unchanging, united and chosen through true suffering by the will of the Father in Jesus Christ our God" (Letter to the Ephesians 1 [A.D. 110]).
"For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accord with God’s plan: of the seed of David, it is true, but also of the Holy Spirit" (ibid., 18:2).
Aristides
"[Christians] are they who, above every people of the earth, have found the truth, for they acknowledge God, the creator and maker of all things, in the only-begotten Son and in the Holy Spirit" (Apology 16 [A.D. 140]).
Tatian
"We are not playing the fool, you Greeks, nor do we talk nonsense, when we report that God was born in the form of a man" (Address to the Greeks 21 [A.D. 170]).
Melito
"It is no way necessary in dealing with persons of intelligence to adduce the actions of Christ after his baptism as proof that his soul and his body, his human nature, were like ours, real and not phantasmal. The activities of Christ after his baptism, and especially his miracles, gave indication and assurance to the world of the deity hidden in his flesh. Being God and likewise perfect man, he gave positive indications of his two natures: of his deity, by the miracles during the three years following after his baptism, of his humanity, in the thirty years which came before his baptism, during which, by reason of his condition according to the flesh, he concealed the signs of his deity, although he was the true God existing before the ages" (Fragment in Anastasius of Sinai’s The Guide 13 [A.D. 177]).
Irenaeus
"[T]o Jesus Christ our Lord and God and Savior and King, in accord with the approval of the invisible Father, every knee shall bend of those in heaven and on Earth and under the earth" (Against Heresies 1:10:1 [A.D. 189]).
"Nevertheless, what cannot be said of anyone else who ever lived, that he is himself in his own right God and Lord . . . may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth" (ibid., 3:19:1).
Clement of Alexandria
"The Word, then, the Christ, is the cause both of our ancient beginning, for he was in God, and of our well-being. And now this same Word has appeared as man. He alone is both God and man and the source of all our good things" (Exhortation to the Greeks 1:7:1 [A.D. 190]).
"Despised as to appearance but in reality adored, [Jesus is] the Expiator, the Savior, the Soother, the Divine Word, he that is quite evidently true God, he that is put on a level with the Lord of the universe because he was his Son" (ibid., 10:110:1).
Tertullian
"God alone is without sin. The only man who is without sin is Christ, for Christ is also God" (The Soul 41:3 [A.D. 210]).
"The origins of both his substances display him as man and as God: from the one, born, and from the other, not born" (The Flesh of Christ 5:6–7 [A.D. 210]).
"That there are two Gods and two Lords, however, is a statement which we will never allow to issue from our mouth; not as if the Father and the Son were not God, nor the Spirit God, and each of them God; but formerly two were spoken of as Gods and two as Lords, so that when Christ would come, he might both be acknowledged as God and be called Lord, because he is the Son of him who is both God and Lord" (Against Praxeas 13:6 [A.D. 216]).
Origen
"Although he was God, he took flesh, and, having been made man, he remained what he was, God" (Fundamental Doctrines 1:0:4 [A.D. 225]).
"While we have been sketching the proof of the divinity of Jesus, we have made use of the prophetic statements concerning him and have at the same time demonstrated that the writings which prophesied about him are divinely inspired" (ibid., 4:1:6).
Hippolytus
"Only [God’s] Word is from himself and is therefore also God, becoming the substance of God" (Refutation of All Heresies 10:33 [A.D. 228]).
"For Christ is the God over all, who has arranged to wash away sin from mankind, rendering the old man new" (ibid., 10:34).
Cyprian
"One who denies that Christ is God cannot become his temple [of the Holy Spirit]" (Letters 73:12 [A.D. 253])
Gregory Thaumaturgus
"There is one God, the Father of the living Word, who is his subsistent wisdom and power and eternal image: perfect Begetter of the perfect Begotten, Father of the only-begotten Son. There is one Lord, only of the only, God of God, image and likeness of deity, efficient Word, wisdom comprehensive of the constitution of all things, and power formative of the whole creation, true Son of true Father, invisible of invisible, and incorruptible of incorruptible, and immortal of immortal and eternal of eternal . . . And thus neither was the Son ever wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son; but without variation and without change, the same Trinity abides ever" (Declaration of Faith [A.D. 265]).
Arnobius
"‘Well, then,’ some raging, angry, and excited man will say, ‘Is that Christ your God?’ ‘God indeed,’ we shall answer, ‘and God of the hidden powers’" (Against the Pagans 1:42 [A.D. 305]).
Lactantius
"He was made both Son of God in the spirit and Son of man in the flesh—that is, both God and man" (Divine Institutes 4:13:5 [A.D. 307]).
"We, on the other hand, are [truly] religious, who make our supplications to the one true God. Someone may perhaps ask how, when we say that we worship one God only, we nevertheless assert that there are two, God the Father and God the Son—which assertion has driven many into the greatest error . . . [thinking] that we confess that there is another God and that he is mortal. . . . [But w]hen we speak of God the Father and God the Son, we do not speak of them as different, nor do we separate each, because the Father cannot exist without the Son, nor can the Son be separated from the Father" (ibid., 4:28–29).
Hilary
"You have, therefore, a God who was seen on earth and who dwelt among men. . . . Who, therefore, is he that has been seen on earth and who dwelt among men? Certainly he is our God, and he is God visible in human form and tangible. . . . This, therefore, is the One who makes covenant with Abraham, who speaks to Moses, who testifies to Israel, who abides in the prophets, who is born through the Virgin and of the Holy Spirit, who affixes to the tree of his passion the powers opposed and inimical to us. . . . The prophet [Jeremiah] does not permit God, the Son of God, to be compared to another god, for the reason that he is God" (The Trinity 3:42 [A.D. 357]).
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