Topic
Who Jesus Is
Was Jesus a created being, a prophet, or God? These pages look at what the earliest sources say about him.
Claims
- “God was once a man”The Bible and the Book of Mormon both describe God as God from all eternity. The Bible promises likeness to God, not a God who was once a man.Read the answer
- “Jesus did not know the day or hour”Mark 13:32 is real and hard, but it targets a belief Christians reject. They teach Jesus was fully human too, and the same passage ranks the Son above the angels.Read the answer
- “Jesus is Michael the archangel”The verses used to link Jesus and Michael never identify them, and Hebrews 1 sets the Son apart from every angel, including the archangel.Read the answer
- “Jesus never claimed to be God”The earliest records show Jesus claiming God's own authority, and his followers worshiping him within decades, long before the Council of Nicaea.Read the answer
- “Jesus was a Muslim”Jesus submitted wholly to God, but the earliest records show a Jewish teacher who spoke of himself and his death in ways the Qur'an later denies.Read the answer
- “John 1:1 says "a god"”The missing article in John 1:1 marks what the Word is, not a lesser god; John separates the Word from all created things and ends with Thomas calling Jesus 'my God.'Read the answer
- “The Holy Spirit is not a person”The Bible's spirit teaches, speaks for itself, chooses, forbids, and can be lied to and grieved, and it is named with the Father and the Son. A force does not do those things.Read the answer
- “The Trinity and incarnation violate monotheism”Christians confess one God, not three. They claim Jesus belongs within the identity of Israel's one God, a claim argued from the Hebrew Bible, not polytheism.Read the answer
- “The Trinity is pagan”The word and formula are later, but pagan triads were three gods, and Christians worshiped Jesus two centuries before the councils that defined the Trinity.Read the answer
- “The Trinity is shirk”The Trinity is not three gods, but that is not the heart of the charge. The question is whether persons within the one God fit his oneness, and who Jesus is.Read the answer
- “The Trinity was invented at Nicaea”Nicaea met to answer Arius about the Son. The threefold name, the worship of Jesus, and the word Trinity were all in Christian use long before 325.Read the answer
Reasons
- Biblical monotheismIsaiah denies that any god was formed before or after the LORD. That rules out a family of gods and gods who were once creatures, and it sets the test for every later claim.
- Jesus is GodThe New Testament places Jesus inside the identity of Israel's one God, the Creator, while still distinguishing him from the Father.
- The Holy Spirit is a personWhat the Spirit does, and how he can be treated, are things only a person does or suffers. A single pronoun carries little of the weight.
- The Trinity is monotheismThe Bible says there is one God, distinguishes the Father, Son, and Spirit from one another, and treats each as that one God. The Trinity is the summary that keeps all three.