Chapter 6

The Full Deity of Christ — The Biblical Witness

Introduction: Why the Deity of Christ Is the Starting Point

Everything in this book depends on who Jesus is. If Jesus Christ is truly God — if He is the eternal Son who shares the very nature and being of God the Father and the Holy Spirit — then the Incarnation is not simply a remarkable event in history. It is the most astonishing event imaginable: the infinite Creator of the universe entered His own creation as a genuine human being. And if the Incarnation is real, then we need to get Christ's human nature right. We need to understand what the eternal Son assumed when He became one of us.

That is the central concern of this book, and it is why we begin Part II here. In Part I, we established the foundations: what a human being is (Chapters 2–4) and why the empirical evidence from veridical near-death experiences supports the conclusion that human beings have immaterial souls (Chapter 5). Now we turn to Christ Himself. Before we can argue that Christ has a complete human nature — body and soul — we first need to establish that Christ is fully divine. The deity of Christ is the indispensable starting point. If the Son is not truly God, then the Incarnation is not God becoming human. It is merely a creature taking on a body. The stakes are entirely different.

In this chapter, I want to walk us carefully through the biblical evidence for the full deity of Jesus Christ. Our thesis is straightforward: the New Testament unambiguously presents Jesus Christ as fully divine — the eternal Son of God who shares the divine nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit — and this "high Christology" was present from the very earliest period of the Christian movement, not a later development.¹ This matters enormously for our argument. If the Son is truly God, and the Son assumed a human nature at the Incarnation, then the human nature He assumed must be the kind of thing that can be genuinely united to deity. As we will see, physicalism — the view that a human being is nothing more than a physical body — raises severe and ultimately fatal questions about how a purely material organism can be hypostatically united to an immaterial divine Person.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let us begin with the biblical texts themselves.

John 1:1–14 — The Word Was God, and the Word Became Flesh

There is no more natural place to start than the opening of John's Gospel. These verses are among the most theologically dense in all of Scripture, and they make two claims that are absolutely critical for our purposes: first, that the Word (logos, λόγος) is fully God; and second, that this same Word "became flesh" — that is, He took on a genuine human nature.

Let us read the key portions of the passage:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. ... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:1–4, 14, ESV)

These verses pack an enormous amount of theology into a small space. Let us unpack them carefully.

First, notice the opening phrase: "In the beginning was the Word." The Greek here is en arche en ho logos (ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος). The word logos was rich with meaning in the ancient world. In Greek philosophy, it could mean "reason," "word," "principle," or "rational order." In Jewish thought, the "word of God" was the instrument through which God created the world (see Genesis 1: "And God said...") and the means through which He revealed Himself. John deliberately chooses this term to communicate that the person he is about to describe — Jesus Christ — is the very self-expression of God, the one through whom God made all things and through whom God speaks.²

But what matters most for our purposes is the three-clause structure of verse 1. Each clause builds on the one before it, and together they make a breathtaking theological claim. The first clause, "In the beginning was the Word," establishes the eternal pre-existence of the Logos. The verb "was" (en, ἦν) is in the imperfect tense, which indicates continuous existence in the past. The Word did not come into being at the beginning — He already "was" when the beginning began. He existed before creation itself.³

The second clause, "and the Word was with God," establishes a personal distinction. The Logos is not identical to the Father — He is "with" God (pros ton theon, πρὸς τὸν θεόν). The preposition pros with the accusative suggests a face-to-face relationship, an intimate personal communion. The Word and God the Father are distinct persons in a relationship of eternal fellowship.⁴

The third clause is the bombshell: "and the Word was God" (kai theos en ho logos, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος). Here is where some confusion has been introduced — most famously by Jehovah's Witnesses, who translate this as "the Word was a god," suggesting that Jesus is a lesser divine being rather than truly God. But this translation is almost universally rejected by Greek scholars, and for very good reasons.

The great New Testament scholar D. A. Carson explains that John's word order is deliberate: by placing theos first, without the article, John conveys that the Word possesses the full nature or essence of deity. The Word is not "a god" (which would be polytheism). Nor is the Word identical to the Father (which would be modalism). The Word is God — He shares the divine nature fully and completely, while remaining a distinct person within the Godhead.⁶

I want to pause and let us feel the weight of what John has done in this single verse. In just three clauses, he has established (1) the eternal pre-existence of the Word, (2) the personal distinction of the Word from God the Father, and (3) the full deity of the Word. All three truths are essential for the doctrine of the Incarnation. If the Word is not eternal, then the Incarnation is not God becoming human. If the Word is not distinct from the Father, then the Trinity collapses into modalism. If the Word is not fully God, then the Incarnation is merely a creature entering a human body — which is a far less extraordinary claim and carries far less theological significance.

Verses 2–3 reinforce the point. "He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made." The Logos is the agent of creation. Everything that exists was made through Him. Verse 4 adds: "In him was life, and the life was the light of men." The Word is not merely the source of physical creation. He is the source of life itself. All life — biological life, spiritual life, eternal life — has its origin in the Word. This is another way of saying what Paul says in Colossians 1:17: "in him all things hold together." The Word is not a distant architect who designed the universe and walked away. He is the living, sustaining source of everything that exists.

This places the Word firmly on the Creator side of the Creator-creature divide — a distinction that, as Andrew Loke has shown, was absolutely fundamental to Jewish monotheism.⁷ If all things were made through the Word, then the Word Himself is not a "thing" that was made. He is uncreated. He is God.

Now we come to verse 14, which is just as important for our argument: "And the Word became flesh (sarx egeneto, σὰρξ ἐγένετο) and dwelt among us." The verb "became" (egeneto) is striking. It is different from the "was" (en) of verse 1. The Word eternally "was" God; at a specific point in history, the Word "became" flesh. This is the Incarnation. The eternal Logos did not merely appear as flesh (that would be the heresy of docetism). He did not merely inhabit flesh. He became flesh — He took on a genuine human nature.⁸

What does "flesh" (sarx, σάρξ) mean here? In some New Testament contexts, sarx can refer narrowly to physical tissue. But here it clearly means "human nature" in its fullness. John is saying that the eternal Word became a real human being — not merely that He acquired a body, but that He entered fully into the human condition. As the rest of this book will argue, that full human nature includes not only a physical body but also an immaterial human soul. The Word did not merely put on meat and bones. He became a complete human being — body and soul — while remaining fully God. This is the mystery and the glory of the Incarnation.

We should also notice the phrase "dwelt among us" (eskenosen en hemin, ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν). The verb skenoo literally means "to pitch a tent" or "to tabernacle." John is deliberately echoing the Old Testament tabernacle — the tent in the wilderness where God's glory dwelt among His people (Exodus 40:34–35). In Christ, God's glory has come to dwell among us again — but not in a tent made of animal skins. God now dwells in a genuine human nature. The tabernacle was always temporary and external. The Incarnation is permanent and personal. The eternal Son has made a human nature His permanent dwelling place — and, as we will argue in Chapter 26, He remains incarnate forever.⁹

John 1:14 also says that the disciples "have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father." The word "only" translates monogenes (μονογενής), which means "one of a kind" or "unique." Jesus is not a son of God in the way that believers are sons and daughters of God by adoption. He is the unique Son — the one and only Son who shares the Father's nature eternally. His glory is not borrowed or delegated. It is the glory that belongs to the Son by nature.¹⁰

Colossians 1:15–20 — The Image of the Invisible God and the Fullness of Deity

Paul's letter to the Colossians contains one of the most exalted descriptions of Christ in all of Scripture. In what many scholars believe is an early Christian hymn, Paul writes:

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross." (Colossians 1:15–20, ESV)

Several things leap out from this passage. First, Christ is called "the image (eikon, εἰκών) of the invisible God." An image, in the ancient world, was not a pale copy — it was a visible manifestation of something otherwise unseen. Christ does not merely reflect God the way a mirror reflects light. He is the visible expression of the invisible God. To see Christ is to see what God is like. As Paul says elsewhere, God has made His light shine "in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6).¹¹

Second, Christ is called "the firstborn (prototokos, πρωτότοκος) of all creation." Some have misread this to mean Christ was the first creature. The Arians of the fourth century used this text to argue that the Son was a created being. But prototokos does not mean "first created." In the Old Testament, "firstborn" is a title of rank and supremacy, not necessarily of chronological order. The firstborn son was the heir, the one with authority (see Psalm 89:27). Paul immediately explains: "For by him all things were created." Christ is not the first thing created — He is the one through whom all things were created.¹²

Third, Paul says Christ is "before all things" and "in him all things hold together" (v. 17). Christ sustains the entire created order. He is not just the origin of creation — He is the ongoing source of its existence. Every atom, every galaxy, every living thing holds together because Christ upholds it. The author of Hebrews makes the same claim: Christ "upholds the universe by the word of his power" (Hebrews 1:3). These are the actions of the Creator.

Fourth, Paul says that "in him all the fullness (pleroma, πλήρωμα) of God was pleased to dwell" (v. 19). Not a partial presence of God. Not a symbolic representation. The full reality of who God is dwells in Christ. In the context of first-century Colossae, where false teachers may have been suggesting that Christ was merely one among many spiritual intermediaries, Paul's claim is emphatic: there is nothing of God that is not in Christ.¹³

Colossians 2:9 — The Whole Fullness of Deity Dwells Bodily

Just a chapter later, Paul sharpens his language even further:

"For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily." (Colossians 2:9, ESV)

First, Paul uses the word theotes (θεότης) — not theiotes (θειότης). Theiotes appears in Romans 1:20 and refers to "divinity" in a general sense. But theotes is stronger. It refers to the very essence of deity. As J. B. Lightfoot noted, theotes refers to the absolute Godhead, while theiotes refers merely to the quality of being divine.¹⁴ Paul is saying that in Christ dwells the entire essence of God.

Second, Paul adds the word somatikos (σωματικῶς) — "bodily." The fullness of deity dwells in Christ in bodily form. This is a direct reference to the Incarnation: God the Son has taken on a body. The present tense of the verb katoikei ("dwells") indicates a permanent, ongoing indwelling.

The significance of this verse for our book's argument can hardly be overstated. Paul is saying that the total, absolute, undiminished essence of God — not a portion of it, not a quality of it, but the whole fullness of it — has taken up permanent residence in a human body. This is not a temporary arrangement. This is not God's spirit visiting a human being and then departing, the way the Spirit might empower a prophet. This is the total being of God living permanently in an embodied human nature. This is the Incarnation in its fullest expression.

But we need to ask: what kind of body? What kind of human nature? If the "bodily" dwelling of the fullness of deity means that God is united to a complete human nature, then we need to know what a complete human nature includes. Is it just a physical body — a collection of cells, organs, and neurons? Or is it something more — a body animated by an immaterial soul? As the ecumenical councils would later define (and as we will argue in Chapters 11–12), the answer is the latter. Christ's human nature consists of a body and a rational soul. The fullness of deity does not dwell in mere biological tissue. It dwells in a complete human being — body and soul together.

Philippians 2:6 — In the Form of God

One of the most famous Christological passages in the New Testament is the "Christ Hymn" of Philippians 2:5–11. The full passage will be treated in detail in Chapter 15, where we examine kenotic Christology. Here, our focus is narrower: verse 6 as evidence for Christ's pre-existence and full deity.

"...who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men." (Philippians 2:6–7, ESV)

The key phrase is "in the form of God" (en morphe theou, ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ). Morphe does not refer to outward shape or appearance (that would be schema, σχῆμα, which Paul uses in verse 8). Rather, morphe refers to the essential form or nature of something. As Martin and Nash have argued, the majority of scholars take morphe theou to refer to Christ in His pre-existent and divine origins.¹⁵

Loke emphasizes the significance of the parallel between verse 6 and verse 7. Christ was "in the form of God" (v. 6) and then took "the form of a servant" (v. 7). The parallel tells us that "form" means something real and essential in both cases. Moreover, N. T. Wright observes that the passage attributes a conscious choice to this pre-existent one. A mere personification cannot make ethical decisions. Only a real person can.¹⁶

Furthermore, Paul says Christ possessed "equality with God" (to einai isa theo, τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ). This equality was not something He needed to seize — He already had it. Christ did not exploit His divine status but instead "emptied himself" by taking on a human nature — not by surrendering His divine nature. As Wright argues, if Jesus is not identical with the Father and Paul is still a monotheist, then Christ must have been from all eternity "equal with God" in the sense of being himself fully divine.¹⁷

There is an even deeper dimension to this passage. Verses 10–11 say that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." Paul is directly quoting Isaiah 45:23, where YHWH declares: "To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance." Paul takes this statement about YHWH and applies it to Jesus. He is deliberately identifying Jesus with YHWH — the one before whom every knee will bow.¹⁸

Hebrews 1:1–4 — The Exact Imprint of God's Nature

The opening verses of Hebrews contain some of the most exalted Christological language in the entire New Testament:

"Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs." (Hebrews 1:1–4, ESV)

Two phrases demand our attention. First, the Son is "the radiance of the glory of God" (apaugasma tes doxes, ἀπαύγασμα τῆς δόξης). The Son is inseparable from the glory of God — just as the radiance of the sun is inseparable from the sun itself.¹⁹

Second, the Son is "the exact imprint of his nature" (charakter tes hypostaseos, χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως). The word charakter originally referred to the impression made by a seal or stamp. It denotes an exact reproduction. And hypostasis here means "being" or "essence." The Son perfectly and completely expresses the Father's essence.²⁰

Notice also what the Son does: He "created the world" (v. 2), "upholds the universe" (v. 3), "made purification for sins" (v. 3), and "sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high" (v. 3). Creating, sustaining, atoning, reigning — these are the actions of one who is fully God. Hebrews 1:8 even quotes Psalm 45:6 and applies it to the Son: "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever." The Father calls the Son "God."

The rest of Hebrews 1 continues to pile up the evidence. The author quotes a string of Old Testament passages and applies them to Christ — passages that originally referred to God Himself. In verse 10, the author quotes Psalm 102:25–27 — a passage about YHWH as Creator — and applies it directly to the Son: "You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands." In the original psalm, these words are addressed to YHWH. The author of Hebrews, without hesitation, applies them to Christ. The Son is the YHWH who created heaven and earth.

This is important because some scholars have tried to argue that the early Christians merely "exalted" Jesus to a high position without actually identifying Him with YHWH. The evidence from Hebrews 1 refutes this. The author is not merely giving Jesus a high title. He is applying YHWH-texts directly to the Son, identifying the Son as the God who created the world and who will outlast it. The heavens will perish, "but you remain" (v. 11). The Son is eternal, unchanging, and divine — the same yesterday, today, and forever.

The comparison with angels in Hebrews 1:4–14 is also significant. The author goes to great lengths to show that the Son is not an angel — He is infinitely superior to the angels. Why does this matter? Because some first-century Jewish traditions spoke of exalted angelic figures who served as intermediaries between God and the world. The author of Hebrews is cutting off any attempt to reduce Jesus to the level of a created angelic being. The Son is not a high-ranking angel. He is the Creator whom the angels worship: "Let all God's angels worship him" (Hebrews 1:6, quoting Deuteronomy 32:43 LXX).

John 8:58 — "Before Abraham Was, I Am"

"Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.'" (John 8:58, ESV)

The Greek is extraordinary: prin Abraam genesthai, ego eimi (πρὶν Ἀβραὰμ γενέσθαι, ἐγὼ εἰμί). Abraham "was" (genesthai — came into being). But Jesus says "I am" (ego eimi) — using a timeless present tense that echoes the divine name revealed to Moses at the burning bush: "I AM WHO I AM" (Exodus 3:14).²¹

The Jewish leaders understood exactly what Jesus was claiming. "So they picked up stones to throw at him" (John 8:59). Under Jewish law, blasphemy was punishable by stoning (Leviticus 24:16). If Jesus were merely claiming to be older than Abraham, the reaction would have been puzzlement, not a death sentence. They picked up stones because they understood Jesus to be identifying Himself with YHWH.²²

John's Gospel contains several other ego eimi sayings — "I am the bread of life," "I am the light of the world," "I am the good shepherd," "I am the resurrection and the life," "I am the way, the truth, and the life," "I am the true vine." These echo the great "I am" declarations of God in Isaiah (Isaiah 41:4; 43:10, 13, 25; 46:4), where YHWH identifies Himself as the only God and the only Savior.²³

John 20:28 — "My Lord and My God"

After the resurrection, Thomas comes face to face with Jesus and utters the clearest confession of Christ's deity in all four Gospels:

"Thomas answered him, 'My Lord and my God!' (ὁ κύριός μου καὶ ὁ θεός μου)" (John 20:28, ESV)

Thomas addresses Jesus directly — the text says Thomas "answered him." He uses the definite article with both kyrios and theos. He is calling Jesus "the Lord" and "the God."²⁴

And Jesus does not correct Thomas. This point deserves emphasis, because it is profoundly significant. Throughout Scripture, every creature who is offered worship rejects it immediately and forcefully. Angels refuse worship in Scripture (Revelation 22:8–9). Paul and Barnabas refuse worship at Lystra, tearing their garments in distress (Acts 14:14–15). Peter tells Cornelius not to bow before him, saying, "Stand up; I too am a man" (Acts 10:25–26). The pattern is consistent and unambiguous: creatures refuse worship because worship belongs to God alone.

But Jesus accepts Thomas's confession and commends it: "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29). He does not say, "Thomas, please do not call me God — I am only God's representative." He does not redirect Thomas's worship to the Father. He accepts the title "my God" as appropriate, accurate, and deserving of blessing. If Jesus is not God, His failure to correct Thomas would make Him complicit in the most serious sin in the Jewish tradition: idolatry. The fact that He accepts Thomas's worship without correction is powerful evidence that the worship is rightly directed — because Jesus truly is God.²⁵

John's Gospel both opens and closes with an explicit affirmation of Christ's deity: "the Word was God" (1:1) and "my Lord and my God" (20:28). The entire Gospel is framed by these twin declarations.²⁶

Titus 2:13 and Romans 9:5 — Explicit Ascriptions of Deity

Two additional Pauline passages deserve attention because they explicitly call Jesus "God."

"...waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." (Titus 2:13, ESV)

The construction falls under Granville Sharp's rule: when two singular nouns are connected by kai and the first noun has the definite article but the second does not, both nouns refer to the same person. "God and Savior" = one person = Jesus Christ. The same construction appears in 2 Peter 1:1.²⁷

Romans 9:5 is another important text:

"...to them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen." (Romans 9:5, ESV)

Some scholars prefer a different punctuation that would make the closing phrase a separate doxology to the Father. But as Murray Harris has demonstrated, the natural flow of Paul's Greek favors identifying Christ as "God over all, blessed forever."²⁸

Additional Evidence: Old Testament YHWH-Texts Applied to Christ

Beyond the explicit deity texts we have examined, there is another category of evidence that is equally powerful: Old Testament passages about YHWH that the New Testament authors apply directly to Jesus. This practice of taking YHWH-texts and applying them to Christ is one of the most remarkable features of early Christian interpretation, and it provides strong evidence that the earliest Christians identified Jesus with the God of Israel.

Consider Romans 10:9–13. Paul says: "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.... For 'everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'" The quotation in verse 13 is from Joel 2:32, where "the Lord" is YHWH. In the original context, the prophet Joel is promising that those who call on the name of YHWH will be delivered. Paul takes this promise and applies it to Jesus. To "call on the name of the Lord" is to call on Jesus. Jesus is the YHWH of Joel's prophecy. As David Capes has shown, this practice of applying YHWH-texts to Jesus is not an isolated phenomenon — it is a consistent pattern throughout Paul's letters.

Similarly, Philippians 2:10–11 (which we examined above) applies Isaiah 45:23 to Jesus. In Isaiah, YHWH declares that to Him alone every knee will bow and every tongue confess. Paul takes this exclusive claim of YHWH and applies it to Jesus, making Jesus the recipient of the universal worship that Isaiah reserved for YHWH alone.

Hebrews 1:10–12 applies Psalm 102:25–27 — a prayer addressed to YHWH as Creator — directly to the Son. The pattern is consistent and unmistakable. The earliest Christians did not merely give Jesus a high title or elevate Him to an honored position. They identified Him with YHWH, the God of Israel. They read their Scriptures and found Jesus on every page — not as a character in the story, but as the God who authored it.

This is deeply significant for our purposes. If Jesus is not merely a prophet or a teacher but YHWH Himself — the Creator, the Redeemer, the Judge, the King — then the Incarnation is not merely God sending a representative. It is God coming in person. And if God has come in person, in a genuine human nature, then we had better understand what that human nature consists of. That is the task of the next several chapters.

The Earliest Evidence: High Christology from the Very Beginning

One of the most important questions in New Testament scholarship is this: when did Christians begin to believe that Jesus was truly divine? This question matters not just for historians but for anyone who cares about the truth of the Christian faith. If the belief in Jesus' deity arose only decades or centuries after His death — as a kind of theological legend that grew over time — then we might reasonably wonder whether it reflects reality or mere human invention. But if this belief was present from the very beginning — held by people who had known Jesus personally, who had witnessed His death and resurrection, and who were willing to die for their convictions — then we have reason to take it with the utmost seriousness.

Some scholars — most prominently Bart Ehrman — have argued that the belief in Jesus' deity developed gradually. On this view, the earliest Christians saw Jesus as a human teacher or prophet who was "exalted" to a divine-like status after His death, and only over time did this exaltation develop into a full-blown belief in Jesus' ontological deity. The highest Christology, according to this theory, was a late product of theological evolution and perhaps pagan influence.²⁹

This theory has been powerfully challenged by Larry Hurtado, Richard Bauckham, and Andrew Loke. Their combined work — drawing on careful analysis of the earliest Christian texts, devotional practices, and the Jewish context — demonstrates that the highest Christology was present among the earliest Christians. I find their arguments compelling, and I believe any fair-minded reader will as well. Let me walk through the key evidence.

1 Corinthians 8:6 — Christ Within the Shema

One of the earliest and most remarkable pieces of evidence comes from 1 Corinthians 8:6, written around AD 55 — but reflecting traditions going back to Paul's conversion around AD 32–34:³⁰

"Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist." (1 Corinthians 8:6, ESV)

Richard Bauckham has shown that Paul is taking the Shema — the central confession of Jewish monotheism from Deuteronomy 6:4 ("Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one") — and rearranging its words to include Jesus within it. Paul is identifying Jesus as the kyrios whom the Shema itself affirms — the LORD, YHWH.³¹

Some critics, like James McGrath, have objected that Paul might not be "splitting" the Shema. But as Loke points out, this fails to account for Bauckham's argument from the monotheistic creation formula. If Christ were a creature, assigning Him the instrumental role in creating "all things" would violate the very monotheistic principle the formula was designed to express.³³

Devotional Practices: Worshiping Jesus

Hurtado has demonstrated that the earliest Christians worshiped Jesus in ways reserved exclusively for God — prayer to Jesus, invocation of His name in baptism and worship, ritual "calling upon" Jesus (using epikaleo, which in the Septuagint is used for calling upon YHWH), hymns to Him, and inclusion of Jesus in corporate worship patterns.³⁴

Let me unpack this a bit further, because it deserves careful attention. Hurtado identifies six distinguishing features of Christ-devotion in the earliest Christian communities. First, there was prayer — the earliest Christians prayed to Jesus, not just to the Father through Jesus. The Aramaic prayer maranatha ("Our Lord, come!") in 1 Corinthians 16:22 shows that even Aramaic-speaking Jewish Christians were addressing prayer to Jesus. Second, there was the practice of calling upon the name of Jesus (Romans 10:12–14; 1 Corinthians 1:2; Acts 9:14, 21) — a practice that in the Old Testament was directed to YHWH. Third, there was baptism in the name of Jesus (Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48) — which indicated that Jesus was regarded as the divine authority under whose power and protection the baptized person was placed. Fourth, there were hymns and songs about and to Jesus (Philippians 2:6–11; Colossians 1:15–20; possibly Hebrews 1:3). Fifth, there was the Lord's Supper, a sacred meal that was understood as communion with the risen Christ (1 Corinthians 10:16–21; 11:23–26). Sixth, there was the systematic inclusion of Jesus alongside the Father in the benedictions and greetings that opened and closed Paul's letters (e.g., "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Corinthians 1:3).

Think about what this means. These were not casual gestures. These were the core devotional practices of Jewish communities — communities that were fiercely committed to the exclusive worship of the one Creator God. They did not simply "respect" Jesus as a great teacher. They included Him in the pattern of worship that was reserved for God alone. And they did this from the very beginning of the movement, not as a later development.

This is remarkable because devout Jews were emphatically opposed to worshiping anyone other than the one Creator God. Paul himself condemned those who "worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator" (Romans 1:25). The fact that Paul and other Jewish Christians nevertheless worshiped Jesus can only be explained if they regarded Him as being within the identity of the one God.³⁵

Chris Tilling has added a further dimension. He shows that the pattern of relational devotion directed toward Christ in Paul's letters corresponds precisely to the language used for the relationship between the believer and YHWH in the Jewish Scriptures. Paul's spiritual desire for Christ mirrors the psalmists' desire for God.³⁶

Bauckham's Summary: The Earliest Christology Was Already the Highest

Richard Bauckham has memorably summarized the evidence in a single sentence that has become famous in New Testament scholarship: "The earliest Christology was already the highest Christology."³⁷ What does this mean? It means that the belief in Jesus as fully divine — as sharing the unique identity of YHWH, the one Creator God — was not a later development. It was present from the very earliest days of the Christian movement. It is reflected in the Pauline letters (our earliest Christian documents), in the devotional practices of the first Christian communities, and in the pre-Pauline traditions that Paul himself received and passed on.

The idea that high Christology was a late development simply does not survive careful examination. Paul was a former Pharisee who had once persecuted Christians. His conversion and subsequent worship of Jesus demand an explanation. He did not arrive at his Christology through gradual theological reflection over decades. His encounter with the risen Christ on the Damascus road transformed his understanding of Jesus instantly and radically. Within a few years of Jesus' death, Paul was including Jesus within the Shema, attributing the creation of all things to Him, and worshiping Him alongside the Father.³⁸

And Paul was not alone. He was part of a community. When he wrote to the churches in Corinth, Philippi, and Colossae, he was not introducing new ideas about Jesus' deity. He was appealing to convictions they already shared. The christological traditions he quotes — the Christ Hymn in Philippians 2:6–11, the Colossian hymn in Colossians 1:15–20, the confessional formula in 1 Corinthians 8:6 — were not his own inventions. They were pre-existing traditions that he and his communities received from the earliest years of the movement. The worship of Jesus as truly divine was not Paul's private theology. It was the shared faith of the earliest Christian church.

Responding to Objections

Before we draw our conclusions, it is important to address the major objections fairly.

Objection 1: "Jesus Never Called Himself God"

Some critics point out that Jesus does not directly say "I am God" in the Synoptic Gospels. They argue that the explicit deity claims are found mainly in John's Gospel, which was written later and (they suggest) reflects a more developed theology rather than the historical Jesus' own self-understanding. This is one of the most common objections, and it deserves a careful response.

Several things need to be said. First, as Murray Harris has shown, there are good reasons why the explicit designation theos for Jesus is relatively rare in the New Testament. Harris identifies five factors: (1) the term theos was typically reserved for the Father; (2) this reserved usage protected the personal distinction between Father and Son; (3) it highlighted the Son's functional subordination to the Father during His earthly mission; (4) if Jesus had been regularly called "God," it would have created enormous problems for evangelistic efforts among Jews, who would have assumed Christians had abandoned monotheism; and (5) the reserved usage helped prevent eclipsing the genuine humanity of Jesus. The rarity of the title does not mean the belief was absent — it was expressed in other, equally powerful ways.³⁹

R. T. France has made a related point that deserves attention. He observes that the very fact that the New Testament does occasionally call Jesus "God" — in a cultural context where such language was profoundly shocking — is itself remarkable. In a strictly monotheistic Jewish environment, the wonder is not that the New Testament so seldom calls Jesus God, but that it does so at all. There must have been a powerful compulsion behind such a radical usage of language. The simplest explanation is that the earliest Christians genuinely believed Jesus was divine, and this belief occasionally broke through into explicit God-language even though their normal practice was to express it in other ways.

Second, even in the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus makes implicit deity claims that His contemporaries understood perfectly. He forgives sins (Mark 2:5–7) — and the scribes immediately recognize the implication: "Who can forgive sins but God alone?" He claims to be Lord of the Sabbath, which God instituted (Mark 2:28). He accepts worship (Matthew 14:33; 28:9, 17). He claims that the final destiny of every human being depends on their relationship to Him personally (Matthew 7:21–23; 25:31–46). He claims authority to send prophets and messengers (Matthew 23:34) — something only God does in the Old Testament. He claims authority over the temple itself (Mark 11:15–17; John 2:19–21). As N. T. Wright has argued, these actions constitute a pattern of implicit deity claims that would have been unmistakable to first-century Jewish audiences.⁴⁰

Third, the argument from John's supposedly "late" date does not help the objector as much as they might think. Even if John's Gospel was written in the 90s AD, the Pauline letters — which clearly attest to the highest Christology — were written decades earlier, in the 50s. And as Loke has demonstrated, the christological convictions in Paul's letters reflect pre-Pauline traditions that go back to Paul's conversion around AD 32–34. The highest Christology is not a late development found only in John. It is found in the earliest Christian documents we possess.⁴¹

Objection 2: "High Christology Evolved Under Pagan Influence"

Ehrman and others have suggested that the deification of Jesus was influenced by Greco-Roman practices of deifying emperors. On this view, the earliest Jewish Christians saw Jesus as a human being, but as Christianity spread into the Gentile world, pagan ideas of divine humans were applied to Jesus.⁴²

This theory faces several severe difficulties. First, the earliest evidence for the highest Christology comes from Paul — a devout Pharisee who operated within a firmly Jewish context. Paul was not a Gentile convert who might have been influenced by pagan ideas. He was a Pharisee, trained under Gamaliel, steeped in the Jewish Scriptures and fiercely committed to monotheism. His christological convictions were not formed in a pagan environment; they were formed through his encounter with the risen Christ and his engagement with the Jewish Scriptures.

Second, the Jewish context of the earliest Christians was characterized by fierce resistance to pagan religious influences. As Hurtado argues, compared to earlier times, Jewish reactions to pagan religion were generally more hostile in this period, and their concern to maintain ethnic and religious distinctives was more robust. It is unlikely that devout Jews who identified firmly with strict monotheism would have accommodated Jesus in such lofty terms under pagan influence.⁴³

Third, and most tellingly, as Martin Hengel memorably observed, a crucified god would have been an absurdity to the Greco-Roman world, not an attractive theological innovation. A crucified Jewish martyr could have been accepted as an edifying example. But a crucified God was, for every educated person in antiquity, a shameless impertinence. Pagan influence would have worked against the deification of a crucified man, not for it. The scandal of the cross was already enough of a barrier to Gentile audiences (1 Corinthians 1:23). Adding deity to crucifixion only made the scandal worse.⁴⁴

Fourth, as Bauckham has observed, the Pauline letters reflect an already well-developed pattern of devotion to Jesus, the key features of which likely pre-date Paul's conversion. Paul did not invent the worship of Jesus. He received it from communities that were already practicing it. And there were large Christian communities in places like Rome long before Paul visited them. The devotional pattern was too widespread and too early to be the invention of any single person or to be explained by gradual pagan influence.

Objection 3: "The Subordination Texts Show Jesus Is Not Fully God"

A number of New Testament passages appear to subordinate Jesus to the Father. Jesus says "the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28). Paul says Christ will "be subjected" to the Father so that "God may be all in all" (1 Corinthians 15:28). In several passages, Jesus prays to the Father, obeys the Father, and says He does nothing of His own accord (John 5:19, 30). Do these texts not show that Jesus is less than fully God?

The answer is that the New Testament consistently distinguishes between two different kinds of relationship: ontological equality and functional subordination. Ontologically — in terms of His nature and being — the Son is fully and equally God with the Father (John 1:1; Philippians 2:6; Colossians 2:9). Functionally — in terms of role and mission — the Son freely submits to the Father's will, especially during the Incarnation (Philippians 2:7–8; John 5:19, 30). The Father sends; the Son goes. The Father commands; the Son obeys. But this functional ordering does not imply a difference in nature. A soldier who takes orders from a commanding officer is not thereby a lesser human being. A child who obeys a parent is not a lesser person than the parent. The Son's functional subordination to the Father, especially during His earthly mission, does not diminish His divine nature one bit.⁴⁵

In fact, the subordination texts actually presuppose Christ's deity rather than undermining it. When Jesus says "the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28), He is speaking as the incarnate Son during His earthly ministry — a period in which He has voluntarily taken on the limitations of human existence (without ceasing to be God). As Loke and others have argued, this "greater" refers to the Father's functional role, not to a difference in ontological status. The Father and the Son are co-equal in nature; the Son voluntarily subordinates Himself to the Father's will in the economy of redemption. And when Paul says Christ will be "subjected" to the Father (1 Corinthians 15:28), this refers to the completion of Christ's redemptive mission, not to an ontological demotion. The Son has always been functionally subordinated to the Father in the divine economy, while being ontologically equal in nature.

Why the Deity of Christ Matters for the Physicalism Debate

Throughout this chapter, we have been building the biblical case for the full deity of Jesus Christ. But I do not want us to lose sight of why this matters for the central argument of our book. The connection between Christ's deity and the physicalism debate may not be immediately obvious, so let me draw it out carefully. This is where everything we have established in this chapter begins to have direct consequences for our understanding of the Incarnation — and for the question of whether physicalism can survive the test of Christology.

If the Son is truly God — an immaterial, eternal, infinite divine Person — then when He assumed a human nature at the Incarnation, something extraordinary happened. An immaterial divine nature was united with a human nature in one person. This is the hypostatic union, which we will explore in detail in Chapters 11 and 14. For now, the critical point is this: the nature of the union depends on the nature of the things being united. Think of it this way. If I tell you that two things have been joined together, the first question you will ask is: what kind of things are they? The answer matters enormously for understanding how the joining works and what happens when one of the joined elements is disturbed.

On substance dualism, this union has a natural and intelligible structure. The Son (who is immaterial) is united to a human nature that consists of a body and an immaterial soul. The human soul provides what we might call a metaphysical "bridge" between the divine nature (which is immaterial) and the human body (which is material). There is an immaterial dimension on both sides of the union — the divine nature is immaterial, and the human soul is immaterial. The soul serves as a point of contact that connects the divine and the physical. This does not make the hypostatic union easy to understand — it remains the deepest mystery of the Christian faith — but it does give the union a coherent structure that we can at least begin to grasp.⁴⁷

Let me offer an analogy, imperfect though it is. Think of a person using a computer. The person's mind (immaterial thoughts, intentions, decisions) interacts with the physical world through the body (hands on a keyboard, eyes on a screen). The body serves as the interface between the immaterial mind and the material computer. Without the body, the mind has no natural point of contact with the physical machine. Now imagine someone suggested that you could connect a mind directly to a computer with no physical interface at all — no body, no brain, no hands. That would be deeply puzzling, even if you believed it were theoretically possible. The body provides the natural bridge between the immaterial and the material. In a somewhat similar way, the human soul provides a natural bridge between the immaterial divine nature and the physical human body in the hypostatic union.

On physicalism, by contrast, the human nature is entirely physical. There is no soul. Christ's human nature is His physical body — nothing more. The union, then, is between an immaterial divine nature and a purely material body, with no mediating immaterial component. There is no "bridge." The immaterial divine Person is united directly to a mass of biological tissue — muscle, bone, neurons, blood. Now, I want to be careful here. This does not, strictly speaking, make the Incarnation logically impossible — God can do anything that is logically possible. But it does make the union metaphysically puzzling in a way that dualism avoids. And the real problems are far worse than mere puzzlement.⁴⁸

The real problems for physicalism emerge not at the beginning of the Incarnation but at the cross. This is the devastating blow. When Jesus died, what happened to the hypostatic union? On dualism, the answer is clear: the Son remained united to both His human soul (which survived death and was conscious and active) and His human body (which lay in the tomb). The human nature was in a state of separation — the body and soul were temporarily pulled apart — but the union between the divine Person and the human nature was not dissolved. The soul provided continuity. The Son was still incarnate, still united to His human nature, even during the three days between death and resurrection. His soul descended to the dead (as the Apostles' Creed affirms and as we will examine in Chapter 23). His body rested in the tomb. Both remained His. Both remained united to His divine Person.

On physicalism, the answer is devastating: there is no soul. The body died. The "human nature" — which on physicalism just is the body — ceased to function. The brain stopped generating consciousness. The heart stopped pumping blood. The biological organism that was Christ's humanity began to decompose. Was the Son still united to a corpse? If so, what does that mean? A corpse is not a person. A corpse has no thoughts, no will, no consciousness, no inner life. Is the Son of God hypostatically united to dead biological matter? That seems deeply problematic. But if the Son was not united to the corpse, then the hypostatic union was dissolved at the cross. The Incarnation ended on Good Friday. The Son of God was no longer incarnate during the three days in the tomb. And if the Incarnation was interrupted, then the Chalcedonian definition — which says the two natures are united "without separation" — has been violated.

This is the triduum mortis problem, which we will develop at length in Chapters 21 and 22. It is, in my judgment, the single most powerful argument against physicalist Christology. And it all begins with the simple truth we have established in this chapter: Jesus Christ is truly God. The deity of Christ is the starting point precisely because it establishes the stakes. If Jesus is truly God, then the Incarnation is a metaphysical reality of the highest possible order: the eternal, infinite, immaterial Creator dwelling in a genuine human nature. Getting that human nature right is not an optional exercise. It is essential to the coherence of the most central doctrine of the Christian faith.⁴⁹

Conclusion

We have covered a great deal of ground in this chapter, and I want to take a moment to step back and see the full picture of what we have found. The biblical evidence for the full deity of Jesus Christ is not based on a few isolated proof-texts. It is a massive, converging body of evidence that spans the entire New Testament — from the earliest Pauline letters to the latest Johannine writings — and it is rooted in the very earliest convictions of the Christian movement.

The New Testament presents Jesus Christ as fully divine. He is the eternal Word who was God and was with God (John 1:1). He is the one through whom all things were created (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Hebrews 1:2). In Him dwells the whole fullness of deity bodily (Colossians 2:9). He existed in the form of God and was equal with God before the Incarnation (Philippians 2:6). He is the exact imprint of the Father's very being (Hebrews 1:3). He identified Himself with the divine name "I AM" (John 8:58). He accepted the title "my Lord and my God" from Thomas without correction (John 20:28). He is called "our great God and Savior" (Titus 2:13) and "God over all, blessed forever" (Romans 9:5). Old Testament passages about YHWH are applied directly to Him (Romans 10:13; Philippians 2:10–11; Hebrews 1:10–12). He was worshiped by the earliest Christians in ways reserved exclusively for the one Creator God.

Furthermore, this high Christology was not a late development. It was not the product of decades of theological evolution, nor was it borrowed from pagan religion. The work of Hurtado, Bauckham, and Loke has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the earliest Christology was already the highest Christology. The devotional practices of the first Christian communities — prayer to Jesus, invocation of His name, hymns about and to Him, the Lord's Supper, baptism in His name, and the systematic inclusion of Jesus alongside the Father in worship — all point to the conviction that Jesus is truly divine. And these practices were in place from the very beginning, reflected in traditions that pre-date Paul's own letters.⁵⁰

Why does all of this matter for the argument of our book? It matters because the deity of Christ raises the stakes for the question of His human nature to the highest possible level. If Jesus were merely a human being, then the question of whether human beings have souls would be an interesting philosophical debate but would have no direct Christological consequences. But Jesus is not merely a human being. He is the eternal, infinite, immaterial God who became a human being. The Incarnation is the union of the immaterial divine nature with a genuine human nature in one person. And on the day of the crucifixion, the coherence of that union was tested in the most severe way imaginable: the human body died.

As we will argue in the chapters ahead, a merely physical human nature cannot sustain the Incarnation through the crisis of the cross. When the body dies, on physicalism, there is nothing left of the human nature. The Incarnation is dissolved. The hypostatic union is broken. The Son of God ceases to be incarnate for three days. But on substance dualism, Christ's human soul survives the death of His body, preserves the hypostatic union during the triduum mortis, descends to the dead in conscious activity, and is reunited with the glorified body at the resurrection. The Incarnation is never interrupted. The Son never ceases to be incarnate — not for a single moment.

In the next chapter, we turn from Christ's deity to His humanity — specifically, the biblical evidence that Christ's human nature includes not only a body but also a genuine immaterial soul. If the deity of Christ is the foundation, the humanity of Christ is the building — and the soul is the load-bearing wall that holds everything together.