Apologetics · FaithLogic
What His Closest Followers Said
"My Lord and my God!"
Said directly to Jesus' face after seeing the risen Jesus. Jesus does not correct him. Every other time someone tried to worship a human in the NT they were stopped immediately: Peter (Acts 10:26), the angel (Rev 22:9). Jesus accepts Thomas's worship — because it was accurate.
"The Word was with God and the Word was God."
Two statements. One about distinction. One about identity. "Pros ton Theon" (with God) = face-to-face personal relationship — distinct from the Father. "Theos ēn ho Logos" (the Word was God) = shares the divine nature. The predicate noun Theos without the article, placed before the verb, is qualitative (Philip Harner, JBL 1973): "the Word had the same nature as God" — not "a god" (which Greek would express differently), and not "the Father" (which would be ho Theos). Distinct in person, one in nature. (For the "it just means God's plan / an attribute" reading, see the Preexistence section.)
"Being in very nature God."
Morphē = the form that expresses what a thing essentially is — not mere outward appearance (that would be schēma). "In the form of God" is set in exact parallel with "taking the form of a servant": as the second means genuinely becoming a servant, the first means genuinely being God. (Gordon Fee, Hawthorne and O'Brien defend this; James Dunn contests it with an Adam-Christology reading — but even he grants v.6 a status the first Adam lacked.) Written ~55 AD, by a man who met the risen Christ (1 Cor 15:8).
"The whole fullness of deity dwells in him bodily."
Theotētos = the complete divine nature itself — not "divine qualities" or "divine power" but the fullness of what it means to BE God. This fullness dwells in Jesus' physical body — not metaphorically but sōmatikōs (bodily).
"Our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ."
Greek Granville Sharp Rule: when two nouns of the same case are joined by "kai" with one definite article governing both, they refer to one person. "Our great God and Savior" = one person: Jesus Christ. Not two beings — one.
"Our God and Savior Jesus Christ."
Peter — who walked with Jesus three years — calls him "our God and Savior" directly. The same Granville Sharp construction. An eyewitness calling his rabbi "our God" — and dying for it — is not confused about what he means.
"Your throne, O God, is forever… You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth."
The writer of Hebrews has God the Father address the Son as "God" (quoting Psalm 45:6) and as the "Lord" who made the heavens (quoting Psalm 102, a psalm to YHWH). The highest possible witness: the Father naming the Son God and Creator.
"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
Paul quotes Joel 2:32 — "everyone who calls on the name of YHWH" — and applies it to confessing "Jesus is Lord" (v.9). The Old Testament promise about calling on YHWH becomes the promise about calling on Jesus.
"one God, the Father… and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things."
Paul takes the Shema — "YHWH our God, YHWH is one" (Deut 6:4) — and splits its "God" and "Lord" between the Father and Jesus, with Jesus as the one "through whom" everything was made. Monotheism re-stated with Jesus inside it.
"Marana tha" — "Our Lord, come!"
Paul preserves an Aramaic prayer — meaning it comes from the earliest, Aramaic-speaking Jerusalem church, before Paul. It is a prayer addressed to Jesus as "Lord." Jewish Christians who still spoke Aramaic were already praying to Jesus.
The "Paul Invented It" Claim — Demolished in Five Points
Point 1 — Mark predates Paul's influence: Mark is universally recognized as the earliest Gospel (~65 AD, before Paul's death). Mark contains: Jesus forgiving sins directly (2:5–7), Jesus claiming to be the divine Son of Man on the clouds (14:62), and Jesus being condemned for blasphemy (14:64). Paul had nothing to do with Mark's Gospel. If divine Christology is in Mark — the earliest Gospel — the "Paul invented it" theory is impossible.
Point 2 — Paul's letters predate the Gospels AND confirm earlier creedal material: 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 contains a pre-Pauline creed Paul explicitly says he "received" (parelabon) — meaning it predates him. The creed confirms: Christ died for sins, was buried, was raised on the third day. Scholars date this creed to within 2–5 years of the crucifixion. Paul received divine Christology — he did not invent it.
Point 3 — Paul met the Jerusalem apostles who confirmed his Gospel: Galatians 1:18–2:9: Paul spent time with Peter and James (the brother of Jesus) — the inner circle of eyewitnesses. In Galatians 2:2, when Paul presents his gospel to the Jerusalem leaders, they "added nothing" — they confirmed it. If Paul's divine Christology was invented, Peter and James — who knew Jesus personally — would have rejected it. They endorsed it.
Point 4 — The non-Pauline writings have identical Christology: James, 1 Peter, Hebrews, Revelation — all written by non-Pauline authors — all contain high divine Christology. John 1 is non-Pauline. Thomas's "my God" is non-Pauline. If Paul invented it, how did it independently appear in every branch of the early church?
Point 5 — Roman pagan Pliny the Younger confirms it in 112 AD: Writing to Emperor Trajan about Christians, Pliny reports they "sing hymns to Christ as to a god." 112 AD, in Bithynia, far from any single church's influence. A Roman governor — with no stake in Christian theology — confirms that worshipping Christ as divine was the practice across multiple Roman provinces. This is not Pauline. It is the universal Christian practice.
Polycarp of Smyrna, a disciple of the apostle John, martyred around 155 AD: "the eternal High Priest himself, the Son of God Jesus Christ" (Philippians 12.2), to whom he ascribes "glory… now and to the ages to come."
These men are one link from the apostles. That they speak of Jesus as God without argument or defensiveness shows the identification was already settled, not a later dispute.
This is part of the FaithLogic study library — the biblical, historical and manuscript case that Jesus is God, with every claim linked to its source. Open the interactive version for search, cross-references, read-aloud, and the full library.