“Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.” (1 Timothy 3:16).
“God was manifested in the flesh refers to the Lord Jesus, and particularly to His Incarnation. True godliness was manifest in the flesh for the first time when the Savior was born as a Babe in Bethlehem’s manger.” (William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary p. 2090).
Incarnation literally means “to take on flesh” or, “God becomes flesh.” God became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the second Person of the “God Head” or “The Trinity,” which is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Jesus came with both divine and human natures. Jesus declared of himself “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30).
Many today refute the fact that Jesus is God. The Bible makes it abundantly clear that Jesus is God. In response to Philip, one of Jesus’s disciples, who asked Jesus, “Lord show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”
(John 14:8,9,11).
Jesus is God’s image. “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 . . . all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:15-17).
The Nicene Creed lays out the details of the relationship between Jesus and God the Father. It says, “We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father.” Since Jesus is “very God of very God” and “being of one substance with the Father” means that Jesus and the Father are one and the same, that is, co-equal and co-eternal.
Although Jesus is very God of very God, there is also the humanity of the Lord Jesus, which was absolutely essential for our salvation, and also making it possible for man to have a relationship with God.
As the “God-man,” Jesus came to reconcile sinful man to God, and whose holy character is of “purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong” (Habakkuk 1:13). Because of God’s pure and righteous nature, He cannot approve of sin in any way, shape, or form. Therefore, only Jesus’ death on the Cross could satisfy God’s justice that man repents of his sins and be forgiven. Didn’t He say, “You shall be holy for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:16).
The writer to the Hebrews says this about the Lord Jesus Christ: “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.” (Hebrews 1:3). William MacDonald makes a most insightful commentary on this passage about the Lord Jesus. “He is the outshining of God’s glory, that is, all the perfections that are found in God the Father are found in Him also. He is the effulgence or radiance of His glory. All the moral and spiritual glories of God are seen in Him.”
“Further, the Lord Jesus is the exact image of God’s essential being. This cannot, of course, refer to physical likeness because God is, in essence, a Spirit, It means that in every conceivable way Christ exactly represents the Father. No closer resemblance could be possible. The Son, being God, reveals to man by his words and ways exactly what God is like.”
(Believer’s Bible Commentary p. 2158). Very remarkable, indeed.
Since the Lord Jesus himself has declared, “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30), why should anyone doubt this truth? Even the Jews of His day took up stones to stone Jesus claiming it was blasphemy for Jesus to say that he and the Father are one. The reason they cited was “because you being a man, make yourself God.” (John 10:33). Some religions today will not accept the fact that Jesus is God.
The conclusion, therefore, is that God’s holy Word in many instances teaches and makes it very clear that the Lord Jesus Christ is Almighty God himself. And there is absolutely nothing to be gained by accepting or believing otherwise.
The writer to the Hebrews records what God the Father says about God the Son. “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.” (Hebrews 1:8). Also, Paul’s letter to Titus states that Christians are “waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.”
(Titus 2:13). When Jesus appeared to His disciples, He asked Thomas to put his finger and hand into the scars of the wounds He sustained on the Cross. Then Jesus asked Thomas not to doubt, but believe. Thomas answered Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:27,28).
and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son
from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).