Chapter 24 — Jesus as "God" in the Rest of the New Testament
The Incarnate Christ and His Critics (Komoszewski & Bowman, 2024)
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John's writings call Jesus "God" in four places, but John isn't alone. Outside his Gospel and letters, several other New Testament texts call Jesus God explicitly, written by at least three different authors and spanning the breadth of the New Testament canon.
Chapter 24 walks through these texts one at a time. The picture that emerges is clear: calling Jesus "God" isn't a quirk of John's theology, and it isn't a late addition to the tradition. It's a strand running through the entire New Testament.
Romans 9:5: the Messiah, Who Is God Over All
Paul is in the middle of a heartfelt lament about his Jewish kinspeople, who haven't believed in Jesus. He lists the privileges they've been given: the covenants, the law, the worship, the promises, the patriarchs. Then he adds, "and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever" (Rom. 9:5).
Scholars have debated who "who is God over all" refers to. Some try to separate it from Christ by punctuating it as an independent doxology to the Father: "God who is over all be blessed forever, amen." (Ancient manuscripts have no punctuation, so this is a real interpretive question, not a textual one.) But most Greek scholars today, weighing the grammar, conclude the phrase refers to Christ. Christ "is God over all, blessed forever."
If that's right, this is a remarkable statement to find in the middle of a thoroughly Jewish argument. The Messiah, who came from Israel's own flesh, is himself "God over all." Not just a human Messiah. The one who is God above all things. And this from Paul, a trained Pharisee who was the last person on earth who would say this carelessly.
Titus 2:13: Our Great God and Savior Jesus Christ
"...waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13).
Paul describes the return of Christ as "the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." The grammar here (scholars call it the Granville Sharp Rule) strongly indicates that "our great God and Savior" is a single description of one person: Jesus Christ.
So this verse presents Christ's return as the appearance of God himself. Not a divine representative. Not a mighty angel. "Our great God." What Paul says we're waiting for isn't someone who will introduce us to God. It's the one who is God, coming.
Hebrews 1:8: Your Throne, O God, Is Forever and Ever
The first chapter of Hebrews argues, at length, that Jesus is infinitely above the angels. Along the way, the author quotes Psalm 45:6-7 and applies it to the Son: "But of the Son he says, 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom'" (Heb. 1:8).
Psalm 45 was originally addressed to a Davidic king. But Hebrews reads it as describing the Son, with God himself addressing the Son as "God." The Father calls the Son "O God."
This matters on more than one level. The Son is addressed with the divine title not by humans straining to honor him, but by the Father. And the context, God addressing someone as "God," rules out any honorary or metaphorical reading. This is the Father affirming the divine nature of the Son.
2 Peter 1:1: the Righteousness of Our God and Savior Jesus Christ
"To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Pet. 1:1).
Like Titus 2:13, this verse applies "God and Savior" to Jesus Christ through a construction that links both titles to one person. Peter addresses his readers as those who stand in faith through the righteousness of "our God and Savior Jesus Christ." There's no ambiguity in the language.
And Peter wrote this knowing personally who Jesus was. He'd walked with him, eaten with him, denied him, and been restored by him. If anyone understood what it meant to call Jesus "God," it was the man who saw him transfigured on a mountain (2 Pet. 1:16-18) and who confessed, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16).
The Pattern
Seven New Testament texts now call Jesus "God" explicitly:
John 1:1, 1:18, 20:28, 1 John 5:20 (John's writings)
Romans 9:5 (Paul)
Titus 2:13 (Paul)
Hebrews 1:8 (unknown author)
2 Peter 1:1 (Peter)
Three different authors. Multiple books. A span from the earliest New Testament writing to the later. This evidence isn't a fluke or a theological outlier. It's a consistent strand woven through the canon.
And remember, these are only the places where the word "God" is applied to Jesus directly. The evidence for his divine status goes far beyond this: the honors, the attributes, the names, the deeds, the seat of authority. The explicit "God" texts just confirm a pattern running through every layer of the New Testament.
Closing Thought
Read these texts together and something becomes clear: the New Testament's witness to the deity of Christ isn't a secret, an inference, or a matter of creative interpretation. It's right there, on the surface, in texts from multiple authors across multiple decades.
The question was never whether the New Testament teaches it. The question is whether we'll receive it.
Thomas received it. So did Paul, and Peter, and the author of Hebrews. So can we, not reluctantly, as the grudging conclusion of an argument, but gladly, as the recognition of the one we love.
My Lord and my God.
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