In Defense of the Faith

Was Jesus Christ Really God

Question: Our adult Bible class teacher says Jesus was half God and half man. He insists that God can only act in response to our prayers and that when the one prayed for isn’t healed it’s because there hasn’t been enough prayer and fasting. Are these ideas biblical?

Response: No. Until evidence to the contrary arises, however, let’s give the teacher the benefit of the doubt and assume that he believes what is right but is having difficulty expressing it. Yes, God is Jesus’ Father and Mary is His mother, but that doesn’t make Him half God and half man. That error is similar to the Roman Catholic teaching that Mary is “the mother of God.” Jesus existed as God from all eternity and thus eons before Mary was born. Obviously, then, she is not the mother of Jesus as God but only of the human body by which He was born into this world.

Mary was a virgin when Jesus was born. Consequently, as the Bible tells us, the baby she gave birth to was conceived by no man but by the Holy Spirit. It is impossible for us to understand fully what that means, but we know what it doesn’t mean. The virgin birth is not like having an Irish father and French mother and thus being half Irish and half French.

Jesus is fully God and fully man: “God manifest in the flesh” (1 Timothy:3:16And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
See All...), not half God manifest in half flesh. The same verse calls this a “great . . . mystery.” Isaiah

called the virgin-born child “Emmanuel,” which means “God [not half God] with us” (Isaiah:7:14Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
See All...; cf. Matthew:1:23Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
See All...) and “the mighty God [not half-God], the everlasting Father” (Isaiah:9:6For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
See All...). If this were not the case, Jesus could not be our Savior.

Throughout the Old Testament God says that He is the only Savior (Isaiah:43:11I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.
See All...; 45:15, 21; Hosea:13:4Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me.
See All...). Obviously, this must be true because salvation is an infinite work, including as it must the full payment of the infinite penalty for sin required by God’s infinite justice—something that only God could accomplish. Consequently, for Jesus to be our Savior, He must be God. Paul called Him “God our Savior” (1 Timothy:1:1Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope;
See All...; 2:3; Titus:1:3But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Saviour;
See All...–4; 2:10, 13; 3:4), as did Peter (2 Peter:1:1Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:
See All...) and Jude (verse 25).

Yet the Savior must be man as well, because it is man who is the sinner, not God. The penalty for sin is pronounced against man, not against God; therefore, it must be paid by a man. But no finite man could pay that penalty. Thus, God, in His infinite love and grace, became a man through the virgin birth so that He, as a man, could take the judgment we deserved and make it possible for us to be forgiven.

To be our Savior, Jesus had to be fully God (Isaiah:43:11I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.
See All...) and fully man (Romans:5:12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
See All...–21), not a hybrid composed of half of each. Ask your teacher if this is what he means.

Our Prayers

That God doesn’t need our prayers to act is obvious. He managed to exist for an eternity and to create the universe and angels and mankind without our prayers. Certainly our prayers didn’t cause Christ to be born into the world and to die for our sins. Nor is it our prayers that will usher in a new universe, though God gives us the privilege to pray, “Thy kingdom come.”

If God could act only in response to our prayers, He would be at our mercy, His hands tied most of the time, unable to do what He in His infinite wisdom and knowledge knows ought to be done but that we in our limited understanding were ignorant of or hadn’t thought about. Moreover, He couldn’t meet emergencies that we didn’t know would occur and thus hadn’t prayed about. The idea that God “can only act in response to our prayers” is unbiblical and illogical.

To say that failure to be healed results from too little prayer and fasting is equally false. That teaching implies that we can cause God to do whatever we pray for if we pray and fast long and hard enough—in other words, that we can impose our will upon Him. What about God’s will? It also suggests that God’s will is to heal everyone every time. On the contrary, He has something better for us than perpetuating our lives endlessly in these bodies of sin.