Five reasons to believe Jesus is God

Why do I believe that Jesus is God the Son? Or do I really? How would I know if I do? In John 16:29-32 the disciples thought they fully and finally knew who Jesus was, but Jesus made it really clear that they didn’t. They were about to forsake him and Jesus pointed out if you really understood who I am you would not run back home when the going got tough.

In his first letter John knows it is crucial that we truly understand and believe who Jesus is, he explains why it is so crucial, and then gives us five evidences to help us know.

1 John 4:20-5:12

How do we know if we love God?

1 John 4:19 is the swing verse in this section. It changes the emphasis from us being loved by God to us loving God in response. The two are connected; it is when we come to know and believe God’s love for us, that we respond by loving God. His love comes first, we would never love God had he not loved us first.

Now v20 reminds us that it is easy to say “I love God”, even easier to sing, but how do we know it is true? As usual John says if it is true it will be manifest – it will come out in our lives - in two ways.

1. We will love God’s people

2. We will keep God’s commands

Then John points out that keeping God’s commands isn’t that easy or natural, hence it is a clear evidence. This world isn’t set up to help us keep God’s commands. It’s not that the world is deliberately trying to make life difficult for Christians but it is operating on different principles such as pleasing themselves, being popular, having fun, making money etc not pleasing God. Keeping God’s commands are not even considered.

Professor Gooding gives the illustration of his bank manager who was a believer and was asked by his executives to join the Freemasons, for purely business reasons. They didn’t care about his beliefs, it was about contacts, and he risked his job by refusing. Think of the many ways pressure is put on Christians today to do things that are not pleasing to God:

1. Pressure on sports professionals to bow the knee to Black Lives Matter (thus supporting all that the BLM movement stands for)

2. Doctors and nurses may soon be asked to take part in abortions as part of their job

3. Corporations are pressurised into showing full support for queer theory philosophies

4. Churches could be forced to perform gay marriages

5. Many jobs don’t care if they require you to work all the hours of the day and neglect your family and your relationship with God.

God and his Law are simply not considered. Many of our difficulties as Christians come about, not because everyone is out to get us, but because we have a completely different agenda. The agenda in the world is often just about good PR, being seen to be progressive, making money, and they don’t take kindly to us standing in the way of this. So it takes a lot of courage to refuse. What will help us have the courage to stand faithful to God and overcome the world with all of its pressure? Two things:

1. The new birth (5:4)

2. Our faith that Jesus is the Son of God (5:5)

The new birth

God doesn’t leave it up to our own strength, he puts new life within us, his very life. And it keeps God’s commands by nature. Like a bird overcomes gravity without trying, by it’s nature. As our new life grows it changes our heart to love God’s commands. They are no longer burdensome, they become beautiful. We begin to love God’s laws. We want to keep his commands and please him.

Our faith that Jesus is the Son of God

How does that help us overcome the world? Whether or not we believe the simple fact that Jesus is the Son of God?

Think about it. If he is the Son of God then he is worth every sacrifice. If he isn’t then he is not worth making any sacrifice for. As C. S. Lewis puts it “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”

We all ‘know’ that Jesus is the Son of God from Sunday School but we can tell whether we really believe it by whether we sacrifice for him or not. This is especially evident when the world applies pressure to us and threatens our job, our future, our reputations. It is truly believing that he really is the Son of God that overcomes the world.

How do we know Jesus is the Son of God?

John then gives us at least five reasons. (There are many different views on these verses but I will give mine and you can take it or leave it.)

1. He came by water (5:6) His coming by water refers to his baptism by John the Baptist. It was his official introduction by his official forerunner as prophesied by Isaiah. John was sent to prepare the way for Yahweh/God to come (Isaiah 40:3). Jesus didn’t introduce his claim to be the Son of God, he was introduced as the Son of God to Israel by John the Baptist (John 1:26-34). John the Baptist was clear that the one he was sent to introduce was “before me”, existed before John (even though Jesus was younger than John) therefore implying Jesus’ pre-existence. John also insisted that Jesus was so great he was not even worthy to untie his sandal.

2. He came by blood (5:6) John also introduced the fact that the Son of God was coming by blood i.e. coming to die. John introduced him as the “Lamb of God” (John 1:29). No-one else in history ever dared to dream up a claim that they had come to die to make atonement for the sins of the world. If any ordinary man said that we would lock them up. Jesus claimed that very thing. Credibly. The eyewitnesses verified that Jesus was indeed determined to die as his purpose in coming into the world, and that he chose to die rather than being killed (John 10:18, Mark 15:37). Only a sinless and divine person could do that.

3. The Spirit also testifies (5:8) To emphasise his greatness further John the Baptist said I am a mere man who baptises people in water but he will baptise people in the Holy Spirit. Who could do that? The Holy Spirit is God so only God could baptise people into God. Jesus did just that on the day of Pentecost when he poured his Spirit on his followers (Acts 2).

4. The Father also has given evidence (5:9) The Father spoke directly from heaven on several occasions confirming his identity as his Son. Furthermore, the Father raised him from the dead, and invited him to ascend and sit at his right hand to declare to the whole Universe that Jesus is his Son.

5. The evidence of the effects of his salvation (5:10) When we put our trust in Christ we become part of the evidence for who he is. How do you know honey is sweet? Try it! How do you know Jesus is the Son of God? Trust him! When people put their trust in Jesus they find out that he is true. He can deal with our sin and guilt, he can bring us into a genuine relationship with God, he can open our eyes to the truth about ourselves, life, God, eternity, everything.

There are many, really good reasons to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Let’s ask ourselves ‘do I need to think through the evidence again?’

We can easily think we know and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, but John says we can tell how much we really believe it by how much we “overcome this world” i.e. keep God’s commandments when the world makes it especially difficult to do so.

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