Conclusion

The evidence assembled in these pages has come from many directions, and that is precisely its strength. We have seen the fierce monotheism that the claim defied, and into which it was nonetheless born; the direct ascriptions of the title “God” to Christ in Paul, John, Hebrews, and Peter; the divine works He performed in His own name — forgiving sins, giving life, stilling the sea, judging the world; the appearances of the Son under the Old Covenant, when the Angel of the LORD bore the divine Name; the unmistakable self-disclosure of one who said “Before Abraham was, I am”; the worship He received and never once refused; the divine attributes He bears, from eternity to omnipresence; the startling antiquity of the confession, sung in hymns and prayed in liturgies within a generation of the cross; and the manuscripts that have carried it, unbroken, to our hands. No single strand could bear the weight alone. Woven together, they make a cord that cannot be broken.

From Argument to Adoration#

But the deity of Christ is not, in the end, a proposition to be filed away once it has won a debate. It is a Person to be met. The same Gospel that opens by calling the Word “God” (John 1:1) closes with a doubter on his knees before the risen Christ, saying the only thing left to say — “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28) — and hearing Jesus pronounce blessed all who would come to that same confession without having seen. Thomas did not arrive there by argument; he arrived by encounter. Yet the arguments are not therefore idle, for they clear the road of objections and leave the seeker face to face with the living Christ, where the real decision is made.

And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

This whole case exists to bring its reader to that confession, and to the worship which is its only fitting response. For if Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the one God of Israel come in the flesh, then He is not merely to be studied, admired, or even defended. He is to be adored. “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power” (Revelation 4:11) — and the Lamb who was slain is worthy of the very same. The argument ends, as it must, on its knees.