How do we know Jesus is God?

[POJIUJH]

The following links might be of help to you.

The first link is to a list of 351 Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the New Testament:

accordingtothescriptures.org/prophecy/353prophecies.html

And below are two links to a radio program here on Catholic Answers. I haven’t yet listened to them myself, yet I don’t doubt that they will be beneficial.

catholic.com/radio/shows/how-we-know-jesus-is-the-messiah-6012
catholic.com/radio/shows/how-we-know-jesus-is-the-messiah-encore-6610

This is the reason why Our Lord gave us prophecies, so that we would know for certain when the true Messiah had arrived. A fulfilled prophecy authenticates two things at once, the prophet and the prophesied. They show that God really had spoken through the prophet and that the prophesied Messiah is genuine. If the prophetically authenticated Messiah turns out to be the Son of God incarnate, He still has the full backing of the prophets.

I think this is a good way to approach this question as the prophetical facts really are quite amazing. Psalm 22 for instance, is about as clear as could possibly be imagined as a prophecy of the Passion and institution of the New Covenant, bearing in mind that the crucifixion is historically verifiable, and this was written around 1000 BC.

Aside from OT, also New Testament prophecies have come true historically, such as the destruction of the temple in 70 AD (Mark 13:1-2). Also, quite interestingly, that Israel will not convert until just prior to the end of the world (Romans 11:25-26) it has been two thousand years and that one is still heading to it’s mark.

On top of these prophecies, Our Lords miracles were more than well known, so much so that even the pharisees didn’t deny that He could work wonders and cast out demons - they had to deny Him by saying that He did them by the power of the devil.

And yet the martyrs didn’t even need to know all of this before they were ready to leave their families, mammas and poppas, homes, friends, possessions and comforts to be tortured and killed for absolutely no possible ulterior motive, simply because they would not deny Him.

I hope this helps, God love you.

 

[Sochi]

The teaching of Jesus is either divine or it is human…

Yes, but that is completely the purview of the listener. And such a either/or doesn’t cover other possibilities and considerations. It is simplistic, at best.

 

[RedFox0456]

Direct route: Go and spend time before our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. No, really. Call your parish and find when they offer adoration. Then go and ask our Lord Himself. But, be as patient with Him as He has been with you. As Fr. Benedict Groeschel says, “When you are aware that He is there, you will be changed.”

Yes. Yes. Yes. This is not just a poetic saying. You can literally be changed.

 

[po18guy]

Yes, but that is completely the purview of the listener. And such a either/or doesn’t cover other possibilities and considerations. It is simplistic, at best.

And your offering is???

Jesus said “let your yes mean yes and your no, no.” Do you judge that to be simplistic?

 

[Auntie_A]

Yes, but that is completely the purview of the listener. And such a either/or doesn’t cover other possibilities and considerations. It is simplistic, at best.

Sochi: Your commentaries can be seen to be as dismissive of reason and logic than the comments you critique. Even if someone is not a believer, the information we have about Jesus’ life comes mostly from scripture, perhaps a bit from historical documents (some might say that the Bible is a historical document). Jesus said many things about Himself and His own divinity.

He also was crucified for stating He was God. You may call this simplistic but most people would try to deny these claims in order not to be crucified or killed. My premise, as is the premise of most seeking Christians, is that Jesus was either God or a crazy man. and being that the fruits of His wisdom have proven to be good, I believe His words that He was God.

And that is the “purview” of this listener.

 

[katrntogo]

I would recommend reading, “Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity”. He addresses somewhat indirectly your questions.

 

[Sochi]

Sochi: Your commentaries can be seen to be as dismissive of reason and logic than the comments you critique. Even if someone is not a believer, the information we have about Jesus’ life comes mostly from scripture, perhaps a bit from historical documents (some might say that the Bible is a historical document). Jesus said many things about Himself and His own divinity.

He also was crucified for stating He was God. You may call this simplistic but most people would try to deny these claims in order not to be crucified or killed. My premise, as is the premise of most seeking Christians, is that Jesus was either God or a crazy man. and being that the fruits of His wisdom have proven to be good, I believe His words that He was God.

And that is the “purview” of this listener.

Thanks, Auntie. Yes, I suppose they can be seen as dismissive, if one is defensive. I’m only asking for clarity. And it isn’t so much about whether Jeshua, or whatever His proper name was, existed, it is about the possible meaning of his words being stuffed into the constraint of a particularly limiting and misleading level of logic. For my part, I see the hypostatic union rather differently that when I was a standard issue Catholic. And I understand why and how Tonyrey would take the approach he did. I’ve used it often myself. Ultimately, it is a fail, while giving the questioner the sense of supporting the faith. Up to a point, that works. All I’m urging is to dig deeper with a bigger shovel.

Thanks for taking your time to comment.

 

[tonyrey]

Yes, but that is completely the purview of the listener. And such a either/or doesn’t cover other possibilities and considerations. It is simplistic, at best.

What are the other **realistic **possibilities?

 

[oldcelt]

I am certainly no expert in philosophy, but isn’t saying that someone is something because they say so a fallacy? It’s like the sola scriptura people who say the bible is all truth because it says it is (Even though it is many books from many sources) Add to that that many, many down through the ages have claimed to be something that they weren’t.

So far as the quality of teachings, many great teachers have come among us on a wide range of subjects, yet none of them are held up as God.

I have often heard “liberals” criticized on this board for believing something because it “feels” good or right. It seems to me that some of that is going on here, but for a different reason.

Just my thoughts.

John

 

[Jon_S_1]

I am certainly no expert in philosophy, but isn’t saying that someone is something because they say so a fallacy? It’s like the sola scriptura people who say the bible is all truth because it says it is (Even though it is many books from many sources) Add to that that many, many down through the ages have claimed to be something that they weren’t.

So far as the quality of teachings, many great teachers have come among us on a wide range of subjects, yet none of them are held up as God.

I have often heard “liberals” criticized on this board for believing something because it “feels” good or right. It seems to me that some of that is going on here, but for a different reason.

Just my thoughts.

John

I would agree with you if it was just one person…just Jesus for example.

But we have Jesus and dozens or perhaps hundreds of others who took it to their death. Why if it was a lie? Would not one of them recant ?

So that lends much more evidence than just one persons word. If it was all a lie, they would not have held it to death. Men do stand and die for truth though.

 

[Mark1124]

I am certainly no expert in philosophy, but isn’t saying that someone is something because they say so a fallacy? It’s like the sola scriptura people who say the bible is all truth because it says it is (Even though it is many books from many sources) Add to that that many, many down through the ages have claimed to be something that they weren’t.

So far as the quality of teachings, many great teachers have come among us on a wide range of subjects, yet none of them are held up as God.

I have often heard “liberals” criticized on this board for believing something because it “feels” good or right. It seems to me that some of that is going on here, but for a different reason.

Just my thoughts.

John

Yes, it would be fallacious to say someone is something merely because they claim to be, but I don’t know of anyone who says “Jesus claimed to be God, therefore He is God.” On the other hand, it is reasonable to say “Jesus claimed to be God and He rose from the dead, therefore He is God.” So the question is, did Jesus actually rise from the dead? The series of blog posts here gives a very convincing argument that He did.

 

[Jon_S_1]

Where in the OT is a prophecy about their coming Messiah being crucified on a cross?

.

Isaiah 53:

Who has believed what we have heard?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering[a] and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces**
he was despised, and we held him of no account.
4 Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people.
9 They made his grave with the wicked
and his tomb[c] with the rich,[d]
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.[e]
When you make his life an offering for sin,[f]
he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days;
through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.
11 Out of his anguish he shall see light;[g]
he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
The righteous one,[h] my servant, shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he poured out himself to death,
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

Wisdom 2:12-20

12: “Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training. 13: He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. 14: He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; 15: the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. 16: We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. 17: Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; 18: for if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. 19: Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. 20: Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected.”**

 

[strange_guy]

Well Jesus says multiple times in the Gospel that he IS God. And he was crucified because of that, isn’t it true? So, I guess the most basic thing in the Christian faith is that Jesus is the son of God. That’s what’s written in the bible. But how do you know it? Perhaps you should ask the Holy Spirit to convince you, because the bible says it’s the Holy Spirit which convinces us.

In my own experience: I’ve had dreams, actually nightmares, in which I was being tortured by demons, and I could absolutely know that it was real. And when I called the name of Jesus, I was set free of those demons. And I knew it actually happened, it wasn’t just a dream. This was for me just a confirmation of something I’m already totally convinced: Jesus is God and he is my savior. But I don’t know how it will work out for you, what I would do in your place is really ask God to show you the truth.

 

[Jon_S_1]

Thanks, Jon. But I don’t see anything in there about being crucified…am I missing it? Can you bold the specific lines?

.

I can’t go back and edit so I will post it again with bolding. It does not specifically say crucifixion. But it does talk about immense sufferings and shameful deaths/execution. Crucifixion wasn’t invented until Jesus’ time, so it makes sense that a more general sense of execution be used hundreds of years prior.

Re: How do we know Jesus is God?
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaddyGirl
Where in the OT is a prophecy about their coming Messiah being crucified on a cross?

.
Isaiah 53:

Who has believed what we have heard?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering[a] and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him of no account.
4 Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.**
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people.
9 They made his grave with the wicked
and his tomb[c] with the rich,[d]
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.[e]
When you make his life an offering for sin,[f]
he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days;
through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.
11 Out of his anguish he shall see light;[g]
he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
The righteous one,[h] my servant, shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he poured out himself to death,
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

Wisdom 2:12-20

12: "Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training. 13: He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. 14: He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; 15: the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. 16: We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. 17: Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; 18: for if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. 19: Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. 20: Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected."**

 

[Jon_S_1]

Let me know if you want me to line by line show how Jesus perfectly fulfilled these. It will take a lot of time, but I will do it if someone needs it done.

 

[CarmelJerome]

For me, many of the implications of Jesus’ sayings are persuasive that he considers himself above any of the other prophets, and that in no place does he ever express the sort of consciousness that he himself is a sinner like others. Often things that one doesn’t normally think of as proof are evidential – as when Jesus says “Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these”, referring to flowers, indicating in an almost casual way that he possesses personal knowledge, and that he affirms it on his own say-so; while his claims of divinity are generally deferred to the Father’s witness.

I suggest Brant Pitre’s splendid “Jewish Roots of the Eucharist” for one recent exposition on how devout Jews came to assert Jesus’ claims to divinity.

 

[oldcelt]

I would agree with you if it was just one person…just Jesus for example.

But we have Jesus and dozens or perhaps hundreds of others who took it to their death. Why if it was a lie? Would not one of them recant ?

So that lends much more evidence than just one persons word. If it was all a lie, they would not have held it to death. Men do stand and die for truth though.

900 drank the Kool aid at Jonestown…many burned to death with their children at Waco, Russians died by the millions under Stalin…getting executed in the Roman Empire of that time was not difficult. This argument, and I have heard it for years, doesn’t prove anything except that humans will die for causes.

 

[Jon_S_1]

900 drank the Kool aid at Jonestown…many burned to death with their children at Waco, Russians died by the millions under Stalin…getting executed in the Roman Empire of that time was not difficult. This argument, and I have heard it for years, doesn’t prove anything except that humans will die for causes.

No it’s quite different.

Do you really believe that 100% of the followers of the Jonestown cult, if drug off, imprisoned and taken before an authority that said " deny that Jesus rose from the dead and you will live a free man" would have refused??

Come on, I can almost guarantee not 10% would have gone to their death in such a situation. As it was by most accounts the vast majority in Jonestown and certainly WACO were forcibly killed.

Not anywhere near comparable.

 

[oldcelt]

Yes, it would be fallacious to say someone is something merely because they claim to be, but I don’t know of anyone who says “Jesus claimed to be God, therefore He is God.” On the other hand, it is reasonable to say “Jesus claimed to be God and He rose from the dead, therefore He is God.” So the question is, did Jesus actually rise from the dead? The series of blog posts here gives a very convincing argument that He did.

I’m certain that the arguments are interesting, but their can be no proof. That must be a matter of faith, and faith alone

 

[oldcelt]

No it’s quite different.

Do you really believe that 100% of the followers of the Jonestown cult, if drug off, imprisoned and taken before an authority that said " deny that Jesus rose from the dead and you will live a free man" would have refused??

Come on, I can almost guarantee not 10% would have gone to their death in such a situation. As it was by most accounts the vast majority in Jonestown and certainly WACO were forcibly killed.

Not anywhere near comparable.

You are guessing when I have offered cold, hard fact…what about the millions I mentioned with Stalin and other personality cults. Giving up one’s life does not mean that the cause was good. In fact, it can often mean the precise opposite.