The early church leader, Bishop Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) was once accosted by a heathen who showed him his idol and said,
“Here is my god; where is yours?”
Augustine replied,
“I cannot show you my God; not because there is no God to show but because you have no eyes to see Him.”
There is abundant evidence confirming that, from the earliest days of the church, Jesus was worshipped as God. The difficulty in seeing this is not because of a lack of evidence but because many are wilfully blind.
The Disciples believed Jesus was God
The primary evidence that the disciples were convinced about Jesus being God comes from their recorded eyewitness testimonies, their radical shift in behaviour after the crucifixion and resurrection, and their willingness to endure martyrdom for their conviction in the divinity of Jesus. As strict first-century Jewish monotheists, attributing divinity to a man was the ultimate blasphemy, meaning their conviction required overwhelming proof. They were convinced because of the evidence.
The New Testament records multiple instances where the disciples explicitly identified Jesus as God.
Thomas’s Confession
Upon seeing and touching the resurrected Jesus, the historically skeptical disciple Thomas directly addressed Him saying:
“My Lord and my God” John 20:28
Jesus accepted this worship without correction.
Peter’s Declaration
Simon Peter declared,
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Matthew 16:16
Peter later wrote:
“. . . the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ." 2 Peter 1:1
John’s Theology
The Apostle John opened his Gospel by stating,
"In the beginning was the Word . . and the Word was God," John 1:1
He then clarifies this statement by saying:
"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1:14
Acts of Worship and Divine Prerogatives
The disciples did not just call Jesus God; they treated Him as God by attributing to him features reserved strictly for Yahweh.
Receiving Worship
In Jewish law, worshiping anyone other than God was strictly forbidden. Yet, the disciples openly worshiped Jesus after He calmed a storm:
" Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.' Matthew 14:33
Following his resurrection, Jesus met the women returning from the tomb; they took hold of his feet and worshiped him:
“Suddenly Jesus met them. ‘Greetings,’ he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him.” Matthew 28:9
After the resurrection, the eleven disciples met Jesus on a designated mountain in Galilee, where they worshiped him:
“Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.” Matthew 28:16-17
After witnessing Jesus ascend into heaven from the Mount of Olives, the disciples worshiped him:
“Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.” Luke 24:52-53
Forgiving Sins
The disciples documented Jesus performing actions that only God had the authority to do. Jesus explicitly forgave sins multiple times during his earthly ministry to demonstrate his divine authority. Sin is primarily the offence against God and so only God can forgive us. Jesus claimed that right.
Jesus forgave a paralysed man's sins to prove ‘that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,’ before he healed him:
“When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralysed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves,
“Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them,
“Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to this paralysed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”
So he said to the man,
“I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”
He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying,
“We have never seen anything like this!” Mark 2:5-12
The right to forgive sin implies that he also has the right to condemn people for their sin.
Jesus also forgave the sins of a woman who anointed his feet with perfume, stating,
“Your sins are forgiven,” and, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace” Luke 7:48-50
The Radical Transformation in the Disciples After the Resurrection
The psychological and behavioural shift of the disciples provides strong historical evidence of their genuine conviction.
From Cowards to Catalysts
Following Jesus' arrest, the disciples fled in terror and hid. Weeks later, they were completely transformed, boldly preaching His divinity and resurrection in the very city where He was executed.
Enduring Martyrdom
Most of the disciples faced horrific deaths—including crucifixion, stoning, and beheading—specifically for refusing to recant their testimony that Jesus was the risen Lord. While people may die for a lie they believe is true, psychologists and historians note that people do not willingly die for a hoax they know they fabricated.
Application of Old Testament ‘Yahweh’ Passages to Jesus
In their early letters and preaching, the disciples routinely took sacred Old Testament texts about Yahweh and applied them directly to Jesus. For example, Paul explained that Christian believe in their hearts that Jesus is Lord and openly acknowledge him before others.
“If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Romans 10:9-15
Significantly Paul is quoting Joel 2:32 but he explains that it is Jesus we must call on to be saved because he is the Lord.
Early Non-Christians confirm that Jesus was regarded as divine
Historians do not rely solely on the New Testament to verify that the earliest Christians viewed Jesus as God,. Several early, non-Christian Roman, Greek, and Jewish sources explicitly document that Christians regarded, worshiped, and died for Jesus as a divine being.
Because these writers were often highly hostile to the Christian movement, their records provide powerful, independent proof that the doctrine of Jesus' deity was not a late invention, but a core belief from the very beginning.
Pliny the Younger (c. 112 AD)
Pliny the Younger was a prominent Roman senator and the imperial governor of Bithynia (modern-day Turkey). In his famous correspondence with Emperor Trajan (Epistles X.96), Pliny detailed his interrogations of captured Christians to understand their illegal rituals. He reported that the accused confessed that the core of their ‘error’ was meeting before dawn on a fixed day to:
“ . . . sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god.”
This is the earliest pagan description of Christian worship. It conclusively proves that within a few decades of the crucifixion, Christians were actively worshiping a historical man, Jesus, as Yahweh.
Lucian of Samosata (c. 115–180 AD)
Lucian was a famous Greek satirist who frequently mocked the cultural and religious movements of the Roman Empire. In his work ‘The Passing of Peregrinus’, he targeted Christians for their gullibility but inadvertently left an accurate record of their theology. Lucian wrote that the Christians "worship the crucified sage" and live under his laws. He mocked them because they had been denied the traditional gods of Greece and instead ‘worship that crucified sophist himself and live under his laws.’ Lucian’s writing confirms two critical facts, the early Christians explicitly worshiped Jesus, and this worship was directed to a specific, historically crucified person rather than an abstract mythological deity.
Celsus (c. 175 AD)
Celsus was a fierce, anti-Christian Greek philosopher who wrote a comprehensive polemic against Christianity titled ‘The True Word’. Although his original text is lost, it was preserved because the early Church father Origen quoted it heavily to refute it. Celsus fiercely attacked Christians for claiming that Jesus was God manifest in human form. He questioned how a true God could suffer, be executed, or have such a humble origin, arguing that if Jesus were truly divine, he would have vanished from the cross or taken vengeance on his executors. Celsus’s frustration confirms that the deity of Christ was a non-negotiable cornerstone of Christian theology. His attacks prove that Christians were firmly monotheistic but rigidly insisted that Jesus was the second person of the Trinity.
The Jewish Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 43a)
The Talmud compiles centuries of ancient Jewish oral traditions and legal commentary. Its passages concerning Jesus (Yeshu) are naturally highly critical, written from the perspective of their religious authorities who viewed him as a heretic. The text states:
“. . . on the eve of the Passover, Yeshu was hanged” because he “practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy”.
In first-century Judaism, ‘enticing Israel to apostasy’ specifically meant leading people away from the worship of Yahweh toward a false god (Deuteronomy 13). By accusing Jesus of this crime, Jewish records independently confirm that Jesus claimed divine authority and that his disciples successfully convinced people to worship him as divine.
Early Christians died for the belief in the Divinity of Jesus
In the Greco-Roman world, polytheism was the norm, and Rome allowed captured nations to worship their own local deities. However, the Roman Empire required all subjects to participate in the civic cult by making a small sacrificial offering of incense to the gods and proclaiming ‘Caesar is Lord’.
Early Christians were tortured and executed not simply because they loved Jesus, but because their rigid monotheism forced them to declare:
‘Jesus alone is Lord’.
By refusing to give divine honours to the Emperor or pagan idols, they were branded as ‘atheists’ and traitors to the state.
Highly documented historical accounts detail early Christians who chose horrific deaths over compromising the exclusive deity of Christ.
Polycarp of Smyrna (c. 155 AD)
Polycarp was the Bishop of Smyrna and a direct, personal disciple of the Apostle John. As an 86-year-old man, he was arrested and dragged into a packed public stadium. The Roman proconsul took pity on his age and pleaded with him to swear by the fortune of Caesar, curse Christ, and say, ‘Away with the atheists!’.
Polycarp famously looked at the pagan crowd, pointed at them, and said, ‘Away with the atheists!’ He then told the proconsul:
‘Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?’
He refused to offer incense to the Emperor, insisting that Jesus alone held his absolute allegiance. He was tied to a stake and burned alive.
Justin Martyr (c. 165 AD)
Justin was a brilliant philosopher who converted to Christianity and wrote formal defences of the faith directly to the Roman Emperor. In his writings, he explicitly defended the doctrine that Jesus was the Creator God in human flesh.
Justin and six of his companions were arrested in Rome and brought before the urban prefect, Rusticus. Rusticus ordered them to sacrifice to the Roman gods and submit to the imperial edict. Justin responded:
‘No right-thinking person falls away from piety to impiety.’
When asked if he believed he would go to heaven if he died, Justin asserted his complete conviction in the supreme authority of Christ over Rome. Justin and his students steadfastly refused to worship the idols, stating they only worshiped the true God and Jesus Christ. They were scourged and beheaded.
Ignatius of Antioch (c. 108 AD)
Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch, was also heavily associated with the early Apostles. In his letters to early churches, he repeatedly referred to Jesus using the explicit phrase”
“Our God, Jesus Christ”.
Arrested during the reign of Emperor Trajan for refusing to participate in public pagan sacrifices, he was marched across the empire in chains to face execution in Rome. Rather than looking for a loophole or recanting to save his life, Ignatius wrote letters to churches along his journey, begging them not to try and rescue him. He wrote:
‘I prefer death in Christ Jesus to power over the farthest limits of the earth. He who died in place of us is the one object of my quest.’
He was thrown to wild beasts in the Roman Colosseum, refusing to compromise his declaration of Christ's singular divinity.
The Scillan Martyrs (180 AD)
The trial of the Scillan Martyrs provides an official Roman courtroom transcript (The Acts of the Scillan Martyrs) of a group of twelve ordinary North African Christians who were executed in Carthage. The proconsul Saturninus offered them a clear path to freedom:
“Swear by the genius of our lord the Emperor, and pray for his prosperity.”
One of the Christians, Speratus, answered directly for the group:
"I do not recognise the empire of this world . . . because I know my Lord, the King of kings and Emperor of all nations.”
Another martyr, Donata, added:
"Give honour to Caesar as Caesar, but fear God alone."
When they refused to grant Caesar the divine honours reserved for Jesus, they were immediately condemned and executed by the sword.
The Two Slaves: Blandina and her Companions (177 AD)
During a brutal wave of persecution in Lyons (modern-day France), hundreds of Christians were systematically tortured to break their resolve. A young slave girl named Blandina became an enduring symbol of resistance. Blandina was subjected to a gauntlet of horrors from morning until night, including being scourged, torn by wild beasts, forced onto a red-hot iron chair, and bound in a net to be trampled by bulls.
The Roman authorities admitted they were completely exhausted because no amount of pain could make her curse Christ or sacrifice to the Emperor. Throughout her hours of agony, her singular, repeated chant was:
“I am a Christian, and nothing vile is done among us.”
She died asserting that Christ was her sole master and Lord.
BVP
This article has been posted on the website www.bvpalmer.com where there are many other helpful articles and videos. The article “Is Jesus Really God” gives more detail on this important subject.
Christchurch Baldock is a Bible teaching gospel centred local church. More details can be found on its website. It meets every Sunday morning at 10.30 am in Knights Templar School, Baldock
Bernard can be contacted at berniepalmer1@sky.com
