Even if I concede that Jesus said that he was god and that he performed all the prophesies and miracles described in the bible... that would make him pretty special, but how does that prove that he was the human incarnation of the creator of the universe? Isn't this a god-of-the-gaps argument... you can't explain something so you conclude that he must be god because you can't think of a better explanation? And according to the bible, Pharohs magicians were able to turn their staves to snakes, which is just as remarkable as any of the miracles that Jesus performed. This means there are humans with supernatural powers out there who obviously aren't divine. So why believe Jesus was divine?
I mean simply put, we believe what Jesus said about Himself, we believe what the earliest followers of Jesus said about Him, and we believe what has been confessed and believed, passed down to us from that earliest generation of Christians.
Sure, maybe Jesus was actually an alien with superpowers, or an angel, or any number of things. But that isn't the received faith of the Christian Church. Alternative views of Jesus were consistently rejected in favor of what is known as the orthodox position, which is what became written down and confessed in the Nicene Creed.
While the Nicene Creed specifically arose in response to the views of Arius, it also reflects the response toward other historically rejected positions, such as Adoptionism and Sabellianism.
We don't believe Jesus is God because we lack imagination to reach another position; we believe Jesus is God because this is consistently the consensus of faith we see from about as early as we can get in the history of Christianity.
The earliest Christian writings we have are the letters of St. Paul, and even granting the argument that some of the Pauline epistles weren't Pauline, those Pauline epistles which are agreed by all scholars as authentically Paul certainly demonstrate a high Christology, where Jesus is regarded as truly divine. For example, in his epistle to the Christian church in Philippi, Paul writes (Philippians 2:6) that Jesus, through in the form of God (ὃς ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ, hos en morphe theou), did not regard being God's equal (τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ, to einai isa theo) something to exploit. Paul continues by making an allusion to the Prophet Isaiah,
"so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord," - Philippians 2:10-11
"By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.’" - Isaiah 45:23
For Paul, Jesus' identity with the God of Israel seems pretty strong; though Paul likewise makes a distinction between Jesus as the Son, and the Father; and yet both the Son and the Father (and the Holy Spirit) are consistently spoken of as equally Divine. God the Father is obviously God, and the Son is also God in some sense, and the Holy Spirit is likewise God in some sense.
We continue to see this language in other works of the New Testament, for example, in the fourth Gospel the author begins his prologue by speaking of someone called the Logos being in the beginning, in fact being in the beginning with God and is, somehow, Himself also God,
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." - John 1:1
"Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος"
"In [the] beginning was the Logos and the Logos was face-to-face the God and God was the Logos"
The structure of "and God was the Logos" might be a literal word-for-word rendering of kai theos en ho logos, but grammatically "God" is describing the Logos here, and so to make it make sense in English it is translated "and the Logos was God". Think of it kind of like saying, "Large was the dog", it's not the way we'd say this in English, we'd say "the dog was large", or "Bob's was the car", we'd say "The car was Bob's".
The anonymously written Epistle to the Hebrews likewise presents this Christology,
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but in these last days [God] has spoken to us by His Son, whom He apppointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the express imprint of His Hypostasis, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power" - Hebrews 1:2-3
The same author continues,
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But of the Son He says, 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of justice is the scepter of Your kingdom.'" - Hebrews 1:8
As we move beyond the time of when these were written, and into the early 2nd century, we have the witness of persons such as St. Ignatius of Antioch, the successor to the Apostles Peter and Paul as bishop of Antioch, writing to several churches as he was being taken as a prisoner to Rome.
In his epistle to the Church in Ephesus, Ignatius writes what was likely an example of an early Christian hymn,
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There is one Physician who is possessed both of flesh and spirit; both made and not made; God existing in flesh; true life in death; both of Mary and of God; first passible and then impassible — even Jesus Christ our Lord." - St. Ignatius to the Ephesians, ch. 7
Throughout his letters he frequently says things like "Jesus Christ, our God", take for example these just from his letter to the Church in Rome,
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Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church which has obtained mercy, through the majesty of the Most High Father, and Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son; the Church which is beloved and enlightened by the will of Him that wills all things which are according to the love of Jesus Christ our God," - St. Ignatius to the Romans, ch. 1
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For our God, Jesus Christ, now that He is with the Father, is all the more revealed" - ibid. ch. 3
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I shall indeed be a man of God. Permit me to be an imitator of the suffering of my God." - ibid. ch. 6
We see in the writings of St. Justin, for example in his defense of the Christian religion addressed to Emperor Antonius Pius and the Roman Senate,
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the Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God." - St. Justin, the First Apology, ch. 63
And on and on it goes.
It is this repeated, continued confession going back to as far back as we can get in the history of Christianity of Jesus being understood to be God, that as the Son of God He is God, having Divinity with His Father. That's why Christians have and continue to believe this. It is as intrinsically fundamental to our religion as it can be, our bold confession, what makes Christianity Christianity at all, is that God became man.
-CryptoLutheran
