Why must Jesus be God?

[Duckybill]

God calling His Son God:

Hebrews 1:8 (NKJV)
8 But to the Son He says: "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your Kingdom.

 

[lucaspa]

I have a simple question: Why must Jesus be God?

... Why is it necessary to believe that Jesus is God?

The people who came to the conclusion of Trinity started with the question: What does Jesus have to be in order for me to be saved? Their conclusion was that Jesus needed to be God.

The early Church had a number of different Christologies (who Jesus was). The earliest was Adoptionism. In this view Jesus was fully human of human parents. But he was the adopted son of God. If we followed Jesus and got to the close relationship he had with God, the idea was that we, too, could be adpoted by God as His child. You can still find Adoptionism in some sects in the Middle East.

But in the mainstream of Christianity, as I said, people concluded that Jesus a man could not save us. Yet Paul (and Jesus himself) clearly preached that belief in Jesus would result in salvation. Adoptionism didn't really seem to deliver salvation, so Christians came to accept Trinity and Jesus is God.

Now, I personally think Christianity would have been fine if Adoptionism had become the norm.

 

[Yoder777]

As a Christian, I believe that in Jesus, we find the decisive revelation of God. Instead of using doctrinal formulas like Trinitarianism, I'd rather just leave it at that.

 

[razeontherock]

Those 2 ideas can co-exist you know! Trinity is no "final" or "ultimate" revelation. It's jus t one more, that may or may not help us. After it is shown in it's entirety, we still have "the 7 Spirits of the Lord, in front of the Throne."

I think that's significant.