Today we’re going to trace how a Jewish rabbi got promoted—over centuries—from messiah to Son of God to God himself. This is the story of how Jesus became God.
This is pretty much what my deconstruction has brought me to and it’s liberating. But I could be wrong. And that’s totally fine, because I don’t need to have all the answers anymore like I did when certainty was the mark of my faith.
Thank you, Joe, for typing this development of Christology. It helps to realize the bigger picture of looking at Jesus. Our own development of faith needs reflection and listening to various perspectives of Jesus. I hope it would be okay to share this information with others to encourage people to think over what it means to have faith. 🤔
I grew up Methodist with my mom and white evangelical Christian Nationalist with my dad. They were divorced. But even in the Methodist Church we recited the apostles creed every Sunday. I have it written in my Bible. And looking back at it I no longer believe anything in the creed! Crazy!
I believe Jesus existed. His message of loving the least, the last and the lost strongly resonates with me. And it's how I try to live my life.
Now I look at other religions created by men. All of them. And see how people could believe whole heartedly. Paul may not be Joseph Smith but maybe a little. Don't know much about Islam or Muhammad but look how many people are willing to die for their Muslim beliefs. I say that because Lee Strobel said in The Case for Christ why would the early apostles have died for something that wasn't true based on their own experiences. . They did believe it was true. But terrorist also crashed planes on 911 knowing they would die for something they fully believed was true. Maybe the only difference is that the early disciples would have seen first hand.
It's kind of crazy how we arrived where we are today. And so many plucked from the pews pastors have no formal education to be preaching from and about the Bible. That's scary!
The historical development of many central Christian doctrines is fascinating. The first Christological doctrinal squabble was not around Christ's deity but over his humanity.
This is a solid walkthrough of how Jesus’ divinity evolved—from rebel rabbi to cosmic Christ via decades of post-resurrection whiplash and a few church councils that couldn’t handle nuance without a creed.
But there’s one massive blind spot in the middle of it: we keep tracing how Jesus became God, but completely ignore that Mary Magdalene was teaching the way back to God before the bishops ever met in Nicaea.
While the theology got more complicated—Son of Man, Son of God, Logos incarnate—Mary was teaching something radically simple: There is no sin. The Kingdom is within. The Son of Man is you.
That’s straight from the Gospel of Mary. It didn’t make it into the canon—not because it wasn’t profound, but because it was too empowering. It didn’t need bishops, altars, or metaphysical gymnastics. It needed presence. It taught that “sin” wasn’t some stain on the soul but confusion that arises when we forget where we come from. It said the soul rises by letting go of Fear, Ignorance, Wrath, and Flesh—not by believing a doctrinal formula, but by remembering its divine origin.
And who was entrusted with that vision?
Mary. Not Peter. Not Paul. Not even John with all his Logos jazz.
So yes, the evolution of Jesus into God was a fascinating historical process. But Mary Magdalene wasn’t trying to elevate Jesus—she was trying to elevate everyone. And they silenced her for it. Recast her. Wrote her out. The one person who actually understood the resurrection as transformation, not reward.
Jesus didn’t start a religion. Mary didn’t either. But she carried something deeper: a message that was never meant to be dogma—it was meant to wake us up.
So while the church turned Jesus into God, Mary was whispering the thing no institution wanted us to hear:
History in a relaxed but precise language - I love it!
Yep, nobody and no Christian has to "believe in Trinity". It's a theological thinking model. It has it's intertwined history and it has it's problematic aspects. But that makes this model not bad. It's limited like all human thinking-models. But I wan't to look at the strong sides of this model: It describes in way that was common to the time, it describes in an "ontological" way of thinking a "relational" thing: It confesses that God it not a solipsistic being in a far away heaven. He is rather a relational and community-oriented beeing that is in a loving way interested in humans, especially in the life of Jesus and in his suffering. The Trinity-model describes, that the experiences and history of Jesus are no coincidential incidents but are essential for Gods essense and nature! God's not controlling love als Jesus lived it is an expression of God's nature. People who encountered Jesus encountered no one else than God himself. The question of Jesus "godness" is old ontolocal thinking. A today's theology needs an relational approach: Jesus is God, because he expresses God in in him God encounters the people.
“I Am” Statements: Jesus repeatedly used the phrase “I Am” (Greek: ego eimi)-echoing God’s self-identification in Exodus 3:14-to describe Himself, especially in the Gospel of John (e.g., John 8:58: “Before Abraham was, I am”). This was understood by His listeners as a direct claim to divinity, which is why they attempted to stone Him for blasphemy.
Oneness with the Father: Jesus declared, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). The Jewish leaders understood this as a claim to equality with God and sought to stone Him for blasphemy.
Authority to Forgive Sins: Jesus forgave people’s sins (e.g., Mark 2:5–7; Luke 5:20–21), a prerogative reserved for God alone in Jewish belief. His opponents recognized this as a claim to divine authority.
Acceptance of Worship: Jesus accepted worship from His followers (e.g., Matthew 14:33; 28:9, 17; John 9:38; John 20:28), something only God should receive according to Jewish law. He never rebuked anyone for worshiping Him.
Claiming Titles and Roles Reserved for God:
Son of God: Jesus referred to Himself as the Son of God in a unique, divine sense (John 19:7; Mark 14:61–64).
The Resurrection and the Life, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the True Vine, etc.: Through the “I Am” statements, Jesus claimed titles and roles that, in the Jewish context, belonged to God alone (see John 6:35; 8:12; 10:7, 11; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1).
Claiming Pre-existence: Jesus claimed to exist before Abraham (John 8:58), indicating His eternal nature, a trait unique to God.
Equating Seeing Himself with Seeing God: Jesus told Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), equating Himself with God in a way that was unmistakable to His Jewish audience.
Miracles as Divine Signs: Jesus performed miracles-calming storms, raising the dead, etc.-as signs of divine authority and power, supporting His claims to divinity.
Claiming Authority Over the Law and the Sabbath: Jesus asserted authority over the Sabbath (e.g., John 5:17–18), which the Jewish leaders saw as making Himself equal with God.
Explicitly Affirming His Identity at His Trial: When asked directly if He was the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed, Jesus replied, “I am,” and referenced Daniel’s vision of the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven-another clear claim to divinity (Mark 14:61–64; Luke 22:70–71).
The first Christians recognized him as God
Worship of Jesus: The earliest followers, who were devout Jews raised in a strict monotheistic tradition, worshiped Jesus as God. This is significant because Jewish law strictly forbade worshiping anyone but God, indicating they believed Jesus was divine and not merely a prophet or teacher.
Proclamation of Divinity: Early Christians, almost all Jewish, publicly proclaimed Jesus as divine. This was a dramatic shift from their monotheistic beliefs and suggests a profound conviction based on their experiences and the teachings of Jesus.
Jesus’ Actions and Claims: The disciples witnessed Jesus do things only God could do (such as forgiving sins and accepting worship) and speak with divine authority, leading them to conclude He was God.
Scriptural Affirmation: Early Christian writings, including Paul’s letters (the earliest New Testament documents), describe Jesus in divine terms, equating Him with the one God of Israel and the pre-existent creator of the universe.
Direct Confession: After the resurrection, Thomas explicitly addressed Jesus as “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28), and Jesus accepted this declaration, further affirming His divinity in the eyes of His followers.
Old Testament Connections: The first Christians saw Jesus as fulfilling Old Testament prophecies about God coming to His people, reinforcing their belief that He was not just the Messiah but God Himself.
I've always believed that Jesus was divine and still do. Believing in my own divinity as a child of God also feels true for me. Especially when Jesus says "go and make disciples of ALL nations." However, I think the Church has long decided that phrase has given a sort of 'permission' to be assholes claiming that 'we're right and you're wrong'. I mean the CHURCH couldn't even agree on who Jesus was or is. How did they expect the rest of the world to agree on the state of his divinity? 🤦♀️🤷♀️ Of course others are going to have questions and that's ok. We SHOULD ask questions so that our faith becomes just that. Our own. I also think it's ok to still feel a little 'preachy'. Once a preacher, always a preacher. Your flock just looks a little different than it used to and I'd say that's a good thing. 😉
This is pretty much what my deconstruction has brought me to and it’s liberating. But I could be wrong. And that’s totally fine, because I don’t need to have all the answers anymore like I did when certainty was the mark of my faith.
I love this. Certainty is always an illusion anyway. ❤️
Thank you, Joe, for typing this development of Christology. It helps to realize the bigger picture of looking at Jesus. Our own development of faith needs reflection and listening to various perspectives of Jesus. I hope it would be okay to share this information with others to encourage people to think over what it means to have faith. 🤔
Of course 🙏🏼
I grew up Methodist with my mom and white evangelical Christian Nationalist with my dad. They were divorced. But even in the Methodist Church we recited the apostles creed every Sunday. I have it written in my Bible. And looking back at it I no longer believe anything in the creed! Crazy!
I believe Jesus existed. His message of loving the least, the last and the lost strongly resonates with me. And it's how I try to live my life.
Now I look at other religions created by men. All of them. And see how people could believe whole heartedly. Paul may not be Joseph Smith but maybe a little. Don't know much about Islam or Muhammad but look how many people are willing to die for their Muslim beliefs. I say that because Lee Strobel said in The Case for Christ why would the early apostles have died for something that wasn't true based on their own experiences. . They did believe it was true. But terrorist also crashed planes on 911 knowing they would die for something they fully believed was true. Maybe the only difference is that the early disciples would have seen first hand.
It's kind of crazy how we arrived where we are today. And so many plucked from the pews pastors have no formal education to be preaching from and about the Bible. That's scary!
The historical development of many central Christian doctrines is fascinating. The first Christological doctrinal squabble was not around Christ's deity but over his humanity.
Squabble is a great word. I need to use it more.
Watch more WWE! You’ll get all kinds of new nonsense.
😂
Yes! This exactly. Thank you for summing it up so well.
🙏🏼
This is a solid walkthrough of how Jesus’ divinity evolved—from rebel rabbi to cosmic Christ via decades of post-resurrection whiplash and a few church councils that couldn’t handle nuance without a creed.
But there’s one massive blind spot in the middle of it: we keep tracing how Jesus became God, but completely ignore that Mary Magdalene was teaching the way back to God before the bishops ever met in Nicaea.
While the theology got more complicated—Son of Man, Son of God, Logos incarnate—Mary was teaching something radically simple: There is no sin. The Kingdom is within. The Son of Man is you.
That’s straight from the Gospel of Mary. It didn’t make it into the canon—not because it wasn’t profound, but because it was too empowering. It didn’t need bishops, altars, or metaphysical gymnastics. It needed presence. It taught that “sin” wasn’t some stain on the soul but confusion that arises when we forget where we come from. It said the soul rises by letting go of Fear, Ignorance, Wrath, and Flesh—not by believing a doctrinal formula, but by remembering its divine origin.
And who was entrusted with that vision?
Mary. Not Peter. Not Paul. Not even John with all his Logos jazz.
So yes, the evolution of Jesus into God was a fascinating historical process. But Mary Magdalene wasn’t trying to elevate Jesus—she was trying to elevate everyone. And they silenced her for it. Recast her. Wrote her out. The one person who actually understood the resurrection as transformation, not reward.
Jesus didn’t start a religion. Mary didn’t either. But she carried something deeper: a message that was never meant to be dogma—it was meant to wake us up.
So while the church turned Jesus into God, Mary was whispering the thing no institution wanted us to hear:
You already are.
History in a relaxed but precise language - I love it!
Yep, nobody and no Christian has to "believe in Trinity". It's a theological thinking model. It has it's intertwined history and it has it's problematic aspects. But that makes this model not bad. It's limited like all human thinking-models. But I wan't to look at the strong sides of this model: It describes in way that was common to the time, it describes in an "ontological" way of thinking a "relational" thing: It confesses that God it not a solipsistic being in a far away heaven. He is rather a relational and community-oriented beeing that is in a loving way interested in humans, especially in the life of Jesus and in his suffering. The Trinity-model describes, that the experiences and history of Jesus are no coincidential incidents but are essential for Gods essense and nature! God's not controlling love als Jesus lived it is an expression of God's nature. People who encountered Jesus encountered no one else than God himself. The question of Jesus "godness" is old ontolocal thinking. A today's theology needs an relational approach: Jesus is God, because he expresses God in in him God encounters the people.
I stopped reading at “Jesus never claimed be God”
“I Am” Statements: Jesus repeatedly used the phrase “I Am” (Greek: ego eimi)-echoing God’s self-identification in Exodus 3:14-to describe Himself, especially in the Gospel of John (e.g., John 8:58: “Before Abraham was, I am”). This was understood by His listeners as a direct claim to divinity, which is why they attempted to stone Him for blasphemy.
Oneness with the Father: Jesus declared, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). The Jewish leaders understood this as a claim to equality with God and sought to stone Him for blasphemy.
Authority to Forgive Sins: Jesus forgave people’s sins (e.g., Mark 2:5–7; Luke 5:20–21), a prerogative reserved for God alone in Jewish belief. His opponents recognized this as a claim to divine authority.
Acceptance of Worship: Jesus accepted worship from His followers (e.g., Matthew 14:33; 28:9, 17; John 9:38; John 20:28), something only God should receive according to Jewish law. He never rebuked anyone for worshiping Him.
Claiming Titles and Roles Reserved for God:
Son of God: Jesus referred to Himself as the Son of God in a unique, divine sense (John 19:7; Mark 14:61–64).
The Resurrection and the Life, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the True Vine, etc.: Through the “I Am” statements, Jesus claimed titles and roles that, in the Jewish context, belonged to God alone (see John 6:35; 8:12; 10:7, 11; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1).
Claiming Pre-existence: Jesus claimed to exist before Abraham (John 8:58), indicating His eternal nature, a trait unique to God.
Equating Seeing Himself with Seeing God: Jesus told Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), equating Himself with God in a way that was unmistakable to His Jewish audience.
Miracles as Divine Signs: Jesus performed miracles-calming storms, raising the dead, etc.-as signs of divine authority and power, supporting His claims to divinity.
Claiming Authority Over the Law and the Sabbath: Jesus asserted authority over the Sabbath (e.g., John 5:17–18), which the Jewish leaders saw as making Himself equal with God.
Explicitly Affirming His Identity at His Trial: When asked directly if He was the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed, Jesus replied, “I am,” and referenced Daniel’s vision of the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven-another clear claim to divinity (Mark 14:61–64; Luke 22:70–71).
The first Christians recognized him as God
Worship of Jesus: The earliest followers, who were devout Jews raised in a strict monotheistic tradition, worshiped Jesus as God. This is significant because Jewish law strictly forbade worshiping anyone but God, indicating they believed Jesus was divine and not merely a prophet or teacher.
Proclamation of Divinity: Early Christians, almost all Jewish, publicly proclaimed Jesus as divine. This was a dramatic shift from their monotheistic beliefs and suggests a profound conviction based on their experiences and the teachings of Jesus.
Jesus’ Actions and Claims: The disciples witnessed Jesus do things only God could do (such as forgiving sins and accepting worship) and speak with divine authority, leading them to conclude He was God.
Scriptural Affirmation: Early Christian writings, including Paul’s letters (the earliest New Testament documents), describe Jesus in divine terms, equating Him with the one God of Israel and the pre-existent creator of the universe.
Direct Confession: After the resurrection, Thomas explicitly addressed Jesus as “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28), and Jesus accepted this declaration, further affirming His divinity in the eyes of His followers.
Old Testament Connections: The first Christians saw Jesus as fulfilling Old Testament prophecies about God coming to His people, reinforcing their belief that He was not just the Messiah but God Himself.
Try this link for a deep dive into understanding Jesus: https://www.thewaywesee.com/religiondetoxnetwork/mystery/symbols-signs-types-copies-shadows-and-patterns/people/true-prophets/jesus
I've always believed that Jesus was divine and still do. Believing in my own divinity as a child of God also feels true for me. Especially when Jesus says "go and make disciples of ALL nations." However, I think the Church has long decided that phrase has given a sort of 'permission' to be assholes claiming that 'we're right and you're wrong'. I mean the CHURCH couldn't even agree on who Jesus was or is. How did they expect the rest of the world to agree on the state of his divinity? 🤦♀️🤷♀️ Of course others are going to have questions and that's ok. We SHOULD ask questions so that our faith becomes just that. Our own. I also think it's ok to still feel a little 'preachy'. Once a preacher, always a preacher. Your flock just looks a little different than it used to and I'd say that's a good thing. 😉