Is Jesus God? Answering Every Unitarian Argument
Biblical Unitarians believe that God is one person, the Father, and that Jesus is a man and not God. They are not the same as the Watchtower, which says Jesus is an angel. Unitarians say Jesus did not exist before his birth at all. He is the Messiah, the Son of God, and the Lord that God made him, but he is a human being and nothing more.
They have a set of arguments they use again and again, and a set of answers to the verses that trinitarians bring up. This article gathers them in one place. Each one is stated fairly in a box, and then answered in plain English. Bible verses are quoted from the King James Version (KJV).
Part 1 — The Unitarian Case
God is one, so God is one person
Response: Trinitarians agree there is one God. The question is whether that one God is one person, and the Shema does not say that. The Hebrew word for "one" in Deuteronomy 6:4 is echad, the same word used when a man and his wife become "one flesh" (Gen 2:24) and when the spies carry back "one cluster of grapes" (Num 13:23). It can mean a unity made of more than one. Isaiah's "beside me there is no God" is aimed at idols and false gods. It says nothing about persons inside the one God.
John 17:3 actually points the other way:
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
John 17:3KJV
Eternal life is knowing the Father and Jesus. No creature could be paired with God like that as the object of eternal life.
The word "God" almost always means the Father
Response: Counting words does not settle meaning. "Father" is the normal name for the first person, so of course it comes up the most. The question is whether Jesus is ever called God, and he is: John 1:1, John 1:18, John 20:28, Romans 9:5, Titus 2:13, Hebrews 1:8, and 2 Peter 1:1. Once would be enough.
1 Corinthians 8:6 is stronger for the Trinity than for unitarianism. Paul is quoting the Shema and splitting it in two:
But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.
1 Corinthians 8:6KJV
The Shema says "the LORD our God is one LORD." Paul gives "one God" to the Father and "one Lord" to Jesus. In the Greek Old Testament, "Lord" is the word that stands for God's name, Yahweh. Paul puts Jesus inside the Shema, not outside it. He also says all things were made "by him," which is what the Old Testament says about God alone.
Jesus has a God
Response: Jesus has a God because he became a man. As a man he prays, obeys, and worships. He did not stop being God when he took on flesh, but he did take on a real human life, and a real human life has a God. Paul explains this in one sentence:
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
Philippians 2:6–7KJV
The servant has a God. The one who took the form of a servant was, and is, "in the form of God." A verse that shows Jesus as a servant does not cancel the verse that shows him as God.
Jesus is called a man
Response: Yes, Jesus is a man. Trinitarians say he is fully man and fully God. Calling him a man proves the first half and says nothing about the second. The same Paul who wrote "the man Christ Jesus" also wrote about "the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13). Both are true, and the Bible does not have to use the word "God-man" to teach both.
Jesus had limits: he grew, did not know, was tempted, got tired, and died
Response: Every one of these is true of his human nature. That is what the incarnation means: the Son really lived a human life. He grew, learned, got tired, and did not know some things as a man. God cannot be tempted in his own nature, but God living as a man could feel real temptation and refuse it. God cannot die, but the person who is God could die in his human nature. That is the whole point of the cross.
So every "limit" verse proves what trinitarians already confess: Jesus is truly human. None of them touches the verses that say he is also truly God. If the unitarian wants to use Mark 13:32 to say Jesus is not God, the trinitarian can use John 16:30, where the disciples say, "now are we sure that thou knowest all things," to say he is. Both are in the same Bible. The only view that keeps both is two natures in one person.
The Father is greater than the Son
Response: Greater in position, not in kind of being. A son who obeys his father is not a lower kind of creature than his father. Jesus said "greater than I" on the night before he died, while he was living in humility on earth and about to go back to the Father's glory.
1 Corinthians 11:3 proves the point:
But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
1 Corinthians 11:3KJV
The man is head of the woman, and nobody thinks a woman is a lesser kind of being than a man. Headship is about order, not about nature. The same verse that puts God over Christ puts man over woman, so it cannot mean Christ is a lower kind of being.
1 Corinthians 15:28 is about the end of the Messiah's work as mediator and king over this age. He hands that kingdom back. It does not say the Son stops being what he is. Hebrews 13:8 says he is "the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever."
All his power was given to him
Response: The Son receives from the Father because that is how a son relates to a father. Receiving does not make the thing received less divine. Look at what is given:
For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;
John 5:26KJV
"Life in himself" is something only God has. The Son has it. Jesus also says the Son does whatever the Father does, in the same way: "what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise" (John 5:19), and "as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will" (John 5:21). No agent can say "whatever God does, I do too."
God "made" him Lord and "exalted" him
Response: Acts 2:36 is about his public crowning as the risen Messiah, not about a man being promoted into existence as Lord. The Son who was already Lord took on human nature, died, rose, and was then enthroned as a man at God's right hand. That is what "exalted" means.
Hebrews 1 proves it. The same chapter that says he was "made so much better than the angels" (1:4) also says he made the heavens and the earth and never changes (1:10–12). So "made better" cannot mean a creature was upgraded. It means the God-man was raised to the throne after his work was done.
The Messiah is a human king, and "Son of God" is a royal title
Response: The Messiah is a human king, and he is more than that. The Old Testament itself says so:
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9:6KJV
Micah 5:2 says the ruler from Bethlehem has "goings forth... from of old, from everlasting." Psalm 110:1 has David calling the Messiah "my Lord" and seating him at Yahweh's right hand. Daniel 7:13–14 shows the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven and receiving an everlasting kingdom and the service of all nations. The Old Testament expects a human Messiah who is also divine.
As for "Son of God," John tells us what the Jews heard when Jesus used it:
Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.
John 5:18KJV
That is John's own comment, not a quote from an enemy. When Jesus called God his own Father, John says it meant equality with God.
Jesus is God's agent, so he can be treated like God
Response: Agency explains how a messenger speaks for his sender. It does not explain creating the universe (John 1:3), being worshipped by angels (Heb 1:6), being prayed to (Acts 7:59), or existing before Abraham (John 8:58). No agent does those things.
Moses was "a god to Pharaoh," and the text says so in those words. No text says Jesus is "as God" or "a god to" someone. It says he is God, with no softening.
Psalm 82 does not help either. The "gods" there are wicked judges who are condemned:
I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.
Psalm 82:6–7KJV
Jesus uses that psalm to argue from the lesser to the greater: if crooked judges could be called "gods" because God's word came to them, how can it be blasphemy for "him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world" to say he is the Son of God (John 10:36)? Then he goes straight back to the claim: "the Father is in me, and I in him" (John 10:38), and they try to seize him again.
Jesus never said "I am God"
Response: Jesus said "Before Abraham was, I am," and they picked up stones (John 8:58–59). He said "I and my Father are one," and they picked up stones again, telling him why: "because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God" (John 10:30–33). He let Thomas call him "My Lord and my God" and blessed him for it (John 20:28–29). He said, "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9). He claimed to be the one who will judge every human being (Matt 25:31–32), the one every angel will obey (Matt 13:41), and the one who will be present wherever two or three gather (Matt 18:20).
Jesus taught by claim and by deed, and the people around him understood exactly what he meant. Demanding one exact sentence is a word game. Jesus never said "I am the Messiah" in those words to the crowds either, and unitarians still believe he is.
He began at the virgin birth
Response: Luke 1:35 explains why the child born of Mary is holy and called the Son of God in his human birth. It does not say the Son began there. Paul puts the sending before the birth:
But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
Galatians 4:4KJV
God sent his Son, and the Son was then made of a woman. Jesus himself says, "I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will" (John 6:38), and "the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10). You do not "come" to a place you have always been.
A mediator cannot be God
Response: A mediator between God and man must be able to stand for both. That is exactly why a God-man is the perfect mediator. 1 Timothy 2:5 says the mediator is a man. It does not say he is only a man. And trinitarians already agree the Son is distinct from the Father, so "the mediator is distinct from God the Father" is no problem at all.
The Holy Spirit is not a person, so there is no Trinity
Response: The Spirit speaks (Acts 13:2), teaches (John 14:26), decides (1 Cor 12:11), prays for us (Rom 8:26), and can be grieved (Eph 4:30) and lied to:
But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost... thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
Acts 5:3–4KJV
Power does not get lied to or grieved. Lying to the Spirit is lying to God. "Poured out" is picture language, the same way God is called a "fountain" (Jer 2:13) and a "rock" (Ps 18:2). Jesus calls the Spirit "another Comforter" (John 14:16), another of the same kind as himself, and Jesus is a person.
The Trinity was invented later at Nicaea
Response: The word is later. The teaching is early. Ignatius of Antioch, writing around the year 107, calls Jesus "our God" several times. Pliny, a Roman governor, reported to the emperor in the year 112 that Christians sang hymns "to Christ as to a god." Philippians 2 and John 1 were written in the first century. The councils did not invent the doctrine. They wrote a definition because a priest named Arius came up with a new idea, that the Son was a created being.
The early fathers did speak of an order among the persons, the Father first, then the Son, then the Spirit. Trinitarians still say that. But the same fathers call the Son God, Creator, and eternal. Tertullian, around the year 213, coined the word "Trinity" and the phrase "three persons, one substance." Origen taught that there was never a time when the Son did not exist. No father before Arius taught that the Son was made from nothing.
The Ebionites were a small sect that the early church counted as heretics. They also rejected Paul's letters and kept the law of Moses. They were not the original Christians.
"Trinity" is not in the Bible, and it makes no sense
Response: "Monotheism," "incarnation," and "Bible" are not in the Bible either. A word can summarize what the Bible teaches without being in it. As for understanding, a God small enough to fit in our heads would not be God. Unitarians also believe things they cannot explain, like how God has no beginning or how he made everything out of nothing. Hard is not the same as false.
Three persons who are each God is three Gods, or a contradiction
Response: A contradiction is saying the same thing is true and false in the same sense. The Trinity does not do that. It says there is one what (one being, one divine nature) and three whos (three persons). "Jesus is God" means he shares the one divine nature. It does not mean he is the same person as the Father. The unitarian objection only works if "God" has to mean one single person, and that is the very thing being argued about. You cannot prove a point by assuming it.
Part 2 — Their Answers to the Verses That Call Jesus God
John 1:1: "the Word" is God's plan, not a person
Response: Read the first three verses together:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
John 1:1–3KJV
The Word was "with" God. Plans are not with anyone. Then John says all things were made by him, and nothing that was made was made without him. If the Word were a made thing, he would be in the "all things" that were made through him. So the Word is not created. Then:
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
John 1:14KJV
A plan does not "dwell among us" or have the glory of "the only begotten of the Father." That is a person. "A god" fails because John is a Jew who believes in one God, and the next verses would then teach two gods. In Greek, "God" has no article in "the Word was God" because John is saying what the Word is, not which God he is. Tyndale's "it" was a habit for the Greek word logos, which is grammatically neuter in English translation, not a theology.
John 8:58: "I am" is just ordinary Greek
Response: The blind man was asked "is this the man?" and answered "I am," meaning "I am that man." The sentence has something to finish it. Jesus says:
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
John 8:58KJV
There is nothing to finish it. He mixes "was" with "am" on purpose. Abraham came into being. Jesus simply is. In the Greek Old Testament, God uses these exact words as his self-title: "that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am" (Isa 43:10), and "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions" (Isa 43:25). John has Jesus use them the same way in 8:24: "if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins," and in 8:28.
The crowd picked up stones. Being "in God's plan" would not make anyone pick up a rock. Every person who ever lived was in God's plan. They understood a claim to deity, and Jesus did not correct them.
John 10:30: "one" means one in purpose
Response: The context is power, not purpose. Jesus says no one can pluck his sheep out of his hand. Then he says no one can pluck them out of the Father's hand. Then he says, "I and my Father are one." One hand, one keeping power. The Jews heard it right:
The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
John 10:33KJV
Jesus does not say, "You misunderstood, I only meant we agree." He argues from Psalm 82 that even judges were called gods, so the one the Father "sanctified and sent into the world" can surely be called the Son of God. Then he goes right back to the claim, "the Father is in me, and I in him" (10:38), and they try to arrest him again. If he had only meant "one in purpose," there would be nothing to arrest him for.
John 20:28: Thomas was just exclaiming, or using "god" loosely
Response: The text does not allow either reading:
And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
John 20:28KJV
Thomas "said unto him." The words are addressed to Jesus. No first-century Jew would blurt out "my God" as a swear word. Jesus does not correct him. He blesses him and everyone who believes the same without seeing. John 20:31 says the book was written so you would believe Jesus is "the Son of God," and John has already told us what that title means: "making himself equal with God" (5:18). Thomas's confession is the climax that matches the book's first verse, "the Word was God."
Colossians 1:15–17: "firstborn" means first created, and "all things" means church offices
Response: "Firstborn" is a rank word in the Bible. Israel is God's "firstborn" (Exod 4:22) but was not the first nation. God says of David, "I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth" (Ps 89:27), and David was the youngest of eight sons. Firstborn means the heir with the first place, and Paul explains why Christ holds it:
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
Colossians 1:16–17KJV
"In heaven, and in earth, visible and invisible" is Genesis language. Thrones and powers are examples, not the whole list. If Christ were created, he would be one of the "all things" made by him, which is impossible. Paul says he is "before all things" and holds all things together. That is the Creator.
Colossians 2:9: God dwells in Jesus the way he dwells in us
Response: Believers are filled with God's blessings by grace. Christ has "all the fulness of the Godhead," the whole of deity itself, dwelling in him "bodily." Paul never says the fullness of deity dwells bodily in any Christian. The verse is telling us what Christ is, which is why the next verse says, "ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power."
Philippians 2:5–11: it is about Adam, or about humility on earth
Response: Adam was never "in the form of God," and Adam did not "take upon him the form of a servant" and get "made in the likeness of men." You cannot be made in the likeness of men if you already are a man. The passage moves down and then up: in the form of God, then taking the form of a servant, then death on a cross, then exalted. Then Paul applies Isaiah 45:23 to Jesus:
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:10–11KJV
In Isaiah, God says, "I am God, and there is none else... unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear" (Isa 45:22–23). Paul gives that bowing to Jesus. "The name which is above every name" is the name of Yahweh, now openly confessed as belonging to Jesus. The Father is glorified by this because the Father wants "all men [to] honour the Son, even as they honour the Father" (John 5:23).
Hebrews 1:8: "O God" is just a royal title, or it means "God is your throne"
Response: The whole argument of Hebrews 1 is that the Son is above the angels because of what God calls him:
But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.
Hebrews 1:8KJV
If "God" is only a king's nickname, the argument collapses, because angels are also called gods in a loose sense (Ps 8:5). "God is your throne" is grammatically possible but makes no sense, and no ancient translator took it that way. Verse 9, "God, even thy God, hath anointed thee," fits the Son being God and also, as a man, having a God. The psalm was about David's son, and David's greater Son fulfills it.
Hebrews 1:10–12: that is about the new creation
Response: Read what the psalm says:
And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment;
Hebrews 1:10–11KJV
This creation was made "in the beginning" and it will "perish" and "wax old." The new creation never perishes. So this is the Genesis creation, and the Father addresses the words to the Son. Yahweh's work of creating is the Son's work.
Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1: two persons, not one
Response: The rule is simple: when two singular nouns that are not names are joined by "and" with one article in front, they describe one person. "God" and "Savior" are exactly that kind of noun. Peter uses this structure four other times in his letter: "our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" (2 Pet 1:11, 2:20, 3:2, 3:18). Everyone agrees those mean one person. 2 Peter 1:1 has the same grammar with "God" in place of "Lord":
...through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:
2 Peter 1:1KJV
To be consistent, it means one person: Jesus is our God and Savior. Titus 2:13 is the same, and it speaks of one "appearing," not two.
Romans 9:5: it is a blessing to God, not a statement about Christ
Response: Paul's blessings always put "blessed" before "God": "Blessed be God" (2 Cor 1:3), "Blessed be the God and Father" (Eph 1:3), "the Creator, who is blessed for ever" (Rom 1:25). Here "blessed" comes after:
Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
Romans 9:5KJV
The natural reading is "Christ... who is over all, God blessed for ever." Paul also says Christ came from Israel "as concerning the flesh," which invites the question, "and what is he beyond the flesh?" The answer follows: God over all. Paul did the same in Romans 1:3–4: of David "according to the flesh," and "the Son of God with power."
1 John 5:20: "this" means the Father
Response: "Jesus Christ" is the nearest name before "this":
...and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
1 John 5:20KJV
John also calls Jesus "that eternal life, which was with the Father" (1 John 1:2). So "the true God, and eternal life" matches John's own words for Jesus. Even if this one verse were set aside, the case does not depend on it.
Isaiah 9:6: the names describe God, not the child
Response: The names are given to the child: "his name shall be called." "The mighty God" (El Gibbor) is used of Yahweh himself in the very next chapter: "the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God" (Isa 10:21). "Everlasting Father" means "father of eternity," the one who owns and gives the ages. It does not mean the first person of the Trinity. The unitarian reading has to chop four names into two sentences in a way the Hebrew does not do, and it still leaves "The mighty God" in the child's name.
Matthew 1:23: "God with us" is just a name
Response: Matthew does not just record the name. He builds his whole Gospel on it. It opens with "God with us" (1:23). In the middle Jesus says, "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (18:20). It ends with Jesus saying:
...lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Matthew 28:20KJV
Matthew means Jesus himself is God's presence with his people, everywhere and always. Elijah never promised to be with anyone forever.
Worship of Jesus is only honor, not divine worship
Response: God himself commands angels to worship the Son:
And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.
Hebrews 1:6KJV
In Revelation, every creature in heaven and earth gives the same worship to "him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever" (Rev 5:13). In the same book, an angel twice refuses that very worship: "See thou do it not... worship God" (Rev 19:10; 22:9). Angels refuse it. The Lamb receives it. Stephen prays to Jesus as he dies (Acts 7:59). Christians are those who "call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord" (1 Cor 1:2). And the stronger word for religious service, latreuo, is used of the Lamb too: "his servants shall serve him" (Rev 22:3). The "just bowing" answer cannot explain why angels worship him.
Forgiving sins was delegated to him
Response: The scribes' logic was right:
Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?
Mark 2:7KJV
Jesus does not say, "God gave me permission." He proves he has the authority by healing the man on the spot. The apostles later declared forgiveness in Jesus' name. Jesus forgave in his own name, before any authority was handed to anyone. Matthew 9:8 reports what the crowd thought. It is not Matthew's teaching about who Jesus is.
He existed "before" only in God's plan
Response: John the Baptist was "sent from God," but nobody says John "came down from heaven." Jesus says of himself:
And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.
John 3:13KJV
He contrasts himself with everyone else. He asks, "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" (John 6:62). "Where he was before" is a place he was. And in John 17:5 he asks for "the glory which I had with thee before the world was." Glory "with" the Father is a relationship between persons. A plan is not "with" anyone.
John 5:18 is the hostile Jews' mistake
Response: Verse 18 is the narrator talking. John himself writes that Jesus "said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God." And Jesus' reply does not deny equality. He says the Son does whatever the Father does (5:19), gives life to whomever he will (5:21), will judge all people (5:22), and must be honored "even as they honour the Father" (5:23). No Jew would say that about a creature. Equal honor is a claim to equal status.
Yahweh verses are applied to Jesus because he is God's agent
Response: The Angel of the Lord who carries God's name speaks as God in the first person, receives worship, and is called God (Exod 3:2–6; Judg 13:21–22). Trinitarians think that Angel was often the Son before his birth. But Paul does more than apply a name. Romans 10:13 says calling on the Lord's name saves, and Paul means calling on Jesus (10:9–14). Philippians 2 gives Jesus the bowing of every knee from Isaiah 45, a chapter about Yahweh being the only God and Savior. Hebrews 1:10 gives him Yahweh's creation of the heavens and earth. Carrying a name can explain a title. It cannot explain creating the universe.
"Through him" means he is the goal of creation, not its maker
Response: In Greek, "through" (dia) with the genitive is the normal way to say who did something. "For him" is added separately in Colossians 1:16 as a second point. The word for "worlds" in Hebrews 1:2 is used again in Hebrews 11:3, "the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear," and everyone agrees that means the universe. John 1:3 leaves no room: "without him was not any thing made that was made."
Matthew 28:19 was added later
Response: Every Greek manuscript of Matthew has the full verse. Eusebius quotes it both ways, and his short form is a paraphrase. The Didache, a church manual from the first century, already says to baptize "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Three named persons share one singular "name." That is Trinity language.
Old Testament appearances of God were only angels
Response: The Angel of the Lord speaks as God in the first person (Gen 22:11–12; Exod 3:2–6), is called God, and receives worship. After meeting him, Jacob says, "I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved" (Gen 32:30). Manoah says, "We shall surely die, because we have seen God" (Judg 13:22). Jewish writers before Christianity already spoke of a "second power in heaven" because of these passages.
Genesis 1:26 "Let us" is the royal "we" or the angels
Response: Hebrew does not use the royal "we" with verbs, and "let us make" is a verb. The angel reading fails because the next verse says man was made "in the image of God," not in the image of angels: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him" (Gen 1:27). Trinitarians do not build the doctrine on this verse, but the unitarian explanations are weaker than the plain text.
The Son of Man in Daniel 7 is distinct from God
Response: Distinct from the Ancient of Days, yes, which is exactly what trinitarians say about the Son and the Father. But he comes "with the clouds of heaven," which only God does in the Old Testament (Ps 104:3; Isa 19:1). All nations "serve him" with the word used for religious service, and his kingdom never ends (Dan 7:14). Jesus claimed this verse at his trial, and the high priest tore his robes and called it blasphemy (Mark 14:62–64).
Jesus knew things by prophecy, not because he is all-knowing
Response: Elisha knew particular things at particular times. Jesus "knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man" (John 2:24–25) as a settled fact. The disciples said, "now are we sure that thou knowest all things" (John 16:30). And "there am I in the midst of them" is a promise of personal presence in every gathering on earth at once. No prophet ever promised that.
"Alpha and Omega" is only the Father
Response: In Revelation 22, the speaker says, "behold, I come quickly" (22:12), then "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last" (22:13), then "I Jesus have sent mine angel" (22:16). The speaker is Jesus. "The first and the last" is Jesus' own title in 1:17–18, where he adds, "I am he that liveth, and was dead." Now compare Isaiah:
Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.
Isaiah 44:6KJV
Jesus takes a title that Yahweh says belongs to him alone.
Part 3 — History and Logic
The deity of Christ grew slowly out of Greek philosophy
Response: The highest statements about Jesus are in the earliest material. The hymn in Philippians 2 is older than Paul's letter. 1 Corinthians 8:6, which puts Jesus inside the Shema, was written about the year 55. Paul keeps an Aramaic prayer, "Maranatha," meaning "our Lord, come" (1 Cor 16:22), which shows Aramaic-speaking Jewish Christians praying to Jesus from the very start. Ehrman himself admits that Paul believed Jesus was a pre-existent divine being. What developed over time was the wording, not the belief.
The early fathers taught the Son was lower than the Father
Response: Those same writers call the Son God, Creator, and eternal, and they worship him. Speaking of an order among the persons is not denying the Son's deity. Tertullian is the one who coined "Trinity" and "one substance, three persons." His line about the Son "not being" is about when God began to be called Father in relation to creation, in loose language from before the terms were fixed. Origen taught that the Son is eternally begotten, so that there was never a moment when he was not. "Second God" was his way of saying the Son is a distinct person who is God. No father before Arius taught that the Son was created from nothing, and when Arius taught it, the church called it new.
Nicaea was decided by the emperor
Response: More than 300 bishops attended, and only two refused to sign. Constantine wanted peace, not a doctrine, and he later leaned toward the Arian side himself. The emperors after him favored Arianism for decades. If imperial power decided doctrine, Arianism would have won. It lost because the churches would not accept it. Athanasius was exiled five times for holding to Nicaea, and he still won.
One person cannot be both all-knowing and ignorant
Response: One person with two natures is not two persons. A person can have two ways of knowing and acting. The Son knows all things as God and learned as a man. The Son cannot die as God and died as a man. Death is the soul leaving the body, and the divine Son really went through that in his human nature. That is why the cross has infinite worth: it was the act of the divine Son. Paul even says God "purchased [the church] with his own blood" (Acts 20:28). Hard to picture is not the same as contradictory.
If Jesus could not sin, his temptation was fake
Response: A temptation is real when the pull is really felt and really resisted. Being certain to win does not make the fight easy. Hebrews says he "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Heb 4:15), and that he "learned obedience by the things which he suffered" (Heb 5:8). He really suffered it as a man. And a Savior who could have failed would be no safe Savior at all.
God raised Jesus, so Jesus is not God
Response: Jesus also says he raised himself:
Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
John 2:19KJV
And: "I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again" (John 10:18). Paul also says the Spirit raised him (Rom 8:11). So the Father, the Son, and the Spirit all raised Jesus. That is exactly what trinitarians expect, because the works of God are done by all three persons.
The Messiah must be David's son and a second Adam, so he must be only a man
Response: Paul says both things in one breath:
Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:
Romans 1:3–4KJV
David's son "according to the flesh," and Son of God with power. On the second Adam, Paul says, "The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven" (1 Cor 15:47). The second Adam is a real man, and he is from heaven. Only a sinless man could undo Adam's failure, and no ordinary descendant of Adam is sinless.
Jews would never have called a man God
Response: That is why it took the resurrection and the Holy Spirit to bring them to it, and why Thomas's confession is the turning point of John's Gospel. Within months of the cross, Jewish monotheists were praying to Jesus, calling on his name, baptizing in his name, and dying with "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" on their lips. Something forced them to do that. The silence in Acts cuts the other way: it was never debated among them because it was already settled.
The sermons in Acts never preach that Jesus is God
Response: The sermons are short summaries for crowds who first needed to hear that the crucified man was alive. Even so, Peter calls Jesus "Lord of all" (Acts 10:36), says there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved (4:12), and applies Joel's "call upon the name of the LORD" to Jesus (2:21, 2:38). Stephen prays to Jesus (7:59). Paul says God bought the church "with his own blood" (20:28). That is a claim that Jesus is God.
The burden of proof is on the trinitarian
Response: Fine. "God" normally means the Father. The question is what the New Testament says about the Son, and it says: he was in the beginning with God and was God; he made all things; angels worship him; he bears the name Yahweh; he forgives sins; he raises the dead; he will judge the world; he knows all things; he is present everywhere his people meet; and he is called God by John, Thomas, Paul, Peter, and the writer of Hebrews. A handful of disputed verses would be a problem. Dozens of verses from every writer, all pointing one way, is a pattern.