Worship Belongs to the Lord
“To give God the service of the body and not of the soul, is hypocrisy; to give God the service of the spirit and not of the body, is sacrilege; to give him neither, atheism.” Stephen Charnock
There are many reasons to believe in the deity of Christ as it is clearly taught in Scripture. Last time, I focused on the preexistence and eternality of Jesus as revealed in Scripture. There are many other reasons to believe in the deity of Christ, like Jesus’s use of the name Son of Man and the Son of God, the mighty works of healing and raising people from the dead, His fulfillment of the Old Testament law and perfect life, Jesus’s Lordship over the Sabbath, and the names that are used to describe Jesus such as Mighty God, Immanuel, the Alpha and Omega, etc. For a fuller study of the Deity of Christ, I recommend reading The Deity of Christ by Christopher Morgan & Robert Peterson as many different contributors provide interesting insights into different passages of Scripture. For this specific writing, I want to focus on the worship of Jesus and his acceptance of worship. While this may seem small on the surface this is crucial in understanding that Jesus is God when we understand the nature of worship and to whom worship belongs.
After God brought the Israelites out of Egypt, God said in Exodus 20:2-5, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God.” Worship belongs to God and to God alone. We are commanded to only worship God. Worshipping anything or anyone else but God is sin. When we worship anything or anyone else other than God, we are placing the created above the uncreated. Because God is uncreated and our Creator, all worship belongs to Him. In Revelation 22 an angel reveals the river of the water of life, and after the vision, John bowed down to worship the angel who revealed the vision to him. What did the angel say? The angel said worship God. Worshipping angels is unlawful as well. (Colossians 2:18-19)
Now the question remains, what does worship have to do with the deity of Christ? If Jesus is not God, then we are committing idolatry when we worship Christ because we would be worshipping the creation over the Creator. However, as established in the first two writings, Jesus is eternal and is Creator, therefore we can rightfully give him our worship. An example of this comes in John 20. The passage tells of when Thomas, one of Jesus’s disciples, saw Jesus after he rose again. Jesus told Thomas to reach for his hand and told him to not be unbelieving, but be believing. Thomas replied by saying, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28) If Jesus was not God, then this was the perfect time for Jesus to rebuke Thomas for calling Him Lord and God. This would have been the perfect time for Jesus to direct Thomas to only worship the Father if Jesus Himself was not God. But how does Jesus respond? Jesus responds by saying, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29) Not only did Jesus not rebuke Thomas for calling Him God, but he accepted the worship that Thomas gave him. Another example of both Jesus and the Father being worshipped comes from Revelation 5:13-14 which says, “‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!’ And the four living creatures said, ‘Amen! And the elders fell down and worshipped.” So here, the elders are worshipping both the Father and the Son. As previously established, worship only belongs to God (YAHWEH) and so if Jesus is being worshipped as well as the Father, clearly Jesus is God (YAHWEH) as well.
Passages of Scripture to Consider
Isaiah 6:1-3 and Revelation 4:6-13
Revelation 5
Isaiah 9:6-7
Exodus 20:1-21 and Deuteronomy 5
Deuteronomy 4:1-40
Jeremiah 10:11-12
Hebrews 1 and Psalm 102:12, 25
Psalm 2