Did the Earliest Christians Believe Jesus Was God?

According to historic Christian orthodoxy, Jesus is God Incarnate, fully God and fully human. But is this what the earliest Christians believed? Skeptics often argue that it was not. The skeptical narrative runs something like this: the earliest Christians had a low Christology, believing Jesus to be just a man. Then, Christians started making grander claims about him, believing him to be exalted and adopted by God as the son of God (i.e., the Messiah). When Christianity spread from its original Jewish roots out into polytheistic Greek culture, this phrase, “son of God,” became misinterpreted to mean that Jesus was Divine. And that is how, by the end of the first century, the original low Christology of Christians had developed into the high Christology of the Gospel of John, which declares Jesus to be God Incarnate.

The problem with this skeptical narrative is that it ignores the historical evidence which shows that Christians had a very high, very Jewish Christology very early on.

The Christology of Paul

First, let’s look at the Christology of the apostle Paul. In the epistle of the apostle Paul to the Philippians, written in the 50s or early 60s, we find this passage: “Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death–even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 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, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2:5-11). The “name that is above every name” is, of course YHWH, the name of God Himself. In Greek translations of the Old Testament, this name was translated as Kyrios (Lord). Paul is clearly referencing Isaiah 45:23, in which YHWH declares, “To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess to God.” Paul applies this to Jesus, clearly identifying Jesus with YHWH Himself. This is a very high, very Jewish Christology.

In Pauls’ first epistle to the Corinthian, written in the 50s, we find this passage: “For us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live” (I Cor 8:6). Here, Paul is clearly referencing the Shema, the basic Jewish confession of monotheistic faith: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deut 6:4). Paul takes this and inserts Jesus right into the middle of it: Jesus is LORD (YHWH). Again, this is a very high, very Jewish Christology. 

The Christology of Mark

Next, let’s look at the Christology of the Gospel of Mark, the earliest Gospel, probably written in the 60s. Mark begins his Gospel by citing the prophets Malachi and Isaiah: “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” (Mark 1:2-3). In Malachi, the messenger prepares the way for the Lord to return to His temple (Malachi 3:1). In Isaiah, the voice crying in the wilderness prepares the way for God’s presence to return to Jerusalem (Isaiah 40:1-5). Mark applies these prophecies to John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus. Mark’s message is clear: in the person of Jesus, God Himself is returning to Mount Zion.

Later in Mark, Jesus declares a man’s sins to be forgiven, and some scribes object, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:5-7). Jesus responds by claiming that He does indeed have the authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:10). Since it went without saying among first century Jews that only God could forgive sins, Jesus is implicitly claiming to be God.

In another passage in Mark, Jesus miraculously instantly calms a stormy sea (Mark 4:35-41). The passage ends with His disciples asking, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Mark is inviting the reader to consider this question and answer it for themselves. Any Jew who knew the Psalms knew that God was the one who stilled the seas (Psalm 65:5-7, 89:9, 107:23-29).  Thus, Mark is obviously inviting the reader to understand that Jesus is God Himself.

Finally, we have Mark’s account of Jesus’s Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-13). Jesus takes the inner circle of His disciples up a high mountain. There, Jesus is transfigured and shines with Divine glory, while Elijah and Moses appear and talk with Jesus. Elijah and Moses were both prophets who talked with God on top of mountains. The book of Exodus tells how God’s glory shined on Moses, causing a residual radiance on his face (Ex 34:29-30). Here, in Mark, Elijah and Moses talk with Jesus on top of a mountain, while Jesus’s glory shines on them. Again, Mark is indicating that Jesus is God Himself. 

While Mark’s high Christology may not be as explicitly presented as John’s is, it is certainly there in his Gospel. As with the writings of Paul, we see in Mark a very high, very Jewish Christology that is very early. Thus, the claim that high Christology took a long time to develop and that it was the result of Christianity spreading into polytheistic Greek culture is completely false.

Pre-New Testament Low Christology?

In spite of the fact that the earliest Christian writings we have teach a high Christology, some skeptics still try to argue that the very earliest Christians, prior to the New Testament being written, had a low Christology. Their argument runs as follows: Mark only has a high Christology because Mark was influenced by Paul, who invented high Christology. But Q, a collection of sayings of Jesus used as a source by Matthew and Luke, has a low Christology. And Q predates both Mark and Paul’s epistles. Therefore, the very earliest Christians had a low Christology. 

The problem with this argument is that Q is a purely hypothetical document; we do not know that it actually existed. Even if it did exist, we cannot know the extent of its content just from studying Matthew and Luke. It may have contained portions with high Christological statements which were not included by Matthew and Luke for one reason or another. Even if we assume that Q contained no high Christology, this does not prove that the earliest Christians had a low Christology. It just proves that there was a collection of sayings of Jesus written early on that lacks high Christological claims. And an absence of explicit high Christological claims is not the same thing as a rejection of high Christology. 

Thus, the argument that pre-New Testament Christians had a low Christology, based on the hypothetical document Q’s supposed low Christology, is very tenuous and weak. The actual earliest Christian texts we have contain a high Christology. Thus, the most reasonable thing to believe is that the earliest Christians had a high Christology, and believed Jesus to be God.