So who was Jesus? You don’t have to be a church type person to ask that question. It’s a simple question that people inside and outside the church have asked. We ask the question to validate our beliefs. We sometimes ask the question in an effort to prove someone wrong. In this What We Believe post we’re going to dig into the  basics of what we, as Christians, believe about Jesus. We won’t hit everything but we’ll try to cover the basics. 

First off the study of who was Jesus is what we, in the church world, call Christology. At its core, Christology means the study of Christ. Now as we look at Jesus Christ, we start by covering some of the information that is pretty much universally accepted.

He was a real dude! Like for real, Jesus was a man who was born, lived and died. There are records, not just biblical accounts either, that give locations and general time frames of this man named Jesus of Nazareth. So we’re going to move forward with the presupposition that we all agree that Jesus was real.

Another widely accepted belief is that he was at least a good guy and a great teacher. Now this is rarely debated because of the content of his teaching. You don’t have to be a devout follower of Jesus to believe that a man who taught love your neighbor as yourself and serve the least of these is at a minimum a good guy and a great teacher! So again we aren’t going to spend a lot of time on this one.

But one area of the who is Jesus debate revolves around the question where did he come from? Now this one isn’t quite as universally accepted. Actually this one is pretty hotly contested! For starters, he was born in a small town called Bethlehem to parents Mary and Joseph. But that’s not the debated part. The real questions are these: was Jesus created? Is he really God? When did he become God? Did he ever stop being God? 

These questions can be pretty deep and difficult but we’ll stay kind of surface for now. We’ll dig deeper in the future. For now let’s tackle them as a whole.  From the historic Christian teaching and understanding and from the evidence woven through the Bible we can simply answer no Jesus wasn’t exactly created. The bible and the summaries of faith we call creeds, tell us that Jesus was always God’s Son and at a time in history he became a man.

Think of it this way. John 1 tells us In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Then later we’re told and the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  Did you see it? This is one of the fundamental and, in my book, coolest parts of the bible! The title word is a metaphor for Jesus. Jesus is the word. The one we know as Jesus is the very teaching, presence and power of God living in a human body.

So was Jesus created? The bodily part, the part that walked around Nazareth, yes that was created very much like you and I are created. But the essence of the one we call the Christ…not so much. He wasn’t created by God at all. He came from God. The term we use is begotten. Since God is Father and dad’s don’t give birth we need a different term for the male part of conception. And that’s exactly what this word is. God had begotten His son as Jesus through a woman named Mary. Jesus therefore is one with and part of God, yet at the same time he’s distinct from the Father. The son of God always was because his essence is found in the words spoken in creation.  And He always will be because of his victory over death, another topic for a future time. As long as word, thought, power or light existed the Son of God was present. But at a point in history all of the power of God that was found in His Son became localized in a human body that was born to a young woman in ancient Palestine.

In short, was Jesus created? No, not the way skeptics try to claim. Is he God? You bet he is – all that made God, God was found in Jesus from the very beginning because they’re of the same essence. When Jesus died did he stop being God? Not a chance! It was when he died (note wasn’t killed because he gave up his life) that he really won. Jesus always was, still is, and always will be. He’s God and man. He’s truth and light. He’s life and victory in the truest sense of the term.