God the Son

The early followers of Jesus were convinced by their experience of him that he must be more than an ordinary human: his miracles, his message and the fact that he was resurrected from death, all convinced them that he must be God. As Jewish people however, they understood the idea of prophets, but could not accept that God could be limited in form to that of a human being. It probably took some time therefore to formulate a way of conceiving of Jesus as being both God and man, human and divine. In time however, they concluded that he had to be God if his death was to provide forgiveness of sin and reconciliation with God (see Doctrinal disputes section); Jesus therefore had to be God.

The story of Jesus is told in the four Gospels of the New Testament, although there are also some references to him in Roman writings and other contemporary literature. The Greek title ‘Christ’ is given to acknowledge his role as God’s ‘Anointed One’, a title taken from Jewish tradition. This was a Jewish term for the future Messiah, who would come to restore God’s people and bring about peace on the earth.