Gordon Healey

Is Jesus God? Gordon Healey

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we tend to be fairly established in and confident of our doctrine of the Godhead. Our first Article of Faith, "We believe in God the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost," is foundational for us. In our church vernacular we use the terms "God" and "Heavenly Father" to refer to the Father; and we use "the Savior" and other appropriate names and titles to refer to Jesus Christ. But we never call Jesus "God". And yet throughout the scriptures, Jesus Christ announces himself to be God, often with this simple expression, "I am God." If Jesus refers to himself as God, why don't we? Is it a matter of cultural linguistics? Or does it go deeper than that? Is it that we hold the Father to be the only true God, and thus Jesus, whose atonement we humbly accept and whose intercessory role we freely acknowledge, must occupy a somewhat lower station than that of "God"? We worship the Father; do we also worship Jesus Christ? How does that work? We experience the wondrous rebirth in Christ through which we become his sons and daughters. How should we properly act upon that Father/child relationship? In this book, Is Jesus God?, we explore these questions of culture, doctrine, and worship. We seek to understand our God, our Father, more fully and thus to deepen in our faith and walk in his ways.