Is Jesus Really God? Henri Blocher Answers

Introduction

In this Understanding the Christian Faith podcast from Église du Tabernacle (Paris 18th), pastor Benjamin Short welcomes theologian Henri Blocher to discuss a claim that remains, even today, one of the boldest in Christianity: Jesus is God himself. Henri Blocher lays down the essential markers (one God, two distinct natures in one person), then answers the classic objections, from the gospels' apparent silence to Matthew 24's famous "no one knows the day," all the way to the Muslim question of God's death. A dense, pastoral, patiently argued conversation, which you are invited to join.

Message Outline

1. Three clarifications before answering: what "Jesus is God" means

• Henri Blocher first recalls that this claim is nothing new: the Council of Nicaea, whose 1700th anniversary was celebrated last year, solemnly confessed that Jesus is "true God from true God, light from light." This is the faith of original Christianity, that of the early centuries.
• Clarification number one: if Jesus is God, there is only one God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three gods. We must not picture them as three earthly persons, that would fall back into a tritheism that the Christian faith has always rejected.
• Clarification number two: the word "person" is used, as Augustine said, "because we have no better one." The Son, designated by the apostle John as the Word, is the total expression of God, his very reason, internal to the Godhead.
• Clarification number three: affirming the Son's divinity does not divinize the man Jesus. Another council (that of Chalcedon (451)), fixed the formula: the two natures, divine and human, remain distinct, without confusion, perfectly united because they subsist in a single person. The mystery is real, but doctrinal clarity is necessary.

2. Did Jesus say "I am God"? Henri Blocher's answer

• Blocher challenges the very framing of the question. According to him, Jesus's affirmation of his divinity is "so massive, so plural through the cross-referencing of various angles" that one must be "blind or deaf" not to discern it in the gospels.
• The authorities of official Judaism, in fact, condemned him precisely for this, they had understood the scope of his words perfectly well. "The Father and I are one" (John 10:30). Before the Sanhedrin, Jesus quotes Psalm 110 and Daniel 7: the Messiah will sit on God's very throne and come on the clouds of heaven, a divine manifestation within the full symbolism of the Old Testament.
• John the Baptist, his forerunner, fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah 40: "prepare the way of the Lord." It is God himself who is coming. And Jesus applies to himself all the attributes of the one God of Israel, he is greater than Solomon, he is the light.
• Why then did he not say more directly "I am God"? Two reasons, according to Blocher: the Messiah had to demonstrate it through his works, and above all the work for which he had come (the cross and the resurrection), had to be accomplished for his divinity to be fully understood.
• The text that particularly convinces Henri Blocher: John 8, "before Abraham was, I am", an "I am" that echoes the very Name of God revealed to Moses (Exodus 3:14) and that triggers the violent anger of his listeners, precisely because they understood.

3. Matthew 24:36: if Jesus does not know the day, how can he be God?

• The objection is classic: God is omniscient, yet Jesus himself says he does not know the moment of the end. Blocher's answer: this verse is understood through the distinction of the two natures. As man, Jesus is not omniscient; as God, he knows everything.
• Blocher does not claim to fully explain the mechanism: "he manages to speak as a man without his human consciousness being overwhelmed by his divine omniscience." This is the mystery of the hypostatic union, this union of the two natures in the single person of the Son.
• He adds a decisive note: in his earthly ministry, Jesus "chose to play by the rules" and did not make use of his divine prerogatives. This is what tradition calls kenosis (Philippians 2:6-8), the voluntary self-emptying. The epistle to the Hebrews speaks of "the days of his flesh", human nature in its assumed fragility.

4. Why is Jesus's divinity central? Two reasons

• The fullness of revelation. If Jesus is God coming all the way to us, man among men, then God makes himself fully known as he is, no longer through lesser intermediaries, but in person. No other way could reach this fullness.
• Salvation. A man was needed to win the victory over evil; but, as Calvin said, "he had to be God" to triumph over the power of darkness. Only in this way do we have a total victory, and this is the very meaning of the resurrection.

5. "Is this doctrine a late invention?" No : it is false, three times over

• Some claim that Jesus's divinity was only affirmed in the 4th century, at Nicaea. Blocher answers firmly: "it's false, it's false, it's false."
• The New Testament evidence is massive. John's prologue calls Jesus "the only-begotten God" (John 1:18) who makes the Father known to the depths of his heart. The baptismal formula "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19) associates the Son and the Spirit with the Father, which would be blasphemous if they were not God. Revelation constantly ascribes glory to God and to the Lamb.
• Why then wait until 325 for an ecumenical council? A very simple reason: Christians were persecuted. It was not legal to be a Christian. Only after Constantine's conversion could such a great gathering take place. But as early as the 2nd century, many Christian authors affirmed the divinity of Christ.
• Peter's speech at Pentecost (Acts 2), often cited to claim that divinity is not mentioned, actually implies this very divinity: Psalm 110 announces there that the Messiah sits on God's very throne.

6. How can God die? The answer to the Muslim question

• "God indeed cannot die." This is precisely, says Blocher, where the most solemn secret of the incarnation lies: God the Son had to take on human nature in order to die and thus settle the question of evil.
• The reasoning follows the epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 2:14): Jesus triumphed, through death, over him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil. His death is not the annihilation of his divinity, it is the victory over evil, of which the resurrection is the visible fruit.
• If the cross is at the center of Christian preaching, it is because it was through his death that Jesus triumphed. He had to die, and to die, he had to become man.

7. Practically speaking: who do I pray to?

• Blocher answers with simple, common usage: "We pray to God." Prayer is defined as a word addressed to God.
• Because there is in God a real, profound, mysterious differentiation, it is permissible to direct one's prayer either to the Father, to the Son, or to the Spirit, without ever separating them, since there is only one God.
• The fundamental form, as Blocher lives it each day: we pray to God who, through the Son's work, becomes our Father. We pray to the Father through the Son, in the Spirit who makes prayer authentic. God lowered himself all the way to us so that we might go to him, we were incapable of it, so he came down.

Key Takeaways

• To affirm that Jesus is God is to confess one God in three persons, never three gods.
• Christ's two natures, divine and human, remain distinct without confusion and united in a single person (Chalcedon, 451).
• Jesus did not literally say "I am God", he said it forcefully and in a thousand ways, to the point of being condemned for it.
• Matthew 24:36's "I do not know" does not deny his divinity: it reveals the kenosis, that voluntary self-emptying by which Jesus, in "the days of his flesh," did not make use of his divine prerogatives.
• Jesus's divinity is not a late invention: it is massively present in the New Testament; the Council of Nicaea (325) did not invent it, it formalized it after persecution had ceased.
• God had to become man in order to die, it was through his death that Jesus triumphed over evil, and his resurrection is the fruit of it.

Personal Application

1. When you confess that Jesus is God, is it a doctrine you recite, or a reality that governs your prayer life and your worship?
2. Are there gospel passages you avoid because they unsettle you, for example the moments when Jesus seems "diminished" (fatigue, ignorance, tears)? How does kenosis help you receive them?
3. Faced with a Muslim or Jewish friend who tells you "God cannot die," what do you answer today, and what does this conversation help you hear again?
4. How do you pray: to the Father? to the Son? to the Holy Spirit? This week, try explicitly naming all three in a single moment of prayer and note what that produces.
5. Is Jesus's divinity for you a reason for greater worship, or merely a doctrinal box to check? Take ten minutes this week to contemplate John 1:1-18 without asking for anything.

Verses Cited

• John 10:30 · "I and the Father are one"
• John 8:58 · "Before Abraham was, I am"
• John 1:1-18 · The prologue and "the only God"
• Matthew 24:36 · "No one knows that day or hour"
• Matthew 28:19 · The trinitarian baptismal formula
• Psalm 110 · "The LORD says to my Lord"
• Daniel 7:13-14 · The Son of Man on the clouds
• Isaiah 40:3 · "Prepare the way of the Lord"
• Philippians 2:6-8 · The Son's kenosis
• Hebrews 2:14 · "Through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death"
• Acts 2 · Peter's speech at Pentecost

Frequently Asked Questions

Why claim Jesus is God if the gospels don't say so explicitly?

Henri Blocher disputes the premise: the claim is present, but through multiple, converging paths. Jesus applies to himself the attributes of the one God of Israel, quotes Psalm 110 and Daniel 7 before the Sanhedrin, declares "I and the Father are one," and states in John 8 "before Abraham was, I am", which earns him a death sentence. His opponents, for their part, had understood the scope of his words perfectly well.

How do we reconcile Jesus's divinity with his ignorance of the day of the end (Matthew 24:36)?

Through the distinction of the two natures, as Chalcedon formulated it: as man, Jesus is not omniscient; as God, he knows everything. Blocher adds that Jesus, during his earthly ministry, voluntarily "played by the rules" of humanity without making use of his divine prerogatives. This is the doctrine of kenosis: the Son's free self-emptying described in Philippians 2 and in "the days of his flesh" mentioned by the epistle to the Hebrews.

Wasn't Jesus's divinity invented at the Council of Nicaea in 325?

No, Henri Blocher answers "it's false, it's false, it's false." The New Testament affirms it massively from the 1st century onward (John 1:18, the trinitarian baptismal formula, Revelation). Christian authors of the 2nd century also testify to it. If an ecumenical council waited until 325, it is simply because Christianity was illegal and persecuted; only Emperor Constantine's conversion made such a gathering possible. Nicaea invented nothing, it formalized a faith already universally shared.