Nowhere does the Book of Acts suggests that the apostles taught of Jesus as God incarnate. It seems pretty clear that they didn’t believe this to be true, as shown by several different facets of the stories told in Acts.
The Apostles Continued to Worship God, Not Jesus
The Book of Acts repeatedly refers to the apostles and their followers as worshipping God, not Jesus. For example (all emphasis mine):
- The first converts “spent much time together in the temple, … praising God and having the goodwill of all the people” (2.46–47);
- When Peter was imprisoned by King Herod, “the church prayed fervently to God for him” (12.1–5);
- The Holy Spirit directed the church at Antioch to set apart Barnabas and Saul while the church was “worshipping the Lord” (13.1–3); while this reference to “the Lord” is ambiguous standing alone, it seems to refer to the LORD God, inasmuch as the same chapter quotes a passage from Isaiah as the commandment of “the Lord” (13.47);
- Paul and Silas, imprisoned in Philippi after their encounter with the owners of the slave girl, “were praying and singing hymns to God” (16.25);
- In Corinth, “the Jews made a united attack on Paul …. [and] said, ‘This man is persuading people to worship God in ways that are contrary to the law’” (18.12–13);
- In Ephesus, Paul “testified to both Jews and Greeks about repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus” (20.21), and stated his desire to finish “the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the good news of God’s grace” (20.24);
- When Paul visited the church in Jerusalem, he followed the advice of the Christians there, submitting himself to a purification rite in the temple to prove that he was not teaching Jews to foresake the Law (21.17–26).
Many Jewish Priests Became Converts
It’s worth noting that, according to Acts, “a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith” (6.7). It’s hard to imagine this happening if the apostles had preached that Jesus was God in human form.
When the Apostles Were Persecuted,
It Wasn't for Preaching Jesus’s Divinity
According to Acts, “the Jews” persecuted the apostles, sometimes violently and even fatally. Why? Acts suggests that the persecutions happened, not because the apostles taught that Jesus was God incarnate, but for other offenses against politically-correct belief and the established order. If they had in fact proclaimed that Jesus was God, it's hard to see how they would have lived to tell the tale.
Persecutions for Proclaiming the Resurrection of the Dead
The earliest persecutions arose in response to the apostles’ teaching of the resurrection of the dead. That teaching apparently angered the priestly Sadducee hierarchy, which did not believe in resurrection (23.8). The priests and captains of the temple took offense at Peter and John’s proclamation “that in Jesus there is the resurrection of the dead. So they arrested them ….” (4.1–3) The priests eventually released the two apostles (4.23), but they were soon to see Peter again.
The high priest and his jealous Sadducee retinue later rearrested Peter and the other apostles because they had healed the sick and cast out unclean spirits (5.12–17). Peter, brought before the council, risked death by defiantly pressing his resurrection claim. He insisted to the council that “the God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree [and] exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (5.30–31). His listeners “were enraged and wanted to kill them,” but council member Gamaliel — who as a Pharisee presumably did believe in resurrection (23.8) — talked them out of it, convincing them instead to wait and see how things played out (5.33–39).
Persecutions for Challenging the Established Order
The apostles suffered other acts of violence because of their challenges to the existing political and economic order. For example:
Stephen was killed for being too “in your face” with the council. The chain of events started when false witnesses told the council that “[t]his man never stops saying things against this holy place and the law; for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses handed on to us” (6.13–14). Stephen himself enraged the council when he excoriated them for opposing the Holy Spirit and killing Jesus, just as their ancestors had persecuted the LORD’s prophets (7.51–53).
Paul and Silas upset an unsavory business arrangement in Philippi when they cast out a spirit of divination from a slave girl. The girls’s owners had been making good money from her fortune-telling, but no longer. Angry that their meal ticket was gone, they dragged the apostles before the magistrates and accused them of “disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe” (16.16–21).
The same two apostles later provoked a political uproar in Thessalonica, where “the Jews” accused them of “acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus” (17.7).
And economics raised its head again in Ephesus, where Paul’s teachings caused the silversmiths who made shrines to Artemis to lose business; those worthies rioted (19.23–28).
Persecutions for Welcoming Gentiles
Some apostles were persecuted by “the Jews” because of their willingness to consort with Gentiles. The first time that Paul and Barnabas preached in the synagogue at Antioch of Pisidia, they were well-received and encouraged to return the following week (13.42). But when the following sabbath arrived, “almost the whole town gathered” — presumably including Gentiles. That quickly led to trouble: “[W]hen the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy; and blaspheming, they contradicted what was spoken by Paul” (13.45). So Paul and Barnabas then turned their attention to the Gentiles, apparently enjoying notable success (13.46–49). This prompted even more incitement by “the Jews,” which in turn caused Paul and Barnabas to leave town; “they shook the dust off their feet in protest” (13.50–51).
During Paul’s last visit to Jerusalem, “the Jews from Asia” stirred up the crowd against him, “[t]his is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against our people, our law, and this place[,]” and claiming that “more than that, he has actually brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place” (21.27–28).
Preaching that Jesus Was God Would Have Been Fatal
The foregoing passages suggest that the apostles were not men to shrink fearfully from proclaiming their message. They risked violence and even death to do so.
Those passages also suggest that the apostles’ opponents were quick to take violent offense when they didn’t like what they heard.
So if the apostles had preached that Jesus was God himself — which first-century Jews probably would have deemed the ultimate blasphemy — in all likelihood they would have been immediately killed.
This strongly suggests that the apostles didn’t preach the divinity of Jesus, at least not in the days recorded by Acts.
And given their willingness to preach what they believed to be the truth, it stands to reason that the apostles didn’t believe Jesus to be God.
Conclusion: Christology as Adiaphora?
I'm not sure exactly where or when the early church developed the idea that Jesus was God incarnate. I’ve read speculation that the idea arose as a hybrid of Jewish- and Hellenistic Christian beliefs.
But it seems pretty clear: The first apostles — the men who presumably knew Jesus best during his lifetime, the men who reportedly were commissioned by him to carry on his work — did not teach that he was God.
This is especially noteworthy given that Peter, along with James and John the sons of Zebedee, are reported to have witnessed the Transfiguration. If anyone was likely to have believed that Jesus was God himself in the flesh, it would have been they.
True, the author of the Gospel of John wrote a prologue that seemingly equated Jesus with God. But scholars aren't uniformly convinced that John the son of Zebedee was that author. Moreover, scholars believe the Fourth Gospel was written decades after the events we are considering here, whereas I'm interested in what the apostles are reported to have said then.
So when we renew our baptismal vows, and promise to continue in the apostles' teaching, we're not promising to profess or believe in the divinity of Jesus. That doctrine can legitimately said to be adiaphora, an inessential of the faith.
(FOOTNOTE: As regular readers know, my choice for what's "essential" in the faith is simply the Great Commandment and Summary of the Law, of which Jesus himself is reported to have said, "do this and you will live [eternally].")
Jesus was what he was — or if you prefer, he is what he is. If he was indeed God incarnate, we can hope that eventually we will be shown persuasive proof of it.
If Jesus wasn’t God, it doesn’t matter; we can still discern God’s hand at work in Jesus’s life, in the movement he started, and in the church he catalyzed.
God might not have been working in precisely the way that Nicene Christians have long thought. But that’s OK; our task is not to tell God how he must have done what he did — that would be a bit presumptuous, to say the least — but instead:
- to try to discern, humbly, what God in fact has done, using the senses and reason that he gave us and the real-world evidence graciously revealed to us;
- to try to figure out how and why God did what he did, as best we can, so that we can work to align our own actions with his will — mindful that we don't know everything, and that what we think we know could be wrong;
- to recognize that God seems to have a plan, and to trust that everything is going to work out unimaginably well in his good time; and
- to thank him with grateful hearts for all of his blessings.
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