When Did Christians First Recognize the Divinity of Jesus?

2025 is a banner year for Christians, but few realize it.  Exactly 1,700 years ago in AD 325, several hundred bishops gathered in the city of Nicaea (located in the present-day Turkish city of Iznik, approximately 90 miles southeast of Istanbul).  There, they worked out the formal language describing many elements of the doctrine of the Trinity, including the words Christians use to explain that Jesus is God.

Some skeptics claim that the early Christians did not see Jesus as God.  At the extreme, conspiracy theorists who want Jesus to be seen as just a man argue that the divinity of Jesus wasn’t accepted until it was promulgated at that First Council of Nicaea, almost 300 years after Jesus died and rose from the dead.  (A famous novel and movie from early in the 21st century made such a claim.)

The skeptics are ignoring crucial evidence from the Bible itself.  The belief in the divinity of Jesus first shows up in the first two documents that were later included in the Bible: Paul’s first and second letters to the Thessalonians.  1 Thessalonians was written in AD 50, just 20 years after Jesus’s death and resurrection and 275 years before the Council of Nicaea.  2 Thessalonians followed a few months later.  Both indicate that the apostle Paul believed in the divinity of Jesus.

Paul treats the Lord Jesus and God the Father as a unity and prays to Jesus as he would to God

It would be easy to miss these earliest expressions of belief in the divinity of Jesus.  To us they are subtle.  Paul wasn’t trying to write a book of doctrine.  But a careful examination of what he wrote in Greek reveals clear indications of Paul’s belief in the divinity of Jesus, and his belief that Jesus and the Father are one.

In 1 Thessalonians 3:11, Paul prays that God the Father and the Lord Jesus will direct his path back to the Thessalonians for another visit (his first visit was cut short by persecution).  The verb he uses for “direct” is a third person singular verb – the verb you use when the noun is a singular noun.  In other words, he speaks of God the Father and the Lord Jesus as a single entity, not as two entities.

What do I mean by that?  Let me explain by offering an analogy.  Suppose I say that “John is directing traffic.”  The word “is” is a third person singular verb, which goes with the third-person singular noun “John.”  If I say that “John and Paul are directing traffic,” the word “are” is a third person plural verb that goes with the third person plural subject “John and Paul.”

In ordinary circumstances, I would never say, “John and Paul is directing traffic.”  That would be bad grammar.  The word “is” requires a singular noun.  There is only one reason why I would use “is” in that sentence: if “John and Paul” is a singular entity rather than a plural group of entities – for example, if “John and Paul” is the name of a security service.  In that case, “John and Paul” is a singular entity, not a pair of separate entities, and I could correctly say that “John and Paul is directing traffic.”

In 1 Thessalonians 3:11, Paul uses a verb that treats God the Father and the Lord Jesus as a single entity, using the third person singular verb.  You can’t see this in the English, because English often does not have different words for singular and plural verbs; but it is clear in the Greek.  Paul chooses the verb form that treats God the Father and the Lord Jesus as a unity that acts as one.  (See 1 Thessalonians 2:17-3:13 for my full Bible Study on this portion of Paul’s letter.)

In the next verse (1 Thess. 3:12), Paul prays that the Lord Jesus will help the Thessalonians abound in love.  This is another subtle sign of his belief in the divinity of Jesus.  Paul would not pray to a mere human; God is the one who can answer prayer.  But he directs his prayer to Jesus.  This indicates that, 20 years after the Resurrection, Paul sees Jesus as having the power of God.

Contrary to the confusion of the skeptics, the Christians of Jesus’s time believed that Jesus is God and that he is one with the Father.  He was not just a man elevated to divinity centuries later by the Council of Nicaea.

Paul again places Jesus on a par with the Father in his second letter

A few months later, Paul writes a second letter to the Thessalonians.  He again chooses a verb that identifies God the Father and the Lord Jesus as one, as I explain in my Bible Study on 2 Thessalonians 2:13-3:18.  Here is the story.

In 2 Thessalonians 2:16, Paul is praying for the Thessalonians.  He begins the prayer by describing our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father as having given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace.

He continues the sentence by saying, may he encourage your hearts and may he strengthen them.  He uses the third personal singular he; He does not say, may they encourage and strengthen your hearts.  Again, as in 1 Thessalonians 3:11, Paul indicates by his grammar that he sees the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father as one God, which means that he believes in the divinity of Jesus.

Other passages in the Bible assert Jesus’s divinity

Paul also signals Jesus’s divinity a few years later in his letter to the Philippians (2:6-11).  But Paul’s letters are not the only places we see signs of the early belief in the divinity of Jesus.

In the Gospel of Mark, written less than 20 years later, Jesus embraces the claim that He is the Messiah and the Son of God and adds that He will come in judgment from the right hand of God (Mark 14:62-64).  His opponents see it as a clear claim of divinity, which is why they call for His execution.

The Gospel of John, which was written before AD 100, repeatedly affirms Jesus’s divinity.  Here are some examples:

• The first chapter refers to Jesus as “the Word” (John 1:14-15) and says, “In the beginning . . . the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

• Jesus says, “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30).

• Jesus uses the phrase “I am” frequently, but in one instance, He uses it in a way that clearly asserts divinity.  In John 8:56-59, He says, “Before Abraham existed, I am.”  “I am” is the core of the name of God in the Old Testament (YHWH, or Yahweh).  His opponents clearly understand that He is claiming divinity and pick up stones to kill him for blaspheming.

• When Thomas encounters the risen Jesus, he calls Jesus “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28).

The skeptics think church leaders waited 300 years to declare Jesus divine.  It is true that throughout history, some people, both within and outside of the Church, have questioned the belief that Jesus is divine.  But the belief itself – that Jesus is divine as well as human – was not a novel idea decided out of nowhere in 325.  It is actually in the Bible.

The Council of Nicaea gave us common words to explain Jesus’s divinity

The Nicene Creed affirms that there is one God in three Persons, that the Lord Jesus Christ is “God from God,” and that the Son of God is “consubstantial with the Father,” meaning that He is “of the same substance” as God and did not start out as a human.  The Council of Nicaea was important because it agreed on formal, doctrinal language to express these truths of the Christian faith.

But Paul signaled that Jesus is divine 275 years earlier in his choice of verbs and pronouns in his first and second letters to the Thessalonians.

NOTE: There is much more in Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians.  Although my Bible Studies pause occasionally to explain doctrinal issues like this, the main focus of my Bible Studies is to help us explore how we can apply the practical wisdom of the Scriptures to our everyday lives.  Check out my full set of Bible Studies and see where God leads you.