Jesus is God. Period.

I mean no disrespect to those who disagree with my subject, but I would encourage you not to shy away from this because of it. Follow my train of thought, see if it doesn't make any sense. See if doesn't move you. Then you can be turned off. ;)

Simply put, my argument is that Jesus is God - must be God - because that is the only way that he could, can, and will accomplish his role as Savior of mankind. Sin, by definition, is the factor that separates us from God, and that separation is the state that we are all born into; that we all live in, by God's good grace, until the day that we die. Jesus' role as savior is to void that separation and to bring us into communion with God; to bridge the gap between us and God by wiping away our sins.

For Jesus to accomplish this goal implies two fundamental things about his nature. First and foremost he must have lived a perfect, sinless human life to measure up to the task of paying for our sins. Because, since all sin - even the smallest little disobedience (like eating fruit God told you not to eat) - leads to a debt to death - set forward by God in Genesis, Jesus could only have paid for all of it, or any of it, if he had not acquired any of this debt to death himself. He had to be clean and undeserving of death to pay the price for our sins; to pay our debt to death.

Secondly, but more importantly (yet sadly it gets overlooked more often), Jesus must be fully God and fully man to reconcile us to God. Because, as I said, sin separates us from God - separates the created from the creator - Jesus, to bring us - God and man - back together, must have an intimate knowledge of both us and God. To be the bridge that reunites us and God he must have come from, must always be, fully God and fully man. He cannot be just and angel or a prophet, because - as history shows us - both of these classes of being have been tainted by sin and are therefore imperfect. Satan was an angel and fell, becoming the father of lies. Moses was a prophet and fell, dying without reaching the promised land. Angels and prophets by themselves cannot be perfect (because, by definition, to be by themselves would be a state of separation from God, their creator, which, as I already established, is sin), and we only see them in the right when they are following the will of God. For Jesus to be the perfect, unity bringing being that his role necessitates he be, he has to be fully God. He cannot just be following the will of God, although that is part of his role, he must be the Will of God. He must be the physical manifestation of God's Will and want to wipe away our sins or else he would be inadequate to the task. More than that, he would have no place in wiping our slates clean, because it is against God and God alone that we have all sinned and fallen short of his Glory. He must be fully God to pay the price and fully man to be the right vessel that was broken and poured out for our sins. Not only is it the best way for Jesus to be our savior, it is the only way for him to take on that role.

I feel I could delve into this all day, because I haven't even touched the part about Jesus' role on earth being an illustration for us has to how we should live our earthly lives in communion with God. For him to be that physical illustration, he had to be the physical manifestation of both God and man; the physical manifestation of the spiritual life we are to live through his perfect, God strength. I must leave off, however. It's a topic for another day, maybe.

John 1:1-5 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (emphasis, or bold, added by me)