In the New Testament, although there is no formal doctrine of the Trinity, Jesus is portrayed in a way that makes him, in effect, “God” to his disciples. This happens not through metaphysical identity with the Father, but through the way he embodies and mediates God’s presence, authority, and character. In the Gospels, Jesus does things that only God is supposed to do: he forgives sins, commands nature, defines the Sabbath, and speaks as the final revealer of divine truth. To his followers, these actions make him the tangible manifestation of God’s presence among them—the human face of the divine. As the Gospel of John puts it, “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” When the disciples encounter Jesus, they experience the nearness and reality of God in human form.
This sense of divinity is functional rather than ontological. Jesus is portrayed as divine not because he shares the metaphysical essence of God as later creeds would say, but because he performs God’s functions—revealing truth, forgiving, judging, and saving. In passages such as John 5:22–23 and Philippians 2:9–11, Jesus is given divine authority and honored with divine worship, but this is understood as conferred by God. In this way, Jesus becomes the active agent of God’s rule—the means through whom God’s identity and power are made known in the world. The disciples, in responding to him with faith and worship, are responding to the God who acts and speaks through him.
Within early Christian devotion, this dynamic created a relational form of monotheism rather than a breach of it. Jesus was included within the worship offered to the one God of Israel, as seen in confessions like “Jesus is Lord.” This did not divide God into multiple beings but expressed a belief that God’s own presence and authority were uniquely manifest in Jesus. The disciples experienced in him the same God they had always known, but now personally and visibly.
For the disciples, then, Jesus was “God” in their midst. Through him they heard God’s voice, saw God’s compassion, and encountered God’s power. After his resurrection, they continued to recognize him as the bearer of God’s name and authority in heaven. So even without the later philosophical framework of the Trinity, the scriptural portrayal allows Jesus to function as God for his followers: not as a second deity, but as the human manifestation of the one God’s self-revealing presence and activity.
Stephen D Green with AI wording
