A Biblical Answer
No question in all the world matters more than this one, because Jesus Himself made it the hinge of everything. One day He turned to those who knew Him best and asked, "Whom say ye that I am?" Simon Peter answered, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:15-16). That confession is the doorway into the whole of the Christian faith. To know who Jesus is changes everything, for He is not merely a figure from history or a wise voice among many teachers. He is the Son of God, the long-promised Christ, and the Savior the human heart has always needed.
Scripture begins its answer long before Bethlehem, before the world itself was made. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). The Word is spoken of as distinct from God, "with God," and yet as fully sharing in all that God is. Then comes the wonder at the center of history: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). The One through whom all things were made stepped into His own creation. Isaiah saw it centuries before and could scarcely hold the two halves of it together: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given... and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6). A child born in weakness; the mighty God given in love.
So we must say both things, and say them plainly, because the Bible does. Jesus is truly one of us. He grew weary by the well, He wept at the grave of His friend, He hungered in the wilderness, and He bled upon a Roman cross. And Jesus is truly God with us. He forgave sins that only God can forgive, He commanded the wind and the sea and they obeyed Him, He raised the dead, and He received worship that faithful men and angels always refused for themselves. When doubting Thomas saw the risen Lord, he fell down and cried, "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28), and Jesus did not turn the worship aside but blessed him. To Philip He said, "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9), and to His hearers, "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30). The apostles, raised to confess that the Lord alone is God, came to write of Him this way: "by him were all things created... and by him all things consist" (Colossians 1:16-17).
Why did such a One come? He came to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), and sin sets a distance between us and our Maker that no effort of ours can close. Jesus came to close it. He lived the life of perfect love we have failed to live, and then He gave that life as an offering for our sins. "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Isaiah had foretold it long before: "he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5). He had to be one of us to stand in our place, and He had to be God for that one life to be worth more than all the world.
And the cross is not the end of the story. On the third day He rose, bodily and triumphant, leaving an empty tomb and breaking the power of death itself. His resurrection is the Father's own seal upon all that He claimed to be, "declared to be the Son of God with power... by the resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:4). Now He reigns at the right hand of the Father, living always to make intercession for those who come to God through Him, and He has promised to return in glory. The day is coming when "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow... And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:10-11).
This, then, is who Jesus Christ is, and the knowing of Him is meant to become a trusting in Him. He is the eternal Word who became flesh, the Son of the living God, the Savior who died and rose for you, the Lord who is coming again. He does not stand far off as a riddle to be solved; He comes near as a Person to be loved. The same Jesus who received Thomas with a blessing receives all who turn to Him, for "as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God" (John 1:12). You need not untangle every mystery before you kneel. You need only do what Peter did, and answer His question with your own heart: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."
