The most important question anyone can answer is the one Jesus asked His disciples in Matthew 16:15: "But whom say ye that I am?" Peter answered, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." This confession — that Jesus is both the promised Messiah (Christ) and the divine Son of God — is the bedrock of Christian faith.
The Gospel of John opens with the most exalted declaration of Christ's identity in all of Scripture: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). This is not ambiguous. Jesus, the Word (Logos), is eternal ("in the beginning"), distinct from the Father ("with God"), and fully divine ("was God"). He is not a created being, an angel, or merely a good teacher. He is God incarnate.
Throughout His ministry, Jesus made claims that only God could make. He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6). He forgave sins, which only God can do (Mark 2:7). He accepted worship, which is reserved for God alone (Matthew 14:33). And in John 8:58, He declared, "Before Abraham was, I am" — using the divine name that God revealed to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14).
Jesus is also fully human. He was born of a woman (Galatians 4:4), grew in wisdom (Luke 2:52), experienced hunger, thirst, weariness, and grief. He wept at the tomb of His friend Lazarus (John 11:35). This is the mystery of the Incarnation: Jesus is one person with two natures — fully God and fully man. He had to be God to save us and man to represent us.
The prophet Isaiah foretold this dual nature seven centuries before Jesus was born: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6). A child born (His humanity) and a son given (His deity).
Who is Jesus? He is the Creator of the universe, the Redeemer of mankind, the Judge of all the earth, and the King of kings. He is the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep, the Bread of Life who satisfies every hunger, and the Resurrection and the Life who conquers death itself. He is, as Thomas finally confessed when he saw the risen Christ, "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28).