To begin with, it is necessary to state that the New Testament clearly presents Jesus as God. Though some appear to imagine otherwise, it must be obvious to anyone who takes time to read it.

• He was God's agent in creating the world (Colossians 1:16).

• He is God's agent in revealing God to human beings (Matthew 11:27).

• He is God's agent in reconciling people to God (2 Corinthians 5:18,19).

• One day he will be God's agent in judging the world (John 5:22,23).

He is the Son of God (Romans 1:4), sharing the nature of God (Hebrews 1:3), the form of God (Philippians 2:6), the image of God (Colossians 1:16) and the glory of God (Hebrews 1:3).

“How was it that a dedicated Jewish monotheist like Paul ... was already treating Christ as 'one with God'”

It is significant that New Testament writers often take texts from the Old Testament that refer to God, and there, right in the middle of their quotations, is Jesus. For instance, instead of "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4), we have, "For us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live" (1 Corinthians 8:6). The same phenomenon is consistent through the New Testament and is evident across virtually all early Christianity for which we have evidence.

The earliest writing we have in the New Testament is possibly Paul's first letter to the Church in Thessalonica, very likely written in AD 50 when Paul was in Corinth. In this letter, Jesus is the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son in heaven, and the author of salvation. He is risen from the dead, active in his people through the Holy Spirit, and one day coming back to gather his people and judge the world.

New Testament scholar, C. F. D. Moule, insists:

“If the deification of Jesus was the end result of an evolutionary process in pious imagination, how was it that a dedicated Jewish monotheist like Paul, at the earliest known stage of Christian literature, was already treating Christ as 'one with God'? ...Whatever explanation is offered for this extraordinary phenomenon, the facile theory of an evolving superstition will not do. It simply does not fit the facts.”