Speaking of the early church's response to Jesus after his life and death and resurrection, Nolan says, "...Everyone felt that despite his death Jesus was still leading, guiding and inspiring them...Jesus remained present and active through the presence and activity of his Spirit...Jesus was everything...Their admiration and veneration for him knew no bounds. He was in every way the ultimate, the only criterion of good and evil and of truth and falsehood, the only hope for the future, the only power which could transform the world...Jesus was experienced as the breakthrough in the history of humanity. He transcended everything that had ever been said and done before. He was in every way the ultimate, the last word. He was on a par with God. His word was God's word. His Spirit was God's Spirit. His feelings were God's feelings...
"To believe in Jesus today is to agree with this assessment of him...To believe that Jesus is divine is to choose to make him and what he stands for your God...By his words and his praxis, Jesus himself changed the content of the word 'God.' If we do not allow him to change our image of God, we will not be able to say that he is our Lord and our God. To choose him as our God is to make him the source of our information about divinity and to refuse to superimpose upon him our own ideas of divinity...Jesus reveals God to us, God does not reveal Jesus to us...if we accept Jesus as divine, we must reinterpret the Old Testament from Jesus' point of view and we must try to understand the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the way in which Jesus did..."
Nolan sums up the implications of Jesus being God: "We have seen what Jesus was like. If we now wish to treat him as our God, we would have to conclude that our
God does not want to be served by us, but wants to serve us; God does
not want to be given the highest possible rank and status in our
society, but wants to take the lowest place and to be without any rank
and status; God does not want to be feared and obeyed, but wants to
be recognized in the sufferings of the poor and the weak; God is not
supremely indifferent and detached, but is irrevocably committed to the
liberation of humankind, for God has chosen to be identified with all
people in a spirit of solidarity and compassion. If this is not a
true picture of God, then Jesus is not divine. If this is a true picture
of God, then God is more truly human, more thoroughly humane, than any
human being..."Oh Lord, Your gospel is the everlasting good news for all peoples in all places of all generations! You have shown the Father to be approachable, desirable, serving, tender towards weak and fearful humans; You enjoy us and want to be with us. We would never have dreamt that God could be this good and kind - help us look at Jesus and believe and be healed by Your full acceptance of us...and then in turn share this good news with those You place us among. Thank You! We worship You now and forever!
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