"Putting Jesus In His Place": A Great Accessible Resource For the Deity of Christ -Book Review-

Several beliefs unite the Orthodox Christian faith (by orthodox, I mean that they are actually Christians). One of the most crucial ones has to do with the identity of Christ. Is Jesus God? For most in the church today, the answer would be an easy and resounding yes. Yet many groups, whom we would consider heretical groups (such as the LDS, JWs, the Christadelphians, Oness, etc), would contest that idea and say Jesus is not God. This is why we do not fellowship with such groups, since we do not worship the same God or the same savior.

For someone who has not studied the topic, the raised objections will catch them off guard, because the objections are often very clever and convincing. Christians should understand this topic well for themselves, after all, it is only the identity of God and the Messiah that is at stake.

Overview

In Putting Jesus in His Place, Robert Bowman utilizes the "HANDS" acronym to prove the deity of Christ. It goes like this:

H is for Honors

A is for Attributes

N is for Names

D is for Deeds

S is for Seat

For each word in the acronym, Bowman shows biblical proof that Jesus could claim what God can claim (for example, Jesus is bestowed the same honors that God is). Bowman takes a wide survey of the Bible, emphasizing the similarities between what is said about Jesus and what is said about God, eventually formulating the argument that what is said about Jesus is the very same things that are attributed to God, thus giving Jesus his deity and place as the second person within the Trinity.

Bowman goes through the Old and New Testaments, comparing and contrasting verses. Utilizing the Greek Septuagint, Greek forms, and many other technical methods when appropriate. In the end, the reader is left with a thorough case for Christ's divinity.

My Thoughts

I found this book to be very helpful and not so hard to read. The arguments are mostly straightforward and clear. It's really a handy tool you reach for whenever you need it. It even has a chart in the back with all the Bible references for each topic mentioned in the book. If you are not a theology major (neither am I) but you want a good and somewhat comprehensive resource on the deity of Christ, I would look no further than this book.

After this book and James White's Forgotten Trinity, I feel like they have made a very solid case in my mind that Jesus indeed shares Godhood with God the Father. The Trinity is still a really complicated idea to me, but the divinity of Christ is much clearer. Let me rephrase, that the idea is clearly seen in the Bible, but the idea itself is still mind-boggling. Perhaps this is where human intellect fails to fully comprehend diving truths.

The deity of Christ is always seen as a given in most churches, it's easy to get blindsided when others come up with really good arguments against it. So I recommend everyone to study it, not to just reinforce what you are familiar with, but to actually seek biblical truth.