Aseity
Aseity is the second test of ontological deity. If the first test is a work of God, the second is an attribute of God. In fact, aseity may be the primary attribute of God’s being.28 To possess aseity means that one is a se, a Latin phrase which means that one has one’s being “from oneself” and not from another. Only God has aseity. His name is “I am who I am” (Exod 3:14). All created reality is from God and dependent on God, but God is not dependent on anything outside of himself. The New Testament predicates aseity, and therefore ontological deity, of Jesus. The Father has granted the Son to have “life in himself” (John 5:26) and therefore he possesses the uniquely divine attribute of aseity. Jesus is unchanging, “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8), in contrast with the entire realm of created reality which is contingent, corruptible, and perishable: “They will perish, but you remain . . . . You are the same, and your years will have no end” (Heb 1:11–12, quoting LXX Ps 102:25–27).29 Further demonstrating his aseity or independence from any created thing, we read that he “upholds all things by the word of his power” (Heb 1:3), and “in him all things hold together” (Col 1:17). If the entire created realm (“all things,” ta panta) depends on him, then he cannot depend on anything in the created realm, and is therefore distinct from and independent of the created realm, which necessarily determines his ontological status as divine.
The New Testament accepts the monotheistic assumptions inherited from the Old Testament and Judaism. It accepts the basic divide in reality between all that is created and God himself, who is utterly distinct from creation. And yet in the areas of creation and aseity, the New Testament places Jesus on the divine side of the Creator-creature distinction. Christ as God’s Son shares ontological deity with his Father in a way that is perfectly consistent with monotheism.30
The Exaltation of Christ
At this point, the ontological deity of the eternal Son has been proven. Yet the New Testament has still more to say to “seal the deal.” The ontological deity of the eternal Son receives explosive confirmation from the Father’s exaltation of his obedient, incarnate Son. As pointed out earlier, the New Testament envisions the Son as having a three-stage career: (1) the preincarnate state of the Son, with God the Father before and at creation, (2) the first phase of his incarnate state, that is, his earthly ministry, and (3) the second phase of his incarnate state, that is, his exaltation at God’s right hand. The first and the third states are closely related. In fact, Aquila H. I. Lee has convincingly argued that the exaltation of Christ was one of the key factors that led the primitive church to the belief in his eternal preexistence.31 Some have attempted to argue for a two-stage Christology that eliminates the preexistence phase. But this would mean that a human being has been exalted to a position of divine honor that does not properly belong to him according to his ontological nature. In other words, they argue for the deification of a mere man, a belief that would be more at home in a polytheistic context (recall the ancient Romans’ belief about the apotheosis of Romulus after his death). But the exaltation of Christ, with its implication of divine status, cannot be interpreted as an apotheosis. Such a construction would be conceptually and theologically impossible within the context of an early Christian movement composed of Jewish believers raised in and committed to the strict monotheism inherited from Judaism. Therefore, the exaltation of Christ must be interpreted along different lines. Rather than viewing his exaltation as an apotheosis, we must view his exaltation is the manifestation and confirmation of his identity as the divine Son of God. Paul speaks of this as his having been “marked out (horisthentos) Son of God in power . . . by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom 1:4).32 There are several features of the exaltation of Christ which demonstrate that his divine honors in the state of exaltation are appropriate based on his ontological deity as the preexistent Son.
Sovereignty
There is only one ultimate power in the universe—only one sovereign, one king. God is “the blessed and only sovereign” (1 Tim 6:15). Thus it is remarkable that the exalted Lord Jesus shares the divine sovereignty with the Father. In fact, it was his own Father who granted him to sit at his right hand until his enemies are made the footstool of his feet in fulfillment of Ps 110:1. This crucial Old Testament verse is quoted or alluded to some twenty-two times in the New Testament with reference to Jesus. Jesus’ exalted position at God’s right hand and his consequent authority and sovereignty over all things are astonishing. No mere creature could be given that divine authority as Lord of all creation. The exalted Lord Jesus received the divine sovereignty from the Father (Matt 28:18), not as a temporary gift granted to a mere creature, but because he is the firstborn, that is, the rightful heir, of all creation through whom all things were created (Heb 1:2–3; Col 1:15–16).
Psalm 110:1 is not the only Old Testament prophecy fulfilled in the exaltation of Christ. Ps 8:6 is also combined with Ps 110:1 and quoted in reference to Christ’s exaltation, for “God has put all things (ta panta) in subjection under his feet” (1 Cor 15:27; cp. Eph 1:20–22; Phil 3:21). There is also the key passage in Dan 7:13–14 that Jesus himself alluded to before the high priest at his trial. More specifically, the prophecy concerning the “Son of Man” in Daniel says that “his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away” (Dan 7:14), using language that is applied to YHWH’s kingdom (Ps 145:13; Dan 4:34). Recall that it was precisely Jesus’ claim to be that coming “Son of Man” coming in the clouds of heaven with the glory of his Father that scandalized the Jewish Sanhedrin and led to their call for his execution on the charge of blasphemy.
Worship
Worship belongs properly only to the one true God in biblical monotheism. In his indictment of the pagans for their idolatry, Paul essentially defines idolatry as an “exchange” in which they “worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom 1:25). Similarly, when John, the seer of the apocalypse, fell down to worship the angel, the angel rebuked him and said that worship must be given to God alone: “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God” (Rev 19:10; cp. 22:8–9).
And yet the New Testament, which was largely composed by men brought up within and committed to strict Jewish monotheism that abhorred the worship of any creature, recorded, as if it were perfectly natural, the fact that the exalted Lord Jesus is to be worshiped as divine. By far the most important text in this regard is the second half of the pre-Pauline hymn or creed (Phil 2:9–11) that we examined earlier under preexistence. The conclusion looks ahead to the day when all sentient creatures will worship Jesus as Lord. God highly exalted him “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow . . . and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (vv. 10–11). It is not merely that we have isolated instances here and there of people expressing their reverence for Christ by prostrating themselves before him. Rather, the Father himself has exalted him to his own right hand and calls all sentient beings to bow the knee and worship him as Lord. The striking thing is that this language is taken from LXX Isa 45:23, which is part of Isaiah’s anti-idolatry polemic. This Old Testament passage, one that is “among the most fervent expressions of God’s uniqueness,” has been “adapted (and apparently interpreted) to affirm Jesus as supreme over all creation.”33
The worship of Jesus in not only found in Paul. It is also found in other New Testament writers. The Gospel of John presents Jesus as claiming that the Father has given all judgment to him “that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father” (John 5:22–23). The author of Hebrews writes: “And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, ‘Let all God’s