Should a Christian worship Jesus?

from the old testament

• The plural language of Genesis 1:26 supports the doctrine of the Trinity, thus the deity of Jesus: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth’” (emphasis added). As a member of the Godhead, as Creator, Jesus is worthy of worship, as is the Holy Spirit.
• Psalm 110:1 says, “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’” This passage suggests both God the Father (the first “Lord” in the sentence) and the divinity of Christ as David’s “Lord” (Jesus). Jesus later quotes this passage in Matthew 22:41–46 to the Pharisees to help them recognize His divinity. All this is to show that we are to worship God the Father, Jesus (God the Son), and the Holy Spirit.

from the new testament

• John 1:1 confirms the deity of Christ: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus is identified as God. No human metaphor, however clever, can explain satisfactorily how God can be one Being of three persons, but we bow our knee to His divine revelation of Himself in scripture—-which includes God the Son in the form of Jesus.
• In Matthew 14:33 when Jesus calms the storm, the text reads, “And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’” Jesus accepts worship here and in other passages as well, such as Matthew 28:9–10 and John 9:38. Jesus’s acceptance of worship shows His divine authority to receive it. Contrast this with Bible passages in which people attempt to worship another person or angel and are corrected (Acts 10:25–26; Revelation 19:10; Revelation 22:8–9). Jesus, as the incarnate Son of God, is due our worship.
• The apostle Paul recognized Jesus’s divinity in passages like Titus 2:13. In that verse, Paul exhorts readers to live godly lives, “waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” Paul refers to Jesus as “our great God and Savior,” thereby affirming Jesus’s deity.

implications for today

“Wise moral teacher,” “good man,” “prophet”—These are all names and titles unbelievers give to Jesus. They admire Him as a man, in the same way they might admire Confucius. Or they see him as a prophet, as current-day Muslims do and as some Bible figures called him (John 4:19; 6:14). But any view of Jesus that doesn’t recognize His divinity is illogical since Jesus Himself claimed to be equal to God (John 5:18; 10:33). In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis points out the senselessness of saying Jesus was merely a wise man because Jesus Himself did not claim to be merely a wise man. Jesus claimed to be God (John 5:18; 10:33). If He claimed to be God and was not, that would make Him unworthy of worship. In other words, we must accept Jesus as Lord because that’s who He says He is, and it makes no sense to admire Him if He were claiming to be someone He isn’t. We must take Jesus as who He really is—God the Son, the One through whom all was created (Colossians 1:16). Knowing that, we should honor Jesus, just as we should honor the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Trinity cannot be explained in any terms we can understand. But if we could fully grasp God, then He wouldn’t be God. Our limited minds cannot comprehend the ineffable, holy God. But we can grasp what He has revealed to us in His word: Jesus is worthy of worship because He is God the Son.