Is Jesus God?

Long answer: No. He never said he was the Son of God either until it was time. Then he only said, "That is what you say" when accused of blasphemy.

In fact it took three Christian councils after Roman Emperor Constantine ordered the First Council to establish that Jesus has two natures, both divine and human, but his divine nature was not corrupted by flesh.

Sadly though, it was a Christian sin to declare humans have two natures like that of Christ, as he was supposed to be unique.

Personally I believe the Nestorian heresy, that Jesus, like all sentient beings, is of two natures, but his divine nature is immaculate. The human nature only occults (hides) his divine nature. To avoid blasphemy and stoning by Jews, the early Christian church never said simply that Jesus is God.

This led to the Nestorian heresy being banned later by a fourth council of concerned bishops.

Short answer: Yes, but needed never to say so, in order to give enough time to spread his message.

Yet the Bible never firmly declared Jesus to be God. That is done through Christological reasoning by taking Old testament statements out of context. In fact, the First Council of Nikai'a (near modern-day Iznir, Yurkey) was held in 325 CE.

It was an established ecumenical council which set precedent for later councils to create statement of beliefs and canons of doctrinal orthodoxy.

In the First Council, the debate surrounding Jesus' divinity was settled. Any priest or bishop who continued to fuel debate had his religious opinion declared heretical if it couldn't be fit into the resulting doctrine that Christ is the one true God in deity with the Father.

Additionally, the First Council established the doctrine regarding the nature of the Son in his relationship to the Father; in particular, whether the Son had been 'begotten' by the Father from his own being, or created out of nothing like other creatures.

Also, the debate regarding when to observe Easter was settled by following the Jewish Lunar calendar for Passover (the Paschal), and marking Jesus' martyrdom on the first Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon.

However, the fact remains that an unmarried Jewish woman was made pregnant by God after an angel told her of this.

Ironically though, this immaculate conception by Mary is sometimes forgotten when unwed Christian mothers are unjustly turned away by certain Protestant Christian communities.

Thus Church doctrine states clearly that Jesus is the One True God in deity with God.

Even so, the question is actually unanswerable since you and I have a only a vague idea what being deity with God actually means. Simply, it means Jesus is not simply God, but his Begotten Son, which means Mary is now the Virgin Mary and thus puts undue emphasis on sexual virginity, ignoring the fact that being a virgin at the time of Christ's birth only meant a woman was unwed.

This is but a small matter today, as Jesus was most likely born in late spring rather than December 25.

But that's worth a new blog entry when it's closer to Christmas...