Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ

The title might jar a little, but the result of reading the book is the exact opposite of what one might sense in the title: honor and fear and awe and love and thankfulness.

I really needed to read this book. Sometimes I forget who I am serving. Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ is probably the most thorough study on the deity of Jesus Christ that I have ever read. Perhaps because we take things for granted that we already know and believe we don't take the time to read, much less study, foundational doctrines. After all, we aren't Christians if we don't already believe that Jesus is God. But do we really know what we mean.  I can honestly say that this read has sharpened my own convictions in this area. 

The fact that Jesus is God has been forcibly restored to the forefront of my mind by this exhaustive but readable study. There are 280 pages plus 70 pages of endnotes and the book has the unique quality of being appealing to the average reader and the scholarly.  My highlighting pen was going crazy: yellow for powerful insights, orange for helpful exegetical points. 

The authors presented the case for the deity of Christ with the acronym HANDS. Jesus shares the same Honors as God, the same Attributes, the same Names, the same Deeds, and the same Seat. I was especially helped by the explanation of the "right hand of God" and my understanding of the bema of Christ was also very much enlightened. 

Most importantly, I was humbled, convicted, and at times ashamed that I knew Jesus so little. 

D.A. Carson has written a great summary of the book here. I commented briefly on it here.