Who is Jesus?

Why do Christians worship Jesus?

The short answer

Christians worship Jesus because they believe he is God, not merely a great teacher. The first Christians were devout monotheists who would never worship a mere man, yet they worshiped Jesus, because they became convinced that in him the one God had come in person. To worship Jesus is not to add a second god; it is to recognize that the God who made the world has a human face.

This is a stranger fact than it first appears. The earliest Christians were Jews, formed by a faith whose first command was to worship God alone and whose deepest instinct was that no human being could ever receive worship. And yet, almost immediately, they prayed to Jesus, sang to him, and gave their lives for him.

“And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.”
John 20:28

Only one explanation fit what they had seen

They did not decide to worship Jesus because it was convenient; it cost many of them their lives. They worshiped him because they had watched him forgive sins that only God can forgive, still storms, and rise from the dead, and had heard him accept worship rather than refuse it. The one God, they concluded, had come among them.

“And let all the angels of God worship him.”
Hebrews 1:6

So Christian worship of Jesus is not the worship of a second god alongside the Father. It is the worship of the one God who has made himself known in the Son. To honour Jesus is to honour the Father who sent him.

It comes back to Jesus

This is why, for a Christian, Jesus is not merely admired but adored. If he is who he claimed to be, then worship is not excessive; it is simply the truth catching up with the heart. And the God worthy of all that worship is the same one who knelt to wash his friends' feet. You are invited not merely to study him, but to know him.