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Does Calling the Father "the Only True God" Mean Jesus Isn't God?

A Plain-English Summary

Two passages sit at the center of this debate: Jesus calling his Father "the only true God" (John 17:3) and Paul saying there is "one God, the Father" (1 Corinthians 8:6). On the surface, both seem to reserve the title "God" for the Father alone. But when you read them in context, neither one excludes Jesus from deity. Both are drawing a line between the real God and the fake gods of the ancient world — and both place Jesus squarely on the real-God side of that line.

What "Only True God" Actually Means

When Jesus prays "that they might know thee the only true God" in John 17:3, the phrase "only true" is doing a specific job: it separates the genuine God from counterfeits. We can see this because the same phrase shows up in 1 Thessalonians 1:9, where Paul says the Thessalonians "turned from idols to serve the living and true God." The contrast is God versus idols, not God versus Jesus.

This matters because if "only" meant an absolute exclusion of everyone else, it would cause problems elsewhere. Paul calls God the "only Potentate" (1 Timothy 6:15) and the one "who only hath immortality" (1 Timothy 6:16). If "only" locked out the Son completely, then Jesus could not be immortal — yet Revelation 1:18 has Jesus saying:

"I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore."

The word "only" in these passages praises God's uniqueness over against false gods. It does not compile a list of who is excluded from sharing in that divine nature.

The Rest of the Prayer Tells the Story

You cannot read John 17:3 as if it stands alone. It sits inside a prayer where Jesus says things only God could say.

In verse 5, he asks the Father to restore "the glory which I had with thee before the world was" — a claim to have personally shared divine glory before anything was created. In verse 10, he says "all thine are mine" — mutual ownership of everything the Father has. In verses 21-22, he makes the unity between himself and the Father the model for unity among believers. And in verse 24, he speaks of the Father loving him "before the foundation of the world."

If "the only true God" in verse 3 was meant to exclude Jesus from deity, the same prayer contradicts itself within a few sentences. The more natural reading is that Jesus identifies his Father as the one genuine God — as opposed to the Roman and Greek gods surrounding them — and then goes on to show what his own relationship to that God looks like: shared glory, shared possessions, pre-creation intimacy.

Paul Didn't Split God from Lord — He Expanded the Creed

First Corinthians 8:6 says:

"But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him."

Paul is reworking the Shema (pronounced "shmah") — Israel's foundational confession from Deuteronomy 6:4: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD." The original contains "God" and "LORD" and "one." Paul takes those same words and distributes them: the Father gets "one God," Jesus gets "one Lord." He is not creating two categories of being. He is expanding Israel's monotheism to include the Son within it.

The word "Lord" here comes from YHWH (the personal name of God), not from some lesser title. We know this because the New Testament takes Old Testament passages that are unmistakably about YHWH and applies them to Jesus:

  • Isaiah 45:23, where YHWH swears every knee will bow to him, gets applied to Jesus in Philippians 2:10-11.
  • Joel 2:32, "whosoever shall call upon the name of the LORD," gets applied to calling on Christ in Romans 10:13.
  • Psalm 102:25, a prayer addressed to YHWH as creator, gets applied to the Son in Hebrews 1:10.

The "Lord" of 1 Corinthians 8:6 is YHWH's own title, not a demotion.

The "Through Him" Question

Some argue that 1 Corinthians 8:6 creates a ranking: all things are "of" (from) the Father but only "through" the Son, making Jesus a lesser agent. But Paul himself uses both words for the Father in Romans 11:36:

"For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things."

If "through" meant inferiority, the Father would be inferior to himself — which makes no sense. The prepositions describe complementary roles in one shared creative act, not a ranking of who matters more.

The Creation Paradox

Isaiah 44:24 has YHWH declaring:

"I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone."

YHWH created alone. Yet four independent New Testament writers say Christ is the one through whom all things were made (John 1:3, 1 Corinthians 8:6, Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 1:2). If YHWH created alone and Christ is the agent of creation, then Christ must be within YHWH's identity — not a separate being standing alongside him.

The Same Author Calls Jesus "True God"

The author of John 17:3 is the same author who wrote 1 John 5:20:

"We are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life."

The same vocabulary — "true God" and "eternal life" — now has Jesus as the nearest subject. The very next verse warns against idols, confirming that the contrast is still God versus idols, not Father versus Son. One writer cannot mean "Jesus is excluded from deity" in one book and "Jesus is the true God" in another using the same words.

What Stays Unresolved

The Bible holds two truths at once without fully explaining how they fit together. Jesus says:

"I and my Father are one." (John 10:30)

And also:

"My Father is greater than I." (John 14:28)

The New Testament preserves both the unity and the distinction without collapsing either one. The unity language ("one") uses a form that points to shared essence rather than being the same individual. The "greater than" language fits within the voluntary mission of the incarnation — the Son who chose to take on human limitations for the sake of humanity.

The precise mechanics of how two persons share a single divine identity — without merging into one person or splitting into two gods — is something the biblical writers leave as a lived reality rather than a solved equation. They worship accordingly and move on.

Responsible reading follows the text's own refusal to resolve that tension by deleting one side of it. What this study shows is that John 17:3 and 1 Corinthians 8:6 belong firmly on the side of evidence that includes Jesus within the divine identity — they are not the proof-texts for exclusion that they first appear to be.

Simplified from the full trin-03 study, 2026-05-28