Is Jesus Christ Jehovah – Comparing Biblical Names and Roles

I must’ve been eight or nine years old, staring at a fuzzy felt-board picture of Moses at the burning bush in my Sunday School class. The teacher explained that God’s name was “I AM” and that his special, personal name was “Jehovah.” An hour later, we had a lesson on Jesus, his Son, who died for us. My kid brain filed that information neatly: Jehovah was the God in the Old Testament, and Jesus was his Son in the New Testament. Easy. Two different people.

That neat little filing system held up until I was in my late teens, digging into the Bible on my own for the first time. That’s when it all fell apart. I kept tripping over passages that blurred those clean lines, passages that took descriptions of Jehovah from the Old Testament and just dropped them right onto Jesus. It kicked off a journey of study (and, frankly, a lot of confusion) that’s lasted for decades. It all boils down to one of the biggest, most complex questions in all of Christian belief: Is Jesus Christ Jehovah?

This isn’t a question you can answer with a simple “yes” or “no.” Getting to the bottom of it means digging into ancient languages, tricky translation choices, and the very definition of God. My goal here isn’t to hand you a dogmatic answer. It’s to walk you through the evidence just like I had to, step by step. We’ll look at the names, compare the “job descriptions,” and weigh the key scriptures that seem to pull in opposite directions.

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Key Takeaways

Before we get into the weeds, here’s a quick look at what we’ll be covering:

• The Name Confusion: “Jehovah” is a later, Latinized version of God’s personal name, YHWH, from the Old Testament. Most Bibles just say “the LORD” (all caps) instead.
• The Kyrios Problem: New Testament writers often quoted Old Testament verses about YHWH, but when they did, they used the Greek word Kyrios (“Lord”). The problem? They also used that same word, Kyrios, for Jesus. All the time.
• A Shared Job Description: We’ll see that the big, exclusive jobs of YHWH in the Old Testament—like Creator, Savior, Judge, and Shepherd—are all explicitly given to Jesus in the New Testament.
• The Three Main Views: Your final answer really depends on your theological starting point. We’ll examine the Oneness view (Jesus is Jehovah), the Trinitarian view (Jesus is God, but a distinct Person from the Father), and the Unitarian view (Jesus is a separate, created being).
• Why It Matters: This isn’t just for theology nerds. It directly shapes how you view worship, prayer, and salvation itself.

Why Is This Even a Question? Understanding the Names

A lot of the confusion just comes down to the names. For us in the English-speaking world, we’re dealing with a translation puzzle that’s thousands of years old.

Here’s the background: In the Old Testament, God told Moses his personal, covenant name. It’s spelled with four Hebrew letters: Yud, He, Vav, He (YHWH). Scholars call this the Tetragrammaton, which is just a fancy Greek term for “four-letter word.” Over time, out of a deep respect and fear of breaking the commandment against misusing it, Jewish scribes stopped saying the name out loud. When they’d be reading a scroll and came to YHWH, they would say Adonai (which just means “my Lord”) instead.

This tradition stuck. A few centuries later, when the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek (a version called the Septuagint), the translators did the same thing. They replaced YHWH with the Greek word Kyrios, which also means “Lord.”

So, where did “Jehovah” enter the picture? It’s a man-made hybrid, really. Around the 12th century, some translators had a novel idea. They took the four consonants from YHWH and smashed them together with the vowels from Adonai. The result was “Ya-Ho-Vah,” which was Latinized into “Jehovah.” While many modern scholars think “Yahweh” is probably closer to the original pronunciation, “Jehovah” has a long, deep history in English Bibles, most famously the King James Version.

This is a big deal. When you read “the LORD” (in all caps) in your Old Testament, you’re not reading the original name. You’re reading a substitute for God’s personal name, YHWH.

Didn’t the Name “Jehovah” Disappear in the New Testament?

This is where things get really interesting. The apostles who wrote the New Testament were raised in this tradition. So, when they wrote in Greek, they also used Kyrios (“Lord”). This creates a massive, and I think intentional, ambiguity. When you read “Lord” in the New Testament, who are they talking about? God the Father? Or Jesus Christ?

Sometimes the context makes it obvious. But other times… it’s not so clear. It almost seems deliberately blurred.

The most compelling part is when a New Testament writer quotes an Old Testament verse that definitively used YHWH (“Jehovah”) and then applies it directly to Jesus.

Look at Romans 10:9 and 13. Paul writes, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord… for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'” Paul is clearly talking about salvation through Jesus. But that quote in verse 13? He’s pulling it from Joel 2:32. And if you go back and read Joel in the original Hebrew, what does it say? “Everyone who calls on the name of YHWH will be saved.”

For Paul, the “Lord” (Kyrios) you must call on is Jesus. He’s taking an Old Testament passage about YHWH and pointing it straight at Jesus. This isn’t a one-off. Peter does it at Pentecost (Acts 2). The author of Hebrews does it. It’s a pattern.

This substitution is the core of the whole debate. The apostles were either committing a shocking blasphemy (giving God’s own name to a man) or they were trying to tell us something absolutely radical about who this man, Jesus, really was.

What Does the Bible Say About Their Roles? Is There an Overlap?

When the name game gets confusing, the next logical step is to look at the job description. The Old Testament is filled with passages where YHWH claims certain roles as his and his alone. He’s very clear: He doesn’t share these glories.

This is precisely where the New Testament writers build their case. They seem to take YHWH’s “exclusive” résumé and hand it straight to Jesus, point by point.

Who Is the Creator?

The Old Testament is crystal clear about this one: YHWH is the sole Creator.

• “I am YHWH, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself.” (Isaiah 44:24)

That’s about as explicit as it gets. He did it “alone.” “By myself.” No helpers.

Then you open the New Testament. Look at the description of Jesus in the opening of John’s Gospel:

• “In the beginning was the Word [Jesus], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:1, 3)
• “For by him [Jesus] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.” (Colossians 1:16)

John and Paul don’t just say Jesus was there. They use the most absolute language they can find. “All things” were made “by him.” This is a direct collision with Isaiah’s “alone” and “by myself.” How can both be true?

Who Is the Savior?

This one, for me, is even more powerful. YHWH drills this point home in the Old Testament.

• “I, I am YHWH, and besides me there is no savior.” (Isaiah 43:11)
• “There is no other God besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me. Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.” (Isaiah 45:21-22)

That’s a theological line in the sand. “No savior besides me.” It’s an exclusive, non-shareable title.

And yet, what’s the first and most common title given to Jesus? The angels’ announcement:

• “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:11)
• “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name [Jesus] under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

The New Testament takes YHWH’s most exclusive, private title and gives it to Jesus, even mirroring the “no one else” language.

Who Is the Shepherd?

“YHWH is my shepherd; I shall not want.” (Psalm 23:1). “He will tend his flock like a shepherd…” (Isaiah 40:11). This is YHWH’s intimate title.

Then Jesus shows up. He doesn’t say, “I’m a shepherd working for God.” He says:

• “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep… I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me… and I lay down my life for the sheep.” (John 10:11, 14-15)

He takes the title for himself in the first person.

Who Is the Judge of All?

Finally, let’s look at the end. Who’s the ultimate Judge? The Old Testament says it’s YHWH:

• “For YHWH is our judge; YHWH is our lawgiver; YHWH is our king; he will save us.” (Isaiah 33:22)

But Jesus completely upends this.

• “For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.” (John 5:22)
• “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 5:10)

This might be the most jarring transfer of all. The Father, YHWH, “judges no one” but has handed the entire job to the Son.

The “I AM” Statements: Was Jesus Claiming to be YHWH?

I’ll never forget the first time I really read John 8:58. I wasn’t a kid anymore; I was a young man wrestling with deep doubts, and I’d been reading the Gospels for months. I came to this passage, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Jesus is in a fiery debate with the religious leaders. They’re mocking him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”

His response is one of the most explosive statements in the entire Bible: “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” (John 8:58)

Think about what he didn’t say. He didn’t say, “Before Abraham was, I was.” That would have just claimed he existed back then. He used the strange, present-tense phrase, “I AM” (which is ego eimi in the Greek).

Why was this so explosive? He was grabbing the personal name of God from the burning bush in Exodus 3:14, where YHWH tells Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.”

I didn’t have to guess what he meant. His audience got it immediately. The very next verse says, “So they picked up stones to throw at him.” You only did that for one crime: blasphemy. They knew exactly what he was claiming. In their ears, this man was claiming to be Jehovah.

And this wasn’t a one-time slip. Jesus uses this “I AM” formula all over John’s Gospel (“I am the bread of life,” “I am the light of the world”), echoing YHWH’s own “I AM” declarations from Isaiah.

What About Passages That Seem to Separate Them?

This is where the real wrestling begins. For every verse that seems to fuse Jesus and Jehovah, there’s another that seems to draw a sharp line between them. This is what makes the question so difficult and why different Christian groups have come to different conclusions.

Any honest look at this has to deal with the other side of the coin:

• Jesus Prays to the Father: This is the big one. Jesus is constantly shown praying to God, whom he calls “Father.” He sweats blood in the garden, submitting to the Father’s will: “not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). That sounds like two distinct wills.
• The Cry from the Cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). This is the ultimate cry of separation. How can God be forsaken by… God?
• “The Father is Greater Than I”: Jesus just says it outright in John 14:28, “My Father is greater than I.” This looks like a plain-as-day statement of subordination.

This evidence is just as biblical, and just as important, as all the verses we looked at earlier. So how can both sets of texts be true? How do we square this circle?

How Can Jesus Be God and Pray to God?

This is the core paradox. Your answer depends entirely on the theological lens you’re using. In general, there are three main ways people have “solved” this puzzle.

1. The Oneness (or Modalist) View: This position says “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit” are just different modes or hats that the one God, Jehovah, wears. There’s only one person. So, Jesus is the Father. He is Jehovah wrapped in human flesh. When Jesus prays, it’s his human nature talking to his divine nature. The “greater than I” bit refers to his limitations as a man. For this group, “Is Jesus Jehovah?” is a simple, “Yes.”
2. The Trinitarian View: This is the historic, mainstream Christian answer. It says God is one Being who exists as three distinct Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All three are fully and equally God. So, Jesus is God (sharing the one divine nature of YHWH), but he is not the same person as the Father. This mind-bending relationship (using terms like ousia and hypostasis) was hammered out at the early church councils. (You can read the deep academic history on this in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on the Trinity.) In this view, Jesus can pray to the Father because they are distinct Persons. The “Father is greater” statement refers to Jesus’s role and his voluntary self-emptying (kenosis, as Paul calls it in Philippians 2). For this group, the answer is nuanced: “Jesus shares the same divine being as YHWH, but he is not the Person of the Father.”
3. The Unitarian (or Arian) View: This view (held by groups like Jehovah’s Witnesses) says No, Jesus is not God. He is a separate, created being. He was Jehovah’s first and greatest creation (often identified as Michael the Archangel), and then God used this Son to create everything else. This view takes all the “separation” verses at face value. Jesus prays to the Father because the Father is a different, greater being. The “greater than I” statement is literal. All those shared roles? That’s just Jesus acting as God’s agent or chief representative, not as God himself.

The “Firstborn” and “Only-Begotten”: What Do These Titles Really Mean?

Two of the key titles used to support the Unitarian view are “firstborn” and “only-begotten.”

The argument seems simple, right? “Firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15) must mean Jesus was the first thing created.

But the Trinitarian view argues this misunderstands the word. They point out that in Hebrew culture, “firstborn” (prototokos) was a title of rank and preeminence. It meant the “heir,” the one with all the authority. For example, in Psalm 89:27, God calls King David (the youngest son!) his “firstborn.” In this light, Colossians 1:16-17 (which says all things were created by him) is the definition of “firstborn”: He holds the rank of “firstborn” over all creation because he is the Creator.

It’s the same story with “only-begotten” (monogenes). Does it mean “only one produced”? Well, Hebrews 11:17 calls Isaac Abraham’s “only-begotten son,” but… Abraham also had Ishmael. So in that context, monogenes can’t mean “only one born.” It has to mean “the unique one,” the “son of the promise.” When applied to Jesus, this view says, it means he is the unique Son of God in a class all by himself, not a created one.

So, Is Jesus Christ Jehovah? What’s the Real Answer?

So, after all that—the names, the roles, the “I AM” claims, the counter-evidence—we’re back where we started. What’s the real answer?

The truth is, your answer depends on which set of biblical data you put more weight on and which theological framework you believe best explains all of it.

• If you prioritize the “separation” passages and “greater than” texts, you’ll almost certainly land on “No.”
• If you prioritize the transfer of names, titles, and exclusive roles, you’ll probably land on “Yes.”
• If you try to hold all of it in tension—the shared being and the distinct Persons—you’ll arrive at the complex, nuanced, historic answer of Trinitarianism.

This isn’t a cop-out. It’s just an honest admission that the Bible paints a picture of God that is too big for our small, human-sized boxes.

For me, that simple Sunday School filing system is a distant memory. My own journey has convinced me that the New Testament writers were absolutely making an intentional, radical, and world-changing claim. They looked at Jesus—who he was, what he did, his death, and his resurrection—and came to the staggering conclusion that they had seen the very character, authority, and presence of YHWH walking on earth. They believed that in this man, Jesus, “all the fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9).

This isn’t just an academic exercise. It’s the central question of Christianity. Who Jesus is changes everything. It’s a question so deep it invites every one of us into our own lifetime of study, wrestling, and—ultimately—awe.

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