It’s curious to ask for evidence that Jesus is God, but exclude the Bible. Many documents in various genres contain the best evidence that Jesus is the Son of God. We call that compilation the Bible. By excluding it, you’re excluding the very documents whose purpose is to answer your question.

But we can still proceed.

If Jesus is truly the Son of God, then this question is bigger than documents. The question of who is God should affect everything. Therefore, if Jesus is the Son of God, we should find evidence all over the place.

And we do.

Jesus doesn’t behave like a mere mortal. To be sure, He ate, drank, slept, walked, and breathed as we do. But He commanded far greater results than any human in history.

Jesus worked for three and a half years. He never wrote a book, never held public office, never led armies to war.

Yet those three and half years turned the world upside down. Their effects still ripple out to this day, growing more powerful with every passing year.

Christianity is the largest worldview on Earth, with between 2–3 billion followers. It grows by hundreds of thousands every day. Even the Washington Post, a publication generally not inclined toward religion, can’t deny the numbers:

Today, the Christian community in Latin America and Africa, alone, account for 1 billion people.

Over the past 100 years, Christians grew from less than 10 percent of Africa’s population to its nearly 500 million today. One out of four Christians in the world presently is an African, and the Pew Research Center estimates that will grow to 40 percent by 2030.

Asia is also experiencing growth as world Christianity’s center has moved not only South, but also East. In the last century, Christianity grew at twice the rate of population in that continent. Asia’s Christian population of 350 million is projected to grow to 460 million by 2025.

The global religious wildcard is China. Even today, demographers estimate that more Christian believers are found worshipping in China on any given Sunday than in the United States.

—https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/05/20/think-christianity-is-dying-no-christianity-is-shifting-dramatically/

Think Christianity is dying?
No, Christianity is shifting dramatically

By Wes Granberg-Michaelson

©May 20, 2015 at 9:38 a.m. EDT

While Christianity may be on the decline in the United States, the world is becoming more religious, not less. While rising numbers of “nones” — those who claim no religious affiliation when asked — claim the attention of religious pundits, the world tells a different story. Religious convictions are growing and shifting geographically in several dramatic ways.

The center of Christianity has shifted from Europe to the global South.

The religious landscape is particularly changing for the world’s Christians. A century ago, 80 percent lived in North America and Europe, compared with just 40 percent today.

In 1980, more Christians were found in the global South than the North for the first time in 1,000 years. Today, the Christian community in Latin America and Africa, alone, account for 1 billion people.

Over the past 100 years, Christians grew from less than 10 percent of Africa’s population to its nearly 500 million today. One out of four Christians in the world presently is an African, and the Pew Research Center estimates that will grow to 40 percent by 2030.

Asia is also experiencing growth as world Christianity’s center has moved not only South, but also East. In the last century, Christianity grew at twice the rate of population in that continent. Asia’s Christian population of 350 million is projected to grow to 460 million by 2025.

The global religious wildcard is China. Even today, demographers estimate that more Christian believers are found worshipping in China on any given Sunday than in the United States. Future trends, while difficult to predict because so much is below the religious radar, could dramatically drive down the world’s religious “nones.”

In Latin America, the massive Christian population is becoming more Pentecostal or Charismatic.

The growth of Pentecostalism in Latin America is estimated to be at three times the rate of Catholic growth. Non-Catholic believers now account for 2 percent of Latin America’s 550 million Christians. Today, Brazil not only has more Catholics than any other country, but also more Pentecostals, reflecting Pentecostalism’s astonishing global growth. Tracing its roots to the Azusa Street revival in 1910, and comprising 5 percent of Christians in 1970, today one of four Christians is Pentecostal or Charismatic. Or think of it this way: one out of 12 people alive today has a Pentecostal form of Christian faith.

Global migration matters.

Such global trends are being experienced locally through migration. About 214 million people have moved from one country to another as migrants and refugees, or are in that process. Those capturing today’s headlines are Africans clinging to precarious vessels trying to cross the Mediterranean, or the hundreds of thousands uprooted in Syria and the Middle East. But the striking religious factor is that overall, about 105 million who have migrated are Christians — a significantly higher percentage than their 33 percent of the world’s population. Sociologists report that the process of migration typically increases the intensity of religious faith — whatever its form — of those persons crossing borders of nations and cultures. Fresh spiritual vitality in both North America and Europe is being fuelled by the process of global migration.

Immigration shapes the U.S. religious landscape.

In the United States, about 43 million residents were born in another country, and immigrated here. Of these, about 74 percent adhere to the Christian faith, while 5 percent are Muslim, 4 percent Buddhist and 3 percent Hindu. Of those presently migrating into this country, that proportion remains high — about 60 percent. The religious impact of immigration on U.S. society is typically overlooked in the debates over immigration reform, and the presence of about 11 million immigrants without acceptable legal documentation. Yet, the reality is that patterns of immigration since the 1965 Hart-Cellar Immigration and Naturalisation Act, and continuing to this day, are having a decisive impact on the Christian community in the United States. A vast majority of Hispanics in the United States are Catholic, and immigrants are sustaining the demographic presence of U.S. Catholicism, accounting for 70 percent of Catholic growth since 1960. They also provide fresh spiritual enthusiasm. Demographers estimate that 54 percent of Hispanic Catholics practice charismatic forms of worship found in Pentecostal churches. Among Catholic millennial’s, over half are now Hispanic.

There are three times more Protestant Hispanics in the United States than Episcopalians.

Immigration has transformed Protestantism in America. Some of President Obama’s strongest advocates for immigration reform are found in more evangelical and Pentecostal leaning Hispanic groups, as well as the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops. Asian and African immigrants who bring their faith with them across oceans likewise are also reshaping America’s religious landscape, and especially the Christian community. The Philippines follows Mexico as the country sending most immigrants to the United States, and those are overwhelmingly Catholic. The influence of Korean Christians is felt throughout both mainline and evangelical Protestantism. Fuller Seminary, in Pasadena, Calif., a center of moderate evangelical scholarship and training, counts about 1,000 Asian and Asian Americans among its 5,000 students. While African immigration is less numerical, its growth has been exponential, from 35,355 African immigrants in 1960 to 1.5 million 50 years later. Many carry their devotion to forms of Christian faith that are transforming sub-Saharan Africa. For instance, the Redeemed Christian Church of God, started not by missionaries but as an indigenous church in Nigeria, has grown to 5 million members in 147 countries, including 720 congregations in the United States. North of Dallas, it has built a worship pavilion holding 10,000 at the cost of $15.5 million. While Chicago has 590,000 foreign-born residents in its city limits, 984,000 are found in its suburbs, with a majority forming places of Christian worship or joining multicultural congregations, if they find welcome. At the Vineyard church in Columbus, Ohio, 28 percent of its 9,000 members come from 147 countries other than the United States.

The United States cannot ignore the impact of immigration on religious patterns.

The growth of religious practice in the world is being experienced through patterns of immigration to the United States, patterns that should become a central feature of the debate over immigration reform. I am mystified, for example, by political conservatives who cry for the resurgence of religious values in this country, and then support the deportation of those actually growing the nation’s religious vitality. And I am disappointed with political liberals, who, like I, support comprehensive immigration reform, but can seem deaf and dumb to the religious life of immigrants themselves, who often combine their unapologetic faith with commitments to social solidarity, welfare and reform of the broken immigration system. The history of immigration to this country has been a story of unintended consequences which have tested our commitment to religious and cultural pluralism. The religious impact of immigration, largely unnoticed in hotly contested rhetoric around political reform, offers the potential, once again, to enrich our society in ways we have not yet imagined. Wes Granberg-Michaelson, whose most recent book is “From Times Square to Timbuktu: The Post-Christian West Meets the Non-Western Church,” served for 17 years as general secretary of the Reformed Church in America. (© 2015 Washington Post/Wes Granberg-Michaelson).

Why are those numbers important?

It’s simple: if Jesus is God, then we should expect Him to be supernaturally effective. We should expect Him to know things about human nature, persuasion, truth, and power dynamics than anyone else. We should expect Jesus to accomplish far more with far less. And this is exactly what we find. These millions of Christians scattered across the globe are not united by any human leader, any single denomination, any single political agenda, or any other thing that unites other groups. The only common denominator is that every one of these Christians follows Jesus. Jesus is the most successful leader, teacher, social reformer, and world revolutionary that has ever lived. And He did it all in three and a half years. If God truly took on flesh and lived among us, that’s exactly the kind of supernatural effectiveness you would look for. Again, if Jesus is the Son of God, then there should be evidence everywhere. And indeed there is! There is so much more evidence we can explore:

• Universally applicable teaching. If Jesus is God, then His teaching should work in every culture, in every age. And it does. Jesus’ words transform every culture they touch.
• Endlessly captivating. If Jesus is God, then He should be able to captivate our imaginations and stir our emotions like none other. And indeed, this is exactly what is reported about how the crowds reacted to Jesus. This captivation continues through today, as Jesus is the most studied person in history, with more books written about Him, more songs sung about Him, more movies made about Him, more art created about Him, and more lives changed through Him than anyone else in history.
• Immune from destruction. If Jesus is God, then we should expect His teaching and His movement to outlast all challengers. This is indeed what we find. Through 2,000 years of attacks, challenges, oppression, slavery, persecution, and torment, Christianity not only survives but thrives today. It tends to grow strongest when the greatest attacks are levelled against it. No force has ever been able to conquer or suppress Christianity. It just keeps growing.
• A force for good. If Jesus is God, then His followers should be a force for good, if He claims to love this world. And indeed, this is what we find. To be sure, there have been the occasional conqueror or hateful politician who tried to attach Jesus to their cause. But violence and hate contradict Jesus’ command to love. Throughout the world and history, the vast majority of Christians have been agents of love, kindness and good in their communities. Consider the plagues that swept through the Roman Empire. It was the Christians who stayed behind to care for the dying and sick while all others fled. Christians cared even for their enemies, risking their lives for others because Jesus sacrificed His life for them.
• Eternal significance. If Jesus is God, then His words should be relevant to every person who ever lives. And indeed, they are. He offers life eternal and joy never-ending to anyone who asks. He is not willing for a single person to perish, but rather sacrificed Himself so that the door is open to all who choose to enter.
• Immediately accessible. If Jesus is God, then He should be available to everyone. And indeed, He is. He invites everyone to taste and see that the Lord is good. He fills every follower with His own Spirit so that they can experience him personally and directly.
• Personally powerful. If Jesus is God, then he should be able to intercede supernaturally in the lives of his followers and indeed, this is exactly what we are delighted to find. The stories of Jesus answering prayer, performing miracles, and giving divine guidance are legion. Ask any Christian who regularly intercedes for others in prayer and we can tell you story after story after story of God accomplishing what only God can do.

Is the pattern revealing itself yet? If Jesus is the Son of God, there should be evidence abundant. And indeed, there is. 

Kyle Davison Bair © 2023. © 2015 Washington Post/Wes Granberg-Michaelson