“He asked His disciples, saying, ‘Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?’ So they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets’. He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered and said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’. Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Matt 16:13-17 NKJV).
The deity of Christ is probably the most disputed and attacked doctrine of the bible. Muslims insist that Jesus was not the son of God but merely a prophet; and unique by virtue of his virgin birth. Jehovah’s Witnesses say that Jesus was a god, not The God. The various other Christian cults also all deny the deity of Jesus. Liberals are on an endless but futile quest to find “the historical Jesus” and to “de-mythologise” him. And atheists try to deny Jesus out of existence altogether.
Muslim teachers and Jewish Pharisees don’t understand the Bible
Contrary to the many Muslim apologists, all of whom insist that Jesus never once claimed to be God, a simple reading of the gospels will show their claim to be ignorance and wishful thinking at best. But they have to say this because the Qur’an only has Jesus as a prophet. And in the Qur’an, Allah states that he has no son and pronounces a curse on all who say he does. It is understandable that they do not wish to disagree with their holy book, and nobody has a problem with that. If they profess Islam, then they must do what Muslims do and believe what Muslims believe. If they didn’t, they would be unfaithful to their religion. But so many Muslim apologists go much further than that and claim that Jesus never said he was God. They speak with an assumed and assured authority about a holy book which isn’t theirs. They claim to know all about the central figure in the Bible – Jesus Christ. And they cherry-pick verses from the Bible which they vainly think bolster their claims; but these verses are taken out of their context and do not mean what these Muslims would have them to mean.
Muslims have no right to do anything with or to the Bible unless they are seeking to be right with the God of the Bible. Just like all critics of God and the Bible, they approach it with a mind already made up. That’s because the Qur’an says that it is the confirmation of the previous revelations (i.e. the Old and New Testaments). So, instead of placing themselves in submission to God’s words, they approach it with the intention of disproving and even ridiculing it, despite that the Qur’an accepts it as revelation from God. For example: “To thee We sent the Scripture In truth, confirming The scripture that came before it, and guarding it in safety…” (Sura 2:48). “And this is a Book which We have sent down, Bringing blessings, and confirming (The revelations) which came Before….” (Sura 6:92).
They can’t learn anything from the Bible because they disbelieve before they’ve even turned the cover; they cannot and will not hear what God might say to them because their only reason for opening its pages is to tear them apart. They know nothing about God or the Bible, but in their pride and arrogance they think they know it all. Even the best Muslim apologists reveal a wrong understanding of the bible and promote wrong theology. But this is to be expected because their sources are all from enemies of the gospel and they don’t read the works of scholars who believe that the bible, despite its seeming discrepancies, is the preserved word of God. Instead of doing honest and legitimate research by reading the defences of the Bible and not just the criticisms of it, they only take those books which support their preconceived unbelieving views and reject all else. So of course they’re going to see the Bible as a hotch-potch of errors which can’t be relied on.
Jewish Pharisees
The Pharisees were the bible scholars of Jesus’ day and they knew every word of the Old Testament, knew how many words it contained, knew the middle verse, and other such useless information – it was their raison d’etre. They spent their lives being trained by experts so that they, too, could become experts; they never spent a day without reading it and praying it. Yet for all their vaunted knowledge of it, they still didn’t understand Jesus and who he is. And he rightly reproached them for their wilful blindness, saying to them: “Have you not read what David did…?” (Matt 12:3); “Or have you not read in the law…?” (Matt 12:5); “Have you not read….?” (Matt 19:4); “…have you never read….?” (Matt 21:16); “Have you never read in the Scriptures…?” (Matt 21:42); “…have you not read what was spoken to you by God….?” (Matt 22:31); “…have you not even read this Scripture….?” (Mk 12:10); “Have you not read in the book of Moses….?” (Mk 12:26); “Have you not even read this, what David did….?” (Lk 6:3).
He knew, of course, that they had read these passages; he was making his point that the most fundamental truth in the whole of Scripture is that Jesus, God manifest in the flesh, had come to them; the Messiah, to whom every Jew looked and longed for, was in their midst; but when he did come they wanted to kill him because they didn’t recognise him. And they didn’t recognise him because they didn’t understand the Bible correctly.
If Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, who knew the scriptures backwards and forwards, how much more do “know-it-all” Muslims deserve to be put in their place when they make such stupid statements as that Jesus never said he is God.
Christian converts to Islam don’t understand the Bible
I’ve looked at dozens and dozens of testimonies of so-called Christians who have converted to Islam; I’ve purchased books of them from Islamic bookshops; I’ve searched Islamic website after Islamic website looking for and reading these testimonies. Why? Because I want to know what has motivated them to leave the Truth and embrace a fiction. I want to read their reasons why they would abandon Christianity and Jesus, the Son of God; I want to read their strongest arguments against the Bible to see if there is any legitimacy in them. These testimonies are from Baptists, Pentecostals, Orthodox, Catholic, and liberals; pastors, priests, theologians, academics, doctors, ordinary people, men, women; Western and Middle Eastern. Many of them were just nominal Christians who never were genuine committed Christians; they had been brought up in a Western country, or grown up with some connection to a church, or had been brought up in a Christian family e.g. missionaries’ children, or had some kind of involvement with someone somewhere who was Christian. But nearly all of them did not understand the Bible properly or well; even the priests and academics had a wrong understanding of the Bible and therefore of Jesus and the gospel; so they were not equipped to deal with the claims of Islam and their attacks on Christianity.
I’ve also read the best Muslim apologists that I know of to weigh their arguments, their challenges, their theology, their claims that the Bible is wrong – Islamic websites, books, online videos – I’ve read all of Ahmed Deedat’s books and watched videos of him overcoming his Christian opponents and ridiculing them; but they all fail. I’ve read books by Western scholars and Western Higher Critical theology which seem to be where many Muslim apologists get their arguments from – the books which debunk Christianity and try to make it look stupid and fanciful.
But for all this, I’ve never read a convincing argument against the Bible. I’ve weighed their arguments against the Bible and found every single one of them insubstantial. For sure, some of what I’ve read has really challenged me, particularly Western scholars such as Professor Bart Ehrman or Dr. Laurence E. Brown. But a little digging – even sometimes simply reading the Bible passages under attack – shows their attacks to be bogus and unfounded.
Faith, not knowledge
And for all that we’re all trying to prove or disprove the Bible, we cannot come to Christ by proving him to be true or by forming a good argument. God’s criterion is faith. Yes, the Bible is true, Jesus did exist and he is God; he was raised from the dead and he did ascend to heaven – the Bible is not a book of fiction and myths; it has not been spin-doctored by the disciples or anybody else. The Bible is a record of eyewitnesses to God and His Son, Jesus Christ; it is historically true, and archaeology, among other disciplines and sciences, demonstrates that and gives good reason to believe it. But the Bible doesn’t require a person to have or acquire academic knowledge before they can come to God; it says: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen….without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:1, 6).
The simplest of people can come to God through belief in Jesus as the Son of God and Saviour, and consequently have more knowledge than the greatest pagan philosopher or atheistic scientist or clever Muslim apologist. King David said, “I understand more than the ancients, Because I keep Your precepts” (Psalm 119:100). And the apostle Paul wrote: “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent (intelligent)’. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message to save those who believe….For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence” (1 Corinthians 1:18-21, 26-29).
So don’t be afraid of enemies who want to rob you of your salvation – God will judge them. If you wish to be saved, put your faith, your trust, your hope, in Jesus Christ, and he will do the rest – and you will have peace in your soul because you will have peace with God. Jesus said: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (Jn 15:27).
Jesus Claimed Deity and Equality with God
Although Jesus did not come to demonstrate his deity, he nevertheless did make this claim on several occasions; but his primary focus was not to glorify himself but the Father, who had sent him to redeem fallen humanity. In prayer to the Father, Jesus prayed, “I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given me to do….I have manifested Your name to the men You have given me out of the world….” (Jn 17:4, 6). And the apostle Paul tells us of Jesus: “…who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:5-8). Jesus didn’t claim deity, because he came as a man to die in humanity’s place so that he could reconcile us to God (2 Cor 5:19). But when he returns, the deniers will become believers; but by then it is too late for repentance and they will be lost forever; for Paul goes on to say of Jesus: “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:9-11).
Jesus equated himself with the Father
When Jesus healed the lame man at the pool at Bethesda, the Jews (on this occasion the religious leaders) persecuted him because he healed the man on the Sabbath. His response, and then theirs to him, is very enlightening: “Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was his Father, making Himself equal with God” (John 5:18).
Jesus knew what he was saying and what his claims signified. Likewise, the Jews, who knew the law thoroughly, also knew what he was claiming. By calling himself the Son of God, he claimed deity. This is evident from the following verses in which he claimed the attributes of God: power to raise the dead and to give life to whomever he chooses (Jn 5:21, 25-26, 28); and authority to judge each and every person who ever lived (Jn 5:22, 27, 29), so that the Father and the Son may receive equal honour (Jn 5:23). When he says “….the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what he sees the Father do” (Jn 5:19), he is not saying he is less than God. He indicated that despite his equality with God as second Person of the Trinity, he subordinated himself to the Father in order to complete the mission for which he had been sent, as I pointed out in Philippians chapter 2. He shows his equality with God – which means he is God, as the Jews correctly concluded – and that he is separate from the Father. John earlier stated it succinctly: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14).
It is also significant that Jesus made this same claim after his arrest and interrogation by the Jews. Matthew tells us: “And the high priest answered and said to Him, ‘I put you under oath by the living God: Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God’. Jesus said to him, ‘It is as you said. Nevertheless I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven’. Then the high priest tore his clothes, saying, ‘He has spoken blasphemy! What further need do we have we of witnesses? Look, now you have heard his blasphemy. What do you think?’ They answered and said, ‘He is deserving of death’” (Matt 26:63-67).
So again, Jesus claimed equality with God, not only by claiming the title “Son of God” but also “Son of Man”, a reference to Daniel 7:9-14. And he was consequently sentenced to death for blasphemy. These titles signify his equality with God (Son of God) and his subordination to God (Son of Man).
Jesus claimed to be the God of the Old Testament
On another occasion when Jesus was speaking with the Jews, in response to what Jesus said about Abraham, they said, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham? Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM’. Then they took up stones to throw at Him: but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple” (Jn 8:57-59). No wonder the Jews were so riled! Jesus was identifying himself with God who spoke to Moses from the burning bush. When God was telling Moses what he wanted him to do, Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you’, and they shall say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them? And God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you…..This is My name forever, and this My memorial to generations’” (Exodus 3:13-15).
Jesus claimed attributes and titles of God
But Jesus claimed other names and attributes of God. To start with, the opening words of the Revelation (1:1; also 1:11, 19) tell us that this revelation is given by Jesus Christ; thus Jesus is telling John what to write: a record of the future which is to become Scripture. This is the prerogative of God alone (2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet 1:21). Incidentally, notice that in Rev 1:1 God gave Jesus the revelation to show to the Church, and in 2 Peter 1:21, the Holy Spirit brings the inspired word to men. Here we see that the three Persons of the Trinity are the authors of Scripture.
Then we hear Jesus saying: “’I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End’, says the Lord, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty’” (Rev 1:8). He repeats this claim in verse 11, saying, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last”.
After this (Rev 1:12-16), we’re given a description of a being who in appearance is just like the visions of God given to Ezekiel (1:26-28) and Daniel (7:9-10; 10:2-9). And this being is Jesus. And he again takes to himself the name and attributes of God: “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last: I am he who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades (Hell) and of Death” (Rev 1:17-18).
The Old Testament names of God that Jesus takes to himself are found in Isaiah: “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: I am the First and I am the Last: Besides Me there is no God” (Isa 44:6; see also 48:12-13).
The Good Shepherd
Jesus said he was the shepherd of the sheep (Jn 10:2), and the good shepherd (Jn 10:11, 14). This is a title of deity. In Ezekiel chapter 34, God rebukes and condemns the leaders of Israel for being unfaithful shepherds of his sheep, the people of Israel. In order to rescue his sheep, God says: “Indeed I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so will I seek out My sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day….I will feed My flock….I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick…” (Ezek 34:11-12, 15-16). Here is God calling himself the shepherd….just as Jesus calls himself the shepherd. Jesus even said of his sheep, “And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one” (Jn 10:28-30). A big claim indeed; one which only God could make. The Jews recognised that Jesus was claiming deity because “Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him” (Jn 10:31).
It is so interesting and revealing that in Ezekiel chapter 34 where God identifies himself as the shepherd of Israel (which title Jesus also claims), he also said he would send an under-shepherd, “the Servant or Son of David”; and this, the New Testament tells us, was be none other than Jesus. “…therefore I will save my flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between sheep and sheep. I will establish one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them – My servant David. He shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the LORD, will be their God, and My servant David a prince among them” (Ezek 34:22-24). This is comparable to Isaiah chapter 49 where God the Father and God the Son covenant that Jesus will be born as a man, and that he will rescue his people; and comparable to Daniel chapter 7:9-27 where God the Father and God the Son appear together and where their people will possess the kingdom (Dan 7:22, 27). Jesus therefore repeatedly identifies himself as God but distinguishes between himself and the Father. He is God, yet a separate and distinct Person from the Father. He repeatedly says that God the Father sent him as his messenger to rescue his people. “’Thus shall they know that I, the LORD their God, am with them, and they, the house of Israel, are my people,’ says the Lord GOD. ‘You are my flock, the flock of My pasture; you are men, and I am your God’, says the Lord God” (Ezek 34:30-31).
Jesus is the only Mediator between God and humans because he is God: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time” (1 Tim 2:5). Of this man called Jesus who was also God, we’re told, “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory” (1 Tim 3:16). “’Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel’, which is translated, God with us” (Matt 1:23).
Yahweh and Allah are not the same God
The God of the Bible is not the God of Islam. And the Jesus of the Bible is not the Jesus of Islam. Islam is not the final revelation of God; Christianity is. Islam is not even a revelation of God of any kind – it is a false religion. Islam is not connected to Christianity in any way. Christianity and Islam are two separate religions with two different Gods and two totally different ways of relating to God. A Muslim cannot be a Christian unless he first renounces Islam. And if a Christian adopts Islam, he at the same time renounces Christ and the Gospel and loses salvation, condemning himself to hell. Christianity and Islam are diametrically opposed to and incompatible with each other and can never worship together; if they do, they cease to be either Christian or Muslim.
Christianity and Islam can never be reconciled. Christian teaching about Jesus is anathema to Islam, so all those Christians, such as the Catholic Church, among others, who try to find common ground between the two religions, and who say that Allah is the God of Islam and Christianity, are deceivers and false teachers, and will bring all who listen to and believe them, into the same hell to which they are destined. Here we have Jesus as being the final revelation of God – he is not just a prophet or the final prophet – he is the final revelation itself. He is the end, the goal, the purpose, the fulfillment, of all prophecy. The next revelation from heaven will be when Jesus returns in great power and glory to put all things right, make an end of this sinful world, and judge all mankind.
The first chapter of Hebrews reveals very clearly, unequivocally, and unapologetically, that Jesus is the Son, eternally begotten of the Father, Creator of heaven and earth, and is so because he is God. He is not the Father and the Father is not the Son; BUT both are God; as it says in the passage: “But to the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever”; and, “Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of gladness”. And though the Father and the Son are both equal and of the same substance, the Son willingly subordinates himself to the Father: “But to which of the angels said he at any time, ‘Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?’”
For example, where the passage says of Jesus that he is “the express image of his person” i.e. of the Father, the definition of “express image” in Strong’s Concordance is: “The phrase expresses the fact that the Son ‘is both personally distinct from, and yet literally equal to, Him of whose essence He is the imprint.’ The Son of God is not merely his ‘image’…He is the ‘image’ or impress of His substance, or essence. It is the fact of complete similarity which this word stresses” (entry 5481 in Strong’s Greek Dictionary).
Humans can only Know about God what He has Chosen to Reveal of Himself
Infidels love to mock Christians for believing that God can be three-yet-One, a trinity of Persons but one God. And the concept to them is open to question because it seems impossible according to all known laws and principles of physics and any other discipline or science. But God is not bound by the physical laws which bind us. He created the vast universe yet is greater than it, he stands outside it; he holds it in his hand; he transcends it; he is not bound by its laws. He is God!! He is the Creator!! He is the source of all things, of all being. We finite creatures can never comprehend the being of God – he is unique and words can never come near to describing him. All we know about God is what he has revealed to us. We can never know any more about him than this. And we don’t need to. So to try and analyse and explain his triune being is futile – we just need to believe what God has revealed about himself.
So when Jesus does identify and equate himself with the Father, he always reveals a triune Godhead: “For there are three who bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one” (1 John 5:7).
Thus he cannot be Allah because Allah identifies himself as a unity; and he insists he has no son. “And they say, ‘The Most Merciful has begotten a son.’ You have come up with something monstrous. At which the heavens almost rupture, and the earth splits, and the mountains fall and crumble. Because they attribute a son to the Most Merciful. It is not fitting for the Most Merciful to have a son” (Qur’an in English, surah 19:88-92).
“For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:16-18).
References
Itani, Talal, translator, 2014, Qur’an in English, pub. ClearQur’an.com (for Kindle)
Strong, J. Greek Dictionary of the New Testament (Ref: 5481) in “The New Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible”, 2001 Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, TN
“Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”