In the last post we concluded that Jesus’ being ‘son of God’ does not contradict Islam (but the idea of a physical sonship is condemned in both religions), and establishing a common ground between Christianity and Islam in this regard does not seem utterly impossible. Having done that, we shall now concentrate on the following:
- Jesus’ divinity
- His death on the cross
As the New Testament is was originally written in Koine Greek, we shall sometimes refer to the original Greek words.
Jesus’ divinity
The Trinitarian belief is that God is One God, in three persons (hypostasis). We shall go beyond to discuss the relationship between all three persons, and the nature of Jesus will follow a priori.
In the early days of Christianity the relationship of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit was disputed, and various theories such as Modalism, Arianism, Adoptionism and many more came into existence. Have a look at this Wikipedia article if you’re interested, but we shall not go into details.
As quoted from Quran in the last post, Islam teaches that Jesus was a sinless and perfect servant of God, His prophet and messiah, His Word cast unto Mary, and His Spirit. All of these attributes are also found in the New Testament:
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. (Acts 3:13)
He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. (Luke 24:19)
“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.” (Mark 8:29)
This is as far as Islamic theology allows, which is analogous to Unitarianism.
O People of Scripture: do not exaggerate in your religion, nor say about God except the truth. Christ Jesus son of Mary was but a messenger of God, and His word which He bestowed on Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in God and His messengers, and say not, “Three” – Cease! (it is) better for you! – God is but one god; Exalted is He above having a (begotten) son. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth. And God is sufficient as a Disposer of affairs. (Quran 4:171)
It was at the First Council of Nicaea in the fourth century A.D. that Trinitarian Christianity became the official doctrine of Christianity, and other doctrines, such as Arianism (which says Jesus was not co-equal to God the Father, but rather His subordinate creation), were deemed heretical.
First, let us consider the relationship between Jesus and God. Claiming to be God is probably the biggest claim one can make, and so it has to be backed up by equally strong evidence, i.e. an explicit claim like ‘I am God’ or something similar. However, the most evident ones found in the Gospels are the following:
- The statement ‘the Word was God’ (John 1:1), Thomas’ confession ‘my Lord and my God’ (John 20:28), and related issues.
- Jesus forgave sins, (Matt 9:2, Luke 5:20, Luke 7:48)
- was worshipped by his disciples, (Luke 24:52, Matt 14:33, Matt 28:9, John 9:38)
- used the ‘I am‘ phrase for himself. (John 8:58)
We shall skip 1 for now and come back to it later.
2. The story of Jesus forgiving sins in Matt 9, paralleled in Mark 2 and Luke 5, goes as follows:
When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.” (Luke 5:20-26)
As Jesus claims, he was given authority or earth to forgive sings. And it certainly doesn’t imply that he is claiming to be God Himself. Moreover, in John 10:25 he says, ‘The miracles I do in my Father’s name…’, so his doing miracles also doesn’t imply him claiming to be God.
3. Next, we see in the verses mentioned previously that Jesus is worshipped by some disciples:
While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. (Luke 24:51-52)
And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshipped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” (Matt 14:32-33)
Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. (John 9:38)
The issue of receiving worship is very important, as all worship is supposed to be directed towards God alone in Jewish theology. However, worship can be of many forms, and from the above translations it is not clear what they did, but it is clear that they performed some action which was translated as ‘worship’. The following verse sheds some light on this:
Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. (Matt 28:9)
Arabic Bible:
وَفِيمَا هُمَا مُنْطَلِقَتَانِ لِتُبَشِّرَا التَّلاَمِيذَ، إِذَا يَسُوعُ نَفْسُهُ قَدِ الْتَقَاهُمَا وَقَالَ: «سَلاَمٌ!» فَتَقَدَّمَتَا وَأَمْسَكَتَا بِقَدَمَيْهِ، وَسَجَدَتَا لَهُ
(Note that Jesus uses Peace/Salam for Greeting.)
The above English translations are all from the New International Version of the Bible. To get a broader view I checked a few other translations. The Amplified Bible reads one of the verses as follows:
And those in the boat knelt and worshiped Him, saying, Truly You are the Son of God! (Matt 14:33)
Since I can read a little Arabic, I also checked the Arabic New Testament. Interestingly, the phrase ‘they worshipeed him’ is always translated as سَجَدُوا لَهُ (sajadu lahu), which means ‘they bowed before him’ or ‘they prostrated before him’. (The word ‘sajad’ means ‘bow’, ‘kneel’ or ‘prostrate’, ‘la’ means directed towards, and ‘hu’ means ‘him’.) Whereas, in other verses such as John 12:20, worship directed towards God is translated as عِبَادَةِ (ibadah), the word Muslims use for worship of God. (عبد-abd in general means servant/slave, not necessarily of God.) In the original Koine Greek, the phrase καὶ προσεκύνησεν αὐτῷ is used for ‘he worshipped him’. The term προσκυνώ refers to the act of bowing, kneeling, prostration etc. (See also proskynesis.)
So the question is whether kneeling/bowing/prostrating before Jesus makes him God. In the Quran itself it is mentioned that the parents and brothers of Joseph prostrated (sajad) before him when he became the king of Egypt:
And he raised his parents upon the throne, and they bowed to him in prostration. And he said, “O my father, this is the explanation of my vision of before…” (Quran 12:100)
Such acts are also mentioned in the Old Testament as being performed toward other people:
Joseph was still in the house when Judah and his brothers came in, and they threw themselves to the ground before him. (Genesis 44:14)
Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground. (Genesis 18:2)
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city.When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. (Genesis 19:1)
And plenty more examples exist (search with ‘bow prostrate’ in BibleGateway, for example).
From these examples (and also from history) it is evident that prostration was a common way of showing respect to someone (it still is in Hinduism, see pranama). Jesus was referred to as ‘King of the Jews‘ and also as ‘lord’. Therefore, prostrating before him does not necessarily make him God.
4. In chapter 8 of John’s Gospel, Jesus makes various claims about himself. A particularly striking one is that he uses the ‘I am‘ phrase for himself:
“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58)
Koine Greek: εἶπεν αὐτοῖς Ἰησοῦς Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, πρὶν Ἀβραὰμ γενέσθαι ἐγὼ εἰμί.
Here ἐγὼ εἰμί (ego eimi) is translated as ‘I am’, and is rendered possibly as the Greek translation of the Hebrew name ‘Yahweh‘ of the God of Israel. Even though it is translated as ‘I am’, it literally means ‘to exist beyond time’. According to the Old Testament it is a sacred name of God, not to be abused (and so often replaced with phrases such as ‘LORD’):
God said to Moses, “IAM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘I AM, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ (Exodus 3:14-15)
But as noted already, this phrase only means ‘to exist beyond time’, and Jesus is just being bold enough to make the claim for himself, that he was the word of God, pre-existent before Abraham.
Lastly, let us consider point 1. While discussing the divinity of Christ with some Christian friends back in Cambridge, the issue of Jesus implicitly claiming to be God came up and it was suggested that it was impossible for Jesus to publicly announce that he was God. I totally agree with this view. However, we see, for example, in the confession of Peter that he declares Jesus as God’s messiah (not God):
Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”
“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.”
Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. (Mark 20:27-30)
So, in the same way, Jesus could have ‘privately’ told his disciples that he was God himself, but he didn’t. If he were God, it would be weird not to let them know. Not only that, he frequently mentions how he is not co-equal to the Father:
No-one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. (Mark 3:32)
If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. (John 14:28)
Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (John 20:17)
Even early Christians didn’t hesitate to make such distinctions as:
yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. (1 Corinthians 8:6)
Moreover, the phrase καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος (kai theos ín ho logos – ‘god was the word’) in John 1:1 doesn’t necessarily seem to mean that the Word was God Himself. Rather, it seemingly means that the Word was ‘godly’ or represents God. A similar meaning applies when Thomas says ‘Ὁ κύριός μου καὶ ὁ θεός μου’ (ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou – ‘my lord and my god’) in John 20:28. Although theos is the word for God in Greek, it can in general mean anything ‘godly’ or ‘divine’. In fact, the Arabic translation reads this as رَبِّي وَإِلَهِي (rabbi wa ilahi). It uses ‘ilahi’ – the word for ‘a god’ or ‘godly/divine’ rather than ‘allah’ – the God. (EDIT: I came across this which explains Thomas’ confession very well.)
Finally, the most explicit references to the Trinity in the New Testament are the following:
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (Matthew 28:19)
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Corinthians 13:14)
and clearly none of the above verses says that God is in three persons.
This post has already become huge! So I’ll write about the Holy Spirit and Jesus’ Crucifixion in subsequent posts.
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