Winning Witness?

Many years ago, while I was travelling around India, I had the pleasure of spending 10 days vacationing on a houseboat floating on Dal Lake in the disputed territory of Kashmir. After an initial greeting from our warm Muslim host, called Ahmed, and innocently admiring the brightly colored plumage of his Mallard Duck, we were, to our surprise, and slight embarrassment, treated to a mouth-watering dinner of Duck a L'Orange!

But, as we whiled away our time, with a cycle around the lake, a trek up into the Himalayan foothills from Pahalgam, reading through some books while bobbing up and down among the buoyant lily pads, I was shocked and disturbed by a little religious pamphlet I picked up to browse: it was evidently written by a Muslim evangelist and specifically aimed to refute the Christian claim that Jesus Christ of Nazareth ever professed to be "the Son of God" - a fact the tract specifically denied.

It has been interesting in recent weeks, doing outreach on the East Coast of America, and thinking about what to say to Catholic, Jewish and Muslim neighbors, that I have begun to consider how I might address this specific claim when I am confronted by that specific denial by followers of Mohammed. This is certainly not an exhaustive list, nor perhaps the best things one might say: it is a humble attempt to give us all a few quick things to say if an opportunity opens up.

First, there is no doubt that Jesus was accused of claiming equality with God.

He was never accused of asserting personal identity with the Father - a fact that He clearly denied. But as to His being, nature, character, will and work, there is no doubt that, in His mind and mouth, there was not a hair's breadth between Himself and Jehovah. We are told, for example, in John 5:18:

This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

The Greek word is ISOS, which has striking implications: only if two of the three sides of an isosceles triangle are not equal, or isotherms do not join points of equal temperature on a weather map, or isobars do not chart areas of equal atmospheric pressure, are Jesus the Son, and Jehovah the Father, not co-eternal, co-equal and consubstantially two of the Three Persons of the One, Only, True and Living God.

Second, just like the Father and the Spirit, Jesus of Nazareth had a Divine Pre-existence as the Eternal, Uncreated, Son.

This, in many ways, is one of the most distinctive features of the Gospel of John, that sets Gospels 1-3 apart from the 4th - what is implied by Matthew, Mark and Luke, as to His personal distinction together with uncreated being, in the bosom of the Father, as the Giver of life and light as Creator of the Human race, in Jn. 1:13:

All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

This precise point is reaffirmed by Paul in Colossians 1:15-17:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him 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. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Just as a footnote, which most eastern cultures should easily be able to grasp and assimilate, firstborn in this text has nothing to do with order of human birth, but is a metaphorical expression signifying that, on account of the fact that Jesus is both Creator and Redeemer of the Cosmos, He is the appointed heir of the Father to all He possesses.

And while the two quotations above testify to what others have said about Christ, Jesus Himself asserts His pre-existence in the most startling fashion. In response to those who disputed his right to lecture the scribes and pharisees of his day, or to assert a claim to be the sought-after, forth-coming, superior of Abraham, he makes the striking assertion, in Jn. 8:56-59:

Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad." So the Jews said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

Simply to add that, the reason they picked up stones was that they believed that the Galilean Teacher had spoken a blasphemy - by taking the Divine Name, I AM, or Yahweh (Jehovah), the God of the Burning Bush, upon his lips, He did not simply claim to be present before the days of the Patriarch, but He claimed to be the eternally existent, independent, self-sufficient, uncreated giver of life and God of the Father called from Paddan-Aram to bring salvation-blessing to the earth.

Thirdly, Jesus did not openly deny but publicly testified in court that He was the Son of God (in the sense of full deity as God-Man)

When put on oath before Caiaphas, the serving High Priest on the Jews, before the court, the recorded, verbal, testimony of our Lord, made it very plain that He truly did believe that He, Himself, was the very God of very God, Son of God - it was for this very reason that, once again, condemned the Christ to death, and the Sadducee ripped his garments: to ears of unbelief, His words appeared blasphemous, in Mk. 14:60-62:

And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, "Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?" But he remained silent and made no answer. Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" And Jesus said, "I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven." And the high priest tore his garments and said, "What further witnesses do we need? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision?" And they all condemned him as deserving death.

Not only did he claim to be that Very Son, which He indicated by "I am", "The Christ, the Son of the Blessed", but beyond that He asserts that He is the earthly-heavenly figure envisioned by the prophet Daniel, who as the Son of Man, is the suffering, saving, representative of the saints, who enters into glory to mediate on their behalf, in Daniel 7:13-14:

I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

Of course it is true that son of man does not always mean Son of Man (by itself it can simply refers to humanity, as in Dan. 8:17). However, in the Scriptures it is generally associated with the suffering and subsequent glory of the Messianic King (thought not exclusively so), for the Son of Man must suffer, according to the Scriptures - a good example of the forgiveness of sins, an office and attribute which ascribed to God alone, is found in Mk. 2:7-12:

"Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, "Why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise, take up your bed and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"– he said to the paralytic– "I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home." And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, "We never saw anything like this!"

This is a tiny example of similar proofs in Gospel texts - it is either biblical illiterate, theologically ignorant or morally perverse to attempt to deny that the son of Mary claimed that He was God manifest in flesh.

Fourth, the claim to be the Son of David, the Anointed of Yahweh, or Christ of God, most certainly implies full divinity.

While there does seem some reasonable doubt as to exactly what view intertestamental Judaism took regarding the Person of Messiah, the Scriptures themselves, if they had been properly understood, left in no doubt the expectation that the Christ would be fully divine in every sense: this is clearly implied by questions like that of Caiaphas above, and a good and necessary inference (however clearly or widely perceived), that the Son of David must be Deity Incarnate, or Immanuel.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

A "wonder counsellor" is clearly a divine attribute, as wonders in the Hebrew Scriptures are always miraculous marks of manifest deity, like the miracles in Egypt. Warlord El, is probably a reference to Yahweh, the God of the Exodus (Ex. 15:3). Everlasting, coupled with "no end", with added "forevermore" (literally "and unto eternity") seals the case for both the divinity and eternity of the reign of the Messianic Prince. And though these things were spoken by another, when Jesus accepted the mantle of the Son of David, in response to Bartimaeus, there is no doubt He believed Himself to be Immanuel, God in Flesh, of whom the victim of the chainsaw massacre of King Manasseh spoke, in Mk. 10:46-49 (compare with Isa. 7:14; 8:8; Mt. 1:23):

And they came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" And Jesus stopped and said, "Call him." And they called the blind man, saying to him, "Take heart. Get up; he is calling you."

Further to note, in the context of Isaiah, as John himself notes (6:1-8; 12:40-41), the Suffering Servant, of chapter 52:13-53:12, is none other than the LORD who called the prophet to his thankless task, and who would govern the nations on the throne of the cosmos (40:17-24), until His work of redemption and regeneration of the new heavens and new earth was complete - He, as the messianic agent of the Triune Father, Son and Spirit, is Immanuel, the Redeemer of Israel, to whom the universe must finally genuflex (46:22-23; Phil. 2:10-11).

Fifth, the Worship of Thomas was received by Christ, and was accompanied by an explicit statement that Jesus was God.

In Jn. 20:26-29, when the doubting disciple is invited to palpate the stigmata of the sufferings of Christ, the declaration that follows does much more than simply confess Jesus master and God, but actually Yahweh God, manifest in human form:

Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

There is no doubt, had John believed Jesus was not the Eternal Word and Son, He would have added a comment to record the rebuke of Jesus - both our Savior and the Beloved Disciple, knew that it would be a great wickedness to offer religious worship or devotion to anyone other than the One True God of Israel. John, in fact, adds this very note towards the end of the Apocalypse, in Rev. 22:8-9:

I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, but he said to me, "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God."

There is no doubt, in leaving and affirming the adulation of a prostrate Thomas, the friend of sinners accepted divine worship, as the Uncreated God.

In some respects, of course, this is the sealing verbal confession of faith to which the whole Fourth Gospel points - a truth flagged-up in advance in Jn. 1:14-18. If we took the time, we could show how each of the miracles of John revealed a different attribute or aspect of the Divine Nature revealed in Jesus. The invisible God has now been incarnated and exegeted in the Word-Made-Flesh.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.'") For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.

Jesus is, the Only Eternally Begotten of the Father (as to His Person), who, like the Spirit and Father, is Eternally Unbegotten God, as to His Divine Essence or Substance. He always does what God does because He eternally is who God is!

Sixthly, a recent archaeological discovery in Israel, serves as an external confirmation of what many have denied - that the Eternal Sonship of Jesus is not a theological construct of later Christian conciliar decree, but, as the TANAK (the way Jewish people commonly refer to the Law, Prophets and Writings of the Old Testament) anticipated and the Apostles fervently testify, Jesus was indeed the Son of God.

In the tract that I read on that Kashmiri floating resting-raft, the assertion was made that the parts of the Gospels that appear to suggest that Jesus did, in actual fact, claim to be divine, were later changed or corrupted by Christians: it went on to insinuate that the true manuscripts without such radical claims, which revealed the true, merely-human, identity of Jesus, were locked away in Vatican vaults to deceive the masses of faithful followers.

This does seem, if YouTube videos on the subject can be trusted on this point, to be a case of guilty, or ignorant, consciences picking the speck out of the eye of others but missing the plank in their own visual field, and an instance of the proverbial "Muslim pot calling the Christian kettle black". Apparently, as I have learnt, though, evidently, I am not a Quranic scholar, there were at least five original versions of the text of the Quran. When, eventually, authorities standardized the text of their religious book - and in order to cast these divergences and inconsistencies out of sight - they different versions of the Quran were thrown into the Nile, in the hope that they might never resurface again.

As providence would have it - praise be to the LORD - the different versions of the Quran did reappear, as if by chance! The reason it is said that this divergence of quranic texts can be proved is that a converted Muslim Scholar has since unearthed all five in a bookshop in Casablanca, Morocco (if I am not mistaken). It would appear, then, if the evidence is substantiated, that it is not the Church, with its thousands of extant witnesses to lack of biblical diversity that has been guilty of a cover-up, but the Mosque that has hidden away the evidence from the public for fear of being found out in falsehood.

It is no surprise to discover, then, (though of course our faith does not depend upon this - any fair reading of the New Testament discerns quite quickly that Christ claimed to be the Divine Son, who was One with the Father, just as the Law and Prophets had predicted as a theological necessity - men are lost and need to be saved by God, from whom alone salvation comes), that on the floor of a villa in Northern Israel, at Megiddo, in 2005, a Mosaic was found, with the symbol of a fish, and the famous Christian confession usually signified by the letters ICTHUS - Iesous Christos Theou Huios Soter - have this inscription "God Jesus Christ!" This early Christian title is an early, explicit, and unmistakable proof that His followers believed Jesus was God-Man.

The scholars who discovered it believe it indicates that this was where a church met in a house, in the 2nd century, long before any Trinitarian or Christological debate. As Gil Lin, the head of the Megiddo Regional Council, agreed in his address at the reception:

“The Megiddo mosaic represents the most significant archaeological find since the Dead Sea Scrolls. This mosaic, nearly 1,800 years old, is the earliest known house of prayer and the first physical proclamation of Jesus Christ as God. For billions worldwide, it’s not merely an artifact but a tangible link to shared history, tradition and faith.”

In other words, just as Christ our Lord taught us to receive, popular piety clearly also accepted and acknowledged from the very start that Jesus was God.

Conclusion

There are many other arguments we could add to this post, but I pray this might be a start to thinking about how to reply to those who remain in dark to truth.