Questions and Answers about the Deity of Jesus Christ

Richard P. Bailey


QUESTION #1: "WHY DO CHRISTIANS COVER UP THEIR ABSURD TEACHINGS ABOUT GOD BY CALLING THEM ‘A MYSTERY’? ISLAM IS CLEAR IN SAYING GOD IS ONE!" (Western converts to Islam often express their relief to find that, "Islam's teaching about God is straight forward, and void of the ‘mysteries’ of Christianity, such as the trinity and the deity of Christ, which never made sense to me.")

ANSWER: If, after so many years of scientific research, the physical universe, in which we live, is still beyond our complete understanding, why should we think it strange that we cannot fully understand the invisible Creator of this universe? In fact if we could completely understand God, then we would be equal to Him! The Bible tells us:

As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8,9)

How unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out. (Romans 11:33)


QUESTION #2: "DO YOU BELIEVE IN THREE GODS?"

ANSWER #1: "Jesus Himself said that God is One": Someone asked him about the commandments of God : "‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one."’" (Mark 12:29)

ANSWER #2: "The Bible categorically states 28 times that God is One!":

ANSWER #3: God created all things by Himself: I am the Lord, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself. (Isaiah 44:24). He uses several metaphors to describe how He did it:


QUESTION #3: "HOW CAN JESUS BE GOD? WHY DO YOU BLASPHEME BY CALLING JESUS ‘GOD’?"

GENERAL ANSWER: Explanation from John 1:1-3,14: "The eternal Word of God, which was with God (seems like two) in the beginning, also was God (one; not two). Everything Allah created, He created by saying, ‘Be!’ - He created everything by His Word. Allah's Word is not another God; Allah's Word is Allah's communication of Himself. Can Allah exist without His Word? Was there ever a time when Allah's Word did not exist? It is like my word or communication, which is in one sense a part of me, but is not a second being, separate from me. So Allah is One, and He has Word, which comes out from Him and communicates Him. Jesus is ‘Kalamat Ullah,’ the Word of Allah, who came out from Allah and came into the world as a human being. God in His sovereignty chose to reveal Himself to us - by His Word, Who became a human being and lived among us, having become one of us."

THERE ARE REALLY THREE PARTS TO THIS QUESTION:

QUESTION #3a: "HOW CAN JESUS BE GOD WHEN HE DID THINGS GOD DOESN'T/WON'T DO? After all:

ANSWER: #1: "The description of Jesus we read in the Injil is the description of One Who ‘became’ a human being. Notice it does not say that a man somehow become God; it says Allah's eternal Word became a man. In Hebrews 2:17 it says Jesus became like us ‘in every way’ - bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh! Therefore, because He became a real human being just like us, He did things we do. If he didn't do those things he wouldn't really be one of us.

"Jesus is Almighty God, but for our sake when He became a man He chose to no longer function as God. He is still God and could use His powers as God, but chose instead to only function as a man.

"As a human being, He was born, grew in knowledge and maturity, got hungry & thirsty, got tired and sleepy, prayed to His ‘Father’ in heaven, was tempted in every way that we are (but he never sinned), and died (but God raised Him up victorious over death). All these things prove He became a real human being. Jesus is not an apparition nor was he just pretending to be a man. As a human being, he had all of our needs and limitations, except for our sinful, fallen nature. One reason He is called the ‘last Adam’ (1 Cor.15:45) is because he became just like Adam was before he sinned."

QUESTION #3b: "HOW CAN JESUS BE GOD AND MAN AT THE SAME TIME? How can he be on earth praying to God in heaven, talking about God as ‘my Father’ and He and the Father still be one God?"

ANSWER #2: "God can do anything! Just as in the act of creation, God's eternal Word came out of Him when He spoke to create all things (but He did not become two gods), so when he spoke His eternal Word into the virgin Mary, God's Word remained God and at the same time became a man like us. Jesus never stopped being almighty Allah's Eternal Word. It says, ‘The Word became flesh ...’ (John 1:14); not ‘The Word changed to flesh.’ He is not sometimes God and sometimes man, nor is He half God and half man. He is both fully God and fully human at the same time!"

QUESTION #3c: "BUT WHAT NEED WOULD GOD HAVE TO DO SUCH A THING? He doesn't need Jesus or anyone else to die for us. God can forgive whomever He wants to forgive!"

ANSWER #3:

  1. God's Love: One of God's greatest attributes is love. True love is self giving (not taking) for the sake of another. God gave Himself to us in order to forgive us and save us from eternal judgement/death.

    ... he too shared in their humanity (flesh and blood) so that by his death he might destroy ... the devil and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death ... (Hebrews 2:14,15)

    He learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation ... (Hebrews 5:8,9)

  2. God's Justice: God's justice requires Him to do this. The Bible teaches that although God has the power to do anything ("For nothing is impossible with God". - Luke 1:37), He cannot do things like lie ("...it is impossible for God to lie..." - Heb. 6:18) or be unfaithful to His promises ("If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself." - 2 Tim. 2:13) because He would be violating his own character and would no longer be God! He would self-destruct! To illustrate this, suppose I were to steal a very valuable item from your home and sell it to buy drugs or to gamble, and by the time you found me I had already wasted all the money. If I were then to confess my sin and beg your forgiveness, you would have a choice of either forgiving me and absorbing the loss or gaining some satisfaction by having me arrested and prosecuted. If you chose to forgive me, the cost of your forgiveness would be the value of the item I stole from you plus the shame of being burglarized. You would have to be willing to accept all that loss by choosing to give it to me. Suppose the judge took pity on me and decided to forgive me. You would certainly feel that judge was unjust! My family and friends could not forgive me no matter how much they might love me. No one but you could forgive me unless someone was willing to pay you the full value of the item I stole from you and you were willing to accept payment as compensation. Forgiveness is never just a matter of words because it is never free! Forgiveness can only be given by the person who is willing to absorb the injury, loss or cost involved. God is certainly not an unjust judge who would simply declare us forgiven because He wants to.

    We seem to be faced with a dilemma. If God forgave our sins without giving us the full punishment according to His own law, He would be unjust and would be violating himself. But if we are not forgiven we could never endure the eternal punishment in hell that we deserve. Therefore, the eternal Word of God became a man (Jesus) so he could take our punishment upon himself (God cannot die, but a man can die). He did this so that he could forgive us and be just in doing so. "... God presented him (Jesus) as a sacrifice of atonement...He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as TO BE JUST and THE ONE WHO JUSTIFIES those who have faith in Jesus ..." (see Rom. 3:22-26).


OTHER BIBLE ANSWERS REGARDING THE DEITY OF CHRIST:

ANSWER #4: The greetings and salutations in the New Testament epistles seem to imply His deity in a unique way. All of these letters were written after Jesus had ascended to heaven and was no longer physically present with his people. Still the apostles presented him as:

  1. the co-author (with God the Father) of grace, peace, mercy and faith. Can these things come from a man?
  2. the co-sender of His apostles. Who else but God can send from heaven?
  3. our Savior in the same sentence where God is presented as our Savior.
  4. the one who is given glory for ever and ever. Who else but God can receive glory for ever and ever?
  5. one with whom we have fellowship just like we have fellowship with the Father, even though he is in heaven.
  6. the one who keeps us and brings us to eternal life. Can anyone but God do these things?

HERE ARE THE VERSES:

ANSWER #5: Study of Philippians 2:6-8: We read that Jesus, ‘being in very nature (morphae) God ... made himself nothing, taking the very nature (morphae) of a servant, being made in human likeness.’" Notice how the eternal God took upon Himself the very nature of a servant in becoming a man.

ANSWER #6: When did Jesus begin to exist?:


QUESTION #4: "WHY WAS IT NECESSARY FOR JESUS TO BE BORN WITHOUT A HUMAN FATHER?"

ANSWER: Jesus was born of Mary so that he could be truly human, "bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh." It was necessary for him to be born without a human father in order to reveal his divine origin - to show he is from heaven; the eternal Word of God made flesh (John 1:13-14).


QUESTION #5: "ISN'T ALLAH FAR ABOVE ALL HUMAN EMOTIONS? Isn't it wrong for us to sing or laugh in our worship of Allah? Isn't Allah above such human emotions as laughter, joy, grief, or love?"

ANSWER: More and more I am impressed with the truth of God's emotional make up. I have started collecting verses that talk about His grief, envy, jealousy, wrath, hate, rejoicing, singing, laughing, pleasure, delight, compassion and love. God has all these emotions, and we have them because we were created in His image. God is not like a human being; rather humans are like God! We sing, laugh, cry, get angry, grieve and rejoice because God does!

grief - Eph. 4:30 & Gen. 6:6
envy - James 4:5
jealousy - Ex. 20:5
wrath - Ephesians 5:6; Colossians 3:6
hatred - Isaiah 61:8; Malachi 2:16
rejoicing - Zeph. 3:17 & Is. 62:5
singing - Zeph. 3:17
laughter - Psalm 2:4
pleasure - Isaiah 42:21; Matt. 3:17; Psalm 51:18
delight - Psalm 35:27; 147:11; Zeph. 3:17
compassion - Hosea 11:8; 2 Corinthians 1:3
love - 1 John 4:7,8


QUESTION #6: "HOW IS IT POSSIBLE FOR US TO HAVE AN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP WITH ALMIGHTY GOD?"

ANSWER: God is so great (Allah-u-Akbar) and His love is so complete, that He enables us to have a relationship with him more intimate than any human relationship! Just look at what God's Word says:


Articles by Rev. Richard P. Bailey
Answering Islam Home Page