Is Jesus Christ God?, Part 1

Debates Are Won by Evidence, Not Ad Hominem or Non Sequitur

I tell you that he's telling you he's not God. What more do you need? He's telling you here.

Realize that Jesus Christ is your Creator, your God, and your Savior, and that you need his atoning sacrifice to have eternal life.

It says in Proverbs 18, 17, the first to present his case seems right until another comes forward and questions him. That's one of the best descriptions of a good debate that I've ever seen. Debates are a long-forgotten art today.

I hope you know how privileged you are to come to these. They used to be very common at the university. Now when we do a debate at the university, it's the hottest ticket in town because they don't see them anymore.

Universities used to be a place that taught students how to think. Sadly, they are becoming a place which teaches students what to think. First of all, the phrase ad hominem. That's a classical term for taking kind of a cheap shot at your opponent.

Usually when you can't answer him based on the information, you say something derogatory about him. I don't think I heard any ad hominems in the last debate. I did hear a few of the second one though, and this is called a non sequitur.

Now a non sequitur is a very clever maneuver. That's when somebody asks you a question, and instead of answering the question, you pretend you're answering it by changing the subject, and you change the subject in such a way that you're hoping it doesn't look like you changed the subject, and you're hoping that nobody notices you didn't actually answer the question.

You've seen this all the time if you watch CNN or Fox News on these programs that I would barely call debates, but sometimes you'll hear somebody being interviewed, and they'll say, well, it sounds like your corporation is very greedy.

And they'll go, well, you want to talk about greed? What about George W. Bush? And see, already they've just changed the subject. And you've got to say, no, look, George W. Bush is a different subject.

We're talking about your corporation and your greed. For example, if a Christian is asked about hypocrisy in the name of Christ, it would be inappropriate for them to say, yeah, well, there's also hypocrisy in the name of Islam.

That may be, but that's changing the subject. Likewise, if a Muslim is asked about the Koran actually commanding the Jihad, it's inappropriate to say, yeah, well, Christians did the same thing during the Crusades.

So don't let anybody get away with this. Now, the next rule is very important. No interrupting. This goes for the opponents interrupting each other. This goes for comments from the audience. It wasn't a problem during the last debate, and you look like a bunch of nice people, so I don't think it will be a problem here either.

But I am going to enforce that this is not going to be like the British Parliament. I don't know if you've ever seen one of those things on TV. Neither is it going to be like our own universities, where people are shouted down if they don't like it.

Shouting somebody down is not exercising your free speech. Well, I'm using my speech. I'm shouting. No. Shouting somebody down is sabotaging free speech. Who are we kidding? And I want to give a very special challenge to the audience.

Some of you are here today because you really haven't made up your mind about Christianity. Some of you are neither a Muslim nor a Christian. Others are already a Christian or a Muslim, and you've made up your mind.

You have already decided who won the debate, even though you haven't heard the debate yet. So I want to challenge you, whether you're a Muslim, whether you're a Christian, whether you're neither. At the end of this debate, ask yourself, who did the better job of answering questions?

Who did the better job of staying on topic? Who did the better job of actually authenticating what they were saying with evidence? You can disagree with one of these men, and still be brave enough at the end of the day to admit that they did a good job.

So don't feel threatened. That is what education is all about. Now here's the format. Each gentleman is going to get a very generous opening statement of 35 minutes. Then each one will have a 10-minute rebuttal.

Then each one will have a 10-minute counter-rebuttal. Then each one will have a 5-minute closing statement. Then we will read some questions, and the questions need to be addressed to one opponent or the other.

And the first opponent can answer and gets only 2 minutes to answer the question. Otherwise, they'll be here all night, and we'll never get through them. And then his opponent has 1 minute to respond to his answer.

Okay, having laid that out, let me introduce our speakers. Dr. James White, taking the Christian position, is an elder of Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church and director of Alpha and Omega Ministries. This is a Christian apologetics organization based in Phoenix, Arizona.

He is the author of more than 20 books, a professor, and an accomplished debater. Jaoul Abou-Roub is a translator of Islamic works and author of several books, his most important being an 8-book series titled The Prophet of Mercy.

He comes highly recommended by the American Muslim Association of North America. And we are going to have Dr. James White give the opening statement.

The Deity of Christ in the New Testament

Well, it is indeed an honor to be with you this evening. It is indeed an honor to stand in defense of the deity of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This evening, I wish to point out that the topic of our debate might seem, for all intents and purposes, somewhat unfair.

It is unfair because there truly is no question that the body of ancient documents, today known as the New Testament, teach as a collective whole the deity of Jesus Christ. Further, though, the actual revelation of the deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity takes place in the incarnation of the Son and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, events that take place chronologically between the Old and New Testaments.

The prophetic revelation of the nature of the Messiah is likewise consistent with the New Testament revelation. Now, as long as we do not presume naturalistic materialism and preclude the possibility of divine revelation, there can be no a priori rejection of the bare possibility that God could, in fact, reveal as a part of divine truth that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, entered into human flesh as Jesus of Nazareth.

We gather this evening as Christians and Muslims, I would imagine as a majority, all affirming the reality of divine revelation. God, or Allah, is a speaking being who desires to communicate with his creation and has done so.

It is the content of that divine revelation that drives me, as a Christian, to believe in the deity of Christ. Think for a moment with me about some of the titles and descriptions used of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Bible.

He is the Lamb of God. He is the Son of God. He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. He is called the Word of God. He is called the Risen Lord. He is the Creator of all things.

He is the Sustainer of all things, the One for whom all things were made. He is worshipped by angels and men and, in fact, all of creation itself. He is the object of prayer and the author and finisher of our faith.

He is given the name which is above every name, so that the name of Jesus, every knee bows and every tongue swears allegiance. All the fullness of deity dwells in Him in bodily form. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Him.

Every thought is to be taken captive in obedience to Him. Paul describes Him as our great God and Saviour, the eternally blessed God. John records Jesus' own words where he identifies himself as the I Am and himself speaks of Jesus as the Word who existed eternally and is, as to His being, absolute deity.

Thomas confesses Him as his Lord and his God. Peter calls Him God and Lord and the early church prays to Him and suffers in His name. In prophetic words written 700 years before His birth, He is called Emmanuel, God with us, and El Gabor, the mighty God.

Lord, God, Creator, Saviour, Lamb of God, Risen and Coming, King of kings and Lord of lords. Truly, there is no question of the Bible's teaching on the deity of Christ. So, what in the world are we doing here anyway?

I submit to you that the only reason my opponent stands in opposition to our thesis this evening is not at all due to the clarity of the primary source material, but due solely and completely to the anachronistic acceptance of the authority of later writings written over half a millennium after the New Testament, from a different culture and in a different language.

The Quran specifically denies that Jesus is the Son of God, saying He is merely a Razul, an apostle, a sent one. While our topic this evening precludes exploring this particular subject, I would assert that I have never seen an even semi-accurate definition of the Trinity in the Quran.

And hence, I must ask my Muslim friends this evening if they would find a denial of the Islamic doctrine of Tawheed convincing if the originator of that denial never gave the slightest evidence of accurate knowledge of the doctrine.

I have no reason to believe Muhammad ever read even two sentences of the New Testament. Hence, I find no reason to bow to his denial of that of which he could not have been anything other than ignorant.

Instead, the entire context of the Bible must be overthrown and its context rewritten to an Islamic one. As Dawood put it, it is absolutely impossible to get the truth, the true religion from these Gospels unless they are read and examined from an Islamic and Unitarian point of view.

But this is to argue in a circle, and in so doing, to admit the anachronistic nature of the Islamic arguments. Finally, if the approach is taken that the testimony of the Bible is to be rejected due to some kind of textual corruption, I assert that such allegations require proof.

My learned opponent this evening has written, Every text that Christians claim proves Trinity is either a fabrication added in the New Testament or corrupted text from the Two Testaments that are explained to mean what they do not truly mean.

I carry with me this evening critical editions of both the Old and New Testament texts in Hebrew and Greek. And if any text I cite is to be rejected based upon textual variation, I suggest that the canons of scholarship will require my opponent to demonstrate his allegations on the basis of the evidence available to textual scholars today.

The debate thesis states that the New Testament and the Bible as a whole teaches that Jesus Christ is God. Some might immediately be confused and think that Christians believe Jesus Christ to be the Father.

Jesus is not the Father. Therefore, all the passages that might be presented this evening to distinguish between the Father and the Son, we as Christians embrace and believe, for they do not in any way prove that Jesus is not deity.

Only by assuming Unitarianism could one believe that proving Jesus is not the Father is in fact relevant to the debate this evening. The definition of the Trinity was well known by the 7th century A .D.

Here we have a basic, clear definition of this Biblical doctrine within the one being absolute monotheism. Christians are monotheists. Anyone who says otherwise just doesn't know Christianity. Just doesn't know the absolute basic affirmation of the doctrine itself.

Within the one being that is God, there exist eternally three co-equal and co-eternal persons, namely the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please note we are differentiating between the words being and person.

We are not saying there is one being that is three beings or one person that is three persons. The Scriptures teach that there is but one true God, but the Scriptures likewise describe three divine persons as deity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

This is plainly seen in Jesus' instructions to the church where he tells us to baptize in the name singular of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Our Lord was not telling us to baptize in the name of God, a prophet, and an archangel.

Instead, three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, together share one divine Trinitarian name. The Scriptures then differentiate between God as one being and God as three persons. Being and person are not the same categories of existence.

We are all human beings here tonight. We all share that in common, yet each of us is a different person. We make the distinction between being and person every day, and we must do so here as well. Being is what makes something what it is.

Person is what makes someone who they are. As we examine many texts from the Bible this evening, always ask yourself this question. Could the words of Scripture be applied to a mere creature if indeed Jesus Christ is not, as Christians have always believed, the Incarnate One, the Divine Son of God?

That is, could a mere creature ever say the things Jesus says? Could a mere creature say, Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Could a mere creature say, If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.

Would a mere creature ask you to put your faith and trust in him for eternal salvation? Can we worship a mere creation, pray to a mere creation, bear the name as Christians of a mere human being? Keep this in mind as we examine many of the texts of the sacred Scriptures here this evening.

Though the deity of Christ is primarily a truth revealed in the New Testament, I know that the prophets of old gained a glimpse of the glory of the coming one as well. This is particularly true of the prophet Isaiah who foresaw the birth of Christ, his ministry, and his sacrificial death.

In Isaiah 7, he speaks of one whose name is Emmanuel, God with us. In Isaiah 9, he speaks of the Prince of Peace, the Mighty God, the Aviad, often translated, Everlasting Father, but in Old Testament parlance just as easily rendered Father of Eternity.

I believe this has to do with God being the creator of all things, Christ being the creator of all things in Colossians 1. The creator just as he is described in the New Testament. The vision of Daniel in Daniel 7, 13 -14 of the Son of Man appearing before the Ancient of Days is fulfilled in Jesus' own words in Mark 14, 62 proving that the Lord's frequent use of Son of Man is surely no denial of his heavenly origin, but rather it is an assertion thereof.

Please note John 20, 28 -29 where after the resurrection, Thomas answers and says to the risen Lord, My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, Because you have seen me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see and yet believed.

Here, John records for us the words of Thomas and makes sure that we understand that both Lord and God are applied to Jesus. He answered and said to him, My Lord and my God. Now, if Jesus was a mere razul, he would have immediately rebuked him and said, Do not say that.

There is only one God. But instead, what does he do? He accepts this proclamation of faith as a proclamation of believing faith. Because you have seen me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see and yet believed.

In Titus 2, 13, we read, Looking for the blessed hope in the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, here a monotheistic Jew, identifies Jesus not only as God and Savior, a strong construction in the original Greek language, but he goes on to describe the ministry of Christ in the next few verses using the very words of the Old Testament that were used of Yahweh, describing the one true God, here applying these words to Jesus.

And then we have in 2 Peter 1, 1, Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Here he uses the same construction in the original Greek to refer to his Lord as God and Savior that we saw in Titus 2, 13. In Romans 9, 5, Of whom are the fathers, and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all the eternally blessed God.

Amen. In Hebrews chapter 1, we can spend most of our time just in this one chapter. All the different ways in which the deity of Christ is demonstrated. He begins by identifying Jesus, the one through whom all creation came.

The very image of the Father. His exact representation. Then in verse 6, he says, All the angels of God are to worship Him. Worship that one who came in flesh. Then in verse 8, he identifies the Son as God.

He says, but of the Son, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever. This is followed in verses 10 -12 by a citation of the Psalter about Yahweh as the unchanging creator of all things in Psalm 102.

The view of the writer to the Hebrews cannot be doubted as to the deity of Christ because he applies those words about Yahweh from the Old Testament to Jesus Christ in the New. Here in Colossians 2, 9, one of my favorite texts, For in Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.

That Greek term, theatetos, B .B. Warfield identified as that which makes God, God. It is a very strong term. It cannot be questioned that here we have the New Testament identifying as in the risen Lord, notice this is a present tense, is currently dwelling in bodily form all the fullness of deity.

Here Jesus Christ is plainly affirmed as being deity. Then of course in Philippians chapter 2, we have this ancient fragment of a hymn of the ancient church. Most scholars believe this is actually one of the early hymns of the church.

And listen to what it says. Speaking of Jesus, it says,. Who, although He eternally existed in the very form of God, did not consider that equality He had with God the Father something to be held on to at all costs, but instead He made Himself nothing by taking on the very form of a slave by being made in human likeness.

Not only does this affirm that the Son eternally preexisted, that He was in the presence of the Father before the incarnation, but you will notice it sheds light on the fact that the Son did not cease being divine when He took on human nature.

His act of humility was a positive one, taking on the very form of a slave and being made in human likeness. In Revelation chapter 22, at the very end of the New Testament canon, Jesus is quoted as saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

These are the same words used in Revelation 1 -7 to describe the Almighty God. In Colossians chapter 1, the Apostle Paul, in refuting the Gnostic heretics, precludes them from turning Jesus into just some intermediary being, which is what they were trying to do.

And he does so by using their very language against them. He says, For by Him, speaking of the Son, For by Him, all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

All things have been created through Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together or consist. Here we have the Creator ascribe for us in no uncertain terms. Paul exhausts the Greek language to ensure we understand His meaning.

Not only is there nothing outside of Christ's creative work, but all of creation is said to have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him, all things consist. That means, my friends, that according to the Christian scriptures, written over half a millennium before Muhammad, Jesus is your Creator.

He made you. He gives you life. He gives you breath. That is what makes our topic this evening so very important. If the Christian proclamation is true, the Muslim runs the danger of identifying as a mere Razul, the very Creator of your soul.

That's what makes it worthwhile being here this evening. One of the most compelling presentations of the deity of Christ comes from the use of the phrase I am by Jesus. In John 8, 58, Jesus says these words to the Jews who immediately pick up stones to stone Him for blasphemy.

Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am. Ego, I me. An emphatic form. It's also found in John chapter 18. They answered Him. The soldiers coming to arrest Him. Jesus the Nazarene.

He said to them, I am He. Ego, I me. And Judas also, who was betraying Him, was standing with them. So when He said to them, I am He. Ego, I me. They drew back and fell to the ground. At those very words that Jesus utters to them, they fall backwards.

Lord Jesus was plainly drawing from the use of the Old Testament. One in John chapter 13, verse 19. He says, From now on, I am telling you, before it comes to pass, so when it does occur, you may believe that ego, I me.

Notice the phrase, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am. Keep that in mind. We go back to the Old Testament. We find one of the key texts proclaiming that Yahweh is the only true God in Isaiah 43, 10.

Here we read, You are my witnesses, declares Yahweh, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that on a who, in the Hebrew, ego, I me, in the Greek Septuagint.

Before me there was no God formed and there will be none after me. Now compare the Greek Septuagint rendering of Isaiah 43, 10 in that particular phrase with what we have in John 13, 19. And let me go from there to demonstrate how very close these two are.

When you take out extra terms and contextual references, we see the parallel with striking clarity. And must realize that Jesus is purposefully applying a text from the Old Testament that was about Yahweh and Yahweh alone to Himself.

And that's what makes John 8, 24 so important. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins, for unless you believe that ego I me, you will die in your sins. When Jesus spoke to the Jews, he gave them no option in the matter.

They could not believe he was merely a prophet. They could not believe he was merely the Messiah. If they did not believe him for who he truly was, they would die in their sins. Then we go to John 1, 1.

We have already seen many references to the deity of Christ in the New Testament. John 1, 1 is certainly not the only place. But the prologue of John, John 1, 1 -18, is a tremendously crafted presentation that John intends us to use as a lens through which we look at the rest of the Gospel.

We are told in John 1, 1, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Here you have the Greek text. In the first phrase, in the beginning was the Word. The verb there is in the imperfect form.

It is the verb of being, and it does not point us to any point of origin. In other words, as far back as you push the beginning, the Word is already in existence. The Word is eternal. Secondly, in the second phrase, the logos has an eternal relationship with God.

It is a face-to-face relationship, a communicative relationship, and it likewise had no beginning. It is eternal. And finally, the third, and for some reason controversial among some people phrase, and the Word was God.

This is describing the nature of the logos by placing theos before the verb and not having an article before it. It is describing the nature of the logos. However, my opponent this evening has attempted to address John 1 .1 in his recent book, and he says, for example, on page 18, however, the first instance of theos is preceded by ha, which makes the reference in it to the God.

Now this is simply inaccurate. The first appearance of theos is in the accusative singular. It's tan theon. It is a simple misunderstanding of the function of Greek articles to think the presence or lack of the article tells us we are talking about the God or a God.

Greek articles are very, very rich, and just as the English article is not identical to the Arabic article, neither the Arabic article, English article, Hebrew article, in any way, shape, or form can even get close to the Greek article, which is extremely complex in its uses in that language.

He also said, number two, but the second instance is not preceded by ha, which makes the second theos merely a God, end quote, page 18. This again is completely inaccurate. No one who actually reads the language and has translated any significant amount of Greek will make this kind of claim, as common as it might be on internet websites.

Let's look at the truth of this last phrase. What we have here is what's called an anarthorous pre-verbal predicate nominative. Do you remember your 8th grade grammar class? You probably slept through that.

I'm sure you all know exactly what that is. If we were to put the article in the first line here on the screen, I've put kai hatheos ein ha logos, which evidently is what my opponent believes would have to be there for this not to be a God.

The problem is, if that's what the text read, it is making God and logos an equation. Everything logos is, everything God is, everything God is, the logos is. But the preceding phrase that just said the logos had eternal relationship with God.

So that would be an inherent contradiction. What it says is very, very clear and very, very compelling. So what about the translation a God? It is simple ignorance of the Greek. The Greek article is very, very rich.

There are 282 anarthorists, that is without the article uses of theos in the New Testament. And nobody could begin to translate the New Testament in any meaningful fashion and translate every one of those as a God.

It would make mincemeat out of the text. Note some humorous examples, for example. Luke 2 .14, if we were to follow this rule that theos without article means a God. Glory to a God in the highest and on earth.

Peace among men with whom he is pleased. Or Matthew 14 .33, and those who are in the boat worshiped him saying, you are certainly son of a God. But we don't even need to go there. All you have to do is just go a few verses down from John 1 .1.

And if we follow the rule that if a noun doesn't have an article, it's a something, then we would have to translate John 1 .6, there came a man sent from a God, a name to him was a John. Obviously, you cannot translate the language in this way.

And to say that the lack of the article in John 1 .1 .c means a God simply means you cannot read Greek. And you have never translated any other text relevant to this particular subject. So at the end of that prologue, you have the tremendous statement from John 1 .18, no one has ever seen God.

It is God the only son who is close to the Father's heart who has made him known. And here you have the term monogamous. Monogamous means unique. It does not come from genao, which means to beget. It comes from genos, genos, the type or kind.

All modern scholarly lexical sources agree on this issue. And here Jesus is called the unique God, or as this translation has it, it is God the only son who is close to the Father's heart. This is a restatement of what we had in John 1 .1.

Also in that prologue, you have this wonderful text. And the Word became flesh. That Word which was eternal became flesh and dwelt among us and we saw his glory. Glory is of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Ha logos sarx ageneta. The Word became flesh. He did not cease being the Word. But as we saw in the Carmen Christi in Philippians 2 .5 -11, he takes on that human nature. Look at the scene in Revelation 5 where John sees the worship in heaven.

The Lamb has come forward in the heavenly scene. He's before the throne of God. And listen to what takes place in this heavenly scene. And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea and all things in them, I heard saying to him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.

And the four living creatures kept saying, Amen. And the elders fell down. And what did they do? They worshipped. That is the Jesus Christ of the Bible. He is the one who is worshipped along with the Father.

In Psalm 102, 25 -27, we have the unchanging nature of Yahweh's creatorship. Yet in Hebrews chapter 1, verses 10 -12, it's cited and applied to Jesus Christ demonstrating He's not only God, but that He's the unchanging creator who has taken on human flesh.

Isaiah, in the same way in John 12, there is a beautiful passage where Jesus is ending His public ministry and He's about to hide Himself from the people. He has just actually ended it and has now hidden Himself.

And John is commenting on the fact that even though He has done so many miracles before them, yet they were not believing in Jesus. And he explains why. He quotes two passages, one from Isaiah 53 and one from Isaiah chapter 6, verse 10.

And then he makes a little comment. A lot of us miss it, but it is truly beautiful. He says, These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory and he spoke about Him. Where did Isaiah see Jesus' glory?

Go back to the passage in Isaiah chapter 6. Isaiah saw Jehovah sitting upon His throne and he saw His glory. So when you ask Isaiah, Isaiah, whose glory did you see? Isaiah answers, I saw Yahweh's glory.

When you ask John, John, whose glory did Isaiah see? John's answer is, He saw the glory of Jesus. Jesus is Yahweh in human flesh. Let's look at some of the common errors. My opponent this evening, in his published works, points to the comma, Johanium, 1 John 5, 7, in the King James Version of the Bible.

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. This is a very late textual variant entering the Greek manuscript tradition through its presence in the Latin Vulgate.

The doctrine of the Trinity is in no way, shape, or form based upon or derived from this brief text, which was in all probability just a marginal gloss. I have written on this topic in my work on textual criticism, but it did not enter into the Greek textual tradition until long after the doctrine of the Trinity was firmly established and even defined in creedal form.

He also writes on page 22 of his book, even the most fanatical supporters of the Trinity cannot scientifically trace modern day Trinity any farther back than the second Christian century, page 22. If I may point out some historical problems with this, Ignatius was one of the earliest followers of the disciples.

He knew the apostle John, and when he wrote to the church at Ephesus in the ninth portion of his letter, he died in 107 or 108 A .D., so very, very early on. He wrote this, because you are stones of a temple prepared beforehand for the building of God the Father, hoisted to the heights by the crane of Jesus Christ, which is the cross, using as a rope the Holy Spirit.

These are the very first Christian writings after the New Testament themselves, and these identify Jesus as God. They're soaked in Trinitarian language just as the New Testament is as well. Notice we also have this statement, Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to her who has been blessed in greatness of the fullness of God the Father, ordained before time to be always resulting in permanent glory, unchangeably united and chosen in true passion by the will of the Father and of Jesus Christ our God, of the church which is in Ephesus of Asia, worthy of felicitation, abundant greetings in Jesus Christ and in blameless joy.

Did you catch it? Jesus Christ our God. This is not the Council of Nicaea. This is not 300 years later. This is in the very first generation after the disciples themselves. Likewise, in the same epistle, Ignatius said, my spirit is but an offscouring of the cross, which is a scandal of the unbelieving.

Notice the reference to the cross very, very early on. But to us it is salvation and life eternal. Where is the wise man? Where is the disputer? Where is the boasting of those who are called understanding?

For our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived by Mary according to the dispensation of God from the seed of David, yet, yes, but of the Holy Spirit as well. Virgin birth, cross, deity of Christ in the first generation, not something made up all the way down the road at a later point.

My opponent has written, Trinity was forced into Christianity by Emperor Constantine. Horrific religious persecution followed the decision made by Constantine, essentially a pagan emperor, to impose invented creed never preached by Jesus.

This is simply historical fiction and will immediately be recognized as such by any person who has taken the time to do serious reading in the history of the Christian faith. It gives to Constantine a role he never had.

It ignores the fact that many of those of the Council of Nicaea still bore upon their bodies the scars of their Christian profession from the days of Roman persecution which had ended barely a decade earlier.

It ignores all of the writings of Christians in the centuries prior and it ignores the Arian resurgence that continued for another 50 years wherein later emperors used their power to overthrow Nicaea's doctrine, not establish it.

These claims are groundless and refuted by all meaningful historical data. The deity of Christ is clearly taught in the Bible. All accusations of wholesale corruption are without merit historically. The denials of a single man without knowledge of the Bible half a millennium later cannot overthrow this testimony.

And so I would like to ask the Muslims in the audience to please think with me for just a moment. Just a few months ago I had the opportunity of debating a man by the name of Shabbir Ali in Seattle on the subject of the crucifixion of Christ.

And I made the point then and I need to make it over and over again because I truly want my Muslim friends to hear this. You must understand what you are asking Christians to do when you anachronistically take the Quran as the final authority and then read the New Testament and the Old Testament through that lens.

What if someone came along in the 12th century who could not read Arabic, who had never read even so much as a translation of the Quran and he comes along and he says I am a prophet of God. I will not give you any miracles other than I am going to give you another book.

But I am in the line of prophets going back through Jesus and Muhammad. And I am a prophet of God. And I tell you the Hijrah never took place. Here is my book, believe me. Are you going to believe him?