Ahmed Deedat on the Deity of Christ: Rebuttal #1

I've often said that if you really want to know what Muslims believe, listen to Muslims lecturing to Muslims.

That's what's useful about the presentation that Ahmed Didat did, Is Jesus God, down in Cape Town, South Africa.

We quoted from this particular presentation, an earlier video, and we said we were going to be taking it apart piece by piece.

So as you start listening to Didat, once again, so much of what he says isn't really relevant to the subject.

He's a storyteller, and some of that's not all that bad, I mean you want to keep your audience interested, but frequently the storytelling becomes the very substance of the argumentation, and it's very difficult to respond to it, at least in a timely manner, when it goes on and on and on for a long period of time.

But in this clip, he begins to get to his subject. He's been telling some, narrating some stories from a book that he had read, and the first story is, well, for Christians, is certainly offensive, and it seems today that the only people who can be offended are

Muslims, but it's an offensive story because Muslims do not have any appreciation whatsoever, because they reject the historical reality of it, but have no appreciation whatsoever for the cross of Christ, and the concept of the atonement.

And so he tells that story, and then he transitions into his, in essence, his first argument, but please notice that he gives to the

Christians only two options, and Christian orthodoxy, the historic Christian doctrine of the

Incarnation, is not one of the options that he gives. Let's listen to what he has to say. You know, they can come night after night, and you can knock them, daze them, you know, with all the arguments, and still they come back for more.

They have it. Look, we haven't got it. Admit it. We haven't got that quality. We can't take it. They can take it.

Wallah, they can take it. So this missionary, he kept on going to this

Arab sheikh, you know, day in and day out, is preaching to him, Christ crucified, that, you know,

Jesus Christ died for your sins, Jesus Christ died for your sins, you only accept and you'll be saved, and he won't let go.

Perseverance. Perseverance was there. So the Arab sheikh told his secretary, he said, look, when this guy comes again next time,

I want you to come and whisper something in my ears. So according to the arrangement, when the missionary started again,

Christ died for your sins, Christ crucified. So this secretary of his comes along and whispers something in his ears, and he starts crying, something, somebody's dead.

So the missionary, what has happened? He says, I just got the sad news that Jibreel died.

The archangel Gabriel, that he died. He said, don't be a fool, he says, angels don't die, and he says, you fool, you're telling me all along that God died.

Angels don't die, but God can die. So we want to know whether he was

God. The subject is, is Jesus God? If he died, did he die as a man?

We know he didn't die. We are told, they didn't kill him and they didn't crucify him.

But let us accept their word for whatever they say. He said, now look, when he died, did he die as a man or did he die as a

God? If he died as a man, useless. Wallah, the whole theology is useless.

Because one man can't carry the sins of the whole world. One man can't. He must die as a God. If he dies, if he is crucified, he must be crucified as a

God. Only then he can redeem mankind. So they must tell us, did he die as a man or did he die as a

God? So if he died as a God, then God died. Tell us what? Now the fact that Didot begins by presenting a false dilemma, by, in essence, misrepresenting

Christianity, at the very beginning of his presentation, never allowing the truth of what we believe to be even a part of the discussion, is extremely troubling, but it also explains why so much of the rest of his argumentation is so facile, so simplistic.

Because he's not really dealing with what Christians actually believed to begin with. Now he presents a false dilemma.

He says either Jesus is a man only, or Jesus is a

God only. He does not address the idea of the God -man, the very option that would actually accurately represent what

Christians believe. Because you see, if you're a Muslim and you're watching this, we do not believe that Jesus ceased being

God when he took on a human nature. If Jesus is God, then he created the human nature.

He would clearly have the ability to take on that human nature, unless you're going to say God can create something and he can't enter into his own creation.

And so the incarnation is not a God ceasing to be a God and becoming a man.

It is not like the old pagan deities. We are talking about the one true God taking on human nature and entering into his own realm for his own self -glorifying purposes.

So Jesus is the God -man. Now where does the Bible teach us?

Well, a number of places, but one that specifically cuts right at D -Dot's misrepresentation is

Philippians chapter 2. And in Philippians chapter 2, people, Muslims especially, go, well that's the

Apostle Paul, we're not going to worry about him. There's a problem with that. You see, the vast majority of New Testament scholars who study this and have commented on this particular passage recognize that Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 through 11 are probably a fragment of an ancient hymn of the church.

That is, it pre -exists the Apostle Paul. It represents the most primitive belief of the early

Christians. Let's take a look at what those Christians believed. Here, the

Apostle Paul uses this text as a sermon illustration. He says that we should have this attitude in ourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, and then verses 6 and 7, 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.

Now, please note what this very early confession states. It refers to Christ and how he eternally existed in the very form of God, the morphe tutheu, that which would strike the vision, if you were looking upon a physical object, that which reflects the inner reality.

He existed in the very form of God, but existing in that form he did not consider that equality he had with God the

Father something to be held on to at all costs, but in the greatest illustration of self -emptying, the greatest illustration of humility of mind, instead he, notice, he made himself nothing.

It does not say he was made nothing. He made himself nothing. He made himself of no reputation.

But how does he do this? By ceasing to be God? No. Notice in the last two phrases in the original

Greek language you have two phrases that describe the means by which this action takes place.

And what is the means? By taking on the very form of a slave, by being made in human likeness.

You see, this voluntary entrance into human existence is what it means that he made himself nothing.

He made himself of no reputation. He did not cease being God. As it says in the Gospel of John, the

Word became flesh. It does not say the Word ceased being the Word and some new fleshly being came into existence.

The Word became flesh. He who would eternally exist in the form of God took on that human nature by taking the very form of a slave, by being made in human likeness.

I could honestly say to any Muslim who is watching this who has been impressed by Ahmad Didat, he is not even addressing the

Christian doctrine he pretends to be addressing. I look for Muslims who would actually listen to what we have always been saying.

This was written long before Mohammed and actually interact with what it is we believe.

If right at the beginning Didat does not even allow for the option of dealing with what

Christianity really believes, what does that tell you? When people misrepresent Islam, what does that tell you?