Joshua Evans on the Deen Show: Ten Reasons, Part 2

Joshua Evans’ Demand for Explicit Claims and the Old Testament Witness to God’s Uniqueness

Synagogues every time they have service. Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is but one God, and then there is none else. And we all know the verses. You can go through the Old Testament and read about God's characteristics when he describes himself.

It is always explicit. Now there are some verses in the New Testament which can be implicitly interpreted as Jesus having claimed some type of divinity. But if that was such a big characteristic, if it was such a big deal that Jesus was God, if this was the way to salvation, that he was God in the flesh come to sacrifice himself for the sins of humanity, then that is something God would have been explicit about because it is an issue of salvation.

God does not beat around the bush about these type of issues when it comes to who he is. He is very clear with the children of Israel, I am God, there is none like me, do not worship anything else, period.

And Jesus came and quoted the same very verses. So if it would have been an issue of salvation that he was God, he would have very clearly stated I am God. I am God. He would not have told the Jews when they said that you call yourself God, he said you say that I am.

He would have very clearly said yes, I am God and I am here to save you from your sins. He never stated that in anywhere and it is never referenced in any scriptural text of any religion whatsoever. So therefore if God is so explicit about his nature, why when it comes to him becoming a man, why did he not explicitly state so?

Explicit meaning that it is lucid, it is clear, it is unambiguous, something unequivocal.

It is not something that you need a scholar to interpret. If God's nature was that he was coming in the form of a man, he would have made it even a five-year-old child.

Why Demanding Exact Phrases Misses the Point

I would like to take a moment to respond. This is actually a continuation of a point nine, we haven't actually gone to point eight, it went a little bit longer. So this is such a common objection and in fact it came up just recently in my debate with Farhan Qureshi that I want to take a few moments to comment upon it.

Because it really, I think, does in many ways require a person to ignore the New Testament evidence. The idea is that Jesus has to use a specific set of words that would be reflected in the Old Testament to prove that he is God.

And so if he doesn't say, I am God, worship me, in those exact words, it doesn't matter if he's identified as God. It doesn't matter if he's worshipped as God. It doesn't matter if he is described as the creator of all things.

It doesn't matter if he's described as Yahweh. It doesn't matter if he's described as being eternal. It doesn't matter if he uses I am of himself. All that stuff is irrelevant unless the specific words are used.

Now what if I came up with specific words and I absolutely demanded that Muhammad say, in these exact words, I am the last and final prophet to mankind, Jesus was only sent to the Jews, and the revelation you are receiving from me is the final revelation and it corrects all of the errors in the Bible.

And if he doesn't use those exact words, then I don't accept him. Why would that even be a semi-logical, irrelevant, rational thing to do? All those things, you would say, I can find that Muhammad taught that in one way or another.

Now I might argue about one of those, but be that as it may, the point is that just to demand the use of those words doesn't change from your perspective he did say those things and that those things are true.

You just don't have to find them in those exact words coming from Muhammad's mouth. And I'm saying the exact same thing when it comes to the fact that there is no question in Jesus' words the things he says no simple Rasul would ever say.

No mere prophet says come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. No mere prophet uses the I am sayings of himself. No mere prophet allows people to worship him. There's just not really even any question about this.

And remember, in this particular context, Mr. Evans is talking about the entirety of the New Testament. And when you look at the New Testament witness, all the titles used of Jesus that could never be used of a mere prophet of God, it is very difficult to even begin to understand how he comes up with these conclusions until you just go, well, obviously, here's what happens when you're not looking at the material in a fair manner, which, ironically, is what he's going to start saying now when the host brings up a couple of the texts that actually teach the deity of Christ.

He's basically going to try to say, well, you need to look at it in the overall context. These people are just picking it out of context. The exact opposite is the case. It is Joshua Evans who is ignoring the context of the New Testament, ignoring the context of Jesus' own statement that he is the way, the truth, and life.

No man comes into the Father but by him. He's the one taking that out of its original context and placing it in the context of an Arabic book written over half a millennium later. That's called acontextual or eisegetical reading on anybody's account.

The Meaning of John 1 and John 14 in Context

Now, I want to be really fair, all right? We got some theologians, some Bible scholars that will come and disagree with you. They say, you know what, John 1, 1, the beginning was the Word, the Word was a God, and the Word became God.

Another one.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And then, I am, before Abraham was, I am. Now, me as a layman, personally, I don't really, if I'm reading that, it's a little bit ambiguous, but you go ahead and comment on this.

Well, that also comes from what standpoint you look at those verses as. If you look at them from an aspect that you've never heard of the Trinity, you've never heard that Jesus came in the form of a man, then these verses would not say that to you.

These verses would not say anything other than what they are meant to say. For instance, in the beginning was the Word, the Word became. We also believe that Jesus was God's Word made manifest. That's what he is.

God said to him, be, and he was. He was God's spoken Word on this earth. So, we believe that verse. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me. We believe that verse.

We just interpret it in the light of everything else that God has said. When you put it in the light of everything that God has always said, it always makes sense. But if you want to take those verses out and try to prove a point with them, I can say that God doesn't exist and I can go and find you some verses from the Bible, put them together and be like, look, there's 10 verses right here that show God does not exist.

You know what I'm saying? You can make the Bible say anything you want to. You can make the Quran say anything you want it to if you know how to pick and choose correctly and interpret them in the light of preconceived notions.

But if you look at these verses analytically along with the explicit verses where God describes his nature and the explicit verses where Jesus describes God's nature, then they become very, very clear cut.

So these verses you're saying that I just mentioned, these are verses that someone can deduct and someone that is a theologian, he wants to prove a point, he'll take these and try to prove it. But overall, there's no clear cut, unambiguous statement where Jesus, peace be upon him, ever said, I am your creator, worship me.

Never.

He never said that.

There's not a verse in the Bible with that explicit statement.

You heard it here on the D Show.

The New Testament’s Explicit Claims About Christ

Of course, what we just heard is someone doing exactly what they are decrying. He says, well, if you know, you have a sort of overriding presupposition, if you're trying to prove a point, if you're trying to, that's exactly what the Muslim's doing.

Remember, the Muslim comes 600 years after the time of the writing of the New Testament. And it was very clear, I'm sorry, Joshua Evans can't even quote John 1 .1. He doesn't get the text right. He puts together John 1 .1, John 1 .14, gives no meaningful exegesis of the text, says, well, it just doesn't mean that.

Well, how about going into the text and discussing that? It truly is amazing to me. When I raise an issue from the Quran, I've at least tried to examine the context. I've tried to look at it and be fair with it.

Muslims just don't do that with the New Testament. It's just like, well, it just doesn't mean that. Well, how about explaining what the prologue of John's all about? How about exegeting it for us? How about going through it and demonstrating that we're the ones missing the point?

Why don't Muslims do that?

I don't know.

But at least when I try to discuss the Quran, at least I'm going to try to follow the context and read it through. Again, a major contrast. And so we have this assertion, well, just no texts say this.

Many texts say this. And it's not just a theologian, it's, well, they're just deducing this. When Jesus Christ describes the creator of all things, why does he have to say, I am your creator? If the New Testament says that he was before all things, that by him all things were made, whether in heaven or earth, visible, invisible, principalities, powers, dominions, authorities, all things created by him and for him, he is before all things and in him all things consist.

Isn't that clear enough? Isn't that good enough? That's not just deducing something. Oh, I deduced from that that maybe Jesus is the creator.

Yeah.

How much more plain can that get? It just really seems like a really gross double standard that is being used at this point.

Seeing God in John 1:18 and John 5:37

Was that no one, the Bible says by God's own word that no one has ever seen God at any time. This is very clear. In John 1 and 18, it says no man has seen God at any time. In 1 John, no man has seen God at any time.

Even Jesus' own statement in John 5 and 37, Jesus says, and the father himself which has sent me hath borne witness of me, and you have neither heard his voice nor seen his face at any time. And Jesus was standing right there amongst them.

So had he been God, why would he say you have never seen God at any time? You understand? This is what I'm talking about. This is clear cut. You have never seen God. If he would have been God, he would have said, you're looking at God right now.

Now once again, we are left wondering just a little bit about Joshua Evans' expertise as a youth minister in light of what he just did here. First of all, the last quote that he gave from John 5 demonstrates the constant problem that many Muslims have in accurately representing the faith that they're denying.

And that is, because they are Unitarians, but they are Unitarians who are so without.

Reflection.

It's just an assumption. So many people fall into this category. Oneness Pentecostals and the Jehovah's Witnesses all assume a Unitarian stance that the being of God is shared by only one person. And they're so rarely challenged on that level.

Very rarely do Christians challenge them, as they need to challenge them on these things. The Muslim just assumes that. So when he reads John 5, 37, where Jesus says you have not seen, you have not heard the Father's voice or seen his form, they automatically assume that means God.

Father equals God, that's it. He said the Father, he didn't say God. And since the New Testament teaches us that the term God is used of Father, Son, Spirit, Yahweh is used of Father, Son, Spirit, you're misrepresenting the text and you're ignoring the context when you just make that automatic assumption.

Now most of the time the term theos, God, is used of the Father, especially in Pauline theology. And kurios, Lord, the word used in the Greek Septuagint for Yahweh, is used of Jesus. But you don't just make that assumption that, oh, well, see, he says no one's seen God, and yet you're talking to me, so I must not be God.

No, he said no one's seen the Father. That means he's not the Father, not that he's not God. But earlier he had quoted a portion of John 1, 18. See, the problem is, the Bible's very plain, men have seen God.

Isaiah 6, I saw the Lord, lofty and lifted up, sitting upon the throne. The elder of Israel saw God. Is this contradiction or do we need to look a little bit deeper? Well it'd help if Joshua would actually read the entirety of the verse that he's quoting.

Now you might say, well, he's on a television program, you know, you got to go quickly. I understand that. But when the rest of the verse you're quoting completely refutes your position, and in fact does so, it refutes not only your point here, but the point you made previously, then skipping it isn't a good thing.

That doesn't show a lot of serious reflection or honesty on your part. Because according to John 1, 18, no one has seen God at any time, okay? What's the rest of the verse say? No one has ever seen God.

I'm reading from the ESV here. The only God. It's monogenes theos in Greek. The unique God. The only God who is at the Father's side. He has made Him known. He has exegeted Him. He has explained Him. What John 1, 18 is teaching us is that no one has seen the Father.

But the Son, the unique God, there's theos used of Jesus, He is the one who has made Him known, has explained Him. What we know about the Father, we know because the Son has revealed Him to us, and He has done so perfectly.

Now I can see why Joshua Evans wouldn't quote the rest of John 1, 18, because of course it describes Jesus as God. But that's what the text says, and I defy anyone to interpret John 1, 18 outside of a Trinitarian context.

It makes no sense. The Bible does say people have seen God. John 1, 18 tells us who they haven't seen is the Father. Who did they see? He saw the Son. The Son perfectly reveals the Father to us. That's how we know who the Father is, is because of the perfection of the revelation of the.

Son.

And if the Son was just a mere creature, He could not perfectly reveal the Father. That sounds like the doctrine of the Trinity. And of course, that's one of the key texts that tells us these things. And so here you have the plain statements.

The idea, well, no one's seen God, but they saw Jesus, therefore Jesus can't be God, is an incredibly shallow argument that just shows no real serious knowledge of the Bible at.

All.

Why the Deen Show Keeps Misrepresenting the New Testament

So why is it the type of argumentation that we're seeing on the Dean Show? Well, if you go back and look at the 10-part series or so I did on Yusuf Estes on the Dean Show, you'll see that accuracy of scholarship is not something that is real high on the Dean Show's list, unfortunately.

And that's why I'm doing this, to try to call Muslims to a higher standard, to try to, you know, I don't mind when Muslims misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not perfect, they're not perfect, I've made mistakes, they're going to make mistakes.

That's fine.

If this kind of thing, if this kind of presentation was the exception, then I wouldn't be picking.

On it.

But we did the Yusuf Estes examination, and we demonstrated beyond all question that the gentleman simply doesn't know what he's talking about. Fact after fact, misrepresentation after misrepresentation, and here's another person who's allegedly an expert, a former Christian minister.

Why is this such a regular element of Islamic apologetics? Why aren't the people that they have representing them accurate in their statements? That's what I'd like to know. It's not just missing something here, missing something there.

It's not just making an error here, an error there, or just be, just not even, it's not even understanding something. Fine, no problem with any of that. But when it's constant, over and over again, you really, really do start wondering.

So we've only gotten into part eight, we've got more parts to do. But I want to try to keep these at some manageable level. So we'll continue with Joshua Evans' arguments demonstrating that this former youth minister did not understand his faith, and hoping and praying that maybe he would have the integrity, the honesty to look at his arguments, and to sit down with someone who actually knows the faith, and discuss these things, and come to know who Jesus really is, because plainly he never did know who Jesus really is.

And of course, Mr. Evans, should you be directed to these videos, I would be happy to talk with you about these things, or if you would rather in a public setting, debate these issues with you, because I do believe that the truth becomes manifest when both sides are given an equal opportunity to speak.

Thank you very much.