Can God Become Man? Part 4

The Authority of Jesus and Paul in the New Testament

With the gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in his pocket, and nor was he reading it out loud. We are told that Jesus received revelation from God. We don't have that revelation in Aramaic or in the Hebrew.

Jesus didn't speak Koine Greek, as far as I know. So, we have a problem there. However, I am prepared to concede that I will accept the words of Jesus, peace be upon him. When it comes to Paul, I find it a little bit more difficult.

Paul himself, in 1 Corinthians 7 verse 25, he says, I have no command of the Lord, but I give my own opinion. In the end of 2 Corinthians, some of the apostles challenged Paul's authority. They demand to know if Jesus is really speaking to Paul.

In 1 Corinthians, we are told that some of the disciples say, Look, I follow Paul, I follow Jesus. So, there was distinction in the ranks. That has not come here with the idea that everybody agreed with whatever Paul had to say.

There were problems. In early Christianity, there were problems. Why blame Islam when we have some of the same problems? Thank you.

I only have one minute. Let me just put one of those texts to bed. Please, Muslims, listen to me. Never quote Paul's statement. Where he says, not the Lord, but I say, as a statement that he was not claiming to be inspired.

Read the context. What he's doing is he's dealing with the fact that when Jesus spoke about issues of marriage, he said, the Lord said this. He's showing intimacy, knowledge of the Jesus tradition that's found in the Gospels.

But then when the question is something that Jesus never addressed, he's simply saying, now Jesus didn't address this, I will now address this. It is a complete abuse of 1 Corinthians. A total misrepresentation.

I would never do this to the Quran. And I ask you, please, stop doing it to the New Testament. Because when you do it, you're demonstrating you're not dealing with the text in the context. You're not even looking at what the context is.

So, please stop doing that. Each one of those texts, I'd have a similar response to.

Okay, thank you. Okay, that's our timekeeper speaking. Two more questions from each side. Question?

The Deity of Christ and the Meaning of Incarnation

Good evening, Dr. White. Welcome to sunny South Africa.

Sunny?

Dr. White, about more than a billion people, Christians, Unitarians, will disagree with your position.

About what?

Your position about God Incarnate. I'm asking the question, if over a billion Christians believe in the Unitarian-ness of God.

That's not true.

That is true.

I'm sorry, the question has a false foundation.

You're going to infringe on my two minutes, so let me continue.

One minute.

Oh, I thought I had two minutes.

Okay.

If over 50%, let me rephrase it, over 50 of Christians disagree with your position, what makes you believe that God or Jesus can become God Incarnate? And if Jesus is perfect man and perfect God, Jesus did not know the seasons of when I think.

Time.

Okay, numerous questions.

No justice.

First of all, acceptance of the deity of Christ is what makes you a Christian, therefore the idea that there's a billion Christians that reject that is just simply untrue. There is not a billion people who are Unitarians on that basis.

Secondly, the last question you started there is one that I actually want to get to. This is another major Islamic misunderstanding. The text about the fig tree, read it, my friends. Please read it. Jesus goes to the fig tree because why?

It has leaves on it. And what is that supposed to mean? That it's supposed to have fruit on it? And he's going where? He's going to the temple. And what's he going to do? He's going to rebuke the Jews who pretend to be godly but they don't have any fruit.

What does the fig tree represent? It represents the people of Israel. He curses it and it dies. What's he going to say in the temple? That the temple is going to be destroyed. Read the context. Jesus is giving you a picture.

To accuse him of ignorance based upon his giving you a picture because you don't read the context is not dealing with the text honestly, my friends. Take the time to read it. Like I said, I've taken the time to try to understand the Quran.

Read it in its context. Read the Hadith commentaries on it and things like that. I'm not finding you all to do the same thing, please. If we're going to talk with one another, you have to take the time to do that.

And what concerns me in 30 seconds is there's a Hadith. Remember the Hadith? Or one of the companions, Muhammad finds him reading from the Torah and Muhammad becomes angry with the man. It seems to me that many Muslims take that as an idea that we shouldn't take the time to really read the Bible.

If you would read the Bible, you would not ask questions about Jesus giving us a clear picture and it allegedly showing he's ignorant.

Thank you. Bashir, you've got a minute?

Thank you. Firstly, one third of the Quran is comparative religion. So it's not fair to say that Muslims do not study the Bible. Secondly, in what way, and I think the questioner is right, in what way was Jesus God?

I mean, in what way was he? He was human in all respects. According to James, he says that no one say when he is tempted that I am tempted by God because God himself tempts no one and God himself is never tempted.

The Bible tells us Jesus was tempted. So in what way was Jesus God? We have a problem with that. Secondly, there is not a single parable. We are told in the Bible that Jesus was taught by parables. Not a single parable which tells us, demonstrates to us that Jesus is God.

He doesn't tell us of his resurrection. He doesn't tell us about his atonement. So, simply saying over and over again, I think it was Einstein who said...

I think that's a minute, Bashir.

Okay.

Just a minute for your question. Thank you, Pastor Pat.

Jesus, Miracles, and the Cross

Thank you very much for the opportunity to be able to ask a question. I want to say to all of you, the Lord Jesus loves you and he is the way to life. And if you look at that verse, it says, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

That applies to everyone. And to Mr. Vanya, I want to say that you very succinctly summarized Jesus from the Koran. You said the following, he is a man who became God. You write from the Koran. Because he is not the Jesus of the Bible.

The Jesus of the Bible is God who became man, as Dr. White is saying. And so just to demonstrate that, and I want you to answer that, we have right through the lifetime of Jesus Christ, the demonstration of his divinity.

I have not seen that, unless you can tell me, right through the prophethood of Muhammad, peace be upon him, or the Allah of Islam, that the miracles that have been done by Jesus have been done in Islam.

Thank you.

Well, look at 2 Kings, Elijah and many prophets make miracles. But what did Jesus himself say about miracles? Matthew chapter 11, verse 11, he says, Of those born of women, there is none greater than John the Baptist.

Not a single miracle made by John the Baptist. Mark 13, verse 22, he says, you know, false Christs and false prophets will come and make greater miracles, and they will deceive even the very elect. So Jesus, peace be upon him, himself, didn't put much store in miracles.

He himself said, what does it help my fellow man if they gain the whole world and lose his soul? So that's the greatest miracle of all. Not moving a mountain, moving a man's soul. And if you look at the life of the prophet, peace be upon him, Muhammad, before he passed away, thousands and thousands of people became Muslim.

Jesus in his lifetime, and I don't want to take anything away from him because as a Muslim it would be blasphemous, but as a historical fact, he had 12 disciples. And from them, one betrayed him, one betrayed him, and they all forsook him and fled.

No, no, we can't engage, we can't engage.

Well, you can talk to me after the meeting, I'll be happy to engage you. Thank you so much.

Let me just briefly address the issue of miracles. I do not believe the mere performance of miracles proves the deity of Christ. Jesus himself said that the miracles that he did attested to who he was because of what they said, because they were God's affirmation, the Father's testimony to who Jesus was.

And so it's not merely doing miracles, it's the miracles that Jesus did and then the teaching he attached to it. And that's why, again, you have to take parts of the New Testament away. You can't accept the fact that, and Bashir showed this to us, he said, well, Thomas couldn't have said that because that would be blasphemy.

So I could say, well, Muhammad could never have said Surah 112 because that would be blasphemy. Can I get rid of Surah 112 that way? Of course not. You're not allowing the entirety of the New Testament to speak.

And then Bashir said, well, every text has to have a meaning unto itself. That's true, but it has a meaning in the context of the entire book. And so when he says, well, we can just look at one text alone, can we do that with the Quran?

You'd never let me get away with it.

Okay.

This is the penultimate question. We said, no, we said two more, two more.

So one here and one there.

One here and one there. The rest of the folks, you can take your seats.

Thank you. Is his microphone on?

Okay.

Dr. White, when I was a young man, I used to read a comic called Superman. I'm sure you did that. Members of the audience, I'm sure you read the comic called Superman. A being from another planet came down to earth.

The great thing about this being, he retained his superpowers. He helped the earthly beings to solve their problems. It was a fiction comic. Today it's made into reality, a movie. Now we talk about the supreme being, almighty God, became a man, came down to earth.

The very people that he created, the mankind, human beings, they whooped him. They whooped him. They put a load on his back, a wooden cross, made him carry it up to the hill and crucified him. This, to you, is reality that you're giving out to the Christians.

To me, the fiction sounds more reality than the reality that you're giving out to the Christians, that God became a man.

That's because a veil lies over your eyes. Listen to why, my friend. You just fulfilled exactly what the Apostle Paul described as people who do not understand the message of the cross. You know why? Because Jesus wasn't whooped.

Jesus came to do that. Jesus came to give his life. He said, no one takes my life from me. I give it of my own accord. What you see in the cross is the power of God restraining himself so that he can give his life and bring about the greatest good ever, which is the redemption of a particular people in Jesus Christ.

The whole message of what Jesus said was my father could send me a legion of angels and wipe this earth clean, but I'm not going to do it because it's necessary for me to give my life. So don't say he was whooped on.

He voluntarily gave his life, and he gave his life so that anyone who would bow in repentance and faith to him might have eternal life. That's power, my friend. The world might want to look at supermen, but those whose hearts have been touched by the Holy Spirit of God want to look to one who gives himself in servanthood.

Thank you.

The problem is did Jesus die as a man or as a God? The problem is what did the disciples of Jesus believe? After Jesus' so-called resurrection, and I think perhaps we need to have a discussion of this sometime in the future about the crucifixion of Jesus, the disciples tell Jesus that they've crucified a great prophet and a great man.

They do not say they crucified God Almighty. On the cross, Jesus cries out, My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? He is God, but he's praying to himself. If he's man, then why bring in the Trinity?

If he's an ordinary man, then why bring in the Trinity? Because Adam was a perfect man. Nobody regards him as God. Even if Jesus was the perfect man, why should I regard him as a Muslim, as God?

That's a minute.

Thank you. Okay.

We have the final question from the audience tonight, and that's going to be directed to Bashir.

I'm going to do the final question. Bashir, I want to go back to your distinction between the Creator and the creation. I think it's a very useful distinction. So, the Creator, everything that was not created, and the creation, everything that issues forth from him.

The Word of God and the Spirit of God. My question to you is, in your understanding, is the Word of God and the Spirit of God part of the Creator or part of the creation? And you'll know why I'm asking the question.

Thank you.

Look, the Book of Psalms tells us quite clearly that God spoke and it came to be. You know, I think you're asking a philosophical question. I'm not sure where the question is going. Perhaps you could rephrase the question to me right now or perhaps after the talk.

Why should there be a problem between the Word of God and God himself?

Because the Koran refers to Jesus as the Word of God and the Spirit from God. So that if the Word of God is part of God and the Spirit is part of God, then the Koran is calling Jesus God.

No. The Koran says Jesus is a Word of God. A Word. The Koran says John the Baptist, or sorry, Zechariah is a Word of God, not the Word. And the Koran also says that if you were to take all the trees on earth as pens and the ocean as ink, you would not be able to write the Words of God.

You are a Word of God. I am a Word of God. Every bird, every tree is a Word of God. God spoke and it came to be. As regards to the Spirit of God, Jesus is not regarded as a Spirit of God. He is a Spirit of God.

The Koran tells us, chapter 15, verse 29,. إِزَا سَوَيْتُهُ وَنَفَخْتُ فِيهِ مِنْ رُّهِي. When I created man, I breathed something of My Spirit into him. So you are also a Spirit of God. And the Koran tells us, chapter 58, verse 22, that God strengthened all the true believers with His Spirit.

As He strengthened Samson, remember when Samson was being attacked by the lioness, and we are told that Samson was filled with the Spirit of God, God's active energy, and He defeated the lioness. So, you know, Jesus is not the Word of God, He is not the Spirit of God, He is a Word, a Spirit, as all of us are.

Thank you so much.

That is certainly not the testimony of the New Testament in any way, shape, or form. Jesus' function as the Word of God is absolutely unique. Bashir has said, for example, in John 1 -1, when it says the Word was God, that means the Word came into existence.

That is not a possibility from the original language at all. As I pointed out, the verb is, I, me, it is in the imperfect form, it means that as far back as you push the beginning, Jesus already existed.

If you followed Bashir's argumentation, that would mean that when it says, in the beginning, God, that meant God came into existence at that beginning. Obviously, that's not the intention of Genesis 1 -1, that was not the intention of John 1 -1 either.

We are not the Word of God in the way that Jesus is the Word of God, because Jesus has eternally existed in that form. He became flesh, John 1 -14, and that's why he's described in John 1 -18 as the monogamist theos, the unique God who reveals the Father in a way that no one else ever could or ever has.

That's why he's our hope.

Amen.

Thank you. Well, folks, as I'm sure you will agree, the question and answer time from the audience is always an exciting part of the evening. It's quite incredible where the time has gone, and we are actually drawing to a close.

We're going to now go into our conclusions, and Bashir is going to give his first conclusion for five minutes, and then Dr. James White will give his five-minute closing words. Bashir, the podium is yours.

Closing Arguments on John 1, the Messiah, and Worship

Thank you. Firstly, John 1 -1 was never spoken by Jesus. It was spoken by John. And at the conclusion of John, John tells us he wrote the book because he wanted to prove that Jesus was the Messiah. The Messiah doesn't equal God.

The Messiah simply means one who is appointed. John 9 -22 tells us that people who believed that Jesus was the Messiah were barred from visiting the temple. He doesn't say they were stoned to death for blasphemy.

I think that's important. Secondly, this whole idea of, you know, I must go to Thomas. I didn't. I said Jesus set a standard, a principle, that there is one God, the Father, one Lord, the Christ. Thomas could not have called Jesus his Lord and his God without contradicting that principle.

Paul himself said the same thing. 1 Chronicles 29 -20, we are told that the people worshipped God and the king. Who was the king? Solomon. So, does that mean that Solomon is God? The Christians say, no, no, you see, you don't understand.

That, you know, this worship was slightly different and so forth. Yes, I accept that. You see, so, simply saying that people worshipped Jesus, no, I mean, the word for worship is Latria, and the worshipping of ordinary people, respecting of ordinary people is Kunio.

So, yes, you can't simply say that Jesus was worshipped in any way or form. Most important, Jesus himself. You know, as I said, let us not ignore the obvious. Jesus time and time again is challenged. And he doesn't bother to tell people, you know, I am God Almighty in human form.

He doesn't mention the Trinity at all. You don't find that strange? That God himself, for the first time in history, and as I said, you know, as Pentheus said, if you can worship God in human form once, why only once?

Why can't God come time and time again? So, the point is that Jesus, for the first time in history, he comes down, we are led to believe, as God. And he doesn't bother telling any of his disciples that.

In fact, he tells Mary Magdalene, you know, my brother spoke about monogamy, as if somehow Jesus is exclusively the son of God, he tells Mary Magdalene, I am now going to ascend to my God and your God.

To my father and your father. Simple. Jesus emphasizes the fact time and time again, that he is a prophet of God. He never bothers once to say, I am God Almighty in human form. And the Christians don't find that strange.

What you do is, you look into the text, and you read into it what you want to, and we contradict that. We say, well, you know, you are not giving us space to interpret it the way we want to. I find that very strange.

First Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 28, we are told Jesus is subject to the Father. But why? Why is Jesus subject to the Father? Isn't the Trinity supposed to be co-equal and co-eternal? Jesus, chapter 14, verse 28, Jesus says, my Father is greater than I.

But why should his Father be greater than him? I mean, wasn't the Trinity supposed to, weren't all of them, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, supposed to be co-equal and co-eternal? First Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 3, the head of Christ is God.

Why should the head of Christ be God when Christ is God? And again, when we ask these questions, Christians get offended. Bear in mind that Christianity is a missionary religion. You come knocking on our doors and we entertain you with good grace.

Surely you can't expect us simply to take things lying down. Please, we don't have a problem with you knocking on our doors. We don't have a problem. But let me remind you that Christianity is a missionary religion.

You are a very organized missionary religion. We are not. We are not. So please, don't blame us for reading your scriptures and not trying to reinterpret it, but merely trying to understand it. Again, we are told Jesus spoke in parables and he did not teach people anything without a parable.

And he doesn't give a single parable about him being God. He doesn't give a single parable about him dying for the sins of humanity. He doesn't give a single parable about him being resurrected. Dying for the sins of the world.

Thank you so much. I think my time is up.

The Incarnation, Philippians 2, and the Word Made Flesh

Well, once again, thank you very much for being here this evening and for your attention. I want to give a gift to Bashir. It is an excellent book called The Heresy of Orthodoxy. It's a very scholarly work on the attacks upon early Christianity.

They're prevalent today and I think Bashir would find it to be very, very useful. So Bashir, thank you very much. First of all, let me point out a couple of things. Bashir just said that the word that is used in worship of Jesus in the New Testament is proskuneo, which is quite true.

But proskuneo is often used in the worship of God in the Old Testament as well. He said it's not the higher word, latruo. Actually, I point out to you that was wrong. When Jesus identified himself as the Son of Man, quoting from Daniel chapter 7, that very section in Daniel chapter 7 identifies the Son of Man as receiving latruo from his followers.

That's why the high priest tore his robes. So Jesus does receive the highest level of worship. He then said in John 21, the Gospel of John is written so you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, not that he's God.

What does the rest of it say? Again, read the whole thing. That you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah and by believing you might have life in his name. Jesus had explained that in John chapter 17, that you need to know the Father and the Son.

What mere prophet can ever say that? No mere prophet. Isaiah would never have said, you must know Yahweh and you must know me. Because in the very next sentence he says, because I've eternally existed in the presence of the Father and shared his glory.

Folks, you cannot quote from John chapter 14 verse 28, the Father is greater than I am, miss its context because Jesus is in the flesh at that point in time and Jesus is going back to the presence of the Father, and then not quote John chapter 17 and everything it says, which no mere prophet could ever say.

Do not pick and choose your verses. I won't do it to the Koran. Please don't do it to the New Testament. That is not an honest way of dealing with those particular things. Now, what was the question that I asked tonight?

What was the primary question that I asked tonight? Does God have the capacity to enter into human flesh? One of the texts I quote is Philippians chapter 2, where that's exactly what the Son, who eternally exists in the very form of God, did.

We've had no refutation of that. But we did have a quotation of it, and Bashir said, well, that's a contradiction to Colossians 2 .9, because Colossians 2 .9 says, Hatienato katoikai pontai pleroma teis theateta somaticos, for in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.

But in Philippians 2, Jesus lays that aside. Bashir is still misunderstanding the context of both texts. Does he really believe, Colossians 2 .9, that in Jesus all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form?

That's the very thing he's denying. Why quote it? But the point is, Colossians 2 .9 is after the resurrection. Philippians chapter 2 is before the incarnation. It doesn't say Jesus ceases to be God. It says he made himself of no reputation by taking on a human nature.

Everything that he quotes is perfectly in harmony with what I've said to you all evening, but Bashir just hasn't looked at the context. He's reading it through Islamic eyes, rather than the eyes of the New Testament, the people themselves who wrote it.

That's a tremendous temptation. I asked a direct question. What is it about God, in your understanding, that means he cannot take on a human nature? Evidently, the answer is, well, human natures are unclean.

In the unfallen state, they are not unclean. Jesus was not a sinner. Anyone here want to accuse Jesus of sin?

Good.

He was absolutely pure. He had a perfect human nature. And all the texts about, well, the son of man is impure, that's after the fall, that's not before the fall. Jesus was virgin born. You believe that?

We believe that. So you can't impute any sin to him. So, why then cannot God, for his own purposes, take on a human nature? He prophesied he would do it in Isaiah. He prophesied he'd do it in the Psalter.

Why can't he do it? What power does he lack? He makes the human nature, but he cannot take on the human nature? I submit one thing to you, my friends, the only reason that my Muslim friends reject the plain teaching of scripture here is because the book that you place in the highest authority was written by someone who didn't know what was in my book.

And according to Surah 547, the Al-Anjil are to judge by what is contained in the Anjil. They had to have possessed it to be able to judge by it, and we know exactly what they had. We know exactly what was possessed in the days of Muhammad.

It's exactly what we have today, and when we judge by it, we have to say the author of the Qur 'an didn't know. And so how are you going to deal with that? And my final words to you are this, if we're right, and Jesus is who we say we are, can you just limit him to a mere Rasool?

Please think on that. Thank you for being here this evening.

Well, we've come to the close of this evening. I just want to say thank you very much to you, the audience, you, a large audience, and thank you for cooperating with us so wonderfully. I also just want to ask you to please give again a round of applause to our two speakers, Dr. James White and Bashir Bania, and also for my colleague Farhad that kept the time and we worked well together.