The True Message of Jesus Christ
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Creator: Dr. Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips
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Identifier: http://www.al-sunnah.com/true_message_of_jesus.htm
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Subject: comparative
Title: The True Message of Jesus Christ
Created on: Thu Jan 24 10:31:55 -0500 2008
Updated on: Thu Jan 24 10:31:55 -0500 2008
Version: 1
Abstract: ... 5;تَّخِذُونِي وَأُمِّيَ إِلَهَيْنِ مِنْ دُونِ اللهِ ... مَا قُلْتُ لَهُمْ إِلاَّ مَآ أَمَرْتَنِي بِهِ أَنِ اعْبُدُواْ اللهَ ربّي وَرَبَّكُمْ ... { “When Allaah will say: ‘O Jesus, son of Mary, did you tell people: “Worship me and my mother as two gods instead of Allaah?” ’...[Jesus will say]: ‘I only told them what You commanded me to say: “Worship Allaah, my Lord and your Lord ...” ” 6. “In the beginning was the Word” Perhaps the most commonly quoted ‘evidence’ for Jesus’ divinity is John 1:1&14, “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....14And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth...” However, these statements were not made by Jesus Christ, nor were they attributed to him by the author of the Gospel according to John. Consequently, these verses do not constitute evidence for Jesus’ divinity, especially considering the doubts held by Christian scholars about the Fourth Gospel. The Bible scholars who authored The Five Gospels said: “The two pictures painted by John and the synoptic gospels (i.e., the Gospels of Matthew, Mark & Luke) cannot both be historically accurate.[22]...The words attributed to Jesus in the Fourth Gospel are the creation of the evangelist for the most part, and reflect the developed language of John’s Christian community.”[23] The Greek term used by the anonymous author of the Fourth Gospel for “word” is logos.[24] In doing so, the author identifies Jesus with the pagan logos of Greek philosophy, who was the divine reason implicit in the cosmos, ordering it and giving it form and meaning.[25] The idea of the logos in Greek thought may be traced back at least to the 6th-century-BC philosopher, Heracleitus, who proposed that there was a logos in the cosmic process analogous to the reasoning power in man. Later, the Stoics[90] defined the logos as an active, rational and spiritual principle that permeated all reality.[27] The Greek-speaking Jewish philosopher, Judaeus Philo of Alexandria (15 BC - 45 CE), taught that the logos was the intermediary between God and the cosmos, being both the agent between God and the cosmos, being both the agent of creation and the agent through which the human mind can comprehend God.[28] The writings of Philo were preserved and cherished by the Church, and provided the inspiration for a sophisticated Christian philosophical theology. He departed from Platonic thought regarding the logos (Word) and called it “the first-begotten Son of God”.[29] The identification of Jesus with the logos, was further developed in the early Church as a result of attempts made by early Christian theologians and apologists to express the Christian faith in terms that would be intelligible to the Hellenistic world. Moreover, it was to impress their hearers with the view that Christianity was superior to, or heir to, all that was best in pagan philosophy. Thus, in their apologies and polemical works, the early Christian Fathers stated that Christ was the preexistent logos.[30] The Greek word for ‘God’ used in the phrase “and the Word was with God,” is the definite form hotheos, meaning ‘The God’. However, in the second phrase “and the Word was God”, the Greek word used for ‘God’ is the indefinite form tontheos, which means ‘a god’.[31] Consequently, John 1:1, should more accurately be translated, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.” Therefore, if the Word was a ‘god’ in the literal sense, it would mean that there were two Gods and not one. However, in Biblical language, the term ‘god’ is used metaphorically to indicate power. For example, Paul referred to the devil as “god” in 2nd Corinthians 4:4, “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God.” Moses is also referred to as “god” in Exodus 7:1, “And the Lord said unto Moses, ‘See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh; and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet.”[32] Ancient Thoughts There was serious conflict between the Pauline and the Jerusalem interpretations of Jesus and his message. This conflict, after simmering for years, finally led to a complete break, by which the Pauline Christian Church was founded, comprising, in effect, a new religion, separated from Judaism. On the other hand, the Jerusalem Nazarenes did not sever their links with Judaism, but regarded themselves essentially as practicing Jews, loyal to the Torah, who also believed in Jesus, a human Messiah figure.[33] When the Jewish insurrection was crushed by the Romans and their Temple destroyed in 70 CE, the Jewish Christians were scattered, and their power and influence as the Mother Church and center of the Jesus movement was ended.[34] The Pauline Christian movement, which up until 66 CE had been struggling to survive against the strong disapproval of Jerusalem, now began to make headway. The Jerusalem Church, under the leadership of James, originally known as Nazarenes, later came to be known by the derogatory nickname Ebionites (Hebrew evyonium, “poor men”), which some Nazarenes adopted with pride as a reminder of Jesus’ saying, “Blessed are the poor.” After the ascendency of Graeco-Roman Church, the Nazarenes became despised as heretics, due to their rejection of the doctrines of Paul.[35] According to the ancient Church historian, Irenaeus (c. 185 CE), the Ebionites believed in one God, the Creator, taught that Jesus was the Messiah, used only the Gospel According to Matthew, and rejected Paul as an apostate from the Jewish Law.[36] Ebionites were known to still exist in the 4th century. Some had left Palestine and settled in Transjordan and Syria and were later known to be in Asia Minor, Egypt and Rome.[37] Monarchianism,[38] a Gentile Christian movement which developed during the 2nd and 3rd centuries continued to represent the “extreme” monotheistic view of the Ebionites. It held that Christ was a man, miraculously conceived, but was only ‘Son of God’ due to being filled with divine wisdom and power. This view was taught at Rome about the end of the 2nd century by Theodotus, who was excommunicated by Pope Victor, and taught somewhat later by Artemon, who was excommunicated by Pope Zephyrinus. About 260 CE it was again taught by Paul of Samosata,[39] the bishop of Antioch in Syria, who openly preached that Jesus was a man through whom God spoke his Word (Logos), and he vigorously affirmed the absolute unity of God. Between 263 and 268 at least three church councils were held at Antioch to debate Paul’s orthodoxy. The third condemned his doctrine and deposed him. However, Paul enjoyed the patronage of Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, to whom Antioch was then subject, and it was not until 272 when the emperor Aurelian defeated Zenobia that the actual deposition was carried out.[40] In the late third and early fourth centuries, Arius (b. c. 250, Libya - d. 336 CE), a presbyter of Alexandria, Egypt, also taught the finite nature of Christ and the absolute oneness of God, which attracted a large following, until he was declared a heretic by the council of Nicaea in May 325 CE. During the council, he refused to sign the formula of faith stating that Christ was of the same divine nature as God. However, influential support from colleagues in Asia Minor and from Constantia, the emperor Constantine’s daughter, succeeded in effecting Arius’ return from exile and his readmission into the church.[41] The movement which he was supposed to have begun, but which was in fact an extension of Jerusalem Nazarene/Jewish Christian belief, came to be known as Arianism and constituted the greatest internal threat to the Pauline Christian orthodoxy’s belief in Jesus’ divinity. From 337 to 350 CE, the emperor in the West, Constans, was sympathetic to the orthodox Christians, and Constantius II, sympathetic to the Arians, was Emperor in the East. Arian influence was so great that at a church council held in Antioch (341 CE), an affirmation of faith was issued which omitted the clause that Jesus had the “same divine nature as God”. In 350 CE Constantius II became sole ruler of the empire, and under his leadership the Nicene party (orthodox Christians) was largely crushed. After Constantius the Second’s death in 361 CE, the orthodox Christian majority in the West consolidated its position. However, the defense of absolute monotheism and the suppression of orthodox Christian trinitarian beliefs continued in the East under the Arian emperor Valens (364-383 CE). It was not until Emperor Theodosius I (379-395 CE) took up the defense of orthodoxy that Arianism was finally crushed. The unitarian beliefs of Arius, however, continued among some of the Germanic tribes up until the end of the 7th century.[42] Modern Thoughts Today, there are many modern scholars in Christianity who hold that Jesus Christ was not God. In 1977, a group of seven biblical scholars, including leading Anglican theologians and other New Testament scholars, published a book called The Myth of God Incarnate, which caused a great uproar in the General Synod of the Church of England. In the preface, the editor, John Hick, wrote the following: “The writers of this book are convinced that another major theological development is called for in this last part of the twentieth century. The need arises from growing knowledge of Christian origins, and involves a recognition that Jesus was (as he is presented in Acts 2.21) ‘a man approved by God’ for a special role within the divine purpose, and that the later conception of him as God incarnate, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity living a human life, is a mythological or poetic way of expressing his significance for us.”[43] There is a broad agreement among New Testament scholars that the historical Jesus did not make the claim to deity that later Christian thought was to make for him; he did not understand himself to be God, or God the Son, incarnate [in the flesh].[44] The late Archbishop Michael Ramsey, who was himself a New Testament scholar, wrote that “Jesus did not claim deity for himself.”[45] His contemporary, the New Testament scholar C.F.D. Moule, said that, “Any case for a ‘high’ Christology that depended on the authenticity of the alleged claims of Jesus about himself, especially in the Fourth Gospel, would indeed be precarious.”[46] In a major study of the origins of the doctrine of the incarnation, James Dunn, who affirms orthodox Christology, concludes that “there was no real evidence in the earliest Jesus tradition of what could fairly be called a consciousness of divinity.”[47] Again, Brian Hebblethwaite, a staunch upholder of the traditional Nicene-Calcedonian Christology, acknowledges that “it is no longer possible to defend the divinity of Jesus by reference to the claims of Jesus.”[48] Hebblethwaite and Dunn, and other scholars like them who still believe in Jesus’ divinity, argue instead that Jesus did not know he was God incarnate. This only became known after his resurrection. Most famous among the Church of England bishops, who doubt Jesus’ divinity, is the outspoken Reverend Professor David Jenkins, the Bishop of Durham in England, who openly states that Jesus was not God. [49] The following article, which appeared in The Daily News some years ago, clearly indicates the degree to which there are doubts among the clergy regarding Jesus’ divinity. Shock survey Of Anglican bishops LONDON: More than half of England’s Anglican bishops say Christians are not obliged to believe that Jesus Christ was God, according to a survey published today. The poll of 31 of England’s 39 bishops shows that many of them think that Christ’s miracles, the virgin birth and the resurrection might not have happened exactly as described in the Bible. Only 11 of the bishops insisted that Christians must regard Christ as both God and man, while 19 said it was sufficient to regard Jesus as “God’s supreme agent”. One declined to give a definite opinion. The poll was carried out by London Weekend Television’s weekly religion show, Credo. “DAILY NEWS” 25/6/84 CHAPTER THREE: THE MESSAGE The second issue, ‘The Message of Jesus’, is perhaps the most important point to consider. For, if Jesus was not God incarnate, but a prophet of God, the message which he brought from God is the essence of his mission. Submission The foundation of Jesus’ message was submission to the will of God, because that is the foundation of the religion which God prescribed for man since the beginning of time. God says in Chapter Aal ‘Imraan, the third chapter of the Qur‘aan, verse 19: } إِنَّ الدِّينَ عِنْدَ اللهِ اْلإِسْلاَمُ { “Truly, the religion in the sight of Allaah is Islaam [submission].” In Arabic, submission to God’s will is expressed by the word ‘Islaam’. In the Gospel according to Matthew 7:22, Jesus is quoted as saying: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven.” In this statement, Jesus places emphasis on “the will of the Father”, submission of the human will to the will of God. In John 5:30, it is narrated that Jesus also said: “I can do nothing on my own authority; as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.” The Law The “will of God” is contained in the divinely revealed laws which the prophets taught their followers. Consequently, obedience to divine law is the foundation of worship. The Qur’aan affirms the need for obedience to the divinely revealed laws in chapter al-Maa’idah, verse 44. } إِنَّا أَنْزَلْنَا التَّوْرَاةَ فِيهَا هُدًى وَنُورٌ يَحْكُمُ بِهَا النَّبِيُّونَ الَّذِينَ أَسْلَمُوا ... وَمَنْ لَمْ يَحْكُمْ بِمَا أَنْزَلَ اللهُ فَأُوْلَئِكَ هُمُ الْكَافِرُونَ { “Indeed, I did reveal the Torah in which was guidance and light, by which the prophets, who submitted to God’s will, judged (the Jews) ... and whoever does not judge by what Allaah has revealed is a disbeliever,” Jesus was also reported in the Gospel according to Matthew 19:16-17, to have made obedience to the divine laws the key to paradise: “16 Now behold, one came and said to him,“Good teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” 17So he said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”[50] Also in Matthew 5:19, Jesus Christ was reported to have insisted on strict obedience to the commandments saying, “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” Divine law represents guidance for humankind in all walks of life. It defines right and wrong for them and offers human beings a complete system governing all of their affairs. The Creator alone knows best what is beneficial for His creation and what is not. Thus, the divine laws command and prohibit various acts and substances to protect the human spirit, the human body, and human society from harm. In order for human beings to fulfil their potential by living righteous lives, they need to worship God through obedience to His commandments.[51] This was the religion conveyed in the message of Jesus; submission to the will of the one true God by obedience to His commandments. Jesus stressed to his followers that his mission did not cancel the laws received by Prophet Moses. As the prophets who came after Moses maintained the law, so did Jesus. Chapter al-Maa’idah, verse 46 of the Qur’aan indicates that Jesus confirmed the Laws of the Torah in his message. } وَقَفَّيْنَا عَلَى آثَارِهِمْ بِعِيسَى ابْنِ مَرْيَمَ مُصَدِّقًا لِمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ مِنَ التَّوْرَاةِ وَآتَيْنَاهُ اْلإِنْجِيلَ فِيهِ هُدًى وَنُورٌ وَمُصَدِّقًا لِمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ مِنَ التَّوْرَةِ { “And in their footsteps, I sent Jesus, son of Mary, confirming the Torah that had come before him, and I gave him the Gospel, in which was guidance and light and confirmation of the Torah that had come before it,” In Matthew 5:17-18, Jesus stated: “17 Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the [way of] the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. 18For, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” However, Paul, who claimed to be a disciple of Jesus, systematically cancelled the laws. In his letter to the Romans, chapter 7:6, he stated, “But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” Unitarianism Jesus came as a prophet calling people to worship God alone, as the prophets before him did. God says in chapter an-Nahl (16):36, of the Qur‘aan: }وَلَقَدْ بَعَثْنَا فِي كُلِّ أُمَّةٍ رَسُولاً أَنِ اعْبُدُواْ اللهَ وَاجْتَنِبُواْ الطَّاغُوتَ{ “Surely, I[52] have sent to every nation a messenger (saying): ‘Worship Allaah and avoid false gods.” In Luke 3:8, the Devil asks Jesus to worship him, promising him the authority and glory of all of the kingdoms of this world, “And Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ ” Thus, the essence of the message of Jesus was that only God deserves to be worshipped and that the worship of anyone or anything besides God or along with God is false. Jesus not only called people to this message but he also practically demonstrated it for them by bowing down in prayer and worshipping God himself. In Mark 14:32, it states: “And they went to a place which was called Gethsemane; and he [Jesus] said to his disciples, ‘Sit here, while I pray.’ ” And in Luke 5:16, “But he withdrew to the wilderness and prayed.” Jesus called them to worship the one true God who is unique in His qualities. God does not have the attributes of His creation, nor does any creature share any of His attributes. In Matthew 19:16-17, when the man called Prophet Jesus ‘good’, saying, “Good teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” Prophet Jesus replied, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.” He denied the attribution of ‘infinite goodness’ or ‘perfect goodness’ to himself, and affirmed that this attribute belongs to Allaah alone. The vast majority of Christians today pray to Jesus, claiming that he is God. The Philosophers among them claim that they are not worshipping Jesus the man, but God who was manifest in Jesus the man. This is also the rationale of pagans who bow down in worship to idols. When a pagan philosopher is asked why he worships an idol which was made by human hands, he replies that he is not really worshipping the idol. Furthermore, he may claim that the idol is only a focal point for the presence of God, and thereby claim to be worshipping God who is manifest in the idol, and not the physical idol itself. There is little or no difference between that explanation and the answer given by Christians for worshipping Jesus. The origin of this deviation lies in the false belief that God is present in His creation. Such a belief justifies the worship... [Full Article...]
