Is Jesus the Prophet or Messenger of God? https://youtu.be/nEsbpjkvxdI . Is Jesus the Savior? God is the real Savior. Jesus is not the Savior literally but metaphorically* https://youtu.be/MRFtCHBmQ2I Is Jesus the Servant and Slave of God? Are Jesus and God One? https://youtu.be/TTg_FrRk-kU *Is Jesus Word of God? Yes,but not the “Son of God” in a literal sense* https://youtu.be/w4vS1VjBZgY *Is Jesus Life or Life-giver? Is Jesus the Way and the Truth?* https://youtu.be/PsBJhVd_A4o *Is Jesus the Light of the World?* *Is Jesus the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End or the First and the Last?* https://youtu.be/vqkXCPB0JOY *Is Jesus God? – Bible Says that God is not Man* https://youtu.be/8n6qaHeofek
*Jesus is the prophet and Messenger of God according to the New Testament*
*The descriptions of Jesus in the New Testament include “Prophet of God” and “God’s Messenger”. I will deal with some positions where Jesus is given those two descriptions in detail.*
*Is Jesus the Prophet of God?*
*The New Testament quotes Jesus as describing himself as a “prophet”. For example, we read the following statements of Jesus to his disciples: “The one welcoming you is welcoming Me. And the one welcoming Me is welcoming the One having sent Me forth. The one welcoming a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive the reward of a prophet. And the one welcoming a righteous one in the name of a righteous one will receive the reward of a righteous one.” (Matthew 10:40-41)*
*We also read: And having come into His hometown, He was teaching them in their synagogue, so that they were astounded and saying “From where did this wisdom and the miracles come to this One? Is not this One the son of the carpenter? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Jude? And His sisters, are they not all with us? From where then did all these things come to this One?” And they were taking-offense at Him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his house”. (Matthew 13:54-58)*
*The New Testament also quotes a woman as describing Jesus as a “prophet” while talking to him. He did not disapprove of or negate that. We read: “’Sir,’ the woman said, ‘I can see that you are a prophet.’” (John 4:19)*
*Moreover, the New Testament quotes prophecies made in the Old Testament about the advent of a prophet after Moses. According to the New Testament’s authors, such prophecies stand for Jesus.*
*We read: “And that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you…For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you. Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from their people.’” (Acts 3:20-23)*
*We also read: “This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear.” (Acts 7:37)*
*As a matter of fact, the above verses do not prophesy Jesus but Muhammad for two contextual clues: the first clue is that Moses did not say “of you”, i.e. the children of Israel, but said “of your brethren”. The brethren of the children of Israel are the children of Ishmael, i.e. the Arabs. The second clue is that Moses said: “Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from their people.” The Jews who did not listen to Jesus were not completely cut off from their people, but those Jews who did not listen to and betrayed Muhammad were actually cut off from their people.*
*Anyway, supposing that those verses prophecy Jesus, we notice that Moses said: “A prophet…like unto me”, that is to say that Christians believe that Jesus is a prophet of God according to the New Testament itself.*
*Is Jesus the Messenger of God?*
*Jesus is unequivocally described as “God’s messenger” in the New Testament. We read: “And so, dear brothers and sisters who belong to God and are partners with those called to heaven, think carefully about this Jesus whom we declare to be God’s messenger and High Priest. He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house.” (Hebrews 3:1-2)*
*We often observe that Jesus frequently states that God “sent” rather “begot” him, which conclusively confirms that Jesus is a messenger sent by God and that his alleged sonhood of God is a metaphorical one. Had it been a literal one, Jesus would have said “begot me” rather than “sent me” and explained the nature of such irrational sonhood.*
*For example, we read: “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.” (Matthew 10:40-41)*
*We also read: “He took a little child whom he placed among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.’” (Mark 9:36-37)*
*We further read: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.” (Luke 4:18)*
*We also notice that the New Testament equates a prophet, Moses, with Jesus when it comes to the most exclusive characteristics of Jesus. For example, the New Testament describes Moses as “made a ruler and judge” and “God sent him to be a ruler and savior”. All of those descriptions are usually given to Jesus exclusively in the New Testament.*
*We read: “So God sent back the same man his people had previously rejected when they demanded, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?’ Through the angel who appeared to him in the burning bush, God sent Moses to be their ruler and savior.” (Acts 7:35)*
*The New Testament also equates Moses with Jesus for both were faithful to the one who appointed them. A prophet can be equated only with a prophet. A prophet cannot be equated with a son of God.*
*We read: “And so, dear brothers and sisters who belong to God and are partners with those called to heaven, think carefully about this Jesus whom we declare to be God’s messenger and High Priest. He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house.” (Hebrews 3:1-2)*
*Not only does the New Testament equate Jesus with a prophet like Moses, but it also equates him with his disciples when it comes to such characteristics which are exclusive to him. Thus, nothing left in the New Testament which distinguishes Jesus and raises him above the human level.*
*We read: “Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.” (Luke 10:16)*
*We also read: “Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me.” (John 13:20)*
*We further read: “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.” (John 17:18)*
*“Again Jesus said, ’Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’” (John 20:21)*
*“That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” (John 17:21-23)*
*Jesus’ literal sonhood of God is negated and his prophethood is confirmed by his repeated acknowledgement of his inability to do anything by himself and his affirmation that all of his acts were actually done by God Who sent him.*
*We read: “By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.” (John 5:30)*
*In clear-cut terms, Jesus emphasized more than once that he was sent to let people know the only true God. Had Jesus been a son of God literally, he would have, for example, called on people to worship him beside God for being the son of God.*
*However, Jesus’ call for monotheism has only one implication which is the oneness of God and Lord as well as the negation of polytheism arising from belief in Jesus as a son of God in a literal sense for this contradicts what Jesus himself expressly called for.*
*We read: “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)*
*Finally, Jesus told us that he was sent only to the children of Israel. Only a prophet was sent to a certain people. A son of God would have been sent to all humanity. As God is the Lord of all mankind, His alleged son should have been a demigod for all mankind.*
*We read: “And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshiped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.” (Matthew 15:22-26)*
*Debate with a Christian: Jesus is the servant of God and His Messenger*
Question *Why is it so difficult for the Muslims to believe that Jesus is the only son of God, when it says in the gospel that he is the son of God and he says of God “My Father”?.*
Answer
*Praise be to Allah.*
*We have previously explained that the Gospel in which we believe, and no one’s Islam is valid unless he believes in it, is not the gospels that are in the hands of the Christians nowadays. Rather the Gospel in which we believe is that which was brought by ‘Eesa (Jesus – peace be upon him) from Allaah. As for that which is in the hands of the Christians today, it is something else, and they themselves do not claim that Jesus is the one who brought it or wrote it.*
*As that is the case, what the Christians claim about the Gospels stating that Jesus is the son of God and that God is his father –exalted be Allaah above having a son or a wife – does not count as any kind of proof against us, because we believe that that is something that was fabricated by human beings, and it is not part of the religion of Jesus (peace be upon him) or the religion of any other Messenger.*
*We believe that the Gospels that are in people’s hands today, in which the Christians believe, have been tampered with and changed, and are still being tampered with from time to time, so that there is nothing left in the form in which the Gospel was revealed from Allaah. Here we would point out that the Gospel which speaks most of the belief in the trinity and the divinity of the Messiah (peace be upon him), so that it has become a reference-point for the Christians in their arguments in support of this falsehood, is the Gospel of John. This Gospel is subject to doubts about its authorship even among some Christian scholars themselves, as is not the case with the other Gospels in which they believe. This is an ancient doubt which goes back to the second century CE according to their own history.*
*Professor Stadlin says: The entire Gospel of John was written by one of the students of the Alexandrian school. One sect, in the second century, rejected this Gospel and everything that was attributed to John* . In the Encyclopaedia Britannica it says:
*As for the gospel of John, it is undoubtedly fabricated. Its author wanted to pitch two of the disciples against one another, namely St. John and St. Matthew.*
*This writer who appears in the text claimed that he was the disciple who was loved by the Messiah, and the Church took this at face value and affirmed that the writer was the disciple John, and it put his name on the book, even though the author was not John for certain. This book is like the books of the Torah, in that there is no connection between them and the one to whom they are attributed. We feel sorry for those who did their utmost to make the connection, between this philosopher who wrote the book in the second century, and the disciple John the fisherman, for their efforts were to no avail and with no guidance.*
Quoted from Muhaaraat fi’l-Nasraaniyyah by Shaykh Muhammad Abu Zahrah.
*It is strange indeed that they cast aspersions on the authorship of this Gospel which they affirm was written especially to support this falsehood, the false belief in the divinity of the Messiah, which is ignored in the other gospels, until this gospel was written, at the least. Yoosuf al-Khoori says: John wrote his Gospel at the end of his life, at the request of the bishops of Asia and elsewhere. The reason for that is that there were sects that denied the divinity of the Messiah, so they asked him to prove it, and to highlight that which Matthew, Mark and Luke had neglected in their Gospels.*
(op.cit., p. 64)
*Regardless of the doubts about the authorship of the Gospels in general, and of the Gospel of John in particular, the phrases that they quote from these Gospels do not support the point they are trying to make, rather it is a spider’s web to which they are clinging, as Allaah says of them and others like them (interpretation of the meaning):*
*“The likeness of those who take (false deities as) Awliya’ (protectors, helpers) other than Allaah is the likeness of a spider who builds (for itself) a house; but verily, the frailest (weakest) of houses is the spider’s house if they but knew”*
[al-‘Ankaboot 29:41]
*The Bible in which it says that the Messiah is the son of God is the same Bible in which the lineage of the Messiah ends with Adam (peace be upon him), and he too is described as a son of God.*
*“Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli … the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God”*
[Luke 3:23-38]
*This is the same Bible that describes Israel in the same terms: *
*“Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the LORD says: Israel is my firstborn son”*
[Exodus 4:22]
*Something similar appears in the Book of Hosea:*
*“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son”*
[Hosea 11:1]
*The same is said of Soloman (peace be upon him):*
*“He said to me: ‘Solomon your son is the one who will build my house and my courts, for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father”*
[I Chronicles 28:6]
*Were Adam, Israel and Soloman all other sons of God, before the Messiah (peace be upon him)? Exalted be Allaah far above what they say!*
*Indeed, in the Gospel of John itself there is an explanation of what is meant by this being a son; it includes all the righteous servants of God, so there is nothing unique about Jesus or any other Prophet in this regard.*
*“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name”*
[John 1:3]
Something similar appears in the Gospel of Matthew:
*“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God”*
[Matthew 5:8-9]
*This usage of the word “son” in the language of the Bible is a metaphor for the righteous servant of God, without it implying anything special or unique about the way in which he is created, or describing him literally as the offspring of God. Hence John says:*
*“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!”*
[1 John 3:1]
*For the same reason Adam is also called a son of God – exalted be Allaah far above that.*
*There remains the issue of Eesa (peace be upon him) being described as a son of God, and what they fabricated about the Lord of the Worlds, saying that He was the father of the Messiah (peace be upon him). This too is not unique in the language of the Gospels:*
*“Jesus said, Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”*
[John 20:17]
*In one text he says that God is a father to them too, and that God is the God of them all.*
*So let them say if they wish that we are all the children and the beloved of God, as God said of their forefathers. In that case there is nothing special about the Messiah so that they should worship him instead of Allaah. Or let them be stubborn and follow something other than true guidance, with no clear Book. This is something that anyone could do.*
*the Lord of the heavens and the Lord of the earth, the Lord of the Worlds, for the blessing of Islam that He has bestowed upon us. O Allaah, guide us to Your straight path, The way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace, not (the way) of those who earned Your Anger, nor of those who went astray.*
