10 Points Against the Divin­i­ty of Jesus

As a Mus­lim, I hon­our and respect the Mes­si­ah Jesus^(P) as an elect Prophet of God. The Islam­ic view of Jesus lies between two extremes. The Jews, who reject Jesus^(P) as a Prophet of God, calls him an impos­tor. The Chris­tians, on the oth­er hand, con­sid­ers him to be the God in flesh and wor­ship him as such. Chris­tians believe in the divin­i­ty of Jesus and refuse to con­sid­er that an alter­na­tive may be pos­si­ble, i.e. that he is not God, but a mes­sen­ger of God.

This Chris­t­ian view­point is fur­ther con­firmed by Josh McDow­ell and Bart Lar­son when they say that :

“The Scrip­tures teach that Jesus was ful­ly God while also being ful­ly human. Paul declared of Jesus, ​“For in Him all the full­ness of deity dwells in bod­i­ly form” (Colos­sians 2:9). Because Jesus is both ful­ly God and ful­ly man, He stands in a unique rela­tion­ship in the Trin­i­ty to the Father and the Holy Spir­it.“Josh McDow­ell & Bart Lar­son, Jesus : A Bib­li­cal Defense of His Deity (Cam­pus Cru­sade For Christ, 1983), p. 65

The Qur’an, how­ev­er, tells us that :

“They say : Allah has tak­en a Son. Glo­ri­fied be He ! He has no needs ! His is all that is in the heav­ens and that is in the earth. You have no war­rant for this, do you say regard­ing Allah that which you know not?” (Qur’an, 10:68)

Cer­tain­ly, the Chris­t­ian would sim­ply not accept the Qur’an­ic dec­la­ra­tion, since he or she believes in the divin­i­ty of Jesus and that the Bible is the Word of God, not the Qur’an. How­ev­er, if there is suf­fi­cient evi­dence from the Bible itself, then the Trini­tar­i­an Chris­t­ian is forced to accept the con­clu­sion that the con­cept of the divin­i­ty of Jesus^(P) is false and that was nev­er divine. 

The evi­dence shall be giv­en as fol­lows, insha’Allah.

Athanasian Creed

The fol­low­ing is the Athanasian Creed for­mu­lat­ed at the Coun­cil of Nicea declar­ing the Trinity :

We believe in one God the Father, Almighty, mak­er of all things vis­i­ble and invis­i­ble ; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begot­ten of the Father, only begot­ten that is, from the sub­stance of the Father ; God from God, light from light, Very God from Very God…The His­to­ry of Chris­tian­i­ty : A Lion Hand­book, p. 177

This, how­ev­er, rais­es the ques­tion : If Jesus^(P) is a God but not a dif­fer­ent God then he must be God him­self. If that is the case how can he be Begot­ten ? Isn’t God eternal ? 

This ​“pos­si­bil­i­ty”, apart from the fact that it is total­ly irra­tional and dis­proved by the words of Jesus him­self, is also in direct con­tra­dic­tion to the Bible.

Against The Divin­i­ty of Jesus

The Bible tells us that God is One :

“The first of all the com­mand­ments is ​‘Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is One.’ ” (Mark 12:29)

Chris­tians claim that there is only one God and who came down to earth in the form of a man, and since God is indi­vis­i­ble, they con­clude that God and Jesus^(P) are one being not two. This indi­vis­i­bil­i­ty of God neces­si­tates that God and Jesus must be one being. How­ev­er, this does not con­form with many vers­es in the Bible where Jesus and God are clear­ly spo­ken of as two sep­a­rate beings :

God Is The Cre­ator, Not Jesus

1. The very first verse of the Bible, Gen­e­sis 1:1 ​“In the begin­ning, God cre­at­ed.…” intro­duces us to God as the Cre­ator. Any­one who has read just the first verse of the Bible knows God as The Cre­ator. So, there is no need to call Him as Father, even to explain Him metaphor­i­cal­ly, and try in vain to com­pare the One Who is Incomparable.

“Have we not all one father ? Hath not One God cre­at­ed us?” (Malachi 2:10)

The above verse of the Bible is pos­si­bly the expla­na­tion for the unwar­rant­ed use of the word ​“Father” in the Bible to denote The Almighty’s func­tion, attribute or pow­er as The Sole Creator.

In the whole uni­verse, He is the only Cre­ator and every­thing else is His crea­ture. In the book of Gen­e­sis, the Bible gives details of how the heav­ens, the earth, the light, the ani­mals, the man, etc. were made by God. Every­thing came into being by His command.

“For He spake, and it was done ; He com­mand­ed, and it stood fast.” (Psalms 33:9)

The Bible says :

“By the word of the LORD were the heav­ens made ; all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.” (Psalms 33:6)

God Is Dis­tinct From Jesus

2. If God came down to earth as a man, one would expect that after the end of His life on earth, and upon His return to heav­en, He would be One Being, not Two. This is not in agree­ment with the fol­low­ing verse :

“So then after the Lord had spo­ken unto them, he was received up into heav­en, and sat on the right hand of God.” (Mark 16:19)

This verse, which speaks about Jesus after he was raised up into heav­en, clear­ly indi­cates that God and Jesus are not one being, for how can God be sit­ting on the right hand of Himself ?

God Is Wor­shipped, Not Jesus

3. Jesus^(P) attrib­uted wor­ship to the One True God.

“…and he often with­drew into the wilder­ness and prayed” (Luke 5:16)

“And when he had sent the mul­ti­tudes away, he went up on a moun­tain by him­self to pray” (Matthew 14:23)

These two vers­es which speak about Jesus are of great sig­nif­i­cance. How can Jesus be God if he was wor­ship­ping God as any oth­er mor­tal ? Who is he pray­ing to ?

The Chris­t­ian may well sug­gest that Jesus was only pray­ing in a sym­bol­ic man­ner so as to teach the peo­ple how to con­duct prayer. This argu­ment is nev­er­the­less unac­cept­able because the words ​“wilder­ness” and ​“by him­self” indi­cate that at those spe­cif­ic times, Jesus was all on his own while pray­ing. He could not have been teach­ing anybody !

God Can­not Be Tempted

4. Jesus was tempt­ed by the devil.

“.…and Jesus for forty days in the wilder­ness was tempt­ed by the dev­il” (Luke 4:1)

But in the Bible we also read that :

“God can­not be tempt­ed by the devil” 

If God can­not be tempt­ed by the dev­il, and Jesus^(P) was tempt­ed by the dev­il, then Jesus can­not be God.

Jesus Refused To Be Called ​“Son of God”

5. Jesus^(P) him­self refused to be called ​‘son of God’ on a num­ber of occa­sions. In the fol­low­ing verse he rebukes the ones who called him ​‘son of God’, pre­fer­ring the title of ​‘Mes­si­ah’:

“And dev­ils came out of many, cry­ing out and say­ing, ​‘You are the son of God!’ And he, rebuk­ing them, did not allow them to speak, for they knew that he was the Mes­si­ah” (Luke 4:41)

The refusal of Jesus to be called the son of God also occurred dur­ing the tri­al at the San­hedrin. When he was asked if he claimed to be the son of God he replied :

“So you say. But I tell you this : from now you shall see the son of man seat­ed at the right hand of God” (Matthew 26:64)

Jesus Says That He Is A Prophet Of God

6. On numer­ous occa­sions Jesus^(P) speaks of him­self as a prophet :

“A prophet is not with­out hon­our except in his home town and his own house” (Matthew 13:57, Mark 6:4 and Luke 4:24)

We also read :

“I must jour­ney today, tomor­row and the day fol­low­ing for it can­not be that a prophet should per­ish out­side of Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33)

“This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee” (Matthew 21:11)

Jesus Says That He Is A Mes­sen­ger Of God

7. Jesus^(P) also spoke of him­self as the Mes­sen­ger of God :

“He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.” (Matthew 10:40)

“Ver­i­ly, ver­i­ly, I say unto you, The ser­vant is not greater than his lord ; nei­ther he that is sent greater than he that sent him.” (John 13:16)

The dis­tinc­tion in this verse is made very clear by Jesus between him­self and the One who sent him. This is again made clear in the fol­low­ing verse :

“And this is life eter­nal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” (John 17:3)

These vers­es clear­ly speak of two sep­a­rate beings. To claim that Jesus and God are one reduces these vers­es to mere nonsense !

Jesus Was Called A Ser­vant Of God

8. In var­i­ous oth­er vers­es Jesus^(P) is referred to as the ser­vant of God :

“Behold my ser­vant, whom I have cho­sen” (Matthew 12:18)

“To you first, God hav­ing raised up His ser­vant Jesus, sent him to bless you” (Acts 3:26)

These two vers­es, which are a ful­fil­ment of Isa­iah 42:1 – 4, speak of Jesus as the ser­vant of God and not as God.

The Chris­t­ian will usu­al­ly argue that the terms ​‘prophet’ or ​‘ser­vant’ are sym­bol­ic and are not to be tak­en lit­er­al­ly. That is fine as long as this prin­ci­ple is applied to oth­er equal­ly impor­tant issues. Why does it have to be that when it comes to the title of ​‘Son of God’ the Chris­t­ian insists on tak­ing it literally ?

All these vers­es that speak of Jesus^(P) as a Prophet of God, a Mes­sen­ger of God and indeed the ser­vant of God if any­thing affirms the fact that Jesus was a man who wor­shipped God like any oth­er mortal.

Only God Is Per­fect, Not Jesus

9. Jesus did not think of him­self as being per­fect, let alone divine. He knew in his heart that only God is perfect :

“Why do you call me good ? No one is good but one, that is God.” (Mark 10:18)

These are hard­ly the words of some­one who thought of him­self as God come down to earth in the form of a man ! In actu­al fact, in these words, Jesus makes a very clear dis­tinc­tion between God and himself.

Jesus Taught His Peo­ple To Wor­ship God Alone

10. In all of the Bible, there is not one verse where Jesus says that he is God come down to earth, that he is divine or that he should be wor­shipped. On the con­trary, he taught the peo­ple to wor­ship God in heaven :

“You shall wor­ship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve” (Luke 4:8)

If Jesus^(P) is God who comes down to earth, why did he made such a state­ment ? Did he not know it himself ?

The divin­i­ty of Jesus^(P) was nev­er taught by Jesus and has no ori­gin in the New Tes­ta­ment, but was adopt­ed some­time after the ascen­sion of Jesus^(P).

In addi­tion to the pre­vi­ous evi­dence from the New Tes­ta­ment that refutes the divin­i­ty of Jesus, it can also be demon­strat­ed that the Jesus’ divin­i­ty is incon­sis­tent with the prophe­cies con­tained in the Old Tes­ta­ment about the com­ing of the Messiah.

Con­clu­sions

Jesus^(P) was a Jew who lived and wor­shipped God accord­ing to the Law of Moses^(P). Indeed, Jesus^(P) him­self is report­ed to have said :

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, I am not come to destroy, but to ful­fil” (Matthew 5:17 – 18)

Thus we con­clude that the evi­dence against the divin­i­ty of Jesus^(P) is too enor­mous to ignore. Any sin­cere Chris­t­ian read­ing the above should con­sid­er what did Jesus(P) real­ly say and fol­low his words instead of sub­mit­ting to doc­trines that have no basis in the Bible. As the Qur’an tells us about the mis­sion of Jesus :

“And (remem­ber) when Jesus son of Mary said : O Chil­dren of Israel ! Ver­i­ly ! I am the mes­sen­ger of Allah unto you, con­firm­ing that which was before me in the Torah” (Qur’an, 61:6)

And only God knows best !