Come and see what everyone's talking
about.
Allah, there's only one God and Jesus
was his messenger
Allah.
Alhamdulillah. That is the greeting of
peace. Peace be unto you. You come back
here every week and you get to learn
something, God willing. And we're
thankful and grateful to the creator of
the heavens and earth who's given us
this platform where we can share some of
these truths with you. And something
that is on the minds of a lot of the
people is Jesus God? Is he the son of
God? Is he divine?
Now for me to just tell you this is one
thing but for somebody who has graduated
and mastered this topic who has the
masters in divinity from none other than
the prestigious Harvard University. He
finished seminary school. He was an
ordained
minister. Our good friend Dr. Gerald
Dirks. When we come back he's going to
help us tackle this topic. We'll be
right back. Sit tight.
Allah. There's only one word. Muhammad
is his messenger.
Allah.
Allah. There's only one God and Jesus
was his messenger. Allah.
I don't know why I did that. Maybe it's
just to break the ice. Asalamaikum
walaykum salam. How are you doing?
Alhamdulillah. Praise be to God. All
right. That's good. We're we're excited
you're back with us to tackle this
topic. Is Jesus God? But before we go
into that, they heard me mention some of
your credentials. Can you just briefly
talk about a little bit about your
history, where you studied, and what you
uh specialized in in school? I had a
bachelor of arts and philosophy. I was
basically pre- theology from Harvard
College, a master of divinity from
Harvard Divinity School. I was ordained
into the diacinet in the United
Methodist Church and uh subsequently
went on and received a master's and a
doctorate in clinical psychology.
Okay. So you you know this topic, you're
qualified to talk about it. That's why
we brought you here for you to help us
clear up this misconception. Many people
they are being taught that Jesus is God.
Now can you tell us what is the
evidence? Where does this belief come
from stem from? And is this true? Well,
first of all, you know, to say Jesus is
God and leave it strictly at that with
adding nothing else is actually for
traditional Christianity a heresy. That
that is a heretical statement to make.
Mhm. It is a non-Christian statement to
make. According to traditional
Christianity,
traditional Christianity or we look at
early Christianity, there there were
three basic positions that were taken
with regard to the nature of Jesus. Uh
some early Christians said Jesus is God
pure and simple. Now like I said that
was heresy. The
Dosatus for example took that position.
Um the second position is Jesus was God
and man
simultaneously. Now this is the
traditional orthodox position of
Christianity.
Um as stated at the council of Chaledon
uh there were two natures in Jesus. Um
one divine, one human. And these two u
natures were both present but they were
neither mixed nor separated. Now if
something's not mixed and it's not
separated, I don't know what's left. But
the traditional creed coming out of
Chaledon was two natures, human and
divine, not mixed, not separated. Third
position in early Christianity was that
Jesus was human,
albeit a man who stood in a special
relationship with God.
There was evidence supporting that there
was uh groups that believed that he was
not God. He was purely human.
Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. And these were
some of the earlier Christian sex. Yeah.
Basically in in terms of uh history of
Christianity, there's a broad group of
uh early Christians that were known as
subordinationists. And by that it's
meant that they subordinated Jesus to
God. Didn't put them on the same level.
And of special interest would be one
particular group of subordinationists
that were called adoptionists.
And they were called adoptionists
because when it came to this concept of
the son of God, their response was to
say, well, like an adopted son, not like
a physical son or a literal son. Yeah.
So they understood this concept of son
of God in a very metaphorical way. And
in fact uh if we look at at the context
and I think we need to look at
historical context when we talk about
this concept of son of God. If we look
at the the
Bible we see that Israel as a whole the
whole of Israel and especially the
subtribe of Ephraim were referred to as
the sons of God. And you can find this
at home. I'll read them slowly. Exodus
4:22, Hosea 11:es 1-3 and 10-11 and
Jeremiah
31:es 9 and 20 talk about the Israelites
as a whole and the tribe of Ephraim as
being the sons of
God. The Bible also tells us that
certain Israelite kings were called the
sons of God. So for example, David
referred to as the son of God in Psalms
2:7. Uh Solomon also referred to as the
son of God. Uh in 2 Samuel 7
13-14, angels referred to as the sons of
God in Job
1:6. Any faithful person of Israel being
referred to as a son of God in
Deuteronomy 14:1. And finally, any
righteous man. And uh let me let me
quote this one. It's Ecclesiasticus
uh 4:10.
Ecclesiasticus or the wisdom of uh Jesus
Ben Surak. Be as a father to orphans and
in a place of a husband to widows. Then
God will call thee son and will be
gracious to thee and deliver thee from
the pit. So what we're left with here,
and we need to understand this
historical
context among the Israelites in first
century Palestine,
to be called the son of God simply meant
you were a righteous and pious man.
That's it. That's all it meant. Now, the
Bible translators do a trick on people
because when they translate son of God
in reference to Jesus Christ, peace be
upon him, they put a capital S in son.
Mhm. Well, in the Greek, there's no
capital, no lowercase. That's not fair.
That that's a totally arbitrary thing
the translators are doing. See some
deception going on. Well, and then
anywhere else where someone's called the
son of God, they use a lowercase S.
Yeah. But that's the translators. That's
not in the text.
He is the maintainer. He is the you say
that you do not believe in Jesus, you
have stepped outside of Islam. You
cannot be a Muslim. It is attended our
faith to believe in and love Jesus
Christ.
I I would say this thing that you just
told me, it's not in the scripture. And
they would say a marginal note added by
a scribe. Yeah, okay. We know that. And
I'd be thinking, if you know this is not
the Bible, why are you preaching it as
if it's gospel truth?
[Music]
Okay, like I said earlier, we are humbly
trying
to express what the truth of Jesus's
message really was. And we know that as
ones who have consciously submitted to
the will of God, i.e. Muslims,
that we go by the verbatim word of God,
which is unedited, unchanged, preserved,
memorized by millions, the verbatim word
of God. And in there it's an article of
our faith to believe in the messengers.
Jesus being one of them. So if we don't
believe in Jesus, you cannot be a
Muslim. We love Jesus. We respect him.
We believe in all these miracles which
you you will that he did. You uh uh
elaborate on this a little bit further.
But the Quran says if you're truthful,
bring your evidence. So we just want to
do what our book is saying, what the
creator is saying that bring your
evidence. So if we look at the Bible,
what are some of the strongest proofs
that someone can use? because there are
some evidences some people will present
to justify Jesus being divine. Well, we
we could turn to one of them uh and and
that of course is the the concept of the
virgin birth. Mhm. As it is portrayed in
in Matthew uh and in Luke. Uh this is a
process of divine beginning. Yeah. Uh
the problem for Christians however if
they stop and think about it is we some
Christians say we have God the father,
God the son, and God the holy ghost. But
if Jesus is God the son, who's his
father? Well, Christians automatically
would say God the father. And yet what
the Bible says in Matthew and Luke is
that the Holy Spirit came upon Mary, not
God the Father. M so who who's the one
doing the beginning here? Uh that's one
consideration. In Islam, in the Quran,
we have the story of the virgin birth.
Yeah. But for us, there's a crucial
difference between the virgin birth is
told in the Quran and the virgin birth
is told in Matthew and Luke. And that
difference is in the Quran, it's not
divine beginning. It's a miraculous
creation. And again, I'd like to just
quote those Yeah. verses from the Quran.
But my Lord, she cried out. That's Mary
cried out. How can I have a son when no
man has touched me? And so it is that
God creates what he wills, the angel
replied. When he decides a matter, he
only has to say be. And it is. The
example of Jesus in the sight of God is
like that of Adam. He created him from
dust saying be and he was. That's the
third chapter of the Quran verses 47 and
59. So a totally different twist. Mhm.
This is a miraculous creation. Yeah. Not
an act of divine
beetting. Now Christians point to the
virgin birth and they say divine
beetting. They also tend to uh turn to
the story of the baptism of Jesus. Mhm.
As they find it in the Bible. And I'm
turning now to the third chapter of
Luke. And this is the baptismal story.
Basically, it says that Jesus goes to
John the Baptist, peace be upon them
both. He's baptized by John the Baptist.
And as he's standing there, the skies
open up and the Holy Spirit descends
upon him in bodily form like a dove. And
then, and a voice came from heaven, you
are my son, the beloved. With you I am
well pleased. And many Christians will
point to this verse.
However, as noted in a footnote in the
New Revised Standard Version of the
Bible, other ancient authorities read
differently. They read, "You are my son
today. I have begotten
you as an
adult at the time of the baptism." Mhm.
Well, under this understanding, if
you're begotten as a 30-some year old
man, obviously the beginning is not to
be understood literally or physically,
but only metaphorically at most. Yes.
And in point of fact, for Christians who
may doubt uh that probable original
wording of Luke, uh they can turn to
other places in the Bible and find the
same wording. Uh in Hebrews 1:5, Hebrews
5:5 in reference to Jesus, we have the
same wording. Today I have begotten
thee. We also find it in the 13th
chapter of Acts, the 33rd verse. We have
it in the Psalms. Psalms 2:7 being
applied to David. Remember, more than
just Jesus was called the son of God. So
this uh this notion that
Jesus became the son of God in a
metaphorical sense at his
baptism was a cardinal tenant of many
early Christian groups. For example, the
Iionites,
a very u large Christian group
originally in Palestine. They were in
existence during the time of the 12
disciples. They uh fled from Palestine
at the time the Romans destroyed the
temple
um and spread out into Syria, Jordan,
etc. And we know they continued as a
viable group of Christians well into at
least the third century. Yeah. And they
were saying, "No, no, Jesus is not God.
Son of God." Well, with a small s
metaphorically, he was a righteous man.
He was a prophet, etc. But no, not in
any literal physical sense. He wasn't
divine.
And we know the disciples, the actual
disciples of Jesus also held a similar
view. Yeah. That Jesus was not divine.
And we know this because Rabbi
Gllieliel, who was the president of the
Jewish Sanhedrin,
ruled officially that the early
Jerusalem church of James and the
disciples of Jesus was authentically
Jewish. And there would have been
absolutely no way that the president of
the Jewish Sanhedrin could have ruled
that this early Christian church in
Jerusalem that continued to worship at
the temple was authentically Jewish if
in any way, shape or form they were
saying that Jesus was divine.
Yeah. Wow. This is uh amazing. Tell us
have you can you expound on this verse
where it says let us make man in our
image. What does this mean?
Well, in Genesis. Is that in Genesis? In
Genesis. I I've heard some Christians
when they want to prove the divinity of
how God can be a man, they will say that
that let us make man or in our image.
What does that mean? Well, you're going
to get different opinions. Yeah. From
from different people. This is one of
those very ambiguous things. Yeah. You
know, at a very primitive level of
understanding, one might say that God
looks like you and me. Yeah. Uh but like
I say is a very primitive primitive
level of understanding. At a more
abstract level when one would say each
one of us as human beings is endowed
with the spirit. Yeah. Uh and and that
this is really all that is meant by in
the image of God. Okay. In the beginning
was the word. The word was with God and
the word became flesh. This is somewhere
in John
1:1 first chapter of John. Somebody will
throw this in your face. What do you got
to say? Well, first of all, the prologue
of John we know as a later edition.
Uhhuh. Later edition. Yeah. To the
Gospel of John. Yeah. Absolutely. Very
much influenced by Greek philosophy. In
fact, the term logos is very much a term
coming out of Greek philosophy. But the
fact that Jesus was pre-existent, you
know, Islam believes that we were all
pre-existent in a spiritual sense. That
all the seed of Adam was gathered before
God. Yeah. as in a spiritual sense uh
and made to affirm the oneness of God.
So pre-existence of God, the
pre-existence of Jesus, excuse me, does
not in any way imply divinity.
And just to remind you, we are here with
Dr. Gerald Dirks, who has a master's in
divinity from the prestigious Harvard
University, has finished seminary
school. He's helping us tackle this
topic. And you got to know we love
Jesus. He was one of the mightiest
messengers of God who called people to
not worship himself but to worship God
alone without any co-equal co-artners.
Did Jesus ever tell us please did he
ever out of his lips his mouth his
disciples his friends did they ever
teach people or say this word trinity?
No. Is this trinity the word anywhere in
the Bible? No. Where are we coming up
with this now?
This is this is a later formulation of
Christianity and uh the doctrine of the
trinity u grew in fits and starts. It
basically grew out of uh Pauline
Christianity as it emerged and developed
in Europe. Mhm. Uh this concept of
trinity or the divinity of Jesus did not
develop typically in the Christianity
that was developing in North Africa and
in the Middle East. Here again we had
this adoptionist trajectory where people
understood
uh son of God to be metaphorical. You
know Jesus moved into a special
relationship with God as we would expect
a prophet and messenger to do.
Absolutely. Yeah. Um and and so we we
have a long history of this
adoptionist trend in early
Christianity. Um Theodus the Gnostic in
the second century was preaching this
adoptionist message. Theodotus the
Tanner later in the second century and
and his teaching developed to to what
was called Theodocianism or dynamic
monarchianism lasted well into the 3rd
century. Oregon 3rd century priest also
was teaching a subordinationist or
adoptionist uh christologology teaching
the oneness of of God not the tri unity
of God. No no no trinity no trinity that
Jesus was clearly subordinate to God.
Dionius third century bishop bishop mind
you and Alexandria again teaching that
uh Jesus was the adopted son of God or
subordinate uh to God. Paul of
Samosada, 3rd century bishop of Antioch
also teaching this message. Uh St.
Lucian of Antioch, 3rd century
theologian teaching this message. Uh so
you can see this is uh quite widespread
uh in the Middle East and uh in uh North
Africa. And then finally,
Aras, fourth century priest and founder
of Aryanism who was in Alexandria,
Egypt. And his movement lasted well into
the 7th century in North Africa and uh
the Middle East. In fact, many Christian
historians would say that Aryanism, this
particular form of
adoptionism, was the majority element in
Christianity during the 4th century.
So this is quite quite a statement and
and it's interesting to look at what
Aras actually taught and as to not
misstate I'm going to just read this.
Aras taught that God is absolutely
unique and incomparable. Mhm. Is alone
self-existent, unchangeable and infinite
and must be understood in terms of his
absolute oneness.
Given this allimportant first premise,
Aras concluded that one, the life of
Jesus as portrayed in the canonical
gospels demonstrates that Jesus was not
self-existent. That he changed and grew
over time if in no other way than in
passing through the stages of birth,
childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.
And that he was finite, having a
definite time of conception and birth.
Therefore, Aras concluded Jesus was
God's created being who was called into
existence out of nothingness, who could
not have shared in the absolute
uniqueness, immutability, and infinity
of God without compromising them, who
could not have been of the same
substance as God without compromising
the oneness of God, and who could have
had no direct knowledge of God other
than that which God chose to reveal to
him. Now, as Muslims, I think we can
affirm what Aras is saying. I mean,
absolutely that God is one. He's not his
creation. He has no beginning. He has no
end. He's not a man. He's not
[Music]
Jesus. That God is one. He's not his
creation. He has no beginning. He has no
end. He's not a man. He's not Jesus.
This is what we're saying. Yes. This is
what all the messengers talk. Yes. And
this is what uh Aras was teaching. This
is what the adoptionists basically were
teaching. Though Aras is is perhaps the
one who elaborated this to the best
possible extent. But but it doesn't end
here. Tell us of Nicamedia, 4th century
bishop of Nicamedia, also an
adoptionist.
Macedonius, 4th century patriarch of
Constantinople, arguably the number two
man in all of Christendom behind only
the pope. And the Greek Orthodox would
say equal to the pope. Mhm. He was an
adoptionist. When you say adoptionist,
what do you mean? This is someone who
maintained that when we say Jesus is the
son of God, we mean like an adopted son
like metaphorical like what we were
saying
pious, not literal. Yeah. Uh not
physical. Yeah. But someone who moved
into a special relationship with God.
All the prophets had a special
relationship. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Yeah. And the last and final messenger,
the same thing. The prophet Muhammad
peace be upon him. So, so te tell us
this is very interesting and I'm sure
that those humble people, sincere people
are really getting enlightened with all
this new information that many people
just they haven't been taught. And you
having graduated from Harvard
uh with a masters in divinity finished
with a the seminary school. This is like
that graduate uh above going into more
profoundly of the history of the Bible
and all the other early manuscripts tell
us do the
early sects of Christianity because the
Quran the verbatim word of God tells us
that all the prophets were those who
called to the oneness of God. They
submitted themselves. Now you could take
this concept in French and Japanese and
whatever but it's summed up with one
word Islam that they all did Islam. Were
these earlier sects did they seem like
what you're telling me that they were on
Islam?
Yes. Name some more or less. More or
less. Oh we we can go on from Macedonius
to Idius 4th century bishop of Antioch
and I'm just naming prominent people
bishops etc. Ntorious fifth century
bishop of Constantinople. again
patriarch of Constantinople and founder
of Ntorianism, a Christian movement that
lasted well into the 9th century. Yeah.
Uh in China, Theodore
Amopsoestia who was the fifth century
guardian of right faith of the Persian
church. Uh St. Cleda, fifth and sixth
century princess of Burgundy. All
adoptionists.
Now what happened was that
Aras and Aryanism became so popular that
it threatened to pull Christianity apart
and at this time Constantine who's the
emperor of Rome is sitting on a fairly
shaky throne. Yeah. And to secure his
place politically in 313 he issued the
edict of Milan which legalized
Christianity for the first time in the
Roman Empire. Well, this got him the
support of the Christians obviously. So,
that helped secure his throne a bit
more. But the conflict that was emerging
within Christianity about what's the
nature of
Jesus was threatening to tear apart that
that part of his coalition. Mhm. And so,
Constantine called for the council of
Nya in the year 325. And he called the
bishop said, "We want you to come. Let's
sort this out. Let's figure out what's
the nature of Jesus." Well, first of
all, a lot of bishops didn't show uh I
mean they weren't going to travel to
Nika, which is in modern day Turkey, and
um submit to this sort of a council with
Constantine soldiers gathered all around
them. Yes. Uh so a lot of people didn't
go. Those who went
uh to defend
areas um they basically were placed
under a lot of pressure. Many of them
who voted for what came to be known as
as the nyine solution later recanted as
soon as they went back home. But
Constantine, you can imagine the
pressure probably that runs with the
guards and this atmosphere. Constantine
as it turns out was actually an
adoptionist when he was actually later
baptized later in life. He was baptized
by Ucius of Nicipia, an Aryan. So he he
was an adoptionist.
But the adoptionism was centered in the
Middle East and in Egypt in North
Africa. Constantine's looking for allies
closer to home. Yeah. And the closest
one to home is the bishop of Rome or
what later came to be known as the pope.
And the bishop of Rome was very much in
this camp of Jesus is both God and man
simultaneously. Mhm. And so Constantine
sort of sold out his own beliefs uh for
political power and made an alliance
with the bishop of Rome. And coming out
of the council of Nya was this statement
that Jesus and God are of the same
substance. Now this is starting to get
us towards the trinity. But Nika still
didn't say anything about the Holy
Spirit really. So Jesus and God are of
the same substance. How unpopular was
this decision? 16 years later in 341 at
the council of Antioch, the assembled
bishops basically said, "We're not going
to touch this question." And so their
creedle formulation said nothing about
any relationship between God and Jesus.
They were begging off the question. And
16 years after that in 357 at the
council of Serium the assembled bishops
actually voted a creed which said that
Jesus is not of the same substance as
God. Now if you look at the decision of
the council of cerium in the year 357
the official position of Christianity
was Jesus and God are not of the same
substance. Mhm. It was only at the
second ecumenical council of
Constantinople in the year
381 that the so-called nyine creed uh
was uh actually issued. Uh and and it is
at the council of Constantinople in 381
that the nyine creed came out not at uh
the council of Nika in 325. So this was
a hotly debated issue. What's the nature
of Jesus? Uh and as I said before, a
majority of Christians in the 4th
century were
adoptionist. Now, a person may say,
okay, what happened to these
adoptionists? Why why don't we see them
around today? Well, in point of fact, we
do. The Jehovah Witnesses claim that
they're followers of Aras and the
Unitarians, as originally formulated,
also claim they're followers of Aras.
But the main reason we don't see Aryans
today or adoptionists today is we need
to look at where they were centered.
They were centered in North Africa. They
were centered in the Middle East. And
they basically died out in the seventh
century. Mhm. Now, why did they die out
in the seventh century? I would submit
to you the reason was the message that
was brought by Prophet Muhammad peace be
upon him. These people were so closely
aligned with what we have come to call
Islam that in the seventh century they
naturally converted in mass into Islam.
We're we're going to have to do a part
two. They're signaling that we're out of
time for this session and we're going to
have to continue on. This is very
intriguing, enlightening, and can we
continue on a part two? Sure. Inshallah.
Okay. We're gonna take a break and we're
gonna try to come back and do a part
two. So, next week come back where we
continue talking about is Jesus divine?
Did he say he was divine? As you can
see, the evidence is pointing toward him
not being divine, that he was indeed a
messenger of God. This is what his
disciples, those around him, his
companions believe and all the plethora
of evidence of the early Christians and
what the last and final messenger, the
prophet Muhammad came with the verbatim
word of Quran, which clears all this
doubt off about him and tells you that
he was indeed one of the mightiest
messengers of God. So, we're going to
continue on talking about this mighty
messenger, Jesus, to clear up his name.
So, come back next week here on the Dean
Show and we'll continue talking about
this with our good friend, Brother Dr.
Gerald
[Music]
Dirks. He created the universe.
To him belong the heavens and the
earth, the ever living. He is the
first. He's the owner of mercy.
He sent his
messengers to warn his
creatures of the grave
dangers of
worshiping Allah than Allah.
There is none
greater than the
[Music]
creator Allahbar.
[Music]