Who is Jesus?

My Muslim friend, the topic of Jesus is an interesting one. You say that he was an prophet. I agree with you that he was an prophet. I will add that he is God.

I do not believe in the Qur'an but you do so I will talk about the Qur'an with you.

I will start with John 1:33. The verse says, "And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’"

In this verse, God told John the Baptist about His Son and the Holy Spirit, giving a perfect picture of the Holy Trinity. In the same way, the same picture is reflected not once but twice in the Qur'an when God was quoted as saying: "And We gave Jesus son of Mary the clear signs, and confirmed him the Holy Spirit." (The Cow 87). Also, the verse in the Surah of Women 171 describes Jesus saying: "His Word that He committed to Mary, and a spirit from Him."

If we study those two Qur'an verses, we find that the Speaker was God addressing His Word and supporting Him with His Holy Spirit-no prophet ever was giving that privilege.

This is great assurance that the Qur'an did not deviate from reiterating the Gospel's teaching, confirming the reality of the Holy Trinity, ie., God the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit. 

YouTube Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSEGCgUv-Q4&list=PLOcgbRsBMiGrCWEwotBvZFRJt5StQ-f4D&index=6&t=0s

All in the family

I hope that you, my Muslim,  friend will understand that the Bible is from God.
Surah 2:136 says,

Say, [O believers], "We have believed in Allah and what has been revealed to us and what has been revealed to Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the Descendants and what was given to Moses and Jesus and what was given to the prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and we are Muslims [in submission] to Him."

I do not believe in the Koran but you do. Surah 10:64 says,

For them are good tidings in the worldly life and in the Hereafter. No change is there in the words of Allah . That is what is the great attainment.

Know also this Surah. Surah 5:47 says,

And let the People of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein. And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed - then it is those who are the defiantly disobedient.

2 Timothy 3:16-17
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,  so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Objection: We read in Matthew 1:11 that Josiah begat Jeconiah and his brothers during the Babylonian Captivity. There are three problems with the verse: Josiah was not Jeconiah's father, but rather his grander (1 Chronicles 3:15-16), for it is written that Josiah's sons were Johanan, Jehokiakim, Zedekiah and Shallum; Josiah died twenty years before the Babylonian Captivity, so we cannot say that he and his brothers were born during this time.

Response: The problems presented here vanish when we examine what is written in one of the handwritten copies. In the Greek we read: "Josiah was the father of Jehoiakim (or Joakim) and Jehoakim were the father of Jeconiah" (see the Kreisbach readings). Thus, Josiah was Jehoiakim's father (also known as Eliakim and Jochim), and his brothers were Johanan, Zedekiah, and Shallum (1 Chronicles 3:15). Joakim was Jekiniah's father during the Babylon Captivity, but we must remember that the children of Israel were taken to  Babylon three times. The first exile was in 598 B.C., the fourth year of Joakim, son of Josiah. In that year, Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem and removed a large number of captives to Babylon. The second exile occured during the reign of Jeconiah, son of Joakim, who reigned three months and then taken into captivity in 597, along with many notables and aristocrats of Isreal. The third exile happened in 586 B.C., during the reign of Zedekiah.

Kalmet said that it is necessary to read Matthew 1:11 in this way, "Josiah was the father of Joakim and his brothers. Joakim was the father of Jeconiah during the first Babylonian exile." What confirms the correctness of reading verse 11 in this way is what Matthew writes: "So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations"; thus, 42 in all:

The line of Abraham: Issac, Jacob, Judah, Perez, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse and David.

The line of Solomon: Rehoboam, Abidjah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah and Jeconiah.

The line of Jeconiah: Shealtiel, Zerubbababel, Abiud, Eliakim, Azor, Zadok, Akim, Eliud, Eleazar, Matthan, Jacob, Joesph and Jesus.

Thus, the problem the objector raised can be explained in terms of taqdeem and taakheer which, in Arabic, respectively mean to place subsequent things first or to place initial later along (such as placing Solomon before David).

Although one could do without an interpretation of Matthew's expression, saying that Joakim was omitted because he was a ploy in the hands of the king of Egypt (2 Chronicles 36:4) and that he, like Joash, was not buried in the Tombs of the Kings, but cast out on the walls  of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 22:19, 36:30), the statement would nonetheless be correct. We can say that Josiah begot Jeconiah, because he was his grandfather.

Matthew 1:11,and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.

Click on this YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOKboSCNA3A

Who is older?

There are many people that deny Jesus is God. Muslims do not believe. If you are Muslim, you need to believe that the Bible is God's Word. Surah 5:46, ""And in their footsteps We sent Jesus the son of Mary, confirming the Law that had come before him: We sent him the Gospel: therein was guidance and light, and confirmation of the Law that had come before him: a guidance and an admonition to those who fear Allah."

Another good Surah is Surah 10:64. It says, "For them are glad tidings, in the life of the present and in the Hereafter; no change can there be in the words of Allah. This is indeed the supreme felicity." 

John knew that he was born before Christ. That means he was physically older than Christ, and his ministry started before Christ's; yet John testified that Christ was in existence before him. But there was no way for Jesus to be before John unless Jesus existed in eternity before time. Thus, John confirmed the fact of Christ's deity.

John 1:30
"This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me."


click on this link: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGrUslfXCnU

There are doubts concerning Jesus' ancestry

Question: There are doubts concerning Jesus ancestry.

Response:

Before discussing the objections concerning Jesus' ancestry, we would mention the following:

1) A Jewish family was very proud of its family tree, for it was proof that the family members stemmed from God's chosen people and it substantiated their claims to the inheritance of the land. Levites, for example, could only perform their duties if they could prove their membership to the Levitic  tribe. The Jews kept accurate records of their ancestry; they refuse to acknowledge any person as a Jew whose name was not included in these lists Ezra 2:62). Thus, had there been any error in Jesus' ancestry, as recorded by Matthew or Luke during the first century, the Jews would have detected it and objected.

Christians have attributed much more to Christ than priesthood or land. They believed that He was the prophesied Messiah, the Savior of the world.

2) There is a fact that would perplex the modern reader, yet it is one with which the Jewish readers of old were quite familiar: one person could belong to two tribes-to one by birth and to the other by marriage; he could also have two fathers-his own and his wife's. Such cases are found in the Old Testament. After the return of the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity, the following priestly clans could not find no record to prove their ancestry: Habaiah, Hakkoz and Barzillai (Ezra 2:61-62). The ancestor of the priestly clans of Barzillai had married a woman from the clan of Barzillai of Gilead and had taken the name of his father-in-law's clan. But since they were unable to prove who ancestors were, they were not accepted as priests. The same was written by Nehemiah 7:63-64. In 1 Chronicles 2:21-22, we read that when Hezron was sixty years old, he married Machir's daughter, the sister of Gilead. They had a son named Jair who ruled 23 cities in the territory of Gilead. Because Machir was the chef of the tribe of Manasseh, Jair was called the son of Manasseh (1 Chronicles 7:14-16 and Numbers 32:40-41).

3) Matthew traced the ancestry of Christ to Joseph, son of Jacob and divided it into three groups comprising the patriarchs, kings and their descendants. David was considered to be one of the patriarchs as well as one of the kings. Matthew traced the ancestors of Jesus to Abraham, because he wrote with a Jewish readership in mind.

Luke linked Jesus' ancestry to the Virgin Mary and pointed out that Joseph was the son of Heli, Mary's father (Luke 3:23); therefore he gave Joseph the name of his father-in-law. He traced His ancestry to Adam and God, stating that Jesus was "thought to have been" the son of Joseph (Luke 3:23).

4) It was no problem for a Jewish historian to delete some names from a family tree; this did not detract from the reliability of the record. Matthew left out the names of three kings from Jesus' ancestry; Ahaziah, Joash, and Amariah who reigned between Jehoram and Uzziah.

5) The ancestry reveals that which Matthew and Luke wrote serves the objective of the Gospel, showing us that Jesus was "the Seed of the Woman" predicted in Genesis 3:15. The names of Tamar the Palestinian, Rahab the Amorite, Ruth the Moabite, and the Jewish Virgin Mary indicates that Jesus is the Son of Man who belongs to all mankind and desires all to be saved. He is the Savior for all. Some of His grandfathers were kings, while others were shepherds living in tents (Luke 3:23-28).


Message for the Muslims

I have many friends that are Muslims and they refuse to believe that Jesus is God. I hope the Muslims understand this Surah.

Surah 5:68: "Say: O People of the Book! ye have no ground to stand upon unless ye stand fast by the Law, The Gospel and all the revelation that has come to you from your Lord."

Great link for more knowledge on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWRi5vsatQk

The Perfect Man, my Muslim Friend

I have an important message for my Muslim friends. If you are Muslim then please hear me out.

The doctrine of Incarnation was limited to Christianity only but we see that Islam supported that doctrine very clearly, confirming that the Spirit of God had become flesh, saying: "Then We sent to her Our Spirit that presented Himself to her as a man without fault (a perfect man)" (Mary 17).

The Qur'an stresses that the Spirit of God became in fashion as a "perfect man," teaching that act of becoming a man on the part of God's Spirit was something easy. Is God's Spirit different from God? 

When Muslim scholars failed to understand the person of the Holy Spirit, they insisted that the Spirit of God is the angel of God. But the Qur'an itself clearly proves the existence of clear distinction in the identities between angels and the Spirit of God, saying: "In it the angels and the Spirit descend." (Power 5). 

If the Spirit was an angel, the verse would not have clearly distinguished between them; in making that clear distinction, the Qur'an confirms what the Bible teaches, that the angels are God's creatures and not God's Spirit, who is of the very Self of God. 

We should not take lightly the Person of God's Spirit by making Him equal to created beings such as the angels of whom the Bible says that they are not the Spirit of God but servants; on the other hand, God's Spirit is the creating Spirit. Therefore, an angel is an angel, but the spirit of God is the Spirit of God, who is of the essence of God. 

If the Almighty God is able to do anything, what can prevent Him from becoming flesh to save the human race that He so loved? The Qur'an teaches that Christ is of the spirit of God, who in order to preserve His purity and holiness, used a miraculous virgin birth, befitting His becoming a perfect man and the Qur'an testifies exclusively of Christ's perfection.

How clearer could it be? Here the Qur'an is given us a positive and a well knitted answer, with no doubt in it, confirming the doctrine of the Becoming; ie., God became flesh in the person of Christ.

How could people deny such a divine truth, which is very clearly revealed to men?

John 1:14

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Link from an great YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0D8Uz4oQck

Some say that Matthew Chapter One and Two were not originally part of the book?

Objection: Norton said that Matthew 1 and 2 were not originally part of the book.

Response:

Those who find fault with the first two chapters of Matthew's Gospel account obviously do so because they doubt the virgin birth of Christ, for this subject is found therein. If you are an Muslim that uses this claim against the Bible then hear the next statement. The Koran also witnesses to Christ's conception through the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary, without human agency. Thus, any Muslim that denies the first two chapters of Matthew's Gospel account denies the Koran as well.

Consider the proofs which supports the authenticity of chapters one and two of Matthew's account"

1) Chapter three begins with the words, "In those days..." This indicates that it is dependent upon something described previously-namely, the contents of the preceding chapter. And since Matthew wrote his account of the Gospel with a Jewish readership in mind, it was of utmost importance for him to include a genealogy and this is what we find in chapter one.

2) The first two chapters are mentioned in all the old manuscripts such as the Codex Vaticanus, the Cambridge edition, the Codex manuscript at Trinity College, Dublin, as well as in the old Italian and Coptic manuscripts. These manuscripts were all written before the fifth century.

3) Ancient scholars and religious authorities mention chapters one and two. Clement (AD 194) mentions the genealogy of Christ listed in Matthew 1 and Luke 3. Also, Eusebius mentions a statement of Hegesippus who wrote that Emperor Domitian summoned two scholars to research the ancestry of David. Hegesippus makes reference to Matthew 2 where we read about Herod feeling threatened by the birth of Christ. Justin Martyr (AD 140) mentions all the incidents that are described in these two chapters. Iganatius (AD 107), in his letter to the Ephesians, writes that Christ was born miraculously of the Virgin Mary and that a star pronounced his birth.  Ignautius died six years after the death of the Apostle John, so his testimony occupies a prominent position among scholars. As for the writings of Irenaeus and the later Church fathers, there is no need to mention them, for all these men accepted the authenticity of Matthew 1 and 2. Regarding the attacks of the enemies of Christianity, Christian authorities mentioned their objections when refuting them; all of them refer to the birth of Christ as describe in chapters one and two of the Gospel according to Matthew.

Click on this link for YouTube video about the topic "Is Jesus God"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bKhCxcBo_U

    

Power of God to create

I will share this information to all Muslims. I believe that all Muslims needs to understand my points in this blog.

The Qur'an spoke of the Power of Christ to create and it mentioned in The House of Imran 49 that He created a bird. Some Muslim scholars objected saying that the ability of Christ to create a bird was not self-generating, but Christ could create "by God's permission". This phrase is of great importance to them because they believe that Christ was a man to whom God granted the power to create a bird out of clay. In response to that misunderstanding, we answer that if you read the Gospel of Christ, you will find that Christ prayed before He made His miracles as though He was asking the permission of God. In His action, He was teaching His disciples and the world the importance of the chain of command and of respecting positions and obeying orders. In the meantime, in order to show the world that he was not a mere human. He always proclaimed at the time He made the miracles that He and the Father are one. If He were not one with God. God would have stripped Him of His powers from the very beginning, from the very moment He claimed that He was equal with God. Therefore, His powers were not granted to Him as to a human but as to Someone Who is equal in essence with God.

The Qur'an insists that Christ possessed the power of creation (House of Imran 49). The Qur'an teaches that the power of creation is restricted to God only (Jonah 34). History testifies that God has never delegated His creating power to any mere human. Here, the conclusion becomes clear and necessary; i.e., the Qur'an is testifying publicly for the divinity and the deity of Christ. The Qur'an recorded that Christ used the same "method of operation" which was used at the time the human race was created, employing the clay and breathing in it. Life came directly from his breath. Notice that life came to the bird when the Lord Jesus breathed in it, showing that He Himself was the source of life (El-Hijr 28 &29). Here the student can see that the Qur'an agrees, overtly and covertly with the Bible text thay Christ was the creator for "All things were made by Him."

Click on this great video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2tYAgboOrI

Is there no continuous chain of authority for the Gospel according to Matthew?

In his epistle of AD 107, Ignatius quoted from this Gospel account seven times. He mentioned Christ's conception in the Virgin Mary and the appearance of the natal star that guided the wiseman to Bethlehem. This same Ignatius was a contemporary of the apostles, outliving the Apostle John by seven years.

Polycarp, a disciple of John the Apostle, quotes this Gospel account five times in his epistles. Also, many renowned Christian scholars of the first century testified that the Gospel of Christ according to Matthew indeed came from Matthew.

In the second century, Tatian wrote The Diatesseron or "The Harmony of the Four Gospels." This work was quoted by Hegesippus, a scholar who wrote profusely. He authored a Church history in which we find an account of Herod similar to what appears in Matthew's account of the Gospel. Justin Martyr (AD 140) often quotes from the Gospel according to Matthew and in his works he mentions verses from the prophecies of Isaiah, Micah and Jeremiah, just as Matthew does. Ireanues, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria and others also quote from this Gospel account.

In the third century, the Gospel according to Matthew was mentioned by Tertullian, Julius, Origen and Amonius, author of The Harmony of the Two Gospels.

In the fourth century, Festus questioned the authorship of the Gospel according to Matthew, owing to chapter nine, verse nine: "Then as Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, 'Fool Me.' And he arose and followed Him." Festus believed that if Matthew had really written the Gospel account attributed to him, he would have written of himself in the first person, saying "I," and not in the third person, say "he." However, writing about oneself in the third person was a custom among ancient authors. Julius Caesar, Josephus, Moses and Xenophon all referred to themselves in this way in their writings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNQ-Byu8klI

Muslims needs to believe in Jonah 94.

John 1:2, He was with God in the beginning.

When some contemporary Muslim interpreters heard that Christ is the Word of God, they objected saying: "Christ is a word among other words of God." They said, "here means a command: ie., Christ was born 'by God's command." This interpretation is a gross and intentional misleading and is clearly wrong in form and in essence, which is something that confirms the wisdom of the Qur'an verse that urges their prophet, saying: "If thou art in doubt... ask those who recited the Book before you (I.E., the Christians)." (Jonah 94). Oh, that the Muslims follow the Qur'an's advice, instead of attacking the Bible and the people of the Bible and they should learn from them the real meaning of the spiritual issues. When you read (The Women 171), you will find that Jesus is "His Word", and you will understand that the statement in House of Imran 45 did not come to contradict the principles of the verse in Women 171. Moreover, the statement in that verse did not focus on a process of "commanding the birth" but rather, it focused on the very identity of the person of Christ. The Qur'an must have expressed it in that fashion in order to stress the fact that Christ is God's Word. Christ is distinguished in the Qur'an above all the prophets, not only by His great and mighty works, which no other man could even come close to accomplishing, but also by the sublime distinctives that were given exclusively to Him. Some of those attributes were, "The Word of God" and "the Spirit of God" (Women 171, House of Imran 45). If Christ is The Word of God and His spirit, therefore, He is divine and eternal, for the Spirit of God and His Word are integral parts of God  and cannot be separated from Him. The Spirit of God and His Word are of His very Self; therefore, Christ is by necessity of the Godhead, from the beginning.

Great YouTube Video, Click here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEmJfuTAvFo&t=907s