Islamic Christology: A Christian Response

Introduction

The specific issue between Muslims and Christians during Muhammads time and now continues to be Christological. The image of God as the Transcendent Other appears to be sacrificed by the Christian notion of Jesus as the Son of God, and Trinity. Thus the dominant image of Jesus in the Quran is not as one of the prophets who serve to illustrate the message and the ministry of Muhammad and also serve as a warning to those who do not listen to him, but as one who correct Christians of exceeding the bounds the Islamic structure of prophecy.

The Quranic Christology shows that ideas from a doctrinal dispute over the nature of Christ, that arose between the third and sixth century in the churches of the Mediterranean region, had advanced as far as Mecca. Resident Jews may also have influenced Muhammad with their rejection of Jesus' divine Sonship. Thus Muhammad denied the heavenly nature of Christ with a cutting sharpness. In Sura al-Ikhlas 112 we find the core of Islam in the command for the Muslim confession, "Allah begets not and was not begotten." This phrase is impressed upon every Muslim from childhood - God is not a father and never had a son. In Sura al-Tawba 9:29,30 Muhammad gave a more radical argument to this theme. He ascertained: "The Christians say, `the Messiah is the Son of Allah.' That is the utterance of their mouths, conforming to the unbelievers before them. Allah kill them! How they are perverted!" With this curse Muhammad asserts that anyone who believes that God is a father and Christ is His Son, must be annihilated by Allah. Who can deny that this is a manifestation of an antiChristian spirit? In Islam a real incarnation of God in Christ is unthinkable. In 1 John 2:22-23 and 4:23 the signs of the Antichrist are made obvious: "This is the Antichrist who denies the Father and the

Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either... Every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God, and this is the spirit of the Antichrist." 1

There are many Jesuses, despite the fact that there was only one. Permutations began appearing as early as the first century and have not abated, making efforts to uncover the historical Jesus, the real man from Nazareth, notoriously fraught and conflicting endeavors - as Christians who have tried can attest. The written record is incomplete and contradictory; archaeology can only assist and often merely confounds; scholars must detect and filter the "errors" of early accounts while keeping their own biases at bay. It is probably easier to meet Jesus in one's heart than to find him in the past - a venerable Christian theme, perhaps the most venerable. What remained of the man Jesus appeared, to some eyes, a little thin. The effect of this effort on the community of biblical scholars was predictable: conniptions, followed by factions. Among the statements declared inauthentic was this telling one: "Who do you say that I am?" 2

Essential differences

The commonalities between the Muslim and the Christian understandings of the human Jesus are not commonly appreciated. Yet they should in no way obfuscate the mutually exclusive answers given by Christianity and Islam on the question of Jesus' divinity. The doctrine of Jesus' two natures - divine and human - is a defining point of Christianity, while the essence of Jesus' person in Islamic tradition is shaped by his own consistent upbraiding of those who would attribute to him divine characteristics. The dialogue between Christianity and Islam comes through in a passage from the Quran in which God asks Jesus whether he told mankind to take himself and his mother, Mary, as two gods beside God. Jesus responds firmly, saying: "Glory be to you! It cannot be that I would say that which is not mine by
David Emmanuel Singh, Islam as a Context for Christian Theologizing: A Preliminary Search, in Ban galore Theological Forum. UTC, Bangalore, Vol. XXXII. No. 2. December 2000, pp. 60-72. 2 Sara Miller in the review of The Muslim Jesus: Sayings and Stories in Islamic Literature - a wandering prophet: the Islamic Jesus. Christian Century. January 2, 2002.
1

right" (Sura 5:116). This comment captures a consistent message of Islam: No man shares divinity with God.

Brian Brennan quotes Leirvik in The Jesus of Islam: Christians have more in common with Muslims than they realize stating rightly asserts that the crucifixion and concomitant question of redemption constitute the essential difference separating Christianity and Islam, from which other differences flow. Christians see the crucifixion as a revelation of the divine itself, through Jesus' death and subsequent resurrection. In contrast, Muslims believe that through divine intervention Jesus was rescued from the cross before he died. This can be interpreted as a sign of Jesus' helplessness and his status as a lesser prophet not able to effect the massive political change wrought by Muhammad. This difference is not merely one of emphasis. It highlights the fundamental opposition of Islam to the notion of a triune God, and the inability of Christians to question Jesus' divinity without ceasing to be Christian. 3

This theological divide between Muslims and Christians is real; it is not going to be filled in by threading together bits of Christian and Muslim scripture to concoct a Jesus lite. Yet controversy about the nature of Jesus is not new. Christianity had been around for several hundred years before the Council of Chalcedon definitively proclaimed the doctrine of Christ's two natures. The Islamic Jesus is no more radical from a Christian perspective than any one of a number of heresies that embroiled the early church, and innumerable theologians and philosophers have since continued to ponder Jesus' being. What are we to draw from this? Both Christians and Muslims can be rightly wary about sacrificing their spiritual or intellectual integrity in the effort to build shaky ecumenical bridges. Yet while faith differences are often portrayed as exacerbating a broader social and cultural gap between the primarily Muslim countries of the Middle East and Asia on the one hand and the largely Christian

Brian Brennan quotes Leirvik in The Jesus of Islam: Christians have more in common with Muslims than they realize, National Catholic Reporter, June 3, 2005.

United States and Europe on the other, a full understanding of the role of Christ in both faiths reveals commonalities that are no less real than the differences.

Negative Christology in the Quran: A Christian reaction to Islamic Christology

While we recognize the vast diversity of thought and attitudes within Islam, our response to this world religion must be limited to its core beliefs. Before offering such a critique, it will be both helpful and crucial to clarify the points of tension between Christianity and Islam Christology. While on a superficial level it appears that Christianity and Islam share common theological ground in some particulars (e.g., monotheism), a closer scrutiny of the two religions exposes several fundamental differences that can be reconciled only by a costly compromise by either the Christian, the Muslim, or both.

The controversy about the Christology of Christ is the major difference between Islam and Christianity. This difference keeps the followers of the two religions apart. Muslims look at Jesus Christ as a great Prophet of God and love and respect him as much as they love and respect Abraham, Moses and Muhammad. Christians on the other hand consider Jesus as God or Son of God, a concept that Muslims cannot accept. Islam teaches that Jesus never made such a claim for himself. As a matter of fact all the cardinal doctrines of Christianity that are rejected by Islam center on the personality of Jesus. Some of the important ones are:

1.

Jesus as the Second Person in the The Trinity:

Though questioned by some groups within

the pale of Christianity, the concept of the trinity has strong biblical support. 4 This doctrine does not suggest, as is alleged by non-Trinitarians, a tri-theistic construct of God. It simply affirms that there are three distinct persons (i.e., the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), yet all are one in essence. In other words, while the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit sustain distinct relationships to one another, they share the same
4

Brad Bromling, Trinity - From Nice or Heaven? Be sure: A study in Christian evidences, Apologetics Press, Jan. 1995.

divine nature. 5 In this regard, Christianity and Islam are firmly opposed to one another. Unlike the monotheism of Christianity that allows for a plurality within the divine essence, Islam condemns such a pluralistic concept of God. 6 The Quran cautions the people of the book (i.e., Christians) against calling God Trinity for God is only one God (Surah 4:171). And according to (Surah Maida 5:73) it says, They surely disbelieve who say: Lo! Allah is the third of three; when there is no God save the One God. If they desist not from so saying a painful doom will fall on those of them who disbelieve.

It should also be noted that Christian doctrine does not present a composite divine being; on the contrary, they affirm the undivided unity of the divine essence. The Muslim writer Suzanne Haneef misrepresents Christian belief on this issue as holding to a deity in three parts, to which responds God is not like a pie or an apple which can be divided into three thirds which form one whole. 7 Christians would heartily agree with her on this point; the problem for Haneef is that we do not believe that God is in three parts. There is one unique divine essence. The Quran misunderstands Christian doctrine on the Triune nature of God, and this in itself indicates that the Muslim holy book is fallible, and thus not divine inspiration.

Of course, the Quran not only misconceives the nature of the Trinity, it misconstrues the identity of the Persons: it presents us with three deities Allah, Mary and Jesus Surah 5:116 'And behold! Allah will say: "O Jesus the son of Mary! Didst thou say unto men, take me and my mother for two gods beside Allah?" Again, this presents a picture of a divided divine essence that Christians deny. We do not believe that Jesus was a separate deity from the Father; still less do Christians believe that Mary was a member of the Trinity. Based on Matthew 28:19 and 2 Corinthians 13:14, Christians believe that the Holy Spirit, rather than Jesus, is the third of three (more exactly, of the three-inone); Jesus is also represented as the Second Person of the Trinity.
5 6

Norman L. Geisler, and Abdul Saleeb, Answering Islam, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1993, p. 266. Zia Ullah Muhammad, The Islamic Concept of God, Noor Foundation International, May 1999. 7 Suzanne Haneef, What Everyone should know about Islam and Muslims, Kazi Publications, (Lahore, 1979), p.183.

2.

The Deity of Jesus: Consistent with Islams repudiation of the Trinitarian idea of God, the

Quran, though it exalts Jesus in many particulars, explicitly denies the deity of Jesus. While the Quran acknowledges that Jesus was a miraculous sign and divine blessing (Surah 19:21), Islamic Christology is totally devoid of divine content.8 Since Gods transcendent glory prohibits His begetting a son, the Quran presents Jesus only as the son of Mary, not the Son of God (Surah 4:171). Rather than possessing the divine nature as in biblical Christology (Philippians 2:8-12; Colossians 1:18), the Quranic Jesus was only a creature (Surah 43:59) brought into existence by Gods creative word (Surah 3:42-52). Islams view of Jesus demonstrates the vast difference between it and Christianity. And, far from being a peripheral issue, the deity of Jesus is an essential tenet of Christianity. Thus, while Christianity and Islam share a common monotheistic belief, there is no resolving their Christological differences as they stand.

Furthermore, since the Lord Jesus retains his human nature forever, eternally existing as the God-man, as well as being mans ultimate head and representative before God, he remains forever subject to the Father. (Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:20-23, 45-49; 1 Timothy 2:5-6)

There are also several lines of evidence in Scripture, which converge to prove that the Biblical writers regarded Jesus as human, but as more than human as well. They considered him divine. John says he was divine or God (John 1:1). Paul says he is the very form of God (Philippians 2:6) as well as our great God and savior (Titus 2:13). He is referred to as Lord (Matthew 2:43-45), Yahweh (cf. Romans 10:9, 13 and Joel 2:32) as well as the King of Kings (a designation a Jew such as John would only give God himself - Revelation 19:16). He does the works of God, including creating (John 1:3; Col. 1:15-20), sustaining (Hebrews 1:3-4), saving (Matthew 1:23), raising the dead (John 5:25); judging (John 5:27), sending the Spirit (a work assigned to the father as well; see John 14:26; 15:26), and building his church (Matthew 16:18). He accepts, as God himself does, worship from all men
8

Roelf S. Kuitse, Christology in the Quran, Missiology: An International Review 20, 1992, pp 355-369.

(Matthew 14:33) and angels (Hebrews 1:6) and some day all men will bow to him (something only God accepts; Philippians 2:10, Isaiah 45:23).

3.

Jesus is Word made Flesh:

Since the testimony of the New Testament writers is that

Jesus is the Word of God (who is God) become flesh, Muslims have asserted that the message of Christ has been corrupted. Hence, what we have in the New Testament documents are words attributed to Jesus, but never uttered by him. Yet, owing to the fact that nearly 25,000 manuscripts of the Bible, thousands of archaeological findings, as well as extra-biblical documents have proven beyond any reasonable doubt that the Bible provides accurate, eyewitness accounts on Jesus' deeds and life, Muslims have tried to find another way to discredit Christ's Divinity.

Once again this argument is unfounded since if the title was given solely to imply the creation of Jesus, then as suggested that Adam should also be called the Word of God. Yet nowhere in the Quran, or Hadiths for that matter, is Adam ever referred to by such a title. This illustrates quite conclusively that the title, when applied to Christ means much more than what Muslims would have Christians believe.

We are then logically forced to arrive at the same conclusion that the Apostle John comes to in the prologue of his Gospel; namely that Jesus, being the Eternal Word of God, is the complete manifestation of the Godhead in human form and the ultimate and final revelation of divinity. (John 1:1-3, 14, 18)

4.

Jesus as Prophet:

Islam only accepts Jesus as a Prophet. He is joined with Abraham,

Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and Moses as simply one of the Prophets (an-nabiyyin) between whom no distinction of any kind is made: Say ye: "We believe in Allah, and the revelation given to us, and to Abraham, Isma'il, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to

(all) prophets from their Lord: We make no difference between one and another of them: And we bow to Allah (in Islam)." (Surah Al-Baqara 136)

Deuteronomy 18:18 predicts another prophet like Moses; Acts 3:22-23 explicitly identifies this with Jesus (22 Moses said, 'the LORD God shall raise up a prophet to you like me from among your brothers. You will listen to everything he says to you. 23 'And it shall be, that every soul that will not listen to that prophet, will be utterly destroyed from among the people.') It has been a consistent polemic of Islamic apologetics that Deuteronomy 18:18 predicts Muhammad, rather than Jesus. 9 However, this ignores Deuteronomy 18:15 'the LORD shall raise up to you a prophet like me from among you, of your brothers; you shall listen to him.' The prophet is to come from the midst of the Israelites, and clearly this does not apply to Muhammad, though it does fit the picture of Jesus. Notably in Deuteronomy 17:15, where, permission having been granted Israel to establish a king over them, they are told of the restrictions upon his identity. Primarily, he must be the one chosen by the LORD. Secondly, he must be from 'among your brothers; you may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.' Clearly, the Kings of Israel had to be Israelites, and since the same terminology is employed here as in 18:15, 18, this demonstrates that the prophet had to be an Israelite. It is noteworthy that when King Herod Agrippa, c. 40 - 41 AD, read the passage about the ethnic identity of the king in Deuteronomy 17:14-20, 'he burst into tears, as he bethought himself of his Edomite ancestry.' 10 Clearly, the reference to 'brother' was recognized as meaning 'fellow-Israelite'.

5.

Jesus is the Messiah:

The Quran states that Jesus was the Messiah. He is called Al-

Masihu Isa - "the Messiah Jesus" (Surah 4.157, 171). The title Al-Masih (the Messiah) sometimes appears by itself as in Surah 4:172 and on other occasions he is called Al-Masihubnu Maryam - "the Messiah, son of Mary" (Surah 9.31), but on each of the eleven occasions where it appears the title Al-

10

Ahmed Deedat, What the Bible says about Muhammad, Kazi Publications (IPCI, Birmingham, undated), 1991, p. 5ff. Frederick Fyvie Bruce and David F. Payne, Israel and the Nations, InterVarsity Press, August 1998, p. 209.

Masih it is applied specifically to Jesus alone. When the Angel Gabriel first appeared to Mary he stated that the name of her son was to be Al-Masihu Isa (Surah 3.45). Jesus is called the Messiah eleven times in the Quran. Yet the Quran fails to explain the significance the title Messiah has in our understanding of Jesus. What exactly is a Messiah? What is the Messiah suppose to do? Why is Jesus called the Messiah? How do we know that he is the Messiah? The Quran fails to answer these questions.

Mark 12:35-37, quoting Psalm 110:1 identifies Jesus as the Messianic King, and this would also seem to be the import of Acts 2:36, given the parallelism of 'Christ' and 'Lord'. Christos, Greek for Maschiach - 'Anointed One' Priests, Kings and Prophets were anointed with oil, symbolizing the Holy Spirit, Isaiah 61:1, Zechariah 4:1-6 - i.e. the impartation of grace for office and visible appointment to such, together with establishment of particular relationship with God 1 Samuel 16:13; 24:6; 26:9; 2 Samuel 1:14.

6. life:

Jesus is the Author of Life: The Quran portrays Jesus as the divine Creator and Author of And Allah will teach him the Book and Wisdom, the Law and Gospel and (appoint him) a

messenger to the children of Israel (with this message): "I have come to you, with a Sign from your Lord, in that I make for you out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird and breathe into it, and it becomes a bird by Allah's permission. And I heal those born blind, and the lepers, and I quicken the dead, by Allah's leave; and I declare to you what ye eat, and what ye store." (Surah 3:48-49; 5:110)

This is the closest the Quran comes to acknowledging the omnipotence of Christ. Christ is given a prerogative that is God's alone, namely the ability to infuse life into non-living matter by the breath of his lips. This power bears a profound resemblance to the manner in which God fashioned the first man: And when thy Lord said to the angels: I am going to create a mortal of sounding clay, of black mud fashioned into shape. So when I have made him complete and breathed into him of My Spirit, fall down making obeisance to him (Surah 15:28-29). 9

From this we observe that Christ, similar to God, is a life-giving spirit. This fact is echoed in the Holy Bible: "... The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam (Jesus) became a lifegiving Spirit" (1 Corinthians 15:45). The implications of this passage on the divinity of Christ are so enormous that certain sects within Islam have had to deny its literal interpretation in order to avoid the obvious.

7.

Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega:

For the Muslim it is Allah and Allah alone

who is ascribed to be the beginning and the end and no human form or being can to attributed to be having this character. It says in the Quran, But to Allah belongs the Last and the First (Surah 53:25). He is the First and the Last, the Evident and Immanent; and He has full knowledge of all things (Surah 57:3). And to Us belong the Last and the First (Surah 92:13).

Whereas the God of the Bible conveys to us: "Listen to me, O Jacob, Israel, whom I have called: I am he; I am the First and I am the Last." (Isaiah 48:12) AND He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son." (Revelation 21:6-7)

And the Christ of the Bible resonates by saying: "Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End... I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star... He who testifies to these things says, 'Yes, I am coming soon.'" Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. (Revelation 22:12-13, 16, 20) The title First and Last, OR the Alpha and Omega, implies that God is the cause of all existence and will be the cause for all things to come into completion. Jesus Christ, the one who died, states that 10

it is He, as the very First and Last, who brought all things into being and will also be the cause for all things to come to a desired end. Hence, you begin and end with Christ, making Him the Eternal Creator God.

8.

Jesus is the Son of God:

The latter part of Deedat's booklet contains a relentless and at

times uncouth attack on the Christian doctrine and Biblical teaching that Jesus is the Son of God. Nevertheless he is obliged to concede that from at least one point of view, "he is pre-eminently the Son of God." He quotes a number of texts to show that the expression "son of God" is found often in the Bible in contexts where people are being described generally as children of God. He then concludes that when Jesus claimed to be the Son of God he was also only speaking in a metaphorical sense and that Christians err when they say that he was the Son of God. 11

No one can possibly draw such a conclusion without overlooking a wealth of evidence in the Bible that shows that Jesus was the Son of God in a unique and absolute sense. On numerous occasions he made statements that make this point very clearly. Consider this verse: "All things have been

delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Luke 10:22). As the Jews once testified, "so man ever spoke like this man" (John 7:46). No other prophet used such language to identify himself. All things, said Jesus, had been delivered to him and no one could know the Father unless the Son actually revealed him. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him (John 3:17).

11

Ahmed Deedat, Christ in Islam, Islamic Propagation Center International, 1985, p.29.

11

9.

Jesus is God:

Muslim Argument:

There is no clear biblical reference from the lips of Jesus claiming to be God. In

fact, nowhere in the Bible does Jesus teach anyone to worship him. Instead he commands that one should worship God (Cf. Mat. 4:10).

Christian Response: There is a very good reason why Jesus did not just come out right away and proclaim that he was God. Noted New Testament Scholar and Catholic Theologian, Raymond E. Brown states it best: "The question concerns Jesus a Galilean Jew of the first third of the first century, for whom `God' would have a meaning specified by his background and the theological language of the time. By way of simplification (and perhaps oversimplification) let me say that I think by a Jew of that period `God' would have been thought of as One dwelling in the heavens- among many attributes. Therefore, a question posed to Jesus on earth, `Do you think you are God? would mean did he think he was the One dwelling in heaven. And you can see that would have been an inappropriate question, since Jesus was visibly on earth. As a matter of fact the question was never asked of him; at most he was asked about his relationship to God." 12

Therefore, for Jesus to say that he was God without qualification would have meant that Jesus was claiming to be the same person commonly referred to by both Jews and Christians as the Father. Yet, Jesus was not the same person as the Father, but was distinct from him, sharing the same essence and nature equally. Brown notes: "... I would say that by that time (i.e. the last decade of the first century), under the impact of their quest to understand Jesus, Christians had in a certain sense expanded the meaning of the word `God.' It no longer for them simply covered the Father in heaven; it covered the Son on earth. They had come to realize that Jesus was so intimately related to God, so filled with God's presence, that the term God was applicable to him as it was to the Father in heaven.

12

Raymond E. Brown, Responses to 101 Questions on the Bible [Mahwah, N.J.; Paulist Press, 1990], p.98

12

May I emphasis that this does not involve a change in Jesus; it involves a change and growth in the Christian perception of who he was." 13

That Brown does not mean to say that it was Jesus' followers, and not Jesus himself, who came to realize that he was God, is clear from his following statement: "Did Jesus have an identity which his followers later came to understand in terms of his being God? If he was God (and most Christians do agree on that), did he know who he was? I think the simplest answer to that question is yes." 14

Hence, once Jesus had clearly affirmed the distinction between the Father and himself the term "God" came to be understood as a reference not just to a specific person, but also to all the Persons of the Godhead. Once this qualification had been made clear, Jesus went on to make divine claims. Some claims include the following:

(i) (ii)

Jesus clearly refers to himself as God to the Gadarene demoniac. (Cf. Luke 8:38-39) Jesus applies titles of God to himself, such as

(a) First and the Last. (Cf. Isaiah 48:12; Revelation 1:17-18, 22:12-13, 20) (b) I AM. (Cf. Isaiah 48:12; John 8:58, 18:4-6) This brief list conclusively proves that Jesus both knew and claimed that he was God. 15

Furthermore, the Holy Bible ascribes all the essential attributes of God to Christ:

Creator - John 1:3,10; Colossians 1:16-17; Hebrews 1:2, 10-12

13 14

Ibid Ibid., p. 99 15 Muslims will often point to the fact that there is no place in the Bible where Jesus says "I am God," or "worship me." When this point is brought out, indicate to the Muslim that by the same token nowhere in the Bible does Jesus ever say "I am not God," or "do not worship me." Nor was Jesus ever commanded to say, much like Muhammad in the Quran, that he was only a human messenger [Cf. S. 3:144; 17:93; 18:110]. Furthermore, neither does the Father ever say "I am God, worship me." Using this logic we would be forced to conclude that the Father is not God as well.

13

Omnipotent - Matthew 28:18; John 5:19-21; Philippians 3:21; Colossians 1:17; Revelation 1:8

Omnipresent - Matthew 18:20, 28:20; John 1:45-49; 14:20-21, 23; 17:23, 26; 20:2429; Romans 8:10; 2 Corinthians 13:5; Ephesians 1:23; 4:10; Colossians 1:27; 3:11

Omniscient - Matthew 9:4; 11:27-30; 16:27; 17:27; John 2:23-25; 16:30-31; 21:17; 1 Corinthians 4:5; Colossians 2:2-3; Revelation 2:23; 22:12

The preceding passages should clearly demonstrate that the Lord Jesus is not called God in the same sense that others were called as a result of their being God's spokespersons. He is truly God by nature. Christians are therefore not misinterpreting the Holy Bible but are correctly understanding and applying God's Word by their worship of Jesus as the True God and Savior of all men.

Conclusion

I have observed that one way to approach the issue of Christology in Islamic context would be to seek out sources in Islam as it grew beyond the sanitized environs of Arabia and came in contact with peoples from other lands, religions and philosophies. In particular one must look for evidence of thinkers and writers who upon their encounters with Greek philosophy represented Islam in newer philosophical terms and whose legacies were continued by theoretical mysticism. One must ask the question as to whether these newer systems of thought and Islam as it got filtered through them perceived God-man; theology-anthropology poles differently than did their conservative antecedents living within the sterile Semitic environments.

14

I believe there would be no better way to wind up this paper than to remind us in the manner Edmund J. Fortman best sums up biblical Christology by putting all the pieces together:

At times Paul writes as if Christ is subordinate to the Father. For he tells us that God sent forth his Son to redeem (Galatians 4: 4) and did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all (Romans 8: 32). And in a notable passage he declares that when all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to every one (1 Corinthians 15: 28). Taken by themselves these passages might warrant the conclusion that Paul held a merely subordinationist view of Christ and did not place Him on the same divine level with the Father. But if they are taken together with the passages cited above in which Paul does put Christ on the same divine level as the Father by presenting Him as the creator of all things and the image of the invisible God who was in the form of God and equal to God, it becomes clear that Paul views Christ both as subordinate and equal to God the Father. Possibly he thus means merely to subordinate Christ in His humanity to the Father. But more probably he wishes to indicate that while Christ is truly divine and on the same divine level with the Father, yet there must be assigned to the Father a certain priority and superiority over the Son because He is the Father of the Son and sends the Son to redeem men, and there must be ascribed to the Son a certain subordination because He is the Son of the Father and is sent by the Father. Nowhere, however, does Paul say or imply that the Son is a creature. On the contrary, he makes it clear that the Son is not on the side of the creature but of the Creator and that through the Son all things are created ... 16

16

Edmund J. Fortman, The Triune God, Wipf & Stock Publishers, March 1999, p. 18; underlined emphasis ours.

15