Expert: Rev. Stuart Woodward - 9/3/2004

Question
im a muslim i believe jesus (peace be upon him) as a
messanger of god not the son of god or god . the thing i dont get why do some christians belive his is god. some chrisitans bleive he is the son of god and some bleive like us mulsims that he is prophet please tell me why do some christians regard jesus(peace be upon him) him higher than the all might jehova or as we call almmigight god allah. i thought christiany bleived jehova as the only god and has no prophets please explain it to me sorry if i offend you in any way

Answer
Dear Sajjad
Thank you for your question. Your question gives no offence and I hope that my reply also gives no offence as even amidst disagreement there must be respect and graciousness. Strictly all true Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and indeed is God Himself. I will try to explain how we understand that. We believe in only one God but that in a way that we do not understand He has revealed Himself as three, each of those three 'persons' having a distinct identity and yet being together one God. There is no disagreement or tension within God. He is the perfect model of community within Himself. Sometimes you will hear Christians refer to the 'trinity' to explain this but the word does not appeat in the Bible and is only a means to try to explain that which is really beyond the human mind to comprehend.

We believe that Jesus was the original 'Word' of God by which He spoke all creation into being. John's Gospel in the first chapter identifies the 'Word' with Jesus. We also believe that Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and had no human father. We do not mean by this that Almighty God had intercourse with Mary (that would be blasphemous) but that God caused the conception by His creating Spirit. Thus for the Christian Jesus was (and is) both fully God and fully human. The purpose of this entering into human experience was to rescue human beings from the consequences of sin and rebellion. Thus Jesus who though human was sinless was qualified to take to Himself, out of love, the consequences of our sin and guilt and meet the penalty through His own suffering and death. We believe that that was the only way human sin could be atoned for.

Jesus Himself told the Jewish leaders 'Before Abraham was I am'. They understood the significance of His words and wanted to stone Him for what they believed to be blasphemy. The words 'I am' are the same in Aramaic and Hebrew as the name God identified Himself with to Moses - Jehovah or Yahweh. To understand better what Christians believe about this I would encourage you to read the Gospel of John in the New Testament especially chapter 1 and chapter 8.

John chapter 3 verse 16 sums is all up. In the translation of the Bible I use it reads: 'For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.' We believe that no matter how hard we try, we are sinful people and always fall short of God's standards which are perfection. Thus we see our need for forgiveness but that can only come through the free and unmerited favour of God and through the death of Jesus on the cross. We then seek to live a good life, not to earn salvation as that is impossible, but in gratitude for that salvation which is ours when we come to Jesus in repentance and faith.

There is not space to say much about the Holy Spirit. We believe He is the Spirit of God and brings the knowledge of forgiveness, the cleansing of God and the power of God into our lives as we are open to Him.

You will appreciate that I had condensed much Christian belief into a short space and there is much more that could be said. However I hope my comments have been of some help to you in understanding what we believe.

Could I finally say that many terrible things have been done by those who claim to be Christians in the name of Jesus. This is shameful and a product of many in the West for hundreds of years not fully understanding what a Christian is. I minister in England and probably only about 5-7% of our population are truly Christian even though many more think they are, without understanding. I apologise for the wrong things that have been done in the name of Christianity. The Christian faith is not the property of the West (where moral standards are appalling) or indeed any culture. We believe it is a message of God's love and grace for all people everywhere.

May God bless you,

Stuart Woodward