Click to View

122 OBJECTIONS TO SOME CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES

things out of nothing, yet He has taught us that it is so, and we know that He is true. The same thing applies to the Incarnation. We accept it because God has revealed it.

106. M. If, as you say, Jesus did not foretell the coming of Muhammad, then He was not omniscient, and therefore not Divine.

C. This begs the question as to Muhammad's apostleship, which we deny, as you know, since we cannot find any proof of it. It would be more logical to say, since Christ did not foretell the coming of Muhammad, we have all the less reason to believe the latter's claims to be sent from God.

107. M. If Christ was the Son of God, why did He so constantly call Himself the Son of Man?

C. That He was the Son of God is clear from many passages, of which one is Matt. xxvi. 63, 64, where we find Him answering to that effect on oath. He called Himself also the Son of Man (not a Son of Man) to make His real Manhood evident, but especially (1) because in the Syriac language, which was His mother-tongue, the expression, Son of Man, is continually used to denote Man; (2) because Daniel (vii. 13) uses the title to denote the Messiah, and Jesus claimed to be that; (3) because of the promise that a man, one of Adam's descendants, the seed of the woman, should bruise the Serpent's head (Gen. iii. 15), and Christ was the person referred to. All this we learn from His use of the expression. Thus the Bible teaches that He is both God and Man.

AS ALLEGED TO BE TAUGHT IN THE BIBLE 123

108. M. Why then did He tell His disciples not to let people know that He was the Christ (Matt. xvi. 20)?

C. Because the time had not yet come for the announcement. The Jews would have taken up arms to make Him their King, if they had then heard that the Messiah had come, as they tried to do (John vi. 15). Even His disciples had not yet learnt that, instead of coming to receive an earthly kingdom, He had come to die on the cross. He had to teach them this, and He began to do so as soon as ever they had learnt that He was the Christ (Matt. xvi. 16, 21).

109. M. If He was Divine, He ought to have been omniscient, as God is (Surah VI., Al An'am, 59), yet He said that He did not know when was the time fixed for the Day of Judgment (Matt. xxiv. 36; Mark xiii. 32). [Nor did He know who touched Him (Mark v. I)1.]

C. In the very verses in which He is recorded to have said this, He speaks of Himself as the Son of God. Evidently therefore there can be no contradiction intended. He probably meant that in His human nature He had laid aside that knowledge, as He had laid aside His freedom from suffering and death.

110. M. If He was God's Son, why did He say that He could not give a place on His right or on


1 This question no more implies ignorance than does that in Luke xx. 24, or those in Gen. iii. 9, 11, 13.

Click to View

Go To Start: WWW.BIBLE.CA