It is true that in Luke 1:32, he is called the son of the Highest and in 1:35, the son of God but these expressions in Biblical idiom do not at all connote Divinity or partnership in Divinity. The Quran affirms that Mary was told that God would teach Jesus the book and the wisdom and the Torah and the Gospel and would make him a messenger to the children of Israel ( 3:49-50). The angel that appeared to Mary and told her that she would bear a son whom she should name Jesus also informed her that God will give him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob (Luke 1:32-33).
In fact, his function as a messenger of God was defined even before his birth by Divine direction as set out both in the Gospel and in the Holy Quran. It is clear, therefore, that Jesus consistently put himself forward as one who had been sent by God, that is to say, as a messenger of God. I can of my own self do nothing, as I hear I judge and my judgement is just because I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father which has sent me (John 5:30)Īnd the Father Himself, which has sent me, has borne witness of me. This is Eternal Life: to know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (John 17:3) Jesus always referred to himself as having been sent by God, meaning that he was a Divine messenger. The entire concept of the Trinity was foreign to the thinking of Jesus. It was long after his time that the expression son of God was transmuted into God, the Son, meaning thereby that Jesus was the second person in the Trinity. The expression, Lord, was applied to him but there is no evidence that those who made use of this expression with reference to him believed, or meant to convey, that he was God. Nowhere in the Gospels or the Epistles is it said that Jesus referred to himself as God or implied that he was God. He was called the son of God, an expression that was in common use in scripture but was always employed metaphorically and in no single instance did it connote God. This Paper was read out at the International Conference on Deliverance of Jesus from the Cross, held at Commonwealth Institute, London, on 2nd, 3rd and 4th June, 1978.
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