The Son, The Star, and The Moon
Apologia Pro Fides Sua
First Sunday of Lent, 5 March 2006
With as few lines as possible, should I endeavour to express the substantive causes for my belief in relation to the friendship of faith that comes before and after Christianity. For the history, theology and philosophy of the faith I believe in, the culture of Sonship in God the Father, and all that pertains, proceeds from the Jewish religion. This culture of belief in the family of God stems from the relationship taught elegantly by Jesus, as Son of the Father, which is forcefully denied by the Jewish faith, and after the birth of Christianity, by the faith of Mohammed, Islam (which means, “submission”).
To my friends who are Jewish and Muslim, I have never had the need to address my own belief, which runs so gravely contrary to their own. The common history of civilisation is riddled with too many potshots, massacres, that now makes any real cry for “peace!” to be tangibly felt, and impactful.
These many problems – past and present – are indeed from the “herd following the bull’s battle cry”, and the slaughter that follows breeds more ill memories from which more bulls and battles spring.
The social upheaval should not detract from the serious cultural force that distinguishes one religious ideal from the other. Because these faiths have instrinsicly stemmed one from the other, directly or indirectly, there is some form of repudiation within each ideal against the other.
So, what is left is for the faithful Jew to reiterate his covenant with Yahweh, the Christian to confess his belief in the Sonship of Jesus, and the Muslim to submit to the will of Allah.
Here is therefore my list of justification for my own faith in the Son, in contradiction to the Star of David of the Jewish people, and the New Crescent Moon of the Arabian people.
1. The Kingdom of Heaven is the Family of God
As the followers of Jesus formed their own assembly (or church) and abandoned the Jewish religious Temple and synagogue life for their own supper, prayer and Eucharist, their understanding that their mission extended to all nations (cf. Matthew 28:19, Mark 7:24-30 or Matthew 15:21-28, John 4:23, Acts 10:34-36).
Believers of the covenant are now heirs of God in this kingdom. This kingdom of heaven preached by Jesus is the family of God, where he reigns as the anointed of God (ie. messiah, or king) but serves as priest, brother, son, friend, servant, and victim-offering. God is the Father of each person, not only that of Israel as tribe. In fact, what is revealed through Jesus is the astonishing fact that the family of God abolishes the relationships of tribe: “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” Then stetching out his hand towards his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone does the will of my Father in heaven is brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:46-50)
Throughout the Gospels and the apostolic writings there is enduring clarity and consistency in the teaching that we are called to be sons and daughters of God, and with this privilege, the duties and freedoms we are called to live by.
Judaism adheres to their unique status as chosen nation in covenant with Yahweh. Islam on the other hand regards the Arab nation as a tribe that submits to Allah, according to the teaching and traditions taught by Mohammed, his prophet.
2. Son of God, Eternal and True
No other religion can claim to be anything like Christianity, and any other after it, seem to borrow from it aspects of its history and teaching, or claim to be some form of it. Islam is unique in that it directly repudiates the core of Christian belief in the nature and person of Jesus, or his ministry, passion and resurrection, and Divine Sonship.
In fact, Islam seems to be heavily influenced by the Gnosticism, prevalent for several centuries preceeding Mohammed’s revelations, in the Arabian world among distinct religious groups which rejected the full validity of the Jewish bible and Christian canon. Gnosticism is infact often syncretistic, including ideas from Cabalism, while divergent in its own form. It is therefore easier for Christians to consider Islam as the prevalent form of Gnosticism, as preached by Mohammed, as its chief prophet towards the worship of Allah.
Christianity by its own admission accepts the validity of the Jewish scriptures (in fact, the Catholic and Orthodox preserve a more complete canon than current Judaism, which subscribes to the rabbinical council of Jerusalem AD67’s closure of the Jewish canon).
The revolutionary revelation in Jesus teaching was unheard of in his times, and ever since:
“I and the Father are one” (John 10:30),
“He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), and
“I am in the Father and the Father in Me” (John 14:10).
Jesus also knew his personal Sonship with the Father as being true, and eternal:
And when Jesus had been baptised he at once came up from the water, and suddenly the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. And suddenly there was a voice from heaven, “This is my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on him”. (Matthew 3:16-17, also Mark 1:11, Luke 3:22; cf. John 1:32, and Hebrews 1:5)
And suddenly Moses and Elijah appeared to them; they were talking with him… when suddenly a bright cloud covered them with shadow, and suddenly from the cloud there came a voice which said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favour. Listen to him.” (Matthew 17:2-5, also Mark 9:2-7, Luke 9:29-35, 2 Peter 1:17)
(Of working on the Sabbath) He answered them, “My Father still goes on working, and I am at work, too.” But that only made the Jews even more intent on killing him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he spoke of God as his own Father and so made himself God’s equal. (John 5:18)
“Abba, Father!” he said, “For you everything is possible. Take this cup away from me. But let it be as you, not I, would have it.” (Mark 14:36)
The high priest put a second question to him saying, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One” “I am,” said Jesus, “and you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.” (Mark 14:61-62, cf. Daniel 7:13-14, and Psalm 110:1-4)
For Jesus to quote Psalm 110’s first line, he would be recalling the whole psalm before the Jewish high priest who is trying him. Jesus is telling Caiaphas that he has no moral authority to judge him, but on affirm him:
Yahweh declared to my Lord, “Take your seat at my right hand,
till I have made your enemies your footstool.”
Yahweh will stretch out the sceptre of your power;
from Zion you will rule your foes all around you.
Royal dignity has been yours from the day of your birth,
sacred honour from the womb, from the dawn of your youth.
Yahweh has sworn an oath he will never retract,
you are a priest for ever of the order of Melchizedek.
Melchizedek was the priest-king of Salem (or Peace, as Jerusalem was called), who had blessed Abraham after his victory over his enemies. In this Psalm, David foresees God declaring to the Promised One of Israel an eternal victory and kingship. Jesus was recognised by the Magi and shepherds of David’s city, Bethlehem, as being of royal dignity at birth (Matthew 2, Luke 2), and being sacred from his conception (Luke 1:30-32).
Just as well, the Pharisees questioned Jesus’ authority, seeking to trap him (Matthew 22:41-46), and Jesus asked them about the Christ, whose son is he thought to be. They answered him, “David’s”. He said to them, “Then how is it that David, moved by the Spirit, calls him Lord (see Psalm 110 above)… If David calls him Lord, how then can he be his son?”
It will take the apostolic teaching and the early councils at Nicea (325), Constantinople I (381), Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451) to affirm that in Jesus the human and Divine found complete expression:
Jesus is begotten, not made, of the Father, of one in substance with the Father.
Within the person of Jesus is united the fullness of his human and Divine natures.
That the Jewish faith do not accept Jesus as prophet or messiah is clear, resulting from the explusion of the Christian Jews from the synagogues circa AD60-100. In the case of the revelations of Mohammed as prophet of Allah repudiating this Christological nature of Jesus can be understood as Gnostic influence. In fact, Mohammed drew on the prophetic ministry of Jesus being a failure because of the rejection of the Jews as the premise for his own mission.
The people of God as children of the Kingdom preached by Jesus, however, grew out of the traditional idea of Yahweh as a deity that transcends personal relationship. It is because of Yahweh’s infinite love for men that He came and dwelt among us (John 1:14), became one of us. Through his humanity, Jesus is found worthy to redeem the human race as worthy sons and daughters of God (Hebrews 10:19ff), entering the heavenly sanctuary and opening it to all men.
It is with his own Divine authority that Jesus is able to teach, drawn from his Father, and hence above all other form of revelation proclaimed by angels, prophets or men. It is this authority that he provided to his apostles to safeguard within his church (Matthew 16:19, 18:18, and John 21:15-17) which taught and preserved the witnessing of these teachings faithfully through the centuries (1 Timothy 3:15), with power to forgive errors and sins (John 30:23), declaring true doctrine wherever false teachings appear so that Christians share a universal, apostolic faith.
3. Incarnation, Ministry, Passion and Resurrection
There are various ancient religions where a god might take human form, and be incarnate for a time. In Hinduism, we hear of Vishnu or Shiva doing such, as Krishna and Buddha. Neither of these recorded incarnations lead to a specific theophany or revelation which draws humanity closer to the heart and depth of the life of God. Instead, the deity remains unmoved through these stories of incarnations among men, usually serving to reinforce the victory of moral good over evil.
Jesus is therefore unique: drawing on the Jewish cosmology, John explains that through the Son, all creation found material expression, and humanity’s likeness before God is mirrored in God’s creative Word. The liturgical Greek of John’s gospel is sublime:
In the beginning was the Word:
the Word was with God
and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things came into being,
not one thing came into being except through him…
The Word became flesh,
he lived among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory that he has from the Father as only Son of the Father,
full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-3, 14)
Modern Judaism rejects Jesus as messiah for the same reasons the early Christians were expelled from the Jewish synagogues: for heresy stemming from interpretation of scriptures to justify the mission of Jesus which was designed to discredit Mosaic principles and the purity of Jewish religious life. This separation or schism was to prove essential for the Christian faith to spread more openly, and be faithful to the mission to “teach all nations” without the strictures of the Jewish faith, practices or laws.
Islam, on the other hand, some five centuries after Jesus, specifically repudiates his Divinity, repeating a Christian heresy as we have seen above, with the prophetic revelation Surah IV “An Nisa” (Women) that says: “So believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not “Three”. Cease! (it is) better for you! Allah is only one God. Far is it removed from His transcendent majesty that he should have a son.” (verse 171), again in Surah V “Al Ma idah” (The Table Spread) which 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.” (verse 73). “The Messiah, son of Mary, was no other than a messenger, messengers (the like of whom) had passed away before him. And his mother was a saintly woman. And they both used to eat (earthly) food. See how we make the revelations clear for them, and see how they are turned away.” (verse 75). These verses are directed at those who say Jesus is the son of God, and insinuate that the plain historical truth was clear for them to believe, but instead, they have distorted the gospels and believed in lies.
However, the Christian gospels and New Testament canon as have been preserved through the centuries have been very consistent about its traditions and teachings, and these reject any form of Gnosticism proscribed by Mohammed’s revelations.
Jesus knew that he was a Messiah who was to be rejected, suffer, die and be glorified:
(Forseeing his own death, burial, and resurrection) “… so will the Son of man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.” (Matthew 12:40)
Then he began to teach them that the Son of man was destined to suffer grievously, and to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be put to death, and after three days to rise again. (Mark 8:31)
“I am the resurrection. Anyone who believes in me, even though that person dies, will live.” (John 11:25)
“Now has the Son of man been glorified, and in him God has been glorified.” (John 13:31)
“So slow to believe all tha the prophets have said! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer before entering into his glory? Then, starting with Moses and going through all the prophets, he explained to them the passages throughout the scriptures that were about himself.” (Luke 24:25-27)
Because of his human and divine nature, Jesus is able to reconcile humanity to the fullness of Divine life, creating an eternal relationship which finds life as the Family of God. That this idea of Divine Sonship seem so preposterous to the Jews and Muslims makes it all the more real and potent, “for God everything is possible.” (Matthew 19:26, cf. Luke 1:37 and Genesis 18:24) as the angel and Jesus himself proclaim.
So, why then would this dimension of the identity and divinity of Jesus be so hard to grasp? It will be Jesus himself who will ask his followers:
“But you,” he said, “who do you say I am?” Then Simon Peter spoke up and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Simon son of Jonah, hyou are a blessed man! Because it was no human agency that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 16:16-17)
As St. Paul explains the gift of revelation through the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from the Father, is the only way we can proclaim, “Jesus is Lord” (1 Corinthians 12:3), and therefore it is not through any means of human knowledge or effort that Jesus’ messanic identity and divinity would be revealed to anyone. Without faith and grace, this would remain concealed from men.
Final Testimony – The End Times
Chapter 24 of Matthew’s gospel is a rare occasion where Jesus divulges a prophetic warning of disaster. The disciples and Jesus had just left the great Herodian Temple situated on Mount Moriah. Because it was recorded that he next spoke sitting at the Mount of Olives, we can imagined he came down via the Golden Gate or the current St. Stephen’s (or Lion’s) Gate, directly into the Kidron Valley. Today, you may have to walk there via the Damascus Gate until you reach the garden of Gethsemane (which means “olive press”), on the old Jericho Road. At this point he openly warns that “many others will come using my name” (v. 4) and “that they will deceive many”. Strife among the nations will follow, and this would only be the beginning (v. 6-8). Persecution will follow, and the numbers of the faithful will be reduced (v.9-10). At this point, the gospel will be proclaimed with conviction (v.14) and all will end:
“Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky and the powers of the heavens will be skaken. And then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven; then, too, all the peoples of the earth will beat their breasts; and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” (Matthew 24:29-31)
We know from biblical scholarship that he was referring to the destruction of Jerusalem, which took place in AD 72, and subsequently, the final diaspora of the Jewish people. Because the gospel was likely to have been written after the fact, it is easy to reconcile the prophecy with the events that took place. One might be tempted to think of the moon without its light as an allusion to the “crescent new moon”, where the light is faintest. Others might suggest that the “stars” allude to Zionist zealotry, while powers of heaven being all other false religions such as astrology, divination, idolatry, pantheism, and so forth. Some say that the “sun” waning suggests the time when many Christians will abandon their own faith. It is at this point that the spiritual truth of Jesus Christ would be most evident and become the ultimate sign of contradiction.
By symbolic coincidence, the cross of Jesus is the mark of his Sonship and fidelity in God, which through his obedience, he was raised from the death and stands at the right hand of the Father. (Acts 8:56) Today, the six-pointed Star of David stands as the symbol of Zionism and the Jewish faith (the badge being worn as semitic identity during persecution as well), and the Crescent Moon being adopted by Islam as the symbol of the “new faith” of the Arab nation.
Because Jesus is consistent in thinking of spiritual terms, reading this unusual testament from his own mouth requires some contemplation for a better understanding. Immediately, we can grasp a sense of this eschatological proclamation. The order of the known world, the dominance of the prevailing paradigm where human effort struggles upwards towards the deity, will be completely overhauled by the singular phenomena of the Risen Christ, where “everything in the heavens and everything on eath” will be brought together under Christ (Ephesians 1:10) . This will upset and renew creation (Revelations 21:1, 5), put all things under his powerful command (Hebrews 1:3), draw everything into a personal relationship with God through Christ (Hebrews 2:5-3:6). Therefore, we can realise our spiritual potential to rise towards perfection, ie. perfect imitation of God in compassion and truth, without diminishing His transcendent glory, because it is from His infinite Goodness that we have Jesus who has shown us the Way, through the perfection of his own sacrifice (Hebrews 8).
The approach sustained by Jürgen Moltman’s Theology of Hope sees the last times breaking in from the future and bearing no relation to the events that transpire in history except to Christ’s cross and resurrection. This stands in contrast to that of Karl Rahner which relates to the eschaton as how the present tends to the future (Foundations of Christian Faith). Rahner proposes that the dynamism of grace allows natural events to be supernatural through human determination to cooperate with God. Repentance, suffering, death, judgement and resurrection that is selflessly embraced is experienced as a purification which finds fulfilment in the Beatific Vision through total openness to love through obedience (faithful cooperation with grace). Hell is the reverse or contradiction of this dynamism.
First Sunday of Lent, 5 March 2006
With as few lines as possible, should I endeavour to express the substantive causes for my belief in relation to the friendship of faith that comes before and after Christianity. For the history, theology and philosophy of the faith I believe in, the culture of Sonship in God the Father, and all that pertains, proceeds from the Jewish religion. This culture of belief in the family of God stems from the relationship taught elegantly by Jesus, as Son of the Father, which is forcefully denied by the Jewish faith, and after the birth of Christianity, by the faith of Mohammed, Islam (which means, “submission”).
To my friends who are Jewish and Muslim, I have never had the need to address my own belief, which runs so gravely contrary to their own. The common history of civilisation is riddled with too many potshots, massacres, that now makes any real cry for “peace!” to be tangibly felt, and impactful.
These many problems – past and present – are indeed from the “herd following the bull’s battle cry”, and the slaughter that follows breeds more ill memories from which more bulls and battles spring.
The social upheaval should not detract from the serious cultural force that distinguishes one religious ideal from the other. Because these faiths have instrinsicly stemmed one from the other, directly or indirectly, there is some form of repudiation within each ideal against the other.
So, what is left is for the faithful Jew to reiterate his covenant with Yahweh, the Christian to confess his belief in the Sonship of Jesus, and the Muslim to submit to the will of Allah.
Here is therefore my list of justification for my own faith in the Son, in contradiction to the Star of David of the Jewish people, and the New Crescent Moon of the Arabian people.
1. The Kingdom of Heaven is the Family of God
As the followers of Jesus formed their own assembly (or church) and abandoned the Jewish religious Temple and synagogue life for their own supper, prayer and Eucharist, their understanding that their mission extended to all nations (cf. Matthew 28:19, Mark 7:24-30 or Matthew 15:21-28, John 4:23, Acts 10:34-36).
Believers of the covenant are now heirs of God in this kingdom. This kingdom of heaven preached by Jesus is the family of God, where he reigns as the anointed of God (ie. messiah, or king) but serves as priest, brother, son, friend, servant, and victim-offering. God is the Father of each person, not only that of Israel as tribe. In fact, what is revealed through Jesus is the astonishing fact that the family of God abolishes the relationships of tribe: “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” Then stetching out his hand towards his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone does the will of my Father in heaven is brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:46-50)
Throughout the Gospels and the apostolic writings there is enduring clarity and consistency in the teaching that we are called to be sons and daughters of God, and with this privilege, the duties and freedoms we are called to live by.
Judaism adheres to their unique status as chosen nation in covenant with Yahweh. Islam on the other hand regards the Arab nation as a tribe that submits to Allah, according to the teaching and traditions taught by Mohammed, his prophet.
2. Son of God, Eternal and True
No other religion can claim to be anything like Christianity, and any other after it, seem to borrow from it aspects of its history and teaching, or claim to be some form of it. Islam is unique in that it directly repudiates the core of Christian belief in the nature and person of Jesus, or his ministry, passion and resurrection, and Divine Sonship.
In fact, Islam seems to be heavily influenced by the Gnosticism, prevalent for several centuries preceeding Mohammed’s revelations, in the Arabian world among distinct religious groups which rejected the full validity of the Jewish bible and Christian canon. Gnosticism is infact often syncretistic, including ideas from Cabalism, while divergent in its own form. It is therefore easier for Christians to consider Islam as the prevalent form of Gnosticism, as preached by Mohammed, as its chief prophet towards the worship of Allah.
Christianity by its own admission accepts the validity of the Jewish scriptures (in fact, the Catholic and Orthodox preserve a more complete canon than current Judaism, which subscribes to the rabbinical council of Jerusalem AD67’s closure of the Jewish canon).
The revolutionary revelation in Jesus teaching was unheard of in his times, and ever since:
“I and the Father are one” (John 10:30),
“He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), and
“I am in the Father and the Father in Me” (John 14:10).
Jesus also knew his personal Sonship with the Father as being true, and eternal:
And when Jesus had been baptised he at once came up from the water, and suddenly the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. And suddenly there was a voice from heaven, “This is my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on him”. (Matthew 3:16-17, also Mark 1:11, Luke 3:22; cf. John 1:32, and Hebrews 1:5)
And suddenly Moses and Elijah appeared to them; they were talking with him… when suddenly a bright cloud covered them with shadow, and suddenly from the cloud there came a voice which said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favour. Listen to him.” (Matthew 17:2-5, also Mark 9:2-7, Luke 9:29-35, 2 Peter 1:17)
(Of working on the Sabbath) He answered them, “My Father still goes on working, and I am at work, too.” But that only made the Jews even more intent on killing him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he spoke of God as his own Father and so made himself God’s equal. (John 5:18)
“Abba, Father!” he said, “For you everything is possible. Take this cup away from me. But let it be as you, not I, would have it.” (Mark 14:36)
The high priest put a second question to him saying, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One” “I am,” said Jesus, “and you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.” (Mark 14:61-62, cf. Daniel 7:13-14, and Psalm 110:1-4)
For Jesus to quote Psalm 110’s first line, he would be recalling the whole psalm before the Jewish high priest who is trying him. Jesus is telling Caiaphas that he has no moral authority to judge him, but on affirm him:
Yahweh declared to my Lord, “Take your seat at my right hand,
till I have made your enemies your footstool.”
Yahweh will stretch out the sceptre of your power;
from Zion you will rule your foes all around you.
Royal dignity has been yours from the day of your birth,
sacred honour from the womb, from the dawn of your youth.
Yahweh has sworn an oath he will never retract,
you are a priest for ever of the order of Melchizedek.
Melchizedek was the priest-king of Salem (or Peace, as Jerusalem was called), who had blessed Abraham after his victory over his enemies. In this Psalm, David foresees God declaring to the Promised One of Israel an eternal victory and kingship. Jesus was recognised by the Magi and shepherds of David’s city, Bethlehem, as being of royal dignity at birth (Matthew 2, Luke 2), and being sacred from his conception (Luke 1:30-32).
Just as well, the Pharisees questioned Jesus’ authority, seeking to trap him (Matthew 22:41-46), and Jesus asked them about the Christ, whose son is he thought to be. They answered him, “David’s”. He said to them, “Then how is it that David, moved by the Spirit, calls him Lord (see Psalm 110 above)… If David calls him Lord, how then can he be his son?”
It will take the apostolic teaching and the early councils at Nicea (325), Constantinople I (381), Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451) to affirm that in Jesus the human and Divine found complete expression:
Jesus is begotten, not made, of the Father, of one in substance with the Father.
Within the person of Jesus is united the fullness of his human and Divine natures.
That the Jewish faith do not accept Jesus as prophet or messiah is clear, resulting from the explusion of the Christian Jews from the synagogues circa AD60-100. In the case of the revelations of Mohammed as prophet of Allah repudiating this Christological nature of Jesus can be understood as Gnostic influence. In fact, Mohammed drew on the prophetic ministry of Jesus being a failure because of the rejection of the Jews as the premise for his own mission.
The people of God as children of the Kingdom preached by Jesus, however, grew out of the traditional idea of Yahweh as a deity that transcends personal relationship. It is because of Yahweh’s infinite love for men that He came and dwelt among us (John 1:14), became one of us. Through his humanity, Jesus is found worthy to redeem the human race as worthy sons and daughters of God (Hebrews 10:19ff), entering the heavenly sanctuary and opening it to all men.
It is with his own Divine authority that Jesus is able to teach, drawn from his Father, and hence above all other form of revelation proclaimed by angels, prophets or men. It is this authority that he provided to his apostles to safeguard within his church (Matthew 16:19, 18:18, and John 21:15-17) which taught and preserved the witnessing of these teachings faithfully through the centuries (1 Timothy 3:15), with power to forgive errors and sins (John 30:23), declaring true doctrine wherever false teachings appear so that Christians share a universal, apostolic faith.
3. Incarnation, Ministry, Passion and Resurrection
There are various ancient religions where a god might take human form, and be incarnate for a time. In Hinduism, we hear of Vishnu or Shiva doing such, as Krishna and Buddha. Neither of these recorded incarnations lead to a specific theophany or revelation which draws humanity closer to the heart and depth of the life of God. Instead, the deity remains unmoved through these stories of incarnations among men, usually serving to reinforce the victory of moral good over evil.
Jesus is therefore unique: drawing on the Jewish cosmology, John explains that through the Son, all creation found material expression, and humanity’s likeness before God is mirrored in God’s creative Word. The liturgical Greek of John’s gospel is sublime:
In the beginning was the Word:
the Word was with God
and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things came into being,
not one thing came into being except through him…
The Word became flesh,
he lived among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory that he has from the Father as only Son of the Father,
full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-3, 14)
Modern Judaism rejects Jesus as messiah for the same reasons the early Christians were expelled from the Jewish synagogues: for heresy stemming from interpretation of scriptures to justify the mission of Jesus which was designed to discredit Mosaic principles and the purity of Jewish religious life. This separation or schism was to prove essential for the Christian faith to spread more openly, and be faithful to the mission to “teach all nations” without the strictures of the Jewish faith, practices or laws.
Islam, on the other hand, some five centuries after Jesus, specifically repudiates his Divinity, repeating a Christian heresy as we have seen above, with the prophetic revelation Surah IV “An Nisa” (Women) that says: “So believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not “Three”. Cease! (it is) better for you! Allah is only one God. Far is it removed from His transcendent majesty that he should have a son.” (verse 171), again in Surah V “Al Ma idah” (The Table Spread) which 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.” (verse 73). “The Messiah, son of Mary, was no other than a messenger, messengers (the like of whom) had passed away before him. And his mother was a saintly woman. And they both used to eat (earthly) food. See how we make the revelations clear for them, and see how they are turned away.” (verse 75). These verses are directed at those who say Jesus is the son of God, and insinuate that the plain historical truth was clear for them to believe, but instead, they have distorted the gospels and believed in lies.
However, the Christian gospels and New Testament canon as have been preserved through the centuries have been very consistent about its traditions and teachings, and these reject any form of Gnosticism proscribed by Mohammed’s revelations.
Jesus knew that he was a Messiah who was to be rejected, suffer, die and be glorified:
(Forseeing his own death, burial, and resurrection) “… so will the Son of man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.” (Matthew 12:40)
Then he began to teach them that the Son of man was destined to suffer grievously, and to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be put to death, and after three days to rise again. (Mark 8:31)
“I am the resurrection. Anyone who believes in me, even though that person dies, will live.” (John 11:25)
“Now has the Son of man been glorified, and in him God has been glorified.” (John 13:31)
“So slow to believe all tha the prophets have said! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer before entering into his glory? Then, starting with Moses and going through all the prophets, he explained to them the passages throughout the scriptures that were about himself.” (Luke 24:25-27)
Because of his human and divine nature, Jesus is able to reconcile humanity to the fullness of Divine life, creating an eternal relationship which finds life as the Family of God. That this idea of Divine Sonship seem so preposterous to the Jews and Muslims makes it all the more real and potent, “for God everything is possible.” (Matthew 19:26, cf. Luke 1:37 and Genesis 18:24) as the angel and Jesus himself proclaim.
So, why then would this dimension of the identity and divinity of Jesus be so hard to grasp? It will be Jesus himself who will ask his followers:
“But you,” he said, “who do you say I am?” Then Simon Peter spoke up and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Simon son of Jonah, hyou are a blessed man! Because it was no human agency that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 16:16-17)
As St. Paul explains the gift of revelation through the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from the Father, is the only way we can proclaim, “Jesus is Lord” (1 Corinthians 12:3), and therefore it is not through any means of human knowledge or effort that Jesus’ messanic identity and divinity would be revealed to anyone. Without faith and grace, this would remain concealed from men.
Final Testimony – The End Times
Chapter 24 of Matthew’s gospel is a rare occasion where Jesus divulges a prophetic warning of disaster. The disciples and Jesus had just left the great Herodian Temple situated on Mount Moriah. Because it was recorded that he next spoke sitting at the Mount of Olives, we can imagined he came down via the Golden Gate or the current St. Stephen’s (or Lion’s) Gate, directly into the Kidron Valley. Today, you may have to walk there via the Damascus Gate until you reach the garden of Gethsemane (which means “olive press”), on the old Jericho Road. At this point he openly warns that “many others will come using my name” (v. 4) and “that they will deceive many”. Strife among the nations will follow, and this would only be the beginning (v. 6-8). Persecution will follow, and the numbers of the faithful will be reduced (v.9-10). At this point, the gospel will be proclaimed with conviction (v.14) and all will end:
“Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky and the powers of the heavens will be skaken. And then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven; then, too, all the peoples of the earth will beat their breasts; and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” (Matthew 24:29-31)
We know from biblical scholarship that he was referring to the destruction of Jerusalem, which took place in AD 72, and subsequently, the final diaspora of the Jewish people. Because the gospel was likely to have been written after the fact, it is easy to reconcile the prophecy with the events that took place. One might be tempted to think of the moon without its light as an allusion to the “crescent new moon”, where the light is faintest. Others might suggest that the “stars” allude to Zionist zealotry, while powers of heaven being all other false religions such as astrology, divination, idolatry, pantheism, and so forth. Some say that the “sun” waning suggests the time when many Christians will abandon their own faith. It is at this point that the spiritual truth of Jesus Christ would be most evident and become the ultimate sign of contradiction.
By symbolic coincidence, the cross of Jesus is the mark of his Sonship and fidelity in God, which through his obedience, he was raised from the death and stands at the right hand of the Father. (Acts 8:56) Today, the six-pointed Star of David stands as the symbol of Zionism and the Jewish faith (the badge being worn as semitic identity during persecution as well), and the Crescent Moon being adopted by Islam as the symbol of the “new faith” of the Arab nation.
Because Jesus is consistent in thinking of spiritual terms, reading this unusual testament from his own mouth requires some contemplation for a better understanding. Immediately, we can grasp a sense of this eschatological proclamation. The order of the known world, the dominance of the prevailing paradigm where human effort struggles upwards towards the deity, will be completely overhauled by the singular phenomena of the Risen Christ, where “everything in the heavens and everything on eath” will be brought together under Christ (Ephesians 1:10) . This will upset and renew creation (Revelations 21:1, 5), put all things under his powerful command (Hebrews 1:3), draw everything into a personal relationship with God through Christ (Hebrews 2:5-3:6). Therefore, we can realise our spiritual potential to rise towards perfection, ie. perfect imitation of God in compassion and truth, without diminishing His transcendent glory, because it is from His infinite Goodness that we have Jesus who has shown us the Way, through the perfection of his own sacrifice (Hebrews 8).
The approach sustained by Jürgen Moltman’s Theology of Hope sees the last times breaking in from the future and bearing no relation to the events that transpire in history except to Christ’s cross and resurrection. This stands in contrast to that of Karl Rahner which relates to the eschaton as how the present tends to the future (Foundations of Christian Faith). Rahner proposes that the dynamism of grace allows natural events to be supernatural through human determination to cooperate with God. Repentance, suffering, death, judgement and resurrection that is selflessly embraced is experienced as a purification which finds fulfilment in the Beatific Vision through total openness to love through obedience (faithful cooperation with grace). Hell is the reverse or contradiction of this dynamism.
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