Muslims claim that Jesus is just a prophet and deny that He is God. They continually ask me for a verse where Jesus says, “I am God.” This is a form of idolatry because what they are essentially saying, if God says it exactly the way I want him to say it then I will follow him. This is creating a God to suit themselves and is called idolatry.
The message of the Bible is clear from both the Old and New Testaments that Jesus is God. A list of those verses is on our web page about Jesus on our website. I ask them to read the verses there and also listen to the Timothy Keller sermon which provides plenty of evidence of Jesus’ divinity.
Recently, I have come to a much simplier proof that Jesus can not be just a prophet. Let me lay little ground work. I will show you here that Jesus can not be just a prophet. He is either God, like he said he is, or he is a liar. If he is a liar, then he can not be a prophet. Deuteronomy 18:20-22 provides the test of a true prophet:
20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ 21And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?’— 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.
If what the prophet says comes true then he is a true prophet of God. Now look at who speaks to Moses when he is sent to lead the people out of Egypt. I know Muslims believe also in the prophet Moses. In Exodus 3:13-14 it says:
13Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'”
Now when Jesus comes along he is speaking with the pharisees. Here he claims to be God. See John 8:57-59
So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” 58Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” 59So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
The pharisees pick up stones to stone him. Why? They took his statement to be that he claimed to be God. As blasphemy. So, either he IS God, like he claimed. Or he is not God. If he is not God, he also can not be a prophet because he would have violated the rule of a true prophet as specified in Deuteronomy 18.
No, Jesus is not just a man, not just a prophet. He is God! To read and hear about how excellent Jesus Christ really is, please see my article The Excellencies of Christ.
For more information on witnessing to Muslims, please see my articles titled Test the Spirits, Witnessing to Muslims, and Witnessing to Muslims from Mark 12.
