Lord, God, YHWH, Jehovah, Allah, Jesus
Editor's Comments
Most people seem to not realize that ALL of these Names refer to
the very same Lord, the One True God Whom Abraham was the first
person to Worship!
We think there is a broader, more complete, perspective that few
Christians or Muslims seem to realize.
- We each first believe the First Commandment, there IS exactly
One, True God.
- Christians have done a horrible job of explaining it, but that
One True God Chose to join earthly society for 33 years, for
reasons that only He would know. The ACTUAL God of the Universe
spent 33 years Walking the Earth!
- We tend to suspect that the Lord had been disappointed by
Adam, by Aaron and others around Moses, and by others over and over
and over, where He may have decided to actually JOIN human society
in order to better understand why we seem to do so poorly at
following what He Asks of us. This is essentially the same as
when some Medieval Kings would dress up in peasant's clothing
and then go wander around his Realm, a situation that occurred
a number of times, where a caring King wanted to try to understand
what life was like for his subjects.
- God then would have had two choices about how He would join human society:
(a) He could have arrived "spectacularly" in a public Miracle.
But then no one would treat Him like a human, but people would
have forever followed Him around asking for personal Miracles.
So He chose (b) He entered human society in the quietest way that
He could, by appearing to be Born of a human woman. Therefore,
Mary was selected, but it did not necessarily mean that she had any
Divine characteristics. She was NECESSARY in order that God could
join human society in a quiet way, such that He would be able to
experience as normal a human life as He could. Note that the
Bible has VERY few references to Mary raising Jesus, and she was
even somewhat surprised when Jesus was 12 and studying
with the Rabbis.
- Humans chose to call Him Jesus, but He was actually the One
True God, the same God that Jews call YHWH or Jehovah or that Muslims
call Allah, or that even Christians also call the Father. People of the
time would never have believed that the One True God of the Universe was
this "unimpressive" man! So, Christianity concluded that,
since God is capable of anything, that He remained "One
True God", but somehow simultaneously remained in Heaven
(Paradise) [watching over the Universe] while also walking the
Earth as Jesus. When later Christian leaders realized that this
is what had happened, they eventually developed a "Trinity
concept" that was supposed to explain how the One, True God
could have remained in Heaven while also walking the Earth as Jesus.
Everyone around was confused in thinking that Christians seemed
to believe in "two Gods", and they thought the Trinity
concept would fully explain the truth. It actually made most
people even more confused!
Notice that Jesus, with a self-imposed Kenosis (amnesia), would
never have even realized that he COULD do any Miracles, even though
He always could have. Instead, He always felt it necessary to
ask the Father to do Miracles that Jesus saw as necessary. As
a child, He therefore could never have attracted attention by
doing Miracles to impress other children or to cure someone's
illness.
Please note that this reasoning meant that Jesus/God Existed
before Mary! It is a Christian concept called the Pre-Existence
of Jesus. Indeed, Jesus Existed (as God) in Creating everything
in Genesis! Non-Christians and even some Christians seem to think that
Jesus came into existence at the Virgin Birth by Mary. No, He
had long Existed before that, and Mary simply enabled Him to join
human society. Virtually ALL modern Theologians agree that Jesus
always Existed, even being present at Creation, and certainly far
before Mary was ever born.
In the early years of the Christian Church, there were many different
opinions regarding Jesus, ALWAYS with the First Commandment in mind.
Some people said that Jesus was NOT a God, because that would mean there
were two! There were Devout Christians who felt the First Commandment
required that Jesus be "an adopted human" (Adoptionism)
and there were many Christian groups that argued that He could not have
been Divine, or only "somewhat Divine", again because of the
First Commandment. There were other early Christians who accepted that
Jesus was the One True God, but then didn't see how Jesus would have
Suffered on the Cross, or had any human feelings!
Church leaders took quite a while to develop
a "Trinity concept" that was meant to confirm that there
was One True God, but that He was so Powerful that He had the
capability of seeming to be more than one "Person".
(They also agreed that Jesus was "fully Divine" but also
"fully human", a slightly different subject!)
- In the Bible, Jesus sometimes "talks to" the Father,
which REALLY seemed to "prove" that there must be
"two Gods". Many modern Christian scholars believe that Jesus
was somehow given a sort of "amnesia" regarding His
Divine existence. (One theory on this is called Kenotic Theology)
Otherwise, as a child He would have done many Miracles (to clean
His room, to repair something that He had broken, to cure a child
friend of a cold, etc) and people would have quickly realized
that He was unusual. By Jesus not really knowing Who He was,
He was able to experience a very normal human life, but it resulted
in His sometimes looking up and talking to "the Father",
without realizing that it was actually Himself!
Few Christians seem to understand these things, and almost no Muslims
seem to. Few Christians have a good understanding of the Trinity,
and even they sometimes talk as though there are two or three separate
Gods (a serious error, as there is ONE True God!). Muslims therefore
believe that Christians believe in at least TWO separate Gods,
and therefore (justifiably) express criticism toward Christianity.
But Christians really believe in exactly One True God, the God of
Abraham, the same God that Muslims call Allah.
It is most accurate to think that there is NO difference between
the Christian concept of Father and of the Son, as they were actually
the exact same One True God. (Also the Holy Spirit.)
The result of this is wonderful! If Muslims studied Christianity
deeply to realize the truth of the above, they would realize that
the Allah of Muhammad actually walked the Earth just 600 years
earlier, as Jesus. I have carefully read the entire Koran, and there is NO
contradiction to this, of Allah walking the Earth as Jesus, the
"One True God" Whom we all believe in!
The description above is entirely compatible with all Christian beliefs,
and it is also completely compatible with all Muslim beliefs. Muslims
certainly have the highest of respect for Jesus (PBUH), and they even
expect Jesus to Return some day, just like Christians do! But this
understanding would encourage Muslims to have even higher respect
for Jesus, for He is Allah! And, hopefully, the Muslim criticisms
of Christians for "believing in a second God, Jesus" would
be seen as incorrect, and that we all really Worship the very same
One True God!
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