Today on the Evangelists Podcast, Trinity in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00The Evangelists Podcast. Encouragement to speak life to a needy world. With Glenn Scrivener and Andy Brinkley.
SPEAKER_01This is the Evangelist Podcast, and we're uh looking at the Trinity in the Old Testament this time. We're going to be talking about a debate that you did, Glenn, with Musharif Hussein, who's an imam from Nottingham. That's right. Yeah. That was a few weeks ago now.
SPEAKER_02I think we must have recorded that at the end of June or something. Oh really? Yeah, yeah, a while a while back. So um Justin Briley has kept it in the can, so he can go swanning off on holiday and that sort of thing, I imagine. And having uh having a lovely August. But um so yeah, so it's been a while since I actually had this debate and I've forgotten half of what I said, and then I've worried about the rest of what I've said, and it's it's funny, you know, you just you're in the heat of battle and in the moment and you say things, and I I wonder whether they've come across or not. Uh but I'll let other people be the judge of that.
SPEAKER_01You always think of things afterwards that you should I could have said it better or if only I'd taken this route in the I know.
SPEAKER_02I was brilliant about three days after the debate, honestly. Absolutely, yeah.
SPEAKER_01They say the best time to write a book is two years after you've written it or something.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think oh that's so that's so true. I remember recording um the 321 audiobook. And literally the the the little internal monologue that was going on in my head as I was reading out the 321 book was I wouldn't have put it like that. I wouldn't have put it like that. You did. That's the thing. The other half of my brain's going, you did put it like that, shut up and read.
SPEAKER_01Oh dear. What have you been doing in the meantime since the debates?
SPEAKER_02Since the debate, I have been tweeting, obviously. Um mainly just tweeting. Um I have been Writing. Writing. That's yes, that's a remind me of what I've been doing. I've I've uh written uh one book called Either Long Story Short or Bible Express. Right. Um Long Story Short is a better name, but there are other books called Long Story Short. If it's Long Story Short, it'll be something like Long Story Short, The Bible in Twelve Famous Phrases. Right. Something like that. Um or if it's Bible Express, see there's a double meaning with express. Is it an expression or is it an express train? Hey, hey. Um a whistle stop tour through the Bible. Um so yeah, twelve chapters, which are hopefully quite punchy, you know, but only only about two thousand words per chapter, which is only, you know, handful of pages. Yeah, yeah. With with verbose me, yeah. So this is a uh fun, fast-paced Bible overview that assumes no prior knowledge. So you could give it to a non-Christian friend. Um or I I think where it might have the most traction is actually with a new believer giving people a bird's eye view of the Bible and and uh just orienting themselves to the story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. And I hope that'll be really um helpful for them. But I also help hope it's helpful for for all Christians to see how Jesus is at the center of all scripture. That's really what we'll be thinking about uh in in the podcast today. Jesus right there in the Old Testament, Jesus shaping everything that we believe about God right from Moses onwards. So um I think that will be a distinctive about this book. There are lots of books that will tell you that there are patterns in the Bible, and and I think when people read a Bible overview, they can get excited about a pattern. You know, oh look, look how there's this theme of exile and return. And I think people can get uh a little bit excited about a pattern for about a week or two. And it's like, oh yeah, I see how the scriptures hang together. There's an idea that sort of hangs the scriptures together. People can get excited for a couple of weeks about that. But I think if they see a person holding the scriptures together, if they see Christ in all of Scripture, that I think really establishes them as disciples, like for life. So that's what I've tried to do, to show how Jesus is really at the heart of all the scriptures, from in the beginning in Genesis right through to Hallelujah in Revelation. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you're also doing sort of a similar thing, but on a larger scale with reading between the lines. Yes. So you've got sort of uh devotional coming up, three hundred and sixty-five.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, because yeah. Devotionals. I've written three hundred and sixty-six because I did it in a leap year. But um, yeah, so three, six, five are coming out. So uh volume one is coming out with uh ten of those, which daily readings, so that'll be the Old Testament volume, hundred and eighty um readings there, and then uh we'll publish the the second volume ready for July when everyone will have uh gotten through the Old Testament. Yeah, so that's coming out with ten of those, so look out for that. That's probably the one that's gonna come out first, because ten of those are very speedy. So um that'll that'll be out in time for Christmas, out in time for your New Year's Bible reading plans. Good.
SPEAKER_01Um, we can't really let this episode go without mentioning the Christmas campaign. The Christmas campaign.
SPEAKER_02Holidays are coming, holidays are coming.
SPEAKER_01Yes, so for people who haven't listened, had heard being where have you been?
SPEAKER_02Where have you been? So Christmas is a huge deal, and Christmas mini films are a huge deal in the UK anyway. Certainly um, you know, the holidays are coming, holidays are coming, you know, advertisements. When they when they came on TV, people say, Ah, that's when Christmas begins. When the John Lewis commercials come on TV, people say, That's when Christmas begins. So we really want to, you know, be in amongst those films and with that kind of format preaching the Christmas story. Because wouldn't it be great to have these high quality mini films that are kind of like the John Lewis stuff? But instead of telling people to buy more toasters, um, actually tell people about Christmas. Wouldn't that be something? So, yeah, so that's what we're trying to do. And and uh yeah, you can go to give.net slash Christmas films and you can help us make them.
SPEAKER_01Yep, and we're sort of crowdfunding to uh to get the pennies in to pay everybody.
SPEAKER_02That's right, yeah, because we're we're gonna pay real professionals, not just not just like idiots like me, but um real actual, you know, award-winning script writers like James Kerry and award-winning actors, which oh I can't I can't mention the names, but they are award-winning and award-winning filmmakers and filmographers. So um, yeah, we need we need a few pennies to scrape together, but when we do, I think it has the potential to go large.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well, we're gonna dive into the main subject of uh the podcast today, and uh this is about your um debate with Masharraf Hussein.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um you've written a post on our blog on Speak Life website and just sort of following up really from your debate.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I'm gonna write some more on there as well. So um I might even stretch to about three posts. Do you like a series? I could yeah, it could be a series, how about that?
SPEAKER_01So, I mean you've titled it Moses' Doctrine of God is not Muhammad's.
SPEAKER_02That's right. That was really the issue. Um so uh, you know, I wasn't trying to defend whether the Trinity is in the old testament, because it's very easy to say, well, the word Trinity is not there. But that's kind of missed the point because the words trinity is not in the New Testament either. The issue is does Moses, when he writes Genesis to Deuteronomy, does he describe a multipersonal doctrine of God? Is the unity of God that Moses you know describes a compound unity? And I I think when you press into the details of the Old Testament, absolutely you have to conclude that that Moses' doctrine of God is not at all like Muhammad's doctrine of God. Muhammad's doctrine of God is that there is one God in one person, and that there you know the God's oneness for the Muslim is a mathematical singularity. Um and that's almost the definitional thing about Allah. He has no partners. You cannot associate a partner with Allah, that is to commit shirk, which is the worst and filthiest of all sins. Um Allah is alone, he is a mathematical singularity. Is that what Moses is talking about? When he writes in Deuteronomy chapter six, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And really the debate was was me saying, absolutely not. And if you just turn to almost any chapter that Moses wrote, you'll see a very different doctrine of God. Therefore, Muhammad is departing from Moses' doctrine of God.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. What did you learn from Musharraf?
SPEAKER_02I really liked Musharraf and and um yeah, enjoy enjoyed our conversation, and one thing I really learnt from him was uh his quoting a scripture. And he would he would almost in everything that he said say, well, in Surah 112 it says, and he would like recite the the you know the crime in English, uh which is helpful for us. Um but but he seemed to have a confidence in his scriptures, uh, which was actually really refreshing and uh and it was a challenge to me, and it sort of made me think, you know what, Masharif, he's not just trusting to clever arguments, he seems to think that there might be a power to his own scriptures, and he doesn't mind just letting his own scriptures speak for themselves. And that was that was a challenge to me because I I came into the debate ready with a whole slew of scriptures, and I was gonna go through a bunch of different passages in Genesis and then go to uh Daniel 7, and I was gonna show, you know, that look, if you take Genesis 16, verse 7 seriously, you know, then you must conclude that, you know, Moses is proto-Trinitarian, and I was gonna try and like really nail us down on scripture. And then I kind of from one angle, from one perspective, I guess you could say I bottled it. Because because I I kind of thought I don't want to I don't want to get bogged down in this one scripture, because he might just dismiss it and then I've got nothing. And so I tried to make arguments from the whole sweep of the scriptures and that sort of thing, and I didn't I wasn't as specific as Masharraf was when he was he was quoting this scripture. And that's a regret of mine. I th I think looking back, I should have I should have I and I did do this to s to some degree, and people can listen and and hear hear what I did, but um perhaps I should have more done what Masharraf did, which is to to say, look, um, Genesis 16, verse 7. Let's read all the way down to verse 11, and let's see how, you know, this figure in verse 7 cannot be the same as the figure in verse 9, and let's see how, you know, and and really anchor my arguments scripturally like that. Um so I I I learnt from Masharraf. Right. Um to really anchor my own arguments in in scripture.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, what what do you think he learnt from you?
SPEAKER_02I don't know. I what I hope he learnt from me is that the Muslim doctrine of God is not obvious. There's nothing obvious about Unitarianism. There's nothing obvious which is which is a way of describing the Muslim doctrine of God. The Muslim doctrine of God is that there's one God in one person. Um the the sort of the Hebrew the not the Hebrew, the Arabic word is Tawheed. That that God is one in this absolute sense. He has a mathematical singularity. Um and that just seemed so obvious to Masharraf that it almost didn't need arguing about. And what that's what I find with Muslims more generally, that obviously God is one in that sense. Um and then Christians just need to justify this weird, at best, nuance, at worst, perversion of the one God called the Trinity. You know, and Christians Christians are always then on the back foot because we kind of we kind of we cede to the Muslim the the the high ground and we say, yeah, okay, the one God, you're right, you're right. There's a Unitarian God, the same God that Moses was proclaiming, you're right, you're absolutely right. But in addition to that, let me also try and interest you in this Trinitarian thing over here. And the Muslim at that stage just says, No, thanks very much, I'll I'll stick with Moses. Yeah. And at that point, you know the so so the Christian loses the argument at that point, I think. But what I tried to do with Masharraf and what I hope that he saw was that there's nothing at all obvious about a Unitarian doctrine of God. That actually a unitarian doctrine of God is incoherent and idolatrous. Right. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Christians tend to think the Old Testament is just about God and then the New Testament is, you know, the Trinity with God the Father and the Holy Spirit in Acts and that.
SPEAKER_02Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_01But it's a mistake, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I th I think so. I think I think what we we try to do is somehow without reading the Old Testament, we just assume that it's just got this one person called God um in the Old Testament, and then the New Testament is doing this new weird it's developing things in this in this strange way called the Trinity. Uh I think you can only live with that picture in your mind if you haven't actually read the Old Testament. Or or if you've done such uh such a thirty thousand feet kind of bird's eye view of the Old Testament, that all the Trinitarian distinctions of the Old Testament are just a blur in your thinking because you just you somehow imagine that the Old Testament is um speaking about one person. You just can't do that when you take seriously things like and what I was um what I did sort of mention with Masharf is is okay, the angel of the Lord in Genesis chapter 16. Um Angel does not mean is not talking about his ontology, it's talking about his function, it's not talking about his being and and what he's made of, it's talking about his role and what he does. Angel just means sent one, the sent one of the Lord. And instantly we should hear resonances of what Jesus calls himself in John's Gospel. He's the one sent from the Father, who always does the Father's business. So there is this figure in the Old Testament called the one sent from the Lord, who is also called the Lord. And he speaks as the Lord, and he receives worship as the Lord, and he makes promises as the Lord, and you know, and he speaks in such audacious terms, you have to think, well, it what is he, mad, bad, or God? Um, you know, to use C. S. Lewis's argument about Jesus in the New Testament. C. S. Lewis said, just listen to what Jesus is saying. He's either a liar, a lunatic, or he is the Lord. Go back to the old testament and have a look at these figures, like well, this this one figure who comes by different names, and one of the figures one of the names is the angel of the Lord. Just look at the way he speaks, look at the way he acts, look at what he promises, look at how he he receives worship, look at the way the scriptures talk about him. Um he is he is so obviously God from God, light from light, very God from very God, to use the language of the creeds. Um and so when you press into the Old Testament in its details, you see that Moses' doctrine of God is is not Muhammad's doctrine of God. It is not that there is this individual all by himself alone in that sense, um, but there is a compound unity to God's life. There is a multi-personal God in the Old Testament, and that's that's why in the New Testament nobody ever has to like like the Apostle Paul doesn't say, doesn't have a chapter called On the Trinity. He doesn't say, Right, guys, okay, I know this is really new, this is a really novel teaching, and it's really weird, but let me take you through the Trinity and let me lay it out like that. He never does that. Like it's just assumed in the New Testament, because it is the Old Testament doctrine of God. The Trinitarian doctrine of the New Testament is the Old Testament doctrine, it's all one and the same.
SPEAKER_01Folks can can hear the whole debate on the uh unbelievable podcast, and we'll put links on the show notes at speaklife.org.uk slash TEP um so you can actually listen for yourself. But what was what was his response to you?
SPEAKER_02Well, I th I think uh he He went to Surah Hundred and Twelve, which is um you know the kind of bedrock of a Muslim doctrine of God. Surah hundred and twelve says, uh say Allah He is one, he does not beget, and he is not begotten, and there is none like unto him. Which is the most anti-Trinitarian statement anywhere. And the Quran is just a an utterly anti-Trinitarian book, and and kind of its doctrine of God is is you know, whatever the Trinity is, we're not that. That's kind of you know what the Muslim doctrine of God is. And so he would come back to that and he was saying, God is not a father and he's not a son. And of course, my my comeback was, well, actually, Moses calls God father. So so the the God of the Quran is not the God of Moses, right? Because Moses calls God a father. And then, you know, Masharraf kind of said, Well, you know, we we we can't have God being a father and begetting. That's just that's just horrible, it's disgusting, it's you know, it's it's carnal to think of God, you know, begetting a child like that. And I think it was helpful at that point for me to say, Masharf, do you do you really imagine that Christians and Jews believe that God is physically begetting a son, carnally begetting a son? And he said, Well, what else does it mean? Well I said, Well, it's uh we've always said that it was a spiritual begetting. You know, Moses thought it was a spiritual begetting, all the writers of the New Testament thought it was a spiritual begetting. We we do not think that this this happened in time, and we don't think that it happened in the flesh. Um, this is not a physical thing.
SPEAKER_01But the five but hang on, what do you mean? Because Jesus did come in the flesh.
SPEAKER_02He did come in the flesh, absolutely. Um, but he was already the son. He was already the son of God. Okay. From before the beginning of the world. Yeah. He was begotten before all worlds. God of God, light of light. So you're saying that that was a spiritual. That was a spiritual begetting. And then, both in the Quran and in the Bible, Jesus is born of the Virgin Mary.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02And fascinatingly, in the Quran, they've got no problem with saying that there's this spiritual, some this spiritual sense in which somehow Allah causes a child to be in Mary's womb. Um and that's a spiritual thing, and no Muslim ever thinks that, oh, that's carnal. Um no Muslim ever thinks that. So it it you know, it's it seems strange for them to to think that it's it could only be a carnal thing for God to beget a son. Um but uh so so there was that misunderstanding that Masharraf had about what Christians are are saying in terms of Jesus being the only begotten son of the Father. And and I guess if if the debate did nothing else, I I guess he perhaps for the first time heard that Christians uh do not believe that God physically birthed a son called Jesus um before the beginning of the world. Right. And and that the But you know you you can you can feel sorry for Masharath because because that does seem to be the doctrine of the Trinity in the Quran. Right. When it says in the Quran, say not three, the three that it seems to be referring to are Allah, Jesus, and Mary. Right? Right. Um and so if that's the the Trinity that the Quran is against, then we're against that too. Exactly. Sign me up. I I too am against that. But um so so if if if the debates helped clarify that in a Muslim mind that Christians are not talking about a physical begetting of the Son as though as though God somehow fathered a child in a physical way um before the beginning of the world, that's absolutely not Christians are not what Christians are saying. We're just saying that before the beginning of the world, the father has always had a son because he's always given life. The light has always shone out its radiance. The speaker has always communicated his word. So God has always had a sun, the light has always had a radiance, the speaker has always had a word. God has always been this outgoing God, and Jesus is that sun, that light, that word. And my point to Masharraf, and my point in the blog post as well, is that if you want to get rid of Jesus from your doctrine of gods, then suddenly you've got a God that does not give life, you've got a God that does not shine, you've got a God that does not speak. Your God is lifeless, dark, and mute. And the Bible has a name for gods who are lifeless, dark, and mute. It calls them idols. Right? That is why the Muslim doctrine of God is idolatrous. If you commit to uh a God that does not have this eternal word, that does not have this eternal sun, that does not have this eternal light, you are committed to a lifeless, dark, mute God who is an idol. Um and so Masharraf and Muslims come home to the true and living God who really does shine, who really does give life, who really does express himself, and he expresses himself in the Lord Jesus. When you come to him, you've got a living God, not a God who is a prisoner of his own transcendence.
SPEAKER_01Do you did you enjoy doing it?
SPEAKER_02I mean far too much.
SPEAKER_01And do you think these debates are worth doing it? I mean, obviously came away, he was still a Muslim when he came away. Uh I think. I don't know. I don't know. I I I mean I sent him an email, I haven't heard back from him, but But uh I mean do you think do you think the debate's worth doing?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I d I do. I think it's it's it's worth doing for Masharif's sake. So I don't know if it's genuinely the case that he had never thought that Christians believed that Jesus was spiritually begotten of the Father. I d I don't know if he'd never, ever come across a Christian say that before. But if he hadn't, then okay, he's learnt something. Um and there there might be one or two things that he can never now think. Like he you know, um prejudices that he can never now have because we've had a uh you know, I'm sure you know we we all managed to cling to our prejudices, we're pretty good at that. But there are a number of things which I hope Misharf now says to himself, well, uh I can't really argue that because of what Glenn says. Um we also believe in the power of the spirit, and and maybe he maybe it is um sowing seeds in him in his mind. Um I just because of the way that the time ran out, I had the last word in this debate. Right. And listen in to the last word that I had, because I think I landed a a fairly substantial blow in my final point, to the point where I felt bad that he didn't have a right of reply because the well the show was over and he couldn't come back at what I said. Now, if if in the providence of God God allowed that blow to sort of land on Masharif and he's been thinking about that, then yeah, let's yeah, let's not limit the the power of the spirit to actually do something incredible in Masharif's life. So for that for that reason, I think I think the debate is really worthwhile. For my own sake, it was really worth doing because you come away from these debates, and I've I just came away after the studying for it and preparing for it, and then coming out from the debate, just so appreciative of the living God. So appreciative that we have a God who shines, who speaks, who, you know what's the other one, shines, speaks, gives life. You know, I I'd so appreciative for the for I and I understood the God of Moses, the God of the Bible, better because I having prepared. Because I prepared and I had to articulate and go back and forth with him. So I I enjoyed it. I hope that other Muslims listening in um would have learnt things and and and really perhaps even even um you know come to know the Lord because I from my time at Speaker's Corner, I was always very aware that you might be engaged in a debate with the Imam in front of you, but really it was the the guys hanging on to his coattails behind him that you were talking to. Like really. And they'd never seen their Imam lose an argument. Right. And when they see their Imam lose an argument, it really rocks them. Because for a Muslim, it really is this sense of um you know, they Islam has never had a reformation. It's the there's whereas Christians talk about the Bible and the Bible alone and and being able to wrestle with the scriptures by yourself and and understand them for yourself. Um the the Muslims very much are uh are back in where the Christians were in the Middle Ages. You rely on your priest to tell you what's in your Quran. You know, you r you rely on your Imam to tell you what's there. You might be able to um enunciate certain Arabic words, but you probably don't speak seventh century Arabic, and you need your Imam and you need your authorities to tell you things, and you just trust implicitly in your Imam, and hearing your Imam taken down is very destabilizing. And so we can pray for Muslims listening in um that yeah, that they will. Um they will see that Masharraf does not have the answers, and perhaps it will make them, you know, search search for the answers. And then and then fourthly, I think why it's worth doing is is Christians listening in. Because I think Christians basically assume that the God of the Old Testament is Unitarian. I think Christians basically grant the Muslim premise, which is that Moses basically believed in a Unitarian God and we just happen to be doing something different. And if that's what you believe, dear me, why aren't you a Muslim? Um let's let's you know let's follow the God of Abraham, right? We're meant to be children of Abraham, let's follow the God of Abraham. And if Abraham was not Trinitarian, then we shouldn't be either. Um and I hope I hope the Christians have their eyes open to see how the scriptures from beginning to end proclaim Christ, because I think that's that's really where the excitement and enthusiasm for Christ really catches fire to see that Jesus does not just come into the Bible three-quarters of the way through the story. You know, he's not like the last-minute substitute in a in a football match who scores the winner. You know, he is he is the manager, he's the player coach, he's you know, he is everything from Genesis to Revelation. So hopefully Christians got a bigger vision for Jesus too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, great. So where can folks go to think more about this?
SPEAKER_02If you want to learn about Christ in the Old Testament stuff, um, my blog, I've got a a a long section called Christ in the Old Testament. Just go to Christthetruth.net, Christthetruth.net, and uh on the homepage you'll see Christ in the Old Testament. And there's a there's a tab there that you can click on, and there's a whole bunch of articles that take you through the Angel of the Lord and other uh Trinitarian Old Testament passages and how it's fulfilled in the New Testament and how down through church history um Christians have always seen that Christ was active and known and trusted all the way through the Bible. Um so yeah, go to Christthetruth.net and and check out some more.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and we'll also have a link to the actual debate uh which you can listen to on the Unbelievable podcast. Um but if you just go to speaklife.org.uk slash tep, you'll find this episode plus lots of others. Uh you if you click on that link, there should be a link there anyway to it, but uh if you click through to this episode um you'll be able to see links to to that and we'll link up the blog post that you wrote as well as your Christ the Truth website. Great. So that's uh a good um overview. That's pretty much it for this week. Uh, if you'd like to keep up uh a little more updated with us at Speak Life and Glenn's calendar as well, then do visit our website, sign up via email. We'd love to keep you informed of what goes on at Speak Life. Um we also produce a small booklet each quarter that includes some of the amazing things that God is doing around the world. You can find it by going to our website speaklife.org.uk. But I think that's it for now. So without much further ado, see you next week.
SPEAKER_02Bye bye.