The Quran proclaims that Allah does not allow his followers to serve any prophet as their Lord:
It belongs not to any mortal that God should give him the Book, the Judgment, the Prophethood, then he should say to men, ‘Be you servants to me apart from God.’ Rather, ‘Be you masters in that you know the Book, and in that you study.’ He would never order you to take the angels and the Prophets as Lords; what, would He order you to disbelieve, after you have surrendered? S. 3:79-80 Arberry
The Islamic scripture also claims that Allah is the Lord who comes with his angels to judge the earth:
No indeed! When the earth is ground to powder, and thy Lord comes, and the angels rank on rank, and Gehenna is brought out, upon that day man will remember; and how shall the Reminder be for him? S. 89:21-23 Arberry
This is where it gets quite interesting.
In the short of epistle of Jude, which only consists of twenty-five verses, the writer identifies himself as the servant of Jesus Christ, and describes Christ as the Lord who will come with his myriads of holy ones to judge the wicked and bestow his mercy upon his followers:
“Jude, the SERVANT OF Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called… And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him… But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit. But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” Jude 1:1, 14-15, 17-21
To say that this is shocking would be putting it mildly since, as a monotheistic Jew, Jude would know that he has no other Lord in heaven besides Jehovah:
“Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.” Psalm 73:25
“Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us.” Psalm 123:1-2
Moreover, heavenly angels are servants created to serve God and those who inherit salvation:
“And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire… Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” Hebrews 1:7, 14
“And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.” Revelation 22:8-9 – cf. 19:10
As such, no God-fearing Jew would ever look to an angelic creature as his lord whom he serves.
Therefore, Jude would know better than to claim to be the servant of some heavenly creature, addressing that created being as his Lord and the Lord of all true believers.
Hence, the only way this inspired author could glorify Christ as his Lord from heaven, as well as the Lord of all true believers, and identify himself as Christ’s servant is if Jude believed that Jesus is God in the flesh, even though he is distinct from the Father and the Holy Spirit.
That’s not all. Jude even went as far as to expressly call Christ our only Sovereign God and Lord!
“For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the ONLY Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ (ton monon despoten Theon kai Kyrion hemon ‘Iesoun Christon).” Jude 1:4
The sentence in Greek is what is typically called a Granville Sharp construction, more specifically it fits within Sharp’s first rule of the use of the definite article (“the”) in New Testament Greek. According to this rule, when you have two or more personal nouns in the singular case, which are not proper names, and which happen to be connected by the Greek conjunction kai (“and”), with the definite article appearing only before the first noun, then they all refer to the same Person. This is precisely what we have here in Jude.
Here is a helpful note that brings this point out more clearly:
21tn The terms “Master and Lord” both refer to the same person. The construction in Greek is known as the Granville Sharp rule, named after the English philanthropist-linguist who first clearly articulated the rule in 1798. Sharp pointed out that in the construction article-noun-καί-noun (where καί [kai] = “and”), when two nouns are singular, personal, and common (i.e., not proper names), they ALWAYS had the same referent. Illustrations such as “the friend and brother,” “the God and Father,” etc. abound in the NT to prove Sharp’s point. For more discussion see ExSyn 270-78. See also Titus 2:13 and 2 Pet 1:1. (New English Translation [NET] https://netbible.org/bible/Jude+1; capital and underline emphasis ours)
Even though it is referring to the shorter reading found in some of the early Greek witnesses, the rule still applies here nonetheless.
Therefore, the Greek construction employed here essentially means that Jude described the risen Christ as our only Sovereign (despotes) God and Lord, which is why the following translations render the text the way do:
“… and our only Master, God, and Lord — Jesus Christ — denying,” Young’s Literal Translation (YLT)
“… our only Master, God, and Lord, Jesus Christ.” World English Bible (WEB)
The verse that immediately follows provides further corroboration that Jude intended to identify Christ as the Lord God Almighty:
“… and our Lord Jesus Christ. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.” Jude 1:4-5
The context makes it clear that the Lord who saved the Israelites out of Egypt, and who subsequently destroyed them for their unbelief, was none other than our Lord Jesus Christ in his prehuman existence!
In fact, many of the earliest witnesses actually read “Jesus”, making the identity of the Lord here more explicit. As the NET explains:
sn The construction our Master and Lord, Jesus Christ in v. 4 follows Granville Sharp’s rule (see note on Lord). The construction STRONGLY implies the deity of Christ. This is followed by a statement that Jesus was involved in the salvation (and later judgment) of the Hebrews. He is thus to be identified with the Lord God, Yahweh. Verse 5, then, simply fleshes out what is implicit in v. 4.
tc ‡ The reading ᾿Ιησοῦς (Iēsous, “Jesus”) is deemed too hard by several scholars, since it involves the notion of Jesus acting in the early history of the nation Israel. However, not only does this reading enjoy the strongest support from a variety of early witnesses (e.g., A B 33 81 1241 1739 1881 2344 pc vg co Or), but the plethora of variants demonstrate that scribes were uncomfortable with it, for they seemed to exchange κύριος (kurios, “Lord”) or θεός (theos, “God”) for ᾿Ιησοῦς (though P has the intriguing reading θεὸς Χριστός [theos Christos, “God Christ”] for ᾿Ιησοῦς). In addition to the evidence supplied in NA for this reading, note also {88 322 323 424 665 915 2298 eth Cyr Hier Bede}. As difficult as the reading ᾿Ιησοῦς is, in light of v. 4 and in light of the progress of revelation (Jude being one of the last books in the NT to be composed), it is wholly appropriate. (Ibid.; capital and underline emphasis ours)
Who would have imagined that such a short epistle would contain so much evidence for the eternal Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ?
To summarize our discussion, the inspired writer identified himself as the servant of the risen Jesus, and described the glorified Christ as the Lord of heaven who shall come with his heavenly hosts to judge the world.
According to the Quran, this basically proves that Jude worshiped Christ as God Almighty in the flesh since the Islamic scripture plainly testifies that the only heavenly Being one is to serve, and the only Lord who comes with his angels to judge, is Allah, who is supposed to be the true God of Abraham.
Therefore, what further proof do Muslims need that the inspired authors of the Holy Scriptures such as Jude truly believed and worshiped Jesus Christ as their God and Savior? And what else will it take to convince them that Muhammad was a false prophet who contradicted the teachings of the Lord Jesus and his blessed followers?
Unless indicated otherwise, all scriptural citations taken from the Authorized King James Version (AV) of the Holy Bible.
Further Reading
Jesus Christ The Lord God Who Saved and Punished Israel During the Exodus https://answeringislamblog.wordpress.com/2018/09/21/jesus-christ-the-lord-god-who-saved-and-punished-israel-during-the-exodus/
Revisiting the Issue of the Logical Coherence of the Trinity Pt. 2 https://answeringislam.net/Responses/Osama/zawadi_trinity_r2_2.htm
IHS
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