Christianity versus Islam.
One of the greatest challenges to Christianity today is the
rapidly growing Muslim population. I don’t
say this because of the threat of terrorism that we all face daily, but because
of the Islamic threat against Christian theology.
The Muslim population in the U.S.
with the exception of the stray radical. As representatives of Jesus Christ, our
response to their beliefs about our doctrine needs to be Christ like. This side of the rapture, the doctrine of
Christ is a peaceful one. Turn the other
cheek etc.
The challenge for the modern Christian church is to know how
to compete with Islam in a civil debate.
Muslims have ingrained their followers to their Islamic beliefs from
their youth, and these young Muslims will be challenging young Christians about
their beliefs. Three basic principles
make up Christian beliefs. First is the
fact that Christ is God. Second is the
fact that Christ died on the Cross.
Third is the fact that Christ was resurrected from the dead. Muslims are taught that none of these three
are true.
Muslim teachings against Christianity are ingrained in them
from early childhood, and if a young Christian without knowing all his facts
about Christian theology debate with one of these young Muslims, the Muslim
will have the upper hand. As a Christ-believing Church
If you are a current youth leader
in a church, I would highly recommend that you read the book – Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus by Nabeel
Qureshi. Mr. Qureshi was a devout
Muslim living in the United
States
Let’s examine what Muslims believe about Christ being
God. They believe that God is
Omnipresent and therefore has no need of a Son.
They also believe that nowhere in the bible does Jesus claim to be
God. They do believe Jesus was a Prophet
with a message from God for the people of that time, but that Jesus failed in
his mission and that’s why God reached out to Mohammad some six hundred years
later.
Is Jesus God, and did Jesus himself Claim to be God?
First we need to get a good understanding of God. How can we defend something we don’t
understand? Christianity believes that
God is triune, or God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. How do we prove this?
We’ll start in the beginning, the book of Genesis. 1: 1-2 In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. and the earth was without
form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of
the waters.
The word God in the Hebrew language is Eloheim. Eloheim is a plural word not a singular
word. Next we’ll look at Genesis
1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let
them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and
over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth. Here the
scriptures say “Let us”, meaning more than just a singular God, and in the
verse above the Spirit of God is mentioned.
So now we have God the father, and God the Holy Spirit.
John1:1 In the
beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God John 1: 14 And
the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. Here is proof that Jesus was the third
person of the Godhead as God the Son.
In Genesis 2:4 we have the first mention in the bible of the
name LORD God. Vs 4 These
are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in
the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, The word LORD comes from the Hebrew word
“Jhwh” or “Jahwe”. The title of Jehovah
comes from the word Jahwe and the Hebrew word Havah together. The word Havah is the same as I AM and I AM
refers to “to be revealed.” If you read
on in chapter 2 of Genesis you will see that Jahwe God was the one speaking the
word over all the creation, and from John 1:1 we find that Jahwe God was the
same as Jesus. Born of a Virgin and
became flesh and bone just as we are. But before he became flesh, he was
Eloheim. After man was created by God
and God rested, the next chapter uses LORD instead of just God. Jesus is Jahwe I AM. In Colossians 1:15 Jesus is called the
visible image of the invisible triune God.
His is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn over all creation.
16 For by him all things were
created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones
or powers or ruler or authorities; all things were created by him and for
him. But until the creation of man,
God had no reason to be visible. That’s
why Genesis starts with God, then changes to LORD, or Jahwe.
LORD (all caps) refers to Jesus in his Deity form, or Jesus
as God. Lord (Capital L with the ‘ord’
lower case and also Hebrew for Adonai) refers to Jesus as the Son or God in his
earthly form. When God visited Abraham,
He would have been as Adonai because he came as a man and ate with Abraham, but
when God spoke to Moses in the burning bush He would have been as Jahwe in his
Deity, not visible. Both are Jesus and
both are also God.
Did Jesus ever claim to be God? In the New Testament, Jesus referred to
himself as the ‘I AM’. In the gospel of
John, Jesus stated he is God. The Jews claimed that he could cast out demons because
He was a demon, and Jesus explained to them, that he was God and that’s why not
only could he cast them out, but He could pass that power on to others that
would believe. John 8: 57 You are not yet fifty years old, the Jews
said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”
58 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I Am!” Here Jesus tells them that he is God in His
flesh as Adonai, but also as the’ I AM’which is God in his Deity who spoke to
Moses through the burning bush.
Both the Old and New Testaments are full of verses declaring
Jesus is God. I’ve only listed a
few. The entire Old Testament is a
picture of the coming Christ. The whole
gospel of John is about His Deity. I’ll
list a couple of the more obvious scriptures that point this out:
Revelation or The Revelation of Jesus Christ. 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning, and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. Remember that Lord is another term for
Jesus as I have shown above.
In the Gospel of Luke, Luke shows Christ in his
humanity. Jesus stood before a council
of chief priest and scribes. 22:67 Art
thou the Christ? Tell us. And he said unto them, If I tell you, ye will not believe: 68 And if I
also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go. 69 Hereafter
shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God. 70 Then said they all, Art thou then the Son of God? And he said unto them,
Ye say that I
am. 71 And
they said, What need we any further witness?
For we ourselves have heard of his own mouth. The Jewish religious leaders heard Jesus
claiming that He was the Son of God or Adonai in the flesh and also the I AM or
one with God the Father.
In the above passage it is obvious that Jesus stated he was
the Son of God, therefore God as well.
And further proof is in the next chapter. 23:3 And Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou the
King of the Jews? And he answered him
and said, Thou sayest it.
My favorite is in the Gospel of John. This Gospel shows Jesus as the Deity of
God. 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word
was God. 1:14 And the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld
his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father) full of grace and
truth.
Titus 2:13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the
glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ; 14 Who
gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto
himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Here Jesus is called the great God and
Savior .
The Gospel of Mark tells the story of the man being let down
by ropes through the roof where Jesus was teaching. This Gospel shows Jesus as
a servant. 2:5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. 6
But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their
hearts, 7 Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only? Since Jesus was God, he could forgive
sins. There is no record of the 12
apostles ever claiming to forgive sin.
The Muslims claim that Jesus never said he was God. I think here we have enough information to
prove that He did, and not only did Jesus declare Himself to be God, also God
Himself declared it.
The Gospel of Mathew shows Jesus as the King. Mathew 3:16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up
out of the water. At that moment heaven
was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on
him. And a voice from heaven said, “This
is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” In this one verse we have the Triune: the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This can
also be found in the Gospels of Mark and Luke.
Luke 9:28 About eight days after Jesus said this he
took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray, 29
As he was praying, the appearance of his
face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. 30 Two men, Moses and Elijah, 31 appeared
in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus.
They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to
fulfillment at Jerusalem. 32 Peter
and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw
his glory and the two men standing with him. 33 As
the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, “Master, it is good for us to be
here. Let us put up three shelters – one
for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” ( He did not know what he was
saying.) 34 While
he was speaking, a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as
they entered the cloud. 35 A
voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen
to him.” These verses not only
confirm that Jesus is God, but they also confirm his death and resurrection.
The New Testament has four Gospels and each Gospel shows
Jesus from a different perspective.
Mathew shows him as the King, and lists his genealogy back to King
David.
Mark depicts Jesus as the servant. Luke depicts Jesus as Christ
in His humanity and therefore lists His genealogy all the way back to
Adam. John depicts Jesus in His Deity or
as God.
Was Christ really crucified and did he die on the cross?
Muslims believe that Jesus didn’t die on the cross. Not all Muslims agree on the reason for their
belief that He didn’t die on the cross; but have all been taught that He did
not. One theory is that the wife of
Pontius Pilate convinced Pilate not to let Jesus die on the cross, so Pilate
supposedly issued an order stating that after it appeared Jesus was dead, He be
removed from the cross and taken to the tomb by Joseph of Arimathaea and
Nicodemus. Then allegedly they placed
Him in the tomb and spent the next three days doctoring Him until he was well
enough to travel, then they sent Him safely away to India
When it comes to the crucifixion of Jesus, the Muslim will
show scripture that they say proves he didn’t die on the cross. They list the account of Jesus crying out to
God the night before the crucifixion, asking God to take this cup from
Him. They claim that a loving God would
have come to His aid and delivered Him.
They also claim Jesus wasn’t on the cross long enough to die.
What the Muslim doesn’t understand is the love and grace of
God. They may know that Adam brought sin
in the world by eating the forbidden fruit.
When he did eat, he knew good from evil, he knew lust, desire and
covetousness and that all sin came to him and all those after him. But what Muslim’s don’t know is that Jesus
came to rectify that event of Adam.
Jesus had to die on the cross to become the lamb without spot or
blemish. He died once to cover all sin
of all that will believe. If he had not
died, there would be no hope for mankind.
The blood of bulls and goats could never wash away men’s sin, but only
cover it temporarily. The blood of God’s
only Son could reverse the sin of man.
So when Jesus said “This is my body given for you”, as He took the bread
during the last supper, He was telling them that as Adam ate the fruit and
died, you can eat my flesh (by having faith that Jesus is Christ and believing
in him) and be made righteous before God, reversing the deed of Adam. The blood Jesus shed on the cross, covers all
our past, current and future sin making us righteous before God, through Jesus
(if we believe in Jesus and what he did).
Going all the way back to the earliest historians, one thing
they all agree on is the death by crucifixion of Jesus. This is recorded by the Jewish historian
Josephus. Roman historians also claim of
Jesus death. If Jesus had not died on
the cross, there were way too many witnesses for the writers of the Gospels to
lie about that and not get called out on it.
There are also biblical events where Jesus was seen after his
resurrection. Paul mentions this, and
said there were over five hundred that saw him and most of those were still
alive at the time Paul wrote this. So it
would have been an easy fact to check out.
Another thing we know about Bible prophecy is that it always
comes true, so let’s look at what the Old Testaments prophecies say about the
death of Jesus the Messiah.
Isaiah 52:14 As many were astonished (to stun or
make amazed) at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man,
and his form more than the sons of men.
Isaiah 50:6 I gave my back to the smiter, and my cheeks
to them that plucked off the hair(pulled his beard out by the roots): I hid not my face from shame and
spitting.
Zechariah 13:6 And one
shall say unto him, What are these
wounds in thine hands? Then he shall
answer, Those with which I was wounded in
the house of my friends.
Proof of his death on the cross. Isaiah 53: 7-8 He was
oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and
as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment:
and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the
living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
Psalm 31:5 Into thine
hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth. Luke 23:9 Then
he questioned with him in many words; but he answered him nothing. John 19:9
And went again into the judgment
hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou?
But Jesus gave him no answer. Acts
8:32-33 The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a
sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb (silent) before his shearer, so
opened he not his mouth: In his
humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation?
for his life is taken from the earth.
Concerning any statements about the apostles stealing the
body of Jesus, the Bible tells us that the 12 apostles didn’t even know Jesus
was about to be crucified, and according to scripture didn’t even show up at
the tomb on the third day, until Mary came to them and said the body of Jesus
was missing.
Luke 18:31-34 Then he (Jesus) took unto him the twelve, and
said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all
things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be
accomplished. For he shall be delivered
unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted
on: And they shall scourge him and put him to death: and the third
day he shall rise again. And they
(the twelve) understood none of
these things: and this saying was hid from hem, neither knew they the things
which were spoken. Mark 16:1-7 And
when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they
might come and anoint him (Jesus).
And very early in the morning the first day
of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves, Who shall
roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulcher? And when they looked, they saw that the stone
was rolled away: for it was very great (large). And entering into the sepulcher, they saw a young man sitting on the
right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted. And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye
seek Jesus of Nazareth Galilee : there shall ye
see him, as he said unto you.
Other scriptures that confirm the unusual miracles that
occurred on that special day:
Amos 8:9 And it shall come to pass in that day,
saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will
darken the earth in the clear day.
Luke 23:44 And it was
about the sixth hour and there was a darkness over all the earth until the
ninth hour.
Psalm 2 Why do the heathen (gentiles) rage, and the people ( Jews) imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and
the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands
asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
He that sitteth in the heavens (God the Father) shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak
unto them in his wrath, and vex (distress) them in his sore displeasure. ( the seven year tribulation period)
Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill
of Zion. ( Jesus will be set as king over all the earth from Jerusalem
Personal Note
What would the world be like
if God had never came to earth as a human and died for us?
Of the billions of people who
have been born since Adam and Eve, only three God considered worthy of escaping Sheol (hell) and entering
Heaven: Enoch, Elijah and Moses. We know
Moses died, but although Satan argued with God over Moses’ body, God refused
him. Jude 9: Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed
about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but
said, The Lord rebuke thee. We know
Moses went to Heaven because Moses showed up with Elijah to Jesus on the Mount
of Transfiguration as mentioned above.
Not even Abraham, David or any of the other great men of God made it. We know this from the following scripture
describing Lazarus being in Abrahams bosom in the paradise side of Sheol
(hell). Luke 16:22-25 And it came to
pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom:
the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being
in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried
and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip
the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this
flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember
that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus
evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there
is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot;
neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. The people held in Abraham’s side of hell
were all waiting for Jesus to free them and take them up to Heaven to be with
God. Jesus accomplished this after his
death and resurrection.
The Bible tells us our own
righteousness is as filthy rags before God.
Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing,
and all our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags; You can live your
entire life being loving, caring, benevolent, generous to the poor and still
not merit favor to enter the kingdom of Heaven without faith in the Son of
God. I don’t care what religion you
claim to be, if Jesus had not manifested himself as human and died and rose
from the dead, we all would end up in Sheol (hell). Those that followed the instruction of God
and believed in Eloheim on the Abraham side, and those that didn’t on the rich
mans side. There would be no hope for
any of us. None of us would be worthy to
enter the kingdom
of Heaven
The death and resurrection of
Jesus changed that. Now, after Jesus’
resurrection, we can enter the kingdom
of God
If you’re in a religion now
that doesn’t accept the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, then
don’t look to God to count you worthy on your own, when you deliberately
rejected the gift God so generously sent to you.
John 14:1-6 Let not your heart be
troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told
you. I go to prepare a place for
you. And if I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye
know. Thomas saith unto him,
Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but
by me.
I’ll end this by stating the obvious in the above
verse. No one can come to Father unless
it is through Jesus. No one.
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