We believe that Jesus is in heaven, that he is one of the most beloved prophets, al-Masih, and we highly respect him. Why wouldn't that suffice?Islam says that on the day of judgment, our good deeds will be weighed against our bad deeds on the scales of justice. (Al-'Anbyā' 21:47) That's bad news, since as the prophet Isaiah tells us, even our "righteous acts are like filthy rags." (Isaiah 64:6) Nothing we've done is untainted by sin and selfishness.
On the other hand, we're offered forgiveness via the perfect sacrifice of Jesus. Forgiveness! Absolution! Mercy! That's good news. We no longer have to climb an infinite ladder to God. Jesus himself is the ladder, and he himself has come down from heaven for us and for our salvation, and he has returned to heaven, making a way for us. None of that is possible without him being "true God in order to conquer death by his power, and truly human that he might die for us in the weakness of his flesh." (Belgic Confession, Art. 19)
Implicitly, this Muslim is asking what one must confess to be saved. Of course, the Muslim answer is, "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger." But Christians have always had a different answer: "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9)
And returning for a moment to the idea of the scales of justice, that too was repudiated in the earliest days of Christianity: "A person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. … I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" (Galatians 2:16,21)
That's entirely contrary to Islam's view of judgment, and it's completely based on Christ's death and resurrection (which Jesus predicted many times, unambiguously, throughout his ministry). Christians have always viewed Christ's death and resurrection as essential tenets of faith. If that aspect of the Bible was corrupted, it might be worth asking why God allowed his servant's words and actions to be so hopelessly manipulated so incredibly early.
5 comments:
Sir,
It is sufficient. If as you argued they confess to what you believe they should then they would be Christian or a sect in Christianity.
They confess to the validity of Jesus as the one who Christians recognise as Jesus Christ. And they confess to the righteousness of Christians in Christians’ assertion as being the followers of Jesus Christ.
Still, their confession as you quoted is fully consistent with many sects of Christianity that existed in Middle East and Africa at that time. History of a group of them refuged to the court of Abyssinian king before Hijra of Muhammed to Medina tells that when they read The Chapter On Mary for the King, the king cried and refused to hand over them to the Arab idol worshippers persecuting them, as the king recognised their description of Christ as sufficient.
Hi Peter,
I'm not sure exactly what the first sentence of your second paragraph means, but if you're saying that Muslims and Christians believe the same things about Jesus, you're mistaken. And if that's not what you're saying, it's still worth going over the differences, because they're enormous. Jesus is the central figure in Christianity, and Christians believe that he was God, the Son of God, that he can be known through the Bible, and that he died and was resurrected. Each of these facts is considered by Christians to be very important to the process of salvation. To Muslims, however, the idea of God becoming man or God having a son is very offensive, the Bible has been corrupted and is not a reliable witness to history or theology, and Jesus was carried to heaven and did not die.
Muslims may call Christians "people of the book" and they may believe that many actions performed by Christians are righteous, but fundamentally, the Sunni conception of "righteousness" is following the five pillars of Islam. To a Muslim, Christians have faith in and pray to the wrong God (a God with a son, who did not send Mohammed); they never perform the Hajj; and their fasting, alms, and prayer are done without the proper ritualistic observance. Shia beliefs on the matter are close enough that I don't feel a need to deal with them separately.
By contrast, Christians believe that righteousness is obtained by putting on Christ. Not just Christ, but Christ who is true God and true man. Christ who already fulfilled the law, because all the prayer, fasting, charity, and pilgrimages in the world cannot save you. Christ who died and was raised. There is no overlap between the two conceptions.
I'm familiar with the story of the Abyssinian king, but what it boils down to is that one Christian at one time believed that Muslim beliefs were compatible with Christian beliefs. So what? At any given time, you could find someone who believes that religion X is compatible with religion Y while himself being an adherent of religion Z, for all values of X, Y, and Z.
It was very important to the apostles that Jesus is "the only name under heaven by which you can be saved." Not just any Jesus, but "this Jesus, whom you crucified." Let's be careful not to soften the message of Jesus' earliest followers in the name of tolerance. If heaven and hell are real, we owe it to people to show them the way to heaven (namely, Jesus) and not to minimize the stark contrast between the broad way that leads to destruction and the narrow way that leads to life.
You are right Sir. Muslims are not Christian. I am not familiar with Muslims as every one of them says something different but Quran does not say "Christians have faith in and pray to the "wrong" God" or they should perform Hajj. It says certain Muslims should perform Hajj and not all of them.
Allah is the same as Yahweh. (al the Aramaic article = the and ilah the Aramaic word for god).
To some extent, whether Christians and Muslims worship the same or different gods is semantics. But what is objectively true is that trinitarianism and the idea of the incarnation are both considered "shirk" (blasphemy, equivalent to polytheism) in Islam. If one man's beliefs about God are considered by another man to be tantamount to polytheism, then personally I have no qualms with saying that the two men are referring to different entities when they use the name "God." Whether we say that or not, however, the important points are that there are rival conceptions of God, which ascribe different attributes to God.
The English God, Arabic Allah, Greek theos, Hebrew El, and a host of other words are all equivalent. But sinful finite man can call anything by any name and that doesn't mean one person's use of that name refers to the same object as another person's use of the same name.
Many Muslims will say that Christians can go to Paradise if they are righteous throughout their lives, but the fact remains that the only way to be sure you're doing all the right things from a Muslim perspective is by being a Muslim and following the right rituals and so on. Even then, you better hope that your sins don't outweigh your right actions. But yes, Christians are forbidden from performing Hajj. Muslims are required to go at least once in their lifetime if they are physically and financially capable.
The important point, though, is that Muslims' beliefs about God and about Jesus are warped enough that they effectively don't know God. Therefore it is imperative that they be told who Jesus is, what he has done, and why he has done it.
I ask if followers of Judaism believe that Christians do not worship Yahweh? I ask if Christians believe that Jews are worshipping a wrong god? I mean I want to use your dialectic in this article applies to Judaism <-> Christianity?
This is the point that Muslims do not understand trinity. Why? Christianity, you described, falls out one odd between trio of Judaism-Christianity-Islam. Quran has nothing about god of Jews and their worship; Allah completely matches with Yahweh, but explicitly mentions trinity as exaggeration of certain followers.
By the way I believe in trinity in my own way.
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