WHAT DO MUSLIMS THINK ABOUT JESUS (ESA)?
Muslims respect and venerate Jesus Christ. They consider him to be one of Almighty God’s greatest messengers to humankind. The Qur’aan re-affirms his miraculous birth and his miraculous abilities…
Jesus was born miraculously through the same power that had brought Adam into being without a father: “Truly the likeness of Jesus with Almighty God is as the likeness of Adam. He created him of dust and then said to him, ‘Be!’ and he was.” [Al-Qur’aan 3:59]
During his prophetic mission, Jesus performed many miracles. The Qur’aan tells us that he said:
“I have come to you with a sign from your Lord…I heal the blind, and the lepers, and I raise the dead by Almighty God’s leave.” [Al-Qur’aan 3:49]
No contradiction with the Bible there.
“he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” (Luke 4:16-21)
Neither Muhammad nor Jesus came to change the basic doctrine of the belief in One Almighty God, brought by earlier prophets, but to confirm and renew it. In the Qur’aan, Jesus is reported as saying that he came:
“To attest the law which was before me. And to make lawful to you part of what was forbidden to you; I have come to you with a sign from your Lord, so fear Almighty God and obey me.” [Al-Qur’aan 3:50]
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil [MY PART]. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till ALL be fulfilled.” (Matthew 5:16-18)
The Qur’aan says that Jesus was born of a virgin…that he healed the blind and the leper by Almighty God’s leave, and that he raised the dead by Almighty God’s leave.
What then is the significance of these miracles? First, the virgin birth. Almighty God demonstrates his power to create in every way. Almighty God created everyone we know from a man and a woman. But how about Adam? Almighty God created him from neither a man nor a woman. And Eve from only a man, but not a woman. And, finally, to complete the picture, Almighty God created Jesus from a woman, but not a man.
WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER MIRACLES?
These were to show that Jesus was not acting on his own behalf, but that he was backed by Almighty God. The Qur’aan specifies that these miracles were performed by Almighty God’s leave. This may be compared to the Book of Acts in the Bible, chapter 2, verse 22, where it says that the miracles were done by Almighty God to show that he approved of Jesus. Also, note that Jesus himself is recorded in the Gospel of John to have said:
I can of mine own self do nothing…because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” (John 5:30).
“I can do nothing of my own authority” [Al-Qur’aan 5:30].
The miracles, therefore, were done not by his own authority, but by Almighty God’s authority…
Jesus is the Messiah. He is a word from Allah, and a spirit from Him. He is honored in this world and in the hereafter, and he is one of those brought nearest to Allah. Jesus was a man who spoke the truth which he heard from Almighty God. This can be compared with the Gospel According to John where Jesus says to the Israelites: “You are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from Almighty God [John 8:40]…
Every nation and every people, from the Aztecs to the Greeks, have received a Prophet or a Messenger from Almighty God. Jesus was the last of a series of Messengers sent to the Israelites, but they consistently strayed from the path of surrender to Almighty God. Each of the many Messengers spoke a different language and followed varied customs. Yet the core faith taught by each was the same: surrender your imperfect and fickle will to the perfect will of the Power that is greater than you. You will then find the peace and freedom that only the Creator of all things can provide. Then you must do what is right and good to your fellow creatures. This way of life is called Islam (surrender to Almighty God and find peace).
Among those prophets whose ministry was limited to the Israelites and Jews, was Jesus (the Messiah or Christ, and the son of the Virgin Mary).
“I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matthew 15:24)
He was not conceived in the usual way, but was implanted in the womb of a young woman named Mary. Almighty God’s simply commanded, “Be” and he was. In this sense, he was “a word” of Almighty God’s and a special sign for humanity. In fact, he was the last in a long line of religious guides sent to the Jews…
His people had strayed from the spirit of truth and placed their trust in legalism, thereby burying their sense of mercy beneath dusty scrolls and rituals…
He taught that love and mercy overcome hate and anger and that only a true and sincere faith in the Creator and obedience to His will can bring a person salvation in this life as well as in the next. To reinforce his message, which was called “Injeel” (Good News), Almighty God granted him the performance of miracles. He healed the sick, uplifted the distressed, cured lepers, and revived the dead. All these things he did with the permission of Almighty God, never taking credit for any of them…
But no righteous man of Almighty God is without trial and tribulation. As the message of Jesus began to gain wider acceptance, a small clique of hypocrites and evil men began to plot against him. They were the priests and leaders of the Jews whose position and wealth depended upon their place as the sole interpreters of religion to the masses. They pursued him and his followers and eventually captured him…Almighty God removed Jesus from this world into another dimension, to a place with Him, not to return until a later time.
With their teacher gone, the devoted followers of Jesus tried to maintain the purity and simplicity of his teachings. But they were soon besieged and overtaken by a flood of Roman and Greek influences, which eventually so buried and distorted the message of Jesus that only a little of its truth now remains. Strange doctrines of Jesus being a man-god, of god-dying, of saint worship and of god being made up of different parts came into vogue and were accepted by many of those who took the name “Christians” centuries after Jesus…
believers in the Qur’aan love Jesus, honor him, and believe in him. In fact, no Muslim can be a Muslim unless he or she believes in Prophet Jesus...as a servant of Almighty God, but never Son of Almighty God. Peter, for example, said: “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus” [Acts 3:13]. Peter further said: “God raised up his servant” [Acts 3:26], where the title servant refers to Jesus. Not only was it Peter, but the entire group of believers viewed Jesus as Almighty God’s servant. When they raised their voices together in prayer to Almighty God, in the course of their speaking to Almighty God they called Jesus “your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed” [Acts 4:27]. They repeated this title also in verse 30. Consistently, Jesus was being called servant of Almighty God’s by the original followers of Jesus.
In the King James Bible, the translators call Jesus “Son of Almighty God” in Acts 3:13, 26, and “child of Almighty God” in Acts 4:27. They simply translated the Greek word paida as “son” or “child”. But the word paida also means “servant”, and the present context demands this translation since the author of Acts is trying in this passage to establish that Jesus is indeed the servant of Almighty God…
Shockingly, to me, the King James Bible does indeed mis-translate the Greek word pais as “Son“in Acts 3:13 and 3:26. and as “child” in Acts 4:27)
the fact that Jesus was Almighty God’s servant was so well known that even the King James Bible called him by this title in Matthew 12:18. Referring back to Isaiah 42:1, Matthew identified Jesus as the servant of the one true Almighty God Yahweh…
The more I’ve studied Islam the more I find it matches my own understanding of holy scripture. Except for one thing.
Doesn’t Islam deny that Jesus died on the cross as atonement for sin? According to this following teacher opposed to Islam:
The Quran teaches that Jesus did not die on the cross. Muslims do not believe that Allah would allow one of their prophets to be killed in the manner Jesus was killed…Since…Jesus did not die on the cross, He certainly did not come back from the dead three days later. Muslims do not accept the New Testament teaching of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Therefore, the key teachings of the New Testament, the death of Jesus Christ for the sins of the world and His resurrection three days later, are rejected by Islam.
This is too important a consideration to accept one oppositional teacher’s statement at face value.
Fundamental tenants of the faith were rejected by false prophets in Judaism and Christianity long before Islam came on the scene. This fact don’t eliminate the Bible as the word of God, so we can’t use this to eliminate the Quran either.
On the contrary, false prophets validate God’s prophetic word.
- “there were false prophets also among the [Old Testament] people,
- even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
- And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
- through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you:” (II Peter 2:1-2)
Christianity certainly has had a long history of “making merchandise” of Christians over covetousness of Moslem holdings in the Crusades and now Moslem-held oil fields.
We need to go straight to the source – the Quran.
Whereas Ahmadi Muslims believe Hazrat Jesus(as) was a prophet who died like all other human beings, a great majority of Muslims held the view that Hazrat Jesus(as) was taken to Heaven by Allah and a Jesus-look-alike was crucified by the Jews instead…
The so-called orthodox Muslim belief that a Jesus-look-alike was crucified instead of Hazrat Jesus(as), and that Hazrat Jesus(as) was raised to heaven, to descend a later day, has no support in the Holy Quran. The origin of this popular belief is from Christian sources…
the belief of Hazrat Jesus(as) not being nailed to the cross and a Jesus-look-alike replacing him was introduced into Islam from the teachings of certain Gnostic Christian sects.
Docetism was a prominent feature of Gnosticism, which held that matter and spirit are antagonistic; matter was considered evil, and spirit considered good and holy. Docetism proposed that Christ only “appeared” to have a real human body, and that Christ only “appeared” to suffer and die on the cross: it was either an illusion or someone else was substituted for him. This tendency to deny or at least diminish the reality of the humanity and suffering of Hazrat Jesus(as) was central to the docetic view. It is believed that docetism had its roots in the difficulties some felt in the notion of the Incarnation of God in the person of Christ – it was difficult to associate a Divine-incarnate Son (spirit) with a human being (matter) subject to suffering and death (reference: “Gnosis” by Geddes MacGregor).
Ja’far ibn Mansur al-Yaman (d. 958), Abu Hatim Ahmad ibn Hamdan al-Razi (d. 935), Abu Yaqub al-Sijistani (d. 971), Mu’ayyad fi’l-Din al-Shirazi (d. 1078) and the group Ikhwan al-Safa also affirm the historicity of the Crucifixion, reporting Jesus was crucified and not substituted by another man as maintained by many other popular Quranic commentators and Tafsir. More recently, Mahmoud M. Ayoub, a professor and scholar, provided a more symbolic interpretation for Surah 4 Verse 157:
The Quran, as we have already argued, does not deny the death of Christ. Rather, it challenges human beings who in their folly have deluded themselves into believing that they would vanquish the divine Word, Jesus Christ the Messenger of God. The death of Jesus is asserted several times and in various contexts. (3:55, 5:117, 19:33)[68]
Another report from Ibn Kathir quotes Ishaq Ibn Bishr, on authority of Idris, on authority of Wahb ibn Munabbih, that “God caused him to die for three days, then resurrected him, then raised him.”[73][74]
Al-Masudi (d. 956) reported the death of Christ under Tiberius.[72]
Modern Islamic scholars like Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabataba’i interpret the ascension of Jesus as spiritual, not physical. This interpretation is in accord with Muʿtazila and Shia metaphorical explanations regarding anthropomorphic references to God in the Quran. Although not popular with traditional Sunni interpretations of the depiction of crucifixion, there has been much speculation and discussion in the effort of logically reconciling this topic.[78]
What we find is that, just as in Judaism and Christianity, there are different sects based on contradictory doctrines.
However, overall, Islam’s explanation of salvation by submission to God’s will to peoples from all time and all cultures who never heard about Jesus the Christ who died in their place at Jerusalem in AD 33 is far more consistent with the totality of scripture than Christianity’s exclusive demand that salvation only comes from calling on the name of Jesus and there is no need for “works of righteousness.”
Kingdom Come 