Can Muslims follow the Biblical Christ--and still be Muslim?

Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about the “Insider Movement” which is what missionary experts refer to as Muslims that love and follow Jesus while remaining within the cultural fold of Islam. I can remember before moving to Senegal as a missionary, a thought flashed through my mind, “I wonder if God might use me to initiate a movement of Muslims coming to Biblical faith in Christ as part of a Reformation movement within Islam?”

It turned out to be a fleeting thought. Instead I opted for the traditional apologetics approach, pointing out to Muslims why the New Testament is superior to the Koran and why they’re wrong about denying the divinity of Jesus and the atonement. I never seriously questioned this approach until I read Carl Medearis’s excellent book “Muslims, Christians, and Jesus.” In his book, Carl shares stories of his interactions with Muslims who deeply love Jesus and strive to follow His teachings—yet remain committed Muslims. I nearly wept thinking about how things could have been different if I had trusted my original instincts.

But now I have new questions, and they’re a bit unnerving because they strike at the heart of what it means to be a “Muslim” and what it means to be a “Christian.” I’ve heard that there are Muslim followers of Jesus that revere and strive to follow after the Jesus that they see revealed in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), but I’m wondering if these same Muslims can find a place in their theology to accept the rest of the New Testament as well? And if they can, I’m wondering if Christians can find a place in their theology to make room for Muhammad as a pre-messianic figure, pointing people to faith in Jesus the Messiah (a term the Koran affirms by the way) maybe not as authoritative as an Old Testament prophet, but perhaps on par with the status of local prophets in the New Testament?

Let’s break this down. Because most Muslims can’t bring themselves to say, “Jesus is God”, Christians write them off as heretics. The problem with this is that there’s nowhere in the New Testament that says, “Jesus is God”; so what we’re doing is insisting on non-Biblical language as a litmus test for Biblical faith. The doctrine may be true, and I believe it is, but should we really think of someone as outside the fold if they can’t bring themselves to say something that isn’t directly stated in the New Testament?

I wonder if a Muslim that respects the New Testament could find it in his or her theology to accept the statement, “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God….and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1-14). If a Muslim can accept this statement as the inspired Word of God, could we not call them brothers and sisters even if our understanding of what these verses mean may be slightly different?

Let’s talk about the cross. Mark Siljander has done an excellent job in his book “A Deadly Misunderstanding” showing that the case can be made in the Koran that Jesus died and rose again. If this is true, might it be possible for a Muslim to accept that the Messiah’s death has saving significance even if—to my knowledge—the Koran doesn’t explicitly say so? After all, the Koran does confirm the authenticity of the gospels and the case can be made from the gospels that the blood of Jesus was shed for the remission of sins (Matthew 26:28).

If we look at the sermons of Peter and Paul in the Book of Acts, we see neither a very high Christology, nor do we see the doctrine of penal substitution—a doctrine highly offensive to Muslims—and yet we’re told explicitly that those who heard and believed their message received eternal life (Acts 13:48). The Apostles’ message in the Book of Acts was essentially “Jesus was crucified, but God raised Him from the dead and through this man is preached to you forgiveness of sins and the hope of eternal life” (see Acts 10:39-43, 13:37-49, 17:31-32). Notice the Apostles’ emphasis on the humanity of Jesus in His saving work. I daresay if an evangelist preached like that today, he or she would likely be labeled a heretic!

Lest I be misunderstood, I’m not denying the deity of Christ, and neither am I saying that the doctrine of penal substitution is wrong per se. I’m simply raising the issue that if a Muslim can believe and practice the bare essentials of what Biblical faith in Jesus requires and still be true to their own faith, then not only have we figured out a way to build a bridge of peace between the historic religions of Islam and Christianity, we’ve also figured out a way for Christians to be faithful to the command of Jesus to “Go and make disciples of all nations” without using our faith as a battering ram to demonize people of another faith.

Discuss!

A Muslim makes the case for Christ--from the Koran!

Over the past few days, I've been privy to a private e-mail exchange with some very influential people (including best selling authors and high level politicians) about how followers of Jesus should engage the Muslim world. For accountability purposes, the conversation thread was cc'd to a few influential Muslims. Here is a response from a devout Muslim on the question of whether a Muslim can follow Jesus and still be a Muslim. I'm not endorsing everything he says here, but I do think that Christians in the West, especially American Christians need to be better educated as to what the Koran actually says about Jesus. It's so easy to stereotype Muslims as anti-Jesus, as if every Muslim thinks about Jesus the way that Bin -Laden thinks about Jesus. That's never been true, and it's not true today. Christians and Muslims indeed have some theological differences, perhaps even irreconcilable differences, but the differences are far less than what we might think, especially when we allow the texts to speak for themselves.

I've posted his words with permission:

I agree that Evangelist Churches in America are subject these days to kind of panic and their bosses sometimes act without showing great sense of responsibility. By the way, we have often seen such extreme behaviors and Manichean philosophy (world I only between very good and very bad and nothing in the middle) in this over passionate environment.

However, the fact is that their fears and worries are not out of scope and in my view it would be a mistake to rush blaming them and even more dangerous, to confront them. They will simply never accept it.

But what about the other side? Muslims must make the effort and Christians and Jews must ask their Muslim friends, sometimes without indulgence, to produce this effort.

Take as an example your question 2 which in my view should be changed into: “Can a Muslim be a true Muslim if not a Follower of Jesus?” The answer is: “No” and to explain this, I’d like to propose from a strictly Koranic perspective, kind of an overview…. Again, strictly Koranic… Not New Testament, not Old Testament… only Koran… In advance I want to apologize for the length of my message.



On behalf of Allah, Muhammad recited once a verse:

“Yes, We have given Moses The Book and after him, we have followed with the Envoys and We have given The Credentials to Jesus and We endowed Him with the Holy Spirit”… (S2, V87)

Audience asked questions to Muhammad about these words in particular about the exact meaning of the obviously distinguished rank granted by Allah to Jesus among all Envoys and also about who these Envoys are and whether he too, Muhammad, was an Envoy (Messenger) of Allah. And later the answers came from Allah:

“Yes you too truly are one of the Messengers”… (S2, V252)

“These Envoys, We have favored some over the others and some had spoken to Allah and We have over-ranked some of them and We have given The Credentials to Jesus, Son of Mary and We have endowed him with the Holy Spirit”… (S2, V253)”…

Each of Allah’s Envoys belongs to a certain rank. An Envoy can be only Envoy or Envoy and Prophet (Nabi) or Envoy and Prophet and Nazir, or Envoy and Prophet and Nazir and Messenger (carrying a message, Rasul) but among all Allah’s Envoys there is only one who is altogether Envoy, Prophet, Nazir, Messenger and Christ (Messiah) and this one is Jesus, son of Mary and this is because He alone, was endowed with the Holy Spirit. In the entire Koran there is not even one single Envoy and of course not one single human whom Allah endowed with the Holy Spirit as He endowed Jesus.

Muhammad recited a verse about how Allah comforted Jesus who was feeling sad because people were disputing his Status:

“Allah said: “Jesus, I shall now put an end to your life in this world, and I shall elevate You to Me and keep You away from those who have not believed in You and until the Day of Resurrection, I shall rank your Followers above those who do not believe in You and I am the One Who Judge and among all of you I shall account those who disputed Him (Jesus) and as for those who have not believed Him, I shall punish them a harsh Punishment and for them there will be no help”… (S3, V55-56)

This clearly confirms that Jesus is above all the Envoys and that from the days of Jesus life in this world and until the Day of Resurrection, people shall be judged by Allah according to whether they were Followers of Jesus or were not. Again, this divine judgment does not only count for those who lived during the days of Jesus-Christ but for all human beings who lived since these days until the Day of Resurrection…

And why is it that all creatures shall be judged at Judgment Day according to whether they were Followers of Jesus or were not? This is because Allah’s Mercy is infinite and because of such infinite mercy all sins are eligible to Allah’s Pardon except one sin that shall never been pardoned: “the sin against the Holy Spirit” (as Christians must know this also was, according to the Gospels, the exact answer Jesus made to some who asked Him which sins shall never been pardoned).

And what does “sinning against the Holy Spirit” means according to Allah? Allah gives the answer:

“There is Jesus, son of Mary, Word of Justice (Logos) about Whom they argue”…(S19, 34)

Sinning against the Holy Spirit means disputing Jesus because Jesus alone was endowed with the Holy Spirit…

Now the Big Question came: why Jesus alone was endowed with the Holy Spirit? And here came Allah’s answers which altogether form the Center and the Perimeter (Alfa and Omega) of Mystery of Faith because they cover several mysteries: Mystery of Creation of all Creatures whether Human or not Human, Mystery of Resurrection Day, Mystery of Judgment Day, All Mysteries of which Jesus is the Center. Let us read what Muhammad recited as being Allah’s answers to these questions:

On behalf of Allah, Muhammad recited:

“It is for Allah about Jesus as it was about Adam who He created from soil and said to him:”Be” and there He was” (S3, V59)

This means that mankind that has started with Adam started again with Jesus Christ.Muhammad also recited (the first Koran verse Mohammad has recited. This was around January 17, 611CE in Makka, Western Arabia):

“Recite… Recite in the name of your Lord, Who created human from a spermatozoon” (S96, V1-2).

Few months later, Muhammad recited again:

“Human must consider from what he was created… He was created from an expelled liquid”…(S86, V6-7)

I shall not quote all verses restating the same evidence (it needs a book) and shall conclude by saying that Muhammad recited several verses in which Allah has indisputably drawn the following theological understanding about the Great Mystery of Faith:

1. All humans are creatures. A human creature is a combination of a Soul and a Body so as for the entire life of the creature in this world, the Soul lives in the Body. The Body is mortal and corruptible because it is resulting from a biological process that starts with a mate between a Female and a Male and which ends up after the Female has carried the creature to finally deliver it after a certain period of time (6 to 9 months). The Soul is immortal because it comes as a single unit part of a Universal Soul that is the source of Immortality.

2. This framework is valid for all human creatures including Envoys except Jesus-Christ because Jesus Christ is the only one whose Body hasn’t resulted from a mate between his mother and father. That is exactly what the Koran says because according to the Koran Jesus is born not from a human father but from the Holy Spirit. Now since the first verse of the Koran says that all humans are created from a spermatozoon and the same Koran also says that Jesus’ Body, though delivered to life by His mother, wasn’t created from a spermatozoon but as a Holy spirit, should we not conclude that according to the Koran, Jesus is not exactly a Human? And if He is not exactly a Human, so what is He? Especially that the same Koran adds that Jesus has the power to create life, overcome death, heal sicknesses and accomplish miracles which all are divine and not human attributes?

3. When the body dies, it get corrupted while the Soul goes back to the Universal Soul until the Resurrection Day. At Resurrection Day, Soul and Body are reunified again and the Creature, Soul + Body, present before Allah for the Judgment and Allah decides whether a Creature shall be pardoned and rewarded or punished and damned. And this divine decision depends on whether during the life on earth, the Creature has been a follower of Jesus-Christ because all sins can be pardoned except the sin of disputing about Jesus Status as a Holy Spirit. This body corruption occurs for all human beings including Allah’s Envoys except for Jesus and John The Baptist who resurrected alive from death (Koran S19, V15 for John and Koran S19, V33 for Jesus noticing that in the Koran Allah testifies for John while Jesus testifies for Himself). Jesus and John’s bodies were never corrupted because they resurrected ALIVE. According to the Koran (S3, V39), John was granted by Allah that extreme privilege because he was a prophet assigned to announce the uprising of the Logos of Allah. This is the confirmation of Jesus words: ”Among all men born from the flesh, John was the greatest”…

Carl all these words come from the Koran and they are Allah’s words and it is Muhammad who recited these words. Christians do not know that Koran says what is here and more dramatic, Muslims do not know, do not understand and many of them do not accept these words though they come from the Koran…

Is it not here that our focus must be put? Is it not more than time to tell the truth about Muhammad’s life and Islam, especially to Muslims? To overcome legends and fables that Muslim Scholars from the early caliphates times have invented about Muhammad and later transformed into sacred stories? Don’t we believe that peace between nations with different believes and more specifically between Muslims and non-Muslims is a global issue and that nothing serious could come out from a so-called “inter-faith dialogue” unless this dialogue is based on the truth which is that Jesus is at the center of the entire prophecy cycle and not only one step among others in this chain?

To simply tell the truth: A Muslim does not need to convert to Christianity provided he/(s) understands that not being a Follower of Jesus takes out from any chance of salvation?

Are we not sure that once this truth shall be accepted by Muslims, Evangelists will have no more issues with Muslims?

Muslims do not need to “convert” to Christianity… They need to understand that according to Koran as recited by Muhammad, Islam is impossible for those who are not Followers of Jesus and that Salvation is through Jesus-Christ and only through Jesus-Christ.

Again, pardon me for having been so long….

Your brother,
Riad

Sometimes I think that Christians need to be reminded that we don't own Jesus. Thank you Riad for reminding us that Jesus is bigger than the religion we know of as Christianity. May the Spirit of Jesus the Messiah, the Logos of God, continue to illuminate our hearts with His light and love.