(see video HERE)
Dear Muslim friends such as Reza, from Iran, who was kind
enough to talk with me on the sidewalk recently. I’d like to clarify the key point at which we
must disagree: It’s all about Jesus.
We Christians share some common beliefs with Islam: we all have
a God-given conscience and will all be held accountable
to our Creator for those times in which we fail to follow it. We also have
many religious and cultural differences that could distract us from the one
central difference that divides us: Who
is Jesus?
Islam, the youngest of world religions, developed some 6
centuries after the time of Christ. It
draws from Muhammad’s limited exposure to Jewish and Christian stories and
traditions circulating among Arab traders at the time. As such Jesus is important as a prophet of
Islam, but his identity is misunderstood and is, in fact, the key point of
difference and conflict between Christianity and Islam.
For some 600 years before the founding of Islam, Christians
had been wrestling with challenges to the true identity of Jesus. A first-century school of thought now called
Gnosticism taught that anything physical was, by its very nature, evil. Therefore, since Jesus’ divine identity as
God’s Son was already accepted, the Gnostics reasoned that Jesus must have only
come in a spiritual form, not physically.
In his first letter, John was already addressing this
heretical belief: “Dear friends, do not
believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God,
because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can
recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has
come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus
is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is
coming and even now is already in the world.” (1 John 4:1-3)
John’s warning focused specifically on the heresy of
Gnosticism, but by it Christians learned several important things: to be aware
of false prophets; to insist on the importance of correctly understanding Jesus’
identity; and to watch out for “antichrists” actively set against the person
and work of Jesus who were already at work in the world.
Over 500 years and many such heresies and challenges later,
a man claiming to be a prophet in Arabia claimed to have special knowledge from
God, a claim also made by the early Gnostics.
Among other things his writings claimed that the Creator could never inhabit
creation, creating a dilemma similar to that of the early Gnostics. He reached a different conclusion, however. If God can’t become incarnate (in the flesh),
then Jesus must not be God. The same
conclusion has since been reached by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons, who
also teach that Jesus is a created being, not one with the Creator.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but like the early Christians
1 John teaches me that there are spirits influencing false prophets who are
actively working against Jesus’ true identity.
Why would we not conclude Muhammed falls into that same category? Should we trust the word of multiple
eyewitnesses such as John who walked with and witnessed the life and ministry
of Jesus, or the word of a self-promoting and self-proclaimed prophet 600 years
later who only knew of Jesus through rumor and speculation?
Our shared belief with Islam, that we are accountable for
our sins before God, diverges when it comes to how our sin problem might be resolved. Unlike Islam, Christians believe God is so
worthy and holy that no good deeds or religious actions on our part could ever
begin to repay the debt we owe.
Only a worthy sacrifice made on our behalf could repay that
debt, and only the perfect and holy Son of God could be that sacrifice. No wonder there are evil spirits and false
prophets set on working against Jesus’ true identity.
Thanks, Reza, for sharing and allowing me to record our
conversation! It can be seen HERE at https://youtu.be/311HhZGaYQk
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