THE INFERIORITY OF ISLAM (PART 3)

-{Ephesians 2}

-As part of our Wednesday discipleship, we have been setting the foundation to acknowledge the excellence of the Christian faith by pitting it against the false teachings of other religions and cults. This not only gives us a solid apologetic for the faith, but it also helps us learn our own theological moorings.

-So far, we have been doing an extensive comparison with Islam, seeing how their view of god so differs from Christianity that we can firmly say that Muslims and Christians do NOT serve and worship the same God. Last week we compared how their version of a prophet Jesus fell so short of the true, biblical Jesus.

-And because they have a wrong Jesus, it has great implications on what they believe about sin and salvation. Islam does not take sin that seriously, so their version of salvation is completely skewed.

-Consider the story of Nabeel Qureshi, a Muslim who sought truth, was confronted with truth, and eventually found the beauties of Christ. In his book entitled SEEKING ALLAH, FINDING JESUS, he tells a story about an exchange he had with some friends--one a Buddhist and another a Christian. Nabeel was arguing against the need for someone (namely Jesus) to pay for sins. He was arguing against the substitutionary atonement of Christ for sinners. But when his Christian friend argued about the seriousness of sin and the need for God’s justice to be paid, this is what Nabeel writes:

This argument had real implications for my heart. I knew I was a sinner and that I had rebelled against God’s commands at times and chosen my own path over His dictates. But since Muslims believe that salvation is a matter of doing more good deeds than bad, I never really felt anguish over my sins because I believed myself to be on the positive side of the scales. To me, sin was bad, but not that bad. But if it was true that all sins are so devastating that they lead to hell, what chance did I have?

Of course, Allah could show mercy, but the Quran says Allah does not love sinners. What reason would He have to forgive me? David must have been given some insight because he spoke to the heart of the issue. He shook his head and said solemnly, “Nabeel, you’re still seeing Christian doctrines from an Islamic perspective. Christianity teaches that sin is so destructive it shatters souls and destroys worlds. It’s like a cancer that slowly consumes everything. That’s why this world went from perfection in the garden of Eden to being the sick and depressing place it is today. Do you think God would allow any of that stuff in heaven? Of course He wouldn’t. If heaven is going to be a perfect place, by definition there can be no sinners in it. None at all.”

His last words hung in the air, their gravity slowly sinking in. After a few heavy moments, I spoke. “Then what hope is there for us, David?” David smiled reassuringly. “Only the grace of God.” “But why would He give me His grace?” “Because He loves you.” “Why would He love me, a sinner?” “Because He’s your Father.”

David’s words hit me powerfully. I had heard Christians call God “Father,” but it never clicked. Only when trying to figure out why God would give me mercy and grace when I deserved none did the gears start turning.

-There was something off about the Islamic teaching of Jesus, sin, and salvation. First, consider what they teach about sin. Islam teaches that Adam did sin. However, unlike Christian teaching, Adam’s sin did not change his nature at all. He didn’t gain a sin nature that would lead him into sinful activity, and there was no sin nature passed down from one generation to the next. Adam and humanity still would be able to obey God if they so chose. It’s just that sometimes they are weak and they forget who they are, so they sin.

-This flies in the face of the biblical witness. Consider the passage that I had you turn to, where Paul talks about the state of humanity before Christ. This is what Christianity believes about the fall:

Ephesians 2:1–3 LSB

1 And you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom we all also formerly conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

-The biblical witness is that Adam’s rebellion against God introduced spiritual and physical death. This put humanity under the power and influence of Satan, with a fleshliness that gave in to its lusts and desires. And this made us by nature children of wrath. Paul has nothing good to say about the state of humanity. Humans are spiritually dead and can do no good to help relieve their condition.

-But because Islam doesn’t see sin for as devastating as it really is, their version of salvation is very works oriented. They believe that people are able in their own strength to free themselves from the bondage of sin and choose to follow the path of Allah--no need for a substitutionary death.

-The hope of any sort of salvation from sin is to please Allah by good works. Their Quran says:

The Quran Sura 23

[102] Then those whose scales are heavy, they are the successful. [103] And those whose scales are light are those who lose their souls, in hell abiding.

-Did you catch that? You need to tip the scales on your side--make your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds in the scale of life. The problem is that there is really no way of knowing if your good outweighs your bad. On top of the fact that they teach that Allah is sovereign to show mercy or not, so he kind of forgives or withholds forgiveness kind of willy nilly. Allah will do whatever he wants anyway, so it’s really hard to know where you stand with him. There is no assurance of salvation, other than if you die in service to Allah--they are assured paradise. That’s why you have Islamic terrorists willing to give up their life attacking infidels. They think that it means automatic paradise. And just think, all those terrorists killed themselves and woke up to their worst eternal nightmare.

-But your general, run-of-the-mill Muslims try to outweigh the good and bad. They do this by performing the five pillars of Islam. These are religious obligations that at least help contribute to your side of the scale (according to them).

-The first pillar is the Shahadah--the confession of faith. If someone recites this and means it, that means that they have become Muslim. And then you just repeat it daily the rest of your life. You’ve probably heard this confession on TV shows and such: There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.

-The second pillar is the Salat--the prayers that they say five times a day.

-The third pillar is Zakat. This is their almsgiving--giving money to the poor through Muslim causes or charities. Generally they say they give 2.5-3.0%

-Then there is the Saum--the fasting for a month that they do once a year during their month of Ramadan.

-Then the final pillar is the Hajj--a pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims are to do at least once in their lifetime.

-But for a Muslim, even if somehow you were able to keep up with all of that, that doesn not necessarily tip the scales in your favor. So, you have to find other ways of doing good works. And you work, and you work, and you still never know if it is good enough.

-How amazing it is to know as a Christian that we don’t have to do all that work or worry if you have done enough work, because Jesus did all the work for us. Jesus said come to me and I will give you rest--rest from trying to work for something you can’t get anyway. Rest from living up to a standard that we’d never be able to meet in the current state that we’re in. Not that we don’t do good works, but it is because of what God has done for us in Christ, not to try to earn something.

-So, we notice that the Islamic idea of sin is completely faulty, which feeds into their faulty narrative of earning paradise (if Allah seems to be in a good mood).

-The Bible on the other hand gives us the truth about our sin state, and why it is that we need a Savior. As we saw in the Ephesians passage earlier, the moment Adam and Eve sinned, they were dead in their trespasses and sins, and now all of humanity is in the same boat.

-The Bible teach that sin is universal for every human--we are born in a state of sin, and because of that state we commit sins. Paul told us:

Romans 5:12 LSB

12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—

Romans 5:19 LSB

19 For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were appointed sinners...

-King David told us that human beings are born into the work in a state of sin because from conception that sin nature is passed on from person to person, generation to generation:

Psalm 51:5 LSB

5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.

-And the effect of sin cannot be ignored--one look at the news, or just opening your eyes to the things that go on around you, supports the teaching on man’s depravity and fallenness. How can you look at the atrocities that some people commit and somehow think that humanity is basically good? It is much more than simply weakness and forgetting who you are--sin is very much who humans are. It is so ingrained in us. You don’t have to teach children to sin--you have to teach them not to sin.

-Sin is not feebleness, it is an active rebellion against God. Paul says:

Romans 3:23 LSB

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

-The verb for fall short here is in the present tense in the Greek, which means that it is continual. Humans perpetually fall short of God’s glory--sometimes by accident, but often times on purpose.

-Sure, we might be able to look at other human beings and think we’re OK, but when we are compared to God’s holiness and standard, we are so much more sinful than what we truly even allow ourselves to see. Billy Graham gave a great example of this. He wrote:

Reasoning from the Scriptures with Muslims 14. Sin and Salvation in Islam

Several years ago I was to be interviewed at my home for a well-known television show and, knowing that it would appear on nationwide television, my wife took great pains to see that everything looked nice. She had vacuumed and dusted and tidied up the whole house and had gone over the living room with a fine-tooth comb since that was where the interview would be filmed.

When the film crew arrived with all the lights and cameras, she felt that everything in that living room was spic and span. We were in place along with the interviewer when suddenly the television lights were turned on and we saw cobwebs and dust where we had never seen them before. In the words of my wife: “That room was festooned with dust and cobwebs which simply did not show up under ordinary light.”

The point is, of course, that no matter how well we clean up our lives and think we have them all in order, when we see ourselves in the light of God’s Word, in the light of God’s holiness, all the cobwebs and all the dust do show up.

-And because of that dirtiness, we cannot clean ourselves up enough to meet the standard. That is why Paul tells us in so many different ways that works cannot save:

Romans 3:28 LSB

28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.

Galatians 2:16 LSB

16 nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law...

2 Timothy 1:9 LSB

9 who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus from all eternity,

-And because of the sinfulness of sin, God cannot just arbitrarily overlook the breaking of His law (like Allah must do if he allows anyone who has sinned to enter paradise). The true God is perfectly just. A price needs to be paid to satisfy God’s holiness and righteousness. And that is why the substitutionary atonement of Christ is necessary.

-But the problem for Islam is that they don’t have someone who can atone their sin for them. Muhammad admittedly fell short. And their version of Jesus can do nothing for them.

-You see, their Jesus is merely a prophet—a good man, but no Savior. According to Islamic teaching, Jesus did not die by crucifixion, because Allah would not allow one his prophets to go out like that. Their Quran says:

The Quran Sura 4

And because of their saying: We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allah's messenger - they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them; and lo! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture; they slew him not for certain.

-So, they say it merely appeared that Jesus died on the cross, but didn’t. They put forth many different theories about what this means. Some teach that Allah supernaturally traded out Judas for Jesus on the cross. Some teach that it was merely illusion. Some teach that Jesus merely swooned (passed out) but didn’t really die.

-So, for them, Jesus didn’t die on behalf of anyone. He probably died of natural causes eventually--but for Muslims Jesus did not die to pay for sin. And then that also means that Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead either. So, Islam is left without a Savior, without hope, without assurance, without eternal life--just a wish that they might be good enough, which no one is.

-But we have a better message:

1 Corinthians 15:3–4 LSB

3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

-Let us pray that Muslims would come to the truth. May they see the sinfulness of sin and their need for a Savior...