By Living Waters

The Qur’an and the Hadith (traditions regarding Muhammad’s teachings and way of life) are fundamental to the Islamic view of Christianity and Christians. They provide the two lenses through which Muslims see all of reality. For example, the Qur’an teaches that the doctrine of the Trinity is essentially polytheistic, and that Christians believe Jesus was conceived through a sexual union with God as the father and Mary as the mother (Qur’an 4:171; 5:73, 116)–a belief more at home in Mormon theology.

In spite of our protests to the contrary, our appeals to Scripture,[1] and our explanations of the doctrine,[2] it is extremely difficult to persuade Muslims that Christianity is unwaveringly monotheistic. Transcending such misunderstandings of our faith is the Muslim belief that Islam has superseded (fulfilled and replaced) Christianity, thus abrogating (bringing to an end) the Christian faith as a viable faith. In brief, as Christianity is to Old Testament religion, so Islam is to Christianity. How have Muslims come to this conclusion?

In the Beginning, Islam

The original religion of humanity is Islam (Qur’an 7:172), and every human being is born a Muslim. As recalled in one Hadith, “Allah’s Apostle [Mohammad] said, ‘Every child is born with a true faith of Islam (i.e. to worship none but Allah Alone) but his parents convert him to Judaism, Christianity or Magainism [Zoroastrianism]…”[3]

God Sent Prophets

God graciously has sent messengers to every nation to teach them submission to God and to warn them against false religious teachings and practices (16:36; 35:24). Moses and Jesus are understood to have been prophets of Islam, as well as Ishmael, Isaac, and Jacob (3:67; 61:6; 2:136). Muslims are expected to honor these prophets, as well as their respective books (4:136). Thus the religions that predated Mohammad are understood as having been originally Islamic and their prophets as Muslims (15:10). The Qur’an even affirms, “Verily! Those who believe and those who are Jews and Christians, and Sabians, whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day and does righteous good deeds shall have their reward with the Lord, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve” (2:62; cf. 5:69).[4]

Then Came Mohammad

Mohammad is understood to be a successor of the prophets of old (61:6), their books containing prophecies regarding him (7:157). Many Muslims even believe the Bible contains several prophecies concerning Mohammad, most significantly Deuteronomy 18:15-18 and John 14:16.[5] But the other prophets’ missions were geographically and temporally limited, while Mohammad is the one prophet for all humankind (Qur’an 7:158; 34:28), the last of the prophets (33:40). As a well-known Hadith illustrates:

Allah’s Apostle said, “My similitude in comparison with the other prophets before me, is that of a man who has built a house nicely and beautifully, except for a place of one brick in a corner. The people go about it and wonder at its beauty, but say: ‘Would that this brick be put in its place!’ So I am that brick, and I am the last of the Prophets.”[6]

The Qur’anNot only do Muslims ascribe superlative status to Mohammad, they ascribe it to the Qur’an as well. The Qur’an is the incomparable and final revelation from God (17:88-89), confirming the previous revelations (10:37; 46:12). And unlike the previous revelations – which have been textually corrupted and muted by the accumulation of human interpretations – the Qur’an is inscribed on a tablet in heaven (85:21-22) and is kept incorruptible by God: “We have, without doubt, sent down the Message [the Qur’an]; and We will assuredly guard it (from corruption)” (15:9).

Islam and Other Religions Today

Because Mohammad was the final prophet and the Qur’an is God’s final revelation, Muslims reject claims to new divine revelation or inspired prophets. Thus they are highly critical of such groups as the Baha’i,[7] the Ahmadiyyah,[8] and the Nation of Islam,[9] each of which asserts some elements of succession and abrogation. Even though there was a time when Muslims embraced adherents to other monotheistic faiths, such a time came to an end with the finished work of Mohammad and the full revelation of the Qur’an. Now only Muslims are accepted by God: “If anyone desires a religion other than Islam (submission to God), never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter he will be in the ranks of those who have lost (all spiritual good)” (3:85).[10]

Response: The Importance of Continuity

As Christianity is to Old Testament religion, so Islam is to Christianity. This analogy is at the heart of the Islamic claim to supersession and abrogation. Yet, in order for one religion to fulfill a preceding religion (using the analogy of the relationship of Christianity to Old Testament religion), there must be continuity with what is essential to the previous religion. Fulfillment is not the same as negation or outright replacement. Fulfillment implies a continuity of essence, though not necessarily of form.

Islam claims some continuity with Christianity and Old Testament religion. Muslims believe there is only one God, that he created the universe, is sovereign, maximally powerful, active with his creation – especially with humanity, and that he knows even the intimate details of human lives and will one day bring all humanity to account for deeds good and evil. Christians and Muslims also believe that God has spoken to humanity through messengers and that this revelation has been inscripturated in holy books.

Even with such substantial agreements, however, several significant discontinuities exist, undermining the plausibility of the Islamic claim to fulfill Christianity. These discontinuities include such areas as the problem of sin, the nature of atonement, the ground of salvation, and the acknowledgment of previous revelation. Here we will address the last point, saving the others for the second part of this series.

Revelation: Continuity or Criticism?

Christians often respond to Muslim claims to supersession by referring to such doctrines as the Trinity or the incarnation of Christ. How could Islam be a successor to Christianity and deny the Trinity? While this is a healthy observation, Muslims attempt to mute the significance of our doctrinal differences by arguing that the text of the Bible has been corrupted. This is a significant disanalogy between Christianity and Islam. Simply put, the New Testament authors never criticized the text of the Old Testament scriptures or the revelation encased in it.

In contrast to Muslim criticisms, in the New Testament we find an affirmation of the entire Old Testament as inspired by God, even providing wisdom for salvation through Christ Jesus (2 Tim 3:14-17). The Old Testament prophets are acknowledged to have been inspired (1 Pet 1:21; cf. 2 Sam 23:2). Not only that, but in both the Old and New Testaments we find divine declarations that God’s word will not pass away (Isa 40:6-8; 1 Pet 1:24-25).

Even Jesus confirmed the truthfulness of the Old Testament texts of the first century when he prayed, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17; NIV).[11] This is significant because we have found portions of the Old Testament text among the Dead Sea Scrolls. These scrolls show that the text as we have it today is substantially the text of the first century. Thus critics have no grounds upon which to claim that the Old Testament text was somehow corrupted and cleansed of Islamic teachings.[12] We must ask our Muslims friends, “If God can sustain the Qur’an throughout the ages, can he not sustain the biblical texts?” Indeed, the evidence shows that he has preserved his word.[13]

In addition to these straightforward statements regarding the word of God, we are instructed by the fact that throughout the New Testament we find regular appeals to the Old Testament as the source and confirmation of Christianity. As just one example, consider the affirmations and teachings of the apostle Paul in the book of Romans.[14]

Paul both introduces and concludes Romans noting how the gospel he proclaims stems from the Old Testament (Rom 1:1-2; 16:25-27; cf. Gal 3:6-8). In addition to these agenda-setting declarations, Paul noted that the righteousness of God – which is the heart of his gospel – was testified to by the law and the prophets (3:21). Even though some have charged Paul with being unlawful, he declares the contrary when he writes, “Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law” (3:31). He taught that his ministry and message of Christ confirms God’s promises to the Patriarchs, “For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God in order that he might confirm the promises given to the patriarchs so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy” (15:8-9a). Paul even viewed himself and his congregations as accountable to the Old Testament scriptures, noting that they have a continuing validity for the Church as the people of God: “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope” (15:4; cf. 4:23-24 and 1 Cor 10:1ff.).

Paul’s dependence upon the Old Testament is amply verified through even a cursory reading of his letter to the Romans with an eye toward Paul’s explicit quotations culled from the law, the writings, and the prophets (e.g. Rom 3:10-18; 10:5-21; 15:8-12), as well as his innumerable allusions.[15] Paul didn’t view his gospel as a novel innovation. His message was dependent upon and developed from the Old Testament scriptures. Clearly, Paul’s perspective and practice stand in sharp contrast to the critical charges of Muslims and others. Indeed, Islam stands in sharp disanalogy to Christianity when it seeks to establish its teachings through criticizing the text of the Bible.

Islam is not to Christianity as Christianity is to the Old Testament. We can illustrate the truthfulness of God’s word by showing the New Testament’s appeals to, dependence upon, and development from the Old Testament, as well as by showing Muslims our own high regard for the whole Bible – both Old and New Testaments.

In the second part of this series we’ll illustrate Christianity’s continuity – as well as Islam’s discontinuity – with the Old Testament by discussing sin and salvation. We’ll also discuss the relationship of Christianity to Old Testament religious practices.

Notes

1. E.g. Deuteronomy 4:35, 39; Isaiah 44:6-8; 43:10-11; 1 Corinthians 8:5-6; Ephesians 4:4-6.

2. See Peter Toon, Our Triune God: A Biblical Portrayal of the Trinity (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996).

3. Sahih Bukhari, Volume 2, Book 23, Hadith 441.

4. All quotations of the Qur’an are from A. Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur’an: Text, Translation and Commentary (Washington, D.C.: The American International Printing Company, 1946).

5. Other less significant texts include Deuteronomy 21:21; Psalm 118:22-23; Isaiah 42:1-13; Habakkuk 3:3-4; Matthew 21:42-43; John 14:26-28 and 16:7-14.

6. Sahih Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 56, Hadith 735.

7. See www.bahai.org and www.us.bahai.org. For Christian interactions with the Baha’i faith, see, Francis J. Beckwith, Baha’i (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1985) and William M. Miller, The Baha’i Faith: Its History and Teachings (South Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library Publications, 1984).

8. See John Gilchrist, “A Study of the Ahmadiyyah Movement.”

9. See C. Eric Lincoln, The Black Muslims in America, 3rd edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994) and Steven Tsoulkas, The Nation of Islam: Understanding the ‘Black Muslims’ (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2001).

10. Cf. Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Qur’anic Christians: An Analysis of Classical and Modern Exegesis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

11. See, further, John W. Wenham, Christ and the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1984).

12. See Walter Kaiser, Are the Old Testament Documents Reliable and Relevant? (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001).

13. See Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, revised and expanded (Chicago: Moody, 1986).

14. It is common for critics to assert that the teachings of the apostle Paul are different than the teachings of Jesus. Muslims have asserted this as well. In response, see David Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

15. See Moises Silva, “Old Testament in Paul,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, Gerald F. Hawthorne and Ralph P. Martin, eds. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 630-642; Ben Witherington, Paul’s Narrative Thought World: The Tapestry of Tragedy and Triumph (Nashville, TN: Westminster/John Knox, 1994); and the discussions in Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts?: Essays on the Use of the Old Testament in the New, Gregory K. Beale, ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1996).

To be continued…