Contributing Writer Jordan Legg
Twitter: @JordanLegg2
If you’re a Muslim that has ever talked to a Christian about your faith, there’s a good chance that at some point during the conversation you’ve told your Christian friend that Muslims love Jesus as well. From spoken word videos to Independent articles at Christmas time to Islamic apologetics programs like the Deen Show, when Muslims invite Christians to examine their faith, they really want us to know how much they love Jesus. This is, it seems, partly intended to combat negative stereotypes of Muslims, but partly also as a precursor to Islamic proselytization or dawah. As if to say, “I encourage you to submit to Allah as he has revealed himself through Muhammad, Christian—but don’t think that means you have to give up your love for Jesus. You can have them both.”
There’s a sense in which Muslims are bound to do this by their scriptures. As many a Muslim knows well, Jesus is mentioned by name some 25 times in the Qur’an, and presented as a great prophet and Messiah, born of the virgin Mary and promised to return again at the end of time. Muslims and Christians hold these beliefs in common—and for many people, that’s enough of a reason to conclude that we’re really all saying the same thing.
Except, not really.
Muslims who claim to love Jesus also know and admit that the Qur’an teaches that Jesus is neither God nor God’s Son, contrary to Jesus’ claims in places like Matthew 11:27, Mark 14, or John 5. They know and admit that the Qur’an teaches that Jesus was not crucified, even though Jesus specifically promised, on multiple occasions, that he would die at the hands of his enemies and rise again the third day. He even went so far as to say that his death was the whole purpose of his role as Messiah (a term the Qur’an doesn’t define, and one that most Muslims don’t understand), and that by his death on the cross, sins would be forgiven, and that Jews and Gentiles would be granted new life as a result. The Qur’an also mischaracterizes the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which is that the one God’s being is shared by three distinct, coequal, coeternal Persons—namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, each having a distinct role in the salvation of God’s people. And the Qur’an even goes so far as to assert that Jesus prophesied Muhammad’s coming, even though no trace of such prophecies exist anywhere in the New Testament, and Jesus actually regarded himself as the climax of God’s self-revelation, with no need for further prophets.
In light of all this, I have two questions:
1) If you’re a Muslim who’s ever said to Christians, “We Muslims love Jesus too,”—how would you like us to interpret that?
I don’t mean that as a kind of condescending insult. I genuinely want to know.
Because while it’s quite true that becoming a Muslim doesn’t mean Christians must give up their love for a figure named Jesus, what it does mean is that Christians must abandon everything about Jesus that makes Him most worthy of their love. What Muslims must understand is that Christians do not simply love Jesus because he was born of a virgin or will return at the end of time. We love Jesus because we believe that,
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” (Colossians 1:15-20).
So when Muslims say to me, “We encourage you to keep Jesus in your worldview, but come to an Islamic understanding of him,” it sounds to us like what they’re really saying is, “Continue to revere the name Jesus, but stop believing that he is worthy of your total love and worship. Stop believing that the greatest expression of his love for you, namely his death and resurrection, ever happened, and stop banking on the promise that Jesus will “make His home” with you, and by His Spirit draw you into greater love for God and others.”
And I dunno—to me, that just doesn’t sound a whole lot better.
2) If Muslims don’t take seriously Jesus’ claims about himself, what exactly do they mean when they say they love him?
In my experience, the vast majority of Muslims, when they’re pressed about the gulf between the Jesus of the Bible and the Jesus of the Qur’an, tend to default to, “Well, in all those differences, the Qur’an is right because Muhammad was a prophet and he’s our authority.” But isn’t this precisely the opposite chain of reasoning the Qur’an itself seems to employ? Surah 7:157 and 61:6 both teach that Jesus prophesied Muhammad, and that Jews and Christians should look at their scriptures, see Muhammad foretold therein, and conclude that he is compatible with the prophets and figures they revere as sent of God. But if you’re a Muslim, and you’ve disregarded the links and references I’ve given above, thinking to yourself that the Bible must be corrupted (though the Qur’an affirms the inspiration, preservation, and authority of the Bible, contrary to common Muslim belief), then what you’re essentially saying is that you only really believe in Jesus because the Qur’an tells you to—rather than that you believe in the Qur’an as a natural result of believing in Jesus. If there’s any further doubt on this point, ask yourself this question: is there any really good reason to believe in Jesus as a Muslim prophet, and to revere him and honour him the way Muslims do, outside of the Qur’an? And if there isn’t, why bother insisting on this point as a tool for Muslim dawah?
The simple fact is that the Jesus of the Bible and the Jesus of the Qur’an are not compatible. Muslims may claim they love Jesus, but in denying everything about him that makes him most worthy of love, they do him an incredible disservice and sever themselves from any meaningful connection from the Jewish Messiah born of a virgin who will return at the end of time. If you’re a Muslim who genuinely wants to follow Jesus, then I encourage you and challenge you to take a look at the four Gospels yourself. Examine the correspondence between the Old Testament and the Jewish Messiah, and compare them with the figure you’ve been told of in the Qur’an. I think you’ll there find a far more dynamic, personal, three-dimensional Jesus than the one described in Surah 19 or Surah 4:157—not just a mighty prophet who asserts monotheism, but an all-sufficient Saviour, a sovereign King, and a loving God.