How to Explain the Necessity of Jesus' Death to Muslims

I have been in a few face-to-face debates with Muslims, and all of them were polite and respectful. One question from my Muslim friends kept popping up, however: "Why did Jesus have to die on the cross for our sins? If we sin, God just forgives! He does not need for someone to take our place." Muslims have told me that this substitutionary sacrifice is actually very unfair of God. God would never let a righteous man die for the guilty. They illustrate it this way: "Would God allow an innocent baby to die for the crimes of murderers? Of course not! So, it would be immoral for God to send a righteous man to pay for others' sins."

The Quran states very clearly that Jesus did not die on the cross: "They declared: 'We have put to death the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the apostle of God.' They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but they thought they did (Surah 4:157-158)." And it says that one person cannot bear the burden of another (Surah 6:164), so a human cannot die for the sins of others. (However, elsewhere in Surah 29:12-13 it says others, such as Christians and Jews, will be punished for the sins of Muslims. So, the Quran does teach that at least some will be punished in the place of others.)

To answer this I begin with the question, "What did the Messiah come to do?" Muslims call Jesus "Isa al-Masih" (Jesus the Messiah). So, what is it about the Messiah that is different from all other prophets? What is unique about His ministry? The Hebrew prophet Isaiah predicted the ministry of the Messiah 700 years before the birth of Jesus:

And then I go on to explain to my friends that we both believe that God is infinite, eternal, holy, and just (Psalm 90:2; Isaiah 6:3). We both believe that God's Law is perfect and anyone who breaks it must incur His wrath (Romans 1:18). The result of sin is death-- eternal separation from God (Romans 6:23; Matthew 25:46). But here is where the Muslim and I part ways theologically. The Bible tells us that no one is good enough to make up for our offenses against God (Romans 3:10-18, 23). The best we can offer Him is like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6).

Since all of us are helpless to measure up to God's Law and satisfy His holy demands, the only person who is qualified to get us out of this just condemnation is God Himself. We could not work our way up to Him; instead He came down here for us. People do not go to hell for lack of sincerity. They go to hell for lack of righteousness. And the only righteousness God accepts ... is His own.

How do we get it? The Bible tells us that on the cross there was a great exchange. Jesus volunteered to be cursed in our place. No one forced Him; He did it out of love. As a perfect, sinless man, He could perfectly represent the entire human race. As God, His sacrifice would have an infinite, eternal value to pay for all of mankind's sins. All our sin was credited to Jesus on the cross, and God the Father condemned Him in our place (Romans 3:22-26). In exchange, He credits all of the righteousness of Jesus to us; to all who believe in Him.

God did what only God could do. Sin must be punished. God does not just sweep it under the rug. Jesus (who is God the Son) became a sinless man (John 1:1-14) and took upon Himself all the condemnation that we so richly deserve. God demonstrated His love for people and His justice against sin at the same time on the cross. God's holy outrage against sin has been meted out on Jesus on the cross, and now all who believe in Jesus as their only hope are reconciled to God forever (2 Corinthians 5:17-21).

Jesus said in John 5:24 that if anyone believes in what He says, that person has eternal life: he will never ever come into condemnation, and has already passed from death to life. So, I ask my Muslim friends this Easter, do you have such a sinless Savior as Jesus? Do you know for sure that you have everlasting life right now? Do you know that you will never come into condemnation? Have you already passed from death to life? If you know this Jesus of the Bible, you have all this and more.

One aspect may still seem confusing to the believer and the Muslim.

While God sent His Son, a distinction between Jesus Christ in His humanity and in His Deity, is emphasized in the doctrine of the hypostatic union.

Keeping it simple, God’s Holiness is comprised of His Perfect Righteousness facing His Perfect Justice. This is represented in the Arc of the Covenant, where 2 Cherubim are on the Mercy Seat facing one another. One represents His Perfect Righteousness, and the other, His Perfect Justice. They keep one another in check. His Perfect Righteousness demands Perfect Justice, and His Perfect Justice demands Perfect Righteousness.

Without a substitutionary atonement, God would not be able to FORGIVE our sins, because we have nothing Perfectly Righteous to offer in sacrifice for our violation of His volition. If He forgave our sin without PERFECT JUSTICE, in a righteous manner, He would become sinful Himself. God is anything BUT sin.

It is important to note that it wasn’t a sacrifice by God which provided our salvation, but rather God the Son, who sacrificed His life to atone God the Father, thereby one act by man provided salvation for ALL mankind.

FORGIVENESS is a different issue. The Cross was ALL JUDGMENT. Forgiveness occurs only when we face God, confess our sins to Him through faith in what Christ provided at the Cross, THEN in His Perfect Holiness, He is free to forgive our sins.

This is the same mechanism for initial saving faith as it is with post-salvation forgiveness of sin and our return into fellowship with Him.

>>> Are you saying Jesus was not the son of God? Are you saying Jesus is not your Savior? He sure is mine

Trying to figure out how you interpreted my post to say he is not. What did I say to suggest so? I will make the same point with a little expansion:

**IF** Jesus was not God in the flesh, then He was certainly guilty of blasphemy because He DID claim to be God. Therefore, the muslim belief that Jesus was a “good” man or even a great prophet is false. Jesus claimed before His crucifixion that he would rise again in 3 days. If He did not die and rise again, that would again make Him a false prophet... and the muslim’s reverence for Jesus as a great prophet would be misplaced. Finally, IF Jesus was not God incarnate, then there is NO religion or belief system in existence which demonstrates that God’s love for us is the greatest love which can exist as Jesus described it. (No greater love exists than for a man to lay down his life for a friend.)

ON THE OTHER HAND....

If Jesus IS who He claimed to be (God), then He was NOT GUILTY of blasphemy... even though that is still why they crucified Him. The FACT that Jesus IS who He claimed to be ALSO demonstrates to us that God loves us enough to lay down His own life for us. NO OTHER GOD CAN MAKE THAT CLAIM!
Allah never laid down his life for anyone. Instead Allah expects his followers to lay down everyone else’s life if they refuse to believe, and their own life in the process if they want to fornicate in heaven with 72 virgins.

That is NOT love. It should be obvious to them.

http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/4650/full_text_of_benedict_xvis_recent_rare_and_lengthy_interview.aspx

Benedict:

However, in my opinion, there continues to exist, in another way, the perception that we are in need of grace and forgiveness. For me it is a "sign of the times" the fact that the idea of the mercy of God should become more and more central and dominant --- starting from Sister Faustina, whose visions in various ways reflect deeply the image of God held by the men of today and their desire for the divine goodness.

Pope John Paul II was deeply impregnated by this impulse, even if this did not always emerge explicitly. But it is certainly not by chance that his last book, published just before his death, speaks of God's mercy. Starting from the experiences which, from the earliest years of life, exposed him to all of the cruel acts men can perform, he affirms that mercy is the only true and ultimate effective reaction against the power of evil.

Only where there is mercy does cruelty end, only with mercy do evil and violence end. Pope Francis is totally in agreement with this line. His pastoral practice is expressed in the fact that he continually speaks to us of God's mercy. It is mercy that moves us toward God, while justice frightens us before Him.

In my view, this makes clear that, under a veneer of self-assuredness and self-righteousness, the man of today hides a deep knowledge of his wounds and his unworthiness before God. He is waiting for mercy.

It is certainly no coincidence that the parable of the Good Samaritan is particularly attractive to contemporary man. And not just because that parable strongly emphasizes the social dimension of Christian existence, nor only because in it the Samaritan, the man not religious, in comparison with the representatives of religion seems, so to speak, as one who acts really so in conformity with God, while the official representatives of religion seem, as it were, immune to God. This clearly pleases modern man.

But it seems just as important to me, nevertheless, that men in their intimate consciences expect the Samaritan will come to their aid; that he will bend down over them, pour oil on their wounds, care for them and take them to safety. In the final analysis, they know that they need God's mercy and his tenderness. In the hardness of the technologized world in which feelings no longer count for anything, the expectation however increases of a saving love that is freely given. It seems to me that in the theme of divine mercy is expressed in a new way what is means by justification by faith.

Starting from the mercy of God, which everyone is looking for, it is possible even today to interpret anew the fundamental nucleus of the doctrine of justification and have it appear again in all its relevance. When Anselm says that Christ had to die on the cross to repair the infinite offense that had been made to God, and in this way to restore the shattered order, he uses a language which is difficult for modern man to accept (cfr. Gs 215.ss iv). Expressing oneself in this way, one risks likely to project onto God an image of a God of wrath, relentless toward the sin of man, with feelings of violence and aggression comparable with what we can experience ourselves. How is it possible to speak of God's justice without potentially undermining the certainty, deeply established among the faithful, that the God of the Christians is a God "rich in mercy" (Ephesians 2:4)? The conceptuality of St. Anselm has now become for us incomprehensible. It is our job to try again to understand the truth that lies behind this mode of expression. For my part I offer three points of view on this point:

a) the contrast between the Father, who insists in an absolute way on justice, and the Son who obeys the Father and, obedient, accepts the cruel demands of justice, is not only incomprehensible today, but, from the point of view of Trinitarian theology, is in itself all wrong. The Father and the Son are one and therefore their will is intrinsically one. When the Son in the Garden of Olives struggles with the will of the Father, it is not a matter of accepting for himself a cruel disposition of God, but rather of attracting humanity into the very will of God. We will have to come back again, later, to the relationship of the two wills of the Father and of the Son.

b) So why would the cross and the atonement? Somehow today, in the contortions of modern thought we mentioned above, the answer to these questions can be formulated in a new way. Let's place ourselves in front of the incredible amount of evil, violence, falsehood, hatred, cruelty and arrogance that infect and destroy the whole world. This mass of evil cannot simply be declared non-existent, not even by God. It must be cleansed, reworked and overcome.

Ancient Israel was convinced that the daily sacrifice for sins and above all the great liturgy of the Day of Atonement (Yom-Kippur) were necessary as a counterweight to the mass of evil in the world and that only through such rebalancing the world could, as it were, remain bearable. Once the sacrifices in the temple disappeared, it had to be asked what could be opposed to the higher powers of evil, how to find somehow a counterweight. The Christians knew that the temple destroyed was replaced by the resurrected body of the crucified Lord and in his radical and incommensurable love was created a counterweight to the immeasurable presence of evil. Indeed, they knew that the offers presented up until then could only be conceived of as a gesture of longing for a genuine counterweight. They also knew that in front of the excessive power of evil only an infinite love was enough, only an infinite atonement. They knew that the crucified and risen Christ is a power that can counter the power of evil and save the world.

And on this basis they could even understand the meaning of their own sufferings as inserted into the suffering love of Christ and included as part of the redemptive power of such love. Above I quoted the theologian for whom God had to suffer for his sins in regard to the world. Now, due to this reversal of perspecyive, the following truths emerge: God simply cannot leave "as is" the mass of evil that comes from the freedom that he himself has granted. Only He, coming to share in the world's suffering, can redeem the world.

c) On this basis, the relationship between the Father and the Son becomes more comprehensible. I will reproduce here on this subject a passage from the book by Henri de Lubac on Origen which I feel is very clear: "The Redeemer came into the world out of compassion for mankind. He took upon himself our passions even before being crucified, indeed even before descending to assume our flesh: if he had not experienced them beforehand, he would not have come to partake of our human life. But what was this suffering that he endured in advance for us? It was the passion of love. But the Father himself, the God of the universe, he who is overflowing with long-suffering, patience, mercy and compassion, does he also not suffer in a certain sense? 'The Lord your God, in fact, has taken upon himself your ways as the one who takes upon himself his son' (Deuteronomy 1, 31). God thus takes upon himself our customs as the Son of God took upon himself our sufferings. The Father himself is not without passion! If He is invoked, then He knows mercy and compassion. He perceives a suffering of love (Homilies on Ezekiel 6:6)."

I am glad, by the way, that you used the good term "brain-teaser." It is surely what we call a Mystery.

Now, the Saints use the term Mystery in a sense which is different, I think, from its more common usages. When a 21st century American says "mystery," it usually means something like a Murder Mystery, where once you find out whodunnit ("the butler") the mystery is done.

Or it is something like a jigsaw puzzle, where if you put together enough of a countable number of pieces, the whole gist of it will be clear.

Or it is dimly-understood phenomenon where an unknown number of "unknown unknowns" have to be discovered, but presumably research will eventually settle all the questions. How does the very rare male Deep Sea Squid find, in all the wide ocean, a female Deep Sea Squid so they can successfully mate? GPS? Geomagnetism? Fragrant Eau de Cephalopod? Mysteries of the Deep!

But the Saints use the word Mystery to mean, not a puzzle, nor yet a brick wall, where you run into it and you just can't go any farther. Rather Mystery means something that you will always be learning more about, but, look as searchingly and go as far as you will, it will always be so big that the entirety of it will exceed your grasp.

So a Mystery is not something totally obscure, but something luminous. Makes a kind of cumulative and tantalizing sense but yet you never see the end of it.

The aphorism is, "A Mystery is not a puzzle to be solved, it is a reality to be lived."

And --- I think I've said this before --- there's no reason why "extraordinary claims" would require "extraordinary evidence." Claims of any size just require...evidence.

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