Response to Bassam Zawadi

I would like to briefly comment on a question that has been asked of me by Bassam Zawadi, who is an Islamic apologist. I haven't had the opportunity of engaging him as yet. I'm sure that time will come sometime in the future.

But Bassam chimed in on a comment thread. I had actually contributed to one, despite my general dislike of them, because I just don't feel like they almost ever get anywhere. But I had commented on another Islamic apologist's repeated ignoring of explanations of Christian belief to him.

And I had pointed out some things about Jesus voluntarily, willingly giving his life, that it wasn't taken from him, but that he gives it of his own accord, and that if you're going to criticize Christianity, if you're going to interact with Christianity, you should at least try to interact with what Christians actually believe, though that's not always what Muslims are willing to do, especially when it is their own theology that has, in essence, enshrined a misunderstanding.

And that results then in Muslims refusing to allow us to define our own faith. We have to define our faith in light of what they say our faith is, which of course is just one of the many things that keeps me from looking at Islam as being a religion of truth at all.

Be that as it may, Bassam wrote to me in response and said, can you show me statements uttered by Jesus in the Gospels that indicate he voluntarily and willingly, with no, quote, peer pressure, end quote, offered himself as a sacrifice?

This is not the impression that I get from some of the statements that I see Jesus allegedly uttered in the Gospels. Well, two things. First of all, we need to immediately start making it very clear. We cannot allow ourselves to be limited, as we sometimes have allowed ourselves to be limited, to this Islamic ploy of cutting the New Testament up into pieces.

I realize there might be a few Christians who are guilty of what is called hyper-red letterism. That is a belief that unless it is written in red ink in English translations of the Bible, that it's not as inspired as what you would find in the black letters.

The Christian belief is that pasa grafe, all scripture is theanustos, it is God breathed. The words of Jesus are no more God breathed than the words that appear in black in English translations. And of course, the whole idea of red and black ink is a very modern concept to begin with.

This idea of, well, you tell me where Jesus said this, the implied idea is, because I don't believe what anybody else has to say, but Jesus. And of course, that's anachronistic, and it is unchristian, and it assumes what you have yet to prove.

The Christian faith came before the Islamic faith. Despite all their claims that Jesus is a Muslim, there's no evidence of any of those things. I love to hear Muslims saying, well, Jesus, pray with his head, bow down to the ground, I read John 17.

Jesus lifted up his eyes to evidence that, you know, these type of things get repeated so often that they sort of forget to check and see whether these things are true or not. None of that has any factual basis.

The fact is, historically, Christianity precedes Islam. And therefore, Islam cannot simply come along and say, well, we're just going to redefine your terms, and now you've got to argue on our basis. It doesn't work that way.

That's irrational. It doesn't make any sense. And no Muslim would allow someone to come along 600 years after them, redefine all their terms, say, now you need to follow my religion and my prophet, or whoever else it might be.

And so, uttered by Jesus is not an appropriate delimiter of the conversation. It's not that we don't have plenty of things that Jesus said and did, but it doesn't have to simply be Jesus's own words. Jesus does very clearly prophesy his own death.

He says how it's going to take place in Matthew chapter 16. Parallels in Mark and Luke, you have the identification of Jesus not only as the Messiah, but as he's going to be the suffering Messiah. And he sets his face to go to Jerusalem.

He calls the crowds together and says they must take up their cross and follow him. Everybody knew what that meant. That was very clear what Jesus is saying here in regards to the death march. The only person who takes up his cross has only one place to go.

He's going to the place of execution. And so, you have all of these things. It is necessary the Son of Man do these things. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are all united on this. But you shouldn't be limited either, even more so, to the Gospels.

The New Testament is a body of divine revelation that pre-existed Islam by over half a millennium. And so, that body of literature very clearly testifies to the fact that in eternity past, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit chose this methodology of self-glorification.

You read Ephesians chapter 1. You read the beautiful Carmen Christi of Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 through 11. And you will find there that Jesus voluntarily makes himself of no reputation. He humbles himself being obedient to the point of death, even to death on the cross.

You can't just cut that out and say, I don't like Paul, so I'm not going to believe those things. Again, that's anachronistic. It goes backwards. It assumes what you have yet to prove. And so, the New Testament testimony to Jesus' voluntarily giving of his life is really overwhelming.

And you only, you have to start with the presupposition, the New Testament is to be rejected, to come to the conclusion that it's wrong and therefore to be rejected. That's called arguing in a circle.

And though that is very common, that doesn't make it appropriate in any way, shape, or form. Now, Bassam did add the standard Islamic argumentation. And that is, well, you know, in the garden, Jesus says, let this cup pass from me.

And this means that Jesus does not want to do this. He's not doing this voluntarily. He's forced to do this or whatever else it might be. And again, you know, I can understand why once they've already cut up the New Testament, they won't listen to what it has to say.

They concern themselves about context, the original languages, or any of those things, that they would not have any idea as to why the sinless, pure Son of God would in any way, shape, or form be struggling over, especially as the God-man, this becoming sin on behalf of the people of God.

But if you would allow the New Testament to speak and actually sit back and consider what it would be for one who is spotless, one who has had perfect fellowship with the Father, to voluntarily take upon his wrath in behalf of God's people, the condescension, the love, the grace, the mercy that is expressed there, the Muslim struggles to even begin to understand it because in his theology, there is no grounds for any of this.

God can simply wink at sin. He can simply say, ah, it's forgiven. The idea of substitution, of the maintenance of God's absolute holiness, the fulfillment of his law, all goes so far beyond the almost rationalistic viewpoints of Islam that once again, it reminds us of how sad it is that the founder of Islam had no knowledge, no meaningful knowledge of the actual beliefs of Christians.

And we can only speculate as to why that might have been. But to take the fact that the sinless son of God sweats as it were drops of blood in the agony that is his as he contemplates this final act of obedience, the giving of his life, the taking on of becoming sin that we might become the righteousness of God.

There is nothing within Islam that can cause a Muslim to understand that. He has to allow the New Testament to speak for itself at that point. And of course, it is my prayer that by the spirit of God, that's exactly what Bassam Zawadi and others will do.

Because when you begin to consider that, that is when the Holy Spirit of God can bring conviction that yes, indeed, this gospel is true. And it was true long before Muhammad came along. And in his ignorance of it, he has set himself firmly opposed and his followers to the truth of God that has been revealed in Jesus Christ in the sacred scriptures of the New Testament.

Thanks for watching.