Did Jesus Offer Himself on the Cross as a Willing Sacrifice for the Sins of Gods Peop

Debate Format and Introductions

But let me go ahead and introduce our debaters this evening. This gentleman holds a BA in Religious Studies from Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, with a specialization in Biblical literature, and an MA in Religious Studies from the University of Toronto with a specialization in Quranic exegesis.

He is now in his third year of PhD studies in Quranic exegesis at the University of Toronto. He is the President of the Islamic Information and Dawah Center in International Toronto, in Toronto, where he functions as an imam.

He travels internationally to represent Islam in public lectures and interfaith dialogues. He explains Islam on a weekly television program called Let the Quran Speak. Past episodes of this show can be seen online at www .shabirali .com.

Would you please welcome with me here this evening is the Director of Alpha Omega Ministries,.

A Christian apologetics organization based in Phoenix, Arizona. He is a professor, having taught Greek, systematic theology, and various topics in the field of apologetics. He has authored or contributed to more than 20 books, including King James' Only Controversy, The Forgotten Trinity, The Potter's Freedom, and The God Who Justifies.

He is an accomplished debater, having engaged in more than 60 moderated public debates, with leading proponents of Roman Catholicism, Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormonism. He is an elder of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, and has been married to Kelly, his wife, for more than 24 years, and has two children, Joshua and Summer.

He is heard frequently as a guest on such national Christian radio broadcasts as such as The Bible Answer Man, and hosted weekly internet broadcasts called The Dividing Lines. Would you please welcome with me Dr. James White.

Well, we have another special guest. We have a third special guest this evening. This gentleman is one of the top ten favorite Seattle radio personalities, according to NorthwestSource .com. He snorts holo every weekday afternoon on Live from Seattle, from 4 to 7.

Fascinating guests, intriguing topics, intriguing topics, and your calls will be featured. It's Seattle's only live, bright-time, bright-time, call-in Christian talk show. Would you please welcome with me, and our moderator for this evening, with an explanation of our debate tonight, Thor Tullow.

Good evening. We fought the wind and the rain to be here on time. That's wonderful. Thank you very much. There will be a 25-minute opening statement by both Dr. White and Mr. Ali. Half of each has a 25-minute opening statement.

There will be time for a 12-minute rebuttal. We'll then break for five minutes, which means 35 or 40. But all kidding aside, we're going to try to stick pretty close to the clock on that, so we have a reasonable departure time this evening.

Following the break, there will be a 12-minute cross-examination, but from Dr. White, 12 more minutes from Mr. Ali, 12 and 12 more, and then a 12-minute closing statement from both Dr. White and Mr. Ali.

There will be 30 minutes of open question-and-answer time, and we like to call that Q &A because we have questions and then we have answers. Now, we don't want any sermons, or if anybody's going to be windbag, it's going to be me, the talk show host, right?

We don't want any monologues, no testimonies, just cutting right to the chase. Please keep the questions with no follow-ups to 30 seconds or less. More on that when the time comes. But in the meantime, let's get underway.

And the first opening statement of 25 minutes belongs to Dr. James White.

The Historical Reality of the Crucifixion

Thank you and good evening. Peace to all who bow the knee to Jesus, our Creator and our Lord. Just over two years ago, I stood in this very room and debated a man identified by many as the leading historical Jesus scholar in the world, John Dominic Crossan.

We debated the historical reliability of the Gospels. It is ironic that tonight, in essence, I defend the Gospels again, but in a completely different context. You see, Dr. Crossan does not believe in an afterlife, in judgment, or in miracles.

Shabir Ali does. Crossan does not believe God has given special revelation, but Shabir Ali, along with all faithful Muslims, does. While not an atheist, neither is Dr. Crossan a classical theist. He dismisses the vast majority of the biblical accounts as nothing but parables, and all prophecy is nothing but wish fulfillment.

And yet, ironically, if Dr. Crossan were here this evening, he would be on my side of this debate, at least in reference to the historical reality of Christ's death. Despite his great skepticism about all things supernatural, he accepts the historical fact that Jesus of Galilee was crucified at the beginning of the fourth decade of the first century in Jerusalem.

He would not view his death as a purposeful one, and would surely not view it as a sacrifice for sin, but even the highly skeptical Dr. Crossan accepts as a historical fact the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

And yet, this evening, we debate the question, was Jesus Christ crucified as a willing sacrifice to the sins of God's people? The question has two parts, one historical, one theological. On both, there is dispute between Christians and Muslims.

The historical question is that of the crucifixion of Jesus the Messiah. The theological question turns upon the Christian insistence that God forgives sin only in and through faith in Jesus Christ, due to his giving himself as a sacrifice for sins, or, in the words of scripture, he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

This is a debate involving two men committed to two of the world's major religions. I am an elder in a Reformed Baptist church representing the Christian faith's historic proclamation that Jesus Christ was the Lamb of God whose death on Calvary's cross propitiated the wrath of God against all who trust in Christ.

Shabir Ali is a believing Muslim, the head of the Islamic Da 'wah Information Center in Toronto, and as a believing Muslim, he rejects the idea that Jesus was crucified and died on Calvary's cross as an atonement for sin.

Both of us accept that God is our creator, and that God has spoken. Even the Quran says that Allah revealed the Torah and the Gospel for a guidance to mankind, so we both believe that at the time of Jesus, God was engaged in supernatural revelation.

Neither of us can consistently join Dr. Crossan in viewing all divine revelation with skepticism, so what brings us here tonight to debate? We are not here this evening due to any lack of clarity on the New Testament's part regarding our thesis.

If we leave aside 2nd century Gnostic sources that have no meaningful historical pedigree in the 1st century and that suffer from incurable theological pre-commitments to dualism, resulting in their rejection of Jesus as a true human being, we are left with the unanimous testimony of the Christian scriptures, the apostles, disciples, and even the few secular sources that have come down through history that Jesus died at the hands of Pontius Pilate at the instigation of the Jews around the beginning of the 4th decade of the 1st century.

The Gospels, Paul's epistles, and Luke's history of the early church, the Acts of the Apostles, all have solid credentials as originating within the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses themselves. In fact, if, as I believe, Luke is providing documentation to be presented in the trial of Paul in Rome, then this puts its date within 3 decades of the crucifixion.

Likewise, if one were to postulate that Mark came before Luke, as surely my opponent this evening does quite often in his talks, that would put Mark no later than 20 or 25 years after the events of the ministry of Jesus, and perhaps even less.

In any case, the New Testament is plain in its affirmation of the historical event of the crucifixion. We will look at its consistent theological teaching in a moment. While we would hardly expect a great deal of information about an itinerant Jewish rabbi and teacher to find its way into secular historical records of the day, there are two sources outside the New Testament that should be mentioned this evening.

The first is found in Josephus, the Jewish historian, rang less than half a century after the events of Christ's ministry. There is much dispute about the text, and many feel portions of it are a later Christian interpolation.

But this does not need to detain us, for what is important is that Josephus not only mentions Jesus, but likewise makes reference to Pilate and to crucifixion. It is highly probable that this portion of the reference is original with Josephus himself.

Likewise, 85 years after Jesus' ministry, the Roman historian Tacitus made derogatory reference to the Christian movement, and in doing so likewise notes that the founder had been executed during the reign of Tiberius, and he even mentions the specific name of Pontius Pilate.

While some might suggest Tacitus is just reporting what he had heard from Christians, it is significant that if there was any controversy over the fact that Jesus had been executed under Pontius Pilate, there simply is no evidence of it from the first century documents.

What we find from every source that has any legitimate claim to coming from the first hundred years after Jesus echoes the words that most scholars, conservative and liberal alike, believe to be some of the earliest of the New Testament.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.

After that he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James and to all the apostles, and last of all as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also.".

This is the core teaching of the Christian faith, and anyone who wishes to suggest otherwise has a very, very tall challenge ahead of them. But I doubt Shabir Ali will argue that the New Testament as we possess it today teaches anything other than this very truth, so why are we here this evening?

I submit to you that the only reason we are here this evening is because of 40 Arabic words written in a book that can be dated no earlier than 625 years after the ministry of Jesus. These 40 words were written in a different culture, 765 miles away from Jerusalem, over half a millennium removed, and without any direct or first-hand connection historically to the events in Jerusalem.

Indeed, these 40 words find no literary connection to the first century at all, for they were written by a man who had no first-hand knowledge of the New Testament, for it had not yet been translated into the Arabic language.

I refer, of course, to Surah 4, verse 157 of the Qur 'an, which reads,. And because of their saying, We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allah's messenger or Rasul. They slew him not, nor crucified him.

But it was made to appear to them, and 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. Shabir Ali has admitted in a debate in 2004 that this text is, in fact, key to his understanding of the issue of the crucifixion of Jesus.

I shall, of course, leave it to Shabir to explicate his own views on this text. But for the moment, I wish to make sure my assertion is fully understood. I realize the Muslims in the audience do not believe these to be the words of Muhammad, but that they are the words of Allah.

The Muslims in the audience this evening may even be tempted to be offended when I disagree with these words, and in fact assert that these words are false, erroneous, and that they are based upon ignorance of the scriptural teaching.

It cannot be any secret that a Christian who understands Islamic teaching, and yet remains a Christian, does not believe Muhammad was a prophet. There is nothing to be accomplished in glossing over our differences.

May I point out that if Shabir Ali is right, then those I honor as apostles and prophets are actually false teachers and promoters of idolatry. Shabir has made it plain that he blames the Apostle Paul for, in essence, hijacking Jesus, who, according to Muslims, was himself a Muslim, supplanting the original followers of Jesus and replacing the simple message of Jesus found today only in the Quran with the false and blasphemous teaching that Jesus is the Son of God and that he died for the sins of the world.

We should not minimize the fact that we are asked by our Muslim friends to believe that the New Testament is hopelessly corrupt, the Gospel is false, and the worship of Jesus amounts to the unforgivable sin of shirk.

If the Muslim is tempted to be offended at the assertion that Muhammad was ignorant of the biblical record written in a language he could not understand, and that hence he made errors in his teachings, the Christian has significantly more reason to experience temptation to offense at the necessary results of Islamic teachings.

But I, for one, did not come here this evening to feign offense at the Islamic denials of my own faith. I am here to lay these truths out on the table and to shine the bright light of truth upon them, a light available only when both sides come to the table and honestly lay out their differences.

I am asserting that the reason Shabir Ali sits here this evening and denials the thesis is due to these 40 Arabic words traceable at their earliest to the revision done of the Quranic text ordered by Uthman and undertaken by a committee chosen by him sometime after the middle of the 7th century according to the tradition recorded in Al-Bukhari.

There truly is no other reason. And what is more, though the Quran claims to be a clear book written in the perspicuous Arabic tongue, the fact is this text is nowhere near clear, let alone perspicuous.

Many have pointed out that if it were not for Surah 4, 157, the Quran's teachings and such texts as Surah 355 and 19 .33, where the death of Jesus is mentioned, would be easily understood without prompting very obtuse explanations that require us to believe the text is referring to a future death of Jesus that has not even taken place as yet.

What is more, the text as it is written is very unclear, prompting, as Shabir himself has noted, any number of contradictory interpretations by Islamic scholars over the centuries. And what is truly amazing to me is this.

When the Quran contradicts the Christian teaching of the deity of Christ, it does so repeatedly and forcefully. We likewise find references to this in the Hadith. But when it comes to this one single ayah, these 40 lonely Arabic words that pop into the Quran out of nowhere, we likewise cannot find any meaningful commentary on these words in the Hadith literature.

Think of it. Muslims for 200 years could not think of any commentary by Muhammad on this ayah. And yet, I, as a Christian, am to believe these 40 Arabic words, written over half a millennium after the Christ event, in a different language from far away, are to be taken to be sufficient to overthrow the entirety of the New Testament and the testimony of eyewitnesses and martyrs.

But as it is my job to defend the thesis this evening, allow me to read into the record the ancient testimony of the Gospels regarding Jesus' own words about his death. If these words are to be contradicted, I assert the one doing so needs to do more than point out that liberal secular scholars tend to disagree with words that claim to be inspired.

That is a given. If we are to believe these words are falsely attributed to Jesus, then I suggest that proof of the dishonesty of the writers needs to be provided. Documentary evidence of later tampering with the text must be submitted.

Without such evidence, the words of Jesus must stand. And so we start with these words recorded by Mark, during the time when the eyewitnesses to these events were alive and well and very active in preaching Jesus' message.

In Mark 8 we read,. And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

And he was stating the matter plainly, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning around and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan, for you are not setting your mind on God's interests but man's.

And he summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Likewise, in Mark 10 .45 we read,. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.

This New Testament witness to the centrality of the purpose of Christ and the cross is given prophetic authority in the words of the angel recorded in Matthew 1 .21,. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

The Apostle John often refers to the self-giving of Christ as a means of salvation, but one summary statement that is particularly striking is found in Revelation 5 .9 -10. And they sang a new song, saying, Worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals, for you were slain and purchased for God with your blood, men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God, and they will reign upon the earth. Paul's testimony is ubiquitous on this subject, of course, so I simply read into the testimony these words from Titus 2, Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds.

Many other texts from Peter and the writer to the Hebrews could be included, but we do not need to belabor the point. The evidence of the New Testament on the issue is overwhelming, consistent, and clear.

I'd like to remind our Muslim friends this evening of just how strong the evidence is that this was the faith of Isa, Messiah, and his disciples, keeping in mind that the first 100 years of history after the death of Muhammad yields almost nothing that bears witness to his life, work, or teachings, and that to quote Humphreys, our evidence for documentation prior to 750 A .D. consists almost entirely of rather dubious citations and later compilations.

The Christian evidence, the central teaching of the cross, is much more primitive, much closer to the original sources, than almost anything that can be cited for the life and teachings of Muhammad. For example, a scant 65 years after the crucifixion, the elders of the church at Rome wrote to the church at Corinth.

This letter is traditionally called First Clement, dating around A .D. 96. Here we read, quote,. Because the love he had for us, Jesus Christ our Lord, in accordance with God's will, gave his blood for us, and his flesh for our flesh, and his life for our lives.

End quote. And in section 7 of the same letter,. Let us fix our eyes on the blood of Christ and understand how precious it is to his Father. Please note that the earliest Christian writings outside of the New Testament take the message of the crucified Messiah and salvation through his blood as a given.

There simply is no evidence that it was a point of contention between the allegedly true followers of Jesus and some Pauline group that has taken over the faith. The only people who were attacking the concept of the crucifixion were doing so because of their connection to Gnosticism, a religion that denied that Jesus had truly been a man and that he had a physical body.

Now it is pretty obvious why people who did not believe Jesus was truly a man, but merely a phantom, would deny the crucifixion, as it is very difficult to crucify spirits. But it is likewise painfully obvious that Jesus was not a Gnostic sage wandering the streets of Jerusalem, and surely the fantasies that developed into the writings of the Gnostics over a century after Christ have nothing to do with the historical reality of the preaching of the cross being at the heart of the Christian faith from long before the first Gnostic tried to make room for Jesus in his pantheon of emanations from his God.

About 77 years after the crucifixion, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, was traveling to Rome to die as a martyr. In the letters he wrote as he traveled are repetitive references to the cross and the death of Christ.

Remember, this documentation is still about 70 years closer to the events of Jesus' life than the best documentation that exists for any of the events in Muhammad's life. Remember, Hadith collections like al-Bukhari date from over two centuries after the death of Muhammad, so Ignatius was three times closer to the sources than al-Bukhari was.

In his epistle to the Smyrnians, he wrote, I glorify Jesus Christ, the God who made you so wise, for I observe that you are established in an unshakable faith, having been nailed, as it were, to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, in both body and spirit, and firmly established in love by the blood of Christ, totally convinced with regard to our Lord that he is truly of the family of David with respect to human descent, son of God with respect to the divine will and power, truly born of a virgin, baptized by John in order that all righteousness might be fulfilled by him, truly nailed in the flesh for us under Pontius Pilate and Herod the Tetrarch.

From its fruit we derive our existence, that is, from his divinely blessed suffering, in order that he might raise a banner for the ages through his resurrection for his saints and faithful people, whether among Jews or among Gentiles, in the one body of his church.".

Around the same time, Polycarp wrote of the testimony of the cross and said we must pray for the enemies of the cross when he wrote of the Philippians. Interestingly, these enemies were not denying that Jesus died on a cross, no, indeed, they were arguing that Jesus was a false messiah, Christianity a hoax, but they were not in any way denying the historical reality of the crucifixion.

And so we see that in the first hundred years after the death of Christ in the Christian scriptures, Christian writings, even in secular writings, the cross is always connected with Jesus. The next element of our thesis, that Jesus the Messiah gave himself willingly as the sacrifice for God's people, is again the plain and consistent teaching of the entirety of the New Testament, as well as all those followers of Jesus in those early years.

Though some misread the inspired text, isolating particular verses from the rest of scripture in an attempt to make it sound otherwise, there can be no question that all the New Testament, including the Synoptic Gospels, make it plain that Jesus willingly gave himself upon the cross of Calvary.

We have already heard Jesus' words from Mark and Matthew, that it was necessary that the Son of Man suffer and die and rise again the third day. Luke likewise records these truths. It is not an argument to isolate Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane from the rest of the testimony of the Synoptic Gospels, and claim that Jesus was an unwilling participant in the scheme of the cross.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Indeed, such a theory makes Jesus downright cowardly, for, in the Muslim view, Jesus is merely facing his own death, and many have been the men who have faced death with bravery and courage.

The reason Jesus praised the Father in the Garden has nothing to do with the fear of death. It has everything to do with the sinless Son of God becoming sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

It has everything to do with the wrath of God falling in its full fury upon the willing substitute. This is the only way to understand the prayer of Jesus without accusing Him of cowardice. It also happens to be the only way to read the Gospels in a fair and even-handed manner by allowing them to speak for themselves.

It is a horrible misreading of His words to miss the real reason for the prayer, but the Muslim is forced to misread the text, since the real reason for the prayer has everything to do with Jesus becoming the substitute for God's people and taking their sins upon Himself, and this Islam, coming six centuries later, denies.

If Islamic readers of the Gospels would apply the same rule of interpretation to the New Testament that they do to the Quran, they would not mistakenly accuse the writers of errors and come to false conclusions about the intentions of Jesus.

But many, following after those who do not believe God can speak or reveal His truth, pit one part of the New Testament against another. Hence, the synoptics are said to present one view while John presents a contradictory one.

But it is far more consistent to allow for harmonization of an ancient text than to assume contradiction. This is true in reading the Quran, and it is true in reading the Bible. So we read Jesus saying in John 10, 18,.

No one has taken it away from me, that is, his life, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down. I have authority to take it up again, this commandment I received from my Father.

Surely no believing Muslim can question that if Esau the Messiah was in fact the Son of God, then he would have this kind of authority, this kind of power. And this is indeed the testimony of the New Testament.

But truly there isn't any reason to belabor the point. Indeed, if Surah 4, verse 157 in the Quran is as understood by most Muslims today, that God made it appear that Jesus had died upon the cross, then should not all available historical records reflect this?

Shouldn't it be the verdict of history that this happened since Allah made it appear so? Indeed, if one accepts the idea that Allah in essence deceived the Jews and everyone else at Calvary, then is it not Allah who invented the Christian faith by so doing?

Should it really be surprising that all the credible first century sources say Jesus died if Allah made it appear so? But it is just here we encounter the real question of the debate today. To believe the Islamic denial of the crucifixion, we must accept the following.

First, that the original followers of Jesus were significantly less brave and noble than the followers of Muhammad, for they failed to communicate the truth about who Jesus was. They allowed a usurper like Paul to take over and spread lies about Jesus, resulting in literally hundreds of millions of people committing shirk for 2 ,000 years.

This, even though the Quran promises, the true followers of Jesus would be victorious over the unbelievers. Secondly, we must believe Paul, Mark, Matthew, John, Peter, Luke, and all the other New Testament writers were likewise either deceivers or themselves deceived, for they all taught us to believe Jesus is the son of God and that he died upon the cross.

Next, Muslims must believe that even though Allah gave the Torah and the Injil, that he did not safeguard them or protect them, but instead allowed them to be corrupted so quickly that we cannot even find them in history any longer.

One must ask the Muslim if Allah could not protect those revelations. Well, I believe he has protected the Quran. And so in closing, I come back to the only real issue Christians and Muslims must debate this evening.

If you are a Muslim tonight, let me ask you. Let's say someone came along in the middle of the 13th century, claiming to be a prophet who never once read the Quran, though he claimed his teachings were consistent with it.

And let's say this person wrote a single short verse, say of 40 words or so, and said the Hijrah never took place. It never happened. What's more, for some reason, this alleged prophet never says another word about it.

He never explains it. None of his followers for another 200 years seem to know anything about this amazing assertion. Now, honestly, how much weight are you going to give such a claim? Obviously, I'm drawing a parallel to help you see the situation as a Christian sees it.

The reason we are here this evening is because of Surah 4, verse 157. The evidence for the crucifixion of Jesus is really not in question of many historical sense, not even from a biblical sense, clearly.

What we must question this evening is why anyone would believe that 40 Arabic words, traceable only to the middle of the 7th century, written by someone without first-hand knowledge of the Christian scriptures, without any meaningful historical connection to the events that took place that day in Jerusalem, and themselves liable to all sorts of different meanings and understandings, are a sufficient basis upon which to ground a denial of the testimony sealed in blood by the original followers of Jesus.

As for me, I see no reason whatsoever to accept these 40 words while rejecting the thousands of historically sound, consistent words of the apostles of my Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Dr. White. Now a 25-minute opening statement by Shabir Ali. This will be followed by a 12-minute rebuttal.

Islamic Presuppositions and the Meaning of the Qur'an

Thank you very much, Dr. White, for that delightful presentation. I want to begin by thanking all of the people who have made it possible for me to be here and to speak before you tonight, including Richard Pierce, Michael O 'Fallon, Dr. White himself, and all of you folks for whose reason we have actually come together here tonight, because we could have spoken to each other on the telephone, we could have met at some other location, but you are the reason that we're here in Seattle.

I also begin by praising our creator and fashioner and ask him to send peace and blessings upon all of his prophets and to bless our meeting here tonight so that we all come out winners. Often in a debate, some people think that one side should win and the other side should lose, but I believe that if we play it right, then we all come out winners.

What I mean by that is that I'm not here tonight to try and prove one case against another case. I came out here tonight to try and understand the two positions better, and I feel that if we understand the two positions better, then we will be better contributors towards our modern future world of dialogue and interfaith understanding and living in harmony with people with whom we do not necessarily share the same belief.

It is also important that we do not gloss over the differences, and we do try to understand what they are. And so my contribution as a student of the Islamic faith and doing a minor in part-time as a hobby on other faiths as well, then my contribution will be to try and bring before you some of the recent research that I've been privy to.

In fact, much of my study in preparation for this debate has been guided by some of the books that Dr. White himself has recommended or some of the required texts that he has prescribed for those who are going to have the course with him over the last week.

And I must confess I learned a lot from these books, and I feel that we have sufficient here with which to advance our dialogue and our mutual understanding of the two faiths. First, I come to this as a Muslim, and naturally as a Muslim I have my Muslim priest oppositions.

I'd be a fool to try and deny that, and I'd be all the wiser to try and understand what it is in order to know how I react with the material that I'm studying. Naturally, because of my belief in the Qur 'an, I tend to defend that, and if I see something that is questionable about it, then I will try to find a way around that and to understand the answer for it and to show that there is no problem.

And I believe that others do the same. If someone believes in the Bible and someone comes and says, well, wait a minute, it looks like you have a problem in the Bible, then you would say, well, it doesn't look like there is a problem here, the two things might look different, but there is an understanding, there is an explanation, and so on.

So I come at this with a Muslim priest opposition, just as some of you may come towards it with a Christian priest opposition. My Muslim priest opposition also guides me to think that no one dies for the sins of another person.

Each one basically pays for his own sins. But on the other hand, we have an all-forgiving, merciful God who can forgive us, and all he really needs is for us to be repentant and for us to do whatever we have done wrong.

So in the Islamic conception of things, if someone commits a wrong, then he should feel repentant, he should ask God to forgive him or her, and to repair whatever wrong has been done between persons or between oneself and God's preachers as much as this is reasonably possible.

And we believe that once one does all of this, then God forgives our sins. And in that case, there does not seem to be any need for someone to die for our sins. So our topic tonight is, was Jesus Christ crucified as a willing sacrifice for the sins of God's people?

And my answer would be no. From the Islamic perspective, there seems to be no need for that. More than this, in the Muslim conception of things, it would seem unjust for God to come at it from this angle, to want to forgive the sins of people, and in order to do that, use an innocent individual and have him crucified instead for the sins of the guilty.

It seems to Muslims that if God wants, he can just simply let all of the guilty go free. And this would not be contrary to his justice, because God is not only just, but he is also merciful and wise. He does wise things and he acts through his mercy.

Surely, if people commit wrong, they deserve the wrath of God, but God may respond with his mercy instead, because he is also merciful and kind. Now, coming at it from this angle, one asks as well, as a Muslim, what do I expect to find of the teachings of Jesus in the Holy Bible?

And the answer to that is that, from the Quranic perspective, God has revealed the Torah, but that does not necessarily correspond exactly with what today is being called the Torah. Usually when we say Torah today, we refer to the first five books in the Christian Bible, which also is part of the Jewish Tanakh, the Holy Scriptures, the first five books.

But we know that these five books obviously have gone through some evolution over time, and when the Muslim looks for the original revelation that was given by God, a Muslim is not going to equate the first five books, the Torah, with the Torah that is mentioned in the Quran.

But again, it depends on context. If the Quran is speaking about the Torah that exists at the time when the Quran is speaking, then obviously it means what people refer to as Torah. But if it is referring to the original revelation that was given to the Prophet Moses, then obviously it is referring to a book that existed in his lifetime.

And we know from the Book of Deuteronomy that the death of Moses is described in the last chapter, chapter 34, so it seems that at least this part was written after Moses. And then who is to say what other part may have been written as well after his lifetime.

In a similar way, when the Quran refers to the Injil or the Gospel, the Quran says that God taught Jesus the Injil. So then one wants to know what exactly is the Injil. At the same time, the Quran says, let the people of the Gospel judge by what God has revealed therein.