Muhammad, Just the Last of Many?

Although Muhammad incautiously took several fateful steps in what he chose to relate of the true story of Christ in the Qur'an, often showing Jesus’ exalted character in spite of the overall spirit of Muhammadan revelation that was evidently calculated to denigrate Christ’s divinity and transcendent dignity, it is nevertheless clear that Muhammad held exceptionally high views of himself and wanted others to do the same. In spite of this, it is common to hear many of the rank and file among Muslims saying that they hold all prophets to be on an equal footing, with none being greater or less than another. Just how they can read Muhammad’s self-flattering remarks and arrive at such a conclusion is beyond me, especially when you consider that many of his claims go well beyond teaching that he is simply greater than the prophets, and, in some cases, are difficult to distinguish from the rankest of pagan idolatry.

Of course it is usually westernized Muslims or Muslim apologists to the West who make such humble claims for Muhammad, saying that he was nothing more than one of many prophets, none of whom stand out with any distinction above the others, all the while contentedly leaving the bulk of the worlds Muslims to hang on Muhammad’s every word, judgment, and action, even down to such trivial matters as what side of their body they sleep on or what direction they urinate in. Notwithstanding that, the point of this post is not to ascertain the upper limits of how Muhammad wanted his followers to regard him, or how far he wanted them to go in their fetishism, but simply to show that Muhammad, at least according to such revered Muslim authorities as Yusuf Ali, did maintain that he was eminently greater than all other prophets, including Abraham, the friend of God (Khalil Allah), Moses, to whom God spoke directly (Kalim Allah), and even Jesus, the Word of God.

The following are given in the order they appear in Yusuf Ali’s commentary of the Qur’an.

“…In Muhammad’s mission these [Moses, David, Joshua, Jesus] and other characters were combined. Gentler than Jesus, he organized on a vaster scale than Moses, and from Madinah he ruled and gave laws, and the Qur’an has a vaster scope than the Psalms of David. (Cf. 2:285).” #289

“Belief in the Prophethood of Muhammad (peace be on him) is thus an integral part and a logical corollary of belief in Allah.” #779

“In this verse is a prefiguring, to Moses, of the Arabian Messenger, the last and greatest of the Messengers of Allah.” #1127

“Out attention having been directed to various prophets, who were sent with missions to their several peoples, and in each of whose careers there is some prefigurement of the life of the last and greatest of them, we are now asked to listen to the proclamation of Muhammad’s universal mission.” #1131

“That the last and greatest of the Prophets should arise among them [the Arabs], and they and their language be made the vehicle of the new, full and universal light, has also a meaning, which is explained in C. 12-16.” #1132

“It is a necessity of a Prophet’s soul that he should speak out and teach all that he knows, to worthy and unworthy alike. This, Jacob did to his unworthy sons, as well as to his worthy sons whom he loved best. It was not for him as a Prophet to guarantee any results. In this case he could not save his sons from getting into trouble merely because they followed the letter of his advice in a small matter. Apply this to the teaching of one who is greater than Jacob. Men who literally observe some small injunctions of the Holy Prophet Muhammad and neglect the greater principles which he taught cannot blame him for their troubles and difficulties. If they examined the matter, they would find that they brought the troubles on themselves.” #1732

“Cf. 2:49. The reference back to Israel and Moses serves a double purpose – as an appeal to the People of the Book, and as a reminder to the Quraysh of the favour now conferred on them by the coming among them of a greater Prophet than Moses.” #1878

“Now we come to the time of our Holy Prophet. In spite of all the past, the Jews could still have obtained Allah’s forgiveness if they had not obstinately rejected the greatest of the Prophets also. If they were to continue in their sins, Allah’s punishment would also continue to visit them.” #2181

“To the Prophet was to be assigned in the Hereafter the highest Post of Honour and Glory – the Maqam Mahmud implying his excellence above all other Prophets. The immediate reference may be to the hope that the Makkan persecution will soon be over and the glorious work in Madinah will begin. (R).” #2278

“Here is a Prophet and a Book, greater than Moses and his Book. Are you going to reject him and it? (R).” #2711

"....But 'man' in this connection is understood to mean the Leader of man, the noblest of mankind, Muhammad, the Prophet of Allah...." #3943

“The People of the Book immediately referred to are the Jews and the Christians, who had received scriptures in the same line of prophecy in which came our Holy Prophet. There scriptures should have prepared them for the advent of the greatest and last of the Prophets…” #6221

A Reducio of a Muslim "spoof text" Against the Integrity of the Bible

Disturbed by the fact that their prophet assumed that his message was consistent with prior revelation, or that his chimera would not be found out, at least not until it was too late to be of any consequence for him, Muslims have trumped up the claim that the Bible has been corrupted over time and have interpreted certain passages of their own Qur'an in this way. One such passage can be found in Surah 15:89-90, which says the following:

"And say: 'I am indeed he that warneth openly and without ambiguity (of just such wrath) as We sent down on those who divided (Scripture into arbitrary parts)'"

In a footnote to these verses, Yusuf Ali says the following:

"...Verse 90, I think, refers to the Jews and Christians, who took out of Scripture what suited them, and ignored or rejected the rest: 2:85 and 101..."

But if, on the one hand, the teaching of these verses are to be taken as an indication that the originally authentic revelations of God found in the Old and New Testaments have been falsified, corrupted, watered-down, or otherwise rendered something less than the sure and certain truth of God without any admixture of error, then the same conclusion would have to be drawn for the Qur'an, for here is how the passage reads along with more of the context:

"And say: 'I am indeed he

That warneth openly

And without ambiguity"-

(of just such wrath)

As We sent down

On those who divided

(Scripture into arbitrary parts)-

(So also on such)

As have made the Qur'an

Into shreds (as they please).

On the other hand, if the fact that the Qur'an can be and was "made...into shreds" does not mean that it has been altered or transmuted from the absolutely perfect word of God that Muslims claim it is, then neither does this passage teach that the Bible has been so altered simply because there were those who "divided (Scripture into arbitrary parts)." And if this verse teaches that the Bible is, in its present form, the Word of God (as it certainly is), then that means that the Qur'an that it contradicts is not.

(There is another interesting observation to be made regarding the above. Not only does Y.A.'s translation and commentary result in an obvious and unacceptable absurdity for Muslims, but it appears from a comparison of Y.A. with other translations that it is Muslims like Y.A. who are actually guilty of dividing and shredding their own Scriptures, for the idea that these ayas are talking about the Bible at all simply cannot be found in the translations of others such as Pickthall, Shakir, and Hilali.)

Genesis 19:24 Trinity Article!

The promised article on the Trinity from Genesis 19:24 is now available here. Leave your comments in the comments section if you have any.

A Foretaste of Things to Come

I have two articles in the works that should be avaialable in the relatively near future. The first is another article on the Trinity and can be expected sooner than the second. The introduction to that article can be read here.

The second is Part II of my "Do Not Be Afraid of Him", the first part of which can be accessed here.

For a little taste of Part II, keep reading.

Do Not Be Afraid of Him - Part II

Introduction

Having shown in Part One that the prophecy of Deuteronomy 18 was not and could not have been speaking of Muhammad, it remains only to show that the passage really pointed to and was fulfilled in the fullest sense by the Lord Jesus Christ.

As was already pointed out, whatever else may or may not be true of the coming prophet, and whatever other points of comparison there may or may not be between him and Moses, the Chosen One has to be like Moses in at least the following three ways in order to meet the terms of the prophecy: a) he has to be an Israelite; b) he has to speak directly with God; and, c) he has to have a divinely attested ministry marked by miraculous signs and awesome deeds. These are the sine qua non of the prophecy, the bare necessities. If a prophet comes and puts forward all manner of other credentials, however impressive, but fails to meet even one of the aforementioned criteria, let alone all three, he is not that prophet. However, provided a person does in fact meet these criteria, other considerations or comparison may most certainly be made, especially if the points of correspondence are of such an unusual and striking nature as to virtually demand that we see a link between them.

Accordingly, the following will lay out how the Lord Jesus exactly fulfills the terms of the prophecy, and how other points of correspondence between the life and ministry of Moses and Jesus are so arresting that we are compelled to view Moses’ life as a providentially ordered and divinely revealed type or foreshadowing of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The fact that Muhammad did not meet any of the given criteria renders null and void all of the comparisons that Muslims like to draw between Moses and Muhammad. But even if such comparisons are admitted into the discussion, they are easily trounced by those that are found in the case of the Lord Jesus.

Trinity Article Now Available!

For those who are interested, my article on the Trinity has recently been posted on the Answering Islam website. It is fifty pages long, and consists of both a positive defense of a Trinitarian interpretation of Genesis 1:26 (and other related passages from the Old Testament) as well as a refutation of popular non-Trinitarian and anti-Trinitarian interpretations of those passages. It can be found here.

Circumcision Is Now Baptism

The sacraments of the Old Testament in regard to the spiritual things thereby signified and exhibited, were, for substance, the same with those of the new - WCF 27:5

What circumcision was to God's people prior to the coming of Christ, baptism is to God's people after the coming of Christ. At least three lines of evidence exist showing such equivalence or correspondence.

a. It Can Be Legitimately Deduced or Inferred From the Parallels Between How They Were Observed:

• Circumcision was administered only once, a fact that should be painfully obvious. Likewise baptism only takes place once - at the start of the Christian life. Contrast this with the Passover, which was done often (Lev. 23:5; Ex. 12:14), and the Lord's Supper which replaced it (1 Cor. 11:25-26).


• Circumcision was administered to old covenant believers and their households (Gen. 17:7-14, 27) just as new covenant believers and their households are to be baptized (Acts 10:7, 16:15, 18:8; 1 Cor. 1:16-17). Contrast this with the Levitical Passover which permitted access to mature (those capable of discerning whether they were "clean" or not) professors only, as does the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. 11:28-29).


• Circumcision could be administered extemporaneously by a priest, without the whole assembly being present (Lk. 1:57-59, 2:21-39), a fact that follows easily enough from the observation that it was done eight days after a child's birth (Sabbath or not). The same is true of baptism which is performed by a minister, usually at the nearest convenient place to where conversion took place (Acts 8:12-13, 35-38, 9:17-19, 10:44-48, 16:14-15, 22-34, 18:8, 19:1-7, 22:12-16). Contrast this with Passover which only took place when God's people were gathered together at the appointed time and place (Deut 16:1-8), as also is the case with the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. 11)

b. It Can Be Legitimately Inferred From the Equivalence of Meaning That Both Had/Have.

• Circumcision was a sign of inclusion or entrance into the Covenant Community (Gen. 17:10-11), thus serving as a boundary marker between those who belonged to God and those who did not (Gen. 34:1ff; Jdgs. 14:3; 1 Sam. 14:6, 17:26, 36, 31:4; 2 Sam. 1:20; Ezek. 28:10; Eph. 2:11-12). The same is true of baptism (1 Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:26-29).

• Circumcision was an outward sign that indicated an inward reality (Rom. 2:28-29), a reality called for of those who had been circumcised (Deut. 10:16; Jer. 4:4; Ezek. 44:7); it indicated the need for a new heart, a clean heart (Ex. 6:12; Lev. 26:41; Isa. 52:1; Acts 26:41). The same is true of baptism (Jn. 3:3ff; Tit. 3:5).

• Circumcision was a sign of repentance or of the need for repentance (Jer. 9:25), even as baptism has always been associated with repentance, from the baptism of John (Mt. 3:11; Mk. 1:4; Lk. 3:3; Acts 13:24, 19:4) to Christian baptism (Acts 2:38).

• Circumcision was a sign and seal of the forgiveness of sins and the righteousness of faith; it did not automatically save anyone but testified to God's saving grace received through faith (Rom. 4:9-12). The same is true of baptism (Acts 22:16; Pet. 3:21-22).

• Circumcision was administered on the eighth day (Gen. 17:12; Lev. 12:3; Lk. 1:59; Acts 7:8), which is the first day of a new week. In this way it indicated a new beginning and thus typified the new creation. Similarly, insofar as baptism identifies one with Christ in His death and resurrection, it indicates a new beginning, a putting off of the old in order to walk in "newness of life" (Rom. 6:4). Thus baptism is antitypical of circumcision.

c. There is Explicit Scriptural Testimony to the Effect That Baptism is New Covenant Circumcision.

"For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God who raised Him from the dead" (Col. 2:9-12).

The true circumcision, circumcision of the heart, what Paul here explains as a "removal of the body of the flesh", is equated with baptism. Just like the rite of circumcision signified the need to die to the flesh and rise to newness of life, so likewise baptism for the Christian signifies union with Christ in His death and resurrection, i.e., a dying to the old man and a rising to the new. Romans 6:1-6 makes this incontrovertible.

Do Not Be Afraid of Him - Part 1

Introduction

Given that many others have done this before, the following aims to be a (relatively) short but pungent reply to the Muslim claim that Muhammad's coming was prophesied in Deuteronomy 18.

This article has been moved to the Answering Islam website. To read the rest of it, go here. The comments section will remain open for anyone who wants to comment.

Please Help My Muslim Friend

The other day I mentioned that I have been engaged in several different discussions, and thought it might be beneficial to redirect one of the conversations here (which I have been having with a Muslim), continuing it on the blog rather than through private correspondence. In this way, not only can others read and benefit, but other Muslims might be able to join in as well and help my Muslim friend out. He is having a terrible time proving his case.

I have been asking him for proof that Muhammad was a prophet. At the same time he has been calling on me to prove that Jesus was/is God.

As for the former, I have maintained that there is no proof that Muhammad was a prophet sent by God, insofar as there are no bona-fide predictions from the former prophets witnessing to Muhammad's coming, insofar as Muhammad made no accurate predictions himself that could only come from God, and insofar as Muhammad performed no miracles or otherwise pointed to any sign from God that is commensurate with proving the claim that "Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah". In short, I have maintained that there is no independent proof of Muhammad's prophethood that is consistent with the sorts of confirmatory signs that the former prophets came with, or some other proof that he can provide that cannot come from anyone other than God.

I have also shown that his case is greatly compounded by the fact that, although some prophets did not perform miracles, as he rightly pointed out, their coming was either prophesied or otherwise attested by God in some way, such as through another God-confirmed prophet, and, together with this, that the Qur'an itself obligates Muslims to find just such proof, i.e. proof in the prior Scriptures for Muhammad.

As for the latter challenge, his challenge to me to show that Jesus was/is God, I supplied many verses. Of course, he made the artificial restriction common to Muslims that confirmation of Christ's deity from the Scriptures had to be: 1) made by Jesus Himself not the prophets before him, or the apostle's who were commissioned to speak in His name (What gives, I thought Muslims believed in the previous prophets and made no distinction between any of them?); and 2) it had to be direct and explicit, i.e. it couldn't be the sort of thing where Jesus received or positively commended someone else for saying or responding to Him in a way only appropriate for deity.

Of course, I do not except this methodology, for I believe that the former prophets spoke from God, as did the apostle's, something Muslims (in their own muddled way) pay lip-service to but never carry out in their practice. Nevertheless, I have sought to be magnanimous and so have happily obliged my Muslim friend and submitted myself to these strictures for the time being.

Accordingly, my first proof that Christ Himself, in His own person, from His own lips, in a direct and explicit fashion, claimed to be God is from Revelation 1, where it is written: "7 BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen. 8 'I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.'"

Regarding this passage, my Muslim friend has, as yet, made no comment. In the course of our conversation we have spoken of various and sundry other things as well, such as prostration in prayer, fasting, textual integrity of the Bible and the Qur'an and more. But the foregoing topics have been at the heart of our conversation and have taken up the bulk of our correspondence.

I wrote my Muslim friend and told him I was redirecting things here, and welcome him or any other Muslim to comment and help him out. I also welcome anyone else into this discussion who wishes to comment. My Muslim friend is also free, provided these topics are not skirted, to bring up any of the other subjects we have talked about or that he would like to initiate a discussion on.

I look forward to what he (or anyone else) has to say.

To the law and the testimony, if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them (Isaiah 8).

And remember We gave Moses the Scripture and the Criterion (between right and wrong), there was a chance for you to be guided aright. (Qur'an, S. 2:53, Yusuf Ali)

I Am Here, Even Though I Have Been Silent

Pardon my prolongued silence; I have been very busy with assorted things. More posts are coming in the near future.

Among other things, I have been carrying on a correspondence with an atheist and two different Muslims. Perhaps I will post something soon inspired by those conversations.

I have also been busy with things related to our recent move. We are presently living with my wife's father (where our dog, Shiloh, has been creating work for me in the backyard, such as pulling up the sprinkler system and other fun stuff) as we await the completion of our new house.

Last night my wife and I went to see the show "Stomp Out Loud" at Planet Hollywood, which I would recommend to anyone visiting the Las Vegas area (or who lives here in Las Vegas). The Lord caused it to be an enjoyable event, even though I am not generally a big fan of loud noise.

The Myth of the Black Jesus

The other day while I was working, I couldn't help but overhear a gentlemen spew forth all sorts of hate-filled, racially-charged rhetoric cloaked in the guise of Islam. From what he was saying, it was evident that he was not so much a Muslim - although he did mention the Qur'an, Muhammad, and other Islamic buzzwords - as he was a follower of Louis Farakahn.

As he was attempting to indoctrinate another man, he was trying to use the Bible like a wax nose that he could mold to fit the face he was trying to sculpt, in this case, a racist one. Along the way, one of the points he labored to make was that Jesus was a black man, and that mean old whitie had hidden this fact, molding instead a Jesus to European liking in an attempt to get the superior black man to bow down and worship inferior white-devils.

In contradistinction to what this man was saying, the historical record tells us that Jesus was a first century, Middle Eastern Jewish man from the tribe of Judah, and, thus, that he was neither African nor European, a fact that stands written today the same as it has in all past ages (though it does have to be granted that pictorial representations of Christ produced by Christians have not always done justice to this fact). But the most interesting thing that occurred to me is that the kind of thinking typified by this man actually undermines Islam (for all those who share this man's racist-driven assumptions), whether it be the old fashioned orthodox kind found in mainstream Islam or the peculiar version advocated by Wallace Fard, Elijah Muhammad, and Louis Farakahn. After all, according to sacred, authoritative Islamic tradition, the Muslim prophet Muhammad said the following about Jesus:

"Narrated Abdullah bin Umar: Allah's Apostle said, "I saw myself (in a dream) near the Kaaba last night, and I saw a man with whitish red complexion, the best you may see among men of that complexion having long hair reaching his earlobes which was the best hair of its sort, and he had combed his hair and water was dropping from it, and he was performing the Tawaf aroud the Kaaba while he was leaning on two men or on the shoulders of two men. I asked, 'Who is this man?' Somebody replied, '(He is) Messiah, son of Mary'" (Bukhari, Vol. 9, Book 87, #128).

For more, see here.