Chris­t­ian Sal­va­tion Debate : To Do Good Works Or To Be Saved By The Blood Of Christ ?

Every Chris­t­ian believes that they should do good works and fol­low the law of the Prophets. How­ev­er, they do not believe that a man can be jus­ti­fied by good works alone. This belief stems from New Tes­ta­ment teach­ings, par­tic­u­lar­ly those of Paul. For instance, Gala­tians 3:10 – 13 empha­sizes the inabil­i­ty of the law to jus­ti­fy, con­trast­ing it with liv­ing by faith in Jesus Christ.

For all who rely on doing the works of the law are under a curse, because it is writ­ten, Cursed is every­one who does not keep on doing every­thing writ­ten in the book of the law.” Now it is clear no one is jus­ti­fied before God by the law, because the right­eous one will live by faith (On Jesus). But the law is not based on faith, but the one who does the works of the law will live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becom­ing a curse for us.“1

The above-men­tioned teach­ings and belief of the Chris­tians are based on Paul’s teach­ings and the New Tes­ta­ment, which are against the teach­ings of Old Testament.

In Old Tes­ta­ment, jus­ti­fi­ca­tion and for­give­ness from God is pos­si­ble with­out any faith in Christ and with­out any sal­va­tion through a blood atonement.

If my peo­ple, who belong to me, hum­ble them­selves, pray, seek to please me, and repu­di­ate their sin­ful prac­tices, then I will respond from heav­en, for­give their sin, and heal their land.“2

This is also not­ed in the following :

Seek the Lord while he makes him­self available ;
call to him while he is nearby !
The wicked need to aban­don their lifestyle and sin­ful peo­ple their plans.
They should return to the Lord, and he will show mer­cy to them,
and to their God, for he will freely for­give them.
3

It should also be not­ed that the New Tes­ta­ment also proves that the beliefs men­tioned in the Old Tes­ta­ment were quite enough for justification.

What good is it, my broth­ers and sis­ters, if some­one claims to have faith but does not have works ? Can this kind of faith save him ? you emp­ty fel­low, that faith with­out works is use­less ? Was not Abra­ham our father jus­ti­fied by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar ? You see that his faith was work­ing togeth­er with his works and his faith was per­fect­ed by works. And the scrip­ture was ful­filled that says, Now Abra­ham believed God and it was count­ed to him for right­eous­ness, and he was called God’s friend. You see that a per­son is jus­ti­fied by works and not by faith alone. And sim­i­lar­ly, was not Rahab the pros­ti­tute also jus­ti­fied by works when she wel­comed the mes­sen­gers and sent them out by anoth­er way ? For just as the body with­out the spir­it is dead, so also faith with­out works is dead.4

After the (alleged) cru­ci­fic­tion of Jesus(P), if there is still need of doing good works and good deeds for for­giv­ing our sins, then the cru­ci­fix­ion of Jesus is with­out pur­pose, for there is already been the way of par­don­ing our sins, i.e. through good works as men­tioned in the Old Tes­ta­ment. Or, if there is no need to do good works and good deeds after believ­ing on the Jesus cru­ci­fi­ca­tion then it means Chris­tians are free to do crimes and sins.

There­fore this is, in our opin­ion, a doc­tri­nal para­dox and thus if the Chris­t­ian insists that mankind is saved by the blood of Jesus, we must there­fore allege that there is a Bible contradiction.

And only God knows best !Endmark

Cite this arti­cle as : Mohd Elfie Nieshaem Juferi, Chris­t­ian Sal­va­tion Debate : To Do Good Works Or To Be Saved By The Blood Of Christ ?,” in Bis­mi­ka Allahu­ma, Sep­tem­ber 15, 2006, last accessed March 29, 2024, https://​bis​mikaal​lahu​ma​.org/​b​i​b​l​e​/​t​o​-​d​o​-​g​o​o​d​-​w​o​r​k​s​-​o​r​-​s​a​v​e​d​-​b​y​-​t​h​e​-​b​l​o​o​d​-​o​f​-​c​h​r​i​st/
  1. Gala­tians 3 : 10 – 13[]
  2. 2 Chron­i­cles 7:14[]
  3. Isa­iah 55:6 – 7[]
  4. James 2 : 20 — 26[]

Comments

35 responses to “Chris­t­ian Sal­va­tion Debate : To Do Good Works Or To Be Saved By The Blood Of Christ ?”

  1. B.Bakkali Avatar
    B.Bakkali

    Hello.…I am a Roman Catholic mar­ried to a Muslim.…These words should not be tak­en per­son­al­ly as it is the sto­ry of my FAITH
    I can tru­ly tell you I see no bar­ri­ers between my faith and my husband’s…I respect and he respects.…but then the ques­tion is always there, So what is the truth?”….the truth will ONLY be revealed to us by the Grace of GOD.…I see many broth­ers and sis­ters giv­ing opin­ions about the Trin­i­ty and includ­ing Mary…which I find them confused…I see some say­ing and I quote, Every Chris­t­ian believe that they should do good works, that they should fol­low the law of the Prophets” which sad­dens me that they lack information.…As a Catholic, which by the way the word Catholic” means Uni­ver­sal” I can tell you all that
    the church of Christ has been per­se­cut­ed from day one, (Evil nev­er sleeps) Yet the Holy Spir­it pro­tects it and it is open to every­one, not just catholics.…but it was not always this way….as I was grow­ing up as a child,I saw many catholic hip­ocrites, even in my fam­i­ly, and since I have been pray­ing the rosary since the age of 5, I was sad­dened that my role mod­els (fam­i­ly & friends) were not always well behaved.…but one day I need­ed to under­st­nd what my reli­gion meant because my class­mates were Mus­lims, Bud­dists and Jews and some of my fam­i­ly mem­bers were Chris­tians non-catholic…so I was very amazed at the fact that we were all chil­dren of GOD but had too too many dif­fer­ent ideas, which did not both­ered me but instead made me curi­ous to know more about my religion…so as a child’s mind works…innocently I asked My Lord, whom I spoke direct­ly to GOD the father because I did not know Jesus.…and asked him to give me a sig­nal of where to find the truth.…that sig­nal came when I was in the mil­i­tary at age 18, In a moment of des­per­a­tion and see­ing how unfair some govt employ­ees were, I need­ed to under­stand what pur­pose I had in the mil­i­tary, why did I choose to go some­where I did not belong at….I was too young… I need­ed to do many things in life, soooooooo…..the Lord answered me whenI opened the BIBLE my par­ents’ had packed in my lug­gage and came across the fol­low­ing verse :
    He is the image of the invis­i­ble God, the first­born over all cre­ation. For by Him all things were cre­at­ed that are in heav­en and that are on earth, vis­i­ble and invis­i­ble, whether thrones or domin­ions or prin­ci­pal­i­ties or pow­ers. All things were cre­at­ed through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things con­sist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the begin­ning, the first­born from the dead, that in all things He may have the pre­em­i­nence. Colos­sians 1:15 – 18
    I had no idea what it meant until I was realeased from the Mil­i­tary for bad eye sight that was not cor­rectable with glasses.……I start­ed work­ing for a Gas­ket Co in the account­ing dept. I met a friend whom was also catholic…..I con­fid­ed my expe­ri­ence to her and that fol­low­ing week­end she took me to a youth group which lat­er I became the Sec­re­tary of and which lat­er I made a retreat called Encuen­tros de Pro­mo­cion Juve­nil” which trans­lates to Encoun­ters of Youth­ful Pro­mo­tion” its Intl…here I met HIM for the first time…..Jesus was the rev­e­la­tion to that bib­li­cal verse and he pulled me out of the military….anyhow I start­ed to learn more about my faith so I opt­ed in read­ing the BIBLE more, attend­ing youth groups and being very active in church….and although I was not a child any­more one breezy day I asked myself….when does some­thing you have faith in become so true…..well first of all you have to be in love with it…and sec­ond you have to com­pre­hend it, but if at times you don’t agree or under­stand, Believe that GOD will choose the right moment to reveal him­self to you and then you will no longer have any ques­tions, Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:32)…..so I then I start­ed to see all the peo­ples in my life & what we had in common…..and I came to the con­clu­sion that the most impor­tant thing in life was FAMILY….so in order to believe a prophet or mes­sen­ger of GOD, he had to be pow­er­ful but not a tirant, he had to be a role mod­el, he had to have a fam­i­ly like all of us (Mom, dad, bros & sis, and for those of us who are sin­gle par­ent chil­dren, Moth­er Mary is our moth­er and GOD is our father & please, let’s b’careful how we inter­pret this, GOD’s will we can­not refute) and of course that mes­sen­ger had to LOVE…everyone….He had to be per­fect, he could not believe in killing or war(instead he gave up his life) No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13)
    All those char­ac­ter­istcs only lead to Yeshua…after the Holy Spir­it answered me….nothing was ever the same again….But I still love my hus­band, I still Love my fam­i­ly and I still love my friends…..I tru­ly believe that no one can con­vert any­one, but only GOD can lead us…..we as humans only have the respon­si­bilty to unite our faiths in the pos­i­tive for human dig­ni­ty, let us be the hands of GOD and find Peace among us, to under­stand a cul­ture we must live with­in it like I learned with my husband….Respect is the ulti­mate weapon against conflict….Love is the ulti­mate pur­pose for the Birth of Christ, and Love was his mes­sage, How could I not believe in HIM and his words full of promises ?

    The fol­low­ing explains the Divine Trin­i­ty (In the name of the Father, of the Son, and the Holy Spir­it) Mary was only a ser­vant of GOD in his plan of the human sal­va­tion, and before I speaketh any­thing neg­a­tive about the moth­er of GOD….I first think of my moth­er who gave me birth and whom I love and respect and I believe no one has the right to speaketh bad about anyone’s moth­er, spe­cial­ly GOD’s.

    I would love to make empha­sis on the fol­low­ing, hence it clear­ly states that Chris­t­ian believe that they should do more than good works or deeds, that they should imi­tate the life of Yeshua, whom is MORE than a Prophet.
    For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that who­ev­er believes in Him (Jesus) should not per­ish but have eter­nal life. John 3:16
    John 3:16 — Have you seen the ban­ners at sport­ing events ? It refers to the pin­na­cle verse in today’s Gospel, which con­tains the heart of the Good News : God so loved the world (the motive) that He gave (a sheer gift) His only Son (Jesus is the gift that was giv­en) so that every­one who believes (the role of faith) in Him might not per­ish (what we fear), but might have eter­nal life (the goal).

    I remem­ber the first time I read this pas­sage on my own and real­ly understood/​discovered its mean­ing. I was stunned. It was as if I had nev­er heard it before. Up to that point in my life, I had put the cart before the horse and I didn’t know it. I had believed that if I kept the 10 com­mand­ments as per­fect­ly as pos­si­ble, if I did all the things Jesus tells us to do in the Gospel, then God would love me and at the end of my life, pre­sum­ing my sins didn’t out­weigh my good deeds, I would be saved. God would allow me to enter heaven.

    This view of the Chris­t­ian life puts all the empha­sis on our efforts and very lit­tle on God’s grace. It’s actu­al­ly very ego-cen­tric and arro­gant, even though it sounds very good. In fact, it’s a heresy known as Pela­gian­ism. We can save our­selves, thank you!” In my own life, when the tur­moil of ado­les­cence arrived, I began to have lit­tle hope of being saved. The cart was now careen­ing down­hill fast and the horse was nowhere to be found !

    But what Jesus says very clear­ly in this pas­sage is some­thing very dif­fer­ent : sal­va­tion is a gift. It is not some­thing we can earn. Jesus has won it for us. I repeat : sal­va­tion is a gift. It is not some­thing we can earn. Jesus has won it for us. The horse must come before the cart : God’s love has to come before any response on our part. If we, by our will pow­er or virtue, could earn God’s love, then Jesus died on the cross for noth­ing. In fact, He came to earth for noth­ing. If we can earn sal­va­tion, there is no need for Jesus at all.

    Link to com­plete arti­cle : http://​www​.chnet​work​.org/​j​o​u​r​n​a​l​s​/​j​u​s​t​i​f​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​/​j​u​s​t​i​f​y​_​5​.​htm

    Link to Prophe­cies Ful­filled by Jesus : http://​www​.bprc​.org/​t​o​p​i​c​s​/​f​u​l​f​i​l​l​.​h​tml

    Link to Grace video : http://​www​.gieson​.com/​L​i​b​r​a​r​y​/​p​r​o​j​e​c​t​s​/​a​n​i​m​a​t​i​o​n​s​/​w​a​l​k​/​i​n​d​e​x​.​h​tml

    Thank you for your time and may the Love of God dwell in our hearts….Peace to all of Us…..

  2. Terence Avatar
    Terence

    Grace said, Hear, O Israel : The LORD our God is One”. I under­stand it as it telling us that God, Jesus and the Holy Spir­it are one.

    Grace, I will not be dis­cussing this in length if this was not of the utmost sig­nif­i­cance and impor­tance to both you and I. Grace, you tru­ly wor­ry me when some­thing SO CLEAR and non-ambigu­ous as God is One” can some­how sud­den­ly be into it telling us that God, Jesus, Mary and the Holy Spir­it are one”.

  3. shadowofears Avatar
    shadowofears

    The Bible rejects the atone­ment’

    To what pur­pose [is] the mul­ti­tude of your sac­ri­fices unto me ? saith the LORD : I am full of the burnt offer­ings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts ; and I delight not in the blood of bul­locks, or of lambs, or of he goats. (Isa­iah 1:11)

    Sac­ri­fice and offer­ing thou didst not desire ; mine ears hast thou opened : burnt offer­ing and sin offer­ing hast thou not required. (Psalms 40:6)

    For thou desirest not sac­ri­fice ; else would I give [it]: thou delight­est not in burnt offer­ing. (Psalms 51:16)]

    I am come to end the sac­ri­fices and feasts of blood, and if ye cease not offer­ing and eat­ing of flesh and blood, the wrath of God shall not cease from you, even as it came to your fathers in the wilder­ness, who lust­ed for flesh, and they ate to their con­tent, and were filled with rot­ten­ness, and the plague con­sumed them.” (Jesus Christ, The Gospel of the Nazorenes)

    And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength : this [is] the first commandment.

    And the sec­ond [is] like, [name­ly] this, Thou shalt love thy neigh­bour as thy­self. There is none oth­er com­mand­ment greater than these.

    And the scribe said unto him, Well, Mas­ter, thou hast said the truth : for there is one God ; and there is none oth­er but he :

    And to love him with all the heart, and with all the under­stand­ing, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love [his] neigh­bour as him­self, is more than all whole burnt offer­ings and sac­ri­fices. (Mark 12:30 – 33)

    To do jus­tice and judg­ment [is] more accept­able to the LORD than sac­ri­fice. (Proverbs 21:3)

    But go ye and learn what [that] meaneth, I will have mer­cy, and not sac­ri­fice : for I am not come to call the right­eous, but sin­ners to repen­tance. (Matthew 9:13)

    Jesus will have mer­cy and not sac­ri­fice ; he was not cru­ci­fied for the sins of the world’, but rather he was sent to put sin­ners to repen­tance. He came to preach the dis­card­ed teach­ings of the Torah (Matthew 5:17 – 20) he came to preach the Gospel (Matthew 4:23) he was Prophet and Mes­sen­ger (Matthew 21:11) not the pagan cru­ci­fied Christ’ the Church upholds today.

    Jesus made it clear that sal­va­tion is not attained through blood sac­ri­fice, but sim­ply keep­ing the com­mand­ments of God.

    16Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eter­nal life?”

    17“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the com­mand­ments.” (Matthew 19:16 – 17)

    Jesus nev­er said sal­va­tion comes through my blood”, he sim­ply told the man that sal­va­tion comes through obey­ing the com­mand­ments. The cru­ci­fix­ion is not even men­tioned or allud­ed to. The Old Tes­ta­ment says :

    Let us hear the con­clu­sion of the whole mat­ter : Fear God, and keep his com­mand­ments : for this [is] the whole [duty] of man. (Eccle­si­astes 12:13)

    Because that Abra­ham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my com­mand­ments, my statutes, and my laws. (Gen­e­sis 26:5)

  4. Grace Avatar
    Grace

    Hear, O Israel : The LORD our God is One”.

    I under­stand it as it telling us that God, Jesus and the Holy Spir­it are one. Yup, if you believe in Jesus — you are a child of God.

    But per­son­al­ly, I do believe that we are all loved by God as his chil­dren. It’s just whether we acknowl­edge Him as a Heav­en­ly Father.

    Jesus taught his dis­ci­ples to pray to God as their Father in heav­en. Before that, God and man had such a big dis­tance in between. We feared God and looked up to him as some­thing so big and far away. But Jesus came, he closed the gap and brought us clos­er to God.

    Sor­ry about the late reply. Been pret­ty busy.

  5. Terence Avatar
    Terence

    Lster
    I seem to be repeat­ing myself whilst oth­er seem to turn my words (when the words are right in front of you), First with Leigh now with Lster.… anyway.

    I did not say If Jesus is God..”
    I said ” If Jesus is equal to God…” which is exact­ly what Leigh said…

    Lster, if you are not aware that the Church has been wrestling with this prob­lems since the 3rd cen­tu­ry , then it will serve you well to research it a bit. Why do you think was the Coun­cil of Nicea was con­vened for ? —-»» To define God. Any­way, back to our question..

    if Jesus is equal to God.….

    1. Did the Father” exist first ? Please be more care­ful with yr answer. Refer to yr own scrip­ture”.
    2. Did Jesus par­tic­i­pate in the Cre­ation ? Again please refer to yr own scrip­ture”. Bet­ter still, find out what yr chursh says.
    3. Where did Jesus actu­al­ly say, I am equal to God”. This is a very impor­tant claim in the whole of mankind’s his­to­ry. Who­ev­er makes this claim will make this claim EXPLICITLY. I hope you under­stand the dif­fer­ence between Implic­it and Explic­it statements.

    Also, I am still wait­ing for Leigh, Grace , etc’s com­ments on the fol­low­ing CLEAR and EXPLICIT vers­es in yr scrip­ture”..

    Hear, O Israel : The LORD our God is One”.

    Jesus said, Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my broth­ers and tell them, I am return­ing to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

    Let me guess.… So Jesus’s father is also my father, so I am also a Son of God, huh ?

    Folks, stop play­ing God” .…. with God.

  6. Lster Avatar
    Lster

    To Ter­ence :

    Regard­ing your ques­tion of If Jesus is God, who cre­at­ed who?”:
    because God is the alpha & omega (begin­ning and end), he does­n’t need to be cre­at­ed. He is a divine being. God is God. He’s always exist­ed. No one needs to cre­ate him.

    How­ev­er, i’m not cer­tain that this is exact­ly a reply you were look­ing for..

  7. Terence Avatar
    Terence

    Grace,

    I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me ; if anoth­er comes in his own name, him you will receive. How can you believe, who receive glo­ry from one anoth­er and do not seek the glo­ry that comes from the Only God?” (John 5:43 – 44)

  8. just trying Avatar
    just trying

    Just_​Passing_​Thru, All prophets are humans with the fol­low­ing unique attributes:-

    1. They receive wahyi” inspi­ra­tions by var­i­ous means, includ­ing via the Ruh-ul Kud­dus, Jibrail.
    2. Their eyes sleep, but their hearts do not sleep- This is because of the heavy respon­si­bil­i­ties they shoul­der, their con­cern for their ummah/​people, and their attach­ment to the love of God.
    3. Asma’- They nev­er com­mit major sins and will nev­er com­mit sins in con­vey­ing the Mess­sage from God. They could make mis­takes, but God cor­rects them on their deci­sions so that they depart from this world cleared of all mis­takes made.There were numer­ous cas­es in the lives of all the Prophets(a.s.).
    4. Their souls are only tak­en with their per­mis­sion. As with the case of David (a.s.), when the Angel of Death approach him in his abode, he answered, Marhabak bi Amri” Wel­come, with the Com­mand (of God)”
    5. All prophets are buried in the spot they died.
    6. The earth do not decom­pose their bod­ies. God for­bade the Earth from decay­ing their phys­i­cal bodies.
    7. They are alive in their graves in con­stant pray­ing to God.

    Also, all of us (as babies) comes into this world pure of sins. It is only thru our upbring­ing and con­se­quent­ly our own choic­es and deeds that we com­mit sins and hope­ful­ly seek repen­tance direct­ly from God. It is thus fairplay.

  9. just passing thru Avatar
    just passing thru

    just a question…do for­give me if i seem a bit blur.…do mus­lims con­sid­er Adam a prophet?…are prophets sin­less, are they inca­pable of com­mit­ing sin?? etc.…if yes to both answers, then how did sin enter the world??.…thx in advance:)

  10. Terence Avatar
    Terence

    Also, if Jesus is equal to God, WHO CREATED WHO ??

  11. Terence Avatar
    Terence

    leigh, I think you lost me some­where in The first com­mand­ment is to love God .…so Jesus places him­self equal with God affirm­ing that he and the Father are one”.

    What?? How on earth did you get from A to B ?

    p.s. …first com­mand­ment is to love God??? No!! Is this state­ment so HARD to understand???

    Hear, O Israel : The LORD our God is One”

  12. leigh Avatar
    leigh

    Jeferi claims that sal­va­tion in the OT and NT is different.
    Basi­cal­ly he mis­un­der­stands that these are prophe­cies and he doesn’t under­stand the con­text of prophe­cies and events in the OT.
    He bases this upon 2 Chron 7:14 and Isa­iah 55 com­par­ing these cher­ry picked vers­es with Gal 3:10 – 13 and James 214 – 18 (note on oth­er occa­sions he pre­sum­ably will argue the Bible is cor­rupt­ed –giv­en the Quran con­tra­dicts the Bible reg­u­lar­ly but jeferi dis­hon­est­ly quotes form it if he thinks he can use select­ed vers­es sup­port his propo­si­tions- but that anoth­er story).
    Now we have to go back fur­ther to under­stand the fal­si­ty and inad­e­qua­cy in this argument,
    In Deut 6:25 the Lord com­mand­ed the Israelites to obey all of the law, not just part of it. This is crit­i­cal to under­stand­ing that ulti­mate­ly ani­mal sac­ri­fices and good works are use­less (Jesus says the ways of the flesh (such as rit­u­als) are use­less. It is the Holy Spir­it that is nec­es­sary for ewr­tanal life (John 6:63) and only Jesus brings that and to his fol­low­ers who are then born again and become chil­dren of God. Note the ones who claimed to be descen­dants of Abra­ham were slaves to sin and were not part of Gods fam­i­ly. (John8 : 39 – 59) This con­demns not only the Jews who also claimed to be chil­dren of Abra­ham but any Mus­lim who rejects Jesus as he pre­sent­ed Him­self in the gospels and trys to rely on good works when every Mus­lim knows they have sinned accord­ing to the OT and the NT are under a curse for one sin means they have bro­ken all of the law. This is a bur­den that is too great and sep­a­rates them from God and sal­va­tion is not avail­able, until they repent and fol­low Jesus as he direct­ed in the gospels.
    The require­ment for per­fec­tion is con­firmed in the NT by both Jesus and James, (broth­er of Jesus) Jesus said be per­fect just as your father in heav­en is per­fect (Matthew 5:48) (note that Jesus also said he was the same as the Father –God- and he who saw Jesus had seen the Father-God) and James (says in James 2:10 where one who breaks one law breaks all laws (i.e. con­firm­ing Deut 6 ; 25), not quot­ed by Jeferi as he is either unaware of it or he knew it destroys his argument).
    Now God knew that mankind was unlike­ly to obey all His laws. Thus the con­se­quences of fail­ing to keep all of the laws was revealed to be God’s curse. (See Deut 11:26 – 28).
    How can that curse be bro­ken ? . By rit­u­als ? and Jesus notes the rit­u­als as being inad­e­quate. Jesus demand­ed mer­cy, not sac­ri­fice (here read rit­u­als) to make one appear pious (see Matthew 5 for this expose of the use­less­ness of these pub­lic rituals)
    Yet Islam (and its ver­sion of sal­va­tion) is char­ac­terised by rit­u­als said to set up by their God Allah. (And part­ly by Moham­mad who had Allah reduce dai­ly prayers from 50 to 5- on the so called night jour­ney” to Jerusalem where in fact no mosque/​temple actu­al­ly exist­ed at the time ! But that is anoth­er story…) .
    Note even although Abra­ham was cred­it­ed with right­eous­ness (unknown to the author of the Quran) but he still had to offer sac­ri­fices on altars to have sins for­giv­en but this had to con­tin­ue- (see Gen 22:1 – 15. — the famous offer of Abraham’s son and God Him­self pro­vid­ing the sac­ri­fice for sin).Abraham had to con­tin­ue sac­ri­fices.. . There was nev­er a once was enough sac­ri­fice (yet!).
    The ref­er­ence by one blog­ger to sura 29 is is telling, as in fact piety does not require a blood sac­ri­fice (killing an ani­mal) so why does Allah claim it is piety, not blood that counts. Allah con­tra­dicts the God of Abra­ham who required a blood sac­ri­fice for Abraham’s son (not named in the Quran) ‑see Gen­e­sis 22). Yet Moham­mad made many sac­ri­fices of ani­mals dur­ing his life, as he had no under­stand­ing that Jesus had com­plet­ed his task of bring­ing sal­va­tion to mankind.
    Isa­iah 30:15 and Isa­iah 55 cant be read in iso­la­tion but must be read in con­text of the ear­li­er Deut 6:25 and 11 ; 28 togeth­er with much of Isa­iah that notes that the sac­ri­fice for sal­va­tion (the lat­er chap­ters of Isa­iah 52 and 53) con­firmed by the state­ment that iniq­ui­ties sep­a­rate us from God (Isa­iah 59:2) and it is God Him­self, through the word Jesus, whose own arm works sal­va­tion. (Isa­iah 59:16). The the­o­ry of good works as earn­ing sal­va­tion makes God depen­dent on mankind to earn them sal­va­tion which demeans and dis­hon­ours the cre­ator God. .
    Those who reject Jesus as Lord and Sav­iour are under the curse of Deut 11 ; 28 and Isa­iah 59 : 2. It is only by accept­ing by faith the Mes­si­ah Jesus as Lord and Sav­iour that sal­va­tion will make them accept­able to God.
    All who teach any thing dif­fer­ent and espe­cial­ly imams and peo­ple like Mr Jeferi are under the curse of Deut 11 : 28. . No won­der Moham­mad had no words of com­fort for his fam­i­ly about their fate on the Day of Judg­ment. Not even Islam’s prophet had any cer­tain­ty so where does it leave the Mus­lim who are taught to obey the prophet Mohammad?Mohammad brought back the curse to all Muslims.
    God had ear­li­er proph­e­sied through Moses in the Torah of the Mes­si­ah who would defeat the rebel­lion and sep­a­ra­tion of man from God (Gen 3:12).
    He then con­firmed that faith is the way to right­eous­ness and is the true reli­gion of Abra­ham (which the Quran claims Islam fol­lows) in where Abram is cred­it­ed with right­eous­ness. (Gen­e­sis 15:6) Note here Abra­ham has not under­tak­en any good deeds at all.
    In Isa­iah 54 God reveals that Lord ‑your redeemer will — (future tense) have com­pas­sion upon you (Isa­iah 54)
    Now Isa­iah 55 in fact in vers­es 1 – 3 describes grace itself ! Free wine and bread. I will make an ever­last­ing covenant with you (a future event) that is grace through faith.
    Now what does it say about Isa­iah 59:2 : man is sep­a­rat­ed from God and Gods plan of sal­va­tion cant be here (because as in Isa­iah 59:2 the man is sep­a­rat­ed from God.
    Thus a sav­iour is need­ed and God reveals through prophe­cy that He him­self will be that sav­i­uor (Isa­iah 59:16)
    Now in Isa­iah 56 God reveals his sal­va­tion is close at hand (to be revealed in the Word of God /​the Mes­si­ah). A prophecy.
    Note crit­i­cal­ly that in Isa­iah 59 the Lord declares He will (again future tense) save through his right arm, (not through man’s good works but through grace (Isa­iah 55:1 – 3.)
    Cheery pick­ing John 20:17 and Mark 12:29 as some Mus­lim blog­gers have is again an aver­sion to con­text and truth. In Mark Jesus right­ly stat­ed the two great­est com­mand­ments but this does not deny that the nature of God as stat­ed by Jesus in John. Of course read on in Mark 12 to v 35 to see how Jesus says he is the Mes­si­ah Lord and also Mark 14:61 – 62 where he makes Him­self EQUAL to God. Inci­den­tal­ly can Mus­lims explain why they love Allah (giv­en a Mus­lim cit­ed Mark 12:29) as Christ com­mand­ed His fol­low­ers to love Yah­weh /​I AM ? In John 20 Jesus was iden­ti­fy­ing with his dis­ci­ples as the first res­ur­rect­ed one. He had yet to return to heav­en and will come again as the Mes­si­ah in heav­en who would come again to judge all nations and peo­ples of all lan­guages (Daniel 7:13 – 14) Note Jesus in John 20 gave them author­i­ty to for­give sins (only God can do this).
    John 1:12 makes it clear that it is Jesus, the word of God who gives his fol­low­ers the right to be chil­dren of God- able to live eter­nal­ly with God;(this is Gods right and Jesus takes it for Him­self con­sis­tent with his oth­er claims)
    Of course Jesus demands Peter express his love for Jesus him­self ‑John21:15 – 17)Why is this?go back to the com­mand­ment in Deut 6 ; 4 and Jesus affirm­ing the first com­mand­ment in Matt John to see why, The first com­mand­ment is to love God so Jesus places him­self equal with God affirm­ing that he and the Father are one-lets leave the Trin­i­ty for anoth­er time)
    Tt was mak­ing him­self equal with and as the same as God that caused the Jew­ish scribes to try to stone him as pre­sum­ably would devout Mus­lims if Jesus repeat­ed exact­ly what he said then today – do Mus­lims still believe they”honour” Jesus ?

  13. Terence Avatar
    Terence

    Oh yeah, by the way, back to the topic…

    jere­mi­ah 17:10 I, Jeho­vah, search the mind, I try the heart, even to give every man accord­ing to his ways, accord­ing to the fruit of his doings.

  14. Terence Avatar
    Terence

    Jesus has a God.…

    Jesus said, Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my broth­ers and tell them, I am return­ing to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”

    (John 20:17)

  15. Terence Avatar
    Terence

    Grace, (Q4. What is the SINGLE and most IMPORTANT mes­sage of ALL the prophets?)

    Hear, O Israel : The LORD our God is One”. Deuteron­o­my 6:4

    Jesus” re-affirms this eter­nal call to mankind when ques­tioned by a per­son of the law.…

    Of all the com­mand­ments, which is the most impor­tant?” And Jesus answered him, The first of all the com­mand­ments is, Hear, O Israel ; The Lord our God is ONE.” Mark 12:29

    Jesus” did NOT say the lord YOUR God is One”. He said the Lord OUR God is One”.…

  16. Grace Avatar
    Grace

    But frankly, I don’t know whether Adam and Lot are prophets.”

    For­got to add that I’m not say­ing they are not prophets, it’s just that I do not know whether they’re con­sid­ered prophets.

    Just explain­ing, in case.. since any­thing can be twist­ed and turned these days.

  17. Grace Avatar
    Grace

    Ter­ence : I’d say the the pur­pose of these prophets were to bring peo­ple to God — say what God want­ed to speak to the peo­ple and lead them.

    But frankly, I don’t know whether Adam and Lot are prophets. In your opin­ion, you think the prophets under­stood God more. But I see it as that they were more obe­di­ent to God, obey­ing in every small detail. And that was how they found favour in God’s eyes.

    Don’t wor­ry, no harm done. It’s all good :)

    Tomas : I still see no point in debates. Debates are usu­al­ly to find a win­ner. A forum’s fine, you know ? Shar­ing about each oth­er’s reli­gion with­out hav­ing to attack each oth­er. Let the true one stand out itself then.

    I did­n’t say don’t ratio­nal­ize reli­gion at all” but I meant that it is impos­si­ble to ratio­nal­ize every act of God and inter­pret it by our own human stan­dards. Any­way, I’m inter­est­ed in know­ing about your crit­i­cal thoughts of the trin­i­ty that made you con­vert to Islam.

    Hope to hear from you soon.

  18. Terence Avatar
    Terence

    Grace, tomas, myself, etc.
    Our pur­pose is nev­er to see who wins but to seek out the Truth.
    How can one lose when one has found the Truth??

  19. tomas Avatar
    tomas

    Grace : I real­ly do believe that this debate doesn’t change any­thing. And that ratio­nal­iz­ing faith, reli­gion or most impor­tant­ly.. God — is impossible. ”

    does­nt change any­thing ? As I recall, I remem­ber when I was chris­t­ian evan­gel­i­cal debat­ing a mus­lim… turns out, that debate I had made me become very crit­i­cal about the trin­i­ty ; even­tu­al­ly, I CHANGED” and became a mus­lim. Sub­hanAl­lah ! So debates are good, just as long as there are no ani­mos­i­ty, hate and foul language.

    Its pos­si­ble to ratio­nal­ize faith, reli­gion and with God, but the ratio­nal­iza­tion we use is lim­it­ed and can only be used to an extent. Ratio­nal­iza­tion is a way to grasp the fun­da­men­tals of a reli­gion. Thus, throw­ing away ratio­nal­iza­tion entire­ly is an act of a fool.

  20. Terence Avatar
    Terence

    Grace, I applaude your grace“ful response to rhetorics e.g. we Mus­lims under­stand you Chris­tians”. I think we all need to assume sin­cer­i­ty, grace and tire­less and relent­less search for the truth.
    And to you Mus­lims and Chris­tians alike.. Rule No.1 : Truth does not BELONG to you. It belongs to its Cre­ator. Rule No. 2 : Seek­ing the Truth is akin to eval­u­at­ing a car, say Mer­cedes… often we fall into the trap of eval­u­at­ing the (lousy) dri­ver ! Focus on the car !
    Mov­ing on. Cho­sen peo­ple” are the most mis­un­der­stood peo­ple in the world. Here I refer to the Jews and Arabs (sons of Jacob” and Kedar). When­ev­er, I get the chance, I explain to my Jew­ish and Arab friends that God choose a peo­ple” not nec­ces­sary because they are the best but it may be more to the con­trary. My point : To stress-test a new car, do you choose the best” con­di­tions or the worst” con­di­tions ? (twink,twink) Imag­ine Moses hav­ing to deal with a cho­sen peo­ple” who, after only 40 days, had revert­ed, fash­ioned, gravened and wor­shiped a Gold­en Calf ! In 40 days!Excellent project management !
    Under­stand­ing the Cre­ator. The Cre­ator MUST pro­vide the cre­ation who is LIABLE for rec­og­niz­ing Him the nec­ces­sary resources (Fac­ul­ties, Books, Choice, inde­pen­dence, etc) to do so. The cre­ation, when judged, thus CANNOT excuse itself, and say, Oops, did­nt read THAT book” or Oops, did­nt use the intel­ligien­ce you gave me” or Sor­ry, I am just a fol­low­er. Can you blame my Rab­bi or priest or imam?”

    Q1. I agree.
    Q2. some­what dis­agree. I believe that the all the Prophets under­stand God more than any one of us. Why ? Sim­ple. God CHOSE them as prophets/​messengers and us-we are the mes­sen­gees”.
    Q3. The ONLY rea­son we call them mes­sen­gers is because they have to con­vey … a MESSAGE ! (I apol­o­gise but we real­ly need to get the fun­da­men­tals agreed). And, as such, prophets may come and go, times may change, but they MUST con­vey the same MESSAGE.

    Thus, my next query is, what is the SINGLE and most IMPORTANT mes­sage of ALL the prophets e.g.: Adam,Enoch,Noah,Abraham,Lot,Isaac,Jacob,Joseph,Job,Jethro,Moses,Aaron,Ezekiel,David,Solomon,Elijah,Elisha,Jonah ?

    What is the ONLY pur­pose of ALL these prophets ? That is, if they have only ONE SENTENCE to say to their peo­ple, what will it be ?

    Again, I must pro­fuse­ly apol­o­gise for any dis­com­fort to my approach to seek­ing Truth and I seek your fore­bear­ance in this very impor­tant matter.

  21. Grace Avatar
    Grace

    Oh ya, anoth­er thing I’d like to add..

    Me answer­ing or not answer­ing your ques­tions does­n’t mean that Chris­tian­i­ty wins/​loses.

    I real­ly do believe that this debate does­n’t change any­thing. And that ratio­nal­iz­ing faith, reli­gion or most impor­tant­ly.. God — is impossible.

  22. Grace Avatar
    Grace

    Dear Ali,

    You say that we Mus­lims under­stand you Chris­tians”, how is it that you’re ask­ing me ques­tions that the answers you are sup­posed to understand ?

    Nope, I don’t think mus­lims are that ancient pagan moon cult of Arabs.”

    Frankly, I have close Mus­lim friends.. and I see that in the eyes of a Mus­lim, Islam is as pure and just Chris­tians see Chris­tian­i­ty to be.

    It’s just that every reli­gion.. has its own set of extrem­ists. And sad­ly, these are the peo­ple that are seen by every­one and make their own reli­gion look cor­rupt” or sesat”. Even Chris­tian­i­ty, Bud­dhism, Hin­duism. We all have this in common.

    Yes Ali, I’ve picked up a decent trans­la­tion Quran for your information.
    Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I don’t plan to ana­lyze it and use what­ev­er I read inside to use it to attack Mus­lims by quot­ing the Quran.

    I nev­er said I under­stand Chris­tian­i­ty. There are things that I don’t under­stand, like why did God put the Jews as the cho­sen peo­ple”. But one thing that I under­stand from the Bible is that I will nev­er under­stand how God works.

    For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    Nei­ther are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord
    As the heav­ens are high­er than the earth,
    So are my ways high­er than your ways
    And my thoughts than your thoughts,” — Isa­iah 55 : 8 – 9

    We Chris­tians believe that on the cross, Jesus who we believe is sin­less.. took our sins, and God turned away from him. (We also believe sin sep­a­rates man from God, I’m sure you under­stood that) Why is it that Jesus felt thirst, hunger, etc.. Because phys­i­cal­ly he was human.

    I admit — I do not ful­ly under­stand Chris­tian­i­ty. I can’t explain every­thing. But I believe in Jesus.

    Well, athe­ists would say that just because you believe in God, it does­n’t mean He exists !

    But still, I believe in God, Jesus and the Holy Spir­it. That’s my stand­ing, and I do hope you’d stop ask­ing ques­tions just to push me to a posi­tion where I can’t answer. I’ll say it again, I don’t ful­ly under­stand Chris­tian­i­ty, but my faith in Jesus, God and the Holy Spir­it has trans­formed my life enough for me to believe in it.

    Me not being able to answer does­n’t prove the Chris­tian­i­ty is fake, or the Islam is true. It justs shows that I’m human, and that I don’t have all the answers for life.

    Ok, why not a ques­tion for you.. In your opinion,

    Which one came first, the chick­en or the egg ?

    Cheers ! :D (hope to hear a reply from you for the question)

    * * * * *

    Dear Ter­ence,

    I was­n’t being sar­cas­tic, don’t wor­ry. Ok, here’s my response to your questions :

    Q1 : Yup, they all knew God — in my opinion.

    Q2 : You got­ta ask them that though. But at the same time, only God can answer that. Who are we to judge ? There isn’t any mea­sure­ment for how well you know God”. But I do say that, I know God well enough to believe in Him. Oh yea, please do tell me if you man­age to find some mea­sur­ing unit for the how well you know God” part :)

    Q3 : I assume here that the very essence of Him­self” means Jesus being the Son of God. Well, this is my PERSONAL point of view : At that time (Adam, Noah, Moses) etc.. there were still sac­ri­fices, priests etc. Things weren’t so bad. But the Israeli peo­ple kept turn­ing away and sin­ning. Jesus was revealed through prophets like Isa­iah. But at the same time, how am I to assume that God should reveal it to them ?

    But I take it that you say that God SHOULD reveal to the prophets that He had a Son, alright.

    Adam/​Moses/​etc, I have a son,”

    Haha, it’s quite fun­ny to imag­ine but.. alright, I take it as your POV.

    I’ll just quote the man of the top­ic here ok ? No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son choos­es to reveal him.”

    If you ask me Did­n’t Moses, Adam, etc know God?” well, my response will be that they did­n’t know him as a father. We believe that this is a spe­cial rela­tion­ship that Jesus brought.

    Sor­ry for the late reply, did­n’t remem­ber this issue till.. recently.

    Ok, you may proceed.

    Cheers !

  23. Terence Avatar
    Terence

    Grace thank you for yr very con­cise and polite (I think) response. Grace, I beg of your patience in my sub­mis­sion to follow.

    Ques­tion 1 : In your opin­ion, did Adam know God ? Did Noah know God ? Did Abra­ham know God ? Did Moses know God ? Did Joshua know God ? Did all the prophets know God ?

    Ques­tion 2 : Do you think Adam, Noah, Abra­ham, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Job (and the entire­ty of prophet­hood) knew God bet­ter than you, Grace ? Or would you Grace, know God bet­ter then ALL of them ?

    Ques­tion 3 : Do you think that God would NOT inform Adam, Noah, Abra­ham, Moses, Aaron… of some­thing that is of the very essence of Himself ?

    Grace, I hope that you will respond to the above ques­tions before I can pro­ceed. TQ.

  24. Ali Avatar
    Ali

    In that case it could also be 1 = 1 = 1 = 1 = 1 = 1 = 1 = 1 = 1 …n

    Pro­vid­ing evi­dence is not the same as ratio­nal­is­ing a base­less concept.

    Mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tions you say… clas­si­cal excuse, just who isn’t mis­in­ter­pret­ing to begin with ?

    What kind of mean­ing­less gibebr­ish are you stat­ing Sin­cere­ly call Jesus into your heart, ask the Holy Spir­it to help you under­stand, pick up a Bible and study. It will change your life. You will then be able to under­stand Christians.”

    We Mus­lims under­stand you chris­tians, it is YOU chris­tians WHO DON’T TRY to under­stand Mus­lims — you still think we’re some ancient pagan moon cult of Arabs. Have you ever picked up a decent trans­la­tion of the Quran and tried to study it with­out look­ing through the tint­ed eyes of Islam Bash­ers — note DECENT transala­tion not one made by an Islam Hater ? AS the part about chang­ing your life — Martha Stew­art is alleged to have also changed lives — chang­ing lives is not a cri­te­ri­on for establi­hing whether a book is divine !

    You mean first accept the reli­gion and THEN UNDERSTAND IT rather than the oth­er way around — why don’t you try the same thing with oth­er reli­gions ask Bud­dha to guide you or ask GOD HIMSELF.

    You can always claim’ to under­stand a reli­gion ONCE you’ve already INTENDED to accept it with­out mak­ing the oft repeat­ed excuse of THE HOLY SPIRIT GUIDED ME’.

    Oth­er­wise what would be the point in under­stad­ning if you’ve already accept­ed it. YOu guys donot under­stand this trini­tar­i­an con­cept upon which your entire sal­va­tion is alleged to be based, you just ratio­nalise in order to make this con­cept seem under­stand­able to you.

    If accord­ing to you Jesus is God because steam is like water then it means that God is like Jesus who felt hunger, thirst, who prayed to God [God pray­ing and sub­mit­ting to God????????] who SORROWED and PRAYED to LET THIS CUP PASS FROM HIM Who YELLED IN DESPAIR MY LORD MY LORD WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME.. does­n’t sound very god­ly to me.

    But you guys are smart you can prob­a­bly ratio­nalise that too.

    Just by say­ing that you know two peo­ple who believe in the tooth fairy DOESN’T MEAN the tooth fairy exists !

  25. Grace Avatar
    Grace

    Ter­ence : Maybe the prob­lem is that peo­ple think 1 + 1 + 11

    Maybe it’s just 1 = 11

    Like how water is ice and steam.

  26. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    There are no con­tra­dic­tions in the Bible, only misinterpretations.

  27. Terence Avatar
    Terence

    pvb : I under­stand yr good intentions.
    How­ev­er, I hope you are lis­ten­ing to your own words..“the sim­ple fact that the Bible (are) words sent to us by GOD through let­ters writ­ten by dif­fer­ent peo­ple to dif­fer­ent communities”.

    let­ters writ­ten by dif­fer­ent peo­ple”?? Let­ters”?? peo­ple”?? I thought you said words sent to us by GOD”. That is a BIG claim. You seem to be a very high­ly moti­vat­ed per­son. Pls be kind and fair to your­self and think about what you have just said…“written by dif­fer­ent peo­ple” and yet you accept it as Word of God”??

    Do you know what Word of God” means ? It means DIVINE REV­E­LA­TIONs ! Not let­ters of men !

    pvb, it is not a sim­ple fact”. In fact, this is THE FACT”!!! …that it is just LETTERS from some peo­ple to another !

    I know what you will be say­ing next. These are peo­ple INSPIRED by some­thing called the Holy Spirit/​Ghost. Even if these inspired peo­ple” have NEVER met Jesus ? Even if these peo­ple have noth­ing to prove their claims?? Once, a chris­t­ian friend in this site men­tioned that you dont expect (even) a child to accept that 1+1=2”. So how can you expect adults to accept such a great claim that hey, this is from God. I was inspired yes­ter­day by the Holy Ghost.”

    p.s. Also, how can you expect adults to accept 1+1+1=1 ?

  28. pvb Avatar
    pvb

    Here’s a promise to you.

    Sin­cere­ly call Jesus into your heart, ask the Holy Spir­it to help you under­stand, pick up a Bible and study. It will change your life. You will then be able to under­stand Christians.

    You don’t even have to pick up the whole Bible. Pick up just the New Tes­ta­ment. Once you under­stand the New Tes­ta­ment with the help of the Holy Spir­it, then tack­le the Old Testament.

  29. pvb Avatar
    pvb

    Many do not under­stand the con­tra­dic­tions” in the Bible, but it is eas­i­ly explained by the sim­ple fact that the Bible words sent to us by GOD through let­ters writ­ten by dif­fer­ent peo­ple to dif­fer­ent communities.

    Some com­mu­ni­ties need­ed remind­ing that they need­ed to do works too or their faith would be dead. Oth­er com­mu­ni­ties might have been proud of their works and need­ed to be remind­ed that no work could erase all their sins, or that works were more impor­tant then sim­ple faith.

  30. Grace Avatar
    Grace

    Basi­cal­ly, any­one who believes on the Jesus cru­ci­fic­tion” (as you put it) would heed Jesus’ call to love one anoth­er, and obey God.

    Which reli­gion por­trays God as some­one who com­mands you to sin ?

    I do believe that Paul was mean­ing that if you do good works, but do not believe in Jesus (his cru­ci­fic­tion, res­ur­rec­tion, Son of God, etc) — you aren’t saved.

    My under­stand­ing to what Paul said : Good works but no belief in Jesus = not saved
    My under­stand­ing to what Peter said : Believe in Jesus, but does not do good works (as Jesus has told us to) = not saved

    My belief on this whole top­ic for Chris­tians : Believe, and obey Jesus’ com­mand to Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” and “ Love your neigh­bor as your­self” — and you will be saved.

  31. Oreng Avatar
    Oreng

    Lin­da need a fur­ther half an hour to accept that Peter con­tra­dicts Paul in this aspect. She is short of say­ing Yes this is con­tra­dic­tion in the bible’.

  32. Yusuf Avatar
    Yusuf

    I would like to com­ment on Lin­da’s posi­tion with regards to the con­cept of Atone­ment and Sac­ri­fice. I under­stand your per­spec­tive very well, how­ev­er we Mus­lims assert that rit­u­al sac­ri­fice pri­or to the advent of Christ (may the peace of God be upon him) was not manda­to­ry in order to attain divine pardon.

    The Old Tes­ta­ment indeed men­tions and com­mands these rit­u­als to be per­formed, in cer­tain sit­u­a­tions for cer­tain peo­ple or indi­vid­u­als. Our opin­ion is that sac­ri­fice was deemed more praise­wor­thy and mer­i­to­ri­ous in the sight of the Lord but was not adopt­ed as com­pul­so­ry. As is evi­dent in the Bible, the Prophets of old preached a faith of repen­tance and return to God (most high):

    This is what the Sov­er­eign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says : In repen­tance and rest is your sal­va­tion, in quiet­ness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.” [Isa­iah 30 : 15]

    It is our under­stand­ing that the prac­tise of sac­ri­fice for the pur­pose of atone­ment was lat­er abro­gat­ed by Jesus, and was not observed by all Prophets and Mes­sen­gers. Prophet Muham­mad (peace be upon him) encour­aged sac­ri­fi­cial offer­ings (dur­ing their prop­er times as spec­i­fied) as a means of attain­ing piety and help­ing to feed the needy. Our Lord states :

    It is not their meat nor their blood, that reach­es God. It is your piety that reach­es Him : He has thus made them sub­ject to you, that ye may glo­ri­fy God for His Guid­ance to you and pro­claim the good news to all who do right.” [Qur’an, 22:37]

    Regards,

    Yusuf

  33. Anon Avatar
    Anon

    Call­ing prac­ti­tion­er of Islam as Mus­lims” instead of Moslems” is clos­er and truer to the ara­bic pronounciation.

  34. omar Avatar
    omar

    Basi­cal­ly this arti­cles is intend­ed to refute evan­gel­i­cal chris­tians not catholics.(i think)

  35. Linda Cicerchi Avatar
    Linda Cicerchi

    It would seem that there is not only a poor under­stand­ing of Islam by some Chris­tians, but also a poor under­stand­ing of Chris­tian­i­ty by some Moslems.

    Many Chris­t­ian denom­i­na­tions as well as indi­vid­ual Chris­tians have some­what dif­fer­ent views regard­ing faith and works. The con­flict is also scrip­tur­al between the writ­ings of Peter and those of Paul. The Roman Catholics tend more towards Peter’s writ­ings. Those of the Reformed Tra­di­tion, or Protes­tants, lean more so on Paul’s writings.

    The laws that were no longer need­ed were the laws of rit­u­al sac­ri­fice for for­give­ness. Under the laws of Moses, cer­tain sac­ri­fi­ci­ces were required to com­plete atone­ment for sins. One was­n’t sim­ply for­giv­en. In Chris­tian­i­ty, these laws of sac­ri­fice are no longer need­ed because atone­ment has been giv­en through Jesus’s sac­ri­fice on the cross. There at least five dif­fer­ent Atone­ment the­o­ries in Chri­tian­i­ty if not more.

    Doing good works or deeds is not the same thing as for­give­ness. For­give­ness is for our sins. Good works do not make up” or cov­er for sins. Chris­tians believe they are for­giv­en by faith alone. There is no need to per­form the atone­ment rit­u­al sac­ri­fices. It is that faith in God’s eter­nal Mer­cy and Com­pas­sion as evi­denced by Jesus, that one goes forth and joy­ous­ly does good works. All of the cred­it goes to God because of His eter­nal Mercy.

    To sim­ply sum it up :
    Paul’s view :
    If one does good works, but has no faith in God’s Eter­nal Mer­cy then those works do not glo­ri­fy God and the gift of sal­va­tion though Jesus. There­fore, one’s good works” mean noth­ing. In oth­er words, accord­ing to Paul’s writ­ings : Chris­tians are saved by faith alone and not works

    Peter’s View : If one has faith, but does not do good works, then one is being dis­re­spect­ful of God’s Eter­nal Mer­cy and the gift of sal­va­tion though Jesus. There­fore, one’s faith means noth­ing. In oth­er words, accord­ing to Peter’s writ­ings : Chris­t­ian faith with­out works is dead.

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