JESUS, MUSLIM PROPHET OR SON OF GOD?

Why do militant Muslims kill themselves in suicide bomb attacks?

Because they have no hope in life except for the paradise promised by their religion for martyrs. 

If they live a normal religious life, they live in fear that they will not be good enough to escape hell fire. 

• Their only assurance of paradise is to die a martyr's death. 

But they do not die only for themselves. 

• They believe that when they die a violent death, their martyr's blood will also ransom their loved ones and kinsmen from hell.

They also lay down their lives for the future of the world. 

• By dying for the cause of Islam, they are contributing to the conquest of the world for Allah.

They die in hope for the day when every human being will live in Dar-es-Salaam, the House of Peace, a time when every person will be at peace because everyone will be Muslim.

• Islamic martyrs die like this because they have no other faith and no other hope.

Muslims also respect Jesus. 

They revere him as a great prophet of Islam, a forerunner of Mohammed, the messenger of Allah. 

• Jesus appears in the Qur’an as the “son of Miriam” (Mary). The Qur’an speaks of Jesus (or Isa) as a worker of miracles and healings. 

Nevertheless, the miracle working Isa is not the Jesus of the Bible.

• In the Qur’an, Isa did not die on the cross. He was not even an Islamic martyr. 

He was a holy prophet who was taken up into heaven and another man took his place and died on the cross. 

• The Islamic Jesus did not die to ransom us from hell. The only blood that can ransom Muslims from hell is the blood of Islamic martyrs who die a violent death in holy warfare against unbelievers.

When we read the Bible, we see an entirely different Jesus. 

• Jesus was not only the son of Mary but also the Son of God. Luke’s Gospel tells us how the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary.

But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.

• He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. Luke 1:30-32 (NIV) 

Mary was astonished. She could not understand what it meant that Jesus would be the Son of God, a baby without a human father.

The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. 

• So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Luke 1:35 (NIV) 

In the mind of Muslims, this is blasphemy. Allah, the God of the Qur’an, is not a father and has no sons. 

• To the Muslim mind, Christians must believe Mary had sex with God but this is not what the Bible says.

In the Bible, as in the Qur’an, Jesus was taken up into heaven.

• However, there is an enormous difference. 

Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he died on the cross, not as a violent warrior but as a man of peace, the perfect Son of God, offering His blood to God to ransom us from hell. 

The Muslim martyrs shed their blood to pay a ransom to Allah for their own sins and the sins of their families. 

But Jesus had no sins of His own. He shed His blood so that even His enemies could be forgiven by God and receive the free gift of eternal life.

There is another vital difference between Jesus and Muslim martyrs. 

• Muslims believe their martyrs go straight to heaven but the suicide bombers never return to their families to confirm this.

Three days after Jesus died, he returned from the grave and spent forty days with his disciples and friends. Only then was He taken into heaven.

All but one disciple was murdered for his faith in the resurrection. 

• Men do not die bravely for a lie.

Jesus said ... "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. 

• Do you believe this?" John 11:25-26 (NIV)