Does Islam Offer Salvation?

Tom: Thanks, Gary. Dave, as you know, for the last two weeks we discussed the critical distinctions between Roman Catholicism and biblical Christianity, and following that discussion we need to address the differences between Islam and biblical Christianity, especially regarding salvation. So let’s begin with your chapter title: “How, or on What Basis, and to Whom Does the God of the Bible Offer Salvation?”

Dave: Yeah, Tom, it’s a good question. It’s a logical question. The fact is that we have broken God’s laws; everybody knows that. You break the laws of the state, and you can’t tell the judge, “Well, let me off this time and from now on I’ll never break the law again.” 

He says, “If you never break the law again, you’re only doing what the law requires. You don’t get extra credit for that.” Okay? So you can’t make up for having broken God’s laws by turning over a new leaf and being a good boy.

Tom: Or man, woman, or…

Dave: Right. Right. So God has a problem: because He loves us, He wants to forgive us. He told Adam and Eve, “The day you eat of that tree, you will die.” And they did. They began to die. It took a few centuries, but they died. And I guess one of the mysteries to modern medical science is “Why do we die?” We begin to die as soon as we’re born. It’s because we’re separated from God, the Giver of life.

Tom: And that was disobedience, right, Dave? It wasn’t just a matter of God trying to protect the fruit in this garden. They needed to demonstrate, on the basis of obedience, their love for Him, or not.

Dave: Mm-hmm. They wanted to do their own thing. You know, that’s popular today, or at least it was for the hippie generation.

Tom: Right from the Garden, Dave.

Dave: And, of course, they all ended up doing the same thing—but, anyway, that’s another subject—dressing like one another, looking like one another… 

Well, this is a serious problem. God created the universe. He made laws, and the universe does obey laws: the law of gravity, laws of chemistry and physics, and so forth. And suddenly God had a world of rebels on His hands, men and women to whom He had given the power of choice. We believe that. It’s pretty clear we make our own choices, and we choose for self instead of for God. Now, what’s God going to do, just say, “Well, that’s okay. I’ll let there be murder and lust and rape and war, and we’ll just let it go on and get worse and worse.” 

No, God says He’s going to bring an end to this, but He still loves us. How is He going to forgive us? And this is a question, of course, that Paul raises in Romans 3: How can God be just and at the same time justify sinners? That’s a good question. Well, God can’t just forgive us; that would be a violation of His own laws. He would be going back on His own word. We couldn’t trust anything else He said if He did that. You remember that Jesus is weeping in the garden of Gethsemane, “sweating, as it were, drops of blood,” because He’s in agony, because—not just the physical sufferings He will endure at the hands of men: being crucified and scourged, and so forth; other people went through that—but He will be made sin for us. God will lay on Him our iniquities; this is what the Scripture says. 

“It pleased Yahweh to bruise him…thou hast put him to grief.” 

So He is going to be smitten by God. He is going to—and it’s hard for us to even imagine… You know, those who reject Christ and the salvation He offers, they will spend eternity in the Lake of Fire in torment. And probably one of the worst torments will be realizing they didn’t have to be there, had they not rejected the offer of pardon that God gave them…

Tom: A free gift.

Dave: …but it comes on His terms. We don’t negotiate with God. We don’t say, “God, let me make a deal with You.” No, He sets the rules, okay? 

So the penalty had to be paid, and Jesus pleads with the Father in the Garden. I mean, He knows what it is, but it’s for our benefit that He does this.

Tom: So we could understand.

Dave: “If there is any other way that mankind could be forgiven, don’t make me go through with this.” 

And of course the Father says, “There is no other way. You have to pay the full penalty.” 

So when Jesus hung upon the cross, He who is God (He’s infinite), He was able…

Tom: Dave, can I just take you back a little bit, because it’s such an important point: Jesus, His relationship with the Father, we can’t comprehend that love that He had for the Father. And by Him becoming sin for us, there was going to be a separation. If anything caused Him to sweat, caused Him to grieve over paying this penalty, it had to be that, don’t you think?

Dave: Yeah. And, Tom, as you said, that’s something we don’t understand. He is God, He is one with the Father, and yet He endured the separation for eternity that billions of human beings will endure, and many more should have, but he took it for them and they have accepted his payment. 

So in that time on the cross, because He is infinite, He endured this infinite suffering for mankind. All the sins, the remorse, the guilt, the horror of—just imagine of a Hitler! He paid for Hitler’s crimes, for Stalin’s. We have some discussions here about Calvinism. The Calvinist would say, “No.” They would say, “No, His blood would be shed in vain if it was shed for some who will be in hell forever. Then there would be a double payment.” 

And we’ve gone into that in the past. You can’t divide Christ’s blood up. You can’t say, “This drop was for these people, and that drop for those people.” He had to pay the penalty for Adam’s sin, and that’s how sin itself entered into this world. 

So when He had done that (beyond our comprehension), He cried with a loud voice in triumph, “Tetelestai.” And we’ve gone over that on this program before: that’s a word, a Greek word. In that day it was stamped on promissory notes, on invoices, and so forth. It meant, “Paid in full.” Jesus paid the penalty in full. 

We were talking the last couple of weeks: there’s a difference here with Catholicism. And one of the reasons why I try to explain that in this particular book is this is about Israel, as well as Islam, and Jewish people think that Christians…well, that’s Catholics. These are the ones who ran the Crusades that slaughtered Jews. These are the ones who put them in ghettos. The popes put them in ghettos, and so forth. “These are the ones who have persecuted us down through the centuries, and mocked us, and hated us, and killed us!” No, not so! These are not evangelical Christians, and that’s what we try to explain.

Tom: Those who go by the Bible, who try to be obedient, to adhere to what the Word of God says.

Dave: Right. So it’s very important that Jewish people understand that. These were not Christians. They waved the cross, sure, but they went across Europe slaughtering Christ’s brethren. Jesus Christ was and is a Jew, today resurrected now. So when He paid that penalty in full, He said, “It’s finished!” This is how the King James Bible translates it. 

Now, as far as…Tom, you were raised a Catholic: as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, it wasn’t finished. And, you know, in the Council of Trent, which met in the Counter-Reformation to respond to the concerns of the Reformers—Martin Luther, and so forth…

Tom: The 1500s, right?

Dave: …they said, “Anyone who dares to say…” You know, Jesus, in the Last Supper with His disciples, He took bread, and He broke it and He said, “This is my body.” It’s not literally His body, but this you are going to do to remember Him. 

He took the cup and He said, “Drink this. This is the new covenant in my blood.” And he said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

Now, the Council of Trent, the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, as you know very well, said, “If anyone says that this remembrance with the bread and the wine of the death of Jesus, if this communion service,” whatever they want to call it, “if you dare to say that this is simply a remembrance of a transaction that occurred on the cross 1,900 years ago and was finished then, and you deny that this is an ongoing propitiatory sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the living and the dead, anathema to you.” That is, “We damn you to hell.” 

So as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, when Jesus said, “It is finished,” He didn’t really mean it was finished, He meant, “Catholic priests have to keep offering Me.” And you know, in that particular anathema, it says that He is immolated. Immolated—that means “sacrificed.” It’s like the burning of the sacrifice in the Old Testament.

Tom: Killed on an altar.

Dave: Right. So there’s a big difference right there. We talked about it in the last couple of weeks. 

So what is there for us to do? I mean, am I going to get on a cross, too? Am I going to flagellate myself, or… You know, in the Philippines, every year some of these dear people have friends nail them to a cross! They think that they are somehow sharing in Christ’s suffering, that they have to do their part. And as we have said many times—you’ve said it many times, Tom, so have I on this program—salvation is not about what I have to do, it’s about what Jesus Christ has done. So what is there for me to do? He did it all. All I have to do is, the Scripture says…well, you remember, Paul and Silas were in prison there in Philippi, and there came an earthquake, opened the doors, and the jailer thinks everybody is gone, and he’s frightened. He’s going to fall on his sword. Paul yells, “Hey, we’re all here, don’t worry about it.” 

And he says, “What must I do to be saved?” Now, you know that the Lutherans and the Catholics (these are the leaders of both of these groups), for 30 years they discussed this, and finally in October 31, 1999, they signed joint declaration justification by faith. 

So Paul, when the Philippian jailer says, “What must I do to be saved,” Paul said, “You got about 30 years? It’s very complicated. It’s going to take a long time. There’s an awful lot you’ve got do: You’ve got to join a church, you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that.” 

No, Paul says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” 

Now, anyone who tries to do anything else, they are denying that Jesus paid the penalty. Now, the Catholic Church says, “We are offering Him again and again and again and again as a sacrifice for sin.” 

Jesus said, “It’s finished!” So what must I do to be saved? I just believe in Him. I accept the payment that He made for me. That seems awfully simple—“Well, can’t I do something?” He did it all. There is nothing you could do, nothing that I could do to pay for my sins. A sinner can’t pay for his sins; it takes a sinless sacrifice to pay for sin, so that lets all of us out. That lets purgatory out for the Catholics, and so forth.

Tom: Well, Dave, a sinner is going to be separated from God forever. He can’t pay off his sins, but he’s going to have to live under the penalty of his sin for eternity. Yet, as you just said and described, Jesus paid the full penalty for every sinner—I don’t care what the sin is, or how many sins, and so on—for everyone.

Dave: Right, and as soon as I believe that… These are the words of Jesus himself, John:3:16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
See All...—most Sunday school children know this, probably not in the Catholic Church, but most evangelical churches: “For God so loved the world…” He talks about God’s love. I mean, He must have loved this world an awful lot, infinitely, to give His Son for men to abuse and mock and scourge and crucify, to reject Him, to scoff and scorn Him. “God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever,” that means anybody; that means a Hitler, “whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” So all you have to do is believe in Him. 

Now, when you believe in Him, if you really believe in Him, you don’t try to do something yourself to get yourself saved. You don’t try to help Jesus save you. Now, we’re not talking about living for Christ—that’s something else. Of course we live for Him, but not in order to earn our salvation like the Jehovah’s Witnesses do, and so forth, but out of gratitude, love, and thanksgiving for the One who paid the penalty for our sins. We have been set free. Now we can serve him with a pure motive—not in order to get something, not in order to get saved, but we can serve Him with a pure motive out of love in response to His love for us.

Tom: Dave, it makes me think of the woman who came into the house of Simon the Pharisee. Jesus was there. She washes Jesus’ feet with her tears, dries them with her hair, and then begins to kiss his feet. Now, why would she do this? Well, Jesus tells us: “This woman loves much because she was forgiven much.” That should be the heart and motivation of me, of you, of everyone who calls themselves a Christian.

Dave: Right, right. Well, just one other verse from Jesus, John:5:24Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
See All...: He said, “He that hears my word and believes on him that sent me,” that is, believes why He sent Me, and so forth, “has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.”

Tom: So, Dave, this is God offering salvation—the God of the Bible, the true God, the Creator of the universe—offering salvation to all. 

Now, what about Islam? You’ve made distinctions between, again, Roman Catholicism and biblical Christianity, but what about between biblical Christianity and Islam? They do have an offer of salvation.

Dave: Yeah, Tom, it’s…wow! This is one of the most destructive lies ever introduced into this world. What’s going on over there, even in Iraq, today—it used to be just in Israel— suicide bombers blowing themselves up, imagining that they will get entrance into paradise; and numerous virgins, you know, to have sex with over and over, whose virginity returns every time you have sex with them; rivers running with wine, which they can’t drink on this earth. It’s a very hedonistic trip. Everything that they would lust after in this life is offered to them in paradise if they will murder some innocent women and children. It used to be Israeli’s. Now you know what’s happening. Well, you don’t read much about it in the news, rarely hear about it, but it happens quite often in Pakistan, for example.

Tom: This is jihad; this is what you’re talking about.

Dave: Right, but it’s now jihad against one another, because you have these two groups, the Sunnis and the Shi’ites. Sunnis are the majority; Shi’ites are the majority in Iran and also in Iraq. They jihad one another, they go after one another. So in Pakistan, it happens quite frequently. Here is a Sunni, who goes into a Shi’ite mosque in Pakistan, for example (I know of a number of these cases), and he blows himself up. A Sunni blows himself up in a Shi’ite mosque. The Shi’ites say this guy is a murderer, he’s not going to get to paradise. The Sunnis say, “Oh, no, he was a martyr for Allah in jihad, and he had immediate entrance into paradise.”

Tom: Dave, could you briefly give us the difference: Why is one a Shi’ite and why is another person a Sunni? What’s that about?

Dave: Well, you had a disagreement back there, Tom. It’s a little bit complicated, but had a disagreement back there. Muhammad had four successors. They are called the “rightly guided caliphs,” the caliph being the ruler, and in fact, the Muslims are aiming for an international caliphate—that is, Islam will rule everywhere and it will be under some imam or whatever, no longer a relative of Muhammad, although some people still claim to be that today. 

So the first successor to Muhammad was Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s father-in-law. And then you had two others, and finally you had Ali. He was part of Muhammad’s family, not just by marriage, and he was murdered. He was murdered in Iraq; his headquarters was in Iraq. He was murdered in a mosque in Najaf, Iraq, which is the holy city in Iraq now, and he is buried there—he has a mausoleum. And the Shi’ites are followers of Ali. They say he should have been the first caliph, and his children and so forth should have been the successors, and that is how the separation came about.

Tom: Not unlike Joseph Smith and Brigham Young split over that.

Dave: Right, so you have descendants of Joseph Smith today, the Reorganized Church, the Latter Day Saints. Yeah, so…

Tom: So that’s the issue between Sunnis and Shi’ites, that’s the battle: Who’s following the right way?

Dave: Exactly. So now we’ve got a problem, because they can’t even agree among themselves. Now, what kind of a god gives you paradise for murdering innocent women and children? Furthermore, you’re often murdering fellow Muslims. “Well, but they’re Sunnis and I’m a Shi’ite,” or the other way around. 

But, Tom, Muhammad himself—and we give all the documentation in the book—he condemned suicide. So to get around that, they say, “Well, it’s not really suicide, but you are sacrificing yourself in jihad.” Muhammad didn’t sacrifice himself in jihad. He was murdered—poisoned by the widow of the man that he had killed, okay? 

But what made the Muslim empire spread so quickly was the Muslim jihad warriors who took over. They conquered from France to China. They were not afraid to die. Not only were they not afraid to die, they wanted to die. Okay, so these guys aren’t blowing themselves up, but they are in battle, and if they get killed in battle, Muhammad promised them immediate entrance into paradise. But now that’s a bit problematic, because Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s father-in-law, his first successor, he said—and we quote him in the book, and we give you the source for it—he said, “I can’t trust Allah.” He was promised paradise without jihad by Muhammad—couldn’t get a higher authority in Islam than that—and yet Abu Bakr, his successor, said, “Even if I had one foot inside of paradise, I couldn’t trust Allah. He might shove me out.” So it’s very uncertain: How do these suicide bombers know, really, that they will even make it?

Tom: Well, Dave, and then if they do, if they’re Sunni, do they have a Sunni paradise? Or if they are Shi’ite, is there a separate Shi’ite paradise, or… You know, I think people have to think this thing through. We encourage…our program is called Search the Scriptures Daily, but in terms of a little common sense here, we’re asking people to be reasonable about what they believe, or to question what they believe to see if it is indeed reasonable.

Dave: And, Tom, in the book Judgment Day we give them all the facts so they can be reasonable. They have something to think about. 

So now, this isn’t going to work. You cannot make up for having sinned in the past by killing innocent people, much less by giving your own life. It won’t work. You can stand before any judge—no court of law on this earth will allow that. 

Now, finally, what if you don’t die in jihad? Every Jew on this earth must be killed, and then what the Muslim calls the “last day” will arrive. The last day is when all the Muslims will be resurrected, and they will be judged—that is, those who didn’t die in jihad, supposedly. Their good deeds will be weighed in the balance against their bad deeds. If the good deeds outweigh the bad deeds, then they make it to paradise, although that isn’t even certain, but you never know what Allah is going to do. But, Tom, there’s no court of law that would go by that rule. You try to tell them, “Yeah, I know I was speeding the other day, but I’ve driven more times within the speed limit than I have in exceeding it. Wouldn’t my good deeds outweigh my bad?” I’m sorry, they don’t have any real salvation, and that is a tragedy in Islam, and this is why we want to tell them about the salvation that God himself has provided in the sacrifice of His Son for our sins.