Why Islam denies Christ’s crucifixion

Appended to that Jonah article we blogged about yesterday was another tidbit from Ronald F. Marshall explaining why Islam denies that Jesus was crucified:

According to the Koran, Jesus was not crucified on the cross. Some have it that he never was nailed to the cross but a look-alike was nailed there in his place, perhaps Thomas or Judas; others that he was nailed to the cross but was taken down and later resuscitated in the tomb.

On this view, the sign of Jonah (Matt. 12:39; Luke 11:29) says that Jesus will not die because Jonah did not die in the belly of the whale, and that alone is the true but forgotten point of comparison between Jesus and Jonah. This argument is made by Ahmed Deedat in Was Jesus Crucified?, published by the Library of Islam.

Islam denies the Atonement for two reasons. First, “the Christian concept of salvation presupposes the existence of an a-priori state of sinfulness, which is justified in Christianity by the doctrine of ‘original sin,’ but is not justified in Islam, which does not subscribe to this doctrine,” as one highly esteemed Koranic scholar, Muhammad Asad, put it.

Second, Islam denies vicarious suffering. The Koran teaches that we have to bear the burden for our sins all by ourselves. So the teaching that Jesus bore our sins in his body on the cross (1 Peter 2:24) is a corruption of the original revelation, the original coming in the Koran, where we are told that God gave to Jesus the way of good works. By following them we have peace with God.

The Koran describes salvation as repenting of sin and obeying God just as Jonah did. Jesus’ life reinforces this way. This is all that is left for Jesus to do if original sin and vicarious suffering are denied, as they are in Islam (and much of liberal Christianity). The sign of Jonah is the way of good works.

Sounds like the beliefs of some people who think they are Christians! No wonder so many of them think Islam and Christianity are basically the same. Rather than OPPOSITES.