Defending the Christian Faith in Conversation with Islam — Unit 6: The Crucifixion

Key Verse

"For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." (1 Corinthians 2:2, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain what Qur'an 4:157-158 says about the death of Jesus and how Muslims have understood it.

2. Describe the substitution theory and the swoon theory, and say which Muslim groups hold them.

3. Present the historical evidence for the crucifixion from the four Gospels, from Paul and from non-Christian sources such as Tacitus and Josephus.

4. Answer the substitution and swoon theories with sound biblical and historical reasons.

5. Explain why the cross is at the very center of the Christian gospel.

6. Speak about the cross with a Muslim friend with gentleness, respect and clarity.

Why the Cross Is the Dividing Line

Christians and Muslims agree on many things about Jesus. As we saw in Unit 4, the Qur'an calls Him the Messiah. It teaches that He was born of a virgin, that He did miracles, and that He was taken up to God. Many Muslims love and honor Jesus as a great prophet. These points of agreement are real, and a wise pastor is glad to start from them.

But on one event the two faiths stand far apart: the death of Jesus on the cross. For Christians, the cross is the heart of the message. Paul wrote, "we preach Christ crucified" (1 Corinthians 1:23). For most Muslims, the crucifixion of Jesus never happened at all. This is not a small difference. If Jesus did not die, there was no sacrifice for sin, and if He did not die, He could not rise from the dead. The whole gospel depends on this event.

The good news for the pastor is that this question is not only a matter of belief. It is also a matter of history. We can ask what the earliest witnesses said, what hostile writers said, and what historians today conclude. On this question the evidence is very strong. In this unit we will first describe carefully what Muslims believe, then examine the evidence, and finally show why the cross matters so much.

What the Qur'an Says

The key passage is Qur'an 4:157-158. A sura is a chapter of the Qur'an, and an ayah is a verse, so "4:157" means sura 4, ayah 157. Sura 4 is called al-Nisa, "The Women." In this passage the Qur'an criticizes certain Jews of the past for their unbelief and for boasting that they had killed Jesus.

In Pickthall's translation the key words are: "they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them" (Qur'an 4:157). The verse goes on to say that those who disagree about it are in doubt and follow only conjecture, and that they surely did not kill him. The next verse says, "But Allah took him up unto Himself" (Qur'an 4:158).

This is the only passage in the Qur'an that speaks directly of the crucifixion. It is short, and it does not explain what happened in detail. The Arabic phrase translated "it appeared so unto them" (shubbiha lahum) is not easy to understand, and Muslim scholars have explained it in different ways. Two other verses are also part of the discussion. In Qur'an 3:55 God says to Jesus that He will take him and raise him to Himself. In Qur'an 19:33 the infant Jesus speaks of peace on the day he was born, the day he dies, and the day he is raised alive. Muslims usually understand these verses to refer to a death that comes later, not on the cross.

Why Muslims Reject the Crucifixion

It helps to understand why the cross is hard for a Muslim to accept. The reasons are sincere, and they come from deep convictions about God.

• God protects and vindicates His prophets. Many Muslims believe God would never allow a great prophet like Jesus to die a shameful death at the hands of his enemies.

• Each person carries his own sins. The Qur'an teaches that no soul bears the burden of another (for example Qur'an 6:164 and 35:18). The idea that one person could die for the sins of others seems unjust.

• God forgives whom He wills. In Islam God is merciful and can forgive without any sacrifice, so the cross seems unnecessary.

• The Qur'an is the final word. For a Muslim, the Qur'an is the direct speech of God, so if it says Jesus was not crucified, that settles the matter.

Notice that these are mostly theological reasons, not historical ones. The Muslim view did not arise from new evidence about first-century Jerusalem. It arises from the Qur'an, given in Arabia about six hundred years after the event.

Muslim Explanations of What Happened

If Jesus was not crucified, then what did the crowd at Golgotha see? Muslims have given several answers. It is important to know them, because a Muslim friend will usually hold one of them.

The Substitution Theory

The most common traditional view is the substitution theory. It says that God made another man look exactly like Jesus, and that this man was crucified in His place, while Jesus Himself was taken up alive into heaven. The great commentator al-Tabari (died AD 923) collected several reports about who the substitute was. Some say it was a disciple who volunteered. Others say it was Judas, as a punishment for his betrayal. Other names have also been suggested. The Qur'an itself does not name anyone. Most Sunni and Shia Muslims hold some form of this view, and many expect Jesus to return to earth before the Last Day.

The Swoon Theory

A second view says that Jesus was really nailed to the cross but did not die there. He fainted, or "swooned," and was taken down alive. Later He recovered. This view is taught by the Ahmadiyya movement, founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in India in the late 1800s. Ahmadis teach that Jesus survived, travelled east, and died much later in Kashmir. Most other Muslims regard the Ahmadiyya as outside mainstream Islam, but the swoon idea spread widely through popular debates, especially through the South African speaker Ahmed Deedat, who used it often against Christians.

Other Views

A smaller number of modern Muslim writers read Qur'an 4:157 another way. They say the verse only denies that the Jews were the real cause of Jesus' death, because God alone decides when a person dies. On this reading, Jesus might really have died on the cross. This is a minority view, and you should not assume your Muslim friend holds it. The wise approach is to ask, "What do you believe happened to Jesus?" and to listen before you answer.

The Historical Evidence for the Crucifixion

Now we turn to the evidence. Historians try to find out what happened by looking at the earliest sources, especially sources close to the time and place of the event. They give extra weight to facts reported by several independent sources, and to facts reported even by enemies. The crucifixion of Jesus meets all of these tests.

The Four Gospels

All four Gospels describe the crucifixion in detail: Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23 and John 19. They name the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. They name the place, Golgotha, outside Jerusalem. They set the event at the time of the Passover feast. They name people who were there, such as Simon of Cyrene, Mary Magdalene and Joseph of Arimathea. The Gospels were written within the lifetime of people who had seen these things, and they were spread in a world where many could check them.

The Gospels also show that Jesus predicted His death many times. In Mark 8:31, 9:31 and 10:33-34 He tells His disciples that the Son of Man will be handed over, killed, and raised after three days. He said of His life, "No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself" (John 10:18). If the substitution theory were true, Jesus' own repeated predictions would have been wrong.

The Letters of Paul

Paul's letters are among the earliest Christian writings. Most scholars, including sceptics, date letters such as Galatians, 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians to the AD 50s, only about twenty years after the crucifixion. Paul speaks of the cross again and again. He reminds the Corinthians of the message he received and passed on: "that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3). That passage is an early creed that Paul received from others, so it is even older than the letter itself. We will study it closely in Unit 7.

Paul also writes, "God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14). He knew Peter and James, the brother of Jesus, personally (Galatians 1:18-19). He was writing to churches that included people who had known the events firsthand. The sermons in the book of Acts make the same claim from the very first days of the church (Acts 2:23, 36).

Non-Christian Sources

Writers who were not Christians also mention the death of Jesus.

• Tacitus, a Roman historian, wrote his Annals around AD 116. In describing the fire of Rome under Nero, he explains that the Christians took their name from Christus, who had suffered the death penalty under Tiberius at the hands of the governor Pontius Pilate (Annals 15.44). Tacitus did not like Christians at all, which makes his testimony more valuable.

• Josephus, a Jewish historian, wrote his Antiquities of the Jews around AD 93. In a passage about Jesus (Antiquities 18.63-64), he says that Pilate condemned Him to the cross. Most scholars believe some words in this passage were added later by Christian copyists, but they also believe that the core of the passage, including the crucifixion under Pilate, comes from Josephus himself.

• The Greek writer Lucian of Samosata, in the second century, mocked Christians for worshipping a man who was crucified in Palestine.

• A later Jewish tradition in the Babylonian Talmud says that Jesus was "hanged" on the eve of Passover, a common way of describing crucifixion.

None of these writers had any reason to help the Christian cause. Yet they agree on the basic fact: Jesus was executed under Pontius Pilate.

What Historians Conclude

Because of this evidence, the crucifixion is one of the facts about Jesus that nearly all historians accept, whether they are believers or not. Bart Ehrman, a well-known sceptical scholar who does not believe in the resurrection, still argues that the crucifixion of Jesus under Pilate is one of the most certain facts we have about Him. John Dominic Crossan, another scholar far from evangelical belief, said that the crucifixion is as sure as any historical fact can be.

There is one more reason historians trust this fact. A crucified Messiah was an embarrassment. To Jews, a man hanged on a tree was under God's curse (Deuteronomy 21:23). To Romans, crucifixion was the death of slaves and rebels. Paul admits that the cross was "a stumbling block" and "foolishness" to many (1 Corinthians 1:23). No one in the first century would invent a crucified Savior. The early Christians preached it because it was true.

Compare this with the Qur'an's account. Qur'an 4:157 came about six hundred years after the event, in Arabia, far from Jerusalem. It does not claim to rest on any eyewitness or earlier written source. A historian must prefer the testimony of many early sources, friendly and hostile, over a single late statement. A Muslim believes the Qur'an because he believes it is God's word, not because the historical evidence supports it on this point.

Answering the Muslim Explanations

With the evidence in hand, we can answer the two main theories gently but clearly.

Answering the Substitution Theory

First, the substitution theory makes God responsible for a great deception. If God made another man look like Jesus, then He deceived the soldiers, the crowds, the mother of Jesus, the women at the cross and the apostles. Christianity would then have begun because God fooled the disciples. That does not fit the God who is true and who hates falsehood. You can ask your friend respectfully, "Would God deceive the most faithful followers of His own prophet?"

Second, the theory contradicts Jesus Himself. As we saw, Jesus predicted His death again and again. On the cross He spoke words of forgiveness and of trust in the Father (Luke 23:34, 46). A substitute who was Judas or a stranger could not have spoken in this way.

Third, notice what the phrase "it appeared so unto them" admits. Even the Qur'an grants that to everyone present it looked like Jesus was crucified. In other words, the eyewitnesses saw a crucifixion of Jesus. The question then is whether we trust what the witnesses saw and reported, or a statement written six centuries later that says their eyes were deceived.

Answering the Swoon Theory

The swoon theory runs against what we know about Roman crucifixion. The Roman soldiers were skilled executioners. Jesus was flogged before the crucifixion, a beating that often killed men by itself. He was nailed to the cross and hung there for hours. John reports that a soldier "pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out" (John 19:34). Pilate even checked with the centurion that Jesus was already dead before giving the body to Joseph (Mark 15:44-45).

Even if a man had somehow survived all this, he would have been terribly weak and wounded. A man in that state, needing medical care, could never have convinced his disciples that he had conquered death and risen in glory. The nineteenth-century sceptic David Strauss, who did not believe in the resurrection, made exactly this point against the swoon theory. The swoon theory explains neither the death nor the faith of the disciples. Qureshi, raised in an Ahmadi family that taught Jesus survived the cross, examined this question closely; see No God but One: Allah or Jesus? (2016).

The Story of Nabeel Qureshi

Nabeel Qureshi (1983-2017) grew up in the United States in a devout Ahmadi Muslim family of Pakistani background. Because Ahmadis teach the swoon theory, this question touched his own upbringing directly. As a student at Old Dominion University he met a Christian, David Wood, and the two began years of friendly debate. Qureshi studied the historical case for the crucifixion, the resurrection and the deity of Christ. He argued that the crucifixion is one of the best-attested facts of ancient history, and he came to see that he could not deny it honestly.

He prayed for God to show him the truth, and around 2005 he became a follower of Jesus, at great personal cost in his relationship with his family. He became a medical doctor and later a speaker and author. He died of stomach cancer in 2017 at age 34. His book Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus (2014) is recommended reading for this course. His story shows that honest study of the cross can open a door to faith.

The Prince of Peace Chose the Cross

Jesus' death was more than the end of a political tragedy. In the Gospels it shows how He chose to carry out His mission. He did not lead an army into Jerusalem to force people to accept who He was. At His arrest, when one of His followers struck with a sword, Jesus said, "Put your sword in its place" (Matthew 26:52, NKJV). Before Pilate He said, "If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight" (John 18:36, NKJV). He had taught His disciples to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them (Matthew 5:44). Then He suffered at the hands of His enemies rather than forcing them to worship Him.

Isaiah's title "Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6) is not an excuse to ignore hard passages or hard questions about justice in society. It tells the church where to look to see the character of Christ's saving rule. His cross, His command to teach the nations, and His promise that "the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32) belong together. We do not measure Christ by the wars of later Christians, just as we should not assume that everything later Muslim rulers did was commanded by Muhammad.

This sharpens a comparison we first made in Unit 2. In Islamic tradition, Muhammad was a religious leader who also held political, legal and military power. Jesus' public ministry was not a campaign of military conquest. Both must be described honestly. The Christian conclusion is that the cross was not simply something that happened to Jesus; in the Gospels it is part of His purpose to give Himself for others (Mark 10:45; John 10:18).

Why the Cross Is Central

The crucifixion is not only a fact of history. It is the center of God's plan of salvation. A pastor must be able to explain not only that Jesus died, but why.

The Cross Was Foretold

The prophets spoke of a suffering servant. Isaiah wrote, "But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities" (Isaiah 53:5). In Psalm 22, whose opening words Jesus cried out on the cross (Matthew 27:46), David also wrote, "They pierced My hands and My feet" (Psalm 22:16). Muslims honor the earlier prophets, so it is helpful to show that the cross was not an accident. It was God's purpose, announced long before.

The Cross Was Jesus' Purpose

Jesus said, "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). John the Baptist called Him "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). Jesus did not die as a helpless victim. He gave His life willingly for others.

The Cross Shows Both Justice and Mercy

The Muslim objection that God simply forgives whom He wills raises a real question: how can a just God forgive sin without dealing with it? In the Bible, sin is serious, and "without shedding of blood there is no remission" (Hebrews 9:22). At the cross God did not ignore sin. He punished it in the person of His Son, who took our place. In this way God is both just and the one who justifies those who believe in Jesus (Romans 3:26). This also answers the objection that no one can bear another's burden. Jesus was not an unwilling third person. He is the Son who came from the Father and freely took our burden.

There is a helpful bridge here. Every year Muslims celebrate Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, remembering how God provided a ram in place of Abraham's son. The Qur'an says, "Then We ransomed him with a tremendous victim" (Qur'an 37:107). You can ask your friend what that ransom pointed to. Christians believe it pointed ahead to Jesus, the Lamb provided by God.

The Cross Shows God's Love and Gives Assurance

Above all, the cross shows God's love. "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Many Muslims live with uncertainty, hoping their good deeds will outweigh their bad deeds on the Day of Judgment. The cross offers something different: forgiveness that rests on what Christ has done, not on what we do. And the cross is not defeat. God vindicated Jesus by raising Him from the dead and exalting Him (Philippians 2:8-9), which we will study in Unit 7.

The pastor's aim is not to score a point against Muhammad but to explain why the crucified Christ is the center of the gospel. Jesus gave His life willingly, and He made no attempt to force others to recognize Him. The historical evidence for the crucifixion matters because the Christian message depends on a real death and a real resurrection, not only on a moral symbol.

Speaking About the Cross with Muslims

How should a pastor bring these truths into a conversation? Here are some practical guidelines.

• Begin with agreement. Thank your friend for honoring Jesus as the Messiah, and say that you want to understand his view.

• Ask questions before you argue. "What do you believe happened at Golgotha?" "Why would God make someone look like Jesus?"

• Share the evidence simply: four Gospels, Paul's early letters, and hostile writers such as Tacitus and Josephus.

• Explain why the cross matters to you personally: your sins forgiven and your peace with God.

• Invite your friend to read a Gospel account of the crucifixion, such as Luke 23, for himself.

• Never mock the Qur'an or the Prophet of Islam. Speak with meekness and fear, as 1 Peter 3:15 teaches.

• Be wise about safety. In some places public debate brings danger to you or to your friend. A quiet, private conversation is often better.

Picture a pastor in a mixed town whose Muslim neighbor asks him why Christians wear a cross, the sign of shame. He might answer, "Because on that cross Jesus carried my shame, so that I could be forgiven." The neighbor may not agree that day, but he may keep asking questions for many months. The cross, explained with love, often speaks more deeply than any argument.

Summary

Qur'an 4:157 says that Jesus was not killed or crucified, but that it was made to appear so. Most Muslims explain this with the substitution theory, in which another man was made to look like Jesus. The Ahmadiyya and popular debaters such as Ahmed Deedat taught the swoon theory, in which Jesus survived the cross. Against both stands strong historical evidence: all four Gospels, the early letters of Paul, the early creed of 1 Corinthians 15:3, and non-Christian writers such as Tacitus and Josephus. Even sceptical scholars like Bart Ehrman accept the crucifixion as certain. The substitution theory makes God a deceiver and contradicts Jesus' own words. The swoon theory ignores Roman skill in execution and cannot explain the disciples' faith. The cross was foretold by the prophets, was Jesus' own purpose, and shows both God's justice and His love. At His arrest Jesus put away the sword and gave His life willingly (Matthew 26:52; John 10:18); the Prince of Peace conquered by the cross, not by force. Pastors should explain these truths with clarity, patience and respect.

Questions for Reflection

1. Why is the crucifixion such an important dividing line between Christianity and Islam?

2. Which of the reasons Muslims give for rejecting the cross do you think is the strongest, and how would you answer it?

3. Why is the testimony of hostile writers like Tacitus especially valuable to a historian?

4. How would you explain to a Muslim friend that the cross shows both God's justice and His mercy?

5. How can you help members of your congregation speak about the cross with their Muslim neighbors safely and gently?

6. How do Jesus' command to put away the sword and His words to Pilate help explain why His death was willing?

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