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Follow Jesus or Follow Paul?
The New Testament gives us a choice; either we follow Jesus Christ, or the anti-Christ Paul of Tarsus: Each one demands his followers to accept his teachings:
Be ye followers of me… that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered [them] to you. (1 Corinthians 11:1)
“If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” (John 8:31)
Amazing, the former preached against the teachings of Jesus, and the latter, (Jesus) teaches that salvation is only attained by following him. According to Deuteronomy 24:16, Ezekiel 18:20-21, and Micah 6:7-8, a man is responsible for his own sin. Jesus rejected the Pauline doctrine of “vicarious atonement”. Compare the two passages below:
And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. (Hebrews 9:22)
Jesus was teaching his disciples in the outer court of the Temple and one of them said unto him: Master, it is said by the priests that without shedding of blood there is no remission. Can then the blood offering of the law take away sin? And Jesus answered: No blood offering, of beast or bird, or man, can take away sin, for how can the conscience be purged from sin by the shedding of innocent blood? Nay, it will increase the condemnation. (Gospel of the Nazorenes, Lection 33, verses 1-2)
Jesus was circumcised, Paul rejected circumcision:
This [is] my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant. (Genesis 17:14)
When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. (Genesis 21:4)
And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof. (Exodus 12:48)
On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived. (Luke 2:21)
And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, [and said], Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. (Acts 15:1)
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach [them], the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:19)
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier [matters] of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. (Matthew 23:23)
The Jewish Law commands the circumcision on the eighth day. The reason why Christians are not circumcised is because they follow Paul. They have broken the covenant of Circumcision according to Jesus himself (5:19)
For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love. (Galatians 5:6, KJV)
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (NIV)
The Talmud states the following to those who break the Covenant:
"The one who voids the covenant of Abraham has no portion in the world to come (Avot 3:16).
Christians may not have any “portion in the world to come” because they have totally rejected the Message of Jesus, replacing the Gospel with the Gospel of Paul.
"The Christianity which the nations claim to follow is the religion of Paul, who is admittedly the chief and almost the only theologian that the Church recognizes. Because of his betrayal of the Master's teachings, the vision of true Christianity has been so dimmed that men have been able to defend war and a host of other evils, such as flesh eating and slavery, on the authority of the Bible." (Christ or Paul? Rev. V.A. Holmes-Gore)
"Let the reader contrast the true Christian standard with that of Paul and he will see the terrible betrayal of all that the Master taught.... For the surest way to betray a great Teacher is to misrepresent his message.... That is what Paul and his followers did, and because the Church has followed Paul in his error it has failed lamentably to redeem the world.... The teachings given by the blessed Master Christ, which the disciples John and Peter and James, the brother of the Master, tried in vain to defend and preserve intact were as utterly opposed to the Pauline Gospel as the light is opposed to the darkness." (ibid, Rev. V.A. Holmes Gore)
"True Christianity, which will last forever, comes from the gospel words of Christ not from the epistles of Paul. The writings of Paul have been a danger and a hidden rock, the causes of the principal defects of Christian theology." (Ernest Renan, Saint Paul)
"There is not one word of Pauline Christianity in the characteristic utterances of Jesus.... There has really never been a more monstrous imposition perpetrated than the imposition of Paul's soul upon the soul of Jesus.... It is now easy to understand how the Christianity of Jesus... was suppressed by the police and the Church, while Paulinism overran the whole western civilized world, which was at that time the Roman Empire, and was adopted by it as its official faith. (Androcles and the Lion, George Bernard Shaw)
The Christian missionaries today are preaching the Gospel of Paul, and rejecting the Gospel of Jesus. Paul emphasized that salvation is attained through “faith and grace” which is blatantly opposite of what Jesus taught.
"Paul... did not desire to know Christ.... Paul shows us with what complete indifference the earthly life of Jesus was regarded.... What is the significance for our faith and for our religious life, the fact that the Gospel of Paul is different from the Gospel of Jesus?.... The attitude which Paul himself takes up towards the Gospel of Jesus is that he does not repeat it in the words of Jesus, and does not appeal to its authority.... The fateful thing is that the Greek, the Catholic, and the Protestant theologies all contain the Gospel of Paul in a form which does not continue the Gospel of Jesus, but displaces it." (The Quest for the Historical Jesus, Albert Schweitzer)
“We have already noted that every teaching of Jesus was already in the literature of the day….. Paul, the founder of Christianity, the writer of half the NT, almost never quotes Jesus in his letters and writings." (Professor Smith in his “The World Religions”, p 330)
Saul/Paul had set out initially to subvert Jesus’ teachings. Later he used his new doctrines to undermine the power of the Jewish church as well as the defied Roman Emperor. Paul sought to torpedo Judaism in its calcified form, its narrow interpretation of the Judaic law. Jesus had initiated this process but did not subvert the law. Paul had no such inhibitions; he rejected wholesale many fundamental laws of God. In the attempt Paul succeeded in undermining both the Jewish and Nazarene teachings. He steered Christ’s teachings away from monotheism and from the Jews, (the lost sheep of Israel) and directed these teachings in a corrupted form to Non-Jews…As Jesus had not succeeded during his mission in converting the majority of his Jewish brothers and sister to his divinely inspired interpretations of Judaism, Paul ensured that after Jesus had departed, that Jews would not be temped to follow Jesus’ Teachings. To this end, Paul so adulterated Jesus’ life, purpose, mission and claims to make the new dogma (Paul’s version of Jesus’ teachings) repugnant to the Jews. (Farouk Hosein, Fundamentalism Revisited, Eniath’s Printing Company Trinidad, p. 49)
The Jewish Christians reacted strongly to Paul, they rejected his pagan ideas of the “divinity of Christ”, and they rejected the concept of the “divine sonship” of Jesus, whom they regarded as a Prophet and Messenger.
The Jewish Christians rejected Paul’s version of ‘Christ’, to them the ‘Christ’ was anointed and fully human. Many characters in the Bible were called ‘Christ’ (anointed) but they were never divine ‘god-men’. Paul changed the original meaning of this title to make it conform to the Gentile thinking. The Romans considered their Emperors to be the ‘sons of God’, or personages of the sun. Similarly, the Hindus consider their heroes to be the ‘incarnations’ of God.
“A true Jew would have immediately recognized the teaching of Jesus as a reaffirmation of what Moses had taught. But to many a pagan, it must have seemed new and strange and perhaps a little complicated. Most of the pagans still believed in a multitude of gods who, it was thought, mixed freely with human beings, mated with them, and took part in every sphere of human life. To the common people of Greece, any description of Jesus must have seemed like a description of one of their gods, and they were probably quite ready to accept Jesus in this capacity. There was always room for one more god. However, the actual teaching of Jesus negated all their gods, since it affirmed the Divine Unity”. (Muhammad Ataur-Raheem, Jesus: Prophet of Islam 1992 edition, p. 62)
Paul’s reasoning had two major consequences. It not only resulted in further changes being made to what Jesus had taught, but also prepared the way for completely changing people’s ideas of who Jesus was. He was being transformed from a man to a conception in people’s minds. Divinity had been attributed to Jesus even when he was on earth by some of those who marveled at his words and miracles, and who, mistakenly, considered him to be more than a prophet. Some of his enemies had also spread the rumor that he was the “son of God”, hoping to rouse the orthodox Jew’s anger against him for associating himself with God. Thus, even before he disappeared, there had been a tendency to obscure his true nature and ascribe godhood to Jesus. This imaginary figure of Christ, who apparently had the power to annul what Jesus had previously taught, was clearly no ordinary mortal, and, inevitably, became confused by many with God. Thus, this imaginary figure became an object of worship, and was associated with God. (Muhammad Ataur-Raheem, p. 70)
The great scholar Mawdudi alludes to the deification of Jesus by the “Christians”.
The false tendencies, born of centuries of deviations, ignorance and malpractice, now took another form. Though they accepted their Prophets during their lives and practiced their teachings, after their deaths they introduced their own distorted ideas into their religions. They adopted novel methods of worshipping God; some even took to the worship of their Prophets. They made the Prophets the incarnations of God or the sons of God; some associated their Prophets with God in His Divinity. (Towards Understanding Islam, p. 39)
Jesus taught Salvation comes through Faith and Works, Paul distorted it:
Jesus taught salvation is attained by keeping the commandments, physical prayer, fasting, and observing the Law of Moses. Paul neglected these commands and distorted the Path to Salvation preached by Jesus.
Paul said that “salvation comes through faith and grace” which is exactly what the missionaries are saying today. Let us read the words of Jesus.
Fasting is commanded:
Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. (Matthew 17:21)
And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting. (Mark 9:29)
Now in the twenty and fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sackclothes, and earth upon them. (Nehemiah 9:1)
And in every province, whithersoever the king's commandment and his decree came, [there was] great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes. (Esther 4:3)
But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing [was] sackcloth: I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer returned into mine own bosom. (Psalms 35:13)
When I wept, [and chastened] my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach. (Psalms 69:10)
My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness. (Psalms 109:24)
Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye [even] to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: (Joel 2:12)
Christians do not fast, Muslims fast during the holy month of Ramadan, so they must be considered the true followers of Jesus. The (only) excuse Christians have for not fasting is echoing the teachings of Paul, who discarded these laws altogether!
Physical Prayer is commanded:
The Prophets of God prayed with their forehead touching the ground. Likewise, the Muslims also pray in this manner:
And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, (Genesis 17:3)
And I bowed down my head, and worshipped the LORD, and blessed the LORD God of my master Abraham, which had led me in the right way to take my master's brother's daughter unto his son. (Genesis 24:48)
And he said, Nay; but [as] captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? (Joshua 5:14)
And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes: (Daniel 9:3)
And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou [wilt]. (Matthew 26:39)
Paul rejected these laws; he disobeyed the physical prayer to Yahweh. He distorted the prayer and directed it towards His Prophet, Jesus!
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [things] in heaven, and [things] in earth, and [things] under the earth; (Philemon 2:10)
This verse is absolutely outrageous and repulsive, totally disgusting! The Old Testament teaches that Prayer is due to God alone:
I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth [in] righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. (Isaiah 45:23)
It seems that Christians have abandoned this verse, following the teaching of Paul by worshipping Jesus! According to the Holy Quran, associating partners (in worship) with God is unforgivable:
Allah forgiveth not that partners should be set up with Him; but He forgiveth anything else, to whom He pleaseth; to set up partners with Allah is to devise a sin Most heinous indeed. (4:48)
In blasphemy indeed are those that say that Allah is Christ the son of Mary. Say: "Who then hath the least power against Allah, if His will were to destroy Christ the son of Mary, his mother, and all every - one that is on the earth? For to Allah belongeth the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and all that is between. He createth what He pleaseth. For Allah hath power over all things." (5:17)
They do blaspheme who say: "Allah is Christ the son of Mary." But said Christ: "O Children of Israel! worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord." Whoever joins other gods with Allah,- Allah will forbid him the garden, and the Fire will be his abode. There will for the wrong-doers be no one to help. (5:72)
Christ the son of Mary was no more than a messenger; many were the messengers that passed away before him. His mother was a woman of truth. They had both to eat their (daily) food. See how Allah doth make His signs clear to them; yet see in what ways they are deluded away from the truth! (5:75)
They take their priests and their anchorites to be their lords in derogation of Allah, and (they take as their Lord) Christ the son of Mary; yet they were commanded to worship but One Allah: there is no god but He. Praise and glory to Him: (Far is He) from having the partners they associate (with Him). (9:31)
Jesus Forbade the Gentiles:
These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into [any] city of the Samaritans enter ye not:
But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. (Matthew 10:5-6)
But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. (Matthew 15:24)
Paul rejected this command of NOT preaching to the Gentiles, they were restricted. Paul openly preached among the Gentiles, a totally different religion:
For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: (Romans 11:13)
Don’t be like the pagans!
And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:7-8)
And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them. (Leviticus 20:23)
The Church Father Iranaeus condemned Paul for inventing ‘Christianity’ from pagan beliefs:
Iranaeus believed in One God and supported the doctrine of the manhood of Jesus. He bitterly criticized Paul for being responsible for injecting doctrines of the pagan religions and Platonic philosophy into Christianity. (Muhammad Ataur-Raheem, Jesus Prophet of Islam, 1992 edition, p. 77)
The pagans used to wear tattoos and eat swine, the unclean pig. The “Christians” are imitating them today:
'Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD. (Leviticus 19:28)
And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he [is] unclean to you.
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Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch; they [are] unclean to you. (Leviticus 11:7-8)
The Bible says that decorating trees is PAGAN; this refers to the “Christmas tree”.
For the customs of the people [are] vain: for [one] cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
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They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. (Jeremiah 10:3-4)
Paul corrupted the teachings of Jesus claiming that his supposed “sacrifice on the cross” is the only way to salvation. We have already seen how this concept is false, according to the Bible itself, and the Gospel of the Nazorenes.
After Jesus’s time, there came to be two sects of Christians: those who followed St. Paul (who is the real founder of modern Christianity) and those who followed the Apostles of Jesus. In course of time, the Pauline sect overshadowed the Apostles’ sect. So Paul’s own writings, as well as the Gospels written under his influence, came to be accepted by the later Christian Church as Scripture.
http://www.islamonline.net/askaboutislam/display.asp?hquestionID=8061
The Gospels are Hellenistic religious narratives in the tradition of the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament, which constituted the “Scriptures” to those Greek-speaking Christians who wrote the four canonical Gospels and who appealed to it, explicitly or implicitly, in nearly every paragraph they wrote. (Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions, p. 16)
The New Testament was written under the influence of Paul, the four Gospel writers were Gentile converts to Pauline Christianity. Hence, there is nothing Jewish about the New Testament, it was solely written for Pauline Christians whose background was pagan.
The Hebrew Scriptures of the Nazarenes and Ebionites were destroyed by the Pauline Church. The original sayings of Jesus were lost forever. The New Testament today exists in Greek, and not Hebrew or Aramaic, the spoken tongues of Jesus.
The Gospel of Matthew seems to be the “most Jewish” book in the New Testament,
Luke was a Gentile and not eye-witness
Mark was Barnabas’s nephew and not eye-witness
John was martyred decades before the Gospel (bearing his name) was even written.
Nevertheless, the four Gospels are NOT mentioned by name before the year 190 CE. We have scholarly quotations to back this claim.
Unfortunately, the sources we have on Jesus are very scarce and scanty, Ignatius (died 110 CE) records the baptism of Jesus but he fails to record any thing else.
The Apostolic Church Fathers never mention the miracles in the Gospels; they fail to mention the four Gospels by name. The story of the “resurrection” (as told in the Gospels) was fabricated later because they fail to record it. The seven epistles of Ignatius fall into the category of silence, they speak nothing about Jesus.
Paul has written his own personal account of the “resurrection” which contradicts the Gospels. In conclusion, the Gospels are fabricated because Philo Judaeus and many other historians fail to mention their supernatural events.
The New Testament makes it clear that nobody witnessed the “resurrection”, the disciples never witnessed the “resurrection”, they all ‘forsook him and fled’ at Gethsemane.
Paul says Jesus Christ is a mystery!
In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, (Ephesians 3:4)
Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: (Colossians 4:3)
According to Paul, Jesus was not a real person; he was a spiritual conception in people’s minds:
Paul’s reasoning had two major consequences. It not only resulted in further changes being made to what Jesus had taught, but also prepared the way for completely changing people’s ideas of who Jesus was. He was being transformed from a man to a conception in people’s minds. (Muhammad Ataur-Raheem, Jesus Prophet of Islam, p. 70)
Paul did not care about the historical Jesus, whom he never met. He transformed Jesus into a ‘god-man’.
His reluctance to say very much at all about Jesus the man, in his letters, he quoted hardly any of the sayings of Jesus, in his apostleship to the Gentiles. Jesus, according to the flesh that is historical Jesus, did not serve his purpose
Pauline Christology has only minimally to do with the actual historical Jesus. Hence, the faith in Christ as held by primitive preaching led by Paul was something new in comparison with the preaching of Jesus, it was a new type of religion based god-man of Pagan Religion.
(The Hijacking of Christianity, Al Haj A.D. Ajijola, p. 4)
PAUL EXPOSED
Paul, the founder of Christianity, rejected the message of Jesus (and everything he stood for) while replacing the Gospel with his own distorted version.
The message of Jesus was pure and simple, the complete submission and surrender to God alone. He preached the religion of Islam; he fasted and prayed in the manner taught by the Prophets before him. He abstained from eating pork and drinking wine.
Paul rejected these laws and concocted his own religion, claiming “salvation comes through faith only” (sound familiar?) and not physical action or bodily prayer.
The Bible teaches the exact opposite, the stories of the Prophets teach us that salvation is attained through fasting, physical prayer, and righteous deeds, not just having faith, which is merely an article required in any organized religion.
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. (James 2:17)
Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? (James 2:21-22)
Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only (2:24)
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. (2:26)
The Holy Quran harmonizes these verses by teaching that salvation is attained through faith and works:
Those who believe, and do deeds of righteousness, and establish regular prayers and regular charity, will have their reward with their Lord: on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve. (2:227)
It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces Towards east or West; but it is righteousness- to believe in Allah and the Last Day, and the Angels, and the Book, and the Messengers; to spend of your substance, out of love for Him, for your kin, for orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask, and for the ransom of slaves; to be steadfast in prayer, and practice regular charity; to fulfil the contracts which ye have made; and to be firm and patient, in pain (or suffering) and adversity, and throughout all periods of panic. Such are the people of truth, the Allah-fearing. (2:177)
Allah did aforetime take a covenant from the Children of Israel, and we appointed twelve captains among them. And Allah said: "I am with you: if ye (but) establish regular prayers, practice regular charity, believe in my messengers, honor and assist them, and loan to Allah a beautiful loan, verily I will wipe out from you your evils, and admit you to gardens with rivers flowing beneath; but if any of you, after this, resisteth faith, he hath truly wandered from the path or rectitude." (5:12)
And convey good news to those who believe and do good deeds, that they shall have gardens in which rivers flow; whenever they shall be given a portion of the fruit thereof, they shall say: This is what was given to us before; and they shall be given the like of it, and they shall have pure mates in them, and in them, they shall abide. (2:25)
And when it is said to them: Believe as the people believe they say: Shall we believe as the fools believe? Now surely they themselves are the fools, but they do not know. (2:13)
FASTING:
O you who believe! fasting is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may guard (against evil). (2:83)
Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. (Matthew 4:1-2)
Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. (Matthew 17:21)
PHYCSIAL PRAYER:
And when We made the House (at Makka) a resort for mankind and sanctuary, (saying): Take as your place of worship the place where Abraham stood (to pray). And We imposed a duty upon Abraham and Ishmael, (saying): Purify My house for those who go around and those who meditate therein and those who bow down and prostrate themselves (in worship). (Quran 2:125)
Those that turn (to Allah) in repentance; that serve Him, and praise Him; that wander in devotion to the cause of Allah,: that bow down and prostrate themselves in prayer; that enjoin good and forbid evil; and observe the limit set by Allah;- (These do rejoice). So proclaim the glad tidings to the Believers (Quran 9:112)
Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; (Psalms 95:6)
And I bowed down my head, and worshipped the LORD, and blessed the LORD God of my master Abraham, which had led me in the right way to take my master's brother's daughter unto his son. (Genesis 24:48)
And the people believed: and when they heard that the LORD had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped. (Exodus 4:31)
And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, As for Me, behold, My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. (Genesis 17:1-4)
And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. (Revelations 7:11-12)
And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord until eventide, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their heads. And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord God, wherefore hast Thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? Would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side of the Jordan! (Joshua 7:6-7)
And Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they fell upon their faces: and the glory of the Lord appeared unto them. (Numbers 20:6)
Jesus rejected that salvation can be attained through blood sacrifice and ‘faith only-ism’
I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. (Matthew 9:13)
But if ye had known what [this] meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. (Matthew 12:7)
"The lawteachers and the Pharisees sit in Moses' chair. This means you're supposed to observe and follow everything they tell you. But don't do what they do; after all, they're all talk and no action.”
(Matthew 23:2)
Christianity is “all talk and no action” exactly what Christian missionaries are preaching today, the Pauline law of lawlessness! The following verse hammers the nail:
Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9, NIV)
Because if you acknowledge and confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and in your heart believe (adhere to, trust in, and rely on the truth) that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (The Amplified Bible)
Islam is a Religion of action; Christianity is a religion of fabulous words. It does not have the answers to the problems of mankind. Islam superiorly has the solutions to the problems of mankind, the social corruptions in the society.
Islam demands a very high standard of morality which fixes the problems of the world. It’s is a Challenge to religion; a complete system of Life. The lawlessness of Christianity cannot be denied, since Christianity is based on emotions and not history.
Jesus taught the very opposite of what Christianity teaches today. The purpose of Jesus’ mission was to preach the Torah, not to be crucified. He taught salvation came through observing the Law, and not by the ‘eloquent words’ of the later Church. Jesus declared in Matthew 17:21 that salvation is attained through “fasting and prayer”.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach [them], the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:17-20)
Jesus replied, "Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come." (Mark 1:38)
The law of the LORD [is] perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD [is] sure, making wise the simple. (Psalms 19:7)
Blessed [are] the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD. (Psalms 119:1)
Jesus came to uphold the Mosaic Law and restore its teachings which had been discarded; he never founded a new religion. The followers of Jesus regarded him as the ‘new Moses’ sent to the Children of Israel. Jesus declared he was only sent to the Jews.
Paul is the founder of Christianity who established lawlessness; the doctrine of “salvation through faith only” is simply an echoing of Paul’s words and distorted teachings.
Christians are following the anti-Christ without knowing it.
“If Christianity needed an Anti-Christ, they need look no further than Paul”
-- The English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
“We have already noted that every teaching of Jesus was already in the literature of the day….. Paul, the founder of Christianity, the writer of half the NT, almost never quotes Jesus in his letters and writings." (Professor Smith in his “The World Religions”, p 330)
Paul rejected the Jewish Law (Torah) and fabricated a religion called “Christianity” which deviated from the teachings of Jesus, transforming him into a god.
“Although I am free from everyone, I have enslaved myself to all of them in order to win a larger number. To the Jews I behave as a Jew; to those under the Law as one who is under the Law, although I am not under the Law, to gain those who are under the Law. To those who are without law I am without law, although not lawless toward God but committed to Christ’s Law, in order to win those who are without law” (1 Corinthians 9:19)
Paul is a liar, he claims to follow the Law of Christ when the Law of Christ was the observance of the Torah (Matthew 5:17-20) the very Law that he strongly rejected! The hypocrisy of Paul is further exposed in the following verse:
For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? (Romans 3:7, King James Version)
But if through my lie God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? (English Standard Version)
But if the truth of God through my lie abounded unto his glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? (American Standard Version)
Muhammad Ataur-Raheem comments on the verse above:
“It would seem from this statement that, although he knew he was lying, Paul felt that the means justified the ends, but it is not understood how truth would abound through a lie…
Paul produced a religion which encompassed different contradictory elements. He took the Unitarianism of the Jews and added to it the philosophy of the pagans”. (Jesus: Prophet of Islam, 1992 edition, p. 71)
Paul is the anti-Christ, the supreme liar, the pathological liar, and the corrupter of Jesus’ Gospel. The Jewish Christians (Nazarenes and Ebionites) considered him an ‘apostate’ from Judaism, yet historical accounts say that he was born Gentile.
The author Roshen Enam says:
“Paul abolished the Law, which was followed and preached by Jesus (pbuh), and corrupted the whole religion, giving it a new form. The main ambition behind all this was, in his own words, “to win a larger number” of followers; the followers of a new religion “the Pauline Christianity”. (Follow Jesus or Follow Paul p. 69)
“The message of Christianity is that the Law is a curse. If the Law is a curse, then all that it ordains or prohibits must also be a curse.” (A.D. Ajijola states in his book “The Myth of the Cross”)
Amazingly, Paul went to such extremes that he claimed Jesus destroyed the Jewish Law!
“He (Jesus) brought the hostility to an end, by abolishing the Law of commandments with its regulations”. (Ephesians 2:14)
Needless to say, the passage contradicts Matthew 5:17-20 where Jesus specifically states that he came to preach the Law, not to destroy it.
Paul gave evidence that he was building a new religion, a complete deviation from Jesus’ teachings:
Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation: (Romans 15:20)
What is Paul implying here? Muhammad Ataur-Raheem gives us the answer:
If Paul had been spreading the original teaching of Jesus, then “another man’s foundation” would have been the same as his. They would both have been involved in building the same structure. The people who were hearing about Jesus, or rather Christ, for the first time from Paul’s lips, had no means of comparing his account with that of the Apostles who still held to Jesus’ teaching. Paul’s version was the only one to which they had access. (ibid, Jesus Prophet of Islam, p.)
Paul was developing a new religion under the doctrines he was fabricating According to Acts, Paul traveled to Arabia for three years:
Paul then left Damascus and, instead of seeking out the company of the other followers of Jesus, went into the Arabian Desert where he remained hidden for three years. It may well have been here that he began to formulate his own version of what Jesus had taught. This involved a rejection of the Jewish Law, which in turn meant his turning away from the fact that throughout his life Jesus had remained a practicing Jew, and always sought to uphold the teachings which Moses had brought before him. (Jesus Prophet of Islam, 1992 edition)
“In the solitude of the Arabian desert, he had marked out a course of action for himself in which he would not accept any interference or advice. Had he discussed this matter with the apostles or taken any of them into his confidence, it would mean a definite setback to his scheme of preaching a modified religion to the Gentiles. The apostles would have very strongly opposed the whole idea, and would have denounced the whole idea as an abomination. There is ample proof provided by the New Testament that the Disciples and the earliest followers of Jesus abhorred the innovations of Paul.
(A.D. Ajijola states in his book “The Myth of the Cross”)
Paul corrupted the Gospel of Jesus and replaced it, as the scholar Albert Schweitzer points out:
What is the significance for our faith and for our religious life, the fact that the Gospel of Paul is different from the Gospel of Jesus?
The attitude which Paul himself takes up towards the Gospel of Jesus is that he does not repeat it in the words of Jesus, and does not appeal to its authority.... The fateful thing is that the Greek, the Catholic, and the Protestant theologies all contain the Gospel of Paul in a form which does not continue the Gospel of Jesus, but displaces it."
(Albert Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus)
“The Christian beliefs formulated by St. Paul are unreasonable and repugnant to the conscience of man; such beliefs cannot expect any reasonable allegiance from the advanced nations of the world as it is a religion of primitive people. The whole of modern Christian doctrines was not formulated by Jesus, but by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans where he laid the foundation of Modern Christian doctrines and based his exposition on the heathen practices of his day.”
(A.D. Ajijola states in his book “The Myth of the Cross”)
Paul was disguising the true face of Jesus with a hideous mask; this ‘mask’ later became known as “Christianity”. It is mysterious that Jesus was transformed into God ‘incarnate’ when Moses, his twin predecessor was not.
I have inquired into some of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity; the examination has led me to the conclusion that the dogmas of the Trinity, the Divinity of Jesus, the Divine-Sonship, the Original Sin and Atonement are neither rational nor in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. These dogmas came into being and were due to pagan influences. They show that Christianity has departed considerably from the religion of Jesus. (A.D. Ajijola states in his book “The Myth of the Cross”)
In the preface to the book Jesus: Prophet of Islam, Muhammad Ataur-Raheem says:
An eminent scholar of Christian history admits that the present-day Christianity is a “mask” on the face of Jesus but goes on to say that a mask worn for a long time acquires a life of its own and it has to be accepted as such. The Muslim believes in the Jesus of history and refuses to accept the “mask”. This, in a nutshell, has been the point of difference between Islam and the Church for the last fourteen hundred years.
“I am convinced that Christianity has indeed misunderstood Jesus and that it needs to make a radical rediscovery of his person and message” (Tom Harper, by Akberally Meherally, Understanding the Bible through Koranic Messages)
A basic contrast between the Old Testament and the teachings of Paul reveal hundreds of contradictions. Paul established his own Church which later became the ‘Roman Catholic Church’ (sound familiar?).
James, the brother of Jesus, established the first ‘Church’ at Jerusalem (in 50 CE) before Pauline Christianity existed. It was sadly destroyed by the Pauline Church after the Jewish War (66-70 C.E.) and the Nazarenes were suppressed by the followers of Paul.
The Pauline “Christians” that exist today do not follow Christ, they should be called Paulians. The true Christians were the Nazarenes and Ebionites that no longer exist.
Paul degraded Jesus in the following verses:
Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, (Hebrews 6:1, English Standard Version)
Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, (Hebrews 6:1, 21st Century King James Version)
Paul emphasized that Christ was not perfect, hence his teachings should be discarded, because according to Paul, they are like ‘filthy and useless rags’ (Isaiah 64:6) and we must excel towards “perfection and maturity”. The deceptive editors changed the English translation of Paul’s damaging words. This outrageous statement has been softened in many other versions of the Bible:
So let us stop going over the basics of Christianity again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don't need to start all over again with the importance of turning away from evil deeds and placing our faith in God. (Hebrews 5:7. New Living Translation)
We must try to become mature and start thinking about more than just the basic things we were taught about Christ. We shouldn't need to keep talking about why we ought to turn from deeds that bring death and why we ought to have faith in God. (Hebrews 5:7, Contemporary English Version)
The convert to Islam, Dr. Roshan Enam, comments:
“Paul not only distorted the teachings of Jesus Christ (pbuh) he even dishonored them; arguing that Jesus gave immature and defective teachings to his followers, and that they were not worth following. Instead, the people should follow the teachings preached by Paul, which according to him, are mature and complete” (Follow Jesus or Follow Paul, p. 38)
As mentioned earlier, Paul established the doctrine of lawlessness, which is the great cause for our social corruptions. The Christian religion gave birth to diseases like fascism and communism:
Christianity has been most prolific of spawning isms. Atheism, Communism, Fascism, Totalitarianism, Nazism, Mormonism, Moonism, Christian Scientism and now Satanism. What else will Christianity give birth to? (Deedat, Is the Bible God’s Word?)
Jesus observed the laws of the Torah, but Paul changed the Gospel, corrupting it before it reached Europe.
“Paul deviated people towards lawlessness, through his strange philosophy that, the observance of the Law motivates to sin, thus justifying his innovation regarding the abolition of the Law” (ibid, p. 42)
“…not a single human being will be made righteous in God’s sight through observance of the Law. For through the Law comes the knowledge of sin”. (Romans 3:20)
“Christ has ransomed us from the curse of the Law in as much as He became a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13)
“the Scripture has all men imprisoned under sin” (Galatians 3:22)
What Paul invented was a great misconception. Purpose of revelations from God Almighty is never to mislead the people, or to induce them with sin, instead, they are always for the guidance of mankind. With the same purpose, the Law of commandments were revealed to prophet Moses (pbuh), and in later age, prophet Jesus (pbuh) was to sent to confirm and honor them, and finally to complete them, but not to abolish them (ibid, p. 42)
According to Jesus, the lawless ones will be thrown in Hell. (This includes all Christians)
"So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 13:40-42 New American Standard Bible)
"And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.' (Matthew 7:23, New American Standard Bible)
For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. (Mark 9:49)
"So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Matthew 23:28)
Christians are indeed hypocrites, they ignore the practical teachings of the Bible and discard the Jewish Law followed by Jesus (Matthew 5:17-20, 23:23) they practice what is called ‘selective morality’ and ignore the teachings of the Gospels, paying close attention to the epistles of Paul (only). Christians do not exist:
· Jesus commanded fasting (Matthew 4:2, 6:16) yet Christians do not fast.
· Jesus abstained from eating pork and drinking wine (Leviticus 10:9, 11:7, Matthew 5:17-20) yet Christians practice the exact opposite, they eat pork and drink wine! Paul said it was okay to drink wine 1Timothy 5:23. (There is a lesson to learn from the story of Noah!)
· Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day of infancy (Luke 1:59) yet Christians are not circumcised like Jesus. This equates to death penalty (Genesis 17:14)
· Jesus established the death penalty for those who abandon his teachings (John 15:6) yet Christians have abandoned his teaching but they are not being punished accordingly! The governments of Christian countries reject the Jewish Law because of the innovations of Paul. (He made everything permissible for them!)
· Jesus observed the Sabbath, (which is Saturday) yet Christians have broken this law by working on the Sabbath. This equates to death penalty (Exodus 31:14)
The laws which exist in the “Christian” countries of the West, the laws governing birth and death, the formation and dissolution of marriage, the rights over property within and outside marriage or in the event of divorce or death, adoption and guardianship, commerce, and industry, are not to be found in the gospels. They are not the laws which have been revealed to man by God. They are the fruits of deductive knowledge. They are either inherited from the Roman system of law, or are based on the common practice of people over a long period of time, or are statutes erected and amended in accordance with the democratic method, which is the bequest of the ancient Greeks. No one in today’s courts of law can refer to the gospels as a binding authority in his dealings with another man, and have it accepted. (Muhammad Ataur-Raheem, Jesus Prophet of Islam, 1992 edition, p. 205)
Jesus said his true followers will enter Paradise, those who follow his teachings.
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, [then] are ye my disciples indeed; (John 8:31)
But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any [man] pluck them out of my hand. (John 10:26-29)
And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. (Matthew 7:26-27)
The outright foolishness of Christians cannot be denied, Jesus rebukes today’s ‘adherents’ who boldly call themselves “Christian”.
But in vain they do worship me, teaching [for] doctrines the commandments of men. (Matthew 15:9)
And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? (Luke 6:46)
"I do not accept praise from men, (John 5:41)
The authentic Hadith says:
I heard the Prophet saying, "Do not exaggerate in praising me as the Christians praised the son of Mary, for I am only a Slave. So, call me the Slave of Allah and His Apostle."
Narrated 'Umar
Bukhari, Muhammad, "Sahih Bukhari", Kitab Bhavan, New Delhi, India, 1987, translated by M. Khan, Volume 4, Book 55, Number 654.
The Holy Quran says:
Say: "O people of the Book! exceed not in your religion the bounds (of what is proper), trespassing beyond the truth, nor follow the vain desires of people who went wrong in times gone by,- who misled many, and strayed (themselves) from the even way. (Quran 5:77)
From those, too, who call themselves Christians, We did take a covenant, but they forgot a good part of the message that was sent them: so we estranged them, with enmity and hatred between the one and the other, to the day of judgment. And soon will Allah show them what it is they have done. (Quran 5:14)
The Jews call 'Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth! (Quran 9:30)
As stated earlier, the teachings of Jesus were based on the Law, yet the Law is rejected by Christians today, so how could they be called Christians?
Moreover, the “Christians” do not follow the Gospel of Jesus; they follow the Gospel of Paul. The Nazarenes and Ebionties were followers of Jesus’ Gospel, which no longer exists today. Nevertheless, the “Christians” of today are not implementing the teachings of their “lord and savior” (see John 8:31) The Nazarenes/Ebionites never degraded Jesus by calling him “lord and savior”; they considered him a great Prophet and Messenger.
There is so much diversity and clash, so much chaos, in the Christian Church today that the old idea of a unified or systematic Christian truth has gone. For this, the ecumenical movement is too late. What has happened is that the Christian world has moved into that situation of open variety, of optional alternatives. It would seem no longer possible for anyone to be told or even to imagine that he can be told, what it means or should mean, formally and generically, to be a Christian. He must decide for himself and only for himself (Christianity on Trial, I, Colin Chapman, pp. 51-52)
The act of affirming what is in the Old Testament, and the gospels for that matter, and at the same time affirming belief in the doctrine of Trinity, is perhaps the greatest illustration of the exercise of doublethink within Christianity today. Thus the logic of the established Church’s metaphysic, based on doctrines which were not taught by Jesus, obscures not only the nature of Jesus, but also the Divine Unity. The metaphysic of Christianity today is totally opposed to the metaphysic which Jesus brought. The physical aspect of what Jesus brought, his code of behaviour, is today irrecoverably lost. To live as Jesus lived is to understand his message, yet there is virtually no existing record of how Jesus behaved. And what little knowledge exists is often ignored. The most fundamental act of Jesus was that of worship of the Creator, the whole purpose for which man was created. Yet it is evident that no Christian today makes the same acts of worship which Jesus made. Jesus usually prayed in the morning, at mid-day, and in the evening. The exact form of his prayer is no longer extant, but it known that is was based on the prayer which Moses was given. Jesus said that he had come to uphold the law and not to destroy it one jot or one tithe. Jesus was educated in the synagogue in Jerusalem from the age of twelve. He preached in the synagogue. He used to keep the synagogue clean. No Christian today can be found performing these actions. How many Christians have even been circumcised in the manner that Jesus was? The services now held in today’s churches were developed long after Jesus had disappeared. Many of them come directly from the pagan Graeco-Roman mythological rites. The prayers they use are not the prayers which Jesus made. The hymns they sing are not the praises which Jesus sung. Due to the innovations of Paul and his followers, there is no revealed teaching left as to what to eat and what not to eat. Anyone given a “Christian education” today eats what he feels like. Yet Jesus and his true followers only ate kosher meat and were forbidden to eat pig’s flesh. The last meal Jesus is known to have eaten before his disappearance was the Passover meal. No Christian today celebrates this longstanding Jewish tradition to which Jesus so meticulously held.
(Muhammad Ataur-Raheem, Jesus, Prophet of Islam, pp. 199-200)
In the preceding arguments, I have inquired into some of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity; the examination has led me to the conclusion that the dogmas of the Trinity, the Divinity of Jesus, the Divine-Sonship, the Original Sin and Atonement are neither rational nor in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. These dogmas came into being and were due to pagan influences. They show that Christianity has departed considerably from the religion of Jesus. (A.D. Ajijola states in his book “The Myth of the Cross”)
Unfortunately, the observance of Jesus is not possible today because his teachings have been seriously corrupted and altered. The scholars of “Christianity” admit that they do not possess the original manuscripts from which we can derive the authentic words of Jesus. Hence, the only way to follow Jesus today is by following Islam:
He who follows Prophet Muhammad automatically follows the true Jesus:
“The guidance imparted through the Prophets of the past was not complete. Every Prophet was followed by another who effected alterations and additions in the teachings and injunctions of his predecessors and, in this way, the chain of reform and progress continued. That is why the teachings of the earlier Prophets, after the lapse of time, were lost in oblivion. Obviously there was no need to preserve the earlier teachings when amended and improved guidance had taken their place. At last the most perfect code of guidance was imparted to mankind through Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) and all previous codes were automatically abrogated, for it is futile and imprudent to follow an incomplete code when the complete code exists. He who follows Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) follows all the Prophets, for whatever was good and eternally workable in their teachings has been embodied in his teachings. Whoever, therefore, rejects and refuses to follow Muhammad’s (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) teachings, and chooses to follow some other Prophet, only deprives himself of that vast amount of useful and valuable instruction and guidance which is embodied in Muhammad’s (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) teachings, which never existed in the books of the earlier Prophets and which was revealed only through the Last of the Prophets”
(Towards Understanding Islam, Mawdudi, p. 79)
Most Greek-speaking authors heard these traditions in the Aramaic vernacular and committed them to writing in Greek. None of these writings is dated prior to the year 70 C.E.; there is not a single instance in these works where the author has cited an authority for an event or maxim attributed to Jesus (peace be upon him) in order that we might construct a chain of transmission. Furthermore, even their works have not survived. Thousands of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament were collected, but none of them is older than the fourth century C.E.; rather the origin of most of them does not go beyond the period intervening between the 11th and the 14th centuries. (Lecture of Sayyid Abdul Al-Ala Mawdudi, recorded in The Message of the Prophet’s Seerah, pp. 8-9)
“The real death of a Prophet consists not in his physical demise but in the ending of the influence of his teachings. The earlier Prophets have died because their followers have adulterated their teachings, distorted their instructions, and besmirched their life-examples by attaching fictitious events to them” (ibid, Mawdudi, Towards Understanding Islam, p. 57)
"The original copies of the NT books have, of course, long since disappeared. This fact should not cause surprise. In the first place, they were written on papyrus, a very fragile and perishable material. In the second place, and probably of even more importance, the original copies of the NT books were not looked upon as scripture by those of the early Christian communities." [George Arthur Buttrick (Ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 1, pp. 599 (Under Text, NT).]
Follow Jesus or Follow Paul?
The New Testament gives us a choice; either we follow Jesus Christ, or the anti-Christ Paul of Tarsus: Each one demands his followers to accept his teachings:
Be ye followers of me… that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered [them] to you. (1 Corinthians 11:1)
“If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” (John 8:31)
Amazing, the former preached against the teachings of Jesus, and the latter, (Jesus) teaches that salvation is only attained by following him. According to Deuteronomy 24:16, Ezekiel 18:20-21, and Micah 6:7-8, a man is responsible for his own sin. Jesus rejected the Pauline doctrine of “vicarious atonement”. Compare the two passages below:
And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. (Hebrews 9:22)
Jesus was teaching his disciples in the outer court of the Temple and one of them said unto him: Master, it is said by the priests that without shedding of blood there is no remission. Can then the blood offering of the law take away sin? And Jesus answered: No blood offering, of beast or bird, or man, can take away sin, for how can the conscience be purged from sin by the shedding of innocent blood? Nay, it will increase the condemnation. (Gospel of the Nazorenes, Lection 33, verses 1-2)
Jesus was circumcised, Paul rejected circumcision:
This [is] my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant. (Genesis 17:14)
When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. (Genesis 21:4)
And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof. (Exodus 12:48)
On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived. (Luke 2:21)
And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, [and said], Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. (Acts 15:1)
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach [them], the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:19)
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier [matters] of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. (Matthew 23:23)
The Jewish Law commands the circumcision on the eighth day. The reason why Christians are not circumcised is because they follow Paul. They have broken the covenant of Circumcision according to Jesus himself (5:19)
For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love. (Galatians 5:6, KJV)
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (NIV)
The Talmud states the following to those who break the Covenant:
"The one who voids the covenant of Abraham has no portion in the world to come (Avot 3:16).
Christians may not have any “portion in the world to come” because they have totally rejected the Message of Jesus, replacing the Gospel with the Gospel of Paul.
"The Christianity which the nations claim to follow is the religion of Paul, who is admittedly the chief and almost the only theologian that the Church recognizes. Because of his betrayal of the Master's teachings, the vision of true Christianity has been so dimmed that men have been able to defend war and a host of other evils, such as flesh eating and slavery, on the authority of the Bible." (Christ or Paul? Rev. V.A. Holmes-Gore)
"Let the reader contrast the true Christian standard with that of Paul and he will see the terrible betrayal of all that the Master taught.... For the surest way to betray a great Teacher is to misrepresent his message.... That is what Paul and his followers did, and because the Church has followed Paul in his error it has failed lamentably to redeem the world.... The teachings given by the blessed Master Christ, which the disciples John and Peter and James, the brother of the Master, tried in vain to defend and preserve intact were as utterly opposed to the Pauline Gospel as the light is opposed to the darkness." (ibid, Rev. V.A. Holmes Gore)
"True Christianity, which will last forever, comes from the gospel words of Christ not from the epistles of Paul. The writings of Paul have been a danger and a hidden rock, the causes of the principal defects of Christian theology." (Ernest Renan, Saint Paul)
"There is not one word of Pauline Christianity in the characteristic utterances of Jesus.... There has really never been a more monstrous imposition perpetrated than the imposition of Paul's soul upon the soul of Jesus.... It is now easy to understand how the Christianity of Jesus... was suppressed by the police and the Church, while Paulinism overran the whole western civilized world, which was at that time the Roman Empire, and was adopted by it as its official faith. (Androcles and the Lion, George Bernard Shaw)
The Christian missionaries today are preaching the Gospel of Paul, and rejecting the Gospel of Jesus. Paul emphasized that salvation is attained through “faith and grace” which is blatantly opposite of what Jesus taught.
"Paul... did not desire to know Christ.... Paul shows us with what complete indifference the earthly life of Jesus was regarded.... What is the significance for our faith and for our religious life, the fact that the Gospel of Paul is different from the Gospel of Jesus?.... The attitude which Paul himself takes up towards the Gospel of Jesus is that he does not repeat it in the words of Jesus, and does not appeal to its authority.... The fateful thing is that the Greek, the Catholic, and the Protestant theologies all contain the Gospel of Paul in a form which does not continue the Gospel of Jesus, but displaces it." (The Quest for the Historical Jesus, Albert Schweitzer)
“We have already noted that every teaching of Jesus was already in the literature of the day….. Paul, the founder of Christianity, the writer of half the NT, almost never quotes Jesus in his letters and writings." (Professor Smith in his “The World Religions”, p 330)
Saul/Paul had set out initially to subvert Jesus’ teachings. Later he used his new doctrines to undermine the power of the Jewish church as well as the defied Roman Emperor. Paul sought to torpedo Judaism in its calcified form, its narrow interpretation of the Judaic law. Jesus had initiated this process but did not subvert the law. Paul had no such inhibitions; he rejected wholesale many fundamental laws of God. In the attempt Paul succeeded in undermining both the Jewish and Nazarene teachings. He steered Christ’s teachings away from monotheism and from the Jews, (the lost sheep of Israel) and directed these teachings in a corrupted form to Non-Jews…As Jesus had not succeeded during his mission in converting the majority of his Jewish brothers and sister to his divinely inspired interpretations of Judaism, Paul ensured that after Jesus had departed, that Jews would not be temped to follow Jesus’ Teachings. To this end, Paul so adulterated Jesus’ life, purpose, mission and claims to make the new dogma (Paul’s version of Jesus’ teachings) repugnant to the Jews. (Farouk Hosein, Fundamentalism Revisited, Eniath’s Printing Company Trinidad, p. 49)
The Jewish Christians reacted strongly to Paul, they rejected his pagan ideas of the “divinity of Christ”, and they rejected the concept of the “divine sonship” of Jesus, whom they regarded as a Prophet and Messenger.
The Jewish Christians rejected Paul’s version of ‘Christ’, to them the ‘Christ’ was anointed and fully human. Many characters in the Bible were called ‘Christ’ (anointed) but they were never divine ‘god-men’. Paul changed the original meaning of this title to make it conform to the Gentile thinking. The Romans considered their Emperors to be the ‘sons of God’, or personages of the sun. Similarly, the Hindus consider their heroes to be the ‘incarnations’ of God.
“A true Jew would have immediately recognized the teaching of Jesus as a reaffirmation of what Moses had taught. But to many a pagan, it must have seemed new and strange and perhaps a little complicated. Most of the pagans still believed in a multitude of gods who, it was thought, mixed freely with human beings, mated with them, and took part in every sphere of human life. To the common people of Greece, any description of Jesus must have seemed like a description of one of their gods, and they were probably quite ready to accept Jesus in this capacity. There was always room for one more god. However, the actual teaching of Jesus negated all their gods, since it affirmed the Divine Unity”. (Muhammad Ataur-Raheem, Jesus: Prophet of Islam 1992 edition, p. 62)
Paul’s reasoning had two major consequences. It not only resulted in further changes being made to what Jesus had taught, but also prepared the way for completely changing people’s ideas of who Jesus was. He was being transformed from a man to a conception in people’s minds. Divinity had been attributed to Jesus even when he was on earth by some of those who marveled at his words and miracles, and who, mistakenly, considered him to be more than a prophet. Some of his enemies had also spread the rumor that he was the “son of God”, hoping to rouse the orthodox Jew’s anger against him for associating himself with God. Thus, even before he disappeared, there had been a tendency to obscure his true nature and ascribe godhood to Jesus. This imaginary figure of Christ, who apparently had the power to annul what Jesus had previously taught, was clearly no ordinary mortal, and, inevitably, became confused by many with God. Thus, this imaginary figure became an object of worship, and was associated with God. (Muhammad Ataur-Raheem, p. 70)
The great scholar Mawdudi alludes to the deification of Jesus by the “Christians”.
The false tendencies, born of centuries of deviations, ignorance and malpractice, now took another form. Though they accepted their Prophets during their lives and practiced their teachings, after their deaths they introduced their own distorted ideas into their religions. They adopted novel methods of worshipping God; some even took to the worship of their Prophets. They made the Prophets the incarnations of God or the sons of God; some associated their Prophets with God in His Divinity. (Towards Understanding Islam, p. 39)
Jesus taught Salvation comes through Faith and Works, Paul distorted it:
Jesus taught salvation is attained by keeping the commandments, physical prayer, fasting, and observing the Law of Moses. Paul neglected these commands and distorted the Path to Salvation preached by Jesus.
Paul said that “salvation comes through faith and grace” which is exactly what the missionaries are saying today. Let us read the words of Jesus.
Fasting is commanded:
Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. (Matthew 17:21)
And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting. (Mark 9:29)
Now in the twenty and fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sackclothes, and earth upon them. (Nehemiah 9:1)
And in every province, whithersoever the king's commandment and his decree came, [there was] great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes. (Esther 4:3)
But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing [was] sackcloth: I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer returned into mine own bosom. (Psalms 35:13)
When I wept, [and chastened] my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach. (Psalms 69:10)
My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness. (Psalms 109:24)
Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye [even] to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: (Joel 2:12)
Christians do not fast, Muslims fast during the holy month of Ramadan, so they must be considered the true followers of Jesus. The (only) excuse Christians have for not fasting is echoing the teachings of Paul, who discarded these laws altogether!
Physical Prayer is commanded:
The Prophets of God prayed with their forehead touching the ground. Likewise, the Muslims also pray in this manner:
And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, (Genesis 17:3)
And I bowed down my head, and worshipped the LORD, and blessed the LORD God of my master Abraham, which had led me in the right way to take my master's brother's daughter unto his son. (Genesis 24:48)
And he said, Nay; but [as] captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? (Joshua 5:14)
And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes: (Daniel 9:3)
And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou [wilt]. (Matthew 26:39)
Paul rejected these laws; he disobeyed the physical prayer to Yahweh. He distorted the prayer and directed it towards His Prophet, Jesus!
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [things] in heaven, and [things] in earth, and [things] under the earth; (Philemon 2:10)
This verse is absolutely outrageous and repulsive, totally disgusting! The Old Testament teaches that Prayer is due to God alone:
I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth [in] righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. (Isaiah 45:23)
It seems that Christians have abandoned this verse, following the teaching of Paul by worshipping Jesus! According to the Holy Quran, associating partners (in worship) with God is unforgivable:
Allah forgiveth not that partners should be set up with Him; but He forgiveth anything else, to whom He pleaseth; to set up partners with Allah is to devise a sin Most heinous indeed. (4:48)
In blasphemy indeed are those that say that Allah is Christ the son of Mary. Say: "Who then hath the least power against Allah, if His will were to destroy Christ the son of Mary, his mother, and all every - one that is on the earth? For to Allah belongeth the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and all that is between. He createth what He pleaseth. For Allah hath power over all things." (5:17)
They do blaspheme who say: "Allah is Christ the son of Mary." But said Christ: "O Children of Israel! worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord." Whoever joins other gods with Allah,- Allah will forbid him the garden, and the Fire will be his abode. There will for the wrong-doers be no one to help. (5:72)
Christ the son of Mary was no more than a messenger; many were the messengers that passed away before him. His mother was a woman of truth. They had both to eat their (daily) food. See how Allah doth make His signs clear to them; yet see in what ways they are deluded away from the truth! (5:75)
They take their priests and their anchorites to be their lords in derogation of Allah, and (they take as their Lord) Christ the son of Mary; yet they were commanded to worship but One Allah: there is no god but He. Praise and glory to Him: (Far is He) from having the partners they associate (with Him). (9:31)
Jesus Forbade the Gentiles:
These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into [any] city of the Samaritans enter ye not:
But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. (Matthew 10:5-6)
But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. (Matthew 15:24)
Paul rejected this command of NOT preaching to the Gentiles, they were restricted. Paul openly preached among the Gentiles, a totally different religion:
For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: (Romans 11:13)
Don’t be like the pagans!
And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:7-8)
And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them. (Leviticus 20:23)
The Church Father Iranaeus condemned Paul for inventing ‘Christianity’ from pagan beliefs:
Iranaeus believed in One God and supported the doctrine of the manhood of Jesus. He bitterly criticized Paul for being responsible for injecting doctrines of the pagan religions and Platonic philosophy into Christianity. (Muhammad Ataur-Raheem, Jesus Prophet of Islam, 1992 edition, p. 77)
The pagans used to wear tattoos and eat swine, the unclean pig. The “Christians” are imitating them today:
'Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD. (Leviticus 19:28)
And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he [is] unclean to you.
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Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch; they [are] unclean to you. (Leviticus 11:7-8)
The Bible says that decorating trees is PAGAN; this refers to the “Christmas tree”.
For the customs of the people [are] vain: for [one] cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
No Images or Hymns Available
They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. (Jeremiah 10:3-4)
Paul corrupted the teachings of Jesus claiming that his supposed “sacrifice on the cross” is the only way to salvation. We have already seen how this concept is false, according to the Bible itself, and the Gospel of the Nazorenes.
After Jesus’s time, there came to be two sects of Christians: those who followed St. Paul (who is the real founder of modern Christianity) and those who followed the Apostles of Jesus. In course of time, the Pauline sect overshadowed the Apostles’ sect. So Paul’s own writings, as well as the Gospels written under his influence, came to be accepted by the later Christian Church as Scripture.
http://www.islamonline.net/askaboutislam/display.asp?hquestionID=8061
The Gospels are Hellenistic religious narratives in the tradition of the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament, which constituted the “Scriptures” to those Greek-speaking Christians who wrote the four canonical Gospels and who appealed to it, explicitly or implicitly, in nearly every paragraph they wrote. (Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions, p. 16)
The New Testament was written under the influence of Paul, the four Gospel writers were Gentile converts to Pauline Christianity. Hence, there is nothing Jewish about the New Testament, it was solely written for Pauline Christians whose background was pagan.
The Hebrew Scriptures of the Nazarenes and Ebionites were destroyed by the Pauline Church. The original sayings of Jesus were lost forever. The New Testament today exists in Greek, and not Hebrew or Aramaic, the spoken tongues of Jesus.
The Gospel of Matthew seems to be the “most Jewish” book in the New Testament,
Luke was a Gentile and not eye-witness
Mark was Barnabas’s nephew and not eye-witness
John was martyred decades before the Gospel (bearing his name) was even written.
Nevertheless, the four Gospels are NOT mentioned by name before the year 190 CE. We have scholarly quotations to back this claim.
Unfortunately, the sources we have on Jesus are very scarce and scanty, Ignatius (died 110 CE) records the baptism of Jesus but he fails to record any thing else.
The Apostolic Church Fathers never mention the miracles in the Gospels; they fail to mention the four Gospels by name. The story of the “resurrection” (as told in the Gospels) was fabricated later because they fail to record it. The seven epistles of Ignatius fall into the category of silence, they speak nothing about Jesus.
Paul has written his own personal account of the “resurrection” which contradicts the Gospels. In conclusion, the Gospels are fabricated because Philo Judaeus and many other historians fail to mention their supernatural events.
The New Testament makes it clear that nobody witnessed the “resurrection”, the disciples never witnessed the “resurrection”, they all ‘forsook him and fled’ at Gethsemane.
Paul says Jesus Christ is a mystery!
In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, (Ephesians 3:4)
Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: (Colossians 4:3)
According to Paul, Jesus was not a real person; he was a spiritual conception in people’s minds:
Paul’s reasoning had two major consequences. It not only resulted in further changes being made to what Jesus had taught, but also prepared the way for completely changing people’s ideas of who Jesus was. He was being transformed from a man to a conception in people’s minds. (Muhammad Ataur-Raheem, Jesus Prophet of Islam, p. 70)
Paul did not care about the historical Jesus, whom he never met. He transformed Jesus into a ‘god-man’.
His reluctance to say very much at all about Jesus the man, in his letters, he quoted hardly any of the sayings of Jesus, in his apostleship to the Gentiles. Jesus, according to the flesh that is historical Jesus, did not serve his purpose
Pauline Christology has only minimally to do with the actual historical Jesus. Hence, the faith in Christ as held by primitive preaching led by Paul was something new in comparison with the preaching of Jesus, it was a new type of religion based god-man of Pagan Religion.
(The Hijacking of Christianity, Al Haj A.D. Ajijola, p. 4)
PAUL EXPOSED
Paul, the founder of Christianity, rejected the message of Jesus (and everything he stood for) while replacing the Gospel with his own distorted version.
The message of Jesus was pure and simple, the complete submission and surrender to God alone. He preached the religion of Islam; he fasted and prayed in the manner taught by the Prophets before him. He abstained from eating pork and drinking wine.
Paul rejected these laws and concocted his own religion, claiming “salvation comes through faith only” (sound familiar?) and not physical action or bodily prayer.
The Bible teaches the exact opposite, the stories of the Prophets teach us that salvation is attained through fasting, physical prayer, and righteous deeds, not just having faith, which is merely an article required in any organized religion.
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. (James 2:17)
Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? (James 2:21-22)
Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only (2:24)
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. (2:26)
The Holy Quran harmonizes these verses by teaching that salvation is attained through faith and works:
Those who believe, and do deeds of righteousness, and establish regular prayers and regular charity, will have their reward with their Lord: on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve. (2:227)
It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces Towards east or West; but it is righteousness- to believe in Allah and the Last Day, and the Angels, and the Book, and the Messengers; to spend of your substance, out of love for Him, for your kin, for orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask, and for the ransom of slaves; to be steadfast in prayer, and practice regular charity; to fulfil the contracts which ye have made; and to be firm and patient, in pain (or suffering) and adversity, and throughout all periods of panic. Such are the people of truth, the Allah-fearing. (2:177)
Allah did aforetime take a covenant from the Children of Israel, and we appointed twelve captains among them. And Allah said: "I am with you: if ye (but) establish regular prayers, practice regular charity, believe in my messengers, honor and assist them, and loan to Allah a beautiful loan, verily I will wipe out from you your evils, and admit you to gardens with rivers flowing beneath; but if any of you, after this, resisteth faith, he hath truly wandered from the path or rectitude." (5:12)
And convey good news to those who believe and do good deeds, that they shall have gardens in which rivers flow; whenever they shall be given a portion of the fruit thereof, they shall say: This is what was given to us before; and they shall be given the like of it, and they shall have pure mates in them, and in them, they shall abide. (2:25)
And when it is said to them: Believe as the people believe they say: Shall we believe as the fools believe? Now surely they themselves are the fools, but they do not know. (2:13)
FASTING:
O you who believe! fasting is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may guard (against evil). (2:83)
Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. (Matthew 4:1-2)
Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. (Matthew 17:21)
PHYCSIAL PRAYER:
And when We made the House (at Makka) a resort for mankind and sanctuary, (saying): Take as your place of worship the place where Abraham stood (to pray). And We imposed a duty upon Abraham and Ishmael, (saying): Purify My house for those who go around and those who meditate therein and those who bow down and prostrate themselves (in worship). (Quran 2:125)
Those that turn (to Allah) in repentance; that serve Him, and praise Him; that wander in devotion to the cause of Allah,: that bow down and prostrate themselves in prayer; that enjoin good and forbid evil; and observe the limit set by Allah;- (These do rejoice). So proclaim the glad tidings to the Believers (Quran 9:112)
Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; (Psalms 95:6)
And I bowed down my head, and worshipped the LORD, and blessed the LORD God of my master Abraham, which had led me in the right way to take my master's brother's daughter unto his son. (Genesis 24:48)
And the people believed: and when they heard that the LORD had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped. (Exodus 4:31)
And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, As for Me, behold, My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. (Genesis 17:1-4)
And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. (Revelations 7:11-12)
And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord until eventide, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their heads. And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord God, wherefore hast Thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? Would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side of the Jordan! (Joshua 7:6-7)
And Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they fell upon their faces: and the glory of the Lord appeared unto them. (Numbers 20:6)
Jesus rejected that salvation can be attained through blood sacrifice and ‘faith only-ism’
I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. (Matthew 9:13)
But if ye had known what [this] meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. (Matthew 12:7)
"The lawteachers and the Pharisees sit in Moses' chair. This means you're supposed to observe and follow everything they tell you. But don't do what they do; after all, they're all talk and no action.”
(Matthew 23:2)
Christianity is “all talk and no action” exactly what Christian missionaries are preaching today, the Pauline law of lawlessness! The following verse hammers the nail:
Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9, NIV)
Because if you acknowledge and confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and in your heart believe (adhere to, trust in, and rely on the truth) that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (The Amplified Bible)
Islam is a Religion of action; Christianity is a religion of fabulous words. It does not have the answers to the problems of mankind. Islam superiorly has the solutions to the problems of mankind, the social corruptions in the society.
Islam demands a very high standard of morality which fixes the problems of the world. It’s is a Challenge to religion; a complete system of Life. The lawlessness of Christianity cannot be denied, since Christianity is based on emotions and not history.
Jesus taught the very opposite of what Christianity teaches today. The purpose of Jesus’ mission was to preach the Torah, not to be crucified. He taught salvation came through observing the Law, and not by the ‘eloquent words’ of the later Church. Jesus declared in Matthew 17:21 that salvation is attained through “fasting and prayer”.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach [them], the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:17-20)
Jesus replied, "Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come." (Mark 1:38)
The law of the LORD [is] perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD [is] sure, making wise the simple. (Psalms 19:7)
Blessed [are] the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD. (Psalms 119:1)
Jesus came to uphold the Mosaic Law and restore its teachings which had been discarded; he never founded a new religion. The followers of Jesus regarded him as the ‘new Moses’ sent to the Children of Israel. Jesus declared he was only sent to the Jews.
Paul is the founder of Christianity who established lawlessness; the doctrine of “salvation through faith only” is simply an echoing of Paul’s words and distorted teachings.
Christians are following the anti-Christ without knowing it.
“If Christianity needed an Anti-Christ, they need look no further than Paul”
-- The English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
“We have already noted that every teaching of Jesus was already in the literature of the day….. Paul, the founder of Christianity, the writer of half the NT, almost never quotes Jesus in his letters and writings." (Professor Smith in his “The World Religions”, p 330)
Paul rejected the Jewish Law (Torah) and fabricated a religion called “Christianity” which deviated from the teachings of Jesus, transforming him into a god.
“Although I am free from everyone, I have enslaved myself to all of them in order to win a larger number. To the Jews I behave as a Jew; to those under the Law as one who is under the Law, although I am not under the Law, to gain those who are under the Law. To those who are without law I am without law, although not lawless toward God but committed to Christ’s Law, in order to win those who are without law” (1 Corinthians 9:19)
Paul is a liar, he claims to follow the Law of Christ when the Law of Christ was the observance of the Torah (Matthew 5:17-20) the very Law that he strongly rejected! The hypocrisy of Paul is further exposed in the following verse:
For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? (Romans 3:7, King James Version)
But if through my lie God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? (English Standard Version)
But if the truth of God through my lie abounded unto his glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? (American Standard Version)
Muhammad Ataur-Raheem comments on the verse above:
“It would seem from this statement that, although he knew he was lying, Paul felt that the means justified the ends, but it is not understood how truth would abound through a lie…
Paul produced a religion which encompassed different contradictory elements. He took the Unitarianism of the Jews and added to it the philosophy of the pagans”. (Jesus: Prophet of Islam, 1992 edition, p. 71)
Paul is the anti-Christ, the supreme liar, the pathological liar, and the corrupter of Jesus’ Gospel. The Jewish Christians (Nazarenes and Ebionites) considered him an ‘apostate’ from Judaism, yet historical accounts say that he was born Gentile.
The author Roshen Enam says:
“Paul abolished the Law, which was followed and preached by Jesus (pbuh), and corrupted the whole religion, giving it a new form. The main ambition behind all this was, in his own words, “to win a larger number” of followers; the followers of a new religion “the Pauline Christianity”. (Follow Jesus or Follow Paul p. 69)
“The message of Christianity is that the Law is a curse. If the Law is a curse, then all that it ordains or prohibits must also be a curse.” (A.D. Ajijola states in his book “The Myth of the Cross”)
Amazingly, Paul went to such extremes that he claimed Jesus destroyed the Jewish Law!
“He (Jesus) brought the hostility to an end, by abolishing the Law of commandments with its regulations”. (Ephesians 2:14)
Needless to say, the passage contradicts Matthew 5:17-20 where Jesus specifically states that he came to preach the Law, not to destroy it.
Paul gave evidence that he was building a new religion, a complete deviation from Jesus’ teachings:
Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation: (Romans 15:20)
What is Paul implying here? Muhammad Ataur-Raheem gives us the answer:
If Paul had been spreading the original teaching of Jesus, then “another man’s foundation” would have been the same as his. They would both have been involved in building the same structure. The people who were hearing about Jesus, or rather Christ, for the first time from Paul’s lips, had no means of comparing his account with that of the Apostles who still held to Jesus’ teaching. Paul’s version was the only one to which they had access. (ibid, Jesus Prophet of Islam, p.)
Paul was developing a new religion under the doctrines he was fabricating According to Acts, Paul traveled to Arabia for three years:
Paul then left Damascus and, instead of seeking out the company of the other followers of Jesus, went into the Arabian Desert where he remained hidden for three years. It may well have been here that he began to formulate his own version of what Jesus had taught. This involved a rejection of the Jewish Law, which in turn meant his turning away from the fact that throughout his life Jesus had remained a practicing Jew, and always sought to uphold the teachings which Moses had brought before him. (Jesus Prophet of Islam, 1992 edition)
“In the solitude of the Arabian desert, he had marked out a course of action for himself in which he would not accept any interference or advice. Had he discussed this matter with the apostles or taken any of them into his confidence, it would mean a definite setback to his scheme of preaching a modified religion to the Gentiles. The apostles would have very strongly opposed the whole idea, and would have denounced the whole idea as an abomination. There is ample proof provided by the New Testament that the Disciples and the earliest followers of Jesus abhorred the innovations of Paul.
(A.D. Ajijola states in his book “The Myth of the Cross”)
Paul corrupted the Gospel of Jesus and replaced it, as the scholar Albert Schweitzer points out:
What is the significance for our faith and for our religious life, the fact that the Gospel of Paul is different from the Gospel of Jesus?
The attitude which Paul himself takes up towards the Gospel of Jesus is that he does not repeat it in the words of Jesus, and does not appeal to its authority.... The fateful thing is that the Greek, the Catholic, and the Protestant theologies all contain the Gospel of Paul in a form which does not continue the Gospel of Jesus, but displaces it."
(Albert Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus)
“The Christian beliefs formulated by St. Paul are unreasonable and repugnant to the conscience of man; such beliefs cannot expect any reasonable allegiance from the advanced nations of the world as it is a religion of primitive people. The whole of modern Christian doctrines was not formulated by Jesus, but by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans where he laid the foundation of Modern Christian doctrines and based his exposition on the heathen practices of his day.”
(A.D. Ajijola states in his book “The Myth of the Cross”)
Paul was disguising the true face of Jesus with a hideous mask; this ‘mask’ later became known as “Christianity”. It is mysterious that Jesus was transformed into God ‘incarnate’ when Moses, his twin predecessor was not.
I have inquired into some of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity; the examination has led me to the conclusion that the dogmas of the Trinity, the Divinity of Jesus, the Divine-Sonship, the Original Sin and Atonement are neither rational nor in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. These dogmas came into being and were due to pagan influences. They show that Christianity has departed considerably from the religion of Jesus. (A.D. Ajijola states in his book “The Myth of the Cross”)
In the preface to the book Jesus: Prophet of Islam, Muhammad Ataur-Raheem says:
An eminent scholar of Christian history admits that the present-day Christianity is a “mask” on the face of Jesus but goes on to say that a mask worn for a long time acquires a life of its own and it has to be accepted as such. The Muslim believes in the Jesus of history and refuses to accept the “mask”. This, in a nutshell, has been the point of difference between Islam and the Church for the last fourteen hundred years.
“I am convinced that Christianity has indeed misunderstood Jesus and that it needs to make a radical rediscovery of his person and message” (Tom Harper, by Akberally Meherally, Understanding the Bible through Koranic Messages)
A basic contrast between the Old Testament and the teachings of Paul reveal hundreds of contradictions. Paul established his own Church which later became the ‘Roman Catholic Church’ (sound familiar?).
James, the brother of Jesus, established the first ‘Church’ at Jerusalem (in 50 CE) before Pauline Christianity existed. It was sadly destroyed by the Pauline Church after the Jewish War (66-70 C.E.) and the Nazarenes were suppressed by the followers of Paul.
The Pauline “Christians” that exist today do not follow Christ, they should be called Paulians. The true Christians were the Nazarenes and Ebionites that no longer exist.
Paul degraded Jesus in the following verses:
Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, (Hebrews 6:1, English Standard Version)
Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, (Hebrews 6:1, 21st Century King James Version)
Paul emphasized that Christ was not perfect, hence his teachings should be discarded, because according to Paul, they are like ‘filthy and useless rags’ (Isaiah 64:6) and we must excel towards “perfection and maturity”. The deceptive editors changed the English translation of Paul’s damaging words. This outrageous statement has been softened in many other versions of the Bible:
So let us stop going over the basics of Christianity again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don't need to start all over again with the importance of turning away from evil deeds and placing our faith in God. (Hebrews 5:7. New Living Translation)
We must try to become mature and start thinking about more than just the basic things we were taught about Christ. We shouldn't need to keep talking about why we ought to turn from deeds that bring death and why we ought to have faith in God. (Hebrews 5:7, Contemporary English Version)
The convert to Islam, Dr. Roshan Enam, comments:
“Paul not only distorted the teachings of Jesus Christ (pbuh) he even dishonored them; arguing that Jesus gave immature and defective teachings to his followers, and that they were not worth following. Instead, the people should follow the teachings preached by Paul, which according to him, are mature and complete” (Follow Jesus or Follow Paul, p. 38)
As mentioned earlier, Paul established the doctrine of lawlessness, which is the great cause for our social corruptions. The Christian religion gave birth to diseases like fascism and communism:
Christianity has been most prolific of spawning isms. Atheism, Communism, Fascism, Totalitarianism, Nazism, Mormonism, Moonism, Christian Scientism and now Satanism. What else will Christianity give birth to? (Deedat, Is the Bible God’s Word?)
Jesus observed the laws of the Torah, but Paul changed the Gospel, corrupting it before it reached Europe.
“Paul deviated people towards lawlessness, through his strange philosophy that, the observance of the Law motivates to sin, thus justifying his innovation regarding the abolition of the Law” (ibid, p. 42)
“…not a single human being will be made righteous in God’s sight through observance of the Law. For through the Law comes the knowledge of sin”. (Romans 3:20)
“Christ has ransomed us from the curse of the Law in as much as He became a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13)
“the Scripture has all men imprisoned under sin” (Galatians 3:22)
What Paul invented was a great misconception. Purpose of revelations from God Almighty is never to mislead the people, or to induce them with sin, instead, they are always for the guidance of mankind. With the same purpose, the Law of commandments were revealed to prophet Moses (pbuh), and in later age, prophet Jesus (pbuh) was to sent to confirm and honor them, and finally to complete them, but not to abolish them (ibid, p. 42)
According to Jesus, the lawless ones will be thrown in Hell. (This includes all Christians)
"So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 13:40-42 New American Standard Bible)
"And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.' (Matthew 7:23, New American Standard Bible)
For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. (Mark 9:49)
"So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Matthew 23:28)
Christians are indeed hypocrites, they ignore the practical teachings of the Bible and discard the Jewish Law followed by Jesus (Matthew 5:17-20, 23:23) they practice what is called ‘selective morality’ and ignore the teachings of the Gospels, paying close attention to the epistles of Paul (only). Christians do not exist:
· Jesus commanded fasting (Matthew 4:2, 6:16) yet Christians do not fast.
· Jesus abstained from eating pork and drinking wine (Leviticus 10:9, 11:7, Matthew 5:17-20) yet Christians practice the exact opposite, they eat pork and drink wine! Paul said it was okay to drink wine 1Timothy 5:23. (There is a lesson to learn from the story of Noah!)
· Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day of infancy (Luke 1:59) yet Christians are not circumcised like Jesus. This equates to death penalty (Genesis 17:14)
· Jesus established the death penalty for those who abandon his teachings (John 15:6) yet Christians have abandoned his teaching but they are not being punished accordingly! The governments of Christian countries reject the Jewish Law because of the innovations of Paul. (He made everything permissible for them!)
· Jesus observed the Sabbath, (which is Saturday) yet Christians have broken this law by working on the Sabbath. This equates to death penalty (Exodus 31:14)
The laws which exist in the “Christian” countries of the West, the laws governing birth and death, the formation and dissolution of marriage, the rights over property within and outside marriage or in the event of divorce or death, adoption and guardianship, commerce, and industry, are not to be found in the gospels. They are not the laws which have been revealed to man by God. They are the fruits of deductive knowledge. They are either inherited from the Roman system of law, or are based on the common practice of people over a long period of time, or are statutes erected and amended in accordance with the democratic method, which is the bequest of the ancient Greeks. No one in today’s courts of law can refer to the gospels as a binding authority in his dealings with another man, and have it accepted. (Muhammad Ataur-Raheem, Jesus Prophet of Islam, 1992 edition, p. 205)
Jesus said his true followers will enter Paradise, those who follow his teachings.
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, [then] are ye my disciples indeed; (John 8:31)
But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any [man] pluck them out of my hand. (John 10:26-29)
And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. (Matthew 7:26-27)
The outright foolishness of Christians cannot be denied, Jesus rebukes today’s ‘adherents’ who boldly call themselves “Christian”.
But in vain they do worship me, teaching [for] doctrines the commandments of men. (Matthew 15:9)
And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? (Luke 6:46)
"I do not accept praise from men, (John 5:41)
The authentic Hadith says:
I heard the Prophet saying, "Do not exaggerate in praising me as the Christians praised the son of Mary, for I am only a Slave. So, call me the Slave of Allah and His Apostle."
Narrated 'Umar
Bukhari, Muhammad, "Sahih Bukhari", Kitab Bhavan, New Delhi, India, 1987, translated by M. Khan, Volume 4, Book 55, Number 654.
The Holy Quran says:
Say: "O people of the Book! exceed not in your religion the bounds (of what is proper), trespassing beyond the truth, nor follow the vain desires of people who went wrong in times gone by,- who misled many, and strayed (themselves) from the even way. (Quran 5:77)
From those, too, who call themselves Christians, We did take a covenant, but they forgot a good part of the message that was sent them: so we estranged them, with enmity and hatred between the one and the other, to the day of judgment. And soon will Allah show them what it is they have done. (Quran 5:14)
The Jews call 'Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth! (Quran 9:30)
As stated earlier, the teachings of Jesus were based on the Law, yet the Law is rejected by Christians today, so how could they be called Christians?
Moreover, the “Christians” do not follow the Gospel of Jesus; they follow the Gospel of Paul. The Nazarenes and Ebionties were followers of Jesus’ Gospel, which no longer exists today. Nevertheless, the “Christians” of today are not implementing the teachings of their “lord and savior” (see John 8:31) The Nazarenes/Ebionites never degraded Jesus by calling him “lord and savior”; they considered him a great Prophet and Messenger.
There is so much diversity and clash, so much chaos, in the Christian Church today that the old idea of a unified or systematic Christian truth has gone. For this, the ecumenical movement is too late. What has happened is that the Christian world has moved into that situation of open variety, of optional alternatives. It would seem no longer possible for anyone to be told or even to imagine that he can be told, what it means or should mean, formally and generically, to be a Christian. He must decide for himself and only for himself (Christianity on Trial, I, Colin Chapman, pp. 51-52)
The act of affirming what is in the Old Testament, and the gospels for that matter, and at the same time affirming belief in the doctrine of Trinity, is perhaps the greatest illustration of the exercise of doublethink within Christianity today. Thus the logic of the established Church’s metaphysic, based on doctrines which were not taught by Jesus, obscures not only the nature of Jesus, but also the Divine Unity. The metaphysic of Christianity today is totally opposed to the metaphysic which Jesus brought. The physical aspect of what Jesus brought, his code of behaviour, is today irrecoverably lost. To live as Jesus lived is to understand his message, yet there is virtually no existing record of how Jesus behaved. And what little knowledge exists is often ignored. The most fundamental act of Jesus was that of worship of the Creator, the whole purpose for which man was created. Yet it is evident that no Christian today makes the same acts of worship which Jesus made. Jesus usually prayed in the morning, at mid-day, and in the evening. The exact form of his prayer is no longer extant, but it known that is was based on the prayer which Moses was given. Jesus said that he had come to uphold the law and not to destroy it one jot or one tithe. Jesus was educated in the synagogue in Jerusalem from the age of twelve. He preached in the synagogue. He used to keep the synagogue clean. No Christian today can be found performing these actions. How many Christians have even been circumcised in the manner that Jesus was? The services now held in today’s churches were developed long after Jesus had disappeared. Many of them come directly from the pagan Graeco-Roman mythological rites. The prayers they use are not the prayers which Jesus made. The hymns they sing are not the praises which Jesus sung. Due to the innovations of Paul and his followers, there is no revealed teaching left as to what to eat and what not to eat. Anyone given a “Christian education” today eats what he feels like. Yet Jesus and his true followers only ate kosher meat and were forbidden to eat pig’s flesh. The last meal Jesus is known to have eaten before his disappearance was the Passover meal. No Christian today celebrates this longstanding Jewish tradition to which Jesus so meticulously held.
(Muhammad Ataur-Raheem, Jesus, Prophet of Islam, pp. 199-200)
In the preceding arguments, I have inquired into some of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity; the examination has led me to the conclusion that the dogmas of the Trinity, the Divinity of Jesus, the Divine-Sonship, the Original Sin and Atonement are neither rational nor in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. These dogmas came into being and were due to pagan influences. They show that Christianity has departed considerably from the religion of Jesus. (A.D. Ajijola states in his book “The Myth of the Cross”)
Unfortunately, the observance of Jesus is not possible today because his teachings have been seriously corrupted and altered. The scholars of “Christianity” admit that they do not possess the original manuscripts from which we can derive the authentic words of Jesus. Hence, the only way to follow Jesus today is by following Islam:
He who follows Prophet Muhammad automatically follows the true Jesus:
“The guidance imparted through the Prophets of the past was not complete. Every Prophet was followed by another who effected alterations and additions in the teachings and injunctions of his predecessors and, in this way, the chain of reform and progress continued. That is why the teachings of the earlier Prophets, after the lapse of time, were lost in oblivion. Obviously there was no need to preserve the earlier teachings when amended and improved guidance had taken their place. At last the most perfect code of guidance was imparted to mankind through Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) and all previous codes were automatically abrogated, for it is futile and imprudent to follow an incomplete code when the complete code exists. He who follows Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) follows all the Prophets, for whatever was good and eternally workable in their teachings has been embodied in his teachings. Whoever, therefore, rejects and refuses to follow Muhammad’s (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) teachings, and chooses to follow some other Prophet, only deprives himself of that vast amount of useful and valuable instruction and guidance which is embodied in Muhammad’s (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) teachings, which never existed in the books of the earlier Prophets and which was revealed only through the Last of the Prophets”
(Towards Understanding Islam, Mawdudi, p. 79)
Most Greek-speaking authors heard these traditions in the Aramaic vernacular and committed them to writing in Greek. None of these writings is dated prior to the year 70 C.E.; there is not a single instance in these works where the author has cited an authority for an event or maxim attributed to Jesus (peace be upon him) in order that we might construct a chain of transmission. Furthermore, even their works have not survived. Thousands of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament were collected, but none of them is older than the fourth century C.E.; rather the origin of most of them does not go beyond the period intervening between the 11th and the 14th centuries. (Lecture of Sayyid Abdul Al-Ala Mawdudi, recorded in The Message of the Prophet’s Seerah, pp. 8-9)
“The real death of a Prophet consists not in his physical demise but in the ending of the influence of his teachings. The earlier Prophets have died because their followers have adulterated their teachings, distorted their instructions, and besmirched their life-examples by attaching fictitious events to them” (ibid, Mawdudi, Towards Understanding Islam, p. 57)
"The original copies of the NT books have, of course, long since disappeared. This fact should not cause surprise. In the first place, they were written on papyrus, a very fragile and perishable material. In the second place, and probably of even more importance, the original copies of the NT books were not looked upon as scripture by those of the early Christian communities." [George Arthur Buttrick (Ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 1, pp. 599 (Under Text, NT).]
