“The standard explanations for the crucifixion of
Jesus
created a deep mystery of motive and consequence,
raising many questions about what truly is
God’s plan for our salvation.”
The crucifixion of Jesus
Christ (peace be upon him) is undeniably one of the most emotionally charged
and controversial events in all of religious history. It is also one of the
most powerful and political, in that it laid the foundation for Christianity’s
main principle of mankind’s spiritual salvation – that Jesus Christ was
destined by God to die on the cross for our sins. But is this really God’s or
even Jesus’ idea? The facts about what happened to Jesus 2000 years ago have
been shrouded in mystery for as long as Christianity has existed as a major
world religion. The commonly held views of the events of the crucifixion and
the life and purpose of Jesus are well known to virtually every Christian and
most others who have come in contact with Western Christian nations. But is
this view, in fact, the truth? Or is there another explanation that must be
considered for all true believers in Christ to fully understand Jesus, his
status and his mission.
It is this alternate
explanation of the reasons for, and results of, the crucifixion that I wish to
bring to light before you now. It is the universal belief of all Muslims that
Jesus did not die on the cross, because this would prove him to be a false
prophet and a false messiah for the Jewish people, which Muslims do not accept.
Islam teaches that Jesus was a true and beloved prophet of God, just like the
Old Testament prophets before him, and that he was the Messiah foretold for the
Jewish people in their scriptures. On this point, Muslims are closer to
Christians in this regard than Jews.
Most Muslims, however,
believe as Christians do: that Jesus was taken up physically alive into heaven
and that he will return to Earth again in the same body before the End of the
World -- although Jesus’ mission when he returns will not be to bring
Christianity to the Muslims, but to bring Islam to the Christians and the rest
of the world.
I belong to a Muslim
Community known as Ahmadiyyat, founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in 1889. We
believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was the Promised Messiah and Imam Mahdi
foretold in Islamic scripture and traditions. As Ahmadi Muslims, we believe
differently about a few key points relating to Jesus and the crucifixion.
From revelations to the
Promised Messiah and through research done by him and his companions in the
l890s, we have conclusive evidence that Jesus did not die on the cross -- for
the same reasons stated earlier – but unlike the rest of the Muslim world, we
believe that Jesus was actually put on the cross, only he did not die as a
result of this crucifixion. He survived so that he could complete his stated
mission to “gather and preach to the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel” and to
fulfill the Sign of Jonah he gave to the Jews prior to his crucifixion -- as
Jonah was “three days and three nights alive in the belly of the whale,” Jesus,
too, would be “three days and three nights alive in the belly of the earth.” As
Jonah survived his ordeal and went on to successfully preach to his people, so
too does Jesus say he will survive a similar trial and go on to preach to his
people, the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.
He survived the crucifixion
with the Divine help of Almighty God and the help of his trusted friends. One
of these, Nicodemus, was a physician who treated his wounds with 100 pounds of
medicinal plants and spices: the famed mixture of aloes and myrrh mentioned in
the New Testament.
Another close friend was
Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy and powerful Jew in whose open-air sepulcher
Jesus was taken for treatment and recuperation after the crucifixion. When Mary
Magdalene first sees Jesus outside the tomb, she moves to embrace him but he
stops her and says, “Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended.” That is, he is
still suffering from his recent wounds but has not died from them. He even
tells “Doubting Thomas,” who thinks he’s a ghost (as do all the other
disciples), to stick his fingers into Jesus’ fresh wounds so he may know Jesus
is not dead nor a ghost, but very much alive.
It is our belief that Jesus survived
the crucifixion because he was not and could never be “accursed of God,”
and so he could go on to fulfill his stated mission to preach to his people. We
believe that he traveled extensively throughout the Near East where the Lost
Ten Tribes of Israel were known to be: in Syria, Iraq, Iran, India, Afghanistan
and Kashmir. We believe Jesus eventually died at the age of 120 and is buried
in Kashmir, in the city of Srinagar.
An Ahmadi Imam I know has
personally visited the sacred tomb of Jesus, and has been inside it to clean it
and to pay his respects. Many may be astonished to hear that Jesus’ mother,
Mary, is believed to be buried in Pakistan, in the town named after her: Muree. Some
Christians may have heard that the disciple Thomas is buried in Madras,
Southern India. He is. Why was he there? The tombs of Jesus, Mary and Thomas
are all pieces in a religious puzzle that few Westerners have ever heard of,
but to millions of Muslims and Hindus in the Near East, these places are common
knowledge.
The standard explanations
for the crucifixion of Jesus created a deep mystery of motive and consequence,
raising many questions about what truly is God’s plan for our salvation. What
were the motivations of the various groups involved in the crucifixion? What
were the consequences of their involvement? The past 2000 years of world
history have been filled with the reverberations from the events of that terrible
day. And most important of all: Did Jesus truly claim to be God incarnate Who
came to be put to death for our sins? Or did these ideas come from other
religions and other, later followers of Jesus such as Mark, Luke, Paul and the
4th century Roman Emperor Constantine? None of these men ever met
Jesus or witnessed his crucifixion and its aftermath.
We can learn a lot about the
answers to these questions by examining closely the actions and words of the
various people involved in, or who are said to have witnessed, the crucifixion
of Christ.
At the time of the
crucifixion, while most people were just curious bystanders, some of the people
were certainly the devoted followers and relatives of Jesus, such as his mother
Mary and the disciples. No one could argue that this second group was not in
deep anguish and sorrow over what was being done to Jesus. If Mel Gibson’s 2004
film “The Passion of the Christ” can move entire audiences of devout Christians
to tears 2000 years after the crucifixion, how much more powerful was the
experience to those who knew and loved Jesus during his lifetime?
And surely, the reason for
these tears today and 2000 years ago was the same: those who loved Jesus did
not want to see him tortured so cruelly and be put to death in such an evil and
idolatrous manner. And especially if you were a devout Jew, the spiritual
significance of being put to death by crucifixion was even more painful,
because this pain came from the fact that in the Old Testament, Book of
Deuteronomy (21:23), to be put to death on a cross -- “hanged on a tree” -- was
to be proven a false prophet or messiah; to be accursed of God and to turn away
from God and have Him turn away from you because you have chosen to reject God
and follow instead in the footsteps of Satan. God forbid! How could anyone
think Jesus fits this description? No one. But that is what “accursed of God”
means, and this is why it hurt the followers of Jesus so deeply at the time,
and why it hurts me so deeply today as a Muslim -- where love and respect for
Jesus and all other prophets is a requirement of my faith -- to have Jesus
called “Satan” by those who say he was “accursed of God.” I cannot believe
this!
It was no accident that the
Jews needed Jesus to be crucified on a cross -- the sacrificial altar to the
Roman sun god. The death of Jesus on the cross would prove he was a false
prophet and not the Messiah the Jews were expecting to restore to them the
Kingdom of David and their holy lands. Was Jesus a false Messiah? According to
Jewish expectations of the time, he was not what they were looking for. He came
to bring them back to the Kingdom of God, not the Kingdom of David.
The other group of people at
the crucifixion was composed of citizens who disbelieved in Jesus and the Roman
soldiers whose job it was to whip and then crucify him. This group was involved
in all kinds of abuse against him, making fun of him, spitting on him, calling
him a liar, a fabricator, an imposter, and telling him to “save himself and come
down off the cross if he was the Messiah” as he claimed. Could these people
have been right in their accusations? Why did they all assert that the proof of
Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah would be for him to come down off the cross and survive
the crucifixion and not, as Christianity holds, to die as a sinless sacrifice
because of it?
How could this central
belief of Christians in the death of Jesus on the cross for their sins be such
a foreign idea to the Jews of Jesus’ time? Should he not have made this idea
crystal clear to his followers and disciples? Jesus should have stated clearly
and repeatedly to all his followers, enemies and accusers at every opportunity
that his only purpose in life was to be put on the cross to die for the sins of
mankind.
When Pilate tells the Jews
at the trial of Jesus that he plans to release him, Jesus should have told him,
“No, you must crucify me so I can pay for the sins of the world. This is why I
have come.” But he does not say this – in fact, Jesus never says anything
remotely like this at those times when he should have spoken up the loudest to
proclaim his mission: in the court before Pilate and Herod and the Jewish
leaders, and while he is on the cross afterwards. And in the end, the charge
against Jesus for which he was crucified was not that he was the Son of God,
literally or otherwise, but that he was conspiring to make himself King of the
Jews and start a rebellion against the Roman Empire.
And the one statement Jesus
makes while on the cross that seems to contradict everything we are told about
his purpose is: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Why was
Jesus asking God to forgive them for crucifying him if that was God’s plan and
if that’s what Jesus knew and wanted as well? And did God forgive them? Was God
happy about the crucifixion or was He angry? Some say the weather was a Sign of
God’s displeasure. What happened?
All of a sudden, they were
engulfed in a severe windstorm and sudden darkness caused by an eclipse of sun,
accompanied by an intense earthquake. They became very frightened, and most of
them ran away from the scene. It can be reasoned that many of those who fled,
including many of Jesus’ closest disciples, were all religious-minded Jews who
considered the upheaval in the heavens and the earth to be signs of the
displeasure of God at the events being undertaken against Jesus.
In regards to the recording
of the events of the crucifixion, there are no verifiable first-hand accounts
from reliable sources or witnesses to explain what happened to Jesus after he
was taken down from the cross. Virtually all reputable scholars say that the
“John” listed as being present could not have been the same John who later
wrote the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation and who is reported to have
died in 120 AD – 87 years after the crucifixion! Nor in the Bible is there a
“Gospel of Nicodemus,” the physician who was an eyewitness to the crucifixion. In fact, a careful study of the New Testament
reveals there was much uncertainty about the events of the crucifixion. The
Holy Quran in 4:159 states with regard to whether or not the Jews succeeded in
killing Jesus by crucifixion: “They were all in a state of doubt about it --
they had no certain knowledge thereof, but only pursued a conjecture. None of
them were sure (as to what really happened to Jesus) but they could only
guess.”
The Jews knew very well that
a strong, healthy person of 33 years, hanging on a cross for 3 to 4 hours,
could not die – even Pilate knew this because he “marveled” at the news that
Jesus had died so soon. Pilate knew that it took days, not hours, to die from
crucifixion. In fact, the other two thieves crucified alongside Jesus were
still alive until their legs were broken. Jesus’ legs were not broken.
The Jews also knew that
Pilate favored saving Jesus’ life when he went so far as to pronounce him “not
guilty” before the court. More than once Pilate tells the Jews that Jesus
should be released. In a last-ditch effort to save him, Pilate proclaims that
he will flog Jesus and then release him – beaten but not dead -- in the hope
that this degrading punishment would satisfy his Jewish enemies. Pilate in no
way expected Jesus to die from this whipping as evidenced by his words “and
then release him.” Despite what is depicted in the movie “The Passion of the
Christ” as a merciless, brutal and prolonged beating of Jesus nearly to death,
Christian historians generally state that Jesus was lashed only 39 times. This
would be in accordance with a “chastisement” as punishment and not a whipping
meant to kill someone.
Another event depicted in
the film “The Passion of the Christ” that seems to spell the death blow for
Jesus is when the Roman soldier pierces his side while on the cross. In the
movie, the soldier is shown thrusting his spear savagely up into the body of
Jesus. Christians often say that if Jesus had still been alive on the cross,
this deep spear thrust into his side and presumably up into his heart certainly
would have finished him off. But is this what actually happened? There was no
autopsy performed on Jesus to determine how he died or if he was even dead. And
if we examine the piercing event with basic common sense and with an
understanding of the Greek word for “pierce” a completely different picture
emerges.
Jesus was presumed to be
dead when the Roman soldiers came to dispatch the two crucified thieves who
were still clearly alive. The soldiers broke their legs, thus killing them, but
they did not break the legs of Jesus, so he could not have died from clubbing. So
it is stated that a soldier takes his spear and pierces Jesus in the side, and
blood and water are reported to issue forth.
The obvious question is, why
did the soldier pierce Jesus’ side? To “finish him off” as some claim, or to do
what would be a natural test for responsiveness to pain – jab someone with a
sharp object to see if they react, thus indicating they are still alive so you
can “finish them off” by breaking their legs. But when Jesus did not react, the
soldiers did not proceed with the next phase of leg-breaking, believing that he
was already dead. The actual meaning of the Greek word for “pierce” means “to
prick or scratch, to jab or poke.” Not the forceful, full-powered vicious
thrust as depicted in “The Passion of the Christ.”
When trauma victims enter
the ER at a hospital, they often appear dead, with no visible signs of life. One
of the first things doctors do is poke them with something sharp or pull back
on their fingernails or toenails to see if they react from the pain. Another
thing they regularly do in trauma treatment is they put a hole in the injured
person’s chest to relieve any pressure caused by edema – the internal swelling
of body organs and tissues -- that may be suppressing vital signs and keeping
the heart and lungs from functioning well. When they do this, the heart often
starts beating with renewed vigor and strength, and the lungs are able to
inflate easier as well. Also, blood and other fluids like water that have
collected in the outer tissues often come gushing out as the pressure is
equalized. So in all probability, the piercing of Jesus’ side saved his life,
thus relieving the pressure on his heart and lungs. And everyone knows blood
doesn’t flow out of a body unless there is a beating heart to produce blood
pressure.
Also, after the crucifixion,
the body of Jesus was given to his disciples. This was not the common practice;
usually the enemies took the body so they could desecrate it. But it was Jesus’
friends who took his body down from the cross -- one of whom, Nicodemus, was purported
to be a medical doctor who treated him with 100 pounds of aloes and myrrh. The
Jews have never anointed the bodies of their dead with perfumes or spices, but
the ancient Greeks and Romans did.
All of this -- taken
together with Jesus’ own prediction that he would be back after three days and
nights, fulfilling the sign of Jonah, who went into the belly of the whale
alive, stayed there alive for three days and nights, and then came out alive --
leads inescapably to the conclusion that Jesus Christ never meant to die on the
cross for anyone’s sins, nor did he in fact die, but was saved by the Hand of
God to disprove the charges by the Jews that he was a false prophet and a false
messiah. God’s destiny sometimes works just like this – what seems like a
defeat is actually a divine means of success and escape from one’s enemies.
For further information
about this fascinating subject of world and faith shaking import, I invite you
to visit the website www.TombofJesus.com and to also go to alislam.org/library
to read the books “Where Did Jesus Die?” by J.D. Shams, and “Christianity: a
Journey from facts to Fiction” by the 4th Khalifa of the Ahmadiyya
Muslim Community, Mirza Tahir Ahmad (ra).
