Muhammad - A new apostle - A prophet foretold

This is a continuation of a multi-post article. You can read the first post here and the previous post here. This is also part of a larger series called "The Koran from a Christian perspective." You can find other posts in this series here.

The scriptures, in many places, speak of a prophet who was to come. Before his death, Moses related what God had told him concerning this coming prophet.

"The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him. This is according to all that you asked of the Lord your God in Horeb... The Lord said to me, 'They have spoken well. I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him." (Deuteronomy 18:15-18)

In other places, this prophet is referred to as the Messiahs, the Christ, and the Savior. Isaiah speaks of the day of His coming, "Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy. For waters will break forth in the wilderness and streams in the Arabah." (Isaiah 35:5-6)
The Koran claims these words to have been spoken of Muhammad.

"My mercy embraces all things, and I shall prescribe it [write it down] for those who are godfearing and pay the alms, and those who indeed believe in Our signs, those who follow the Messenger [Apostle], 'the Prophet of the common folk [unlearned prophet], whom they find written down [described] with them in the Torah [Law] and the Gospel." (Koran 7:155-156)

Furthermore, the Koran claims that, when Jesus spoke of another comforter, or helper, that He would send after His death, that He spoke of Muhammad and not the Holy Spirit.

"And when Jesus son of Mary said, 'Children of Israel, I am indeed the Messenger [apostle] of God to you, confirming the Torah [law] that is [given] before me, and giving good tidings of [to announce] a Messenger [apostle] who shall come after me, whose name shall be Ahmad.'" (Koran 61:6)

Are these claims true, was the scriptures all along speaking of the coming of Muhammad? Let us examine the claims.

First, Jesus claimed that He Himself was the prophet that was to be sent. When the disciples of John came to ask Him if He was the prophet whom they were waiting for, Jesus responded, "Go and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them and blessed is he who does not take offense at Me." (Matthew 11:4-6) Clearly Jesus was telling them that He was the promised one and that His message, His miracles, and the healings He performed testified of Him.

Secondly, the scriptures are clear that the one Jesus promised to send was not Muhammad but the Holy Spirit. John writes of Jesus promise, "But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." (John 7:39) It was after His resurrection that the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the believers in what is now called the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Phillip Schaff accounts for Muhammad's confusion in this matter due to a misunderstanding in the pronunciation of the Greek word for the coming Comforter.

"Thus the promise of the Holy Ghost, “the other Paraclete,” (John xiv. 16) was applied by Mohammed to himself by a singular confusion of Paracletos (paravklhto”) with Periclytos (perivkluto”, heard all round, famous) or Ahmed (the glorified, the illustrious), one of the prophet’s names." (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Volume IV, Section 45. The Mohammedan Religion)

Finally, the works of Muhammad do not line up with the promised works of the coming prophet. Muhammad never worked a miracle or performed a healing. There is no records of blind eyes being opened, the deaf hearing, or the dead being raised to life. These are all miracles that Jesus did and which testified that He was the coming prophet. However they are also the same works that Muhammad failed to do in his claim to be "The Prophet". It is one thing to claim to be the fulfillment of prophesy, but it is another to perform the works proving that it is so. Some may claim that Muhammad is still a prophet, but I believe that he was not the prophet that was foretold so long ago. That prophet was Jesus.

More to come...

David Robison