Is Jesus Appearing to Muslims?

Gary: Now, Religion in the News…. This week’s item is from the Open Doors News Brief Magazine, November 2000. “I wasn’t a Christian then. I was born into a Muslim family, and I didn’t know much about Christianity at all. I’d seen churches from the outside but never set foot in them. I knew about Isa, that is, Jesus, from the Qur’an. We all do. But now, I actually saw Him. Whether it was in a kind of dream or vision, I don’t know. I grabbed my chador, ran out of the door, and started crying. He called to me, ‘I am Jesus! I am here. Come to Me.’ Then He took my hand and walked with me to the church down the road. We went into the courtyard. He pointed to the church building and said, ‘This is the place where I live.’ Then He left.

“As Sarah was speaking, an intense joy spread over her face. She took her Bible and hugged it to her heart. After awhile, she continued, ‘Jesus is so lovely. I never knew that. I’ve come to love Him more and more. Since the day I saw Him, I have gone to church. I started to read the Bible, and my life has totally changed. The Lord is so real to me. My life hasn’t become any easier. I’ve been a widow for five years, and I’m only 38. I still have to take care of all my children on my own. But I have found the source of joy. He is the Light and Love of my life, and I never want to go back to my old lifestyle again.’

“All over the Muslim world, God is doing remarkable things. Time and time again we are hearing stories like Sarah’s of Muslims who have been converted through dreams and visions. Often, they had little or no contact with Christians. Jesus appears directly to them, and, as a result, they commit their lives to Him.”

Tom: Dave, one of the reasons I picked this for us to look at—on the one hand, you want to really get excited about it. This is from Open Doors, from Brother Andrew, from his magazine, but there have been others out there…

Dave: November 2000.

Tom: Right…but there have been others out there who have reported the same thing…

Dave: Campus Crusade has reported similar things.

Tom: Right. Now, someone sent me this article, and their concern was: Is this legit? Is this what…? They were concerned that maybe this wasn’t Jesus. Maybe…this was a little too…kind of, experiential, a little too subjective, even to the point of wondering whether this is truly going on or if this is of the Lord, actually.

Dave: Yeah, a number of things really troubled me as that was being read, Tom. Jesus does not live in a church. I don’t care what church. Paul said it very clearly on Mars Hill, Acts 17: “He dwelleth not in temples made with hands.” He dwells in our hearts now. The Son of God has come to live in our hearts—God has come to live in our hearts. So, He doesn’t live…God does not live in a church, number one.

Number two, I don’t know which church this was, but it seemed to be a physical presence here. He took her by the hand…I mean, it is almost too much…led her to this church. She said she met Him personally. Now there’s not a word in there about the gospel. And the Bible says, “The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.”

She’s had an emotional experience with someone called “Jesus” that she thought it was Jesus, Isa. Now, …

Tom: Now this is an apparition…

Dave: Well, yeah. Right. Now…

Tom: …and she saw His face. “He was so lovely,” she said.

Dave: It’s not the Jesus the John the revelator saw in Revelation 1: “…glorified at the Father’s right hand.” I don’t think that you become a Christian—in fact, I know you do not become a Christian through meeting an apparition that calls itself Jesus. Now, if she had said…well, she said she’s started reading her Bible. She has great joy…

Tom:  That’s good…

Dave: Yeah, but there are many people who read their Bible and don’t understand it and don’t believe it. So, I don’t find any basis for believing that this woman is a true Christian. She may be. Maybe that isn’t told in the story. But I find no comprehension of who Jesus is. He’s a wonderful, lovely person—came to her, and visited her, and so forth. Did he die on the cross for her sins? Is he God? Really God himself?

And then she says, “We’ve read of Isa in the Qur’an.” Well, the Isa in the Qur’an, the “Jesus” in the Qur’an, is not the Jesus of Scripture. The Jesus in the Qur’an, for example, did not die on the cross. Someone died in his place. In fact, the Qur’an says that God put a “likeness of Jesus upon one of his disciples,” and the tradition, the Hadith, says it was Judas who died in Jesus’s place! So, now, she doesn’t seem to have been delivered from the Qur’an, and she’s had an emotional experience with some apparition that called itself “Jesus.” I’m troubled by that.

Tom: Well, the number one problem here is that this is incredibly subjective. How would somebody listening to, or reading, this testimony, how would they relate to it? Would they say, “Oh, Jesus is appearing all around and He’s meeting people out there, or over here, or there.” Does this then establish a doctrine of how Jesus moves and how He works among people? You’d have real trouble, as you’ve been indicating, lining this up with scripture. So that’s a problem.

On the other hand, could Jesus just sovereignly move into somebody’s life? We’ve talked about people—you’ve written about people—who met “Jesus” on a drug trip, intervening in their lives, saving them from death and turning them around.

Dave: Yeah, you see…

Tom: That’s very subjective as well.

Dave: That is. And they didn’t become believers, but something happened on this drug trip, whatever it was, that caused them to rethink their lives, and they then were led to Christ through the gospel.

But Paul writes of “those who love His appearing.” And John writes, 1 John 3: “When we see Him, we will be like Him. We will see Him as He is. And it doesn’t appear what we shall be, but we’ll know when He appears.” But now, then, what is this talking about? It seems that the Bible teaches an appearing of Christ in the future to all believers at once. We’re having appearances of “Jesus” all over the world to individuals. I don’t believe it’s biblical.

Now, if this is a dream, then I could accept that. Something happens in a dream—it’s not literally Jesus there, and He’s speaking to them—I believe He can speak to them in a dream. But they’re going to have to know the gospel. It will have to lead them to the gospel. Even Peter, when he had this sheet let down from heaven in Acts 10, he didn’t know what it meant. God had to speak to him with a voice and to tell him. But there again, this was not the gospel.

So, I would have great caution and concern about such events.