Jesus: Man, Messenger, Messiah · 4. Atonement
No blood, no forgiveness: the theology of the cross
In short
- 1.'Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness' [Hebrews 9:22] states the mechanism plainly.
- 2.'The wages of sin is death' [Romans 6:23] frames sin as a debt God cannot simply cancel.
- 3.In Islam, God's mercy precedes His wrath and forgiveness is granted on repentance alone [39:53].
- 4.A creditor who must be paid before forgiving has not forgiven — he has been repaid.
The claim being examined
Christian theology teaches that sin is a debt requiring payment, and that God's forgiveness is contingent on the shedding of blood — supremely, the death of Christ.
The Islamic position
Islam teaches that God forgives directly out of mercy, needing no payment, no substitute and no blood.
Analysis
The doctrine of penal substitution depends on a portrait of God whose justice constrains His mercy. The Islamic critique presses on the coherence of that portrait: an all-powerful God who is unable to forgive without extracting a death is bound by something outside His will. Islam locates the difficulty not in God's justice but in the theological machinery erected around it — a machinery that inherits far more from Roman legal categories and Anselm's medieval satisfaction theory than from anything Jesus taught.
From the Qur'an
Qur'an 39:53
قُلْ يَا عِبَادِيَ الَّذِينَ أَسْرَفُوا عَلَىٰ أَنفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَطُوا مِن رَّحْمَةِ اللَّهِ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا
Say: O My servants who have transgressed against themselves, do not despair of God's mercy. Indeed God forgives all sins.
Qur'an 4:110
وَمَن يَعْمَلْ سُوءًا أَوْ يَظْلِمْ نَفْسَهُ ثُمَّ يَسْتَغْفِرِ اللَّهَ يَجِدِ اللَّهَ غَفُورًا رَّحِيمًا
Whoever does a wrong or wrongs himself then seeks God's forgiveness will find God Forgiving and Merciful.
From the Bible
Hebrews 9:22
χωρὶς αἱματεκχυσίας οὐ γίνεται ἄφεσις
Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Read it in their BibleRomans 5:12
δι᾽ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου ἡ ἁμαρτία εἰς τὸν κόσμον εἰσῆλθεν
Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin.
Read it in their BibleFrom the Sunnah
Sahih al-Bukhari 7554 · Sahih
God wrote in a Book with Him above the Throne: My mercy prevails over My wrath.
Sources
Abu Zakariya, Jesus: Man, Messenger, Messiah · Anselm, Cur Deus Homo · Bart D. Ehrman · Jesus: Man, Messenger, Messiah — ch. 4, pp. 83-85
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