Page 11 of 18: Dealing with sexual sin

One ordered flogging and execution. The other offers forgiveness and restoration.

Muhammad

This verse, according to reliable traditions, concerns fornication or premarital sex. Note the insertions by the two translators. The Quran in Sura 24:2 says:

24:2 The fornicatress and the fornicator, flog each of them with a hundred stripes. Let not pity withhold you in their case, in a punishment prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. And let a party of the believers witness their punishment. [This punishment is for unmarried persons guilty of the above crime (illegal sex), but if married persons commit it (illegal sex), the punishment is to stone them to death, according to Allah’s law]. (Hilali and Khan; the additions in parentheses and brackets are theirs).

This hadith represents others on Muhammad’s policy concerning adultery.

. . . Then the Prophet said, 'Take him away and stone him to death." Jabir bin 'Abdullah said: I was among the ones who participated in stoning him and we stoned him at the Musalla. When the stones troubled him, he fled, but we overtook him at Al-Harra [rocky place near Medina] and stoned him to death. 

This gruesome hadith passage reports that a woman was buried up to her chest and stoned to death, her blood spurting:

. . . And when he had given command over her and she was put in a hole up to her breast, he ordered the people to stone her. Khalid b. al-Walid came forward with a stone which he threw at her head, and when the blood spurted on his face he cursed her. . . 

Jesus

He zeros in on the root cause of adultery. In the famous Sermon on the Mount he says this about adultery and lust:

27 "You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matt. 5:27-28)

Immediately, this raises the stakes so high that all corporeal punishment is removed; otherwise, all of humanity would kill each other with legalized stoning. These two verses imply that sexual sin is no longer a civil crime or any kind of crime. As usual with Jesus, he goes to the heart of the sin. Adultery and other sexual sins begin in the mind, so the solution to them must also begin in the mind.

As for prostitutes, Jesus let them into his kingdom on their repentance. While in Jerusalem, the chief priests and elders, who were badgering him with antagonistic questions, confronted him. Jesus replies to them.

Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you." (Matthew 21:31)

But first prostitutes have to be forgiven of their sins before they enter the kingdom of God. One day a certain Simon, a Pharisee, invited Jesus into his large house for dinner. Suddenly a "sinful woman" (read: local prostitute) crashed the dinner party and washed Jesus’ feet with her tears, wiped them off with her hair, and poured oil on his feet. The Pharisee became indignant and said to himself that if Jesus really were a prophet, he would know who was touching him and not allow it, for she was unclean. Jesus pointed out to him that Simon had not offered him the customs of hospitality, but this sinful woman was doing this. "Then Jesus said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ The other guests began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’ [This is another New Testament hint of Jesus’ divinity.] Jesus said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace’" (Luke 7:48-50).

This true account shows that Jesus did not order prostitutes and other sexual sinners to be hunted down and flogged or burned alive, even though this one was living in Israel, the Holy Land, and even though the Torah says specifically that a prostitute must be burned with fire (Leviticus 21:9). Instead, Jesus looks at the heart and sees a diamond in the rough. He knows that with his love and power, sexual sinners of all sorts can be changed. So the spiritual solution is forgiveness without condemnation. This is a long, long way from Jesus instituting the punishment of stoning sinners, or even their flogging, as Muhammad would like to reinstitute an old-new Quranic law.

Sura 24:2 more thoroughly, along with adultery. It also cites more hadiths and explores Islamic law, contrasting them with Christ’s new era of salvation.

Here is another back-up article on Muhammad’s punishment of homosexuality, analyzing the Quran, the hadith, and Islamic law. It also explains the Biblical position. Christ offers forgiveness and restoration.