There are a number of things about Islam that make my heart hurt. One of these is their uncertainty in reaching Heaven. Christians are promised eternal life if they admit they’ve sinned and believe Jesus was God and that he died and rose again to save us from our sins. However, Muslims are never promised heaven.
Christianity is all about our relationship with God. God created us to be in a relationship with him, but then we turned away. The whole Bible then describes how God fought to win us back. Heaven is the conclusion when believers are finally able to enter into a perfect relationship with God as he intended from the beginning. Christianity is about giving up ourselves for the good of another. God gives himself up for us, and then we give ourselves up for him. Not for a gain, but out of love.
Islam sees it more as a business contract. If we please God enough, he’ll grant us access into heaven. This is why it is absurd for them to think that we could be promised heaven, because if they were promised heaven in their business contract, why would they ever fulfill their side of the contract? Of course this is a shallow Muslim’s perspective. Many would say that they obey and glorify God because they love him.
According to the Quran, getting to heaven is all a matter of doing more good things than bad, but they have no idea how many good things cancel out a bad thing. If you steal a pack of gum, do you need to pray five times to cancel out the bad? Or is it just one time? Or do you need to give $25 to the poor?
Imagine having to take a college class. If you pass, you can get an amazing job. If you don’t pass, you will be locked away in prison for the rest of your life. Say this class lasted a year and you had to attend every day of the week. There are assignments, homework, and attendance is mandatory. The problem is you never see your grades. You don’t know how much any of the assignments are worth. You could be sitting at a comfortable 100%, or barely getting by at 5%. You would never know until the final day of the class when you discover what the rest of your life will look like. That’s the stressful situation every Muslim must face.
Some Muslims would say that God wouldn’t make it too hard to get to heaven. As long as you do what you are supposed to, then you can be comfortable knowing God will accept you. However, not even their perfect messenger Mohammad knew for sure if he would make it to heaven.
The only guide we have to knowing how many good things balance out a bad act is in the story of Adam of Eve, and almost all Muslims don’t understand the connection. This is the strategy that we use.
Muslims believe Adam and Eve were in heaven before they ate the fruit. We start by asking them how long they think Adam and Eve were in heaven. Six months? A year? Ten years? One-hundred years? Usually they decide ten years is a safe bet. Then we go on to say that since they were in heaven, everything they did was good. Say they did ten good things a day, which is on the low side. After ten years that would equal 36,500 good deeds.
If they did 36,500 good deeds, how many bad deeds did it take to get them kicked out? Answer: one. They ate the fruit and that was enough for God to kick them out. If thousands of good deeds still aren’t enough to cover one bad act, then how could anyone expect to earn their way to heaven.
Once they see the ratio of 36,500 to 1 as being insufficient they will understand just how impossible it is to get to heaven according to this logic. It may even seem to them as if no amount of good deeds will ever cover a bad deed, which is exactly what the Bible says. This opens the door for the gospel message. We can’t earn heaven and actually deserve Hell no matter how many good things we do.
I hope this strategy works for you as it has for us. You may need to explain the logic in this approach several times at several different occasions because it’s easy to forget the truth of it. As always, comment below if you have a question.
Click here for Reaching Muslims Part 3: Love, Justice, and Holiness
