Home > Surah 5 - The Table Spread
1. The Certificate of Preservation:
The command "let the People of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein" certifies that the text in their possession was authentic and legally binding. Because 7th-century manuscripts match the modern New Testament canon, the core doctrines contained within them are validated by this divine mandate.
2. The Identity of the Text:
The mandate is addressed to a living community holding a physical scripture. If the true Gospel were a lost text rather than the New Testament used universally by the 7th-century Church, the command would require judging by an inaccessible standard, making it impossible to fulfill.
3. The Inescapable Legal Loop:
The verse labels those who do not judge by this revelation as "defiantly disobedient." This creates a contradiction: if a Christian obeys and judges by the Gospel, they must affirm the crucifixion and divinity of Christ, which falsifies the Quran. If they abandon it, the text condemns them.
This verse is the "closing of the trap" for the Islamic Dilemma, as it moves from describing the Gospel as a historical light to commanding its current followers to use it as their absolute legal and spiritual standard.
Surah 5:47:
And let the People of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein. And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed - then it is those who are the defiantly disobedient.
If a King commands his subjects to follow the laws in a specific book, is he not guaranteeing that the book is the authentic law? By commanding Christians to "judge by" the Gospel, Allah is certifying that the Gospel sitting in the churches of the 7th century was the authentic Law of God.
If that Gospel was authentic then, and it matches our manuscripts today (like the Codex Alexandrinus), then the Gospel’s claim that Jesus is the Son of God is a "Judgment of Allah" that Christians must follow.
Muslim apologists often claim the "True Injil" was a lost book given to Jesus but Surah 5:47 commands the People of the Gospel (Christians) to judge by what is in it.
Christians have only ever had the New Testament (the four Gospels). If the "True Injil" was a different, lost book, Allah would be commanding Christians to judge by a book they didn't possess. This would make the command impossible to fulfill. Therefore, the "Injil" in this verse must be the New Testament.
Use the second half of the verse to create a "Checkmate."
If a Christian obeys Surah 5:47 and judges by his Gospel, he must believe in the death and resurrection of Christ. If he believes that, he rejects the Quran.
If the Christian follows the Quran's command to judge by the Gospel, he becomes a "non-Muslim." If he ignores his Gospel to follow the Quran, the Quran calls him "defiantly disobedient" for not judging by the Gospel. The Quran has commanded the Christian to follow a book that refutes the Quran.
Surah 5:47 is the final legal seal on the authority of the Bible. By making the Gospel the mandatory standard of judgment for Christians, the Quran removes any ground for the "corruption" argument.
The irony is profound: the Quran threatens Christians with the label of "disobedient" if they fail to follow the very book that proves Muhammad’s message to be a departure from the previous revelation.