DO CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS WORSHIP THE SAME GOD?
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: Phone Call
1. Three men wanted to make a phone call from Hell to remind to their relatives about its harsh conditions. Their Nationalities were American, Italian and Polish. So they went to Devil who is the boss.
2. The American made a call and the Devil made him to pay $1,000. Then the Italian made a call and the Devil made him to pay 100 Euros because Italy is less developed than the USA.
3. LASTLY the Polish man made a call and the Devil made him to pay a 10 cents. Both the American and Italian complained that the price difference wasn’t fair.
4. The devil responded to them, "The Polish call was a local call whereas yours were long-distance calls."
[From a Polish website]
HUMOR # 2
1. Three university students were caught in North Korea and sentenced to be shot as spies. One was from UT, one from SHSU, and the 3rd was from A & M.
2. The commandant ordered they be shot one at a time by firing squad. They brought out the Longhorn and stood him in front of the pole. He pointed up and shouted, "Tornado!" The soldiers all ran for cover and he climbed the wall and escaped.
3. Next, they brought the Bearkat in front of the firing squad. He pointed at the mountain and yelled, "Earthquake!" The soldiers all panicked and ran and the Bearkat escaped.
4. Last up was the Aggie. He had learned from the other 2 students to distract the enemy with a disaster. So as the firing squad prepared to shoot, he looked around and shouted, "Fire!"
B. WHY THE CURRENT DEBATE
1. In a post December, 2015, that included pictures of her wearing a headscarf, Larycia Hawkins, who teaches political science at the Wheaton Christian college in Illinois, shared her religious sentiments.
2. “I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book…we worship the same God.”
3. On December 22, Wheaton College announced the decision to suspend Dr. Hawkins due to theological reasons; her comments violated the college’s statement of faith.
4. This caused furor among those promoting universalism or the idea that all faiths lead to God.
C. THESIS
1. So I want us to look into this vital subject, which is the subject of current debate.
2. So we’re going to look at the subject, “Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?”
3. We’re going to look at:
a. Does the Name of God matter?
b. Are we inconsistent between Allah & Jehovah?
c. What are the real doctrinal differences between the God of the Bible and the God of the Quran?
I. DOES THE NAME OF GOD MATTER?
A. SOME SAY IT’S THE SAME GOD
1. Some theologians argue that Christianity and Islam, both Abrahamic faiths, have similar beliefs, including a shared belief in same God.
2. Several years ago, a bishop in the Netherlands attracted controversy when he argued that Christians should call God “Allah” in order to lower theological tensions.
3. He also argued that calling God “Allah” would be commonplace in Christian churches within a century and that this would lead to a synthesis of Islam and Christianity.
4. According to that survey, 46 percent of Americans agreed that Christians and Muslims pray to the same God, while 47 percent disagreed.
B. IT’S MORE THAN JUST A NAME!
1. To change the name of God is to redefine the God we reference. It’s no small matter.
2. As a matter of fact, God takes His name very seriously, and the Ten Commandments include the command that we must not take the name of the Lord in vain/ tamper with His name.
3. We are to use the names God has named Himself. Any confusion about the name of God will lead to confusion about the nature of God, if not to idolatry.
4. An Islamic court in Malaysia ruled that only Muslims can use the name “Allah” in print publications, saying, “The usage of the word will cause confusion in the community.”
5. In the Bible, God reveals Himself to us in many names. These names are His personal property. We did not invent these names for God. To the contrary, God revealed these names as His own.
[Points in this section are from Albert Mohler’s article, “Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?”]
II. ARE WE GUILTY OF INCONSISTENCY?
A. ALLAH VS. JEHOVAH/ YAHWEH?
1. Some writers accuse Christians of inconsistency;
“There is some inconsistency among Christians who argue that Muslims’ rejection of Jesus as savior means that they do not worship the same God. These Christians do not hold the God of Israel in the Old Testament to the same standard.”
2. In other words, they point out that Jews don’t necessarily believe in the Trinity or that Jesus is the Son of God, but that we give the Jewish God a pass, but not the Muslim God.
B. JEWISH GOD = CHRISTIAN GOD
1. Jesus Himself said that the Jews possessed a superior revelation of God to even closely associated groups.
2. “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews... the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks” (John 4:21-23, NIV).
3. I would disagree with the detractors by saying the Jewish God is the same as the Christian God because of:
a. Its many hints of the Trinity in the O.T.; Gen. 1:26; 11:7-8; 19:24; etc.
b. The Jewish O.T. does mention God having a Son up to 5X (Ps. 2:7,12, Prov. 30:4; Dan. 3:25; Zech. 12:10).
c. The conception of the Messiah among the Jewish teachers, at least during the N.T. era, was that He would be the Son of God.
4. When Jesus was questioned by the Sanhedrin, they asked, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” Mt. 26:63 (also Mk. 14:61).
5. Therefore the Jewish Bible agrees, in our view, with the N.T. and the Christian teaching about the nature of God and salvation.
III. MAJOR DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES
A. WHO GOD IS: FATHER, SON & HOLY SPIRIT
1. “Allah has no son, and, thus, Christians cannot know God as Allah. In this light, Muslims and Christians do not only use different names for God; in reality, these different names refer to different gods.”
2. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
3. The entire message of the Gospel is that God – a real, loving Father – gave His only Son up for our salvation. The entire meaning of the Gospel is abrogated without a real Father and a real Son.
4. The nature of God is central to his motive and his means of redeeming the human race.
5. Allah is not motivated by love for humans. Allah cannot have a son. Islam teaches that the doctrine of the Trinity is blasphemous.
B. SIN & SALVATION
1. For Christianity, humans are corrupted by an inherited sinful nature that cannot be overcome by any human means (Ephesians 2:1-10).
2. But Islam denies that human have a deeply sinful human nature, claiming that we sin because we are merely weak and ignorant.
3. Christianity teaches that salvation is secured only through faith in the achievements of Jesus Christ – his life, death, and resurrection (John 3:16-18).
4. Islam, however, implores its followers to obey the laws of the Qur'an in the hopes that they will be found worthy of paradise. In other words, you will get to heaven by your good works. [Douglas Groothuis]
5. EXCLUSIVISM OF CHRISTIANITY
a. The Lord Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” Jn. 14:6. Peter said; “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” Acts 4:12.
b. John 3:36 says, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on Him.”
c. Paul said, “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” Gal. 2:21.
d. If there was any other way, as Paul said, then Christ died in vain! The Bible is very clear -- only through Jesus Christ can a person be saved from sin.
C. WE BECOME GOD’S CHILDREN BY ADOPTION
1. Jesus taught us, “This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven…’” Mt. 6:9. It’s more than a concept in Christianity that God is our Father.
2. We are “born again” (John 3:5,7) of God’s Holy Spirit, Jesus actually comes to live in our hearts, we are adopted into the family of God, made heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. It’s a family thing.
3. God is pictured in Luke 15 as a prodigal father running to hug his erring son who’s finally come home.
4. No such intimacy or love exists between the austere Allah and his followers. They are not indwelt by the Spirit or have their inner nature changed by the resurrection power of Christ.
5. The God of the Bible has almost no resemblance to the God of the Quran, except for being the creator and monotheism.
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION
1. In the final analysis we find ourselves face with the same situation as Elijah on Mount Carmel, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him” (1 Kgs 18:21).
2. Or possible of the Apostle Paul on Mars Hill in Athens, 22 “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. 24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” Acts 17:22-31.
B. THE CALL
1. Let’s pray for Christians everywhere that they not fall into error, and for the non-Christians, that they not be deceived into accepting a false understanding of God.
2. Time of prayer.
