Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?

Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?

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There is a growing myth that needs to be exposed.  Recently, an influential evangelical pastor reportedly has declared that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.  This misunderstanding is found in the broader misunderstanding that all the monotheistic religions worship the same God.  A.     According to Eerdman’s handbook of religion “Judaism is the oldest of the three great monotheistic religions and is the parent of both Christianity and Islam.”  The assumption then is since we have a common ancestry, we must then have a common God.

Now, beside the fact that if one is to read the Koran he or she will discover that the Allah of the Koran is quite different in nature then the God of the Bible.  But let’s not argue that particular point.  For those of us who are Christians, the authority of Scripture must be the foundation upon which we build our world view on this important question.

I believe that there are two key passages which help us answer the question as to whether or not we who name the name of Christ and those who follow the prophet Mohammad are in fact trying to approach the same God.

Our first passage is found in Acts 17.  Paul is in Athens and he has observed the multiplicity of ways in which the Athenians were trying to approach God.  “So Paul stood up in front of the council and said: People of Athens, I see that you are very religious. As I was going through your city and looking at the things you worship, I found an altar with the words, “To an Unknown God.” You worship this God, but you don’t really know him. So I want to tell you about him. This God made the world and everything in it. He is Lord of heaven and earth, and he doesn’t live in temples built by human hands. He doesn’t need help from anyone. He gives life, breath, and everything else to all people. From one person God made all nations who live on earth, and he decided when and where every nation would be. God has done all this, so that we will look for him and reach out and find him. He isn’t far from any of us, and he gives us the power to live, to move, and to be who we are. “We are his children,” just as some of your poets have said. Since we are God’s children, we must not think that he is like an idol made out of gold or silver or stone. He isn’t like anything that humans have thought up and made. In the past, God forgave all this because people did not know what they were doing. But now he says that everyone everywhere must turn to him. He has set a day when he will judge the world’s people with fairness. And he has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death.” (Acts 17:22–31, CEV)

Notice a number of key points Paul makes: (1) it is possible to be religious yet deceived.  He says, “You worship this God, but you don’t really know Him.  If one stops and thinks about it for a minute, if the Bible is true and “Only Jesus has the power to save! His name is the only one in all the world that can save anyone.” (Acts 4:12, CEV), then one of Satan’s most diabolical devices is any belief system that points people anywhere else but to Christ.  Indeed, Paul makes this point in the text above.  (2)” In the past, God forgave all this because people did not know what they were doing. But now he says that everyone everywhere must turn to him. He has set a day when he will judge the world’s people with fairness.”  May I put this in plain English, people who try to get to God any other way beside Christ are worshipping in vain; they are spinning their wheels so to speak.  (3) The third key point Paul makes is that the resurrection of Christ has “sealed the deal” and in judgment Allah will not save you, Mohammad, will not save you, Moses will not save you, Abraham will not save you, Buddha will not save you, nor will any of the 300 million gods of Hinduism.  Only Christ can save you.

Now, let’s jump back to a very key passage of Scripture found in John 8.  Jesus is in a debate with the Jews.  They claim, “The only Father we have is God himself.”  (John 8:41).  Look carefully at Jesus’ response:  “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” (John 8:42–47, NIV84).  And earlier in John 8 Jesus says something quite astonishing, and, if I may be so bold, quite clearly.  Look at John 8:19, “You do not know me or my Father.  If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”

What did Jesus just say?  Very simply He says clearly and firmly that the only way to know the true God is by knowing Him.  If I understand this correctly, Jesus has just claimed that unless we recognize Him, we cannot recognize God.  Therefore, any religion that worships any God apart from Christ is not worshipping the One True God of Heaven!

Now, before you start crying “Bigot,” “Elitist,” and start telling me to “read the rest of the Bible,” etc., etc., let me remind you of two other very important passages of Scripture.  John 14:6 and Matthew 26:39.  In John 14:6 Jesus makes a very startling claim, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6, NIV84).  Notice here please that Jesus does not claim to be a way to God, but He claims to be the only way to God.  That “no one” is a universal exclusive.  So if you are going to call anyone a bigot, and an elitist, and arrogant, you need to start those accusations with Jesus since he is the one who made the claim.

Many of course want to argue that Jesus really said no such thing.  It is amazing how selective we get when it comes to wanting to believe what we want to believe.  Many claim to accept the authority of Scripture except when they say something they don’t want to hear, then they start all sort of mental gyrations to get it where they want it.  One of my favorite is the guy who told me, “Well, Jesus didn’t mean that He was the only way to God, what He meant was His way of love is the only way to God.” 

So put John 14:6 aside for a minute, and look at Jesus’ prayer in the Garden. “Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.’” (Matthew 26:39, NIV84).  What is Jesus asking for here?  He is asking the Father if there is any other way of salvation; any other way men might be able to get into real fellowship with God, any other way men might be able to enter the Kingdom of God, then, please, don’t let Him go to the cross.  Does He go to the cross?  If the answer is yes, then the corollary to that is there is no other way to heaven except through Jesus the Christ.

Years ago, after a trip, I came home and received some very bad news; news no one wants to hear—ever.  I was told that a biopsy had revealed not only a cancer, but the fastest growing cancer known to man.  Not good news.  Let me ask you a question.  Wouldn’t it have been more loving for my doctor and then my wife (who delivered the news to me), just to keep quiet about it?  Not to tell me the truth about my condition?  Obviously the answer is no.  The most loving thing they could do was to tell me the truth, give me the prescribed course of treatment and then let me decide whether I would believe them and follow the advice, or if I would deny the advice and frankly die.

Strange to me at least that we can understand that logic on a physical level, but on the spiritual level where we are dealing with eternal matters of life and death, we think it is more loving to let people believe in that which is not true rather than run the risk of offending them.  I weep when I realize some believing Muslims strap bombs to themselves, blow up innocent people (it matters not if they are infidels or other Muslims) believing that they are going to wake up in Paradise.  But if what Jesus said, is true, they wake up instead in an eternal hell.  Oh, wait, I guess it is not loving for me to point that out is it.

Whatever you think on this matter is ultimately between you and God.  I for one am going to rest on the authority of the revealed Word of God rather than upon my own wishful thinking.

Animosity Toward Religion Part 2

In my last article I began a discussion of the issue of religion and modern man’s distrust for it. I expressed my view that much of that distrust comes because of two factors: (1) the abuse of religion in general and at times Christianity in particular and (2) because of societies desire to be free from restriction. Like those who lobby for the removal of the motorcycle helmet laws, we do so to our own detriment. Or, to use another example, we want the freedom to use tobacco without consequence, but when the natural consequence of tobacco use occur, we want to blame the tobacco industry and make them pay for our own willful actions.

In this arena we call life, there is also no such thing as freedom without responsibility. Freedom for sexual expression has cost us dearly in physical and psychological disease. It seems we would rather live with the consequences of our desires than to submit to the rules of the Creator. When the rules of the Creator interfere with our desires we seem to be laboring under the delusion that all we have to do is remove the Creator and the consequences will somehow disappear!

Why is it that so many are willing to live with loneliness, emptiness, guilt and fear of death rather than recognize the claims of God upon their lives? We have in fact been guilty of cutting off our proverbial noses in spite of our proverbial faces. Like the nicotine addict, we know our habits are deadly, but we think we can escape their consequences. It is in this desire to escape the consequences of our own evil tendencies that has caused many to reject any and all claims of religion, or, if we don’t reject religion, we simply want to construct our own religion–a religion that says it’s okay to live the way we choose to live.

Experience shows the fallacy of such belief. Violent crime is something we are learning to live with. Sexual exploitation is for the most cases ignored (though we wonder why sexual perversion produces victims). We decry child pornography but defend the legal right of those promote it under the guise of “free speech” and the personal right of perverts by arguing that no one has the right to judge another–to say what is right or what is wrong. Most would rather spend an eternity in hell than admit such a place exists. Most would rather curse God for making one way out of our horrible predicament than thank him for making that way out. It is at this very point that the very religion we disdain is in fact our one true friend. Not religion in general, but Christianity in particular.

Religion is man’s attempt to reach God. The Bible describes such attempts as vain and misguided. In fact, in one place the Bible says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” (Proverbs 14:12 NIV). And the Bible reminds us over and over again that it is possible to have a misguided zeal for God–we seem to want God, but we refuse to accept what God says! Such a man will never find God. The Bible says, “Not all who sound religious are really godly people. They may refer to me as ‘Lord,’ but still won’t get to heaven. For the decisive question is whether they obey my Father in heaven. At the Judgment many will tell me, ‘Lord, Lord, we told others about you and used your name to cast out demons and to do many other great miracles.’ But I will reply, ‘You have never been mine. Go away, for your deeds are evil.’” (Matthew 7:21-23 TLB). So even some who claim to be “Christian” have missed the boat. I can claim to be a relative of George Washington, but that claim means nothing if I can’t show through the genealogical record that relationship. Similarly, a person may claim to be a Christian, but that claim means nothing if they don’t show the family resemblance or recognize the very basis of their claimed relationship. That basis is found in 1 John 5 by the way. It includes first and foremost a recognition of the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is basic. If you don’t recognize that, you are not a Christian and the only way around the 1 John 5 claims is to reject its claims and design your own definition of Christianity. It is this designer version of Christianity that has many rejecting the only real hope they have in this life. They look at the caricature of Christianity, reject that, and never take time to discover the love of God found in and through the person of Jesus Christ.

Animosity Toward Religion Part 1

We live in an age where there is a definite distrust toward religion and in some cases outright animosity. Jean-Pierre Lehmann, in an article entitled, “The Dangers of Monotheism in an Age of Globalization” (The Globalist, 30 March 2006) writes, “I am a great believer that the progress of civilization requires the gradual eradication of all forms of established religion.” This is nothing new. Both the Humanist Manifesto I (1933) and II (1973) call for a similar eradication of religion.

Before you dismiss the above as extreme and this article as alarmist, think for a minute of the popular representation of religion in the media industry. Let anyone suggest a “right and wrong” notion and we are compared to fundamental extremist ready to enforce our beliefs by force given the chance. Those who agree with the political left are applauded, those who do not are demonized and warnings are broadcast alerting us of the religious right who are trying to hijack democracy. It seems that in our society everyone has a right to their opinion except conservative Christians. The majority applaud any group who wishes to impose their moral values on society but decry the right of groups who disagree with decadent views and seek, through the same political process to stop the proliferation of such views. So one group comes arguing for the right to publish pornography for example and if anyone dare oppose that “right” they are labeled extremist or worse–they are called “the religious right.” Then society is warned about their tendency to censure the rights of others. We forget that on a daily basis the rights of the majority are being censured by the outcry and frivolous lawsuits of the few who oppose religious expressions. For example millions have been spent in the Mount Soledad Cross issue alone, not only in defense of the Monument, but in fees paid through our tax dollar to the ACLU and fines imposed by the Courts on Cities should they fail to comply with such ridiculous demands.

Now my point is not to argue a political perspective, but rather support, by example, my thesis statement: that this is an age of distrust for religion and in some cases outrage against religion. The battle in our schools over the ability to continue to teach a totally non-scientific theory of origins as if it is legitimate science while decrying all opposing views as “religious propaganda” is an integral part in the battle to eradicate religion from the face of the earth. Make no mistake about it, that battle will mostly be won and if you want to read about what we can expect in such an “enlightened” world, read Revelation (the last book in the Bible) chapters 6-19.

I would not dare suggest that atrocities have not been committed in the name of religion. September 11, 2001 forbids such a contention and history records atrocities that have been committed in the name of Christianity as well. Sadly such atrocities are real (as in the Inquisition, Crusades, etc). Other times such tragedies are not real (for instance many claim that the Holocaust was carried out by men who believed in Christianity. We forget that Hitler was not a Christian, Hitler accepted both the theory of Darwinian Evolution and Nietzsche’s “God is dead” philosophy and used those beliefs to justify not only the murder of 6 million Jews but 7 million Christians as well–that is a story we forget. Hardly the actions of a “Christian.”) Erwin Lutzer observes, “We should remember that the number of people who died under the hands of an intolerant church is minute in comparison to the number of people who have died under the hands of intolerant humanistic states.” (Lutzer: “Exploding the Myths That Could Destroy America” Moody Press, 1986 pp. 19-20).

I am not arguing that the vast number of deaths inflicted upon mankind by those who have no religion ( a number in the millions), justify the deaths of those inflicted upon mankind inflicted upon mankind by the church (a number in the thousands). One death in the name of Christianity goes against the very tenants of Christ. I am not arguing that evil has not been done under the guise of Christianity, what I am arguing is that such acts are not Christian. I may commit a crime under an alias, but I promise you this: the laws of our land will not prosecute John Jones for my crime, though I may use his name. No! Mr. Jones’ will be cleared when it is proven that I acted in a way that he would neither agree with or participate in. Yet many are willing today to reject the name of Christ because of the criminal acts of individuals who dare use his name to support actions he would never condone.

Apologia

More often than not I listen to the talk radio programs in my car instead of music. It seems like the playlist of the radio stations runs the same songs over and over again until I find myself disliking a song that at one point I really liked. Anyway, I was listening to a radio program on the way to work and it was one I had not listened to before. The guys doing the commentary portion were amiable enough and had touched on some interesting political discussion, but then the subject turned to faith. One of the fellows said he didn’t buy into “book based” religion. And he added that “if God was going to give us something in written form, it would be something of an astounding scientific nature that would confirm His existence.” I think the DJ was right and wrong. The Bible does present certain facts about creation that would have been astounding to the first readers and generations of readers, but I think he is wrong in that God would give us purely science when what we needed most was redemption.

The ideas and truths of the Bible that speak of the intricacies of His creation would have been hard to understand to the original readers. Not only that, some of its assertions has been hard to grasp for thousands of years. Think of what the Bible says about blood. Blood has been referred to as “our red river of life.” But it wasn’t until 1628 that the medical doctor William Harvey discovered that human blood circulates. Physicians had long developed their own theories about blood and how it was related to a person’s overall health. Consequently, the practice of draining small amounts of blood from a sick person came about to get rid of the “bad blood.” America’s first president died from a series of blood letting in an attempt to make him well. Could it be that ever since that time the politicians have been bleeding us to death to get even? Sorry, I couldn’t resist that last statement.

The truth about the nature of our physiology was given to us thousands of years before Washington or Harvey. Moses wrote in Leviticus 17:14 that “the life is in the blood.” The blood is the life of all flesh. It is only in the past few centuries that this was not considered an astounding revelation, but at its inception it was millennia ahead of any science. One of the reasons I trust the Word of God is because these types of facts are verified throughout its pages. Sometimes they are immediately verified, and some times it takes awhile for man-made science to discover its truth.

Jehovah's Witness Conference at the Gwinett Center

I get junk mail. You get junk mail. I get cyber spam and you do, too. Sometimes I get those flyers left under my windshield wiper offering a pizza for half price. I am not complaining, just pointing out facts. Sometimes I get the leaflets attached to my mailbox or even stuck in my door. Recently, I got an invitation stuck through my front door to a big conference at the Gwinnett Center in July.

The invitation was to three full days of Jehovah Witness teachings. It is a special program called “The Watch” and would focus on end times teachings. Also, it let me know I could send off for a free book that would tell me “what the Bible really teaches.” Maybe you have received the same invitation or had a recent visit from the JW crowd. As I read it over a couple thoughts came to mind. First of all, their gathering is centered on the end of the world teaching. This is nothing new to them. They have been predicting dates and sounding the alarm for a hundred years. They will name a date; people will get scared, sell their possessions and wait. Then the date passes and a new revised date will be proclaimed. People will get scared, sell their possessions and wait. False alarm again, but the JW faithful hang in there. Then another prophecy comes along and a new date is set. Guess what happens? People get scared, sell their possessions and wait. I don’t know if this conference is set up to reveal the next big prediction, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

The other thing I thought about with the leaflet was the book offer. This sounds like a very gimmicky way to capture interest by offering something to really enlighten you. The issue isn’t their interpretation of the Bible, it’s the Bible itself. The JW Bible is a Bible only used by them. It is unlike your NIV, KJV NASB or any other one you might find at LifeWay. Sure, the books and chapters and stories sound almost identical. However, by changing a word per chapter or a few in a book they subvert what is meant to be communicated. It sounds like minor changes and in the whole volume of scripture it is. But what you end up with is a teaching that is blaspheming the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ. Their specialized Bible translation is a dangerous invention that is carefully disguised. They teach their beliefs and convince their listeners based on it. They are blind leading the blind into the same ditch. Pray for them. But I would caution with advice from 2 John 1:10. “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him.” If anyone wants to present another gospel to you, such as the JW, then it’s best not to even welcome them. Throw away the flyers, the invitations and whatever else they bring. And if you want a concise and authoritative presentation of what the Bible teaches, then get A Survey of Bible Doctrine by Charles Ryrie.

Your brother,
Jason