Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? This question is more difficult than it first appears. I’ve discussed this issue many times with friends and there seems to be a lot of confusion or misunderstanding about it. About 15 years ago I recall reading a book on this issue. The book is titled “Is the Father of Jesus the God of Muhammad?” by a prominent Protestant Theologian, Timothy George. This will not be a thorough analysis of the question, but I will highlight some of the important issues as discussed in this book.
Muslims are followers of Muhammad, who organized the first Muslim community in the seventh century AD, over 600 years after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and thousands of years since the Hebrew Scriptures were first written. Muslims do not regard Muhammad as their founder. He claimed to have received the Quran as a revelation from God. Muhammad did not claim to be anything other than a mortal man and a prophet. He died in 632 AD. Before he died, he claimed that God had chosen Islam to be the true faith.
Here are some critical issues to understand about Islam and Christianity:
· Muslims reject the Trinity, the Incarnation and Divine Grace through the cross of Jesus Christ. The Trinity is the basis for the entire Christian life. To Muslims the Christian belief in the Trinity is not only contradictory but derogatory,
· Christians believe that the God of the Bible is the God who has forever known and who in Jesus Christ has revealed himself to us as the Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit – the Trinity,
· Muslims reject the fatherhood of God, the deity of Jesus Christ and the personhood of the Holy Spirit; each an essential component of Christianity. On the Dome of the Rock, the holiest Muslim shrine in Jerusalem, are written these words: “God has no son.” This is a total contradiction of the New Testament book of Matthew 3:17 “and behold, a voice from Heaven said this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
· Christians believe, as the Bible teaches in John 14:16, that Jesus will ask God the Father to send “another helper,” the Holy Spirit. Muslims believe this is a prediction of the coming of Muhammad, not the Holy Spirit,
· Muslims do not believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross nor resurrected or ascended into heaven,
· Christians believe, as the Bible teaches, that Christ’s death and sacrifice on the cross is redemption for all sinners who believe in Him. Muslims do not believe in redemption.
These are just some of the difference. However, these are major and irreconcilable differences. According to the Bible, the eternal word of God was made flesh and lived on earth as a Jewish peasant named Jesus. For Muslims the eternal word of God was made “text” in the Quran revealed to Muhammad. Unlike the New Testament, which tells the story of Jesus, the Quran provides almost no information about Muhammad’s life. Salvation in Islam is not by faith alone, as the Bible teaches, but by works such as reciting Muslim prayers and by strenuous effort which includes all the pillars of Islam, belief, fasting and pilgrimage. Redemption is not a category recognized by Islam; every Muslim is his/her own redeemer. This is the exact opposite of what the Bible teaches.
Is the father of Jesus the God of Muhammad? Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that the father of Jesus is the only God there is. He’s the creator of everything that has ever lived or existed. No, because Muslim theology rejects the fatherhood of God, the deity of Jesus Christ and the personhood of the Holy Spirit – each of which is an essential component of the Christian understanding of God. To put it simply, we have a different definition of who God is. The brilliant theologian and philosopher, William Lane Craig, explains the issue here in this five-minute video.
Christians believe, as the Bible teaches, that Jesus was put to death on a cross, died and was buried. The events leading to Jesus’ arrest, trial and crucifixion are central to all four Gospel accounts. The cross or death are mentioned in all 27 books of the New Testament. Muslims deny Jesus ever suffered and died on the cross. There can be no Christianity without the cross; there can be no Islam with it. The Apostle Paul says this about the importance of the death and resurrection of Jesus:
“Now if Christ is preached, that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover, we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we witnessed against God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied”(1 Corinthians 15:12-19).
Our culture today emphasizes a form of moral relativism, your truth is true for you and my truth is true for me. There are many ways to God, or words to this effect. This is a logical and philosophical contradiction. There can be only one truth. If I say this is white and you say this is black, we cannot both be right. We can both be wrong, but not both be right. In a terrific book called “Ten Universal Principles” by Robert Spitzer, the Principle of Noncontradiction is explained: “A real being cannot both be and not be the same thing, in the same respect, at the same place and time.” This goes all the way back to Aristotle and is the most fundamental principle in logic. Accordingly, Islam and Christianity cannot both be true.
In the Book of Revelation (Rev 22:18-19), God states the following:
“ warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.”
Again, you cannot reconcile the Bible with the Quran. To believe the Quran, you must reject the Bible. To believe the Bible, you must reject the Quran. There is no way around it. To accept Islam is to deny the Bible or regard it as a best-selling novel. You have to deny that all the prophets of the Bible ever existed, or their story was a fiction. You have to deny that God revealed himself and came to live on the earth as Jesus Christ. You have to deny that all that the Old Testament prophesied was false. To accept Islam, you have to rely on one human being (Muhammad), whom we know next to nothing about for our salvation and deny all that came before him. This runs totally counter to documented history, Biblical prophecy and the word of God as revealed in the Bible.
