Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?

Posted on Aug 11, 2016 in General |

Every now and then someone makes the assertion “Muslims and Christians really worship the same God.” It’s a comforting thing to say, because what it means is that even though you call him Allah, and I call him Jehovah, we’re really on the same page theologically. People make statements like this in an attempt to minimize the differences between religions.

It’s important to recognize that the reason we hear things like this is because we live in an age where tolerance and inclusion are the only acceptable standards by which to operate. According to the policy-makers of our culture, we must accept everyone as equal and every practice as acceptable. If you state that someone’s beliefs are wrong, or that their lifestyle is out of line, you are a bigot. To avoid this, people try to find every possible indication of commonality

between people and even invent ways in which we are the same, so no one feels left out.

The problem with emphasizing areas of commonality or stating things like “We all believe in the same God,” is that it glosses over major areas of disagreement between groups and religions. And when it comes to Muslims and Christians the differences between us are very great. The main divisive issue between Islam and Christianity is, quite simply, the gospel. The gospel is what the Christian faith is all about – that God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into this world to die as a ransom for our sins, so that we can have eternal life by believing in his name.

It’s one thing to say that both Muslims and Christians believe in one sovereign and supreme God who is Creator and Lord and we must worship and serve him alone. But how that plays out is vastly different between the two. As an example, in this country, both Liberals and Conservatives believe that there is a position of leadership called the Prime Minister and that one person, duly elected by the people, should fill that office and exercise certain powers in that office. However, they will fight like cats and dogs when it comes to deciding who it should be to hold that office and what kinds of decisions he should make when he gets there.

The same is true with the person of Jesus Christ. Muslims believe that Jesus was brought into being by a special act of creation of Allah. They believe he performed miracles during his life. But they do not believe that he is divine and they do not believe that he died on the cross. The Bible says that “whoever believes in him (Jesus) should not perish but have eternal life.” Believing in Jesus means believing what the Bible teaches about him – that he is God’s Son, that he is equal with the Father, that he lived a sinless life, that he died on the cross for our sins, that he rose again the third day, and that he ascended to heaven to sit at the Father’s right hand.

So the question that needs to be asked is this: Did Allah have a son named Jesus, who was born of a virgin and after living a sinless life was crucified for our sins? The answer to that question is “No”. That means that the answer to the original question of whether Muslims and Christians believe in the same God is “No”. Aside from this, there are many other aspects of the nature of God that show that Allah and Jehovah are not the same, but this answers the basic question of whether they are one and the same God