How Allah and the God of the Bible can they be distinguished?
1. Unbounded Enemy Love
Fact: Muhammad waged wars and maliciously raided his enemies. He summoned his followers to kill their enemies.
Fact: Christ did not wage any wars and he did not call anybody to be killed. Rather he commanded in the Sermon on the Mount: “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:44-45) Background: Christ’s God loves His enemies. Muhammad’s God hates his enemies. Romans 5:10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Sura 2:98 Whoever is an enemy to Allah and His angels … then Allah is an enemy to such unbelievers.
2. Selfless Humility
Fact: The Koran denies the crucifixion of Christ. Sura 4:157 says about Christ: “They did not kill him and they did not crucify him, but it was made to appear similar to them (as though he had been crucified.” The Gospel, however, clearly testifies: Christ died on the cross. Even enemies of Christianity (e.g. Atheism or Judaism) accept that Christ was crucified and that he did die.
Background: The God of Christ is humble. The God of Muhammad is proud.
Jesus said: “I am gentle and humble in heart.” (Matthew 11:29) and “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9) Therefore we read in the NT: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (1 Peter 5:5) Why? Because God himself is humble!
Sura 59:23 He is Allah, except whom there is no god. (He is) the King, … the Mighty One, the Tremendous One, the Proud One …”
3. Unfettered Joy
Fact: Muslims deny the Triune God. They say: Allah is not Father, Christ is not the Son of Allah and the Holy Spirit is only a creature of Allah. As Christians, however, we confess: God is one as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He lives as a spiritual Unity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost and not as a sexual diversity of Father, Mother (Mary) and Son (Isa), as the Koran suggests (Sura 5:116). The Son and the Holy Spirit are not additional Gods that were added to God the Father.
Background: The God of Christ is full of joy. The God of Muhammad does not love the joyful.
Part of the secret of the Tri-Unity of God is the joy of Father about the Son, and the joy of the Son about the Father and the joy of the Father and the Son in their Holy Spirit.
The joy of the LORD is your strength. (Nehemiah 8:10) — “And behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying (after the baptism of Jesus), “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” (Matthew 3:17) — “These things I (Jesus) have spoken to you (disciples), that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” (John 15:11) — “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control … ” (Galatians 5:22-23) — “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! ” (Philippians 4:4)
Sura 28:76 Allah does not love the joyful!
Introduction
Many people, even high ranking government officials like former US-president George W. Bush or currently Chancellor Merkel of Germany tell us that Muslims and Christians believe in the same God. Also the media usually come to that conclusion. This judgment is probably based on the similarities between the way the Koran and the Bible describe God. Both proclaim God to be the creator of the world and the judge at the end of times. For both the universe has a finite extension in time: it started at a specific time in the past and it will end one day and everybody will have to take responsibility for his or her acts before the judgment seat of God. Also many attributes of God seem to be the same in the Koran and the Bible. Both describe him as omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, to take just a few similar metaphysical characteristics. Even attributes that we usually associate with the Biblical God can be found in the Koran, apparently unchanged: He is merciful, forgiving and benevolent. On this background it seems to be understandable that the public opinion in Western countries does not get tired of proclaiming that Muslims and Christians believe in the same God.
In this booklet we would like to take a different approach. Instead of focusing on the similarities between the way the Koran and the Bible describe God, we want to look at some differences, which lead us to a completely different result when comparing the God of Muhammad with the God of Christ. We will see that they are so totally different, that it is impossible to reconcile the Muslim faith in Allah of the Koran with our faith in the God of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To do this we will focus on three Biblical attributes of God, which are not only missing in the Koran, but for which Allah has exactly the contrary attribute. These attributes of the Biblical God are His love for enemies, His humility and His joy. In each case we will start with simple facts that can be easily verified when comparing Islam and Christianity. These facts will lead us to characteristic differences between Islam and Christianity. Then we will ask about the spiritual background that is responsible for these differences, which then will lead us to the mutually excluding attributes of the God of the Koran and the God of the Gospel.
1. Unbounded Enemy Love
Let us begin with the following set of facts concerning Muhammad and Christ:
Every Muslim must believe that Muhammad waged wars and that he maliciously raided his enemies. The second most holy book of Islam, the Sira of Muhammad, i.e. his Muslim biography, contains many accounts of the commando actions, attacks and battles of Muhammad. In the most famous version of the Sira by Ibn Hisham, the passages on the around 70 violent undertakings of Muhammad make up 60% of the text. It is very clear from these texts that Muhammad took to the sword, that he summoned his followers to kill their enemies and that through Muhammad and his followers not only some individuals, but tens of thousands of people were killed. Not even humanistic Muslims can deny this historical fact, if you take the sources of Islam seriously.
Christ, however, did not wage any wars and he did not call anybody to be put to death. Not a single person was killed or ordered to be killed by Christ. On the contrary, we read in the Gospel how Christ did not make people die, but how he raised people from the dead. He never told his followers to attack his or their enemies. Instead, he ordered, rather he commanded, in the Sermon on the Mount: “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:44-45) I am not talking about what Christians later on did, when they assumed power in the Roman Empire and afterwards, with many wars and killings in the name of Christ, completely reversing the commands they were given by Christ. I am looking at Christ himself, at how he lived and at what he commanded his disciples to do. There you find no trace of killing or assassination, rather, when Peter wanted to defend him by the sword, Christ told him to stop, explaining that he who takes to the sword will be killed by the sword (Matthew 26:52).
It is important to highlight this fundamental difference between Christ and Muhammad. The latter fought against people and many were killed through him and his followers, while the former did not cause anybody to be killed, but he loved and commanded his followers to love their enemies. I know of no two founders of religions whose behavior is more opposed to each other than Muhammad and Christ. The one hated his enemies to the point of killing them or of having them killed and the other loved his enemies to the point of letting them kill him and in the act even forgiving them their sinful deed. Now my question is very simple: What is the reason for this difference in behavior between Muhammad and Christ? What is the spiritual background or root of this completely opposite behavior? I believe this background can be summed up in this pair of opposites:
Christ’s God loves His enemies.
While Muhammad’s God hates his enemies.
Let me give you a scriptural reference for each of these opposing statements:
In Romans 5:10 we read: “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” It is not we who reconciled ourselves with our God, but it was God who took the first step. We, who are enemies of God through our rebellion and sin against him, were loved by God in spite of our enmity against him. He loved us to the degree that he offered the most valuable thing he had, namely his only begotten son to die for us on the cross so that we can become justified by grace and thus reconciled to God. God paid a huge price to reveal his love for his enemies. God does not only love in a general fashion, but he engages in the seemingly most “impossible” love, namely the love for enemies. This is why Christ commanded us to love our enemies; he does not tell us to do something that he would not do. Because he and his Father in heaven love their enemies, therefore he asks us to love our enemies also. When we love our enemies, we become like the God of Christ who first loved his enemies.
None of this can be found in the Koran. Nowhere do you find the slightest trace of love for enemies with Allah. Instead we find verses like the one in Sura 2:98 which says: “Whoever is an enemy to Allah and His angels … then Allah is an enemy to such unbelievers.” Allah in the Koran not only does not love his enemies, but he even hates them and therefore he fights against them and curses them. If Allah does not love his enemies, then Muhammad, who was sent by Allah, also may not love his enemies and the same applies for all Muslims. This is why you have the approximately 100 verses in Koran that command Muslims to fight against their enemies (e.g. Sura 9:5 and 29). If a Muslim hates his enemies and fights against them, then he becomes like his God of the Koran, Allah. Because he hates his enemies, they also must hate his enemies. Because he fights his enemies, they also must fight his enemies.
Now we can understand the difference in the behavior of Muhammad and Christ. Muhammad waged wars and killed his enemies, because he was under the influence of his God, Allah, who hates and fights against his enemies. Christ, however, did not fight against his enemies, and none of his enemies were killed by him or by his followers, because he only did what he saw His Father doing. His God did not hate, but loved his enemies; therefore Christ also loved his enemies to the point of delivering himself up to death, teaching his disciples to do likewise. You see how different the God of Muhammad and the God of Christ are? In view of this attribute of love towards enemies these two can never be reconciled. Either God loves his enemies or he does not love them, but to say that these two are the same it a flat lie or a superficial dream.
2. Selfless Humility
This brings us to the next set of facts, this time about the Koran and the Gospel.
The Koran denies the crucifixion of Christ. In Sura 4:157 we read about Christ: “They did not kill him and they did not crucify him, but it was made to appear similar to them (as though he had been crucified.” Muslims therefore contest the historical facticity of the crucifixion of Christ. They say, not Christ, but only someone who looked like Christ was crucified by mistake. A judicial error occurred at the time of Christ and an innocent person was mistaken to be Christ and thus crucified. But the true Christ was rescued by Allah from the hands of his enemies and raptured alive into heaven, where he now lives until his second coming. Muslims do not care about the meaning of the crucifixion of Christ, that He died in atonement for our sins, because they must believe on the basis of the Koran, that He was never crucified in the first place.
The Gospel, however, clearly testifies: Christ was killed on the cross and therefore died. The elaborate passion stories about Christ in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all agree that the culmination of the suffering of Christ was his crucifixion which ended fatally for him. The Koran says: “they did not crucify him”, but in John 19:18 we read: “they crucified him”. On the basis of the Gospel there can be absolutely no question about the historical fact of the crucifixion of Christ. We can point to the fact that even enemies of Christianity accept that Christ was crucified and that he did die. The strongest enemies of Christianity are the Jews. Many of them disagree with us as to how Christ was killed and where he now is (in hell and not in heaven). But none of them ever contests that our Christ was crucified. For them he died a violent death. Also atheists, like communists, even though they strongly deny his resurrection, nevertheless agree with us, that Christ died. Only pious Muslims, as it were against all reason, must deny the crucifixion of Christ, because the Koran forces them to do so.
It is important to be aware of this simple but profound difference between the testimony of the Koran and that of the Gospel. If you talk with pious Muslims about religions matters and touch on Christ and His death for us on the cross, then you will invariably encounter the vigorous and decided rejection of the cross by every Muslim who follows the Koran. Now my question again is very simple: What is the reason for this difference between what the Koran says and what the Gospel says? What is the spiritual background or root of this completely opposite testimony? I believe this background can be summed up in this pair of opposites:
The God of Christ is humble.
The God of Muhammad is proud.
Let me again give you scriptural references for each of these opposing statements:
Already in the Old Testament we find traces of the humility of the Biblical God: God did not choose the inhabitants of an impressive empire like that of the Assyrians or of the Egyptian Pharaohs as his people, but this very modest heap of people that are called the children of Israel. Even in the Torah of Moses this is taken to be a sign of the humility of the God of Israel. (Deuteronomy 7:7f)
Of course we can see the humility of God much more clearly in the New Testament: Jesus, according to the Gospel account, only once spoke about His heart. But in doing so He revealed one of his deepest characteristics. In Matthew 11:29 He said: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” If you look into the heart of the Lord Jesus, you find humility. He also said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9) If you look into the heart of Christ you therefore look right into the heart of God the Father. Just like Jesus, the Father is also full of humility. The Father did not save mankind all by himself, but he entrusted this important act into the hands of the Son. Also the Holy Spirit is humble. Christ said: “He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” (John 16:4) The true Holy Spirit of our God does not glorify himself, but makes Christ big. Then we read: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (1 Peter 5:5) Why? Because God himself is humble! If we become humble, we become like the God of Christ.
Paul tells us that we should follow the example of Christ and be likeminded as he was, who in humility gave up his heavenly glory to become a simple human being and “being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8) Without the humility of Christ he would never have become incarnate and much less would have taken upon himself the shameful death on a cross. The humility of God is essential to the Gospel message of the vicarious death of Christ on the cross.
In the Koran, however, there is not the slightest trace of humility in God. On the contrary, you find statements like the following describing God: “He is Allah, except whom there is no god. (He is) the King, … the Mighty One, the Tremendous One, the Proud One …” (Sura 59:23). Not only is Allah NOT humble, but he is revealed by the Koran to be proud. For some Muslims this is so embarrassing that they try their best to hide this revelation about the nature of Allah by translating differently. They say he is not “proud”, but “exalted” or “supreme”. However, even an Arabic child understands that the Arabic “al-mutakabbir” used in the above Koranic verse simply means “proud” or “haughty”. There can be absolutely no question about the true meaning of this Arabic word. This pride of Allah in Islam is one reason why Muslims, when they become powerful, even if it is only in a family setting, often display the characteristics as their Allah: they are proud to be powerful and to rule over others, and do not hesitate to show this whenever necessary. Of course towards Allah a Muslim must display utmost humility. But if a Muslim becomes proud towards other Muslims, especially those subordinate to him, then he becomes like the Allah of the Koran.
On this background you can understand that the God of Muhammad must reject the crucifixion of Christ. If Christ truly is a messenger of Allah, as Muslims believe, then it would be well below the dignity of Allah and even very shameful for him, if he would let Christ die this miserable death on the cross, that we profess in the Gospel message. Therefore Allah must have rescued him from his enemies and must have elevated him to himself, to prove his divine superiority and dignity. In fact, according to the Koran it is already shameful to even think that God would become man in Christ and thus become able to die for us. Thus the pride of Allah in the Koran is the spiritual root for the denial of the incarnation and of the crucifixion of Christ in the Koran. On the other hand, the humility of the God of Christ in the Gospel makes it possible for God to become human and to take upon himself this terrible death on the cross for our sakes. You should never underestimate the consistency of the message of the Koran: Christ cannot have died on the cross, because this would be contrary to the pride and dignity of Allah. But also never underestimate the spiritual consistency of the Gospel either: God became man in Christ and He died for us on the cross because He is a humble God. This shows you again, how different the God of Muhammad is from the God of Christ. It is impossible for these two to be one: either God is humble and became man to die for us on the cross, or he is not humble and did not become man nor did he die on the cross. But to say that these two are one and the same is again a flat lie or a superficial dream.
3. Unfettered Joy
This brings us to the last set of facts at the borderline between Islam and Christianity, this time concerning Muslims and Christians in general.
Muslims deny the Triune God. Based on the Koran they say that Allah is not Father, that Christ is not the Son of Allah and that the Holy Spirit is only a creature of Allah and not divine. In fact this opposition to the heart of the Christian faith is mirrored in the fact that Muslims in the Middle East often start their letters with the Koranic statement: “In the name of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate”; while Christians in the Middle East frequently start their letters with the Biblical statement: “In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”.
As Christians we confess: God is one as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He lives as a spiritual Unity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost and not as a sexual diversity of Father, Mother (Mary) and Son (Isa), as the Koran seems to suggest concerning our Christian faith (Sura 5:116). The Son and the Holy Spirit are not additional Gods that were added by us Christians to God the Father, and therefore our Biblical faith does not commit the most heinous blasphemy of Islam, namely associating other beings to God as usurpers of His divinity. No, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one with the Father and therefore they do not constitute a divine triumvirate but a Tri-Unity.
Again it is difficult to ignore this fundamental dissent between the average Muslim and the average Christian. Whenever you try to share the truth about the Triune God of the Gospel with a Muslim you will usually experience a quick end of the discussion, because the Muslim vehemently opposes this fundamental Christian belief. My question here again is very simple: Why are Muslims so strongly opposed to the heart of our Christian confession about God? What is the spiritual background or root of this antagonism in our opposing confessions concerning God? I believe this background can be summed up in this pair of opposites:
The God of Christ is full of joy.
The God of Muhammad not only is not joyful, but he even does not love the joyful.
Part of the secret of the Tri-Unity of God is the joy of Father about the Son, and the joy of the Son about the Father and the joy of the Father and the Son in their Holy Spirit. This mutual delighting in the other is based in the fact that the God of the Bible is full of joy. Here are some references that highlight this decisive characteristic of the biblical God:
Already in the Old Testament we read: “The joy of the LORD is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10) Yahwe, the LORD, the God of Israel, is full of joy and his joy is the source of the strength of anyone who puts his trust in HIM. This is why it was a joyful matter for the people of Israel to gather in feasts at the temple in Jerusalem. When you come into the presence of Yahwe, you get in contact with the joy of God.
This joy of God is revealed in an even deeper way in the New Testament: In connection with the baptism of Jesus we read: “And behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.’ ” (Matthew 3:17) How can you be pleased with someone without being happy and full of joy about him? The Father was filled with joy seeing His Son going the road that God chose for the salvation of mankind. Furthermore, Jesus himself said to his disciples: “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” (John 15:11) Jesus could only give joy to his disciples, because he himself was full of joy. And in giving his joy to his followers their joy became complete. Fullness of joy can only come from Jesus. Finally, the fruits of the Spirit of the Father and of the Son are not only love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and so on, but the second most important fruit of the Spirit is joy, as Paul tells us in (Galatians 5:22-23 “The fruit of the Spirit is love, JOY, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control …”). Again, how could the Holy Spirit bring about the fruit of joy, without himself being full of joy? Therefore Paul does not tell us “Rejoice with the Lord, or before the Lord, or because of the Lord!”, rather he commands us to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4) We can only rejoice IN the Lord, because he is the source of all joy! The more you are full of joy, the more you become like the God of Christ.
The joy of God is responsible for the fact that the Father can be happy about the Son and that the Son can rejoice about the Father and that both of them can share their joy with us through their Holy Spirit. What makes the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be distinguishable from each other is rooted in the joy of God. Without their mutual joy about each other, they could not be THREE in one. In this sense the joy of the God of Christ lies at the heart of the Tri-Unity of the God of the Gospel.
None of this testimony about the joy of the biblical God can be found in the Koran. Nowhere is Allah ever described as being full of joy or even sharing his joy with others, let alone human creatures. Instead we find a statement about Allah in the Koran that is shocking for people coming from the Gospel of Christ. The Koran literally says: “Allah does not love the joyful!” (Sura 28:76) Not only does Allah have no joy, but he even loathes the joyful. This is why Muslims never sing in their mosques. Have you ever heard or seen Muslims singing during their worship services in mosques? Why is this so? When you sing, you can be joyful. But Allah does not love the joyful. Therefore Muslims may not even start singing in mosques. When you come into the presence of Allah you must be solemn and earnest, because Allah is your Lord and you are his slave as a Muslim. There is no room for joy in this relationship. We as Christians, however, sing in our church services, because when we sing, this can be an expression of our joy. And we are encouraged by our God to be full of joy about God, because he is full of joy about us loving him and having fellowship with him. This shows you again, how different the God of Muhammad is from the God of Christ. It is impossible for these two to be one: either God is full of joy, as we Christians experience, or he is not full of joy as Muslims experience. But to say that these two are one and the same is again a flat lie or a superficial dream.
On this background you can understand why Muslims reject our faith in the Triune God. Since Allah is not full of joy, he would never be happy about anybody sharing divinity with him. He would immediately be offended by any such being and he would regard it as a usurpation of his divinity. Therefore Allah always keeps his categorical distance to every other being. No Muslim can ever hope to have such a relationship to Allah as to be his child and him to be their father. Allah could not be full of joy about such creatures coming too close to him and therefore he keeps his creatures eternally as his slaves. Even in paradise Muslims do not have fellowship with Allah, for he remains highly elevated above them for ever, for there is no joy in Allah.
For Muslims this is even more the case for a being that is taken to be equally divine like Allah. Allah would not be happy about such a being, and therefore according to Muslims it could never exist. Even if it existed, then on the basis of the Koran chaos would ensue in the Godhead. For according to the Koran God is proud. If Allah were Father, Son and Holy Spirit, then according to the Koran the Father would immediately try to elevate himself above the Son, and the Son would try to become better and more important than the Father and the Holy Spirit would strive to outwit the Father and the Son to become even more prominent. The result would be a revolution in the Muslim Godhead! The Trinity, if it were to exist in Islam, would have to explode and with it all of creation. Therefore God cannot be three in one according to Islam. And thus for Muslims the concept of a Tri-Unity of God is a highly unstable configuration, because for them God must be proud.
We however get a glimpse of why the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit can be ONE in spite of them being distinguishable. The humility of the biblical God is one reason why they do not start a war against each other, but rather always remain one: The Father is humble with respect to the Son, because he did not tell him: “I will take care of the salvation of mankind myself!” Rather he entrusted our redemption into the hands of his Son. This is a sign of the humility of the Father towards the Son. Conversely, the Son said: “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42) The Son did not seek his own glory, but the glory of the Father (John 17:4). This is a sign of the humility of the Son with respect to the Father. Equally, Christ promised that the Spirit, whom the Father and He would send to us, “will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” (John 16:14) “He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak.” (John 16:13) This is a sign of the humility of the Holy Spirit towards the Son and the Father. Without this mutual humility of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit towards each other, there could be no unity among them. And therefore we as Christians do not need to fear any instability in the Godhead because of the Tri-Unity of God. Each one of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in humility wants to make the other two get all the credit and therefore they can remain one.
In fact, according to the message of the Gospel even if there would be war within the fellowship of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, there would still be enough strength for the three to remain one. For they are bonded to each other by the common attribute of not just love in the general sense, but of the most difficult type of love, namely love for the enemy. Even if the Father would become the enemy of the Son, then these two would still remain one in love, because the Son, like his Father, wants and is able to love his enemies. In fact this is what happened on the cross of Golgotha. The Son, by taking up our sins, became an enemy of the Father for our sakes, and the Father because of his righteousness had to execute His wrath against the Son who substituted for us sinners on the cross. But the Son loved the Father, who for our sakes had become His enemy, and thus held through the Tri-Unity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit right through the very act of vicarious punishment for our sins in the crucifixion in Christ.
Conversely, in Islam God does not love his enemies. Therefore it would again be impossible for Father, Son and Holy Spirit to remain one when Christ is on the Cross (which Muslims contest). For then Christ, by experiencing the enmity of the Father against himself as our substitute, would, according to Islam, have to answer that with at least an equal amount of animosity against the Father and therefore bring war into the Godhead. Thus Islam rejects the Tri-Unity of God, the incarnation of God in Christ with his crucifixion and the very act of our redemption on the cross in Christ, because Allah has attributes that are exactly opposite to those of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit that make the Tri-Unity of God and our salvation possible.
Conclusion
Let me sum up. We have started out with three sets of facts that characterize the differences between Islam and Christianity:
1. Muhammad waged wars, but Christ did not have anyone killed.
2. The Koran denies the crucifixion of Christ, while the Gospel proclaims it.
3. Muslims reject the Tri-Unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, whereas we Christians accept it as the heart of our confession of faith in God.
I have tried to show how these antagonistic facts have as their spiritual background or root three pairs of opposites in the Muslim and Christian professions concerning God.
1. Christ’s God loves His enemies. While Muhammad’s God hates his enemies.
2. The God of Christ is humble. The God of Muhammad is proud.
3. The God of Christ is full of joy. The God of Muhammad not only is not joyful, but he even does not love the joyful.
These pairs of opposites lead us to conclude that Allah and the God of Christ cannot be one and the same. The God who hates his enemies, who is proud and who lacks joy cannot be the God who loves his enemies, who is humble and who is full of joy. Allah cannot be the Father, the Son and Holy Ghost. This makes sense even logically: How can one and the same God at the time of Christ, send his Son into the world to die for the world, how can this same God six hundred years later, at the time of Muhammad proclaim to the world: “Sorry, I was mistaken. I do not have a Son and he did not die for you on the cross.” It is impossible for these two to be the same. Either God has a Son and he died on the cross, or he does not have a son and he did not die on the cross! But to say that the God of Christ and the God of Muhammad are one and the same is either a sign of ignorance or a cunning lie promoting a different agenda.
Since the general public in the West today proclaims the identity of Allah with the God of Christ, it has become more important than ever for us followers of the Lord Jesus to ask our God for the spiritual gift of distinguishing between spirits (1. Corinthians 12:10). It is my prayer that Christ would use this little booklet to help you understand how in our days the Allah of the Koran and the God of the Gospel of Jesus Christ can be clearly distinguished.
Peter Al/Chinese