Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?

Regarding God: Muslims believe there is no God but Allah; Christians believe that God is revealed in Scripture as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three persons who are coeternally God (see Matt. 3:13‑17; 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14). Regarding Jesus Christ: Muslims believe that Jesus was only a man, a prophet below Mohammed in importance, who did not die for man's sins; Christians say Christ is the Son of God, the sinless Redeemer who died and rose again for sinful man (see John 1:13,14; 1 Pet. 3:18). Regarding sin: Muslims claim that humans are born with hearts that are clean states. if they commit sins, these can be overcome by acts of the will; Christians counter that we are born corrupted by sin, spiritually dead apart from God's grace, and that no one does good apart from faith (see Rom. 3:12; Eph. 5:8‑10). Regarding salvation: Muslims say that Allah does not love those who do wrong, and each person must earn his or her own salvation; Christians contend that a loving God sent His Son to die for our sins, according to the inspired Word (see Rom. 5:8; 1 Cor. 15:3,4).

The Bible has had an important influence on the teachings of Islam. For instance, the Muslim proudly traces his ancestry to Ishmael, a son of Abraham. Muslim beliefs about the nature of God, the resurrection of the body and judgment are roughly similar to the teachings of the Bible. But there are some striking differences. Following are some of the Muslim ideas that contradict what is taught in the Bible.

For Muslims, God is one, period. The Qur'an explicitly attacks the Christian teaching on the Trinity, saying that anyone who ascribes "partners" to God is committing the sin of shirk (blasphemy). This prohibition is explicitly directed against the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and the teaching that Jesus is God. Many Muslims are also erroneously taught that Christians are really tri‑theists who believe in God the Father, Mary the mother and Jesus the Son. This grotesque caricature of the Trinity is a complete misrepresentation of what biblical Christians believe and what the Bible teaches.

Muslims also teach that Allah is transcendent (all‑powerful) and relatively impersonal. Of the 99 names ascribed to God in Islam, "Father" is omitted (to avoid the idea of the Father and the Son). This is in stark contrast to the Bible and to Jesus' own teaching, which says that God is our personal heavenly Father. (Compare passages on God's greatness, such as Ps. 77:10‑15 and Isa. 43:13, with passages on God's love, such as Dent. 7:8; jet. 313; Eph. 2:4; 1 John 3: 1; 4:7.) While one of the 99 Muslim names for God is "the Merciful," He is not viewed primarily as a dispenser of love and grace but more as a righteous judge to whom the Muslim must give account."

The Qur'an denies that Jesus is the Son of God, although it describes the virgin birth in a passage similar to Luke 1:26‑38 (see Surah 3:45‑47). The Qur'an calls Jesus a prophet, equal to Abraham, Jonah and others; but places Him in rank far below Mohammed. Surah 4:171 says that "Jesus ... was only a messenger of Allah.... Far is it removed from His transcendent majesty that He should have a son."

Mohammed totally ignored what the New Testament says about Jesus' divinity (see, for example, Matt. 8:29; 17:5; John 1:1‑5; 8:58; 10:30; 14:9; 20:28, Col. 1:15‑17; 2:9). instead of admitting that verses like these exist, Muslims claim Christians have changed the Bible.

Another important question is as to God. It sounds reverent to say, "There is only one God," "God is one," "God the eternal," etc.; but is this God they speak of the only true God revealed to us in the scripture? It is not. God is LIGHT, and the Koran is thorough darkness, and in no way reveals the true God, nor the way that a guilty man can approach and be accepted by God. Again, God is LOVE, and the Koran breathes of hatred and vengeance. God is HOLY, but the Koran sanctions lust and impurity. And besides all this, it joins with the declaration of the oneness of God, that Mahomet is His prophet; and as we have seen, he could not possibly have been a prophet of God.

Early in life he showed signs of a markedly religious disposition. He was given to dreams, practised fasting, retired betimes to caves in Mount Hira near Mecca for seclusion and meditation. It is said that he was subject to fits of epilepsy. He claimed to receive many revelations from God through the agency of the Angel Gabriel. The polytheism, that is the worship of hundreds of thousands of gods, which he saw all around him, he rejected, and emphasised that there is only one God. He refused the Christian faith of three Persons in the one Godhead — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — and denied the truth of the Scripture which says: "The LORD (Jehovah, singular) our God (Elohim, plural) is one LORD (Jehovah, singular)." (Deut. 6:4).

As to his creed, if it can be said that he had any, it was copied partly from the Old and New Testaments and from various other sources. Of the Lord Jesus he says, "The Messiah Jesus, son of Mary, is only an apostle of God . . . . God is only one God. Far be it from His glory that He should have a son." "Infidels now are they who say, God is the Messiah, son of Mary." "God is one; God the eternal; he begetteth not, neither is He begotten; neither is there any One like Him." He may have learnt this from the Arianism of the professing Christians he had met with.

His followers claim for the Koran that it is the latest revelation of the mind of God, and that it had been penned under the immediate inspiration of God. The quotations above given settle at once and without dispute that it in no way came from God. It may have � as scholars declare it has � some sublime passages; but anything that denies the divinity of Christ, cannot be from God.

Even though the Bible never uses the word "trinity," Christians teach the doctrine of the Trinity, namely, the one eternal and living God, always existing as God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. This leads some religions to reject the Trinity on the grounds that it sounds like Christians worship three gods, not one. It is true that Deuteronomy 6:4 states, "The LORD our God, the LORD is one." But it is also true that the Old Testament uses the plural form elohim for the word "God" 2,346 times . (See, for example, Gen. 1:26; 11:7.)

The Old Testament emphasised that there is one God and that beside Him there is no God (Deut. 6:4; Isa. 44:6). The New Testament presses the same truth: ‘For God is one, and the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus’ (1 Tim. 2:5). Christians do not believe in three Gods, as is sometimes alleged, but that the one true God is triune in His being. The full truth concerning the Trinity is revealed in the New Testament though there are verses in the Old Testament that hint at it (e.g. Gen. 1:1, 26; 11:7).

"Hear, O Israel ! The LORD our God is one LORD." Much has been made of this verse by orthodox Jews, who reverence it greatly. They call it the "Shema" after the first word "Hear." It is often used by Jews and Unitarians to deny the three persons of the Godhead. The Hebrew word "echod" (one), however, excludes forever such a denial, for it means a compound unity. The Hebrew has another word which expresses exactly what Jews and Unitarians, who reject the three persons in the Godhead, believe. It is the word "yochid"; this has the meaning of a single one.

Here in this very majestic declaration of the Oneness of the Godhead, care is taken to state it consistently with the truth afterwards revealed concerning the Three Persons of the Godhead—Father, Son and Spirit. These Three Persons, of one Substance, completely united in thought, will, purpose, counsel, are not three Gods, but One God, not a tritheism, but a Holy Trinity. We cannot understand the mystery of all this, but this truth lies at the very foundation of the Christian faith.

Here in the very affirmation of the unity of the Godhead, there is emphasized the truth of the Trinity, Three in One and One in Three—one God. There is no room for Unitarianism in Genesis 1.