I am a Muslim, why should I consider becoming a Christian?

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 key point, however, is that, whether in the East or the West, Islam is a religion of self‑reliance and self‑effort. Muslims, who are trying to follow a religion that puts the responsibility for their salvation squarely on their own shoulders (or on kismet), can only do their best and hope that Allah might have mercy on them. As people whose confidence is not in themselves but in the God who sent His Son to reconcile them to Him, Christians have incredibly good news to share with Muslims who are willing to listen.

Salvation and redemption are in Him alone—this is both a divinely revealed and proven fact. It is proclaimed in the gospel of God, it is proved in the experience of multitudes of true believers. The actual bodily resurrection of Christ, after His sacrifice for sin had been completed, and His exaltation to the right hand of God’s throne are facts, but it is equally true that the knowledge of God the Father is through Him alone, notwithstanding popular discourses on the universal Fatherhood of God. The Son said, “Neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” And none can know the Father apart from Him.

It is Christianity in contrast with Judaism or any other earthly religion. To enter through the door is to believe on Jesus the Son of God. He that does is on His word assured of salvation; "he shall be saved." This, mark it well, is given to him that enters through Christ. No such assurance attends another than the Son of God. He is the Saviour, and none else. The church consists of the saved, but cannot save: only Christ can and does. A false church may set up to save; the true church repudiates such a pretension as a lie and a blasphemy. She is but the body, He is the Head; she is the bride, He the Bridegroom. She, being true, is jealous of His honour; she rejects with horror all thought of setting herself in His place as of Satan. She has the Spirit now, as He had when here; but the Spirit does not glorify her but Him. All her privileges are in virtue of Him, and are rightly turned but to His praise.

Salvation then, as it is of God's grace, is through Christ. "Through me if any one enter, he shall be saved." It is not for the Jew only but for the Gentile also; it is for "any one." But he must enter through Christ. Through Me if any one enter, he shall be saved. He may be baptised and be lost; he may take the Lord's Supper, and be lost. If any one enter through Christ, he shall be saved. This He declares; and His words shall endure when heaven and earth pass away.

When John wrote his epistle it was a matter of common knowledge that a man — Jesus of Nazareth — had appeared in the world and died on the cross. There was no particular need to testify as to that. The testimony that had to be rendered concerned the truth as to who He really was and what He came to do. Hence we declare that He was the Son, sent of the Father, with the salvation of the world in view. All those who receive the Christian witness believe on Jesus as the Son of God, and confess Him as such. Now, whosoever does so confess Him, "God dwells in him, and he in God."

"Look to me and be ye saved," says Christ. The moment a soul looks, in simple living faith, that moment it has salvation, for it has the Saviour. Christianity is no dry set of doctrines, for the mind to take in, but it is Divine truth and blessing for man, wrapped up in the person of the Man Christ Jesus, who came down and did a work upon the cross by which all my sins are put away, and who is gone up again into the glory, Himself to draw your heart and mind to Him up there; and now the Holy Ghost has come out, and says "You trust Him!" And oh, will you not trust Him? He is worthy of all your heart, shall He not have it!

Not by our efforts, or striving, or religiousness, or church membership can we be saved, but only and altogether through the atoning death of Christ. So the message comes, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must he saved” (Acts 4:12). Many more passages could be quoted, but let these suffice.

How simple is this! How striking! How much we learn from it! Throughout the vast mass of profession around us there are two classes, those who have received God's salvation in the accomplished work of Christ, and those who, rejecting Him, build upon the multiplied forms of false or defective religion with which Christendom abounds. God's way of salvation is simple, as simple as it is complete: "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." (Rom. 10:9.) Christ is God's salvation, and, moreover, it is God's estimate of Christ that forms the basis of the believer's peace. It is very necessary to understand distinctly this latter point. There are many who suffer not a little by looking at their faith, instead of at the Object of faith; in fact, by unwittingly making a kind of saviour of their faith. Now faith is only the hand, as it were, that takes hold of the gift of God, just as the hand of a hungry man takes the proffered bread and conveys it to his mouth. If I have my eye off Christ, and begin to examine the amount of my faith, I must of necessity decline, for He is the only One on whom the sinner's eye can rest. Genuine faith never looks at itself, but only at Jesus. A faithful Israelite would not have thought of going out to look at the lintel of his door, nor yet of examining the amount of his faith. No; he simply rested in the fact put before him in those precious words, "When I see the blood, I will pass over." It was not said, When I see your girded loins, your shod feet, your unleavened bread, I will pass over. These things were most needful, yea, essential, but not to save from the sword of the destroyer. To meet this nothing could avail but the blood of the lamb.

If there is one statement of truth more clear than another in Scripture, and more uncompromising in the language in which it is put, it is this, that redemption is exclusively the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, not that of the Holy Ghost. That faith is the work of the Holy Spirit, is another question. As a Saviour, and a perfect Saviour, putting away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, Jesus says, "Look unto ME, and be ye saved." "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:14-15.) If what is so extensively termed sanctification (i.e. progressive advancement in holiness), is necessary to salvation, it might well be asked, How much would do? He who knows God will know also that he must be as perfect as He is perfect, or neither God or himself could be satisfied. But not only is this robbing the cross of Jesus of its power, and making His blood inefficient, but, as its result (how completely in this, as in everything, is wisdom justified of her children), we have nothing but an unhappy and unfruitful church, hardly knowing whether it is saved or not, knowing enough of itself to understand that it comes short of God's glory; and therefore, to get itself into peace (as looking to "sanctification," and not to Christ), it must reduce the standard of obedience, bringing down God's character that it may somehow come up to it, and so be satisfied with itself. Thus the ingenuity of unbelief will torture the simplicity of God's word into something that will impose a burden, when God's love has sought to remove it; and those who are thus self-tasked, or taught by another gospel than that of full and unconditional love, have to run in fetters, with the brightness of the prize for which they contend obscured by intervening clouds of fear and doubt as to God's willingness to bestow it on them. But thus saith the Lord: "Whosoever believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." (John 3:36.*) The whole Word, in its testimony to the Lord Jesus, speaks of Him as manifesting God as a Saviour; and it is in the faith of this that the troubled spirit gets peace, not to be found elsewhere. It sees the God it feared becoming, in His love to the sinner, the sinner's Saviour, and therefore it has confidence towards God; for who can doubt, if God becomes a Saviour, the perfectness of the salvation? Its completeness is the soul's security; and faith in it, as perfect and complete, gives peace, and instant peace too. It was thus the gospel (which is "glad tidings," the expression of God's love to sinners as sinners) was received when it was first believed on in the world. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," was the Spirit's reply to the trembling jailer, and he rejoiced in God. (Acts 16) "If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest," was the prompt answer to the Ethiopian: "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God," was the happy expression of his saving faith; "and he went on his way rejoicing." (Acts 8:37, 39.)

To be saved therefore, to have eternal life, you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is thus a question not of doing, but of believing. For it is now, not what the sinner can do, but what Christ has done, for "He took what I had earned; I get the fruit of what He has done." Therefore it is, and ever must be, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." There is no other way; and hence salvation is always connected with faith. Take a few instances: "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace" (Luke 7:50); "Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole" (Luke 17:19); "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life" (John 3:36); "He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation (judgment); but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24); "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life" (John 6:47); "To Him give all the prophets witness, that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins" (Acts 10:43); "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5:1, etc. etc.).