I have a friend (call him Jeremy) who was a youth minister and is now a senior pastor, who was explaining to me how he had witnessed to a teen-aged Muslim boy, telling him that he did not need to leave his Muslim faith, but only to “add Jesus” as the son of Allah. This post is written for people like Jeremy, who mean well, but lack knowledge.

For the purposes of this post, I will be contrasting Allah of the Quran with YHWH of the Bible–both Old and New Testaments, which amounts to YHWH of the Christians, as the Jews don’t acknowledge the New Testament. I believe
Allah to be a far different person from YHWH of the Jews, too, but we won’t get into that here.

First, Jeremy’s suggestion to his young Muslim friend (we’ll call him Abdul) that Allah had a son, and His name is Jesus was highly confusing to Abdul. The Quran is adamant that Allah would not be a father, that he would not have a son, and that such an idea is ridiculous and an abominable suggestion. So there-in is our first contrast. The God of the Christians has a Son, Jesus, and that Son is divine and co-equal with the Father. Allah has no son, nor would he.

Second, the God of the Christians is a triune God. Here is a picture that the Holy Spirit gave me a couple of days ago of the Trinity:

  • Think of the sun. It is a great fire–a nuclear reaction of incredible power. We cannot approach it–we cannot even truly see it. We see only the light that comes to the earth from it. The sun itself is like God the Father.
  • The light and heat that comes from the sun to the earth are like Jesus, the Son of God. This is the way that the sun manifests itself to us–through the light and energy that goes out from it. Jesus is continually going out from the Father. He says that He never does anything except what He sees the Father doing first. The light from the sun takes some time to reach us. By the time we see it, we are looking at things that have already happened in the near past. What we see Jesus doing is a picture of what the Father has already done. Jesus is the expression of the Father, and whoever looks on Jesus has seen the Father.
  • The sun sends out rays of light, but we don’t see these rays of light as they travel. The “going forth,” the path of the light and other rays and their traversing of space and time is done by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who speaks to the hearts of men, revealing Christ to us. Mysterious and unquantifiable, but very much vital, very much there. The Holy Spirit never points to Himself–only and always to Jesus, who is the visible manifestation of the invisible God.

My Christian readers may or may not feel that this is a good representation of the concept of the Trinity, but my Muslim readers will be in agreement that Allah is strictly ONE and only ONE. Muslims see Christians as polytheists. Christians often feel puzzled by this. We see this as a gross misconception of our beliefs. We believe in one God who manifests Himself in three individual and distinct persons. Some Muslims I have read seem to believe that Christians worship the Father, the Mother (Mary), and the Son. This is not accurate. Christians worship God, manifested in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So, Allah is one and only one.

YHWH commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel (the good news of Jesus). He is not willing that any should perish, but wishes that all should come to repentance. God loved us while we were yet sinners–His enemies. God is pleased with the righteous, but He is angry with (note–He does not hate) sinners. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Christ came into the world to save sinners.

Allah leads some men to the truth and others he leads astray, as he wills. Allah is a deceiver. He commands all men to repent, but then he prevents some men from obeying his command by causing them to believe a lie. Allah is a liar, and hates certain of the persons he has allegedly created.

These are three differences only (and there are many, many, many more, also vital differences), but they are sufficient to show us that YHWH and Allah are not the same person. If you were trying to introduce a speaker and you said first that he had a prominent son, and second that he was one of three partners, and third, that he was a man who loved his enemies, and the speaker contradicted you on all these points, you might reasonably conclude that someone had given you the biography notes for an entirely different man. The points I’ve listed prove that YHWH and Allah are not the same. I can back them up with quotations both from the bible and the Quran, but this post is long enough already. If you are a Muslim and have studied your Quran, you will know that I am not misrepresenting it, and if you are a Christian and familiar with your bible, you will likewise know the same.

Either the Muslims and the Quran are right, or the Christians and the bible are right. We cannot both be right, for we contradict one another. Choose this day Whom you will serve, but choose wisely. Allah is the god of Muhammad, the brilliant military conqueror and ofttimes merciless torturer and executioner. Muhammad is Allah’s spokesman–his prophet. YHWH is the God who took on Himself the penalty for our sins, nailing them to the cross in Himself, that we might have eternal life. Jesus is the Son of YHWH–the risen and triumphant Son who offers you life and forgiveness; a future and a hope. Therefore, as YHWH commands all men everywhere: Choose life that you may live; both you and your children.

Blessings and Peace, Cindy