"What's in a name?"

Submitted by Lactantius Jr (United Kingdom), May 1, 2007 at 11:11

To Moderate Muslim

In writing:- "Jews and Christians are afforded special respect because they are Ahlal Kitab, people of the book.They are mentioned in the Quran and worship the same God as Muslims,"

you present a claim which is readily examined, is it true? Words are so important aren't they? expressing everything we mean and believe, and we communicate that meaning and belief with words, the Bible saying God's Name is not Allah, but Yahweh/Jehovah. God spoke further to Moses and said to him, "I am Yahweh (YHVH) and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty; BUT BY MY NAME, YAHWEH, I did not make myself known to them." Exodus 6:2-3 "God said to Moses, I-AM-WHO-I-AM. Tell the People of Israel, I-AM sent me to you. God continued with Moses: This is what you're to say to the Israelites: GOD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob sent me to you. This has always been My name, and this is how I always will be known." Exodus 3:14-15

Neither of these Names of the Biblical God occurs in the Qur'an, the Name Yahweh appearing nearly 7,000 times in the Old Testament ("The Taurat"), but NEVER in the Qur'an, and there is no evidence that Muhammad even knew them. It can be readily shown from the Injil that the Lord Jesus Christ claimed to be Yahweh/Jehovah, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, as this example clearly demonstrates:- "And Jesus said I tell you the truth, anyone who obeys My teaching will never die! The people said, Now we know you are possessed by a demon. Even Abraham and the prophets died, but you say, Anyone who obeys My teaching will never die! Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are? Jesus answered, If I want glory for Myself, it doesn't count. But it is My Father who will glorify Me. You say, He is our God, but you don't even know Him. I know Him. If I said otherwise, I would be as great a liar as you! But I do know Him and obey Him. Your father Abraham rejoiced as he looked forward to My coming. He saw it and was glad. The people said, You aren't even fifty years old. How can you say you have seen Abraham? Jesus answered, I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I AM! At that point they picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus was hidden from them and left the Temple." John 8:51-59 The Injil saying this of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who was and is God. "In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through Him, and nothing was created except through Him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and His life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it." John 1:1-5 "Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation." Colossians 1:15 "For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body." Colossians 2:9 "While we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, will be revealed." Titus 2:13 In Surah 29:46 the Qur'an makes the self-destructive claim that Our God and your God is one but the following quotations from Bible and Qur'an demonstrate why Surah 29:46 self-destructs. "This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased" Matthew 3:17, 17:5 "No son did Allah beget" Surah 23:91 "And they crucified Him, and parted His garments, casting lots; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet" Matthew 27:35 "They killed Him not, nor crucified Him" Surah 4:157 Surah 29:46 is often used by some Muslims, to try and fool those who don't know any better, but see how Palmer renders Surah 4:171 "O ye people of the Book! do not exceed in your religion, nor say against Allah aught save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, is but the apostle of Allah and his Word, which He cast into Mary and a spirit from him; believe then in Allah and his apostles, and say not 'Three.' Have done! it were better for you. Allah is only one god, celebrated be his praise that he should beget a Son! His is what is in the heavens and what is in the earth; and Allah sufficeth for a guardian." and contrast this with what the Bible says:- "Anyone who denies the Son doesn't have the Father either. But anyone who confesses the Son has the Father also." 1 John 2:23 Turning to what sort of God is portrayed by the Bible, and what sort of Allah is portrayed in the Qur'an, there are many, many differences in the natures and characters of the Biblical God and the Qur'anic Allah, but space precludes doing any other than focusing on the crucifixion and the Glorious resurrection from the dead of the Lord Jesus Christ, on which Christianity absolutely stakes its claim to validity. Well may the Apostle Paul have written, "and if Christ wasn't raised from the dead, my preaching's useless, and so is your trust in God." 1 Corinthians 15:14 and if we were to know nothing else about Islam, except knowing about its denial of Jesus' crucifixion, claiming that Allah put a "lookalike" on the Cross, what would that tell us about the character of Allah? but that he is a deceiver, with deception thus being at the very heart of Islam. Unlike the God of the Bible, Allah is good at lying, according to the Qu'ran, Allah schemes, "and is the best of schemers" Surah's 3:54 and 8:30 with the Arabic term used for scheming being makara which denotes one who is a deceiver, one who is conniving, a schemer. It is always used in a negative sense. Allah is thus seen as the best of deceivers, the premiere schemer and conniving one. Compare and contrast Allah's deceitfullness with the nature and character of the God of the Bible Who cannot lie, and the following Scriptures may all be read using the Online Bible at:- http://www.biblegateway.com/ Deuteronomy 32:4 Numbers 23:19 Psalms 89:35; 100:5 Isaiah 53:9 John 7:18;14:6;17:17 Ephesians 4:21 Titus 1:2 Hebrews 4:15;6:18;7:26; 1 Peter 2:22 1 John 3:5,7 The God revealed in the printed Word of the Bible, and supremely in the living, loving Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ cannot lie however, that's right, He can't lie, or do anything else which as "the way, the truth and the life" John 14:6 is contrary to His Character, stated in both Taurat and Injil :- "God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent.Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?" Numbers 23:19 "And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. For He is not a man, that He should relent." 1 Samuel 15:29 "A faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, Who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time," Titus 1:2 "............so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul............" Hebrews 6:18-19 "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with Whom there is no variation or shadow of turning." James 1:17-18 There are definitely things the God of the Bible cannot do, and lying is one of them, He and the Qur'anic Allah cannot therefore be the same person. Period. A vast difference between the God portrayed in the Bible, and in the Qur'anic portrayal of Allah, is in that of God's unconditional love compared/contrasted with Allah's conditional love, demonstrated by the following quotes from Bible and Qur'an:- "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8 Now when we search the Qur'an, we will not find this kind of spontaneous unconditional love from Allah. It says very little about Allah's unconditional love for mankind. In the Qur'an, Allah's love is an expression of approval, solely to those who do good. "Say: ‘Obey Allah and His Apostle: But if they turn back, Allah loveth not those who reject Faith." Surah 3:32 "And spend of your substance in the cause of Allah, and make not your own hands contribute to (your) destruction; but do good; for Allah loveth those who do good." Surah 2:195 There are other profound differences between the character of the true and living God of the Bible, and the Qur'anic Allah, but to itemise them all would only belabour the point already made, but for those intent on comparing/contrasting just what the Bible says about the nature and character of God, and what the Qur'an says about Allah, the following Internet publications are a good source of information. Is Allah The God Of Bible? http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/god.htm The Love of God in the Qur'an and the Bible http://www.answering-islam.org/Gilchrist/love.html God so loved the World.......... http://www.word.org.uk/god_so_loved.htm

Allah of Islam, Is he Yahweh God of the Bible? http://www.answering-islam.org/Responses/Abualrub/allahs_identity.htm Conclusion The all-Holy God who stepped into recorded human history ~2,000 years ago as the Lord Jesus Christ, is not the Qur'anic Allah. Allah (whoever he is) may have 99 names, but Father is not one of them, and he doesn't have a Son. He is the eternal solitary, who the Qur'an portrays as a mathematical unity, a deceiving, capricious figure, utterly remote from human beings, and utterly unlike the God portrayed in the Bible. Allah is not the God and Father of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and John Ashworth, the US Attorney General at the time of 911 showed he understood the Islam of Muhammad very much better than his president, by saying, "The key difference between Christianity and Islam is that the God of the Bible sent His Son to die for us, whilst Allah requires our sons to die for him."

Who will you serve ‘moderate Muslim?'

With kind regards and best wishes Lactantius Jr.

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