The Person of Jesus Christ vs a Book
Here is a major difference between Christianity and Islam: To Christians the Gospel is a person - Jesus Christ. To Islam the gospel is a book: the Qur’an.
Another, similar, difference between Christianity and Islam is: To Islam the Word of God is the Qur’an—a book; to Christians the Word of God is a person - Jesus Christ.
Christianity did (and could again) exist without its book; Islam could not exist without the Qur'an. The Christian faith is founded on the person of Jesus Christ and not on any writer document. This is true because it was the Church that gave us the New Testament, and not the New Testament that give us the Church. This cannot be said of Islam and its book. Islam did not exist until its book was written in spite of Islam wanting to make Adam a Muslim. Without the Qur’an there is no Islam. And here is Islam’s Achilles heel. Their faith rests upon a written book that is questionable, at best. As time goes forward, and the information and social media continues to advance, soon everyone from the grade schooler to the centurion will know that the Qur'an is only the musings of an illiterate Arab, and not the inspired Word of God.
On Biblical Inspiration vs Qur’anic Inspiration:
The Christian concept of “inspiration” of the Bible is different than the Muslim's concept of “inspiration” of the Qur'an. When a Muslim tries to view the Bible with his Qur'anic idea of "inspiration" he is destined to confusion.
Christian: God “inspires” men with truths, then those persons write those truths in their own words. The “inspiration” is from God, but the crafting of the manuscript is man's.
Islam: The angel read to the Prophet the book from heaven, which was the very words of Allah. Then the Prophet had the words of Allah transcribed into a book —- the Qur'an.
For the two sides to understand one another, Christians and Muslims must understand what the other understands as “inspiration.”
An example is Matthew's use of the term “Kingdom of heaven” and the other gospel writers' use of the term “Kingdom of God.” A personal “crafting” of the message is evident. Demonstrating this further is Paul's humanity which comes through in more than one place, e.g. the anger displayed in his writing of the Galatians epistle, and then there is Luke's use of medical terms, because he was a physician. An illustration can be found in a message in tongues in a church service: when the interpretation is given it is just that, the interpretation, not translation. Is the "interpretation" not inspired because it is not a word-for-word “translation”—of course not.
Islam Has No Father, Christianity Does
The teaching of Islam is that Allah is a non-relational deity. Man can never have a loving relationship with Allah, not really. The Bible, throughout, makes it clear that Yahweh God is our Father and we are His sons and daughters. Sadly, however, for the Muslim, of the 99 names of Allah given in the Qur’an, not one of them is “father.”
The sixth line of The Apostolic Creed states: “Thereby, and because of creation, reasonably termed the Father.”
Idea of “FATHER” is one of progenitor, nourisher, protector and upholder. In the Old Testament the concept of Yahweh as Father is not as fully developed as in the New Testament; although, He is acknowledged as such by the Psalmist (68:5; 89:26), and the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah (see Isa 9:6; 63:16; 64:8 and Jer 3:19; 31:9 respectively). Moreover, the New Testament magnified His capacity as creator, nourisher, protector, and upholder of all things in heaven and earth, both visible and invisible (Col 1:16), by His eternal Word (see John 1:1-3 and Heb 11:3 respectively). God’s Fatherhood is abundantly demonstrated in both Testaments.
These fact sets the deity of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures apart from the deity of the Islamic Qur’an. Of the much touted 99 names of Allah in the Qur’an, not one of them is Father. It is acknowledged that for God to be one’s Father implies relationship. Therefore, the God of the Bible is a God of relationship, unlike the god of the Qur’an, who is impersonal and un-relational. Quran 7:180 states: “And to Allah belong the best names, so invoke Him by them.” Alas, since none of his names is “Father”, no Muslim may invoke Allah as “Father”.
The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews writes of the Father-hood of God on this wise: “Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?” (Heb 12:9; cf Zech 12:1). The prophet Malachi acknowledges one Father, who is the one God that created us (Mal 2:10). Congruent with all this is the apostle Paul, who writes: “But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things,...” (1 Cor 8:6). Therefore, the Creed states correctly that because of His acts of creation, it is reasonable to term (call) the one solitary God, the Father.
“The Father is He to whom all that exists owes its origin. He is in Christ; and through Christ, He is the source of all things. Moreover, His existence is existence in itself, and He does not derive His existence from anywhere else. Rather, from Himself, and in Himself, He possesses the actuality of His being. He is infinite because He, Himself, is not contained in something else, and all else is within Him. He is always beyond location, because He is not contained; always before the ages, because time comes from Him.... God, however, is present everywhere; and everywhere He is totally present.
“Thus, He transcends the realm of understanding. Outside of Him there is nothing, and it is eternally His characteristic that He shall always exist. This is the truth of the mystery of God, And of the impenetrable nature which this name Father expresses; God is invisible, unutterable, and infinite. In His presence, let a word about to be spoken remain silent; let a mind attempting to investigate admit it’s weariness; let an understanding which attempts to comprehend admit its own limitation. Yet, He has, as we have said, in the word Father a name to indicate His nature; but He is Father as such. For He does not, as humans do, receive His Fatherhood from elsewhere. He Himself is unbegotten and eternal; and it is His property, eternally in Himself, that He shall always be.” (Hilary of Poitiers, A.D. 310-367)
To be continued:
Apostolically Speaking,
☩ Jerry L Hayes
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