Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?

How can we decide on the question of whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God?  Would this be true because a famous pastor like Rick Warren says it is so? Or would we really need to carefully compare the teachings about God given by both the Bible and the Qu’ran? I think we should research what the primary texts of Christianity and Islam respectively say rather than merely relying on what popular figures in Christendom such as Rick Warren or the Pope may say.

If we really want to pay attention to some person’s opinion on this issue, it is probably wise to listen to someone like Nabeel Qureshi, a former muslim who became a Christian apologist. In his article “Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?” he answers that “No, they don’t”. He writes:

Now I believe that the phrase “Muslims and Christians worship the same God” is only true in a fairly uncontroversial sense: There is one Creator whom Muslims and Christians both attempt to worship. Apart from this banal observation, Muslims and Christians do not worship the same God. I do not condemn those that think they do, but the deeper I delve into the Christian faith, the more I realize that this assertion is not only untrue but also subverts Christian orthodoxy in favor of Islamic assertions.

Let’s start with the obvious: Christians believe Jesus is God, but the Quran is so opposed to this belief that it condemns Jesus worshipers to Hell (5.72). For Christians, Jesus is certainly God, and for Muslims Jesus is certainly not God. How can it be said that Christians and Muslims worship the same God?

Here Qureshi brings up the thought I had that prompted the writing of this article. If Jesus is God, and muslims do not worship Jesus, then it cannot be said that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. For the Christian conception of God includes Jesus – God the Son, the second person of the Trinity – our “God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:3). No muslim would agree that anyone worshiping Jesus as God really worships the same God as a muslim.

“while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed.” (Titus 2:3)

Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except by Me.” (John 14:6). If the Bible can be trusted as a record of what Jesus said – and I prefer to trust eyewitness accounts over anyone else’s proclamations or prophecies – then you simply cannot give acceptable worship to God without recognising the central role of Jesus Christ in salvation. Jesus said, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father” (John 14:9). Therefore any conception of God which differs from the revelation given by Jesus in His life and teaching must be a false conception.

The One who taught us to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us is not the same one who taught us to fight against the unbelievers until they submit and pay the religious tax. It just isn’t the same God.