ISLAM AND THE BIBLE

Devout Muslims desire to know God but they do not believe God is personally knowable. 
The Allah of the Qur’an is not personal but an unknowable supreme authority, lawmaker and judge.

The Bible tells a different story.

• God is love.

He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:8 (NKJV) 

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

• God is love. 

Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 1 John 4:16 (NIV) 

Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2:4-5 (NIV) 

We cannot be saved and enter Paradise by our good works or religious life but only by the love and mercy of God, the God who LOVES His enemies.

For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Romans 5:10 (NIV)  

The Bible says that everyone who is motivated by hate and anger (or even by mere selfishness) is an enemy of God. 

• There are angry holy warriors of Islam like this. 

Jesus is quite different. When He was dying on the cross, He prayed for God to have mercy on His enemies.

Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." ...Luke 23:34 (NIV) 

Even people who are unselfish and serve others from an attitude of self righteousness or religious duty are unable to know God. 

There are good moderate Muslims like this. 

• They live like good religious people who live morally good lives and help others. 

• They fear the fire of hell and they hope when they are weighed in the balance of judgement, their good deeds will outweigh their sins.

But the Bible teaches that we cannot earn salvation. We all deserve God’s punishment but God gives salvation and eternal life as a free gift to everyone who trusts in Jesus.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23 (NLT) 

Because of his kindness, you have been saved through trusting Christ. And even trusting is not of yourselves; it too is a gift from God.

• Salvation is not a reward for the good we have done, so none of us can take any credit for it. Ephesians 2:8-9 (TLB) 

The Bible says we can know God personally as our Heavenly Father.

Islam teaches that Allah is the supreme God but he is not a father, has no sons or daughters and cannot be known personally. 

• Muslims hope to enter a Paradise full of luxury, happiness and sexual pleasure but in this Paradise, there is no personal friendship with a supreme personal God.

The Bible tells a completely different story.

And He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." 

And He said, "Write, for these words are faithful and true." 

Then He said to me, "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. 

I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.  

"He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. Revelation 21:5-7 (NASB)

The Qur’an teaches that Jesus was a prophet of Allah but NOT the Son of God.

The Bible says the only way to know God is by believing in Jesus as the Son of God.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16 (NASB) 

Jesus answered, 

"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6 (NIV) 

JESUS, MUSLIM PROPHET OR THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD?

God so loved the world...

Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 
This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. 
And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 1 John 5:5-6 (ESV)

When the beloved Apostle John wrote these words, there were false teachers who declared that The Son of God did not really die on the cross.

The “Christ Spirit” came on Jesus when He was baptised in water and the same “Christ Spirit” departed back to heaven before the man Jesus was crucified and poured out his blood. So these false teachers said and they deceived many.

About 500 years later an Arabian religious leader named Mohammed came and taught the Arabs also to honour Jesus (Isa in Arabic). But Mohammed’s Isa is not the Jesus of the Bible.

The Muslim Isa was the son of Mariam and he was a great prophet and miracle healer. But Isa in the Koran was a man and not God. He did not die on the cross. Another man took his place before the execution.

• In Islam, Jesus did not die for your sins. Allah has no son. 

• Allah did not sacrifice his son to pay the penalty for your sins. 

  • Muslims are taught they must try to be good obedient Muslims in the hope that their good deeds might outweigh their sins. If not, they will burn in hell. 

• This terrible uncertainty is a thousand times worse than the Roman Catholic fear of a time of temporary punishment in Purgatory. 

• In Islam there is only one way to sure you are going to Paradise. You must shed your own blood for Islam.

Mohammed taught a Muslim martyr can go directly to paradise by shedding his own blood in holy battle against the infidels. 

• In the Palestinian territories in the Holy Land, Palestinian televison shows sexy girls calling teenage boys to become suicide bombers or terrorists. The reward is the assurance of a very carnal salvation, the instant transportation to Paradise where they can immediately lose their virginity with sexy girls and continue in the same manner for ever and ever.

But the Bible tells us that salvation comes not by pouring out your own blood but by believing in the Holy Son of God who poured out His blood on the cross to pay the penalty of your sins.

• If you believe and trust in the Son of God,

• if you are willing to receive the grace of God to transform your character,

• if you are willing to receive the supernatural eternal life that God gives as a free gift, 

  • you can not only be saved but you can be sure you are saved.

Jesus was born by water and blood. 

• As a natural human baby, he left his mother’s body with the flowing of water (amniotic fluid) and blood. As a Jewish baby boy he shed his own blood when he was circumcised and he was of course washed with water.
• As a young man he was baptised in the River Jordan and the Spirit of God came upon Him to empower Him for His supernatural ministry.

• As He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, His sweat came as water and then blood. 

• When He was whipped by Roman soldiers, the blood poured from His back.

• When they pushed a crown of thorns onto His head, the blood flowed again.

• When He gave up His spirit on the cross and died, a Roman solder thrust a spear into His side and out of the wound flowed water and blood, a sign of extreme torture and trauma.

All this is recorded in the Holy Bible, which was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God. 

Many Muslims have read the Bible and the Koran side by side and decided the Bible is not mistaken. 

They have been converted to Jesus Christ by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God who inspired the Jewish and Christian Scriptures but who did not inspire the Koran.