The Names of God... Can We Change them to suit our needs?

Does God care what we call Him? A valid question when considering all the turmoil over  whether Muslims and Christians worship the same god.  Some even are suggesting that maybe a new name is needed for God. 

For some time now, feminist theologians and a host of others have suggested that Christians should consider new names for God. One denomination went so far as to affirm names like “Giver, Gift and Giving” in place of the “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” to be used in worship. Feminist theologians have demanded that masculine pronouns and names for God be replaced with female or gender-neutral terms. But to change the name of God is to redefine the God we reference. Trifling with the name of God is no small matter.

Let’s be clear, God takes His name very seriously, and the Ten Commandments include the command that we must not take the name of the Lord in vain. We are to use the names God has given for Himself, and we are to recognize that God takes His name seriously because He desires to be rightly known by His human creatures. 

We cannot truly know Him if we do not even know His proper name.  Moses understood this. When he encountered the call of God that came from the burning bush, Moses asked God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” (Exodus 3:13). God answered Moses, “I Am who I Am” (Exodus 3:14). God told Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations” (Exodus 3:15).

As these verses make clear, we are not to tamper with God’s name. We are to use the names that God has named Himself, and we are to recognize that any confusion about the name of God will lead to confusion about the nature of God, and will quickly devolve into some form of idolatry.

Christians must keep this central principle from the Bible constantly in mind when we think about Islam.

Several years ago, a bishop in the Netherlands attracted controversy when he argued that Christians should call God “Allah” in order to lower theological tensions between the two religions. He also argued that calling God “Allah” would be commonplace in Christian churches within a century and that this would lead to a synthesis of Islam and Christianity.

In the Bible, God reveals Himself to us in many names. These names are His personal property. We did not invent these names for God. To the contrary, God revealed these names to a human as His own.

We have no right to modify or to revise these names—much less to reject or modify them in an attempt to ease religious tensions. 

Muslims do not speak of God as their heavenly Father as do Christians. In the Islamic faith, Allah is not only a different name for god; the deity it designates is far more impersonal than the God of the Bible. Father—the very name that Jesus gave us as the designated name for use in prayer—is a name that simply does not fit Allah as depicted in the Quran.

Christianity and Islam have serious differences. For example, Muslims claim that Allah has no son. This represents a head-on collision between the God of the Bible and the god known as Allah. The Bible makes clear, the one and only true God is most perfectly revealed as the Father of the Son, Jesus Christ. In the Gospel of John, Jesus repeatedly teaches that no one has truly known the Father, except by seeing and knowing the Son. In one of the most clarifying verses in the New Testament, Jesus declared Himself to be “the way, and the truth, and the life,” adding, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

As mentioned briefly in my last article, Muslims deny that God has a son, and therefore explicitly reject any Trinitarian language. From the very starting point, Islam denies what Christianity takes as its central truth: that Jesus Christ is the only begotten of the Father. If Allah has no son, then Allah is not the God who reveals Himself through the Son as presented in the Bible. How then can calling God “Allah” not lead to anything but confusion—and worse?

Islam teaches that the doctrine of the Trinity is blasphemous. But the Christian faith is essentially Trinitarian. The Bible reveals that the Father is God, that the Son is God, and that the Holy Spirit is God. Jesus is not merely a prophet, as acknowledged by Muslims, He is God in human flesh. This is precisely what Islam rejects.

The Trinitarian language is the language of the Bible, and it is essential to Christianity. Indeed, the Christian faith points to Christ and announces that we can only know the Father through the Son. Confusing the God of the Bible with Allah of the Quran is not only a mistake, it is a dangerous distortion of the Gospel of Christ.

The Trinitarian nature of God is embedded within the Great Commission. Jesus tells His disciples to go into the world and make disciples of all nations and to baptize them “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). Christians are those who bear the names of God even in our baptism, and those names are Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God takes His name with great seriousness, and so must we. Thankfully, we are not left in the dark, groping for adequate language. God has revealed His names to us, so that we can rightly know Him. We are not called to be clever or creative in referring to God, only faithful and accurate.

We are living in challenging days. One of the most pressing challenges of our times is the task of speaking rightly about God. This is particularly challenging when Christians encounter Muslims, but it is also a challenge when Christians encounter secular people in Western cultures. But this really isn’t a new challenge. It was the same challenge faced by the children of Israel as they encountered the Canaanites, and the same challenge faced by the Apostle Paul at Mars Hill.

Our challenge is to speak truthfully about God, and the only way we can do that is to use the names God gave Himself. The God of the Bible is not Allah, and Allah is not the God of the Bible. Any confusion about that undermines our usefulness as HIS witnesses and taints the power of the very Gospel we preach.

Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God... only by a different name?

It is true that the three primary monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all believe in an eternal, uncreated Creator God to whom all human beings must one day give an accounting of their life. But it is self-evident that Muslims and Christians do not worship the same God.

The Muslim and Christian views of God do have some similarities. Christians believe in one eternal God Who created the universe, and Muslims apply the same attributes to Allah. Both view God as all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present. 

A critical difference between the Islamic and Christian views of God is the biblical concept of the Trinity. In the Bible, God has revealed Himself as one God in three Persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. While each Person of the Trinity is fully God, God is not three gods but three in one.  Islam denies the Trinity and accuses Christians of teaching polytheism or multiple gods.

Islam is hostile towards the Trinity as evidenced by this passage from the Quran, 5:73 (Yusuf Ali), “They do blaspheme who say: Allah is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One Allah. If they desist not from their word (of blasphemy), verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them.”  As you can see, Islam denies that God is a Trinity, and in fact uses such teaching as a means of fostering hostility.

Also, in Christianity Jesus, the Christ is the second person of the Trinity, who was for a time in flesh. But Islam denies this as well, in fact Allah has no son at all.  God’s Son came in the form of man, a truth called the incarnation (Luke 1:30-35; John 1:14; Colossians 2:9; 1 John 4:1-3). The Lord Jesus Christ conquered the penalty and power of sin by dying on the cross (Romans 6:23). After rising from the dead, Jesus returned to heaven to be with His Father and sent “God in the person of The Holy Spirit” to be with believers (Acts 1:8-11). One day, Christ will return to judge and rule (Acts 10:42, 43). Those who have trusted in the Lord Jesus will live with Him in His Kingdom, but those who refuse to follow Him will be separated to hell away from the Holy God. 

Again the Quran, 5:17 is opposed to such belief... "In blasphemy indeed are those that say that Allah is Christ the son of Mary. Say: "Who then hath the least power against Allah, if His will were to destroy Christ the son of Mary, his mother, and all every--one that is on the earth? For to Allah belongeth the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and all that is between. He createth what He pleaseth. For Allah hath power over all things."

Quran 5:75 goes further by diminishing the divinity of Christ Jesus... "Christ the son of Mary was no more than a messenger; many were the messengers that passed away before him. His mother was a woman of truth. They had both to eat their (daily) food. See how Allah doth make His signs clear to them; yet see in what ways they are deluded away from the truth!"

The Trinity is essential to the Christian faith. Without the Trinity, there would be no incarnation of God’s Son in the Person of Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ, there would be no salvation from sin. Without salvation, sin would condemn all to an eternal separation from God.

So, do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? A better question is, “Do Christians and Muslims both have a correct understanding of who God is?” To this question, the answer is one does and one does not. 

Because of crucial differences between the Christian and Muslim concepts of God, the two faiths cannot both be true. The Biblical God alone addresses and solves the problem of sin by giving His Son, which in-turn paves the way for a restored relationship with God and the prospect of eternal salvation.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (John 3:16-18).

Christians must keep these central principles from the Bible – the Trinity, the divinity of Christ and His sacrificial death on a cross for the atonement of mankind's sins constantly in mind as one considers some of the most urgent questions in the world today. We must certainly have these principles in mind when we think about Islam.

The God of the Bible, known by many names – Yahweh, Jehovah, I Am, and the god of Islam – Allah, are not the same God.  Jesus, the Christ, made this abundantly clear. In the simplest way imaginable, Jesus teaches us to know God as Father, and to use this name in prayer. The Lord’s Prayer begins with the words, “Our Father, who is in heaven.” By the grace that God has shown us in Christ, we can truly know Him as Father.

Muslims do not speak of God as their heavenly Father. In the Islamic faith, Allah is not only a different name for god; the deity it designates is far more impersonal than the God of the Bible. Father—the very name that Jesus gave us as the designated name for use in prayer—is a name that simply does not fit Allah as depicted in the Quran.

Trinitarian language is the language of the Bible, and it is essential to Christianity. Indeed, the Christian faith points to Christ and announces that we can only know the Father through the Son. Confusing the God of the Bible with Allah of the Quran is not only a mistake, it is a dangerous distortion of the Gospel of Christ.

Christianity and Islam do not believe in the same God.

Are You Hindering the Gospel?

The story is told of a preacher who was preaching in an old fashioned tent revival. During the revival, a couple young men decided to harass the preacher, in the hopes that he would pack up and leave town. So one night after the preacher had started his sermon, one of the young men stood up and asked, "Hey preacher! What's the difference between a preacher and a fool?"  Without missing a beat, the preacher responded by saying, "You two come up here and stand beside me a moment and I think the audience can see the difference." It wasn't the preacher who packed up and left. 

Of course we can get a chuckle out of a story like that, but hindering the gospel is no laughing matter. And while we may never stand up and so rudely attempt to impede the preaching of the gospel, we may be guilty of hindering it in other, more subtle ways.  For example, consider the following....

Do you think you're helping or hindering when you miss worship services, fail to attend Bible classes, criticize the preacher, the elders and song leader for their weekly "performance" and fail to financially give to the work of the church? Do you think you're helping or hindering when you whisper and gossip about others in the church family?  

We hinder the gospel when what we do fails to match what we say. When we claim to follow Christ but allow our actions to betray our words, a watching world scoffs at the gospel, and rightly so. When we claim to have been transformed by God’s grace but live as if God has made no change at all, we cause others to heap contempt on the gospel.

These are but a few of the ways that Christians hinder the gospel of Christ. Surely, Satan is having a "field day" with many professing Christians. Brethren, "Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ" (Philippians 1:27).

Realistically speaking, WE Christians are the greatest hindrance to the gospel. Thankfully, God is in charge and not us!  The Bible assures us that nothing and no person is able to hinder the gospel. It tells us to place our confidence in the God whose plans cannot be stopped. Our lack of confidence in the gospel, our indifference to it, and our unfaithfulness in spreading it, cannot truly hinder the work of God. God reigns supreme over all things, all actions and HIS purpose cannot be stopped or dulled by our failings.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;  all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?” (Daniel 4:34b-35)

      

The GREAT SIN of Hindering the Gospel

What do you call 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start. How about 5000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?  A really great start!

Dealing with a lawyer can be similar to taking a physics exam. Why do I need to endure this suffering!?  Sometimes lawyers make discussions about law or legal matters more complex than they actually are. They also love writing out lengthy descriptions of legal procedures that defy ones ability to comprehend the meaning.

There are times when making things complex might be important, but most times simple and straight-forward is the best strategy in communicating with people.

In the days of Christ the lawyers were men who claimed to interpret divine law so as to help the Jews to understand the will of God. Actually they were a bunch of hypocritical religious bigots who deceived the people and hindered them from accepting the truth. 

Jesus strongly rebuked them for their inconsistencies and showed to them their true condition. He accused them of hindering the people from understanding God's word and from entering into the kingdom. Listen to Jesus, "Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering." (Luke 11:52). 

Today there are members of the church who are guilty of hindering people from obeying the gospel and are hindering the progress of the cause of Christ without even realizing what they are doing. They may not be guilty of “taking away the key of knowledge”, but by their conduct, or attitude they may be guilty of hindering others from becoming Christians, or some from becoming strong and faithful members of the church. I am sure that no one wants to be guilty of this. 

Periodically, we all need to look in the mirror, take inventory of our own lives, to see where in we might be guilty of hindering others. The apostle Paul says...  Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test? (2 Corinthians 13:5). 

Members of the church, so called Christians, who live worldly lives are a hindrance to the cause of Christ. People in the world are quick to take notice of the hypocrisy of those who claim to be Christians who do not live as Christians are expected to live. The apostle James says, You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. (James 4:4). 

Again, the scriptures admonish... “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” (Col.3:1,2). The apostle John says, “For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.” (1 John 2:16,17).  A person may excuse himself by saying he is not guilty of bad things that are condemned in the scriptures, but by inspiration Paul even includes pleasures that become distractions to spiritual growth... “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God” (2 Tim 3:4). Things that are not wrong in themselves can become sin to us by keeping us from being the strong Christians the Lord wants us to be. Our Lord teaches us to “seek first the kingdom of God” (Matt. 6:33), and we are told, “Be strong in the Lord and the power of his might” (Eph. 6:10). 

Christians who show no real interest in the church are a hindrance. We are told in Hebrews 11:6 that God “is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him”. Lukewarm Christians are sickening to the Lord. Jesus said in His letter to the church at Laodicea... “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” (Rev. 3:15-16). 

We are told in 1 Corinthians 15:57-58... “But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

Members of the church who show lackluster support for the [tantamount to refusing to cooperate] Lord's work impede progress and discourage others who want to do what is right. The apostle Paul wrote to the Christians at Ephesus and said, “Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3). In the Old Testament we are informed that “rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is an iniquity and idolatry” (1 Sam. 15:23). Those Christians who have no time to contribute to the success of any program of work that is decided on by the congregation’s leadership hinder and discourage others who want to cooperate and to do what they can for the Lord. Rest assured, such individuals will give account in the day of Judgment. 

People who allow trivial things to become issues for argument, or keep them from attending worship services are a detriment to those who are interested and want to do right.  A strong church cannot be built on weak Christians. There are three classes of church members: (1) Those who will, (2) Those who won't, (3) Those who might. 

The first class, “those who will” can be depended on. They are the backbone of the church. They are the ones who will be present every time the church meets (if at all possible). They do not rely on excuses to justify poor church attendance or lack of personal service these people are “ready for every good work”. If there is anything they can do to help the church, they are ready and willing. You can depend on them. They are a good example to all, including the conduct of their children. They are a source of encouragement to all others. 

The second class, “those who won’t” cannot be depended on. They are the ones who will do no more than they have to do to still be recognized as a part of the congregation. They refuse to attend more than one service a week, if that. They will not sacrifice any of their personal pleasure time to help do anything for the church. They are selfish, thinking only of themselves and their own interests above all else. They do only the bare minimum, but do expect the Lord in the day of Judgment to say to them, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of the Lord.”  Good luck with that idea!

The third class is made up of “people who might” be available and interested. They might or might not show up to help on a day planned for general cleaning up around the building and property. They might or they might not attend when the congregation conducts a revival weekend to help strengthen the church and save sinners. If they don't "have other fish to fry" they might show up for a service or two to see what is going on, but not get too involved. 

These are people who could change classes by making up their mind that they want to be more useful to the church and start taking advantage of opportunities to be made spiritually stronger. These are people who could decide that they want their spiritual life to count for something before they die. They could decide that they are going to use their abilities and talents for the Lord so that their lives will have meaning. Or,  the third class, “the might class” can change and become part of the second class... the won’t class”. Of course, this would be a bad decision, but sometimes people decline instead of growing. No one is responsible for this but the individual person. Such people will frequently blame others for their plight, but in the day of Judgment such will be judged as an individual as all will. 

Finally, members of the church who refuse to put into practice the truths they learn from the Bible are a detriment to the cause of Christ because by their influence they discourage others who want to be solidly grounded in Biblical truth without ungodly interference. The apostle James said this about such ones... “ If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” (James 4:17). This same apostle says. “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. (James 1:22). Again. he says, “But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.”(James 1:25). 

No one wants to be guilty of hindering anyone from becoming a Christian, and no one wants to discourage anyone from doing his best to serve the Lord in all ways possible. So ask yourself... What are you going to do to improve your influence? It would be a terrible thing to hear our Lord’s condemnation in the Day of Judgment when He will say to those who have “HINDERED the GOSPEL... “Depart from me into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels!” 

Let us do the best we can to serve the Lord and encourage others to do the same. It will all be worth it in the Day of Judgment and for all eternity.