FAQ’s

Answer:  True Christian faith is based upon the Bible, which is the inspired Word of God. (2 Timothy 3:16, 17) “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God (God-breathed) and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”  What Muslims call the Torah, Zabur, and Injil is what Christians call the Bible. The Bible is made up of two main parts, the Old Testament (or old covenant) and the New Testament (or new covenant). The Torah and Zabur (Psalms) form part of the Old Testament, while the Injil is what Muslims call the New Testament. The Arabic word Injil comes from the Greek word evangelion, which translated means “good news”. As it says in Mark 1:1 “The beginning of the gospel (Gr. evangelion) of Jesus Christ”, i.e. the beginning of the “good news” about Jesus Christ.

The “good news” is the message about Jesus and His wonderful free gift of salvation. This “good news”, is not a book that was delivered to Jesus, but it is the good news that the Saviour came to redeem us from our sins, which all the works of law could not remove. By His death on the cross, Jesus paid our sin debt, which we could never pay by any amount of outward good works we might do. Isaiah 64:5 says “we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags”.

God doesn’t desire a mere outward show of righteousness, but actual goodness and truth in the inward parts; Psalm 51:6 says “Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts”. Jesus came to redeem us from our sins and give us a new heart, a clean and good heart. If we accept His gift of salvation, we will be saved and transformed by the spirit of God, becoming not just outwardly religious, but clean inside, now having the law written upon our hearts.

Jesus told His disciples that after His death and resurrection, He would send the Counselor, or Holy Spirit, to dwell inside the believers (John 14:16-17). “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him; but you know him, for he dwells with you and shall be in you.” This was not a prophecy about Muhammad as some Muslims say. The Greek word for Counselor is parekletos. Muslims say another Greek word, periclytos, meaning “praised one” (=Ahmed, =Muhammad) was used. The Bible is the most highly attested of any ancient literature by far, with thousands of Old Testament and New Testament manuscripts existing. Yet not one ancient manuscript of the New Testament has ever been found that uses the term periclytos.

Answer:  Muhammad never warned us that the Injil had been corrupted in his time; rather he told us to follow it. Sura 5:47 points Christians to the Gospel. There are other places in the Qur’an where we could draw that same conclusion.   In Sura 10:94, the Qur’an refers to the Bible by saying “if thou (Muhammad) art in doubt concerning that which We reveal unto thee, then question those who read the Scripture [Jews and Christians] that was before thee.”  Did the Qur’an deceive you by referring to a corrupt book?

God promised to preserve His Word, as recorded in the Bible.  “The word of the Lord endures for ever” (1 Peter 1:25). Jesus said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” (Matthew 24:35) There exist over 20,000 ancient manuscripts, different language versions, and quotations of the Bible from the early Christian leaders—some dating from the first century A.D.  No other historical writings have anywhere near this documentation. These 20,000 manuscripts agree with what Muhammad had and with what we have today in the English KING JAMES BIBLE and the Arabic VAN DYKE BIBLE.

Answer: What we know about God is what God has revealed in the Books. It’s beyond our minds to totally comprehend God, but we can read what He has revealed. The Bible never says “three persons”, but these words are added to explain the nature of God as expressed in the Bible. Christians do not believe in three Gods.  The Bible teaches that God is a Unity—three in 1—the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit.  All the attributes of God are true for all three.  1 John 5:7 “There are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.”   Also, in Matthew 28:19, Jesus told his followers to go and teach all nations, baptizing them in “the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

The Father is God Himself.

The Son is God.   Jesus is the Word, or “logos”. The Injil and the Qur’an call Jesus “the Word”. “(And remember) when the angels said: O Mary! Allah giveth thee glad tidings of a word from Him, whose name is the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary,…” Surah 3:45.  The Bible says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1) . The Word is eternal and divine and yet “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14). God manifested Himself in Jesus, the living Word of God in a human body. The Word is not something separate or apart from God—not a second God, but is the expression or revelation of God Himself. Based on the Bible, Christians believe that God is able to do all things; He cannot be limited in any way. If He chooses to reveal Himself to us by taking on a human body, who is to say He is not able to do so?

The Holy Spirit is God. He is spoken of as the “Comforter” and “Spirit of Truth” in John 15:26.  Christians believe that God and His attributes are one just as Muslims believe that God has 99 names which reflect his attributes and that God and his attributes are one and the same. In Christianity, we worship all three persons of God, being one and the same God.

Answer:  This often-recited claim lacks any kind of historical support.  Belief in the deity of Jesus (that Jesus is God) existed from the beginning of Christianity.  The belief that Jesus is God came from the original disciples’ close interaction with Jesus—hearing His words and seeing His actions then seeing Him alive after His death.  The New Testament is full of references to the deity of Christ. Certainly Paul (Titus 2:13; Philippians 2:5-8), Peter (2 Peter 1:11 “Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ”), and John (John 1:1; 8:58; 20:28) believed that Jesus is God.  The earliest Church Fathers clearly affirmed the deity of Christ in their writings.  To mention just a few:  Polycarp (AD 69-155), and Ignatius (AD 50-117) were both disciples of the Apostle John who was eyewitness of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Some other early Church fathers were Justin Martyr (AD 100–165), Irenaeus of  Lyons (AD 130–202), Tertullian (AD 150-225), Hippolytus of Rome (AD 170-235).

Answer:  We believe in the God of the Bible, the Eternal Creator of all things.  “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, says the Lord, which is and which was and which is to come, the Almighty.” (This was Jesus speaking in Revelation 1:8.) “The Almighty” is just one of the names used to describe God and His nature . When Moses asked God’s name when He spoke to Moses through the burning bush, (Exodus 3:14), God referred to Himself as “I AM”. And Jesus referred to Himself with the same name MANY times. See John 8:24, 8:58, 18:6 and also Mark 14:62. Concerning Jesus in the Bible, it says, “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” John 1:3

Also concerning Jesus, it says in Bible, “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.” Colossians 1:16,17. Finally, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power…” Hebrews 1:1-3. The name Jesus actually literally means “Jehovah saves” which is why people must believe that Jesus is God in order to be saved, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) And John 8:24, “If you believe not that I am he, you will die in your sins.”

Answer:  God declared himself in Exodus 3:14 as “I am” which means “I am Eternal Being with no beginning and no end”.  In Mark 14:62, Caiaphas the high priest asked Jesus “Are you the Messiah the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus used the name of God in saying, “I am” (which in Greek is “ego imee”). Without replying to the question, he claimed that he is God in this answer. The high priest, who understands the language, rent his clothes because he considered this blasphemy.   Jesus used the name of God “I am” 7 times just in John chapter 8.   He was taken to the Cross because he claimed himself to be God.  In John 10, we also read how the Jewish leaders understood him to be claiming to be God. Jesus said, “‘I and my Father are one.’ Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, ‘Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do you stone me?’ The Jews answered him, saying, ‘For a good work we stone you not; but for blasphemy; and because that you, being a man, make yourself God.’” (John 10:30-33)

Answer:  We believe Jesus died from Crucifixion, but on the third day He rose from the dead—flesh and bone—because of the tremendous evidence that it happened.  First, there were many eye witnesses.   The four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John give eye witness accounts of Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection.  In Luke 23: 49 it is recorded, “And all his acquaintance, and the women that followed him from Galilee, stood afar off, beholding these things” (watching him die on the cross).  One of the key followers (disciples) of Jesus said in John 19:35, “And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true; and he knows that he says true, that you might believe.”

However, these are not the only reasons.   Jesus Himself also said that this was His MAIN purpose in coming, “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” (John 10:17-18)  Finally, there were prophecies about Jesus’s death and resurrection in the Bible before He even came on earth in the flesh.  See Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22: “They pierced My hands and My feet.” Jesus, the only One who never sinned, had to die in order to be our ransom or substitute.   Even in the Qur’an we see Ibrahim’s need for a ransom.  Sura 37:107  “…We ransomed him with a great sacrifice”.   Jesus came “…to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).  “For Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh….” (1 Peter 3:18).

Paul stated the essence of the Gospel message in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures: and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures… .”  The Holy Bible says that after Christ’s resurrection, “He showed himself alive…by many infallible proofs, being seen [of His followers] forty days” (Acts 1:3).  We are told in 1 Corinthians 15:6  that over 500 people saw Him at one time after His resurrection. Furthermore, John, who was an eyewitness of His life, death, and resurrection, saw Him again and heard Him say, “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death” (Revelation 1:18).

Answer:  The Jewish, Christian and Muslim God is portrayed as the God of Abraham, the common father of our 3 faiths.  The god of Islam has many of the same attributes as the God of the Bible but also several different ones.  Though both are called “God”, the god of Islam is not the same as the God of Christianity.  God, as revealed in the Bible, is love. This attribute is not present in the God of Islam. So, simply, they are two different gods.   As revealed in the Bible, “God so loved the world [everyone] that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

We have all broken God’s laws (sinned).  “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).  God, as revealed in the Bible is our redeemer.  God has saved mankind from His righteous judgment.  He Himself took the punishment we deserve by taking the form of a man and dying on the cross in our place in order that we might be forgiven and be able to enter Paradise (Genna).  There is no salvation in Islam.  A person is saved or lost according to the caprice of Allah.   It violates God’s justice to save someone from the penalty of his sin without a ransom, a substitute.

Answer:  The New Testament repeatedly refers to Jesus as the “Son of God”.  Jesus, as God, declared Himself to be the only begotten Son of God in John 3:16.  As a prophecy concerning Jesus before He came in the flesh, God the Father spoke concerning Jesus in Psalm 2:7 “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.” Begotten is not the same as created.  God the Father also said “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” on 2 different occasions—Matthew 3:17 when Jesus was baptized and Matthew 17:5 at the transfiguration.

“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?” Hebrew 1:1-5

Answer:  “He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself: he that believes not God has made him a liar; because he believes not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of God has not life.  These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God.” 1 John 5:10-13