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What are the signs of a False Conversion?

By Jeremy Myers
32 Comments

What are the signs of a False Conversion?

The last couple weeks I have been working my way through dozens of Bible and theology questions which people have submitted through that “ask a question” area in the sidebar. Here is a question someone sent in about the signs of a false conversion:

false conversion

How would one know if they experienced a false conversion? I was raised in church with a very religious controlling mother. I continued in church through my teens and twenties and then married a minister.

This past year I started to struggle with my faith… It came to a head in October when I felt like the Holy Spirit departed.

I then had what I would term a mini nervous breakdown. After that point I feel like I was shown that I had been working against God all along and His people…. Jealousy envy, anger… All the while not even realizing that my heart was in the state it was in. I have had very dark thoughts even about God and am now concerned about the unpardonable sin.

I have not felt His presence since October. I feel empty and dead inside. How do I know if I am or was saved and if it is possible that I am now outside of grace?

Below is my answer to this question about false conversions. Please feel free to weigh in with your own perspective in the comment section below.


There are countless millions of people who struggle with this exact same question about the signs of a false conversion.

Are you ready for a short and shocking answer about the signs of false conversion? Here it is:

There are none.

What?! There are no sure signs of a false conversion? How can this be? Doesn’t Scripture teach us about good trees bearing good fruit? Doesn’t James warn us against dead faith? Don’t churches and pastors tell us to bear fruit worthy of repentance?

Yes, these are the sorts of things Scripture says and the sorts of things pastor preach. And while I believe those Scriptures, I understand them differently than how they are explained from most pulpits and in most books.

So let’s back up a little bit and see if I can unpack my short answer.

I am not denying that there is such a thing as false conversion; I am only denying that there are signs of false conversion. Yet Scripture provides a clear and simple way to know whether or not you have been truly converted….

Confused yet? Let’s break it down….

There is Such a Thing as False Conversion

It is true that there is such a thing as a false conversion. There are many who believe they have eternal life, but may not in fact have this free gift of God, because they do not understand what how God gives eternal life to us.

false conversionOn the one hand, there are countless numbers of people who think they received eternal life when they walked an isle at a revival or evangelism crusade. Or maybe they signed a card, raised a hand, or said a prayer. If you ask someone how they know they have eternal life, and they say something like “When I was 10 my church had a guest evangelist come speak, and when he gave an altar call I went forward and prayed the sinners prayer” it is possible that this person does not actually understand what the Bible says about how to receive eternal life.

Then there the millions of people who believe that our own good works play some sort of role in gaining, keeping, or proving eternal life. Some teach that “Jesus has done His 99% and we must do our 1%.” This is the idea that there is a role we must play to gain eternal life.

Others say, “No, we don’t have to do anything to gain eternal life; it is the free gift of God (Eph 2:8-9), but if we want to keep eternal life, we have to live a life of holiness and obedience. If you commit certain sins, or do not repent of your sins, or fail to confess a sin, or live in sin for an extended period of time, well, then you no longer have eternal life. Either you give it back or God takes it back.”

Finally, there are many who say that if a person truly has eternal life, they can never lose it, but their good works will prove that they actually have it. If they do not have the good works to back up their claim, then they never really had eternal life to begin with. Theirs was a false faith, a spurious faith, a fake faith.

What does the Bible say about about conversion?

The Bible pretty clearly indicates that eternal life is an absolutely free gift of God which He gives to anyone and everyone who simply and only believes in Jesus Christ for it (cf. John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47, etc.).

And since there is no good work that is necessary to earn eternal life, there is also no good work that is necessary to keep it. And while we would hope and expect that people who have eternal life will live lives of increasing holiness and obedience, the fact that God has given us freedom means that a life of good works is not guaranteed.

To sum up then, Jesus gives eternal life to anyone who believes in Him for it.

So what does all this have to do with the question of true and false conversion? Well, based on what we have seen so far, how can you know if you have been converted? Answer: If you have believed in Jesus for eternal life, then God promises that you have eternal life.

It really doesn’t matter how we feel at some point in our life, or what mistakes we have made, or whether or not we can sense the Holy Spirit’s presence. It is God’s guaranteed promise that if we believe in Jesus Christ for eternal life, then we have it.

This why I say that there are no signs of false conversion. To know whether or not we have been converted, there is only faith in the unfailing promises of God through Jesus Christ. Outward experiences, our own good works, and the inner feelings of our hearts are not reliable indicators of whether or not we are part of God’s family. Being part of God’s family is by faith from first to last.

All of that was to answer your first question about being falsely converted. How can you know whether or not you were falsely converted? Well, do you believe in Jesus for eternal life? If so, you have eternal life. It is God’s promise.

Knowing the Love and Acceptance of God

This then should help you with the rest of your questions. It is difficult being a pastor’s wife. It is difficult feeling that the Holy Spirit has departed (He hasn’t, by the way). It is difficult dealing with jealousy, envy, and anger. It is difficult feeling empty and dead inside.

true conversionBut through all these emotions and feelings, remember this: God loves you more than you can possibly imagine. Though what you are going through right now is extremely painful, God is with you in this time and is seeking to strengthen and solidify your faith during this time. You are experiencing a winter in your relationship with God, a time that some have called “the dark night of the soul.” But spring will come. The light will dawn once again. The sense of God’s presence will return.

While you wait, remember God’s many promises in Scripture, that He loves you and will never leave you nor forsake you, and that you have eternal life because you have believed in Jesus for it.

If you want to weigh in on this theological question, please feel free to add your comments below. Also, please consider sharing this post on Twitter and Facebook below so that others can benefit from the discussion on this theological question.

God is Uncategorized Bible & Theology Topics: assurance, Bible and Theology Questions, dead faith, eternal life, false conversion, good works, Theology of Salvation

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Bible and Theology Questions 2

By Jeremy Myers
15 Comments

Bible and Theology Questions 2

The last couple weeks I have been working my way through dozens of Bible and theology questions which people have submitted through that “ask a question” area in the sidebar. If you have been following along, you will note that some questions require a whole post to answer. Others can be answered more succinctly. These shorter answers get put in one post like the following where I try to answer several Bible and theology questions together.

This post deals with Bible and theology questions about attending church, tithing, and…. masturbation.

bible and theology questions

Feel free to leave your own comments about these questions in the comment section below.


Question on Going to Church

Can a person be a Christian and not go to church ?

Yes! A thousand times yes! People who believe in Jesus for eternal life are the church, whether or not they “attend church.”

It’s an old saying, but it’s true: Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going into a garage makes you a car.

Similarly, a car can be a car whether or not it ever parks in a garage, and a Christian can be a Christian whether or not he or she ever attends church.

Scripture backs this up as well, for there is not one place in the Bible that commands us to attend church. Not even Hebrew 10:25.


Question on Tithing

If it is the priests only God is speaking to through Malachi, then why in 3:6 does the audience seem to change to the “the children of Jacob” and “the whole nation of you” in verse 9 –it seems there is a change here.

I imagine you read this post about tithing and your question is based on what you read there? Maybe you could leave your question in the comment section there so that people could interact with you on it…

tithingI probably should have clarified that Malachi was written primarily to the religious leaders of Israel, but not only to them. As the spiritual leaders, they were the spiritual representatives for Israel, and so naturally, Israel followed their lead. So Malachi 3:6 does mention the sons of Jacob, which may refer to all the people of Israel. Although even then, the statement in Malachi 3:6 is not so much about the actions of the son of Judah, but God’s long-suffering grace upon them. I read this verse as saying that God does not consume the sons of Jacob for the actions of the priests (or of the forefathers – Malachi 3:7). God is patient and long-suffering, and keeps His Word.

As to the statement in Malachi 3:9 about the whole nation, I did reference that in the post. Malachi is saying that the priests are not just robbing from God, but are robbing from the whole nation as well. This is further evidence that Malachi is primarily writing to the priests here, because if he were writing to all the people, it would not make sense to say that all the people were robbing from all the people. It makes more sense to see that the people are tithing, but the priests are stealing the tithe, and as such, they are robbing God and robbing the whole nation.


Question on Masturbation

I’ve been asking to be free/liberated from addiction to porn and masturbation. I have yet to be set free and I don’t want to lose my salvation because of it. Am I forgiven for doing theses things, because deep down I think it’s wrong, but I’m just not sure it’s a sin. I just know I’m a slave to this. Please help.

Honestly, this question probably demands a full post, but I just didn’t want to write a blog post with the word “masturbation” in the title… so let me see if I can answer the question briefly…

First, the Bible really doesn’t say anything one way or the other about masturbation. Sure, some people make some arguments from the Levitical laws, but I’m not going to get into all that. I don’t think they apply.

I personally do not think that masturbation is sinful.

Pornography, however, is definitely wrong, and almost all studies show that pornography and masturbation go hand in hand…. Sorry. Bad pun. Pornography objectifies women, creates unrealistic ideas about sex, and causes immense mental and emotional damage in the minds of men who look at it. Besides all this, there are numerous Scriptures which instruct men to not look at women lustfully (e.g., Matt 5:28).

But the real question is how to deal with the addiction of pornography and masturbation.

The answer to that is the same answer for any sort of addiction, whether it is overeating, drugs, alcohol, gaming, or gambling: Addictions are overcome only by the supernatural power of God.

How do you tap into this supernatural power of God? There is only one way: recognize that no matter what, God loves you and forgives you.

You asked about whether or not you will lose your salvation for looking at porn and masturbating. The answer is no. Why not? Because God loves you and forgives you. Only this knowledge will lead you to the freedom from sin that is yours in Jesus Christ.

As long as we are afraid of not being forgiven by God, that fear keeps us enslaved to sin. It only when we begin to understand the infinite love and grace of God toward us that the power of sin loses its hold in our lives. Fear keeps us in bondage. Fear keeps us trying to depend on our own effort and our own strength to liberate ourselves from our own sin… and it never works. Only when we lose the fear of losing God’s love, and come to see that God loves us and forgives us no matter what, do we get to the place where sin no longer has the draw that it once did.

I know that this seems backwards and upside down from what is taught in most Christian books and Christian pulpits.

I know that what I am saying sounds like people have the freedom to go sin all they want.

But you know what? This is what I read in Scripture. Sin has dire consequences, for sure, but one of those consequences is NOT that God will stop loving you or forgiving you.

I maybe should also share that I speak from experience on this sort of question. I have an incredibly addictive personality. I have been addicted to many things during my life (I am not comfortable saying which things on this blog). Some of the things I was addicted to for twenty years or more. For some it was only five years or so. Some of these addictions have caused great pain for myself and my wife.

I tried everything to conquer and defeat these addictions, from fasting and praying for days on end to accountability groups to self-help books. Nothing ever worked until I came to the realization that God’s love and forgiveness for me was without end. Though I continued to stumble and fall, the recognition that God loved and forgave me led, over time, to a lack of desire for that particular addiction. I cannot say “how” it worked, only that it did.

God is Redeeming Life Bible & Theology Topics: attending church, be the church, Bible and Theology Questions, forgiveness, go to church, Hebrews 10, Malachi 3, masturbation, pornography

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I’ll define the Trinity… If you define God

By Jeremy Myers
40 Comments

I’ll define the Trinity… If you define God

The last couple weeks I have been working my way through dozens of Bible and theology questions which people have submitted through that “ask a question” area in the sidebar. Below is a question that made me laugh, not because it was a silly question (there’s no such thing), but because of how impossible it was to answer!

define the trinity

The reader essentially asked me to define the Trinity…

I want to know more about the Trinity. Thank you.

Below is the answer I sent back to the reader. Feel free to help me out with a better explanation of the Trinity in the comment section below.


Whew!

Asking me to explain or define the Trinity is almost like asking me to define God! An impossible task!

There is so much to discuss and talk about regarding the Trinity, it is hard to know where to begin or exactly what you want to know about the Trinity. So let me do my best to briefly explain and define the Trinity, and also explain why the Trinity is essential and important for Christian doctrine.

Define the Trinity

define the trinityFirst, the Trinity is best defined as “One God who exists in three persons.” There are not three Gods. There is only one God. But somehow, in ways beyond human comprehension, God exists in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

There is no good analogy in creation, but some have likened the Trinity to the three forms of water, ice, water, and steam, while others have equated it to the light and heat of the sun. My personal preference (though again, it is a bad analogy) is how we as humans consist of body, soul, and spirit. We are one person with three parts. Of course, God does not consist of parts. Each person of the Trinity is fully God.

It is difficult to understand, but this is primarily because we are not God.

Explaining the Trinity to mortal human beings is like trying to explain colors to a blind man or sound to a deaf person. It like trying to use words to explain speech to a dog. You can bark at the dog, but that doesn’t help, and you can speak to a dog with words, but he won’t understand what you’re saying and will never be able to speak for himself.

Believing in the Trinity

So if the Trinity is so difficult to understand, why is it important to believe? There are probably thousands of reasons why the Trinity is critical to Christian thought, but there are three of the most important reasons. (Yes, I chose three simply because I am writing about the Trinity.)

1. First, the Bible teaches us that God exists as a Trinity.

No, the word “trinity” is never used in the Bible, but there are passages all over the place which reveal that there are three persons in the Godhead who exist together as one God.

We know, for example, that God is one (Deut 6:4; 1 Tim 2:5; 1 Cor 8:6; etc.), and yet Jesus, who most perfectly revealed God to us (John 14:7; Col 1:15; Heb 1:3) often spoke of His Father and of sending the Holy Spirit (e.g., John 10; John 14-17). Even at the baptism of Jesus, we see Jesus coming up out of the water and the Holy Spirit descending upon Him like a dove, and the Father speaking to Jesus from heaven (Matt 3:16-17).

There are numerous other passages, but the bottom line is that whether we understand it or not, the Bible teaches the reality of the Trinity (cf. Matt 28:19; 2 Cor 13:14; 1 Pet 1:2).

2. Second, the Trinity is important because it shows that God is relational and loving.

Christians believe that God does not change in His character or attributes. Yet think about what it would mean for God to not be a Trinity. If God did not exist as a Trinity, then prior to the creation of humans and prior to the creation of angels, God could not have lived in any form of loving relationship with anybody or anything.

Without the Trinity, God could not have lived for eternity in love or in relationship. The Trinity allows the loving and relational attributes of God to have eternally existed with God.

trinity in relationshipOther monotheistic religions which have no concept of the Trinity have great trouble explaining or understanding how God could be loving and relational. Why? Because for most of God’s existence, there was no one to love other than himself.

In fact, it could be argued that if there was no Trinity, there could have been no creation whatsoever. Why not? Because if the Trinity did not exist, then God would not be relational (because there was no one to relate to), and hence, there would be no reason for God to create anything with which to relate. The only way a non-relational God would decided to create being to love and take care of was if He recognized that without other beings in the universe, He was lacking or deficient in some way. But then, this makes God less than God!

A non-Trinitarian God could not and would not create, unless He decided to become relational and loving, in which case, He would be admitting some sort of imperfection in His being.

It is much better to believe what the Bible teaches, that God is loving and relational and as such, has always existed in a loving relationship within the Trinity. As a result of this loving relationship, God decided to create other beings with which to share the loving relationship He already experienced within the Godhead.

3. This then leads us to the third reason the Trinity is important: Christians love others because God is love.

Christianity is an outward, loving, relational-focused way of living. Part of this is because we believe in the Trinity. In Genesis we read that God created us in His own image. There is a wide range of ideas on what this means, but one thing that is certainly included in the truth of being created in God’s image is that we were created for community. Just as God had an eternal relationship within the Trinitarian Godhead, so also, humans are to live in relationships with God and with one another.

The love that each member of the Godhead shares with the other members of the Trinity was also shared with humans when we were created. We love because He first loved us.

If there was no Trinity and yet somehow, God inexplicably decided to create humans, then it would be logical to say that love and community was not an essential character of God, and therefore, need not be an essential part of our life either. If God did not eternally exist in a loving Trinity, then we would not need to exist in love either.

So again, without a belief in the Trinity, we lose a belief in a loving God, and therefore, lost any reason to believe that God wants us to love others. If we are to act like God and God has existed without showing love toward others for most of eternity, then there is little reason to live in loving ways toward others now, for love would not be an essential characteristic or attribute of God.

I could go on and on, but I hope that this answer helps briefly explain and define the Trinity and show why belief in the Trinity is essential to Christian belief and practice.

If you want to weigh in, please feel free to add your comments below. Also, please consider sharing this post on Twitter and Facebook below because then others can benefit from the discussion on this theological question.

God is Uncategorized Bible & Theology Topics: Bible and Theology Questions, God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, God the Son, love of God, Theology of God, Trinity

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Why are there 400 years of silence between the Old and New Testaments?

By Jeremy Myers
80 Comments

Why are there 400 years of silence between the Old and New Testaments?

The last couple weeks I have been working my way through dozens of Bible and theology questions which people have submitted through that “ask a question” area in the sidebar. The following question is about the years of silence in the Bible, not just the 400 years of silence between the Old Testament and New Testament, but also the other periods of silence that are between certain sections of Scripture.

years of silence

Here is the question that was submitted about these years of silence in the Bible:

Why did God leave out hundreds of years of documentation between certain books of the Bible?

Below is my answer…


I sometimes think that when people ask this question, the “question behind the question” is “Why isn’t God speaking today?”

We all want God to speak into our lives, but it often seems that God is silent. So if we can figure out why God was “silent” in times past, maybe we can figure out why God is silent in our own life as well.

I am not saying you are asking this question, but some do…

So let me try to answer your question by framing it properly. The answer to your question about the years of silence in the Bible (and the question of why God seems silent today) is found by stepping back and looking at the wider picture.

400 years of silenceWhen most people ask this question, they are primarily referring to the “400 years of silence” in between Malachi and Matthew. I will try to explain what was going on during those years, but really, the question of God’s so-called “years of silence” is much more complex.

For example, it is not just the 400 years of silence between Malachi and Matthew where we have no books in the Bible. Other than a few chapters, we have almost no books in the Bible from the years between creation and the call of Abraham. While more liberal scholars believe this period of time lasted millions (or billions) of years, even the most the most conservative biblical scholars say that there was about 2000 years between Genesis 1 and Genesis 12. That’s a lot of time for only 11 chapters of biblical history.

Then, of course, there are the last 2000 years. Very few Christian groups believe that there have been additional books added to the Bible since the book of Revelation was written in the first century A.D. So even if the earth is only 6000 years old (a super conservative estimate), the Bible is missing roughly 4000 years worth of human history. If we are going to ask why there are 400 years of silence between Malachi and Matthew, we must also ask why there are at least 2000 years of silence before the events of Genesis 12, and another 2000 years of silence since the last word of the New Testament was written.

400 years of silence

In other words, whatever we say about the 400 years of silence between the Testaments must also suggest an answer for the 4000+ years of silence in the rest of world history. The Bible doesn’t record much of anything that happened for the first 2000 (or more) years of human history as well as the most recent 2000 years of human history.

But the problem is even worse than that.

Even if we consider the 2000 years of history that are recorded in the Bible, these biblical records only cover the tiniest fraction of human events that took place during these two millennia. In other words, even though we have roughly 2000 years of biblical history in Scripture, these records only cover some of the events of some of the people who lived in a tiny, remote, relatively insignificant corner of the world.

Why, for example, does the Bible not record a single word of what was going on in Asia? Or North and South America? Or Australia? There were certainly important events going on in those places, right? God was at work in those other countries as well, was He not? Why then do we have no biblical records of what God was doing in these other places? Why is there nothing but years of silence regarding God’s work in the rest of the world?

Only by framing the question this way are we now in a position to answer it.

The question is not just about 400 years of silence in between Malachi and Matthew, but about the thousands of years of silence regarding almost everything that has happened in the world.

Obviously, God could not have recorded everything from every event in every place in the world and given it to us in the Bible.

So instead, we have to trust that God gave us what we needed to know in the Bible so that we can believe what He wants us to believe and do what He wants us to do.

So why did God leave out hundreds of years of documentation on the Bible? For the same reason He left out thousands of years and trillions of events from the rest of human history.

It is not that God wasn’t active in these other years (He was). It is not that nothing was God wasn’t speaking, or performing miracles, or answering prayers (He was). It is not that God was sleeping, was absent, was ignoring humanity, or was off playing a round of golf (He definitely wasn’t).

God is always active, is always speaking, is always involved, is always answering prayer, and is always working to accomplish His will in the world… even when He is not having people write about it. The things that God has recorded in Scripture are enough for us to go on. We need neither more nor less. What is written is what is needed to know and believe what God is like, what God is doing, and how we are to live and function in this world.

And this brings us back to the unasked “question behind the question.” As I indicated at the beginning of my answer, when people ask why there are 400 years of silence in the Bible, the unspoken question is sometimes, “Why does God seem silent in my life?”

silence of GodBut God’s apparent silence throughout most of history is not because God was absent or inactive, but simply because it takes eyes of faith to see where God is at work even when He doesn’t have someone write about it.

So also in our own lives.

Even if it seems your prayers seem bounce off the ceiling, even if you do not sense God’s presence, even if God feels absent and silent, the reality is the exact opposite. God is with you. God loves you. God hears your prayers, knows what you need, and is involved in your life. He is there and He is active.

It takes eyes of faith to see God’s hand at work in our lives, even when it seems God is absent or silent.

If you want to weigh in on this question, please feel free to add your comments below. Also, please consider sharing this post on Twitter and Facebook below because then others can benefit from the discussion on this theological question.

God is Uncategorized Bible & Theology Topics: Bible and Theology Questions, love of God, prayer, revelation, Theology of the Bible, years of silence

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Is it wrong for Christians to call God “Allah”? You might be surprised at my answer…

By Jeremy Myers
86 Comments

Is it wrong for Christians to call God “Allah”? You might be surprised at my answer…

Call God Allah

Most think of Allah as the god of Islam. And yet there are many Eastern and Middle-Eastern Christians who call God “Allah.” Is this wrong? Recently a reader sent in this question: 

I love your newsletter and also the freedom to comment, so that I can read others people believe too…

Anyway, the reason I sent you this email is that I would like to ask you about something. In Indonesia, there are some Christian people who are trying to tell people it is wrong to call God “Allah.” They say we should use God’s original name, YHWH. The reason they say this is because Allah is the name used by Muslim’s  for their god.

Personally, I do not mind using the name Allah, since I know which Allah I am talking and praying too… I pray to the Allah who sent Jesus to redeem us…

Would you maybe talk about this? Have you heard about this before?


As with most of my attempts at answering theological questions, I want to approach this question somewhat backwards. 

The Traditional Answer is NO. You cannot call God Allah.

The traditional way of handling the difficult question of whether or not it is okay to call God Allah is by comparing Christianity and Islam, and then saying that since the religions are so different, it would be wrong to name the Christian God Allah. 

call God Allah

For example, here is an article where Albert Mohler says pretty much this very thing. Here is a quote:

“If Allah has no son, Allah is not the father of our Lord Jesus Christ…This is no mere ‘discussion and bickering.’ This is where the Gospel stands or falls,” the theologian concluded.

Then there is this informative article which shows all the differences between the God of the Christianity and Allah of Islam. 

In some ways, I am in agreement with those two articles. To say that God can be called “Allah” risks causing a lot of confusion in the minds of many people. There are vast differences between the God of the Christian Bible and the Allah of the Muslim Quran. 

Furthermore, can you imagine asking a Muslim to name their god Yahweh? Of course not! Imagine the outrage! 

Can you imagine asking Muslims to accept the idea that Allah had a son, or became flesh in Jesus Christ? Never! 

So if Muslims know and recognize that Allah and Yahweh are so radically different, isn’t it odd that some Christians are willing to call God Allah? 

This is the traditional way of answering this theological question about whether or not it is right to call God Allah. The traditional answers have a lot going for them.

And yet…. 

My Backwards Way of Answering…

(Here we get into the backwards way of answering this question about whether or not you can call God Allah… you’ve been warned). 

I often think that one of the problems with a lot of theological debates centers not around the various opinions, but in how the question itself is asked. The way a question is asked often frames the debate. 

The question for this debate is asked this way: “Is it wrong to call God Allah”? 

Those who say it is wrong point to all the questionable activities and commands that Allah gave in the Quran. They say that Allah could not have had a son. That Allah could not have become flesh. That Allah is not a Trinity. 

Hmm…

So let me ask the question a completely different way, to see if we can get a different answer. 

Is it wrong to call God Yahweh? 

Before you answer, I invite you to think through all the violent and questionable commands and activities of Yahweh in the Old Testament. I invite you to consider whether or not a Jewish person would think that Yahweh could have a son. I invite you to consider what a Jewish person would think about Yahweh becoming flesh. I invite you to think about what a Jewish person would say about Yahweh being a Trinity. 

Call God Yahweh

If we are completely honest with ourselves (and with the Old Testament text), I think the answer we give to the question “Is it wrong to call God Allah?” should be the same answer we give to the question “Is it wrong to call God Yahweh?” 

Can I put it bluntly? The God depicted in the Old Testament often seems more bloody, devious, and vengeful than any depiction of Allah in the Quran. 

But what about Jesus? What about the New Testament? Jesus looks nothing like Allah!

Yes. that is true. But again, if we are honest, Jesus doesn’t look a whole lot like Yahweh either.  

(I should say at this point that I am currently writing a book about how Yahweh looks exactly like Jesus, but only when viewed through the lens of Jesus dying on the cross. But the book is less than half-way finished… and if I cannot prove the thesis to my satisfaction, I see no way out of the dilemma about how to reconcile the love of Jesus with the violence of Yahweh  other than to say that in some way or another, the Old Testament is wrong in its portrayal of God. Anyway, stay tuned for more about this book…)

Yahweh vs. Jesus vs. Allah

If we can say that Jesus reveals Yahweh to us when Yahweh looks nothing like Jesus, I don’t have too much difficulty saying that maybe Jesus reveals Allah to us as well, even though Allah looks nothing like Jesus. When it comes to both Yahweh and Allah, I would say that there seems to be both good things and bad things about both, but Jesus came to show us what God is really like… and to help us separate the truly divine nature from the blood-bathed human trappings we have clothed God in. 

Does this mean that Yahweh and Allah are the same? No! Nobody can logically make that comparison. Sure, there are a few similarities, but their differences are too vast. 

So while I would never ever ask a Muslim to call Allah “Yahweh,” so also, I would never ask a Jewish person  or a Christian to call Yahweh, “Allah.” 

Is it wrong to call God Allah?

I invite all Christians, whether they are Western, Eastern, or Middle-Eastern Christians, that when they pray to God, they picture Jesus. Why? Because Jesus is the center of our faith and practice, and (more importantly for this question), Jesus reveals God to us!

Jesus says that if we have seen Him, we have seen the Father (John 14:7). Paul writes that Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15) and that in Jesus dwelt all the fullness of God (Col 1:19). The book of Hebrews says that Jesus is the exact representation of God (Heb 1:3). 

So if, when you think about God, you picture the God revealed in Jesus Christ, but use the name Yahweh, I have no problem with that. It might be confusing to Jewish people, but we are not asking them to picture Jesus when they talk about ha shem (the way they pray and speak about Yahweh). But if they ask if you are Jewish, you can say no, that you are a follower of Jesus. 

And if, when you think about God, you picture the God revealed in Jesus Christ, but use the name Allah, I have no problem with that. It might be confusing to Muslim people, but we are not asking them to picture Jesus when they talk about Allah. But if they ask if you are Muslim, you can say no, that you are a follower of Jesus.

And if, when you think about God, you picture the God revealed in Jesus Christ, but use the generic name “God,” I have no problem with that either. Most people might wonder which God you are referring to, and if they ask, you can point them to Jesus. 

What are your thoughts on this? Is it wrong for Christians to call God Allah?


Note: After I wrote this post, I decided to search the internet to see what others might be saying about this topic, and discovered, much to my dismay, that violence is erupting in Malaysia because Christians want to call God Allah. I imagine that maybe this is why someone sent the question in to me…

Ironically, this changes my answer somewhat. Though theologically, I stand by what I have written above, from a practical standpoint, I am not sure calling God Allah is worth dying over… If Muslims are offended by us referring to the God revealed in Jesus Christ with the name “Allah,” but Christians feel it is our “right” to refer to God however we want, I echo Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6:7: “Why not rather be wronged?”

Of course, having said that, many early Christians were killed and persecuted by Jewish people (Read the book of Acts) because they equated Jesus with Yahweh… but the Christians thought the risk of arrest and death was worth it… And yet, the biblical case for equating Jesus with Yahweh is much stronger than the case for equating Jesus with Allah (there is no biblical case for it).

So what is my NEW final (tentative) answer? It’s this: Follow your own conscience and the leading of the Holy Spirit and the wise counsel from other mature Christians in your local community of believers…

God is Uncategorized Bible & Theology Topics: Allah, Bible and Theology Questions, Discipleship, God, Jesus, Muslims, prayer, Theology of God, Yahweh

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