Dr. Mateen Elass is a Christian apologist who was raised in a Muslim home and has a passion for reaching Arabic-speaking people with the gospel. As a part of Voice of the Truth in Colorado Springs, Mateen works with churches and Christian groups eager to learn about Islam, its claims and challenges, and how to share the gospel winsomely and effectively with Muslims. He is eager to respond to opportunities for teaching and training Christians in these timely matters.
Dr. Elass has “a heart is for those who walk where he once walked, those who search but have not yet found the love of Jesus, especially those feeling trapped in the religious strictures of Islam.” Mateen sees his experience on both sides of the Christian-Muslim divide as providing a unique opportunity to create bridges of understanding. His great hope is that God will use him to reveal the love of Jesus to those ruled by hate or fear. “God will provide mercy and guidance to those who seek him, and will equip his people to win the world with the love of Christ.”
There is no more relevant a voice to be listening to in the current cultural and campus debates.
Just yesterday Mateen posted “A Veiled Message” on his blog. I commend it to you.
Recently a professor of political science at Wheaton College created a bit of a media firestorm, publicizing her decision to “show solidarity with Muslim women” by wearing a hijab through the Christian season of Advent. The firestorm actually was prompted by the defense of her actions offered on her Facebook page, not by the actions themselves. Wheaton College, a leading evangelical Christian college, felt forced to take actions to suspend her from her position, based on some of her public statements. Now, as a result, the college has been pilloried by some in the media as “religiously intolerant” and “anti-Muslim bigots.”
Ms. Hawkins is not a theologian, but as a Christian with a Ph.D. serving at a Christian institution of higher learning, it’s a fair assumption that she is an informed believer. Together with all professors at Wheaton, she signs annually a statement of faith to which she binds her convictions. The College, serious about standing for its beliefs, expects all its employees to uphold this doctrinal statement. Herein lies the issue.
Were the statements of Ms. Hawkins egregious enough to warrant her being suspended from her duties for six months? Was Wheaton College right in taking the action it did? Here are four points to consider:
First, Ms. Hawkins initial Christian instincts are to be applauded. In obedience to the commands of Jesus, she is seeking to love her neighbors by showing solidarity with them in a time of tension where they may be facing unjust persecution simply for being Muslims. Of course, no one would know her stand of solidarity unless she publicly broadcast it somehow, for women wear headscarves for multiple reasons. Hence, she took to Facebook to publicize and explain her actions. I must confess, when I first heard of her decision to stand in solidarity with Muslim women in America (who rarely experience outright persecution or discrimination, even in this climate of terror-spawned fear and anger), I immediately wondered why she was not moved even more to seek to show solidarity with Christian and Yazidi women in Iraq and Syria, who all too regularly face rape, slavery, torture, dislocation, even murder. That would seem to be a no-brainer. But of course, in this country, Ms. Hawkins is free to express solidarity with whomsoever she chooses.
The second point is that Ms. Hawkins chose to justify her “human solidarity” with Muslim women on the basis that “we are [all] formed of the same primordial clay.” While this can be supported from the OT (“dust you are and to dust you shall return” – Gen 3:19, hearkening back to 2:7), it is a sub-Christian view of human nature much more in keeping with the Qur’an than the Bible. The Qur’an declares that we share commonality as humans because Allah “…created man from an extract of clay” (23:12) and then breathed His spirit into him (38:72). We are to treat one another with respect because we are living creations of Allah. But the biblical teaching is much more profound. Not only are we “aerated clay” as human beings, but our natures are marked by the imago dei – according to Genesis 1:26-27, human beings have been created in the image of God. Our special dignity, above that of the rest of the created order, is due to the fact that we reflect the likeness of God to the rest of the world in ways nothing else does. Hence we are to treat fellow human beings as those bearing the image of God. Even though Islam rejects this teaching (because nothing in the creation is like God in the least), Christians, such as Ms. Hawkins, should nonetheless base our solidarity with the rest of the human race on the more substantive basis that we are all created in the image of God, even if marred by the Fall, and so worthy of special honor and dignity.
Third, Ms. Hawkins argued that her solidarity with her “Muslim sisters” was based on religious as well as natural truths. Using the premises that Muslims, like Christians, “…are people of the book,” and that “…we worship the same God” (invoking the authority of none other than Pope Francis), the professor justified her “embodied solidarity” with American Muslim women. Here, apparently is where she parted company with the theological convictions of Wheaton College. While the Qur’an speaks of Jews and Christians as “the people of the Book” (i.e., the Bible) and then adds Muslims to that category by insisting that the Qur’an contains the same revelatory material as the Bible, most Christians would reject that categorization. Since the Qur’an emphatically denies most of the doctrines upon which the Christian faith is built (the Trinity, the Incarnation, the atoning death and subsequent resurrection of Jesus Christ, salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, the indwelling Holy Spirit, fallen human nature, to name a few), Christians who believe the Bible rightly put the Qur’an in the category of false revelation. If Christians are people of the Book, Muslims cannot be. If Muslims are people of the Book (the Qur’an), then Bible-believing Christians cannot be. Further, the assertion that “we worship the same God” is highly contested within evangelical circles. It is true that the Qur’an makes this claim in 29:46, where Allah directs Muhammad to declare to the “people of the Book”: “Our Allah and your Allah is One, and unto Him we surrender.” Yet can it be said in a meaningful way that revelations which differ on the essential nature of God, on the possibility of God entering this world in human form, on the question of fallen human nature and God’s solution to the human predicament, on the person and work of Jesus Christ, and on the vision of God’s goal for redeemed humanity, nevertheless point to the same God? Ms. Hawkins apparently thinks so. Wheaton College apparently does not. I must say in defense of Wheaton, if you look at their 12 paragraph Statement of Faith (which is standard evangelical theology, and which Ms. Hawkins signed), Islamic orthodoxy would reject 11 of those twelve paragraphs, accepting (perhaps) only the final statement on the fate of the saved and the damned. The facile statement that “we worship the same God” fails to wrestle with the facts that Christians and Muslims define God in irreconcilable ways and that our definitions of God inevitably lead us to worship in vastly different ways as well.
Lastly, Ms. Hawkins shares that before donning her solidarity hijab, she sought the “advice and blessing” of CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) on “…whether a non-Muslim wearing the hijab was haram (forbidden), patronizing, or otherwise offensive to Muslims.” Unfortunately, CAIR is a Muslim-supremacist advocacy group whose foundational roots go back to the Muslim Brotherhood and its daughter terror organization Hamas. The US Department of Justice named it an unindicted co-conspirator in the terror-funding trial against the Holy Land Foundation, which was actively soliciting funds for Hamas in this country. The United Arab Emirates has also placed CAIR on its own list of banned terrorist organizations. Ms. Hawkin’s appeal to them for advice and blessing is ill-advised. The fact that they “…welcomed the gesture” does not necessarily mean they see her efforts the way she sees them – as an act of solidarity. I would venture a guess that most Muslims, if they see a Christian woman wearing a hijab, interpret it as her recognizing, either willingly or by compulsion, the supremacy of Islam, and so covering herself in compliance with Shariah law. This is not a message that Ms. Hawkins would want to convey, I am sure, but unfortunately what we intend by our actions and what other people interpret them to mean are often not one and the same.
Perhaps in the end this little dust-up created by a well-meant but poorly-defended endeavor will accomplish some good, if it leads to serious theological clarifications as well as to caring for our neighbors regardless of their religious convictions. One can always hope.
To comment and engage with Mateen directly, please follow this link to the blog as originally posted: https://mateenelass.wordpress.com/2015/12/22/a-veiled-message/
30 Comments. Leave new
Wheaton had every right and duty to suspend Ms Hawkins, try going to a Muslim school of higher learning to teach while proclaiming your a devout Christian, let me tell you, that dog won’t hunt.
CAIR has always been a troubled front group, the fact they are still allowed to comment on anything in the US with a strait face is stunning.
Just as much as Islam, Judaism denies “the trinity,the incarnation, the atoning death and subsequent resurrection, salvation by grace through Christ alone” etc. …that is, more or less everything that Mr. Elaas cites. It is ridiculous to imagine that Wheaton would suspend a faculty member for saying that Christians and Jews worship the same God.
west, Islam and Judaism ARE NOT even close to being the same thing, although given the way things are in the pcusa today I suppose it’s not all your falt.
Forgive me, West, but your comment is beyond ridiculous. You may not realize this, but Jews are not practitioners of a religion, they are members of a racial/ethnic group. Some of them practice Judaism, this is true, but some of them practice Christianity, and many of them do not practice any particular religion at all. Jews are not a religion. They are a people group, quite without regard for what any one of them may or may not believe about God.
So please, West. If you want to make sense, please stop talking about Jews as if they are a religion. They aren’t, at least not any more than Pennsylvanians are a religion. Pennsylvanians are a people group (and a rather odd and peculiar people group at that), but they are not a religion.
So, to make my point a bit clearer, allow me to rewrite your last sentence for you. “It is ridiculous to imagine that Wheaton would suspend a faculty member for saying that Christians and Pennsylvanians worship the same God.” Boy, does that really make a lot of sense.
Christians are those who believe in the One Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who has revealed himself in the Bible. Those who believe in some other God, well, they believe in some other God. I am sure that Wheaton would not look too kindly on any faculty member who could not tell the difference between the God of the Bible and the other would-be deities of our world.
There are three major Abrhamic religions. No two of them are “the same.” Is there a point to your post.
There is a great deal of variety in which the word is used, as practitioners of religion or an ethnic group. Reform Judaism may consider someone who converts to another religion as no longer a Jew. On the other hand, a convert to Judaism would identify as a Jew. Most people have no trouble discerning which meaning is meant by the context. I am sorry that you are not able to do that. Nonetheless, since you asked, you are forgiven.
Don’t be silly, West. Most people distinguish ethnic Jews from those who practice Judaism as a religion by employing certain very specific adjectives that make their meaning clear; using, for example, the descriptors orthodox or observant or practicing. If you chose to avoid language that makes your meaning clear and expect other people to somehow magically intuit the precise meaning of your imprecise language, then the failure to communicate lies with you and not with those who are compelled to try to decipher your poorly articulated thoughts. Let us hope that the next time you post a comment to this site you will use language that will actually communicate what you mean to say.
Well, donnie bob, apparently your fellow traveler mr. Elaas did not get the memo on that, since 11 times in this blog post he refers to religious followers of Judaism as “Jews.” No extra adjectives needed. You people are funny!
Christian faith, as the phrase indicates, is faith in Christ. Christians believe in the Messiah (translated into Greek as Christ) in whom “God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5:19). They believe that “in Christ all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Col 2:9) and that “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in” the man Jesus (Col 1:19). Since he is the “one and only Son” of God (Jn 3:16) the incarnate Son is “the [sole] image of the invisible God” in the midst of human beings on earth (Col 1:15). In other words, “No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also (1 Jn 23). Thus, to know the Son is the only way to know the Father (Jn 8:19; 14:7).
Christians, following the passages quoted above from the Scripture (“the Book” as known among the Muslims), differentiate the presence of God in Christ and that in human beings. The difference is qualitative, never quantitative as one observes among the prophets sent from God. Jesus differs from human prophets—including the Prophet Muhammed–in that he is truly divine while the prophets, on a different level, were inspired by God to deliver his messages to men and women. To safeguard this qualitative difference, the doctrine of the Trinity (non-biblical term) is formulated by the Christian church and the dogma is framed to protect the belief that the God of Christian faith is the God and Father of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior (2 Cor 1:3; Eph 1:3; 1 Peter 1:3, etc.).
Therefore, Christian faith and Muslim faith are not the same. Christians follow Christ as truly God and truly Man while Muslims honor Muhammed as human prophet sent from God. In fact, it would be idolatrous for Muslims to proclaim Jesus (a mere prophet in their belief) as the eternal Son of God. Christians worship the second person of the Holy Trinity while Muslims do not worship Muhammed.
Thank you, West. I am very happy to be considered a “fellow traveler” with Mateen Elass. He is much more of a scholar of middle eastern religions than I will ever be, and he is also a considerably nicer person. So, having brought out the heavy artillery against me on this question, I may have to concede your point. Somewhat. Reluctantly. It’s the best I can do, even on Christmas Eve. 🙂
In your post, you referred to the two of us as “you people.” Lumping me in with Mateen Elass is most assuredly not a compliment to him, but it is a compliment to me. So, again, thank you. I don’t know what you mean by “you people,” but I’m good for it whatever it means to you.
Here’s hoping that Santa will be nice to you tonight.
Cheers.
DB – i did not imagine either of you would mind the association. And a merry Christmas to you also.
Seriously, west….you have studied the Bible over the years and see no special standing of the jewish people and what they were promised?
Unfortunately this woman is simply like so many others today…in this denomination and in others….they really have no idea what they believe…it is all just fuzzy, feel good ‘stuff’.
Sad but true, CT. I suspect that the motivation behind the theological fuzziness that so completely envelopes contemporary discussions about Islam is the desperate desire in some quarters to avoid saying what in times past was affirmed as clear, unmistakable and obvious — that Mohammad was (at best) a false prophet, and his purported revelations from “Allah” a total and complete sham.
Christians (those who wholeheartedly believe in the God of the Bible and affirm the ecumenical creeds: i.e. Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, etc.) have never had any difficulty recognizing in the teachings of Mohammad and his followers an unmistakable rejection of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. In Islam, the Bible has been superseded by the Quran as the authoritative standard of truth, and Jesus has been rendered a secondary and superfluous player in the divine drama.
So what should we do? I suppose that we should just keep on doing what Christians from the beginning have always done. We should keep on affirming that the Bible alone is the Word of God, and that it is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone that we are made right with God.
And one thing more, we should keep on affirming that any religion, like Islam, that denies the central tenets and affirmations of historic Christianity is a false religion to be opposed at every turn. There is no greater service that we can render to those who are trapped in the darkness of the false religions of this fallen world than to share with them the good news of the light that is shining brightly in that darkness. And his name is Jesus.
Merry Christmas!
“West” makes a good point observing that Judaism as well as Islam rejects the central theological and soteriological tenets of Christianity, and yet very few Christians would say that Christians and Jews are talking about two different Gods. So are we being disingenuous or hypocritical as Christians if we deny the claim that “Christians and Muslims worship the same God”?
I don’t think so, for the following reasons. When Jesus converses with the Samaritan woman in John 4, he responds to her theological question with the answer, “You (plural, signifying the Samaritans in general) worship what you do not know….” This is because the Samaritans embraced only the Pentateuch, and rejected later revelation of the prophets and historical books. He doesn’t conclude she is worshiping a false God, only worshiping the true God in ignorance because she has accepted the foundations of true revelation (Pentateuch) but rejected the remainder of God’s revelation through the prophets of Israel.
The apostle Paul makes a similar argument in Romans 10 concerning his contemporary Jews who have heard and rejected the gospel (God’s fullest revelation in Christ). In 10:2 he says, “I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but it is without knowledge (epignosis).” They were raised in the truth of God’s revelation up to that point, but now rejected the fullness or culmination of that revelation. Hence, we are talking in these instances of the same God, and same trajectory of salvation history promised by that God, but as the Samaritans worshiped in ignorance by rejecting the fuller revelation that God had given through the writings and the prophets (not just the Pentateuch) so the Judaism of Paul’s day was worshiping in ignorance by rejecting the fullness of truth revealed in and through Jesus.
With Islam, however, we cannot say that the Qur’an’s claims to reveal the religion of Abraham have any basis in reality, as its teachings ignore the essential trajectory of biblical revelation. Though it utilizes and twists some of the biblical stories, its overarching message is very much at odds with that of the Bible. So while we can rightly say of Judaism that its adherents speak of the true God, yet without knowledge (i.e., the full understanding of God’s purposes in sending His Son into the world), I have concluded that we cannot say the same thing of Islam, for it refuses to start with the same revelational building blocks that Jews and Christians adhere to, but creates its own wholly divergent ones.
So, it might be a ridiculous thought that Wheaton would suspend a professor for claiming that Jews and Christians worship the same God, but it is not ridiculous at all that they would take action against the idea that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.
Does that make sense to West and others. Please help me as I am trying to make my way successfully through the labyrinthine difficulties of this question.
Thank you, Dr. Elass, for your comments here. This is a vexed question, and one on which conscientious Christians can and do disagree. I believe, however, that you have hit the nail on the head in this post where you write that Islam “refuses to start with the same revelational building blocks that Jews and Christians adhere to, but creates its own wholly divergent ones.”
This is the crux of the matter. Is Islam simply a variation on the common foundational revelation shared by Jews and Christians, or is it based on a wholly divergent one? I believe that your conclusion here in favor of the second option is the one that is best supported by the weight of the evidence. Islam is simply a different religion at the most basic theological (and revelatory) level.
In “Understanding the Koran” (2004), pages 91-92 reflect the same issue that is raised here, and reference the same passages of Scripture. But in that earlier work, the essential question that you raise in your post today was not brought to bear on the issue. I suspect that had that question been broached, the conclusion at that time would have been the same as the conclusion you have reached here.
Thank you for everything that you have done and continue to do to help us western Christians better understand Islam so that we can know how to respond more lovingly and more creatively both to the Islamic religion and to our Muslim neighbors. Your wisdom and insight are gifts to the Church. Keep up the good work, and may God bless you in your ministry.
I am not sure if one can use the conversation between Jesus and a Samarian woman as a Scriptural proof that Jews and Christians worshipped the same God, at least during the days of Jesus on earth.
Let us review the conversation recorded in John 4:19 – 26. Here the somewhat embarrassed Samarian woman, perceiving Jesus to be a prophet, moves the subject of the conversation from her personal life to a religious practice. She raises an issue as to if a place of worship matters in worshiping God (v. 20). This has been a very serious existential and religious question for her and her people, and can be properly answered by a prophet sent by God.
Jesus, unlike Jews, declaring that what really matters in worship is not the site, introduces his Father as the object of worship in a forth coming community (v. 21). No doubt, here for Jesus, the object of worship matters profoundly and I am sure Jesus has the first commandment in mind.
Then Jesus adds “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know . . .” (v. 22). True, Jesus expresses his solidarity with Jews by saying “we” here but this does not necessarily mean that Jesus and Jews worship the same God during this time. To the contrary, Jesus insists emphatically that his Father is not the father of Jews (Jn 8:42). Instead, their father is the devil (Jn 8:44).
Beyond that, notice here Jesus uses the neuter (translated into English “what”), not the masculine (would be translated as “him whom”). Jesus’ use of the neuter definitely indicates that Jesus is not referring to an object of worship but something else. (For what that is, check commentaries written by competent evangelical scholars). It was idolatrous to worship an object expressed in the neuter and thus, this passage cannot be used to introduce God as an object of worship.
Jesus moves on to visualize the forthcoming or already present worshiping community in which “the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks” (24). Here the Father, in fact his own Father and also our Father through adoption and regeneration, is introduced a second time as the object of worship during the conversation. Evidently the Father is looking for true worshipers.
Jesus gives the reason why “his [the Father’s] worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” Because “God is spirit” (v. 24). Here some scholars have overemphasized “spiritual nature of worship” alone while others have tried to balance the two: spiritual nature and truthful nature of worship. While in a spiritual worshiping situation the object of worship may not be much important the true worshippers of the Father must have the triune God, not any God, present in their spiritual worship. Otherwise, the truth is absent.
Besides, I would like to emphasizes, the Father is seeking true worshipers as stated above. We have to remember here that in human relationship the object has an impact upon the subject and vice versa, as many psychologists, philosophers, and theologians discussed in the 20th century. Only true Father can find true worshipers and vice versa. Truth matters indeed.
Of the question do Christians, Jews and Muslims worship the same God? In preparation to answer the question we have to ask: Can true Christian worshipers worship together with Jews and Muslims? Is God the Father of Jesus Christ present during their worship? Is the joint worship the kind of worship that Jesus Christ explains to the Samarian women, for that matter to us? Evangelical Christians will have to decide.
Well, that at least is more consistent. One could note that you focus on ways in which Christianity and Judaism have more in common, while anyone else could point out how Chrisitanity and Islam share things that Judaism rejects, or how Judaism and Islam have commonality not in Christianity. I doubt that many objective observers may agree that any of those commonalities mean that two of them worship the same God while the third does not, but fair enough.
But i wonder if this means that you repudiate your original post, in which you cite rejection if the trinity and salvation through Christ as grounds to say that we do not worship the same God? If not, then that means that you continue to assert that neither Muslims nor Jews worship the same God as Christians. If you do repudiate your original post, then I must say that to me the appearance is that what you really have is a conclusion in search of a justification, not the other way around.
Pastor Elass you’re spot on, this is not hard to understand, but given the feel good plurality and or ignorance of the Scriptures or the history of the Qur’an there are ALOT of people who think like West.
In your comments here, West, you assume the posture of a critic who sits back and evaluates what other people say, identifying the weaknesses and/or inconsistencies that you see in their comments, while at the same time being careful not to identify yourself explicitly on the issues being discussed.
The posture of a critic can sometimes be useful, but the posture of a actual participant in the discussion is even better. So, if you are game to do it, I would be curious to know what your own thinking is on these issues.
Do you believe that the respective deities of the Jewish, Muslim and Christian faiths (Yahweh, Allah and the Trinity) are one and the same deity? If yes, why? And if no, in what way do you see them as different and distinct?
Do you believe that the Quran is the Word of God in the same way that the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) and the New Testament are revelations from God? If yes, why? And if no, how do you deal with the differences and discrepancies?
I am curious to know if we disagree on the substance of the questions being addressed here, or simply on the manner in which this is being done.
West, you are certainly welcome to continue to entertain your doubts. That is outside the realm of my abilities to change.
As to whether I repudiate my original post, I thought the point of my further comment was to clarify how I could maintain my assertion that Christians can believe that Jews worship the same God of the Bible, while Muslims worship a god based upon faulty historical and theological claims (as judged from a biblical position). What I believe about non-Messianic, “believing” Jews (who reject Jesus as Messiah, Savior and Son) is that they “have a zeal for God (the true God) yet it is without knowledge” (to use Paul’s words from Romans 10. I hope that brings you greater clarity, West, on my position.
InKyu Park, thank you for your thoughtful comments, but I see some problems with your exegetical reasoning in John 4:22. You wish to take the neuter pronoun “what” (ho), which is the direct object of the verb “worship” to indicate that Jesus implies the Samaritans worship “something” other than the true God (otherwise he would have used the masculine pronoun (hon — the accusative case). The problem with this is that in the next clause Jesus uses the exact same wording to describe the worship of the Jewish people, with whom he identifies himself — “we worship what (ho) we know, for salvation is from the Jews.” The contrast he makes is not with the object of worship, but with ignorance vs. knowledge concerning that object.
You make a second, cardinal error in exegesis by jumping to John 8:42 and quite a different context to import the idea into John 4 that Jesus believes the God of the Jews is not the one true God, but rather the devil. In John 8, Jesus is dealing with a group of Jews who wish to kill him, who believe lies about him and who reject his message. Please be careful not to tar and feather all Jews by these words to a specific group of Jews. If all Jews are children of the devil, then why would Christian leaders such as the apostle Paul anguish over their fate, and wish that he might be accursed for their salvation? Why would he continue to preach the gospel to them, announcing that their God had sent Jesus into the world for them, as well as for the Gentiles? Why would he continue to link himself and his message to the same God revealed to the Jews throughout OT history — the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?
Donnie Bob, I’m honored that you have taken time to research and understand my thoughts. You are right that since 2004, as I’ve continued to think about this issue, I’ve become more nuanced in my thinking. I hope that means I’m more accurate, but that remains to be seen!
Mateen Elass, thank you for your writing. But I am afraid you have built a straw man.
First, I do not discuss separately the two neuter pronouns of Jesus in John 4:22. The two clauses are in one passage and I quoted both of them under one quotation mark, but left the last clause of Jesus unquoted with a suggestion for the readers to check commentaries for its fuller meanings. I suggest you read my writing again and get the points I was making. The Hermeneutics 101 advises students to read something carefully. I am afraid you have done an eisegesis, not an exegesis. My point was that Jesus has introduced the object of worship, namely his Father and our Father, during his teaching conversation with the Samaritan woman and the two neuter pronouns of Jesus cannot refer to an object of worship.
Secondly, of my “second, cardinal error in exegesis by jumping to John 8:42 and quite a different context to import the idea into John 4,“ as you evaluated my brief writing, I have to tell you that many of world top ranking NT professors and career theologians, some of whom I have personally and professionally acquainted with for years, have done the same “jumping” when they are familiar with the Biblical contexts. Of course I have seen theologians in the other side of the Bible who cannot do the “jumping” simply because they are unfamiliar with the contents of Scripture.
Let me tell you briefly one of the reasons why I made the jumping without committing “a cardinal error.” The object of worship in question whom Jesus names as the Father in John 4 has many meanings in theology as a term, to the point that some insist the church must use the Father, not the Mother, as the Trinitarian language. One of the meanings of the term Father is understood in terms of worship (honor, obey, glorify etc.) in connection with the first commandment. Thus, what Jesus says in John 8, namely, “My Father, whom you claim as your [Jews’] God, …” (v. 54), “If God were your [Jews’] Father . . . (v. 42), and “You belong to your [Jews’] father, the devil” (v. 44)” can be summed up in connection with worship simply this way: You Jews are not worshiping my Father but only claim you do and so you belong to the devil as its worshipers and children. An exegetical word study of Hebrew and Greek words “father” and the Greek word “to know” used in John 4 will help understand my point here. The two words are dynamically related, not in their roots, but in real life situation and thus creates, when combined, a loving relationship between the true worshiper and the truly worshiped. This seems to be what Jesus means when he says “the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit (or Spirit) and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks” (Jn 4:23).
Thirdly, you seem to be accusing me of committing the fallacy of converse accident, as named technically by the teachers of logics. Nobody is talking about “all Jews” here except you. Further, an exegetical study will show that John’s use of the word “Jews” differs in meaning from that in other books of Scripture. Thus, one has to be careful not to commit the fallacy of equivocation when one uses the term “Jews” in the biblical context.
Fourthly, the apostle Paul is someone who did his best to invite the Jews and Gentiles to worship, not false gods, but the triune God while Jesus Christ wants both groups to return to worship his Father creating a loving relationship in which the adopted children crying “Abba, Father” by the power of the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:15).
Fifthly, I can see you have a horizontal view of history. The Reformers, including Calvin, had predominantly an objective vertical view of history when they dealt with the salvation history. Natural descendants of Abraham do not necessarily worship the God of Abraham. Paul was quite clear on this matter while he was doing Gentile mission work.
By way of an additional comment to the discussion below, the following link is an article by Nabeel Qureshi that deals with some of the same issues we have being discussing here. This article is on the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries’ website. Layman readers may find it interesting and helpful.
http://rzim.org/global-blog/do-muslims-and-christians-worship-the-same-god
My friend, the simple facts of grammar and syntax with regard to John 4:22 make clear that “hon” (in the accusative case) is in both clauses the direct object of the verb “proskuneo”. I fail to understand how you can say that Jesus in this statement is not referring to the object of worship, since that is the purpose of a direct object in reference to a transitive verb. “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews” seems on the face of it very clear. Jesus is making reference to God as the object of the verb “worship.” Am I misunderstanding you, or are you attempting to avoid the rules of language?
The woman who wore a hajib is rightfully suspended and should be fired. To say Muslims worship the same God is wrong. The god of Islam is from the imagination of man, while the God of the Bible is triune, Father, Son and Holy Spirit which is to be believed received and obeyed producing eternal life while the other eternal damnation.
If the God and his attributes and character in the Christian Bible and compared with Allah and his attributes and character in the Koran, the discussion is closed.
Does Allah love? Does Allah save or redeem man? Does Allah demand works in order for man or woman to received salvation? Does Allah
give grace?
In response to what Mateen Elass says (January 1, 2016 at 1:46 AM): InKyu Park says
I am not sure anyone who reads the Bible in Greek will disagree with your statement that “the simple facts of grammar and syntax with regard to John 4:22 make clear that ‘hon’ (in the accusative case) is in both clauses the direct object of the verb ‘proskuneo'”. But the problem is: these “rules of language” seem to have helped you jump to the conclusion that “Jesus is making reference to God as the object of the verb ‘worship.’” The fact of matter is that the word “God” is not mentioned in verse 22 and thus all that interpreters are sure of is the fact that the object of worship is contained in the neuter “what you do now know” and “what we do know.”
Jesus intends here to include more than the right object in worship by using the neuter. You seem to have missed my earlier statement that the verse 22 “does not necessarily mean that Jesus and Jews worship the same God.” I think I made clear, at least attempted to make clear, in other places that Jesus is referring here to more than, in fact quite more than, the object of worship. I am sorry but you seem to be saying again what I did not say. I made a suggestion for the readers to check with what commentaries had said on this issue, for reasons I did not explain. Some scholars determined that Jesus speaks of the “manner” of worship here.
While you claimed it is “very clear” that “Jesus is making reference to God as the object of the verb ‘worship,’” it is not clear at all for many NT scholars in Catholic and Protestant circles on both sides of the Atlantics. Bultmann, whose knowledge of Greek is unquestionable, postulated the Christian God as the object of worship in the second neuter of “what we do know.” I see some Scriptural basis in his presentation, although my friends disagreed with him. If he is correct, it will bring a quite different perspective on the subject. A case could be made that Jesus has the Christian God in mind whom Christians later named the triune God. In short, you added your own idea into verse 22 in the name of grammar and syntax.
Hermeneutics, the science and arts of biblical interpretation, demands, among other things, historical, social, religious and cultural study of Jesus’ words in order to determine what he intends to say in verse 22. The identity of the God contained in “what you do not know“ and “what we do know” is totally dependent upon the meaning of the words Jesus employs in the immediate context, namely, “Samaritans,” “to know,” “we,” “salvation” with or without the definite article, “Jews,” and plus John’s use of tense.
The syntax or grammar is silent outside of its role. Their function is to show only relationship among the words employed. Syntax and grammar without words are empty and words without syntax or grammar are blind, to paraphrase Kant. Had Jesus wanted to make reference to God alone, he would have used the masculine. Again, I determined that Jesus is speaking of more than, in fact much more than, the identity of the object of worship in verse 22. Our Lord Jesus Christ is revealing to the Samaritan woman, and to us for that matter, much richer experiences of worshiping God as the Father by using the neuter pronouns.
Of the question whether or not as their God Christians, Jews, and Muslims worship the Father whom Jesus Himself has clearly identified as the object of worship in verses 21 and 23, I posted my response earlier elsewhere.
I just discovered a misspelling in my last reply to Mateen Elass which could undermine my statement. In the last sentence of the first paragraph of my writing, “what you do now know” should be “what you do not know.” Thank you.