There is an old story of how to describe God using all the religions of the world and it goes like this:
Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, “Hey, there is an elephant in the village today.”
They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, “Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway.” All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.
- “Hey, the elephant is a pillar,” said the first man who touched his leg.
- “Oh, no! it is like a rope,” said the second man who touched the tail.
- “Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree,” said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.
- “It is like a big hand fan” said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.
- “It is like a huge wall,” said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.
- “It is like a solid pipe,” Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.
They began to argue about the elephant and every one of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, “What is the matter?” They said, “We cannot agree to what the elephant is like.” Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, “All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said.”
“Oh!” everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right.
There is one fundamental flaw with this whole text and that is the last line: They felt happy that they were all right.
What is scary about this text is that it teaches the world that all “religions” have some sort of truth in them in regards to who God is and that if we just combine them all, we will get the truth. The “wise man” in the story above, wasn’t wise at all. An elephant isn’t a rope, a pipe, a wall, etc. It is an elephant. The 6 men could not see this, but the other villagers (who weren’t blind) and the “wise man,” saw that it was clearly an elephant and even the blind men knew that they were touching an elephant. They all chose to only learn part of the truth and then made claims and assumptions without further diving into the truth that was first told to them.
Before they even studied the Elephant…they were told what it was, just as God revealed Himself from the beginning of time and made Himself plainly known (Romans 1:19-20). However, just like the blind men in the story, Satan has tricked mankind into trading the truth of God for lies (partial truths) in order to satisfy our own desires.
The Word of God gives us the standard of who The Lord is and has revealed the truth to those who were once blind (Isaiah 35:5 AMP).
While it is partially true that other religions have a concept of who God is, it is not true to say that God is the sum of man’s interpretations or wisdom. The God of Christianity, got off His throne, and became a living sacrifice for our sins, so that we might be reconciled to Him. The Islamic and Muslim god, would never get off his throne, nor would He love sinners like Jesus does.
So how then can both these perceptions of God be true when one says God loves sinners and another says He hates them?
The only explanation for this is that these are different beings that are worshiped and that only one of them is the true Lord and Savior. So let’s take heed of the truth and the warning given to us in Colossians:
See to it that no one carries you off as spoil or makes you yourselves captive by his so-called philosophy and intellectualism and vain deceit (idle fancies and plain nonsense), following human tradition (men’s ideas of the material rather than the spiritual world), just crude notions following the rudimentary and elemental teachings of the universe and disregarding [the teachings of] Christ (the Messiah).
For in Him the whole fullness of Deity (the Godhead) continues to dwell in bodily form [giving complete expression of the divine nature].
And you are in Him, made full and having come to fullness of life [in Christ you too are filled with the Godhead—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—and reach full spiritual stature]. And He is the Head of all rule and authority [of every angelic principality and power].
-Colossians 2:8-10 AMP
Unrestrained 