Do Christians and Jews worship the same God?

Other Beliefs & ReligionsIn theological review

The short answer

Yes, in the sense that matters most for the conversation, and with a real and painful difference at the centre. Christians worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who spoke to Moses from the bush and gave Israel the covenants, the Law and the promises, and there is no other God in Christian belief and no second god for the New Testament. The difference is Jesus: Christians believe that this same God has revealed himself finally in his Son, so that knowing God and rejecting his Son cannot both be complete. Jews who do not accept Jesus worship the God of the covenant without, on the Christian account, knowing him in fullness.

The fuller answer

The question needs two answers held together, because either alone misleads. The first is yes, and it is not close. The God of the church is the God of Israel. Christians read Israel's Scriptures as their own, pray Israel's psalms, confess the Shema's one God, and claim Abraham as father in the faith. Paul lists what belongs to Israel in Romans 9: the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the Law, the worship and the promises, and from them, according to the flesh, the Christ. A Christianity that worshipped a different God from Moses would be the ancient heresy of Marcion, and the church rejected it in the second century.

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

Exodus 3:14 (BSB)

At the burning bush God names himself to Moses: I AM WHO I AM. That is the God Christians confess, the self existent maker of heaven and earth who delivered Israel from Egypt and gave the Law at Sinai. Nothing in Christian worship introduces a rival or a replacement. The creeds begin with the same God, Maker of heaven and earth, and the church's Bible opens with his book. When Christians and Jews disagree, they disagree about the acts and identity of one God they both name, which is why the disagreement is so deep and why it must be conducted with the honour due to a shared inheritance, never as a contest between strangers.

“Truly, truly, I tell you,” Jesus declared, “before Abraham was born, I am!”

John 8:58 (BSB)

The difference stands in this verse. Jesus, debating in the Temple, says that Abraham rejoiced to see his day, and then, before Abraham was, I am. He takes the bush's name onto his own lips, and his hearers reach for stones because they hear the claim exactly. In John 8 Jesus also tells the Father's own people that the Father who glorifies him is the God they claim as theirs, and that if God were their Father they would love the one God sent. Christians cannot soften that into agreement. To confess Jesus is to say that the God of Abraham has acted and spoken in him, finally, and that receiving God now means receiving his Son.

the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory and the covenants; theirs the giving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises.

Romans 9:4 (BSB)

Paul writes Romans 9 with grief, not triumph, saying he could wish himself accursed for the sake of his brothers according to the flesh. That is the tone this question demands. Christians answer yes, the same God, the God of the covenants listed in this verse, and then, with Paul's sorrow rather than a debater's satisfaction, that the covenants themselves point to Christ, who is their fulfilment and Israel's own Messiah. The practical conclusion is gratitude and humility. Christians are, in Paul's image, wild branches grafted into Israel's tree. Grafted branches do not boast over the root that supports them.

Sources

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

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What do Jews believe about Jesus?Jewish belief about Jesus varies by movement, but mainstream Judaism does not accept him as Messiah, Son of God or risen Lord. In the classic frame of Maimonides' Thirteen Principles, God is one and incorporeal, and the Messiah is still to come. Rashi, the great medieval commentator, read the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 as Israel itself. Christians answer from the same Tanakh, reading Isaiah 53, Psalm 22 and Zechariah 12:10 as pointing to a pierced, suffering Messiah, and they do so as an argument within a shared book.Why don't Jewish people accept Jesus as the Messiah?Jewish people who do not accept Jesus usually give serious reasons from the shared Scriptures, and they should be heard at full strength. The Messiah was expected to bring peace, gather the exiles and rebuild the Temple, and the world is visibly unredeemed. God is one, and worshipping a man looks like idolatry; the suffering servant is read as Israel. Christians answer that the same Scriptures also promised a suffering, cut off Messiah who would come before the Temple's destruction, and that Jesus himself read Moses, the prophets and the psalms as written about him.Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?In one sense yes, and in the decisive sense no: both faiths worship the one Creator, the God of Abraham, and reject every idol, but Christianity's whole claim is that this God has made himself known in his Son, and Islam denies that Jesus is God's Son or that he was crucified. John states the test plainly: whoever denies the Son does not have the Father. The God is one, but the knowledge of him is not the same.What is the Trinity?The Trinity is the Christian confession that there is one God, and that this one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons, each fully God, equal in power and glory. The word itself is not in the Bible. The reality is taught everywhere in it, and the church forged the word to protect what the Bible says from being flattened in either direction.Bible Character: MosesThe prophet who led Israel out of slavery in Egypt, received the Law on Mount Sinai, and brought the people to the edge of Canaan.Bible Character: AbrahamThe father of Israel, who believed God's promise when it looked impossible, and whose faith was counted as righteousness.Bible Character: JesusThe Son of God, born of Mary in Bethlehem, who preached the kingdom of God, was crucified for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was raised on the third day.Bible Character: PaulThe Pharisee who persecuted the church until the risen Jesus stopped him on the Damascus road, and who became his apostle to the Gentiles, travelling the Roman world and writing many of the New Testament letters.Lesson: The big story of the BibleThe Bible is one story, not sixty-six separate ones. Walk the whole arc once, from creation to new creation, and every book you open will have a place to sit.