Copyright © 2019-2020 by Jonathan Menn. All rights reserved.

CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM:

The Essentials—PART 1
by

Jonathan M. Menn

B.A., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1974

J.D., Cornell Law School, 1977
M.Div., Trinity Evangelical
Divinity School, 2007

Equipping Church Leaders-East Africa

3701 N. Gillett St., Appleton, WI54914
(920) 731-5523
jonathanmenn@yahoo.com
www.eclea.net

June 2019; revised April 2020

This is an examination of Islam from a Christian perspective and a comparison of major Christian and Islamic
doctrines. Part 1 includes examinations of Islam’s basic authorities, beliefs, sects, and history and discusses the
primary Muslim objections to what Jesus did and who Jesus is, namely, that he was crucified, resurrected, and is
the divine Son of God.
 Copyright © 2019-2020 by Jonathan Menn. All rights reserved.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. BASIC OVERVIEW OF ISLAM

I. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………...3
A. Size and growth………………………………………………………………………………………………………….3
B. Origin and demographics……………………………………………………………………………………………….3
C. Islamic sects……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..3

II. Basic Aspects of Islam………………………………………………………………………………………………....4

A. Sources of authority…………………………………………………………………………………………………….4
B. Islam’s “five pillars”…………………………………………………………………………………………………....6
C. Islam’s six articles of belief (iman)………………………………………………………………………………….....6
D. Calendar, festivals, holy days, and holy places………………………………………………………………………...7

III. Muhammad and the History of Islam……………………………………………………………………………….9

A. Muhammad……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..9
B. History of Islam……………………………………………………………………………………………………........9

2. JESUS AND MUHAMMAD

I. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………....10

II. The Islamic View of Jesus…………………………………………………………………………………………....10

A. Jesus or Isa…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….10
B. The family and birth of Jesus………………………………………………………………………………………....11
C. According to Islam, Jesus was not crucified or resurrected…………………………………………………………11
D. According to Islam, Jesus is a prophet but not the divine Son of God………………………………………………14

III. Responses to the Islamic View of Jesus: Introduction……………………………………………….....................16

IV. Responses to the Islamic View of Jesus: The Crucifixion………………………………………………………....17

A. Multiple witnesses……………………………………………………………………………………………………..17
B. The earliness of Christian creeds……………………………………………………………………………………..17
C. Medical evidence of death…………………………………………………………………………………………….18
D. Jesus’ burial in a tomb………………………………………………………………………………………………..18
E. Reaction of the disciples……………………………………………………………………………………………....19
F. The prevalence of self-damaging material…………………………………………………………………………....19
G. Confirmation by hostile and non-Christian sources………………………………………………………………....19
H. The failure of alternative explanations…………………………………………………………………………….....20
I. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………………...21

V. Responses to the Islamic View of Jesus: The Resurrection………………………………………………………..22

A. The tomb was empty…………………………………………………………………………………………………..22
B. The early Christians began proclaiming Jesus’ resurrection even in Jerusalem…………………………………...23
C. Multiple witnesses……………………………………………………………………………………………………..23
D. The early Christians’ lives were changed by what they saw…………………………………………………………24
E. The sudden conversion of Paul, an enemy of Christ…………………………………………………………………24
F. The sudden conversion of James, a skeptic of Christ………………………………………………………………...25
G. The formation and existence of the Christian church……………………………………………………………….25
H. The failure of alternative explanations…………………………………………………………………………….....27
I. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………………...29

VI. Responses to the Islamic View of Jesus: Jesus is the “Son of God”……………………………………………...29
A. Jesus was fully God: miraculous conception and miraculous signs………………………………………………...31
B. Jesus equated Himself with God and identified Himself as God…………………………………………………….31
C. Jesus claimed to have a unique relationship with God the Father, calling Him “My Father”………………….....33
D. Jesus’ use of the term “Son of Man” is a reference to His divinity………………………………………………....34
E. Jesus used the term “Son of Man” in the same context with the term “Son of God” to show that the
two terms are equivalent………………………………………………………………………………………..35
F. Jesus calls himself the “Son of God” and accepts to be called the “Son of God” by others………………………..36
G. Jesus’ opponents recognized that he was claiming to be God and sought to kill Him for blasphemy
because of his claim to be God’s unique Son…………………………………………………………………..36
H. People worshipped or prayed to Jesus as God, and Jesus accepted that worship…………………………………...37
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I. Jesus is specifically called “God” or “Lord” on multiple occasions throughout the NT……………………………37
J. The same names, titles, and other attributes that are applied to God in the OT or NT are applied to
Jesus in the NT…………………………………………………………………………………………………38
K. Prophecies and statements that pertain to God or the Lord in the OT are quoted and applied to Jesus in the
NT……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….39
L. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………….....39

VII. Implications of the Fact that Jesus Christ is Fully God and Fully Man………………………………………..40
A. God can be truly and personally known in Christ…………………………………………………………………...40
B. Christ shows us what God’s true nature is and thereby also is our true example of how to live…………………..40
C. Redemption from our sin is only possible because Christ is both fully God and fully man………………………..41

BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………………………………41

THE AUTHOR…………………………………………………………………………………………………….........41

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 Copyright © 2019-2020 by Jonathan Menn. All rights reserved.

1. BASIC OVERVIEW OF ISLAM

I. Introduction
Islam means “submission to Allah” (Darussalam 2002b: 332; Dirks 2008: 178; Emerick 2004: 402).
Muslim means “one who is submitted to God” (Braswell 2000: 3; Emerick 2004: 405). Islam divides the world
into two areas: (1) Dar al-Islam (“house of Islam”), the world of peace, where Islam is practiced and the Qur’an
is observed; and (2) Dar al-Harb (“house of war”), the world of warfare and ignorance, which is dominated by
non-Muslims. “The mission of Islam is to bring this second world under Islam” (Braswell 2000: 3).

A. Size and growth

1. Christianity and Islam are the two largest religions in the world. As of 2015, counting all
denominations, sects, and subgroups within each religion, Christianity numbered approximately 2.4 billion
adherents (approximately 33% of the world’s population) and Islam numbered approximately 1.8 billion
adherents (approximately 24.1% of the world’s population) (“List of religious populations” 2019: Adherent
estimates as of 2012; “Islam” 2019: Demographics).
2. Islam is the fastest growing major religion in the world (Emerick 2004: 3; “Growth of religion”
2019). Over the past century Islam has grown at a rate almost 50% faster than the growth rate of Christianity
(“Growth of religion” 2019: Historical growth [chart]); over the past 40 years, Islam has grown at a rate more
than twice as fast as Christianity’s growth rate (“Major religious groups” 2019: Trends in adherence [chart]).
Consequently, even given the rapid increase of the world’s population over the past century, Islam has almost
doubled its share of the world’s population whereas Christianity’s share of the world’s population has remained
the same (“Growth of religion” 2019: Historical growth [chart]).1

B. Origin and demographics

1. Foundation and spread. Islam was founded by Muhammad (AD 570-632), a native of Mecca in
modern Saudi Arabia. Muhammad and his followers conquered Arabia during Muhammad’s life. Following
Muhammad’s death, Gregory Davis states, “Islam rapidly spread into the territories of Byzantium, Persia, and
Western Europe in the decades after Muhammad’s death. . . . The Arab Muslim armies charged into the Holy
Land, conquered what is now Iraq and Iran, then swept west across North Africa, into Spain, and finally into
France. The Muslim offensive was finally halted in the West at the Battle of Poitiers/Tours, not far from Paris,
in 732 AD. In the east, the jihad penetrated deep into Central Asia.” (Davis 2014: sec.2.4.i)
2. Demographics. Currently, approximately 57 countries have Muslim majorities (“Islam” 2019:
Demographics). The majority of the world’s Muslims live in Asia and Africa, of whom 62% are living in Asia
(Ibid.). The ten countries with the largest Muslim populations, which account for over one billion Muslims are
in order: Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Algeria, Morocco (“Top Ten
Countries” 2018: Chart). Africa is the only continent with a Muslim majority (Ibid.). Arabs make up only about
20% of the world’s Muslim population (“Islam” 2019: Demographics).

C. Islamic sects
Muslims generally present themselves as a united community (Ummah) in contrast to the many
denominations of the Christian church. This stems from the fact that, as former Muslim Thabiti Anyabwile puts
it, Islam is “primarily an identity”; thus, “Of first importance is to be Muslim; the second thing is to belong to a
national or ethnic category” (Anaybwile 2011: 89). However, “while Muslims share a common Qur’an and
Hadith, the Muslim world is complicated. . . . Realities range from secular and apathetic cultural Muslims in
many countries to the devout Qur’anic Muslims.” (Garrison 2014: 232)
Additionally, Muhammad said, “The Jews split into seventy-one sects, or seventy-two sects, and the
Christians similarly, and my Ummah will split into seventy-three sects” (at-Tirmidhi: 2640). Of the “seventy-

1
Woodberry and Shubin present a more nuanced picture: “Islam's growth rate of 2.15 percent annually does exceed
Christianity’s rate of 1.45 percent. It is worth pointing out, however, that 96 percent of the growth of Islam is attributable to
biological growth children born into Muslim families. Islam is flourishing in parts of the world where population growth is
high. Christianity, increasingly decentralized, has its traditional base in parts of the world where population growth is quite
slow or has come to a standstill. Thus, the overall trends do show Islam growing faster than Christianity.
Conversion growth is where you find quite a contrast. According to figures presented in the 2000 edition of the
World Christian Encyclopedia, each year some 950,000 people convert to Islam from some other persuasion. Christianity,
by contrast, sees some 2.7 million each year shift their affiliation to Christianity and presumably their allegiance to Christ
from some other religion.” (Woodberry and Shubin 2001: “The fastest growing religion”)
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 Copyright © 2019-2020 by Jonathan Menn. All rights reserved.

three sects,” Muhammad also said, “Seventy-two of them will go to Hell and one of them will go to Paradise,
and it is the majority group” (Abi Dawud: 4597). The Dictionary of Islam states that the actual number of
Islamic sects have “far exceeded the Prophet’s predictions, for the sects of Islam even exceed in number and
variety those of the Christian religion” (Hughes 1895: 567). The major ones include (see Braswell 2000: 59-70;
Emerick 2004: 359-72; Nehls and Eric 2009: 66-80; Schirrmacher 2011: 51-59):
• The Sunnis (“One of the Path,” i.e., those who follow the Sunnah). Sunnis constitute at least 80% of all
Muslims. The vast majority of teaching concerning “orthodox” Islam is Sunni.
• The Shi’ah (Shiites) (“partisans”). Shiites constitute about 10% of Muslims (Iran and Iraq are largely
Shiite). The Shiites believe that the caliphs (Muslim leaders who succeeded Muhammad) should have been
hereditary and should not have begun with Abu Bakr but with Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law, and Ali’s sons.
The assassination of one of Ali’s sons led to permanent estrangement between Sunnis and Shiites. One sect
within the Shiite movement is the Ismailis who are active in East Africa and whose spiritual leader is the
Agha Khan.
• The Wahhabi. This sect is an ultraorthodox, literalist movement within Sunni Islam. It began in the
1700s in Saudi Arabia. Its founder wanted to revert Islam to its original form. It is very influential in Saudi
Arabia and has influenced other ultraconservative Islamic movements around the world.
• The Sufis. Sufis are Muslim mystics. They form groups around a Shaikh, their spiritual leader. They
renounce worldliness and seek an ecstatic experience of annihilation of the self in God. They use chanting,
rhythmic dancing, and music to try to achieve direct contact with Allah.
• The Ahmadiyya. This group was founded in India in the late 1800s. Its founder claimed to be the Mahdi
or Messiah. Although the rest of Islam denies the crucifixion of Jesus, the Ahmadiyya claim that Jesus was
on the cross but was taken down and nursed back to health. The Ahmadiyya also advocate monogamy. They
are very missionary-minded and are rejected by the rest of the Muslim world.
• Folk Islam. Folk Islam is not a separate sect but amounts to the joining of traditional religions with
Islam. Thus, while the “five pillars” of Islam may be practiced (see below), belief in the spirit world,
veneration of ancestors, the use of spells, charms, and amulets, and dependence on shamans and witch
doctors are the most important practical expressions of religious life. One writer noted, “Whereas Formal
Islam advocates a comprehensive, legalistic code of ritual and laws, Folk Islam’s domain is spirits, demons,
blessing, cursing, healing and sorcery” (Love 1994: 87; see also Brown 2006a: 6-7). Various researchers
have estimated that somewhere between 70-85% of all Muslims in the world are influenced by folk Islam
(Brown 2006a: 6-7).

II. Basic Aspects of Islam

For a committed Muslim, “religion is not a matter of intellectual or theological convictions. It is not a
set of beliefs. It is an identity drawn from his family, society, culture, and country.” (Houssney 2010: 82, emph.
added; see also ibid. at 103-11; Brown 2008: 19 [“For many Muslims, being a Muslim is an inseparable
part of their self-identity, their background, their family, their community, and their cultural heritage, regardless
of what they actually believe about God”]. Islam’s goal of advancing Dar al-Islam (“House of Islam”) “is not
done by teaching the pillars of Islam but by advancing sharia, the law of Islam” (Anyabwile 2011: 90).

A. Sources of authority
1. The Qur’an. The Qur’an is the holy book of Islam. It means “recitation” or “reading.” It is considered
to be the very Word of Allah, eternally existing on a tablet in heaven (Q. 85:21-22).2 It supposedly was recited,
piece by piece, by the angel Gabriel to Muhammad over a period of 23 years (Q. 17:106; 25:32). The Qur’an is
divided into 114 surahs. Muslim scholar Muhammad bin Abdullaah As-Suhaym notes that a surah “is a section
of the glorious Qur’an that contains a group of Verses [ayah; plural = ayat] that may or may not be related in
meanings. Some translators do translate it as a chapter which is quite inaccurate because a chapter is a
combination of paragraphs in which related issues are discussed.” (As-Suhaym 2006: 132n.1) The surahs are not

2
Typically, in my ECLEA teaching books I put citations to the Bible in bold and put lengthy quotes in italics. I will follow
the same format with respect to citations of and quotations from the Qur’an. Unless otherwise noted, quotations from the
Qur’an will be from the English translation by Yusuf Ali, The Meaning of the Noble Qur’an. Other versions that will be
cited or quoted from (i.e., Sahih International [cited as Sahih], Pickthall, Shakir, Sarwar, al-Hilali and Khan [cited as Hilali-
Khan], and Arberry) are found on the Muslim website Quranic Arabic Corpus (http://corpus.quran.com/); the translations
by Muhammad Asad and M. A. S. Abdel Haleem will also be cited and quoted from. Unless otherwise noted, quotations
from the Bible will be from the New American Standard Bible.
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 Copyright © 2019-2020 by Jonathan Menn. All rights reserved.

“arranged chronologically or by subject matter” (Haleem 2005: xix; see Appendix A for the chronological order
of the surahs). There is a marked difference in “tone” and subject matter between the earlier surahs from the
period when Muhammad was weaker in Mecca and the later surahs when Muhammad was in a position of
power in Medina (Haleem 2005: xvii-xviii; Michael and McAlister 2010: 17; Sell 1923: 187-95; Gilchrist 1995:
ch.1.4). That difference includes the Qur’an’s (Muhammad’s) attitude toward Christianity (al-Fadi 2003: 2).
2. The Prophetic Sunnah (the life, sayings, and examples of Muhammad). Muhammad’s life example is
called his Sunnah (i.e., path, way, manner of life). Suhaym says, “The Sunnah is the second source of the
religion of Islam. It means all that is reported from the Prophet – with well-connected and authentic chain of
transmitters – of his sayings, deeds, confirmations and qualities. . . . The pure Sunnah is the practical
implementation of the rules, beliefs, acts of worship, kinds of relationships and manners that Islam enjoins. . . .
The Sunnah, as it is regarded as the practical implementation of Islam, it also explains the Qur’an, makes
comments on it, and explains verses that have general meanings. . . . The Sunnah may, in some cases, give
independent explanations of some rules and legislations that are not in the Qur’an. One must have belief in the
Qur’an and Sunnah that they are the basic sources of the religion of Islam that must be followed and turned to.
The command of both must be obeyed, their prohibitions must be abstained from and their contents must be
believed.” (As-Suhaym 2006: 163-65; see also Emerick 2004: 23)
The Qur’an frequently commands Muslims to “obey Allah and the Messenger” (Q. 3:32, 132; 4:13, 59,
69, 80; 5:92; 8:1, 20, 46; 9:71; 24:51, 52, 54, 56; 33:33; 47:33; 58:13; 64:12). Indeed, “Those who disobey
Allah and His Messenger and transgress His limits will be admitted to a Fire, to abide therein: And they shall
have a humiliating punishment” (Q. 4:14). In his farewell sermon preached shortly before his death,
Muhammad said, “I leave behind me two things, the Qur’an and my example, the Sunnah and if you follow
these you will never go astray” (Muhammad 2014: n.p.). Suhaym states, “One must have belief in the Qur’an
and Sunnah that they are the basic sources of the religion of Islam that must be followed and turned to. The
command of both must be obeyed, their prohibitions must be abstained from and their contents must be
believed.” (As-Suhaym 2006: 165) Emerick similarly explains, “By stating that Muhammad is God’s last
Messenger, we are pledging ourselves to practicing what he preached, doing what he did, and looking to him for
our role model” (Emerick 2004: 130).
Whatever Muhammad said, did, or gave silent approval to is called a hadith (plural = ahadith)
(Emerick 2004: 241-44). The Sunnah forms the basis of the Hadith. Since the Sunnah and ahadith are specific
and practical, in many ways they may be more authoritative than the Qur’an although formally the Qur’an is the
foremost authority. As one Muslim says, “If the Qur’an is a Muslim’s primary textbook for the examination of
life, the Ahadith . . . represent the practical, supplemental reading, which may well help make the difference
between passing and failing that all important examination” (Dirks 2008: 46). Each hadith consists of two parts:
the “chain of transmitters” or source (isnad) and the content (matn). Muslim scholars have graded the statements
of Muhammad into degrees of reliability and have selected six collections of Muhammad’s ahadith as authentic
(those of al-Bukhari, Muslim, at-Tirmidhi, Abi Dawud, an-Nasa’i, and Ibn Majah).3 Each collection was
compiled in the late ninth and early tenth centuries (i.e., 250-300 years after Muhammad’s death).
3. Shari’ah (Islamic Law). The shari’ah is a body of legal literature devised by Islamic scholars (the
‘Ulema). Georges Houssney states, “The Qur’an is not taught to be understood by the masses. It’s taught to be
recited for gaining merit with God. The Sharia, not the Qur’an, is what dictates the daily life of a Muslim.”
(Houssney 2010: 89) The purpose of shari’ah is “to provide a ruling on any issue that may confront the Muslim
community” (Emerick 2004: 55). It is designed to regulate all aspects of a Muslim’s life. The shari’ah classifies
every activity or thing as either halal (permitted) or haram (forbidden) (Ibid.: 264). The shari’ah is based on the
Qur’an and the Sunnah. If those do not speak to an issue, the opinions of Muhammad’s immediate followers
(known as the sahaba) are consulted; if none of the foregoing apply to an issue, the scholars may use their
reasoning and analogy to provide an answer. Legal rulings are called fatwas. There are five schools of legal
tradition founded by five Islamic scholars in the latter half of the 8th century and first half of the 9th century AD.
Four of those are Sunni; one is Shiite. Muslim author ‘Abdus-Salam al-Basuni states the proper attitude
Muslims are to have regarding shari’ah: “The position of the believing Muslim is ‘I have no opinion in what
Allah and His Messenger (Blessings and peace be upon him) have legislated, I hear and obey’” (al-Basuni 2007:
16).

3
These and other collections of ahadith are available online at http://sunnah.com/ and at
https://sunniconnect.com/m3/blog/downloads/ahadith/. In this book I use “hadith” for an individual saying of Muhammad,
“ahadith” for several such sayings, and “the Hadith” for the overall collection of Muhammad’s sayings. The numbers of the
ahadith are the “reference” as given on the sunnah.com website.
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 Copyright © 2019-2020 by Jonathan Menn. All rights reserved.

B. Islam’s “five pillars” (see As-Suhaym 2006: 167-75; bin Jamil Zino 2002: 282; Emerick 2004: 123-74;
Nehls and Eric 2009a: 154-62)4
“The basics of Islam are all rigidly prescribed. . . . The call to prayer is the same every day, the ritual of
ablutions is likewise always exactly the same every time a Muslim goes to mosque, and each . . . prayer
ceremony is an exact repetition of the previous one. Every ritual of the Hajj Pilgrimage to Mecca is precisely
defined and the observance of the Ramadan fast likewise never changes. The repetitive nature of the practices of
Islam is derived directly from that first command, Iqra! [“read” or “recite,” the first word of Q. 96:1,
supposedly the first ayah given to Muhammad], and the true Muslim just repeats what has been revealed without
ever having to think about it or being allowed to question it.” (Gilchrist 1994: 91) Former Muslim Thabiti
Anyabwile adds, “The forms are as integral to Islam as the theology. Islam is significantly constituted by
outward form.” (Anyabwile 2011: 90) Islam’s “five pillars” are:
1. Shahadah. Shahadah is the declaration of faith of the Muslim. According to the prayers that Muslims
are required to say, the shahadah is repeated a minimum of 17 times per day. It says, “There is no god except
Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.”
2. Salat. Islam distinguishes personal prayer and supplication (du’a) from salat. Salat is “the religious
ritual that a Muslim must perform five times every day. . . . It consists of a physical routine of bowing and
prostrating coupled with a litany of short recited passages and phrases.” (Emerick 2004: 136) The participants
must face toward Mecca. The timing and the number of repetitions of the prayers (including body movements)
are also prescribed: early morning (two repetitions); midday (four repetitions); late afternoon (four repetitions);
evening (three repetitions); night (four repetitions). Additionally, the face, hands, and feet must be washed and
proper clothes must be worn in order for prayer to begin, and the salat must be said “in Arabic” (Ibid.: 138,
144).
3. Zakat. Zakat is a fixed portion of wealth that is required to be paid to benefit the poor in the Muslim
community. It is required of Muslims who have assets of any kind equivalent to the value of three ounces of
gold. The zakat is 2.5% of the Muslim’s average annual wealth.
4. Saum. Saum is fasting during the month of Ramadan, which is the ninth month of the Islamic
calendar. From dawn until sunset Muslims are to avoid food, drink, and sexual intercourse. However, they may
freely partake of all of those things between sunset and dawn. The sick, travelers, pregnant women, nursing
mothers, and women who have just delivered a baby are exempted from the requirement of saum.
5. Hajj. Every adult, sane, Muslim who is able to do so is required to make a pilgrimage (hajj) to the
House of Allah—the sacred mosque of Mecca—once in his or her lifetime. The hajj is required to take place
from the eighth to the tenth day of the twelfth month of the Islamic calendar. All male pilgrims are required to
wear two specific white garments, and all pilgrims (male and female) are not allowed to have sexual intercourse,
shave or cut their nails, use colognes or scented oils, hunt or kill any living thing, or fight, argue, or bother
anyone during the hajj.

C. Islam’s six articles of belief (iman) (see al-Athari 2005: 68-127; As-Suhaym 2006: 177-99; bin Baz 2002:
247-65; Houssney 2010: 59-63)
1. Belief in Allah. Belief in Allah includes: He is the creator, possessor, and controller of all matters; He
is the only true deity and that all other deities besides Him are false. Belief also includes belief in His names and
attributes. Above all, belief in Allah means belief in His oneness, that He has no partner in His lordship; He
alone has the right to be worshipped. This doctrine of the oneness of Allah (which is a solitary oneness that
excludes the concept of the trinity) is the Islamic doctrine of tauhid.
2. Belief in the angels. According to Islam, angels were created out of light and cannot be seen
(although Allah sometimes shows some of them to his prophets and messengers). They have different functions:
Jibreel (Gabriel) supposedly transmitted the Qur’an to Muhammad; other angels are the keepers of Hell and
Paradise, and others perform other functions. Each human being is assigned two angels, one to write down the
good deeds, one to write down the bad deeds. Angels are large in size and have wings. Additionally, attached to
each person at birth is a qarina, the person’s demonic equal, whose purpose is to haunt and distract the person

4
Anyabwile notes that the Five Pillars “emerged as a consensus regarding the religious duties of the faith. Early on in the
history of Islam some Muslim clerics and scholars argued jihad should be the fifth pillar because jihad, or striving in the
cause of Allah, runs throughout the entire practice of the faith” (Anyabwile 2011: 89n.7). The Five Pillars described here
are according to Sunni Islam. Georges Houssney states, “The Shiite Five Pillars are quite different, made up of abstract
concepts rather than deeds” (Houssney 2010: 51n.1). Since Sunnis constitute at least 80% of Muslims, this book deals
primarily with Sunni Islam. See also the article entitled “True Islam from a Christian perspective” found at
http://www.true-islam.info, which compares Islam’s “five pillars” to similar statements found in the Bible.
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 Copyright © 2019-2020 by Jonathan Menn. All rights reserved.

from the straight path. Also, spirits created from fire are known as jinn (most but not all of whom are evil). The
ultimate evil being is Shaytan (Satan).
3. Belief in Allah’s books. Islam recognizes four major holy books: the Tawrat (Torah) given to Moses;
the Zabur (Psalms) given to David; the Injil (Gospel) given to Jesus; and the Qur’an (Recitation) given to
Muhammad. Muslims contend that the Qur’an is uncreated and eternal. Because the Qur’an contradicts the
Bible at many points, Muslims contend that all of the past books no longer exist or were corrupted by the rabbis
and priests assigned the task of protecting them; however, they maintain that Allah has guaranteed to protect the
Qur’an from corruption, so it has remained free from all defects.
4. Belief in the Messengers (prophets). Islam contends that Allah sent prophets and messengers (who
are considered superior to prophets) to all the nations to warn people of idolatry, disobedience to Allah, and
shirk (the cardinal sin of attributing partners to Allah), and to call people to submit to Allah in the true religion
of Islam. Some Islamic scholars say that 124,000 messengers have been sent. The Qur’an names 25 messengers.
The major ones are Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. Muhammad is considered the
greatest of all the messengers. He is the last and is considered “the Seal of the Prophets” (Q. 33:40).
5. Belief in the Last Day (i.e., of judgment). Islam contends that there will be a last day of resurrection
and judgment. Islam teaches that people’s deeds will be weighed in scales. A bridge (sirat) no thicker than a
razor leading to paradise will be set up over the pit of hell. Everyone will have to cross that bridge. Those not
destined for paradise will fall into hell. There are seven levels of both heaven and hell. If people in hell affirmed
the oneness of Allah (tauhid) they can get out of hell after a fixed term. Those who committed shirk (attributing
partners to Allah) will be in hell forever.
6. Belief in predestination (pre-decree; divine destiny). Islam teaches that everything that happens in the
universe, both good and bad, faith and unbelief, happens by the will and decree of Allah, and Allah does
whatever he wills. What he decrees emanates from his knowledge, power, and will. It is unchangeable. He
knows everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen for all eternity, and he wrote down the
decrees concerning creation in a book in which nothing is neglected. Allah guides whomever he wills by his
mercy, and he leads astray whomever he wills by his wisdom. Allah’s will and decrees are not to be questioned.
“Your Lord creates whatsoever He wills and chooses, no choice have they (in any matter). Glorified be Allah,
and exalted above all that they associate as partners (with Him).” (Q. 28:68, Hilali-Khan)

D. Calendar, festivals, holy days, and holy places

1. The Islamic calendar (“Islamic calendar” 2020). Islam follows a lunar calendar of twelve months, not
the solar calendar. Consequently, the Islamic year is approximately 354 days long instead of 365 days. As a
result, the months fall back about 11 days each solar year, returning to their starting points after about 33
lunar years. The first year of the Islamic calendar is set by the flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina on
17 July 622 (this is called the hegira). Thus, 622 is 1 AH (After Hegira) according to Muslim reckoning.
1441 AH runs from approximately 1 September 2019 to 20 August 2020. These are the names of the Islamic
months:
Month Number of days
Muharram 30
Safar 29
Rabi I 30
Rabi II 29
Jumada I 30
Jumada II 29
Rajab 30
Sha’ban 29
Ramadan 30
Shawwal 29
Dhu’l-Qa’dah 30
Dhu’l-Hijjah 29 or 30* (*leap year)
2. Islamic holy days and festivals. The Qur’an says, “The number of months in the sight of Allah is
twelve (in a year)-so ordained by Him the day He created the heavens and the earth; of them four are sacred”

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(Q. 9:36). Those four sacred months are Muharram, Rajab, Dhu’l-Qa’dah, and Dhu’l-Hijjah. The following are
common Muslim festivals (Braswell 2000: 40-41; Emerick 2004: 262-63; Nehls and Eric 2009: 231-34):
• New year’s day (first of Muharram). A day that commemorates the hegira.
• Ashura (tenth of Muharram). A day of voluntary fasting to commemorate the day on which it is said
God created Adam and Eve. This day is particularly special to Shiites, since it was on this day that Ali’s son
Hussain was killed.
• Maulid un Nabi (twelfth of Rabi I). The birthday of Muhammad. On Lamu island off the coast of Kenya
this is a major event, with Qur’an recitation competitions that last for a week.
• Ramadan. During the month of Ramadan Muslims are to fast from food, drink, and sexual intercourse
between dawn and sunset. It is believed that fasting during Ramadan is thirty times better than at any other
time and that those who fast with pure motives may obtain remission of their sins.
• Lailatu’l-Qadr (“Night of Power [or Glory],” twenty-seventh of Ramadan). This day commemorates
when the angel Gabriel supposedly brought the first verses of the Qur’an to Muhammad. The Qur’an says,
“The Night of Power is better than a thousand months. Therein come down the angels and the Spirit by
Allah’s permission, on every errand: Peace! . . . This until the rise of morn!” (Q. 97:3-5).5 Some Muslims
pray during the entire night.
• Eidu’l-Fitr (“The Minor Feast” or “Festival of the fast Breaking,” first of Shawwal). This, the most
popular holiday in Islam, celebrates the breaking of the fast of Ramadan. It is a time of parties, visiting
family and friends, exchanging presents, and special sweets are prepared.
• Eidu’l-Adha (“The Great Festival” or “Festival of the Sacrifice,” tenth of Dhu’l-Hijjah). This
celebrates the completion of the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca, which is one of the “five pillars of Islam” [see
above]). It is celebrated around the world, even by Muslims who have not participated in the Hajj. It is a
festive time of visitation, feasting, exchange of gifts, and buying new clothes. It is also a day of sacrifice
based on Q. 22:34-37; Q. 37:100-110. “Eid-ul-Adha commemorates Prophet Abraham’s unselfish act of
sacrificing his own son Ishmael to the One God, Allah. . . . But miraculously enough, when Abraham was
about to sacrifice Ishmael, Allah spared the boy’s life and replaced him with a lamb.6 And this is what
Abraham ultimately sacrificed. To commemorate this outstanding act of sacrifice (qurbani) by Prophet
Abraham, people sacrifice a lamb, goat, ram or any other animal on Eid-ul-Adha.” (“Eid-ul-Adha-History”
1988-2012: n.p.)
3. Islamic holy places (see Emerick 2004: 161-74, 298-99; “Holiest sites in Sunni Islam” 2019; Nehls
and Eric 2009a: 241-42; “Qibla” 2019). According to the Hadith, Muhammad said, “Do not prepare yourself for
a journey except to three Mosques, i.e. Al-Masjid-AI-Haram, the Mosque of Aqsa (Jerusalem) and my Mosque”
(al-Bukhari: 1197). He also said, “One prayer in my Mosque is better than one thousand prayers in any other
mosque excepting Al-Masjid-AI-Haram” (Ibid.: 1190).
• The Kab’ah in Mecca. Islam’s holiest city is Mecca, where Muhammad is from. However, the holiest
site in Mecca is the Kab’ah (“Cube”). The Kab’ah is a brick building approximately 14x18 meters in size,
and 12 meters high. It is holy because Muslims believe it was originally constructed as a shrine by Abraham
and Ishmael (Q. 2:127). The Kab’ah is covered with black draping and contains a black stone fitted into the
east corner, allegedly given by the angel Gabriel to Ishmael. It is toward the Kab’ah that Muslims are
required to pray five times per day. The original Kab’ah was a site for idol worship and was destroyed and
rebuilt several times. Muhammad played a role in rebuilding and cleansing it of idols. The Kab’ah is
surrounded by Masjid al-Haram (“The Sacred Mosque”).
• Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (“The Mosque of the Prophet”) in Medina. This is Islam’s second holiest site.
Muhammad was involved in constructing it. The most important feature of the site is the green dome over
the center of the mosque, where Muhammad’s tomb is located.

5
“The Spirit” is generally understood by Muslims to refer to the angel Gabriel, not the Holy Spirit (see Ali 2006: Q. 97:4
n.6219; Haleem 2005: Q. 97:3n.a; Dirks 2008: 197). This is an inference that is not explicitly stated in the Qur’an.
6
This is contrary to the account in Gen 22:1-19 where God told Abraham to sacrifice (and then spared) Isaac, not Ishmael.
Q. 37:100-110 does not specifically name which son Abraham was told to sacrifice. Muslim historian Abu Ja’far
Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (839-923) points out, “The earliest sages of our Prophet’s nation disagree about which of
Abraham’s two sons it was that he was commanded to sacrifice. Some say it was Isaac, while others say it was Ishmael.
Both views are supported by statements related on the authority of the Messenger of God.” (al-Tabari 1987a: 82) He then
spends 14 pages citing and quoting early Islamic authorities on both sides of the issue. Tafsir al-Jalalayn reflects this
confusion in its comment on Q. 37:107: “Then We ransomed him the one whom he had been commanded to sacrifice
namely Ishmael or Isaac—two different opinions—with a mighty sacrifice a mighty ram from Paradise.”
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• Al-Aqsa Mosque (“The Farthest Mosque”) in Jerusalem. This mosque stands over the site where
Muhammad allegedly was taken one night by the angel Gabriel on a horselike creature called the Buraq.
From there he ascended to heaven before being returned to Mecca (see Q. 17:1, 60; 53:1-18). Jerusalem
was also the direction toward which Muslims originally were required to pray until Muhammad received a
new “revelation” to change the direction toward the Kab’ah in Mecca (Q. 2:142-144). This mosque is
located on temple mount in Jerusalem and is notable for its large gold dome.

III. Muhammad and the History of Islam

A. Muhammad (see Emerick 2004: 291-312; “Muhammad” 2019; Nehls and Eric 2009a: 3-66)
Muhammad’s life can be divided into three distinct parts: (1) His youth and married life up to his
“calling” to be a prophet of Allah (AD 570-609); (2) his prophethood during his time in Mecca (AD 610-622);
and (3) his life in Medina until his death (AD 622-632).
1. Life prior to his calling (AD 570-609). Muhammad was born in AD 570 in Mecca to Abdullah and
Amina, of the clan of Hashim of the tribe of Quraish. His father died before he was born, and his mother died
when he was six. He was then raised first by his grandfather, Abdu’l Muttalib, and then by his uncle, Abu Talib.
Muhammad was from a merchant family and as a young man traveled widely accompanying trading caravans.
When he was 25 he married Khadijah who was his employer and was 15 years older than he was. By all
accounts it was a happy marriage, producing 2 boys and 4 girls. Khadijah died after 25 years of marriage.
2. His “calling” and prophethood during his time in Mecca (AD 610-622). Muhammad was in the habit
of periodically retreating to a cave. When he was 40 years old he claimed to be visited by the angel Gabriel in
the cave, who began reciting for him the Qur’an; he did not know what was happening and became very
frightened, but his wife convinced him that this was from Allah (al-Bukhari: 6982; Muslim: 160a). Three years
after this event Muhammad started preaching these revelations publicly, proclaiming that “God is One” (i.e.,
“tauhid”), that complete “surrender” (i.e., “islam”) to Him is the only way acceptable to God, and that he
himself was a prophet and messenger of God. Muhammad’s claims resulted in some converts but also caused
controversy among the polytheists and the different tribes. In about 620 his wife and uncle died. In 622
Muhammad was invited by Muslim believers in Medina (then known as Yathrib) to settle there and become
their leader. He encouraged his followers in Mecca to emigrate to Yathrib and, under cover of night,
Muhammad and his close companion Abu Bakr left Mecca for Yathrib (the hejira).
3. His life in Medina until his death (AD 622-632). In his last 10 years, Muhammad’s life was
transformed: he went from a devoted believer in his calling who had submitted to rejection and ridicule to a
warrior, conqueror, and unquestioned leader of both a religion and a state; he exchanged his monogamy for an
extensive harem of wives and concubines. After fighting a number of battles against the Meccans, Muhammad’s
ranks were swelled with new converts. In 630 he led an army of 10,000 into Mecca which surrendered without a
fight. In June 632 Muhammad died after a short illness, which some say was the result of poison. “At the time of
his death, Muhammad had emerged as a religious and political leader without equal in the Arabian peninsula.
He had founded a community, in fact a nation, based on a monotheistic and prophetic religion.” (Braswell 2000:
15)

B. History of Islam (see Braswell 2000: 47-58; Davis 2014; Emerick 2004: 313-36, 373-91; Nehs and Eric
2009a: 50-60)
1. 632-750: the four “rightly guided caliphs” and the Umayyad dynasty. Muhammad did not name his
successor. His closest friend, Abu Bakr, was chosen to succeed him. Following him, Umar (634-644), Uthman
(644-656), and Ali (656-661) were selected as caliphs. They are known as the “rightly guided” caliphs based on
their following the sunnah and their style of governance. Umar, Uthman, and Ali were all assassinated by other
Muslims. Following Ali’s assassination, a dynasty called the Umayyads ruled the Muslim world from
Damascus, Syria. During this period Muslim armies conquered the entire Middle East, the Byzantine and
Persian empires, North Africa, Spain, reached India and China, and invaded France, where they were stopped by
Charles Martel at the battle of Tours on 732.
2. 750-1258: the Abbasid dynasty. A group known as the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads and ruled
the Islamic world from Baghdad, Iraq. The Abbasid dynasty is considered the “golden age” of Islamic
civilization and corresponded to the so-called “dark ages” of the Christian West. Abbasid rule was destroyed
when the Mongols swept into Muslim lands from central Asia. Eventually, the Mongols themselves converted to
Islam. It was during the period of the Abbasids that Roman Catholic powers from Europe attempted to restore
access to the Holy Land that had once been Christian but had been conquered by the Muslims. A series of
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crusades lasting from 1095-1291 resulted in temporary Christian footholds in the holy land but those ultimately
fell. The crusades resulted in a lasting enmity of Muslims against Christians that exists to this day.
3. 1258-1945: rival Islamic states, the Ottoman empire, and colonialization. After the defeat of the
Abbasid dynasty, the Islamic world consisted of several large Muslim empires which competed among
themselves. These included the Persian Empire, various Turkish states, the Mamlukes of Egypt and Syria, the
Mughals of India, and other states throughout Africa and Asia. The Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople
(now Istanbul, Turkey) in 1453 and by 1517 captured Cairo, Egypt and ended the Mamluke dynasty. The
Ottoman Empire lasted until 1922. During this period of time the Roman Catholics succeeded in pushing the
Muslims out of Spain in 1492. European colonial powers were successful politically, but not religiously, in
taking over much of the Muslim world and creating nation-states and boundary lines. Western cultural
influences were felt particularly in Turkey and Iran beginning after World War I. World War II marked the
culmination of this period.
4. 1945-the present: the contemporary situation. After World War II the Western powers fairly rapidly
granted autonomy to their former colonies. When Great Britain granted independence to India in 1947, Pakistan
was partitioned off as an independent nation for Muslims from the regions where there was a Muslim majority.
Other overtly Muslim states have been established since the end of World War II, including Sudan, Afghanistan,
Iran, and Somalia. The breakup of the USSR led to the independence of Muslim-dominated countries in central
Asia. Islamic movements in many other nations are striving to Islamize their nations. The northern 15 provinces
of Nigeria have declared shari’ah law to be the legal code of that territory. The formation of the modern nation
of Israel in 1948 began a change in the Middle East that has had significant repercussions. It sparked Muslim
unity which led to four wars between Israel and her Muslim neighbors and is an ongoing source of Muslim
outrage. The vast oil wealth of Middle Eastern nations has resulted in a great expansion of Muslim missionaries
and influence around the world. The other aspect of the modern rise of Islam is the rise of extremist Islamists
who focus on jihad (“struggle”).

2. JESUS AND MUHAMMAD

I. Introduction
Jesus and Muhammad are at the center of Christianity and Islam, respectively. As noted above,
Muhammad lived approximately 600 years after Jesus. Since Islam contends that it is the final manifestation of
God’s (Allah’s) revelation to the world and contends that Jesus was part of Allah’s progressive revelation, it is
not surprising that the Qur’an and the Hadith refer to Jesus. Muslims who are writing for Christian-influenced
Westerners often make a point of saying things like “Jesus holds a particularly high place in Islam, and he is
honored in many verses in the Qur’an” (Emerick 2004: 222). Muhammad even said, “I am most akin to Jesus
Christ among the whole of mankind, and all the Prophets are of different mothers but belong to one religion and
no Prophet was raised between me and Jesus” (Muslim: 2365b; see also 2365a, c; al-Bukhari: 3442, 3443).

II. The Islamic View of Jesus

Although Jesus is said to be honored in Islam, the Jesus that Islam honors is not the same as the Jesus
depicted in the Bible and who is worshipped by Christians. Michael and McAlister point out, “The Qur’an’s Isa
[i.e., Jesus] is not a historical figure. His identity and role as a prophet are based solely on alleged revelations to
Muhammad over 600 years after the Jesus of history lived and died.” (Michael and McAlister 2010: 79)7

A. Jesus or Isa
In the Qur’an, the name of Jesus is “Isa,” although most English translations render his name “Jesus.”
“Jesus’ mother tongue was Aramaic. In his own lifetime he was called Yeshua in Aramaic, and Iesous in Greek.
. . . Yeshua is itself a form of Hebrew Yehoshua, which means ‘the LORD saves.’ . . . Yeshua of Nazareth was
never called Isa, the name the Qur’an gives to Him. It is worth noting that Arabic-speaking Christians refer to
Jesus as Yasou (from Yeshua), and never as Isa.” (Michael and McAlister 2010: 79) The name Isa “obtained
most probably from the Nestorian Isho. There are no other records anywhere in Christian history to possibly
suggest the strange name for Jesus in the Qur’an. As Arabic is a Semitic language closely allied to Hebrew one
7
Christine Schirrmacher makes the important observation that “when Muslim partners in Muslim-Christian dialogue
emphasize that they ‘accept’ biblical persons such as Abraham or Jesus Christ, indeed even venerate them, then that means
that only the Koranic perspective on Abraham or Jesus has validity, while Abraham and Jesus, in the way they are
portrayed in the Old and New Testaments, find no acceptance at all” (Schirrmacher 2011: 26).
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would have expected his name to have been the same Yasu’ as the Christians used.” (Gilchrist 1994: 8)

B. The family and birth of Jesus

Islamic apologist Ahmed Deedat recounts the Islamic account of Jesus’ lineage: “The story is that the
maternal grandmother of Jesus, Hannah, had hitherto been barren. She poured out her heart to God: If only God
will grant her a child, she would surely dedicate such a child for the service of God in the temple. God granted
her prayer and Mary [often called Maryam] was born.” (Deedat 2002: 9) In Islam’s account, Imram [Hebrew =
Amram] was Maryam’s father (Q. 3:35-36; 66:12).8 Maryam then was entrusted to Zechariah, the father of
Yahya (John the Baptist) for her upbringing (Q. 3:36-37, 39-41; 19:7). Although the Bible says that Mary was
betrothed and then married to Joseph (Matt 1:18-24), “there is no Joseph in the Islamic version of Jesus’ life”
(Emerick 2004: 223). Both the Bible (Matt 1:18-25) and the Qur’an (Q. 19:20-22) accept that Mary was a
virgin when she supernaturally conceived, but according to the Qur’an Mary gave birth alone in a remote place
under a date palm tree, not in Bethlehem with her husband Joseph in the fulfillment of prophecy (Q. 19:22-26;
compare Matt 2:1-6; Luke 2:1-7).
Deedat confuses the birth of Mary with the biblical story of Hannah’s imploring the Lord for a son and
then giving birth to Samuel (1 Sam 1:1-28). According to Num 26:59, Amram’s [Imram’s] wife was Jochebed,
not Hannah. Jochebed “bore to Amram Aaron and Moses and their sister Miriam” (see also Exod 6:20; 15:20).
Indeed, Q. 20:30 quotes Moses as calling “Aaron, my brother.” Q. 19:28 even calls Maryam the “sister of
Aaron.” Gilchrist points out, “Elsewhere in the Qur’an the word ukhtun (a sister) is always applied to an
immediate sister (as in Sura al-Nisa 4:12, 23, 176) and the use of the word in Mary’s case can only mean a
‘blood-sister of Aaron’.” (Gilchrist 2010: 5; see also “Quran Dictionary” 2009-2017: Q. 19:28, yāukh’ta) All of
this indicates that Muhammad (the Qur’an) confused Mary of the NT with Miriam of the OT, who had lived
1000 years earlier.9

C. According to Islam, Jesus was not crucified or resurrected

The most important differences between the Islamic Jesus and the biblical, historical Jesus go to the
heart of who Jesus is and what Jesus did. The crucifixion is central because it is necessary both for Christ’s
substitutionary atonement for people’s sins and for the resurrection. Yusuf Ali recognizes this: “The Orthodox-
Christian Churches make it a cardinal point of their doctrine that his life was taken on the Cross, that he died and
was buried, that on the third day he rose in the body with his wounds intact, and walked about and conversed,
and ate with his disciples, and was afterwards taken up bodily to heaven. This is necessary for the theological
doctrine of blood sacrifice and vicarious atonement for sins, which is rejected by Islam.” (Ali 2006: Q.
4:157n.663) Islam denies all those cardinal points.
By denying the crucifixion and “the theological doctrine of blood sacrifice and vicarious atonement for
sins,” Muslims unwittingly contradict five important aspects of Islam and the Qur’an:

8
Imram simply is the Arabicized spelling of the Hebrew Amram (“Amram” 2019: In the Qur’an).
9
Ali tries to deal with the obvious problem that Mary lived more than 1000 years after her supposed father Imram and
brothers Moses and Aaron by stating, “Aaron, the brother of Moses, was the first in the line of Israelite priesthood. Mary
and her cousin Elisabeth (mother of Yahya) came of a priestly family, and were therefore ‘sisters of Aaron’ or daughters of
Imran (who was Aaron’s father).” (Ali 2006: Q. 19:28n.2481) However, “The problem is that Mary was never descended
from Aaron at all! Aaron was a Levitical priest, descended with his brother Moses from Levi, one of the sons of Jacob. On
the other hand Mary was descended from Judah, one of Jacob’s other sons, through the line of David (Luke 1:32). She was
not even of the same tribe as Aaron.” (Gilchrist 2010: 5, see Matt 1:2; Luke 3:33; Heb 7:14 which indicate that Mary was
of the tribe of Judah; see also Katz, “Is Mary” n.d.; Gilchrist 2015: 56-57). Halali and Khan try to explain the problem
away by saying, “This Harun (Aaron) is not the brother of Musa (Moses), but he was another pious man at the time of
Maryam (Mary)” (Hilali and Khan 1998: 405 n.1; see also Haleem 2005: Q. 19:28n.b).
Muhammad’s own explanation when he was confronted about this was, “The (people of the old age) used to give
names (to their persons) after the names of Apostles and pious persons who had gone before them” (Muslim: 2135).
Muhammad’s attempted explanation of the problem is manifestly false based on the Qur’an alone, since “the Qur’an calls
Mary the ‘sister of Aaron’ not according to any ‘old age’ practice but because, according to the Qur’an, Mary was the
daughter of Imram by birth, a birth described in real terms in the Qur’an. Consequently, as far as the Qur’an is concerned,
Mary was called the ‘sister of Aaron’ and ‘daughter of Imram’ because she was the direct offspring of Aaron’s parents.”
(Sundiata 2006: 130; see also Spencer 2009: 138) Gilchrist adds, “Muhammad’s response is not convincing. No one else in
the Qur’an is described as the sister of an ancestor.” (Gilchrist 2015: 57) Further, “it is also most unlikely that Aaron would
be called the brother (akha) of Moses in the Qur’an, as often as he is, in the direct sense if Mary was only called his sister
(ukhta) in a figurative sense” (Gilchrist 2010: 5; and, as noted in the main text, the word used means “immediate blood
sister,” not “ancestor”; at pages 3-7 Gilchrist discusses other Islamic errors concerning Jesus’ genealogy).
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• First, the denial of substitutionary atonement effectively denies the very heart of the 2000 years of
Judaism and Christianity which preceded Muhammad. It therefore contradicts the claim that Islam is simply
the evolutionary culmination of Judaism and Christianity. The reason is that “the fundamental idea of
sacrifice in the Old Testament is that of substitution, which again seems to imply everything else—
atonement and redemption, vicarious punishment and forgiveness” (Edersheim 1881: 81). The substitution
of an innocent life for that of the guilty party, which is the heart of substitutionary atonement, pre-eminently
is seen in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
• Second, the denial of substitutionary atonement contradicts many passages which state that the Qur’an
confirms the previous revelation of the Bible (see Q. 2:41, 89, 97; 3:3; 4:47; 5:15, 48; 6:90, 92; 10:37;
12:111; 35:31; 46:9, 12, 30). Islam’s rejection of the crucifixion of Jesus does not address any of the OT
prophecies that pointed to and were fulfilled in the crucifixion; 10 nor does it address any of the NT and
historical evidence for the crucifixion and resurrection.
• Third, in Q. 11:70, 74-76 angels appeared to Abraham, told him they had been sent to destroy Sodom
(where Lot lived), and then Abraham “began to argue with Us concerning the people of Lot” (Sahih). This
is the Qur’an’s version of the account in Gen 18:16-33 where Abraham argued that God should not “sweep
away the righteous with the wicked,” and God agreed that he would spare the entire city if there were only
ten righteous people in it. While the Qur’an does not detail Abraham’s argument, Muslim commentators and
historians accept that Abraham argued that the entire city should be spared if there were even a few
righteous people in it. Tafsir Ibn Kathir states, “When Jibril and the other angels who were with him came
to Ibrahim, they said, (Verily, we are going to destroy the people of this town.) Ibrahim said to them, ‘Will
you destroy a town that has three hundred believers in it’ They said, ‘No.’ He then said, ‘Will you destroy a
town that has two hundred believers in it’ They said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Will you destroy a town that has forty
believers in it’ They said, ‘No.’ He then said, ‘Thirty’ They still replied, ‘No.’ This continued until he said,
‘Five’ They said, ‘No.’ Then he said, ‘What do you think if there is one Muslim man in the town, would you
destroy it’ They said, ‘No.’” (Ibn Kathir, Tafsir, n.d.: Q. 11:74, comment). This is the principle of
substitutionary atonement, i.e., people are not doomed to suffer their fate solely on the basis of their own
sins and behavior, but the righteousness of someone else can save the sinner.
• Fourth, Q. 37:102-107 explicitly confirms the account of Gen 22:1-14 in which God told Abraham to
sacrifice his son but substituted a ram as the substitutionary sacrifice at the last moment.11 Q. 37:107 (Hilali-

10
Prophecy OT Source NT Fulfillment
1. Betrayed by a friend Ps 41:9; 55:12-14 Matt 10:4; 26:47-50; 13:21-27; Luke 22:19-23
2. Betrayed for 30 pieces of silver Zech 11:12 Matt 26:15; 27:3
3. Money thrown in God’s house Zech 11:13 Matt 27:5
4. Money given for potter’s field Zech 11:13 Matt 27:6-10
5. Forsaken by his disciples Zech 13:7 Matt 26:31, 69-74; Mark 14:27, 50
6. Silent before accusers Isa 53:7 Matt 27:12; Acts 8:32-35
7. Beaten and spat upon Isa 50:6; 53:5 Matt 26:67; 27:26; Mark 10:33-34
8. Mocked Ps 22:7-8 Matt 27:31; Luke 22:63-65
9. Hands and feet pierced Ps 22:16; Zech 12:10 Luke 23:33; John 20:25-27
10. Suffers for the sins of others Isa 53:5-6, 8, 10-12 Rom 4:25; 1 Cor 15:3
11. Dies with transgressors Isa 53:12 Matt 27:38; Mark 15:27-28; Luke 22:37
12. Intercedes for persecutors Isa 53:12 Luke 23:34
13. Lots cast for his clothes Ps 22:18 John 19:23-24
14. Friends stand far away Ps 38:11 Matt 27:55-56; Mark 15:40; Luke 23:49
15. People wag their heads Ps 22:7 Matt 27:39
16. People stare at Him Ps 22:17 Luke 23:35
17. He suffers thirst Ps 22:15; 69:21 John 19:28
18. Given gall and vinegar to drink Ps 69:21 John19:28-29; Matt 27:34
19. Cries out when forsaken by God Ps 22:1 Matt 27:46
20. Commits His spirit to God Ps 31:5 Luke 23:46
21. His bones are not broken Ps 34:20 John 19:33
22. His side is pierced Zech 12:10 John 19:34-37
23. Heart broken Ps 22:14; 69:20 John 19:34
24. Darkness over the land Amos 8:9 Matt 27:45
25. Buried in a rich man’s tomb Isa 53:9 Matt 27:57-60
11
Although most Muslims believe that the son involved was Ishmael, the Qur’an does not specify whether the son was
Ishamel or Isaac.
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Khan) states, “We ransomed him with a great sacrifice.” That is the actualization of the principle of
substitutionary atonement. Muslim commentators refer to the biblical account and the substitution of the
ram (see Ali 2006: Q. 37:107n.4108; A’la Mawdudi n.d.: Q. 37:107n.66; Jalal 2017: Q. 37:107, comment).
More than that, every year Muslims commemorate this event by sacrificing animals at their great festival
Eidu’l-Adha (“Festival of the Sacrifice”). Mawdudi states that “Allah made it a tradition till the Day of
Resurrection that all the believers should offer animal sacrifice on the same date in the entire world so as to
keep fresh the memory of the great and unique event signifying faithfulness and devotion” (A’la Mawdudi
n.d.: Q. 37:107n.66; see also Asad 1980: Q. 37:107n.43).
• Fifth, Muslims have a ritual called aqiqah that is not mandatory but is “highly encouraged” (“Aqiqah”
2013: “What is the purpose of Aqiqah?”; see also Malik: book 26, no. 7). Aqiqah is the sacrifice of an
animal on behalf of a newborn baby, typically seven days after the birth. Aqiqah has a substitutionary and
redemptive purpose. Famous Muslim theologian, commentator, and jurist Imam Ibn Al-Qayyim (1292-
1350) admitted the substitutionary and redemptive purpose of aqiqah. He stated that among the benefits of
aqiqah are: “1) It is a sacrifice by means of which the child is brought close to Allah soon after he comes
into this world. 2) It is a ransom for the newborn so that he or she can intercede for his parents. 3) It is a
sacrifice by which the newborn is ransomed just as Allah ransomed Isma’eel with the ram.” (“Sunnah of the
Prophet” 2019: Benefits of Aqiqah?) In sum, the Qur’an and Islam actually accept the principle of
substitutionary atonement while at the same time formally denying it.
Islam’s denial of the crucifixion is based on only one passage in the Qur’an, written more than 600
years after the life of Jesus, Q. 4:157-58: “They said (in boast), “We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the
Messenger of Allah”;- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and
those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a
surety they killed him not. Nay, Allah raised him up unto Himself; and Allah is Exalted in Power, Wise.”12
Although the Qur’an denies that Jesus was crucified, Dirks points out that “the Qur’an does not say that there
was no crucifixion. Rather, the Qur’an states that it was not Jesus Christ who was crucified, even though it was
made to appear that he was. In short, the chasm, which separates Islam and Christianity in regard to the
crucifixion, is not whether or not there was a crucifixion at the time and place the New Testament maintains, but
only whether the person so crucified was Jesus.” (Dirks 2008: 78)
Given the admission that there was a crucifixion at the time and place the NT says there was, Muslims
are unsure what happened on the day Christ (supposedly) was crucified. “Sunni tradition indicates several
different views have gained acceptance. There has never been only one view.” (Larson 2008: 7) The majority
view is that someone else was substituted for Jesus and was crucified in his place. The famous commentary on
the Qur’an Tafsir al-Jalalayn maintains, “The one slain and crucified, who was an associate of theirs [the Jews],
was given the resemblance, of Jesus. In other words, God cast his [Jesus’] likeness to him and so they thought it
was him [Jesus].” (Jalal 2017: Q. 4:157, comment) Emerick says, “Who was crucified on that fateful day? If
anyone was executed, it may have been the man who betrayed Jesus [i.e., Judas Iscariot]. If he looked sort of
like Jesus, in the confusion the Caucasian Romans may have grabbed him and killed him, thinking all Semites
looked alike.” (Emerick 2004: 224) Mufti Muhammad Madani says that “Allah changed the looks of the guard
[of the house where Jesus was imprisoned]. . . . As a result of this, the guard was led to be executed.” (Madani
2005: 1:388) Dirks maintains that the “Barabbas” who was released by Pontius Pilate (Matt 27:15-26; Mark
15:6-15; Luke 23:17-25; John 18:39-40) was really Jesus Christ and the “Jesus” who was crucified was a
“paramilitary insurrectionist known as Jesus, the Galilean, who claimed to be the King of the Jews” (Dirks
2008: 93-108, 111). However, Dirks also floats suggestions that the person crucified might have been “Judas
Iscariot; Simon of Cyrene; simulacrums [i.e., one bearing a superficial likeness to someone else] of Jesus Christ;
[or] unidentified others” (Ibid.: 111; see also Ayoub 1980: 94-103 for various “substitution” theories).
Yusuf Ali in his commentary on Q. 4:158 says, “Another [view] holds that he did die (5:117) but not
when he was supposed to be crucified, and that his being ‘raised up’ unto Allah means that instead of being
disgraced as a malefactor, as the Jews intended, he was on the contrary honoured by Allah as His Messenger:
(see 4:159)” (Ali 2006: Q. 4:158n.664). Fazlul Karim, after citing Q. 4:157 and 3:55, states, “These verses do
not deny Jesus being nailed on the Cross, but they negative his having expired on the Cross. There was no eye
witness of his death but it was only a supposition that he died as a result of nailing.” (Karim 1939: 4:79n.1) Adil
Salahi, editor of the “Islam in Perspective” column for the Saudi Arabian newspaper Arab News, adds, “A
12
Kevin Greeson points out that Q. 4:157 “does not say that Isa did not die. It only says that the Jews did not kill Him. The
Injil agrees! The Jews did not crucify Jesus. They did not have the authority to crucify Him. They were under Roman
occupation and Roman authority. . . . They had to turn Jesus over to the Romans and hope that the Romans would crucify
Jesus for them. And the Romans, not the Jews, did crucify Him.” (Greeson 2007: 141; see also Reynolds 2018: 181)
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number of scholars, some of them prominent indeed, have expressed this view and argued that this expression
[mutawaffīka] which occurs in three different verses in the Quran [Q. 3:55; 5:117; 19:33], means actually that
Jesus Christ died a natural death” (Salahi 1992: 9; see also Mohammad 2003: 3-82 for the evidence from Islamic
sources why the Ahmadiyya Islamic sect concludes that Jesus died a natural death).
Despite the prevailing view that Jesus was not crucified or did not die on the cross, some Muslims agree
that Jesus did die on the cross. Tabari (1987b: 120-25), Ayoub (1980: 91-121), Cumming (2001: 1-14), Larson
(2008: 5-7), and Shamoun (“Al-Tabari” n.d.) discuss the many Islamic views throughout history of what
happened when Christ was (supposedly) crucified, including the view that Jesus died on the cross. Professor
Ayoub even states that the Qur’an “does not deny the death of Christ. . . . The death of Jesus is asserted several
times and in various contexts.” (Ayoub 1980: 106, citing Q. 3:55; 5:117; 19:33) For example, Q. 3:55 states,
“Behold! Allah said: “O Jesus! I will take thee and raise thee to Myself and clear thee (of the falsehoods) of
those who blaspheme”]; The word which is translated “will take you” (mutawaffīka) is an active participle of
the word tawaffā. It typically means “to pass away, to cause to die, to take in death” (“Quran Dictionary” 2009-
2017: Q. 3:55, mutawaffīka; Shamoun, “Al-Tabari” [Appendix: The Meaning of Tawaffa in the Quran] n.d.).
Gabriel Said Reynolds points out, “The Arabic term (tawaffā) behind the translation [of Q. 3:55] is regularly
used in the Qur’an to refer to the manner by which God separates soul from body at death, that is, His taking
one’s life (note, for example, the prayer in 7:26: ‘Lord! Pour patience upon us, and grant us to die [tawaffanā]
as Muslims.’)” (Reynolds 2018: 124). Indeed, Asad’s translation of Q. 3:55 reads, “Lo! God said: “O Jesus!
Verily, I shall cause thee to die, and shall exalt thee unto Me, and cleanse thee of [the presence of] those who
are bent on denying the truth.”
Similarly, Q. 5:117 states, “I [referring to Jesus] was a witness over them whilst I dwelt amongst them;
when Thou didst take me up Thou wast the Watcher over them, and Thou art a witness to all things.” The word
translated “take me up” (tawaffaytanī) is a verb form of that same word, tawaffā and specifically means “to pass
away, to cause to die, to take in death” (“Quran Dictionary” 2009-2017: Q. 5:117, tawaffaytanī; Shamoun, “Al-
Tabari” [Appendix: The Meaning of Tawaffa in the Quran] n.d.). Shakir thus translates Q. 5:117 as “I was a
witness of them so long as I was among them, but when Thou didst cause me to die, Thou wert the watcher over
them.” Asad similarly translates that ayah as “I bore witness to what they did as long as I dwelt in their midst;
but since Thou hast caused me to die, Thou alone hast been their keeper.” Asad points out that Allah’s question
to Jesus in Q. 5:116 (“O Jesus the son of Mary! Didst thou say unto men, worship me and my mother as gods in
derogation of Allah’?”) must have taken place “‘after Jesus’ death’: this is fully evident from Jesus’ subsequent
reference, in the past tense, to his own death (‘since Thou hast caused me to die’) in verse 117” (Asad 1980: Q.
5:116n.139; see also Reynolds 2018: 181).
Finally, Q. 19:33 has the infant Jesus saying, “So peace is on me the day I was born, the day that I die,
and the day that I shall be raised up to life (again)!” That is identical to what is said of the prophet Yahya (John
the Baptist) in Q. 19:15, “So Peace on him the day he was born, the day that he dies, and the day that he will be
raised up to life (again)!” Muslims acknowledge that Yahya died “an unjust death at the hands of a tyrant” (Ali
2006: Q. 19:15n. 2469; see also A’la Mawdudi n.d.: Q. 19:15n.12). Since the same things are said about Yahya
and Jesus in the same order and Yahya admittedly was put to death, the text suggests that Jesus likewise was put
to death. Indeed, the statement at the end of Q. 19:33 “that I shall be raised up to life (again)” makes no sense
unless he first had died. Tafsir Ibn Abbas interprets this text as follows, “(Peace on me the day I was born)
safety to me from Satan’s touch when I was born, (and the day I die) and safety to me from the compression of
the grave when I die, (and the day I shall be raised alive) when I am resurrected alive from the grave!” (Ibn
Abbas 2016: Q. 19:33, comment, emph. added; see also Madani 2005: 3:379) Ibn Abbas’s and Madani’s
interpretations of Q. 19:33 as referring to the resurrection of Jesus (not just his being assumed alive into
heaven) are consistent with the biblical accounts of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. Nevertheless, most
Muslims believe that Jesus was taken to heaven without having died; and all Muslims (including the minority
who believe Jesus died) deny the bodily resurrection of Christ as described in the Bible.

D. According to Islam, Jesus is a prophet but not the divine Son of God
The basic position of Islam regarding Jesus is that Jesus was a prophet of Allah, but he is not the divine
Son of God (Dirks 2008: 35). Islam is adamant that Jesus, like all the prophets (including Muhammad), was a
created being, a merely mortal human. Q. 5:75 says, “Christ the son of Mary was no more than a messenger;
many were the messengers that passed away before him. His mother was a woman of truth. They had both to eat
their (daily) food.” The Qur’an also says, “O People of the Book! Commit no excesses in your religion: Nor say
of Allah aught but the truth. Christ Jesus the son of Mary was (no more than) a messenger of Allah, and His
Word, which He bestowed on Mary, and a spirit proceeding from Him: so believe in Allah and His messengers.
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Say not ‘Trinity’: desist: it will be better for you: for Allah is one Allah: Glory be to Him: (far exalted is He)
above having a son. To Him belong all things in the heavens and on earth. And enough is Allah as a Disposer of
affairs.” (Q. 4:171; see also Q. 2:116; 5:17, 72-73, 116-17; 6:101; 9:30; 10:68; 17:111; 18:4-5; 19:35, 88-92;
21:26; 23:91; 39:4; 43:81-82; 72:3; 112:3). Regarding Q. 4:171, Muhammad Asad states, “In the verse under
discussion, which stresses the purely human nature of Jesus and refutes the belief in his divinity, the Qur’an
points out that Jesus, like all other human beings, was ‘a soul created by Him’” (Asad 1980: Q. 4:171n.181; see
also Ali 2006: Q. 4:171n.675-676; A’la Mawdudi n.d.: Q. 4:171n.212-218).
Muslim apologists also cite statements in the Bible where Jesus calls people to worship God (Matt
4:10; 19:16-17; 23:8-9; Mark 12:28-34; John 17:3; 20:17), calls God “Father” (a term not used of Jesus)
(Matt 5:48; 6:1; 7:21; 11:25; 26:39), prays to the Father (Matt 14:23), says that only the Father knows the day
and the hour of the Second Coming (Matt 24:36), calls himself a “prophet” (Luke 4:24), and was considered to
be a prophet (Matt 21:45-46) (see Al-Hilali 1998: 904-09; Ali 2006: Q. 5:72n.782). They thereby conclude that
“Jesus was subservient to Allah and that he had no share in Divinity” (Al-Hilali 1998: 909; see also Ali 2006: Q.
5:117n.831; A’la Mawdudi n.d.: Q. 43:64n.57).
Christians do not deny the biblical facts stated by Muslim apologists regarding Jesus’ humanity; indeed,
Christians positively affirm that Christ was fully a man, but neither the Bible nor Jesus himself ever said that
Jesus was only a man. Muslim quotations from the Bible are very selective. They omit a vast amount of biblical
data that led Christians to conclude early-on that Jesus was more than just a mortal man but was God come to
earth as a man. The combination of divine and human natures in the person of Christ is called the “hypostatic
union.” In the hypostatic union “the two natures are unchanged by the union. The argument: If divine attributes
are conferred to man, man ceases to be man. Therefore the divine and human natures are not mixed to form a
third nature that is neither one nor the other. The humanity in Christ is not deified, nor is the deity of Christ
humanized.” (Bozack 1993: 75) The Muslim position is based on a fundamental misunderstanding: “Ever since
the Qur’an misled Muslims into assuming that Christians are promoting mere human beings (like Mary) to the
position of deity, their efforts have been directed at showing that it is impossible for man to become God!
Christians also believe that it is impossible for man to become God. However, Christians believe that God
became man. . . . Muslims seem unable to see that Christianity is not exalting a man and equating him with God,
but worshipping a God who became man.” (Sundiata 2006: 199)13 Christians therefore deny the Islamic
conclusions that Christ was only a man and “had no share in Divinity.”
This denial of Christ’s divinity represents a fundamental divide between Christianity and Islam since it
goes to the heart of who Jesus is: either he is fully God and fully man (the Christian view) or is he merely a man
(the Muslim view). This issue is central to Christianity because Christ’s deity (as well as his humanity) is
essential to Christ’s ability to fulfill his primary mission according to Christianity, namely, his substitutionary
atonement for mankind’s sins. It is also central to Islam because Islam (wrongly) considers the Christian view as
amounting to Islam’s unforgivable sin, namely, shirk, i.e., worshiping or attributing godhood to anything or
anyone other than Allah. This divide between Christianity and Islam ultimately is irresolvable since the two
have radically different conceptions of what the “oneness” of God means.
Even though Islam denies the deity of Christ, various aspects of Qur’anic teaching show the Christian
concept of the incarnation of Christ to be at least plausible:
• First, in the Qur’an, spirits or angels can take the form of human beings: “We sent to her [Mary] Our
Ruh [angel Jibrael (Gabriel)], and he appeared before her in the form of a man in all respects” (Q. 19:17,
Hilali-Khan). Since spirits or angels can take the form of human beings, then God, who can do anything,
certainly also could take the form of a human being.

13
According to the Bible, Jesus is eternal. McDowell and Larson point out, “Nowhere in Scripture does it say that God
‘created’ Jesus” (McDowell and Larson 1983: 93). Indeed, Christ who “existed in the form of God, did not regard equality
with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking on the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness
of men” (Phil 2:6-7; see also 2 Cor 8:9). In other words, although he was God, Christ voluntarily left heaven, became a
man, and submitted himself to the Father—all for our sake. Thus, whenever Jesus indicates his subordination to the Father
in such statements as “the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28), we must remember this context of his voluntarily
emptying himself and leaving the riches of heaven for us. As A. W. Pink reminds us, “The contrast which the Savior drew
between the Father and Himself [in John 14:28] was not concerning nature, but official character and position. Christ was
not speaking of Himself in His essential Being. The One who thought it not robbery to be ‘equal with God’ had taken the
servant form, and not only so, had been made in the likeness of men. In both these senses, namely, in His official status (as
Mediator) and in His assumption of human nature, He was inferior to the Father. . . . In view of this, Christ was now
contrasting His situation with that of the Father in the heavenly Sanctuary. . . . It was Christ owning His place as Servant,
and magnifying the One who had sent Him.” (Pink n.d.: 2:408)
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• Second, Q. 39:4 says, “Had Allah wished to take to Himself a son, He could have chosen whom He
pleased out of those whom He doth create.” This affirms that Allah could have a son if he chose to. The
issues thereby become whether he has a son or not and, if so, what is the nature of his son.
• Third, the incarnation of Christ and the Qur’an itself are clearly analogous: “As the eternal ‘logos’
[Word] took on human flesh in the person of the God-man, so the eternal word of God (Qur’an) ‘descended’
[see Q. 2:97; 17:105; 24:34; 26:192-93] on Muhammad in the form of a book” (Larson 2008: 12n.35).
• Fourth, Q. 20:9-14; 27:7-9 relate the story of Moses and the fire, “But when he came to the fire, a voice
was heard: ‘O Moses! . . . Verily, I am Allah’” (Q. 20:11, 14). Ali comments that “it was not an ordinary
fire. It was a Burning Bush; a Sign of the Glory of Allah.” (Ali 2006: Q. 20:10n.2541) Daniel Shayesteh
observes, “The Almighty God became a fire (a substance) and it did not seem blasphemous to the Qur’an.
. . . Does the kind of substance God chooses to dwell in make a difference for the Qur’an? If it does not,
then why does it blame Christians for claiming that God became a man?” (Shayesteh 2004: 140)
Since the Qur’an accepts in principle the concept of incarnation in these other contexts, a primary impediment to
Muslims accepting the incarnation of Christ is undermined. As Sundiata states, “It is only when it can be shown
that God cannot become man that the Christian claim that Jesus was God among us can be implausible”
(Sundiata 2006: 218). Understanding this can help to break the barrier that separates Muslims from the gospel.

III. Responses to the Islamic View of Jesus: Introduction

The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ form the very heart of Christianity. Their central
importance is repeatedly emphasized throughout the NT (e.g., Matt 20:28; John 10:17-18; Rom 5:8-11; 1 Cor
15:1-4; Gal 3:13; Eph 2:14-16; Phil 2:5-11; Col 2:13-14; 1 Tim 2:5-6; Heb 2:14-15; 1 Pet 3:18; 1 John
4:10; Rev 5:1-6). Jesus predicted both his crucifixion and bodily resurrection (Matt 16:21; 17:22-23; Mark
8:31-32; 9:31; 10:32-34; Luke 9:22; 18:31-33; John 2:18-22). Jesus claimed to be God come to earth as a
man. Jesus’ critics asked him for a sign, and he said he would give them one—his resurrection. Jesus was saying
that he would prove that he is who he claimed to be by doing something (bodily rising from the dead) that is
impossible for anyone who is merely a human being (even a prophet or messenger). It is the test by which we
could know that he was telling the truth (Matt 12:38-40; 16:1-4; John 2:18-21; see also Mark 14:58; Luke
11:29-30; Rom 1:4).14 Such a historical test of truth is unique to Christianity. “If Jesus did not rise from the
dead, he was a false prophet and a charlatan whom no rational person should follow. Conversely, if he did rise
from the dead, this event confirmed his radical claim.” (Habermas and Licona 2004: 27)
In the Bible, the bodily resurrection of Christ is intimately linked to the crucifixion (see, e.g., Matt
17:22-23; Mark 10:32-34; John 2;18-22; Rom 4:24-25; 5:8-11; 1 Cor 15:1-4; Phil 2:5-11; Heb 10:9-13).
Since the very purpose of Christ’s coming into the world was to bear the punishment for mankind’s sins by
sacrificing himself on the cross, the resurrection (and subsequent ascension): (1) demonstrates that God accepted
Christ’s sacrifice; and (2) validates who Christ was and everything Christ said. The issues of the crucifixion and
resurrection of Christ are historical ones: either he was crucified and then bodily rose from the grave or he did
not. On these crucial points either the Bible’s affirmation that those events took place is correct or the Qur’an’s
denial is correct. Both cannot be true. Because these are historical issues, “Whether or not a particular event
happened two thousand years ago is not made certain by faith but by historical research, to the extent that
certainty can be attained at all about questions of this kind” (Pannenberg 1968: 98).
Because this issue goes to the heart of who Jesus is, and because the stakes are so high (if Jesus is who
he said he is, then being rightly united with him is a matter of eternal life or death), all people—Christians,

14
Q. 46:35 talks about “messengers of inflexible purpose” (or, as Hilali-Khan translates it, “strong will”). Of all the
Prophets and Messengers, only five are considered to be “messengers of strong will”: Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and
Muhammad (Hilali and Khan 1998: 686 n.2; Haleem 2005: Q. 46:35n.a). Muslim apologist Dr. Abdullah Hadi Al-Kahtani
says, “Muslims believe that a prophet of God will never lie, since all the prophets of God are infallible” (Al-Kahtani 1996:
16). Muslims do not appear to consider the fact that—since Jesus was a “messenger of inflexible purpose” who predicted
both his death and resurrection and even said that his resurrection would be a sign—by claiming he was neither killed nor
resurrected, essentially they are saying that Jesus was a liar. Further, by not believing Jesus they are disobeying the
command of Q. 4:150-52 which says, “Those who deny Allah and His messengers, and (those who) wish to separate Allah
from His messengers, saying: ‘We believe in some but reject others’: And (those who) wish to take a course midway,-They
are in truth (equally) unbelievers; and we have prepared for unbelievers a humiliating punishment. To those who believe in
Allah and His messengers and make no distinction between any of the messengers, we shall soon give their (due) rewards:
for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.” According to Q. 4:150-52, to reject what Jesus said would make one equal with
the unbelievers who face a “humiliating punishment.” Consequently, since Jesus specifically talked about and even
predicted his crucifixion and resurrection, it is important to consider the evidence.
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Muslims, nonbelievers of any kind—need to investigate the evidence and determine for themselves whether the
Bible’s account or the Qur’an’s account is true. The Qur’an itself seems to commend this. In Q. 2:111
Muhammad is told to say specifically to Christians and Jews, “Produce your proof if ye are truthful.” On
several other occasions the Qur’an calls on people to use their minds and consider the evidence (Q. 6:151;
7:169; 8:22; 10:16; 16:12, 67; 21:10; 23:80; 26:28; 30:28; 36:62). So let us turn to the evidence.

IV. Responses to the Islamic View of Jesus: The Crucifixion

Multiple lines of evidence establish that Jesus did, in fact, die by crucifixion. Those lines of evidence
include the following:

A. Multiple witnesses
The crucifixion of Jesus was not a secret or private event. Instead, it was a public event involving
Roman government officials, Jewish leaders (the Sanhedrin), and common people, both friends and foes of
Jesus. Ryan Turner summarizes, “Though the disciples forsook Jesus, some of them were still witnesses from a
distance (Mark 14:54). Also, there was an anonymous disciple [probably John] whom Jesus, while on the cross,
commanded to take care of Mary (John 19:26-27). The Gospel of Luke reports that while Jesus was carrying the
cross, ‘. . . there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented
him’ [Luke 23:27]. In addition to these people already mentioned the Gospels are scattered with references to
Jewish leaders (Mt. 27:41; Mk. 15:31), Roman centurion (Mt. 27:54; Mk. 15:39; Lk. 23:47) and soldiers (Mt.
27:35; Mk. 15:24; Lk. 23:35; and John 19:18, 23) who all witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion. For Muslims to argue
that the crucifixion is not historical simply does not square with the historical data because there were
multitudes of witnesses to the fact that the Romans crucified Jesus.” (Turner 2014: Eyewitness Sources)
Additionally, as Jesus was being led out to be crucified, “They pressed into service a passer-by coming
from the country, Simon of Cyrene (the father of Alexander and Rufus), to bear His cross” (Mark 15:21).
Timothy Keller points out, “There is no reason for the author to include such names unless the readers know or
could have access to them. Mark is saying, ‘Alexander and Rufus vouch for the truth of what I am telling you, if
you want to ask them.’” (Keller 2008: 101) Luke 23:49 adds that Jesus’ “acquaintances and the women who
accompanied Him from Galilee were standing at a distance, seeing these things,” and Jesus’ own mother, his
mother’s sister, and other women he knew were eyewitnesses to the crucifixion (John 19:25-27). A mother
knows her own son. Mary, Jesus’ disciples (including John, who specifically said, “He who has seen has
testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe,” John
19:35). Jesus’ relatives, his friends, and his acquaintances knew who Jesus was and thus knew it was Jesus who
was crucified, not someone else. To claim that someone else was on the cross, or that Jesus did not die on the
cross, is contrary to reason.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the book of Acts, the epistles of Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians,
Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Hebrews, 1 Peter, 2 Peter (implicitly), 1
John, and Revelation all record the death of Jesus; when the manner of that death is mentioned, they state it was
by crucifixion. Those books were written by at least seven different authors and were all written within 20 to a
maximum of 65 years after Jesus’ death. That means the crucifixion was written about while many of the
witnesses still were alive. Keller points out, “The New Testament documents could not say Jesus was crucified
when thousands of people were still alive who knew whether he was or not” (Keller 2008: 102).
In complete contrast to this, the Qur’an contains only a single assertion denying the crucifixion made
over 600 years after the event. Consequently, for purposes of historical evidence, analysis, and reliability, with
respect to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Bible is in a different category from the Qur’an. As Eddy
and Boyd state, in terms of historical value “the Qur’an dates from the seventh century, far too late to be taken
seriously as a reliable independent source of information about Jesus” (Eddy and Boyd 2007: 172).

B. The earliness of Christian creeds

As mentioned above, the books of the Bible were written early, beginning less than 20 years after the
death of Jesus. However, the writers of the NT incorporated into their writings early Christian creeds which are
much older than the books in which they appear (see Habermas 1984: 119; Cullmann 1949: 10, 22-23). “Such
early traditions appear frequently in the New Testament and actually consist of oral teachings and proclamations
which were repeated by word of mouth until recorded in the book itself. Therefore these creeds actually predate
the New Testament writings in which they occur. . . . The two most common elements in these creeds concerned
the death and resurrection of Jesus and his resulting deity.” (Habermas 1984: 33, 120) These early creeds
include 1 Cor 15:3-7 and Phil 2:6-11 (Cullmann 1949: 22-23). Both of these creedal formulas refer to Christ’s
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death. 1 Cor 15:3-4 reports that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried.”
The creed recorded in Philippians specifies the manner of his death: “even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8).
Gary Habermas points out, “That this confession [1 Cor 15:3-7] is an early Christian, pre-Pauline creed
is recognized by virtually all critical scholars across a very wide theological spectrum. There are several
indications which reveal this conclusion. First, Paul’s words ‘delivered’ and ‘received’ are technical terms for
passing on tradition. As such, we have Paul’s statement that this material was not his own, but received from
another source. Second, a number of words in this creed are non-Pauline, again indicating another origin of this
material. . . . Third, it is likely that the creed is organized in a stylized, parallel form, thereby providing a further
indication of the oral and confessional nature of this material. Fourth, there are indications that there may have
been a Semitic original, such as the use of the Aramaic ‘Cephas’ for Peter (v. 5), hence, pointing to an earlier
source before Paul’s Greek translation.” (Habermas 1984: 124-25, citations omitted; see also Jeremias 1966:
101-03) Additionally, “According to most scholars, Paul received this creed from the apostles, which makes it
even earlier, and a creed has to be repeated before it becomes stylized. So now we’re right on top of the
Crucifixion, and note, it’s the eyewitnesses who transmitted this information; it’s not hearsay testimony.”
(Habermas 1987: 43; see also Habermas 1984: 125 and the citations therein; Wright 2003: 319)

C. Medical evidence of death

A detailed article in the Journal of the American Medical Association analyzes from a medical
perspective the events that led up to Jesus’ crucifixion (i.e., his sweating great drops of blood in the Garden of
Gethsemane, his being beaten by the Jews and then scourged by the Romans, his inability to carry his own
cross), the nature of the crucifixion itself, and his being pierced by the Roman’s spear with blood and water
coming out of him, as described in the different biblical accounts. The authors conclude, “The actual cause of
Jesus’ death, like that of other crucified victims, may have been multifactorial and related primarily to
hypovolemic shock, exhaustion asphyxia, and perhaps acute heart failure. . . . However, the important feature
may not be how he died but whether he died. Clearly, the weight of historical and medical evidence indicates
that Jesus was dead before the wound to his side was inflicted and supports the traditional view that the spear,
thrust between his right ribs, probably perforated not only the right lung but also the pericardium and heart and
thereby ensured his death. Accordingly, interpretations based on the assumption that Jesus did not die on the
cross appear to be at odds with modern medical knowledge.” (Edwards, et al. 1986: 1463)
The Roman soldier who pierced Jesus’ side with his spear was making sure that Jesus was, in fact, dead
(John 19:31-34). Had that soldier not been absolutely certain that Jesus was dead, either the soldiers would have
broken Jesus’ legs as they did to the other two men who were crucified with Jesus or they would have done
something else to ensure his death. If Jesus was not truly dead, but the Roman centurion reported to Pilate that
he was dead, he would have been in violation of his orders and would have been lying to his commander and
therefore probably would have paid for that with his own life. Consequently, it is incredible to contend that
Jesus did not die on the cross.

D. Jesus’ burial in a tomb

Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect (governor) of Judea, had ordered Jesus to be crucified (Matt 27:26;
Mark 15:15; Luke 23:24-25; John 19:16). After the crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Jewish
Sanhedrin, requested Jesus’ body in order to bury it; Pilate released the body to be buried but only after first
confirming from the centurion who had been present at the crucifixion that Jesus was, in fact, dead (Matt 27:57-
58; Mark 15:42-45; Luke 23:50-52; John 19:38).15 The early creed, which pre-dates Paul and goes back
essentially to the time of the crucifixion itself, includes the statement “that He was buried” (1 Cor 15:4). N. T.
Wright points out, “The mention of Jesus’ burial [1 Cor 15:4a] can only have attained such a significant place
in a brief and summary traditional narrative if it was regarded as important in itself. [It served] to certify that
Jesus was really and truly dead.” (Wright 2003: 321) A “large stone” was rolled to close the entrance, the tomb
was sealed, and a guard was placed at the tomb to make sure that no one could steal the body (Matt 27:60-66;
Mark 15:46; 16:3-4; Luke 23:53; John 19:41-42). The official government seal, and the Roman security guard
made it impossible for anyone to break into or out of that tomb (Ibid.: 53-61).16

15
“Even the most skeptical scholars acknowledge that Joseph was probably the genuine, historical individual who buried
Jesus, since it is unlikely that early Christian believers would invent an individual, give him a name and nearby town of
origin, and place that fictional character on the historical council of the Sanhedrin, whose members were well known”
(Craig 1981: 53).
16
Josh McDowell points out, “This seal on Jesus’ tomb was a public testimony that Jesus’ body was actually there. In
addition, because the seal was Roman, it verified the fact that His body was protected from vandals by nothing less than the
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E. Reaction of the disciples

The immediate post-crucifixion events are only consistent with Jesus’ actually dying by crucifixion. For
example, John 20:19 reports that the disciples were in a room in which “the doors were shut . . . for fear of the
Jews.” That is only explicable if their leader had, in fact, been executed at the insistence of the Jewish leaders
and the disciples were now afraid that the Jewish leaders would come after them. On the Sunday immediately
after the crucifixion, Mark 16:10 adds that Jesus’ disciples were “mourning and weeping.” Luke 24 reports
that two other disciples, one named Cleopas, were walking on the road to Emmaus. Luke 24:17 states that they
were “looking sad.” The two disciples told the reason in Luke 24:20-21 when they spoke of “how the chief
priests and our rulers delivered Him [Jesus] to the sentence of death, and crucified Him. But we were hoping
that it was he who was going to redeem Israel” Again, the sadness and dashed hopes of those disciples only
makes sense in light of Jesus crucifixion. The fact that one of the disciples on the road to Emmaus was named is
further evidence that the account is authentic and reliable, since Cleopas could have been questioned about the
events of that day.

F. The prevalence of self-damaging material

Christianity was born in a first-century Jewish context, yet all four Gospels and many other NT writings
are centered on the fact that Jesus was crucified by the Romans. If the story of Jesus’ life was simply made up
long after the fact by his followers, the account of Jesus’ crucifixion never would have been included. “It is hard
to imagine a more effective way to convince people in a first-century Jewish context that someone is not the
Messiah than by telling them that the would-be savior was executed by Israel’s military oppressors! To go
further and tell them that this would-be savior died a cursed death on a tree would make the sales pitch all the
worse (cf. Deut. 21:22-23). . . . Thus, the fact that the Synoptic tradition not only continues to mention the
crucifixion but also makes it the centerpiece of its message must be taken as evidence that the earliest
Christians, including the authors of the Synoptic Gospels, remained willing to acknowledge, remember, and
boldly proclaim the single most embarrassing historical fact associated with their fledgling movement. This is
the very sort of self-damaging material historians typically look for in assessing the veracity of ancient works.”
(Eddy and Boyd 2007: 411)

G. Confirmation by hostile and non-Christian sources

Multiple, ancient, non-Christian sources attest to the validity of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Archaeologist Titus Kennedy recounts that Celsus was a “2nd-century AD Roman who criticized Christianity”
who “affirmed that Jesus was nailed to a cross. Around the same time, Justin, a pagan turned Christian, wrote to
Emperor Antoninus Pius in defense of Christianity, mentioning the crucifixion of Jesus and how the events in
the Gospels can be confirmed by checking the Roman records such as the Acts of Pilate.” (Kennedy 2020: 196).
The crucifixion was even portrayed in pictorial form. “The earliest known pictorial representation of the
crucifixion of Jesus comes from Rome, found scratched into the plaster of a wall of the Paedagogium on the
Palatine Hill. Known as the Alexamenos Graffito, the drawing shows Jesus on the cross with the head of a
donkey, while a man standing on the ground looks up to the crucifixion victim with a raised arm. Below, an
accompanying Greek inscription reads ‘Alexamenos worships (his) god.’” (Kennedy 2020: 196-97) Other
Roman and Jewish admissions that Jesus Christ was, in fact, crucified are the following:
1. Babylonian Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud is a central text of Rabbinic Judaism. Tractate
Sanhedrin, folio 43a states, “On the eve of Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took
place, a herald went forth and cried, ‘He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed
Israel to apostasy. Any one who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf.’
But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of the Passover!” (Bab. Talmud:
Sanhedrin 43a) One manuscript specifies that Yeshu refers to Jesus Christ by adding “the Nasarean” after his
name (Bab. Talmud: Sanhedrin 43a, n.34). Most scholars conclude that this passage of the Talmud came from
the earliest period of compilation, AD 70-200 (Habermas 1984: 97-98). This is significant in that the Babylonian
Talmud is an “official” work of Jewish rabbis that admits responsibility for having Jesus executed and that he
died.
2. Toledot Yeshu. The Toledot Yeshu is a “derogatory version of the life of Jesus, growing out of the
response of the Jewish community to Christianity” (Toledot Yeshu n.d.: Introduction). Although it was not
compiled until the fifth or sixth century, Toledot Yeshu again confirms Jesus’ execution: “Yeshu was put to
death on the sixth hour on the eve of the Passover and of the Sabbath” (Ibid.: text).

power and authority of the Roman Empire.” (McDowell 1981: 59)

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3. Josephus. Josephus was born in AD 37. He became a Jewish priest and later fought against the
Romans during the war of AD 66-70. After the Jews were defeated, he joined the Romans as court historian for
Emperor Vespasian. In his book Antiquities of the Jews, written in AD 93, Josephus wrote what is called the
Testimonium Flavianum: “About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man,if indeed oneought to call him a man.
For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He
won over many Jews and many of theGreeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by
men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place
come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life,
for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvellous things about him. And the tribe of
the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.” (Josephus 93:18.63-64, italics added)
Many people believe that a later Christian editor added the italicized portions. The vast majority of scholars
agree that Josephus wrote at least the non-italicized portions of the Testimonium (see Habermas and Licona
2004: 266-70n.42).
4. Tacitus. Tacitus, who lived from approximately AD 55-120, is known as the “greatest historian” of
ancient Rome (Habermas 1984: 87). His Annals, written about AD 115, confirm Jesus’ death. In referring to the
great fire of Rome under Emperor Nero, Tacitus states, “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite
tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the
name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our
procurators, Pontius Pilatus.” (Tacitus c.115: 15.44)
5. Lucian of Samosata. Lucian of Samosata was a Greek anti-Christian satirist. In approximately AD
165-75 he wrote The Passing of Peregrinus. In it, he talked of the Christians who worship “the man who was
crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world” (Lucian of Samosata c.165-75: 11).
6. Mara Bar-Serapion. Mara Bar-Serapion was a Stoic philosopher from Syria. He wrote between
approximately AD 73-200. He wrote a letter to his son to motivate him to emulate wise teachers of the past. In
that letter he said, “For what benefit did the Athenians obtain by putting Socrates to death, seeing that they
received as retribution for it famine and pestilence? Or the people of Samos by the burning of Pythagoras,
seeing that in one hour the whole of their country was covered with sand? Or the Jews by the murder of their
Wise King, seeing that from that very time their kingdom was driven away from them? For with justice did God
grant a recompense to the wisdom of all three of them. For the Athenians died by famine; and the people of
Samos were covered by the sea without remedy; and the Jews, brought to desolation and expelled from their
kingdom, are driven away into Every land.” (Mara Bar-Serapion n.d.: n.p., emph. in orig.)
The above works establish that no one in the ancient world doubted that Jesus had died by crucifixion; it
had, in fact, become common knowledge. The Qur’an’s statement that Jesus was not killed by crucifixion is not
based on any historical or factual reason but is a bare assertion made for theological, not historical, reasons.

H. The failure of alternative explanations

No plausible alternative explanation has ever been advanced to explain away the crucifixion. The
Qur’an’s simple denial that Jesus died or was crucified is based on no historical or factual basis whatsoever and
fails for the above reasons. The same applies to the idea that someone else was “substituted” for Jesus or that he
did not die on the cross but revived in the tomb.
1. The “substitution” theory. The substitution theory fails for other reasons, as even some
knowledgeable Muslims admit. Emerick’s suggestion that the Romans grabbed the wrong man, “thinking all
Semites looked alike” (Emerick 2004: 224) is foolish because all Semites do not look alike to other Semites,
which in this case included Jesus’ mother, his disciples, friends, acquaintances, and his enemies (who wanted to
make sure that it was Jesus who was killed, not some “look alike”).
Muslims generally have not considered other implications of the idea that Allah substituted someone
else for Jesus on the cross: (1) Allah thereby would have victimized an innocent man; (2) Allah thereby would
have deceived not just Jesus’ enemies but also would have deceived Jesus’ mother, relatives, friends, and
disciples; (3) Allah thereby would have demonstrated that he is inherently untrustworthy because this deception
was completely unnecessary. Former Muslim Daniel Shayesteh asks the obvious questions, “What was the
purpose of making a Jesus look alike die and taking the unique Jesus to heaven? Wouldn’t it have been better for
God not to deceive people but rather kill off His enemies and take Jesus to heaven before the eyes of the
people?” (Shayesteh 2004: 183) Further, as Abbas Sundiata points out, “If Allah could deceive people into
thinking that an event they had witnessed was an illusion, how then can Muslims tell that Islam [itself] is not a
gigantic cruel hoax? . . . Is it not remarkable that the only way the Qur’an was able to deny the historical fact
that Jesus was crucified was to make Allah the deceiver of humanity?” (Sundiata 2006: 248, 249)
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Finally, because the historical evidence for the resurrection is so great (see below, section V. Responses
to the Islamic View of Jesus: The Resurrection) the idea that “someone else was substituted for Jesus”
necessitates the conclusion that the “Jesus look-alike” was resurrected from the grave! In other words, Allah’s
deception leads to the same result—someone was crucified and then was resurrected—except that the person
involved was Allah’s imposter, not the real Jesus. More than that, after his resurrection the imposter
implausibly would have continued the charade by convincing everyone he was the “real” Jesus by knowing his
disciples personally (John 20:11—21:24), explaining how the entire OT was all about the real Jesus (Luke
24:13-49), commissioning his disciples to go to the entire world and spread the gospel of the real Jesus (Matt
28:18-20; Mark 16:15-18), and then ascending to heaven (Mark 16:19; Luke 24:50-53; Acts 1:9-11)! The
“substitution theory” therefore is nonsensical and is completely incoherent.
2. The “swoon” theory. Perhaps the most important alternative explanation to the crucifixion that at
least tried to deal with some of the facts was the so-called “swoon theory,” which contends that Jesus did not die
on the cross but was taken down from the cross unconscious (i.e., he “swooned”) and then revived in the tomb.
The swoon theory is contrary to the uniform testimony of the very earliest witnesses—either the friends
or foes of Christianity (Moule and Cupitt 1972: 508; Maier 1973: 112). Additionally, the swoon theory is
contrary to the physical evidence. First, “crucifixion is essentially death by asphyxiation, as the intercostals and
pectoral muscles around the lungs halt normal breathing while the body hangs in the ‘down’ position. Therefore,
faking death on the cross still would not permit one to breathe; one cannot fake the inability to breathe for any
length of time.” (Habermas 1984: 57) Second, the swoon theory also ignores the spear thrust into Jesus’ side.
“Medical doctors who have studied this issue usually agree that this is a very accurate medical description. The
water probably proceeded from the pericardium, the sac that surrounds the heart, while the blood came from the
right side of the heart. Even if Jesus was alive before he was stabbed, the lance would almost certainly have
killed him. Therefore, this chest wounds also disproves the swoon theory.” (Ibid.: 58) Third, the swoon theory
does not take into consideration that Jesus’ body would not have been prepared for burial had even one spark of
life remained in him. Fourth, if he somehow survived the crucifixion, how could he move the heavy stone
blocking the entrance to the tomb? In his extremely weakened physical condition, could he move an object
which even a healthy man would have a great problem with (according to tradition)? This would be even more
difficult when it is remembered that the stone would have to be rolled uphill out of its gulley.” (Habermas 1984:
56-57)
Finally, the swoon theory largely was dealt its death-blow by David Strauss (an opponent of orthodox
Christianity) in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Strauss pointed out, “It is impossible that a being who
had stolen half-dead out of the sepulchre, who crept about weak and ill, wanting medical treatment, who
required bandaging, strengthening and indulgence, and who still, at last, yielded to his sufferings, could have
given to the disciples the impression that he was a Conqueror over death and the grave, the Prince of Life, an
impression which lay at the bottom of their future ministry. Such a resuscitation could only have weakened the
impression which he had made upon them in life and in death, at the most could only have given it an elegiac
voice, but could by no possibility have changed their sorrow into enthusiasm, have elevated their reverence into
worship.” (Strauss 1865: 412)

I. Conclusion
The fact that Jesus died by crucifixion is an event “so strongly attested historically” that it is “granted by
nearly every scholar who studies the subject, even the rather skeptical ones” (Habermas and Licona 2004: 44;
see ibid.: 48-49). Even Muslim Alhaj A. D. Ajijola, a member of Nigeria’s Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs,
refers to “the historical fact that Jesus, son of Mary, had been put on the cross” (Ajijola 1972: 72). He also
admits that “Christians and Jews, despite their discords, are at one that Jesus died on the Cross. The chronicles
of the Roman Empire are in accord with this fact.” (Ibid.: 39) Nevertheless, Ajijola’s adherence to Islamic
doctrine causes him to disregard what he admits to be historical facts and proclaim, “Six hundred years after
Jesus, a man from the Arabian desert made his appearance and proclaimed contrary to the entire world: ‘They
slew him not nor crucified him.’ [Q. 4:157] This claim is a standing miracle of Muhammad the unlettered
Prophet of the Arabian Peninsula (the choicest blessings of God be upon him).” (Ibid.: 39-40)
The above data and conclusions have important implications regarding the basic trustworthiness of the
Qur’an. As Eddy and Boyd point out, “If there is any fact of Jesus’ life that has been established by a broad
consensus, it is the fact of Jesus’ crucifixion. For the Qur’an to get it wrong at this most fundamental point raises
serious questions about the historical reliability of any claim it makes about Jesus.” (Eddy and Boyd 2007: 172)

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V. Responses to the Islamic View of Jesus: The Resurrection

Historical data similar to those that establish that Jesus died by crucifixion also establish that he bodily
rose from the dead. Islam teaches that Jesus was bodily translated to heaven, similar to Enoch and Elijah and
also similar to Jesus’ ascension forty days after his resurrection as described in the Bible (Q. 4:157-58; see also
Q. 3:55; compare Gen 5:24; 2 Kgs 2:1-11; Acts 1:9-11). However, resurrection is different from being
translated to heaven: “A resurrection is the physical and bodily raising up of the dead man in the tomb to new
life” (Craig 1981: 133; see also Wright 2003: 109 [“Resurrection is what did not happen to Enoch or Elijah”]).
Jesus predicted his resurrection and gave it as the test by which we could know he was telling the truth (Matt
12:38-40; 16:1-4; John 2:18-21; see also Mark 14:58; Luke 11:29-30; Rom 1:4). Whether he resurrected is a
factual, historical question: either he did or he did not. The following historical data demonstrate that Jesus was,
in fact, bodily resurrected from the grave:

A. The tomb was empty

The tomb in which Jesus had been buried was owned by Joseph of Arimathea (Matt 27:57-60; Mark
15:45-46; Luke 23:50-53; John 19:38-42); thus it was a known tomb. Further, the women who went to the
tomb on the Sunday after the burial had seen where Jesus was buried, so they knew the location of the tomb
(Matt 27:61; Mark 15:47; Luke 13:55; John 20:1).
1. The significance of the women. On the Sunday immediately following the burial, Mary Magdalene
and other women went to the tomb, found that the stone had been rolled away and the tomb was empty, and
encountered the risen Christ (Matt 28:1-7; Mark 16:1-9; Luke 24:1-8; John 20:1). They then reported to the
disciples that the tomb was empty and that Jesus had risen from the grave and was alive (Matt 28:8; Mark
16:10-11; Luke 24:9-12; John 20: 2-18). These passages are significant in that the initial appearances of Jesus
following his resurrection and the initial reports of the resurrection were made to and were given by women.
This fact shows that the biblical accounts were not made up but are reliable. The reason is that in ancient
Judaism women were considered to be unreliable witnesses; they either were not competent to act as witnesses
in court or there were significant limitations on the testimony they could give (“Witness” 2008: n.p.; Meacham
2009: Other Laws). Paul Maier explains that since the testimony of women was considered to be unreliable, “if
the resurrection accounts had been manufactured . . . women would never have been included in the story, at
least, not as first witnesses” (Maier 1973: 98).
2. The significance of the Jews. The Jewish leaders never denied that the tomb was empty. Instead,
when the Roman guard reported to the chief priests what had happened, the Jewish leaders bribed the guard and
invented the story that Jesus’ “disciples came by night and stole Him away” (Matt 28:11-15). “Well into the
second century A.D. and long after Matthew recorded its first instance, the Jerusalem authorities continued to
admit an empty tomb by ascribing it to the disciples’ stealing the body. For, in his Dialogue with Trypho [ch.
108], Justin Martyr, who came from neighboring Samaria, reported c. 150 A.D. that the Jewish authorities even
sent specially commissioned men across the Mediterranean to counter Christian claims with this explanation of
the resurrection.”(Ibid.: 116-17)
Additionally, Edward Bode points out that the claim that someone stole the body had to have developed
early, because after a long time “too many things could have happened to explain [the tomb’s] being empty. . . .
Moreover, the polemic [the argument of the Jewish leaders] did not contest the existence of the empty tomb;
rather it admitted the fact of the empty tomb by trying to explain the emptiness through some manner other than
Jesus’ resurrection.” (Bode 1970: 163; see also Wright 2003: 638) As William Lane Craig states, “The early
Jewish propaganda against which Matthew writes thus itself presupposes and bears witness to the fact that
Jesus’ tomb was empty. The evidence is all the more powerful because it comes from the enemies of the
Christian ‘heresy’ themselves.” (Craig 1981: 83-84)
3. The lack of veneration of the grave. “One of the most striking factors to be considered is that we have
no record in the early decades of Christianity of any tomb being venerated as the place where Jesus had been
laid to rest. . . . This is indeed striking, because within contemporary Judaism, as in other religions, the desire to
honour the memory of the revered dead by constructing appropriate tombs and (by implication) by veneration of
the site is well attested. . . . Why would the first Christians not act out this pious instinct and tradition? The only
obvious answer, in the light of the evidence thus far reviewed, is that they did not believe any tomb contained
his body. They could not venerate his remains because they did not think there were any remains to be
venerated.” (Dunn 2003: 837-38; see also Craig 1981: 63) The lack of veneration of Jesus’ tomb contrasts with
the veneration of the tombs and bones of the early Christian martyrs (see The Martyrdom of Polycarp c.160: 18).
It also contrasts with the tomb of Muhammad in Medina which to this day remains a site of pilgrimage for
Muslims.
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B. The early Christians began proclaiming Jesus’ resurrection even in Jerusalem

The fact that Jesus’ tomb was empty and the credibility of the Christian belief in the resurrection are
confirmed by the fact that the early Christians did not wait decades to proclaim Jesus’ resurrection (so that the
witnesses would be dead) but did so from the beginning.17 They also did not go to some remote province to
proclaim Jesus’ resurrection (where no one could contradict them), but began their proclamation in Jerusalem,
the city where Jesus had been killed and buried and where their primary opponents, the Jewish leaders and the
Romans, were most prominent (Acts 2-7).
Edward Bode notes, “Given the Jewish notion of the resurrection of the body and the knowledge of the
location of the tomb, it would have been impossible to preach a risen Jesus in Jerusalem if this tomb had still
contained the body. With the Jewish mentality of resurrection and the availability of the tomb, someone sooner
or later was bound to look for himself to see if the tomb was empty.” (Bode 1970: 174; see also Craig 1981: 82-
83) “The empty tomb could not prove the resurrection of Jesus or create faith in it. But the contrary is not true.
If the Jewish authorities had been able to produce the body of Jesus, they would have been able finally and
decisively to disprove the resurrection of Jesus, as the disciples believed it and were proclaiming it” (Neill 1964:
288, emph. in orig.). The Jewish leaders had the means, the motive, and the opportunity to crush the incipient
Christian movement, and they easily could have and would have done so had they simply gone to the tomb,
removed Jesus’ dead body, and paraded it for all to see; but they did not because they could not.
The same is true with respect to the Roman authorities who, above all else, wanted to keep peace and
avoid conflict among the people they governed. “If the [Jewish or Roman] authorities could have produced
Jesus’ corpse, they would have exploded the Resurrection faith for good; the fact that it was not exploded
indicates that they did not produce the corpse, and their failure to produce it . . . shows that they could not
produce it.” (Packer 1987: 149) The failure of early Christianity’s enemies to produce Jesus’ dead body is
eloquent testimony that the grave was empty—and the only plausible explanation that fits all the facts is that the
grave was empty because Jesus had risen from the grave exactly as he had predicted and as the disciples were
proclaiming.18

C. Multiple witnesses
Earlier, we considered the early Christian creeds, including 1 Cor 15:3-7. That creed is particularly
important since it goes back to the early AD 30s, essentially to the time of the crucifixion/resurrection itself, and
was based on eyewitness testimony (Habermas 1987: 43; see also Habermas 1984: 125 and the citations
therein). Verses 4-7 of that creed state: “4 And that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day
according to the Scriptures,5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.6 After that He appeared to
more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep;7 then
He appeared to James, then to all the apostles.” A. M. Hunter points out that1 Cor 15:3-7 “is traditional
testimony to the fact of the resurrection taking us back to within half a dozen years of the crucifixion, and it has
rightly been called ‘the oldest document of the Christian church which we possess.’ Moreover, it is ‘tradition’
whose truth was open to testing. When Paul wrote, Peter and James were still living and most of the ‘five
hundred brethren’ yet survived and could be questioned.” (Hunter 1976: 100, emph. in orig.) Habermas
summarizes the importance of this early creed: “No longer can it be charged that there is no demonstrably early,
eyewitness testimony for the resurrection or for the other most important tenets of Christianity, for this creed
provides just such evidential data concerning the facts of the gospel, which are the very center of the Christian
faith. It links the events themselves with those who actually participated in time and space. . . . The fact that it
was the original eyewitnesses who reported these events indicates that legends from a later period cannot
explain this initial testimony.” (Habermas 1984: 126-27)
With respect to the 500 witnesses, C. H. Dodd observes, “There can hardly be any purpose in
mentioning the fact that most of the 500 are still alive, unless Paul is saying, in effect, ‘the witnesses are there to
be questioned’” (Dodd 1968: 128). It is important to remember that “Paul’s letter was to a church, and therefore
it was a public document, written to be read aloud. Paul was inviting anyone who doubted that Jesus had

17
The fact that Jesus’ disciples began proclaiming his resurrection is itself evidence for his crucifixion. To proclaim that
someone has risen from the dead is nonsensical unless that person first is dead.
18
“The seedbed for the first budding and growth of the church was in the city of Jerusalem itself, where, of all places, it
would have been ridiculous to preach a risen Christ unless both the apostles and their hearers knew that Joseph's sepulcher
was empty. Some months later, the authorities were so desperate to stop the movement that they even resorted to
persecution. A far more effective tool would have been at least an elaborate counter-rumor that there was a body in Joseph's
grave, but this was never attempted because by then there were apparently too many Jerusalemites who had seen for
themselves that the sepulcher was empty at the time.” (Maier 1973: 120)
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appeared to people after his death to go and talk to the eyewitnesses if they wished. It was a bold challenge and
one that could easily be taken up, since during the pax Romana travel around the Mediterranean was safe and
easy. Paul could not have made such a challenge if those eyewitnesses didn’t exist.” (Keller 2008: 204)

D. The early Christians’ lives were changed by what they saw

As mentioned earlier, the disciples also did not believe the reports of the women that Jesus had risen
from the tomb. Then Jesus appeared to the disciples in order to assure them that he was not just a vision, or
hallucination, or spirit, or ghost; he asked them to touch his body, and he also ate with them (Luke 24:36-43;
John 20:19-29; 21:9-14).
These personal appearances of Jesus in his resurrection body transformed the disciples. Habermas and
Licona discuss this: “After Jesus’ death, the lives of the disciples were transformed to the point that they
endured persecution and even martyrdom. . . . Compare this courage to their character at Jesus' arrest and
execution. They denied and abandoned him, then they hid in fear. Afterward, they willingly endangered
themselves by publicly proclaiming the risen Christ. These facts are validated by multiple accounts, both from
early sources in the New Testament as well as outside of it.” (Habermas and Licona 2004: 56) Clement of
Rome, who is reputed to have seen the apostles (Irenaeus c.185: 3.3.3; Tertullian c.200: 32), wrote even at the
end of the first century that their boldness in preaching was because they had “been fully assured through the
resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Clement c.95: ch. 42). If the original disciples had not seen the risen
Lord, they would not have been transformed from cowards to bold witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus, despite
persecution and death (which most of them suffered). But for that, Christianity would not exist.
The NT frequently discusses the persecution faced by the early disciples who had seen the risen Jesus
and the boldness with which they nevertheless proclaimed that Jesus had risen and was Lord (e.g., Acts 4:1-31;
5:17-42; 6:7-7:60; 8:1-3; 9:1-31; 12:1-5; 14:1-28; 16:16-40; 18:12-16; 20:17-24; 21:10-13, 27-26:29; 28:16-
31; 2 Cor 11:23-33). Polycarp, who himself was martyred in about AD 160 (Martyrdom c.160: 9), in his Epistle
to the Philippians (c.110) confirms not only the suffering and deaths of Paul and the other apostles but also the
source of their steadfastness—the resurrection of Christ: “For they loved not this present world, but Him who
died for us, and for our sakes was raised again by God from the dead” (Polycarp c.110: 9). The only plausible
explanation for this amazing change in the character and lives of the disciples that is also consistent with the rest
of the known evidence (e.g., Jesus’ death, his burial, the empty tomb) is Jesus’ bodily resurrection. Origen made
this point in AD 248: “But a clear and unmistakable proof of the fact [of Christ’s resurrection] I hold to be the
undertaking of His disciples, who devoted themselves to the teaching of a doctrine which was attended with
danger to human life,—a doctrine which they would not have taught with such courage had they invented the
resurrection of Jesus from the dead; and who also, at the same time, not only prepared others to despise death,
but were themselves the first to manifest their disregard for its terrors.” (Origen 248: 2:56) The bold
proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection in the face of persecution and death thus disproves the swoon theory, the
stolen body theory, or other “naturalistic” attempts to explain away the resurrection, because no one will
willingly suffer and die for what he knows to be a lie.19
It is true, of course, that many people have willingly died for causes they sincerely believed in even if
those causes proved to be untrue or evil. However, Michael Licona points out that, with respect to the early
Christians who faced persecution and martyrdom for their faith, “There is an important difference between the
martyred apostle and those who die for their beliefs today. Modern martyrs act solely out of their trust in beliefs
passed along to them by others. The apostles died for holding to their own testimony that they had personally
seen the risen Jesus. Contemporary martyrs die for what they believe to be true. The disciples of Jesus died for
what they knew to be either true or false.” (Licona 2010: 370

E. The sudden conversion of Paul, an enemy of Christ

The apostle Paul, first known as Saul of Tarsus, was a well-educated Pharisee (Acts 22:3; 26:4-5; Phil
3:4-5). So fanatical was he for the monotheistic Jewish faith in which he was raised and instructed that he
became a zealous persecutor of Christians (Acts 7:54-8:3; 9:1-2; 22:4-5; 26:9-11; Phil 3:6). However, even
while he was in the middle of persecuting Christians, Paul was dramatically converted to Christ (Acts 9:1-22).

19
Charles Colson has stated, “But what about the disciples? Twelve powerless men, peasants really, were facing not just
embarrassment or political disgrace, but beatings, stonings, execution. Every single one of the disciples insisted, to their
dying breaths, that they had physically seen Jesus bodily raised from the dead. Don’t you think that one of those apostles
would have cracked before being beheaded or stoned? That one of them would have made a deal with the authorities? None
did. You see, men will give their lives for something they believe to be true—they will never give their lives for something
they know to be false.” (Colson 2002: n.p.)
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What accounts for such a dramatic conversion—one that transformed Paul from being a persecutor to being
persecuted? Paul himself describes the reason for this change as his encounter with the resurrected Christ. He
adds to the early creed in 1 Corinthians 15, “and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also”
(1 Cor 15:8; see also Acts 22:1-16; 26:1-23; 1 Cor 15:9-10; Gal 1:11-24; Phil 3:6-10). Paul’s account is
credible because he himself was willing continually to suffer and ultimately die for his belief in the risen Christ.
Further, the early church leaders who assessed him accounted him as authoritative as the other apostles (see 2
Pet 3:16; Polycarp, c.110: 3:2; 9:1; Ignatius, c.110a: 12:2; c.110b: 4:3)
While many people have converted from one set of beliefs to another, Licona reminds us that “People
usually convert to a particular religion because they have heard the message of that religion from a secondary
source and believed the message. Paul's conversion was based on what they perceived to be a personal
appearance of the risen Jesus. Today we might believe that Jesus rose from the dead based on secondary
evidence, trusting Paul and the disciples who saw the risen Jesus. But for Paul, his experience came from
primary evidence [the direct, personal appearance of Jesus himself].” (Licona 2010: 440)

F. The sudden conversion of James, a skeptic of Christ

The Bible records that Jesus had a number of brothers, one of whom was James (Matt 13:55-56; Mark
6:3; see also Matt 12:46-47; Mark 3:31-32; Luke 8:19-20; John 2:12; Acts 1:14; 1 Cor 9:5; Gal 1:19).
During Jesus’ life, James and the other brothers did not believe that Jesus was who he claimed to be and
apparently thought that he had lost his senses (Mark 3:21, 31; John 7:1-5). When he was on the cross, Jesus’
committing his mother into the care of his disciple John instead of to his own brother confirms that James was
not a believer (John 19:25-27).
After Jesus’ death and resurrection, as Paul recites in the ancient creed, “then He appeared to James” (1
Cor 15:7). The appearance of the risen Christ to James evidently was early, because James is among those
waiting in the upper room in Jerusalem for the empowering by the Holy Spirit which occurred on the day of
Pentecost; that would place the appearance to James within 50 days of the resurrection (Acts 1:14). James then
became a leader of the church in Jerusalem (Acts 15:13-21; Gal 1:19). He wrote one of the epistles that make
up the NT. His conversion was so profound that he, like the other early disciples, died a martyr’s death, which is
attested by both non-Christian and Christian sources (Josephus 93: 20.9.1; Eusebius 325: 2.23).
As with Paul, the question must be asked: What best accounts for such a profound conversion and
change of life of James, this former skeptic? The simplest, most plausible explanation that fits all the existing
facts and that was maintained from the beginning (1 Cor 15:7) is the appearance to James of the resurrected
Christ. As Wright puts it, “It is difficult to account for his centrality and unrivalled leadership unless he was
himself known to have seen the risen Jesus” (Wright 2003: 325).

G. The formation and existence of the Christian church

While Jesus was on earth, his disciples had no understanding of a dying and rising messiah; yet “even
the most skeptical scholars admit that at least the belief that Jesus rose from the dead lay at the very heart of the
earliest Christian faith” (Craig 1981: 127). Where did that belief come from? Such a belief did not come from
paganism. In connection with his exhaustive survey of pagan beliefs concerning resurrection and life after death,
N. T. Wright summarizes, “Christianity was born into a world where its central claim was known to be false.
Many believed that the dead were non-existent; outside Judaism, nobody believed in resurrection.” (Wright
2003: 35; for Wright’s survey of the data see ibid.: 32-84)20 Concerning this important issue, Craig observes, “If
20
Some pagan cults, of course, had stories of dying and rising gods and goddesses such as Adonis, Attis, Demeter,
Dionysus, Persephone, Isis and Osiris, Tammuz, and Balder, the son of the Norse god Odin. Such myths do not account for
the historical evidence of Jesus crucifixion and resurrection. Further, C. S. Lewis notes the logical fallacy of citing such
myths as a reason to discount the historical fact of Christ’s resurrection: “The agnostic argument from similarities between
Christianity and paganism works only if you know the answer. If you start by knowing on other grounds that Christianity is
false, then the pagan stories may be another nail in the coffin: just as if you started by knowing that there were no such
things as crocodiles then the various stories about dragons might help to confirm your disbelief. But if the truth of
Christianity is the very question which you are discussing, then the argument from anthropology is surely a petitio [i.e.,
petitio principii—the logical fallacy of “begging the question” in which what is to be proved is implicitly taken for
granted].” (Lewis 1970: 132)
Such pagan myths manifestly were not the source of the Christians’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection, because the early
Christians were all Jews, steeped in Judaism, not pagans. Wright states, “Did any worshipper in these cults, from Egypt to
Norway, at any time in antiquity, think that actual human beings, having died, actually came back to life? Of course not.
These multifarious and sophisticated cults enacted the god’s death and resurrection as a metaphor, whose concrete referent
was the cycle of seed-time and harvest, of human reproduction and fertility. . . . The Jewish world into which Christianity
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one denies that Jesus really did rise from the dead, then he must explain the disciples’ belief that He did rise
either in terms of Jewish influences or in terms of Christian influences” (Craig 1981: 129). Obviously, the belief
in a crucified and resurrected messiah could not have come from Christian influences, because Christianity did
not yet exist. This idea also could not have come from Judaism although many Jews believed in a resurrection:
“The Jewish conception of resurrection differed in two important, fundamental respects from Jesus’
resurrection. In Jewish thought the resurrection always (1) occurred after the end of the world, not within
history, and (2) concerned all the people, not just an isolated individual. In contradistinction to this, Jesus’
resurrection was both within history and of one person.” (Ibid.) Consequently, Professor C. F. D. Moule
concludes, “I don’t for a moment think anything in the OT could have generated it [the belief of a resurrected
messiah]. . . . I have been able to discover none [either OT passages or extra-biblical Jewish beliefs] which
suggests the entry upon eternal life by an individual, before the wind-up of history: and it’s this that one has to
account for.” (Moule 1972: 508, emph. in orig.)
Nevertheless, “something must have taken place on Easter morning to have ignited that spiritual
explosion called Christianity” (Maier 1973: 105, emph. in orig.). What was that “something”? The only
plausible explanation for the origin of Christianity—which necessitated a profound theological change from
previous Jewish belief—is that Jesus had, in fact, resurrected from the dead. No other explanation fits all the
facts. In connection with this, Timothy Keller makes the important observation that “a massive shift in thinking
at the worldview level” (which belief in the bodily resurrection most certainly was) “ordinarily takes years of
discussion and argument in which thinkers and writers debate . . . until one side wins. That is how culture and
worldviews change. However, the Christian view of resurrection, absolutely unprecedented in history, sprang up
full-blown immediately after the death of Jesus. There was no process or development. His followers said that
their beliefs did not come from debating and discussing. They were just telling others what they had seen
themselves. No one has come up with any plausible alternative to this claim.” (Keller 2008: 209) Not only does
the origin of Christianity involve a massive shift at the worldview level, but the resurrection became the focus of
the new worldview. That fact also requires a historical explanation. Again, the only plausible explanation is that
Jesus did, in fact, bodily rise from the dead.
This sudden and dramatic change in belief is confirmed by certain unique aspects of Christian belief and
practice, all of which began early-on:
1. Sunday worship. “One of the Jewish beliefs held with most tenacity is observance of the Sabbath, and
yet Christian Jews transferred their worship from Saturday to Sunday [Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 16:2], which they
termed ‘the Lord's Day’ [Rev 1:10; Didache c.70-110: 14.1]. Only some drastic consideration would have
introduced this change: their weekly celebration of the Resurrection.”(Maier 1973: 122) James D. G. Dunn adds,
“Not least of relevance is the tradition that Jesus first appeared ‘on the first day of the week’ (Sunday) following
his crucifixion and burial. . . . Nor should we forget the striking but often neglected fact that from as early as we
can trace, Sunday had become a day of special significance for Christians, ‘the Lord’s day’, precisely because it
was the day on which they celebrated the resurrection of the Lord.” (Dunn 2003: 860) Indeed, early church
fathers Ignatius and Justin Martyr specifically refer to the resurrection as the rationale for the new day of
worship (Ignatius c.110d: 9.1; Justin Martyr c.155: 67).
2. Baptism. While baptism had been practiced in ancient Judaism for proselytes to Judaism and as a sign
of repentance and purification (“Baptism” 1906; see Matt 3:1-6; Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3; John 1:25-27), its
meaning in Christianity was changed to directly relate to the death and resurrection of Jesus (Rom 6:3-5; Col
2:12). The church could have kept the old Jewish notions of baptism, but it did not. And this change in meaning
occurred very early in church history.
3. Communion (the Lord’s Supper). 1 Cor 11:23-26 sets forth another of the ancient creeds that go back

was born was influenced in many ways by the wider greco-roman world. . . . But, remarkably enough, there is no sign of
dying and rising gods and goddesses within the Jewish world. . . . When the Christians spoke of the resurrection of Jesus
they did not suppose it was something that happened every year, with the sowing of seed and the harvesting of crops. They
could use the image of sowing and harvesting to talk about it; they could celebrate Jesus’ death by breaking bread; but to
confuse this with the world of the dying and rising gods would be a serious mistake.” (Wright 2003: 80-81, emph. in orig.;
see also McDowell and Wilson 1993: 167-88) C. S. Lewis adds, “The Pagan stories are all about someone dying and rising,
either every year, or else nobody knows where and nobody knows when. The Christian story is about a historical
personage, whose execution can be dated pretty accurately, under a named Roman magistrate, and with whom the society
that He founded is in a continuous relation down to the present day.” (Lewis 1980: 83) Even deceased Roman emperors
who were proclaimed to be gods, or legends that human beings such as Romulus became divine, could not have been the
source of belief in Jesus’ resurrection, because those proclamations and legends “did not require resurrection; it regularly
happened without it. It involved the soul, not the body.” (Wright 2003: 83)
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to the very beginning of Christianity in the early to mid-30s, in this case back to Jesus himself (Jeremias 1966:
101, 104-05; Habermas 1984: 121). The celebration of the Lord’s Supper specifically commemorates Jesus’
death on the cross and is based on what Jesus said at the Last Supper he shared with his disciples. As we have
seen, however, it is the resurrection that validates the efficacy of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Hence, 1 Cor
11:26 ends the formula by saying “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s
death until he comes.” That is a recognition that Jesus is alive and will return.
Any theory of what happened that first Easter morning other than the bodily resurrection of Christ
“does not even solve the problem which is here under consideration: the origin, that is, of the Christian Church
by faith in the miraculous resurrection of the Messiah” (Strauss 1865: 412).

H. The failure of alternative explanations

A number of theories that have been proposed to try to explain away the resurrection (the swoon theory;
the body was stolen; the contention that Jesus didn’t die so he couldn’t have been resurrected; the resurrection is
a myth like the dying and rising gods and goddesses of certain pagan cults) have been discussed above. Some
other contentions are now mentioned.
1. The resurrection is just a legend that developed later. This is “the only satisfactory explanation”
Islamic scholar and Qur’anic translator Muhammad Asad can come up with to explain the statement in Q. 4:157
regarding the crucifixion that “killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them.” Asad
states, “The story of the crucifixion as such has been succinctly explained in the Qur’anic phrase wa-lakin
shubbiha lahum, which I render as ‘but it only appeared to them as if it had been so’ - implying that in the
course of time, long after the time of Jesus, a legend had somehow grown up (possibly under the then-powerful
influence of Mithraistic beliefs) to the effect that he had died on the cross in order to atone for the ‘original sin’
with which mankind is allegedly burdened; and this legend became so firmly established among the latter-day
followers of Jesus that even his enemies, the Jews, began to believe it - albeit in a derogatory sense (for
crucifixion was, in those times, a heinous form of death-penalty reserved for the lowest of criminals). This, to
my mind, is the only satisfactory explanation of the phrase wa-lakin shubbiha lahum, the more so as the
expression shubbiha li is idiomatically synonymous with khuyyila 1i, ‘[a thing] became a fancied image to me’,
i.e., ‘in my mind’ - in other words, ‘[it] seemed to me.’” (Asad 1980: Q. 4:157n.171) Asad’s “legend” theory is
specifically directed at the issue of the crucifixion but of necessity would equally apply to the resurrection since
the two are related.
Approximately 200 years ago Julius Müller made the important point that it takes considerable time for
written legends to develop about historical people and events, particularly when primary sources and
eyewitnesses exist. Müller wrote: “Most decidedly must a considerable interval of time be required for such a
complete transformation of a whole history by popular tradition, when the series of legends are formed in the
same territory where the heroes actually lived and wrought. Here one cannot imagine how such a series of
legends could arise in an historical age, obtain universal respect, and supplant the historical recollection of the
true character and connexion of their heroes’ lives in the minds of the community, if eyewitnesses were still at
hand, who could be questioned respecting the truth of the recorded marvels. Hence, legendary fiction, as it likes
not the clear present time, but prefers the mysterious gloom of grey antiquity, is wont to seek a remoteness of
age, along with that of space, and to remove its boldest and more rare and wonderful creations into a very
remote and unknown land.” (Müller 1844: 26, quoted in Craig 1981: 101)
With respect to the claims in the NT that Jesus was resurrected, the situation is clear and consistent. “All
four gospels (i.e., Matthew, Mark, Luke/Acts, John) were written during the first century. Each gospel attests to
the resurrection of Jesus, and Acts is the sequel to the third gospel, Luke. This means that four accounts were
written within seventy years of Jesus at the latest, reporting the disciples’ claims that Jesus rose from the dead.”
(Habermas and Licona 2004: 53) Additionally, we have the letters of Paul to the Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians,
Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Timothy, and 1 Peter, all of which specifically
mention the resurrection. Those letters are significant in that both Paul and Peter were martyred in the mid-60s
AD, which means that their letters were written only 20-30 years after the resurrection itself. They also were
eyewitnesses of Christ’s post-resurrection appearances. Further, as has been discussed above, some of Paul’s
letters contain ancient creeds that pre-date Paul’s writings and go back essentially to the resurrection itself.
The significance of these multiple early accounts is that there simply was no time for “legends” of the
resurrection to have developed. Greco-Roman scholar A. N. Sherwin-White states, “Herodotus enables us to test
the tempo of myth-making, and the tests suggest that even two generations are too short a span to allow the
mythical tendency to prevail over the hard historic core of the oral tradition” (Sherwin-White 1992: 189-90).
Craig concludes, “Müller challenged scholars of his day to find even one historical example where in thirty
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years a great series of legends, the most prominent elements of which are fictitious, have accumulated around an
important historical individual and become firmly fixed in general belief. His challenge has never been met. The
time span necessary for significant accrual of legend concerning the events of the gospels would place us in the
second century A.D., just the time in fact when the legendary apocryphal gospels were born.” (Craig 1981: 101-
02)
2. Psychological explanations. It is not plausible to contend that the disciples proclaimed the
resurrection of Jesus as a psychological reaction to his death. The idea that Peter, James, and the others
“experienced fantasies brought on by grief . . . is [not] based on any evidence whatsoever” (Wright 2003: 20).
The same thing applies to the idea that Paul began spreading stories of the resurrection because he was
consumed by guilt over his persecution of Christians. Not only is there no evidence whatsoever for that, but the
fact is that Paul was zealously continuing to persecute Christians up until the very moment of his encounter with
the risen Christ.
Further, none of the disciples were psychologically primed to believe in Jesus’ resurrection, because
none of them were expecting or looking forward to it. Indeed, “‘resurrection’ was not something anyone
expected to happen to a single individual while the world went on as normal. Certainly—a point often ignored
by critics—the disciples were not expecting any such thing to happen to Jesus.” (Wright 2003: 689, emph.
added) In the first century there were other messianic movements whose leaders had been executed by the
authorities. “In not one single case do we hear the slightest mention of the disappointed followers claiming that
their hero had been raised from the dead. They knew better. ‘Resurrection’ was not a private event. . . . A Jewish
revolutionary whose leader had been executed by the authorities, and who managed to escape arrest himself, had
two options: give up the revolution, or find another leader. We have evidence of people doing both. Claiming
that the original leader was alive again was simply not an option. Unless, of course, he was.” (Wright 1993: 63)
3. Jesus’ resurrection was only “spiritual.” In the first century, Jewish burials typically took place in two
stages: first, the body was laid on a slab, wrapped in cloth with spices in a cave-like tomb with a movable stone
door (like Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb in which Jesus was laid); second, a year or more later, after the flesh had
decomposed, relatives or friends would return, collect the bones, and place them in an ossuary (bone box). “If
the disciples had believed that what they called the ‘resurrection’ was just a ‘spiritual’ event, leaving the body in
the tomb, someone sooner or later would have had to go back to collect Jesus’ bones and store them properly. . .
. But of course, if anyone had at any stage gone back to tidy up Jesus’ bones and put them in an ossuary, that
would indeed have destroyed Christianity before it had even properly begun.” (Wright 1998: 52)
Jesus himself specifically countered the idea that he was merely a spirit by having the disciples touch
him and eat with him (Matt 28:9; Luke 24:36-43; John 20:15-17, 24-29; 21:9-14). Indeed, everyone who
heard the proclamation of the resurrection knew that what was being proclaimed was the bodily resurrection
(that is, after all, what a “resurrection” is). Had that not been the case, the Jewish leaders never would have
concocted the story that the body had been stolen but themselves would have gone to the tomb and produced the
body.
4. The disciples were hallucinating or had visions. “There would have to have been collective
hallucinations for different groups of up to five hundred in size, all of them seeing the same thing—a virtual
impossibility in the case of a phenomenon that is usually extremely individualistic. Many different people will
not see the same thing at different places in any general hallucination, mirage, daydream, or mass hysteria. Such
visions, moreover, are generated only when the recipients are in an agitated state of expectancy and in hopes of
seeing their wishes fulfilled, a mood diametrically opposite from that of the disciples, who were hopelessly
saturated in sorrow and despair. In fact, news of the resurrection nearly had to be forced on them in the face of
their obvious disbelief.” (Craig 1981: 113) As George Eldon Ladd succinctly summarizes, “Faith did not create
the appearances; the appearances created faith” (Ladd 1975: 138, emph. in orig.).
People in both the ancient and modern world have had visions of recently deceased loved ones.
However, as N. T. Wright points out, such visions “are a thoroughly insufficient condition for the early Christian
belief. The more ‘normal’ these ‘visions’ were, the less chance there is that anyone, no matter how cognitively
dissonant they may have been feeling, would have said what nobody had ever said about such a dead person
before, that they had been raised from the dead. Indeed, such visions meant precisely, as people in the ancient
and modern worlds have discovered, that the person was dead, not that they were alive.” (Wright 2003: 690-91,
emph. in orig.)
Finally, “the sightings of the risen Jesus had a temporal end; when he, Paul, saw Jesus, that was the last
in the sequence [1 Cor 15:8].” (Wright 2003: 318) William Lane Craig points out that, contrary to actual
sightings of the physically risen Christ when ended not long after the resurrection, “hallucinations might have
continued for decades, centuries. Had they just been visions or dreams or hallucinations, they would have
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continued.” (Craig 1981: 113) The idea that the disciples had hallucinations or visions or some kind of
“religious experience” instead of actually seeing the resurrected Jesus therefore contradicts the facts and the
actual eyewitness accounts of what happened.
5. The body was taken or moved. As previously discussed, the earliest response to the proclamation that
Jesus had resurrected was the claim by the Jewish leaders that the disciples had stolen the body. Maier notes,
“The stolen body theory founders on two insurmountable obstacles: the problem of motive and the problem of
execution. To plan a tricky grave robbery of a closely guarded tomb would have required an incredibly strong
incentive by a daring and extremely skillful group of men. But who had this incentive? Who had the motive and
then the courage necessary to bring it off? Certainly not the dispirited disciples, huddling and hiding in their
despair over Jesus’ evident failure and in fear of the Temple authorities—hardly a pack of calculating schemers
enthusiastically planning to dupe their countrymen.” (Maier 1973: 109) Maier goes on to point out how far-
fetched the idea of the disciples’ ability to steal the body is, “The grave area was crawling with guards
specifically instructed to forestall any such attempt. . . . Guards in ancient times always slept in shifts, so it
would have been virtually impossible for a raiding party to have stepped over all their sleeping faces, as is
sometimes claimed. The commotion caused by breaking the seal, rolling the stone open, entering the tomb, and
lifting out the body was bound to awaken the guards even if they had all been sleeping.” (Ibid.: 110-11)
Additionally, James Dunn observes that lack of veneration of Jesus’ tomb not only is evidence for the
resurrection but also is evidence against the idea that the disciples had stolen the body: “For if the disciples had
indeed removed the body, it is inconceivable that they would not have laid it reverently to rest in some other
fitting location. In which case, it is almost as inconceivable that a surreptitious practice of veneration would not
have been maintained by those in the know and that some hint of it would not have reached a wider circle of
disciples.” (Dunn 2003: 838) The idea that someone else removed the body faces not only “the problem of
motive and the problem of execution,” but is also contrary to the Roman seal of the tomb and the guard. And it
does not account for the well-documented resurrection appearances of Jesus. As with the other theories, there is
no historical evidence that anyone moved Jesus’ body. Hence, as with the other alleged alternative explanations,
the idea that something happened to Jesus’ body other than his bodily resurrection does not fit the existing
historical facts.

I. Conclusion
That Jesus was crucified and bodily resurrected can be reliably determined by historical investigation in
the same manner as other historical events. To assert an alternative explanation is not to establish that
explanation. As we have seen, the alleged alternative explanations of the crucifixion and resurrection either are
based on no evidence at all, do not account for all of the historical data, or contradict the historical data. The
reason why the alternative explanations have been advanced does not flow from the evidence itself but is
premised on philosophical or theological reasons apart from the evidence. The reason for that is because the
evidence itself has implications that the holder of an alternative explanation does not want to accept, i.e., that
Jesus really is the Son of God. However, to maintain any intellectual or theological credibility at all, it is not
enough to simply dismiss the resurrection of Jesus by asserting “it didn’t (or couldn’t) happen.” Even the Qur’an
says that one must consider the evidence and use one’s reason. In short, one must face and answer several
historical questions: “Why did Christianity emerge so rapidly, with such power? No other band of messianic
followers in that era concluded their leader was raised from the dead—why did this group do so? No group of
Jews ever worshipped a human being as God. What led them to do it? Jews did not believe in divine men or
individual resurrections. What changed their worldview virtually overnight? How do you account for the
hundreds of eyewitnesses to the resurrection who lived on for decades and publicly maintained their testimony,
eventually giving their lives for their belief?” (Keller 2008: 210)

VI. Responses to the Islamic View of Jesus: Jesus is the “Son of God”
When Muslims hear the term “Son of God,” some may think of Allah’s having sexual relations with
Mary, which they (and Christians) rightly view as untrue and even blasphemous. In several places, the Bible
calls Jesus the “only begotten” Son of the Father (see John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9). The Qur’an says,
“It is not befitting to (the majesty of) Allah that He should beget [or ‘take to Himself’] a son” (Q. 19:35; see
also Q. 2:116; 10:68; 18:4; 19:88, 92; 23:91; 39:4) Q. 112:3 adds, “He begetteth not, nor is He begotten.”
Yusuf Ali articulates the Muslim objection: “Begetting a son is a physical act depending on the needs of men’s
animal nature. Allah Most High is independent of all needs, and it is derogatory to Him to attribute such an act
to Him. It is merely a relic of pagan and anthropomorphic materialist superstitions.” (Ali 2006: Q. 19:35n.2487;
see also ibid.: Q.72:3n.; Deedat 2002: 29) This idea is confirmed by the Qur’an which states, “How could He
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have a son when He has no consort” (Q. 6:101; see also Q. 72:3).21 When the Bible describes Jesus as the “Son
of God,” it never means or implies the physical process of conceiving and giving birth any more than Egyptians
who call themselves “sons of the Nile” mean that the Nile got married and had children (Michael and McAlister
2010: 145). Rather, “the expression ‘Son of God’ is a metaphorical or analogical term”to describe Jesus’
relationship with God the Father (Ibid.; see also Feinberg 2001: 492 [“Scripture speaks of Christ as the Son, but
everyone grants that he must be Son in some metaphorical sense”]; Lewis 1967a: 137).
Additionally, John Gilchrist observes that the Islamic objection to Jesus as the “Son of God” is not even
directed at the orthodox Christian understanding of that term: “The book nowhere shows any comprehension of
the fundamental Christian belief in Jesus, that he is a divine figure, uncreated at any point in time, who has been
one with the Father from all eternity, who took on human form and became the man Jesus. The Qur’an vents all
its denunciations at the Arian alternative [referring to the heretic Arias (AD 256-336)], namely that the Son was
brought into existence at some point in time. Arius taught that ‘there was a time when the Son of God did not
exist’ and that only thereafter did God take to himself a Son whom he created as an independent divine figure. It
is this principle that the Qur’an consistently (and without exception) assails.” (Gilchrist 2015: 101)22
This Islamic objection also rests on a misunderstanding of the word translated “only begotten.” All of
the biblical passages that talk about Christ as the “only begotten” Son (John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9) are
referring to his eternal nature, not to when he became incarnate as a man. The Greek word is monogenēs. While
some (particularly older) translations of the Bible render it as “only begotten,” the actual meaning of the word is
“the only one of its kind or class, unique (in kind)” (Danker 2000: monogenēs, 658, emph. in orig.).
Confirmation that this is the correct meaning of monogenēs is seen in Heb 11:17 where Isaac is called
Abraham’s monogenēs. Isaac was not, of course, Abraham’s “only begotten” son, since Abraham also had
fathered Ishmael. John Feinberg explains, “The point is that Isaac was Abraham’s unique son. . . . Though

21
Reynolds observes, “The way in which the Qur’an argues in simplistic, literal terms (God has no spouse; he thus does not
have sex and could not have a child; cf 72:3) suggests either a misunderstanding of the Biblical metaphor of God’s children
or (more likely) a straw-man argument.” (Reynolds 2018: 237)
Some knowledgeable Muslim scholars admit that the use of “begotten” in translation of some verses of the Qur’an
is incorrect. For example, Muslim Tiger Chan discusses translations of the Qur’an which mistranslate ittakhadha as
“begotten” rather than “taken” (e.g., Yusuf Ali’s translation of Q. 2:116 [“They say: ‘Allah hath begotten a son’”] and Q.
19:88 [“They say: ‘(Allah) Most Gracious has begotten a son!’”]). Chan states that there is no linguistic basis for
ittakhadha meaning “to beget” and concludes, “The bottom line is, the Qur’an does not teach that Christians believe that
Jesus is literal biological Son of God.” (Chan 2003: n.p.; see also “Quran Dictionary” 2009-2017: Q. 19:88, ittakhadha)
However, even the correct translation of “taken” does not resolve the issue because, as Chan explains, “If we read what
Christian theology books say, it says that Christians never believe that God begot a literal biological son. . . . The doctrine
of Trinity has it that the 3 Persons of the Godhead are God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The 3 Persons
of the Godhead are co-equal in essence and attributes. God the Father ‘takes’ Jesus as ‘the Son’, that’s why Jesus is called
the Son, God the Father is called the Father. This is a divine relationship calling (that ‘taking’) the 3 Persons as the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the Qur’anic sense, the term ‘ittakhaza’ [Q. 19:88, “And they say: The Beneficent Allah has
taken (to Himself) a son” (Shakir)] is pointing out that there is no such thing as God taking anything as having the status of
sonship. The verse Qur’an 19:88 negates such a doctrine as in the doctrine of Trinity. It rejects just any form of sonship.
The Qur’an doesn't say that Christians believe Jesus is the literal biological son of God, it rejects just any inkling to relating
sonship to God.” (Chan 2003: n.p.) Even here, Chan and the Qur’an are wrong: orthodox Christianity never has held that
the Father “took” Christ as the Son, but Christ always and eternally is the Son, the second person of the Trinity.
22
Abd al-Fadi adds, “Possibly the word ‘Son’ disturbs some people, because they immediately imagine, through its
relationship with the word ‘Father’, that the Father preceded the Son in time, so there must be a difference in time and of
status between them” (al-Fadi 2003: 20). Such ideas are incorrect. According to the Bible, “God, from eternity, has had the
title Father, so this necessitates the existence of the Son from eternity also. . . .No one becomes a father until the moment
when the son comes into being. The time difference, in this case, is imaginary and a delusion in regard to God and his Son
Jesus Christ. . . . We use the terms son of truth or son of light to indicate the resemblance between them and truth or light.
In this way, Jesus has been called the Son of God, because of the complete resemblance between Father and Son in the
person of the one God. Jesus has been called thus because he is the only complete and eternal revelation of the person of
God to mankind, or, as we read in Hebrews 1:1-2, In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many
times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and
through whom he made the universe.” (Ibid.: 21) McDowell and Larson similarly comment, “Some people, using the fact
that Jesus is a son, might say, ‘Did you ever hear of a son who did not have a beginning?’ By this they mean to contrast the
‘created’ son with the uncreated father. Of course, the question may be turned around, ‘Did you ever hear of a father who
didn’t have a beginning?’ . . . An obvious implication . . . is that if the Father is eternal, then so is the Son.” (McDowell and
Larson 1983: 75) Indeed, the term “father” is “a relative term that makes no sense except in relation to the person whose
father he is. Thus in some way the identity of being Father depends on the Son, and vice versa.” (Pannenberg 1991: 57)
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Abraham had another son, Isaac was unique in that he, and he alone, was the child of promise.” (Feinberg 2001:
491) When used of Christ, monogenēs is “descriptive of the kind of Sonship Christ possesses and not of the
process of establishing such a relationship” (Zodhiates 1992: monogenēs, 996).
There are three other biblical passages that refer to Jesus as “begotten”: Acts 13:33; Heb 1:5; 5:5.23
Each one of them quotes Ps 2:7 (“You are my Son; today I have begotten you”) and applies that to Jesus. Jochen
Katz states that, in their respective contexts, “All of these passages speak about the resurrection and exaltation
of Christ. It refers to his taking office as king and priest. This took place about 33 years after the birth of Jesus.
Clearly, in Biblical usage, the term ‘begotten’ when used for Jesus in those passages is not at all connected with
anything sexual but has a metaphorical meaning. The expression ‘the begotten son’ of God is never mentioned
in respect to his miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit or his birth by the Virgin Mary. . . . What then is the
Biblical meaning? I think Romans 1:4 says it most clearly that Jesus ‘was declared with power to be the Son of
God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.’ The resurrection was the time of public
declaration of what he has been all along. . . . Psalm 2 is an inauguration psalm for the Israelite kings -- the
public declaration of kingship. And most of the Kings became kings as grown men. None became king at his
conception. And this meaning carries over into the New Testament use for Jesus just as well, that the
resurrection is the public announcement by God about the true identity and authority of Jesus, Messiah, true
king of Israel, representative of God among mankind.” (Katz, “You are”n.d.: n.p., bold emph. in orig.; see also
Guthrie 2007: 927-28)24
The term “Son of God” goes to the heart of who Jesus is. “Muslims understand well what it means for
Jesus to be declared the Son of God: He is God incarnate” (Carlton 2011: 13). The following biblical facts—
drawn primarily from Jesus’ own words and deeds—demonstrate how Jesus redefined the title to reveal that he
was and is the unique, divine Son of God (for a summary of the biblical evidence for Christ’s deity see Brown
2002: 20-27):

A. Jesus was fully God: miraculous conception and miraculous signs

Unlike any other human being who has ever lived, Jesus was supernaturally conceived by the Holy
Spirit and born of a virgin (Matt 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38). Muslims admit that. Muslims also admit the fact that
Jesus had supernatural powers and performed multiple miracles. However, there is much additional evidence to
demonstrate that Jesus was more than just a man or even a prophet but was the divine “Son of God.”

B. Jesus equated Himself with God and identified Himself as God

Ajijola correctly states, “God is comprehended from His attributes. If it is proved and granted that Jesus
is Master of Divine attributes, one is justified in taking him for God.” (Ajijola 1972: 20) Jesus is, indeed,
“Master of Divine attributes,” as the following words and deeds of Jesus demonstrate:
1. He claimed to be pre-existent (i.e., to have existed before He became a man) (John 8:58; 17:5, 24).
He is in fact pre-existent (John 1:1-2, 14-15, 30; 8:58; 1 Cor 8:6; Phil 2:6-7; Col 1:15-17; Heb 1:2; 1 John
2:13-14).
2. He claimed to come from the Father in heaven (John 3:13; 5:23-24; 6:29, 32-39, 41-42, 46, 50-51,

23
In Luke’s account of Jesus’ baptism, Luke 3:22 concludes with the voice from heaven saying, “You are My beloved Son,
in You I am well-pleased.” A variant reading of that verse in some ancient manuscripts concludes with “today I have
begotten you.” Muslim Jerald Dirks claims that this variant reading proves that “this was a ‘created sonship’, which began
only secondary to Allah granting a special relationship with Him to Jesus, at the time of the baptism” (Dirks 2008: 69).
That is not true. Leaving aside the fact that the oldest and the vast majority of the manuscripts use the “well-pleased”
language, the fact is that Luke applies “sonship” language at different points of Jesus’ life, including his conception and
birth (Luke 1:30-35), baptism (Luke 3:21-22), and resurrection (Luke 24:6-7). If we were to assume that the “begotten”
language of Luke 3:22 is the correct reading, “the act of begetting in this specific context doesn’t refer to the time when
Christ became God’s Son. Rather, this is Luke’s way of highlighting the moment that God chose for Jesus to begin his
Messianic office in the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Shamoun, “Jesus Christ” n.d.: n.p.) Further, such a reading does
“absolutely nothing to refute the plain and emphatic testimony of the author of Luke-Acts that Christ is fully God – and is
therefore eternal – who came down from heaven to become a man from the blessed virgin Mary” (Ibid.).
24
The Nicene Creed (AD 325) includes the statement, “I believe in . . . one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of
God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made,
being of one substance with the Father.” In the creed, the word “begotten” clearly is being used in a special way, contrary to
the normal usage of the word, specifically to refute the idea that Christ was created or made in time. This was not done
arbitrarily, but “there was [sic.] justifiable grounds for fencing their term begotten with the qualifier ‘not made’”—
specifically, that while the NT does use “begotten” language about Christ it also ascribes deity to him, and “the church was
against setting one part of Scripture against another” (Sproul 1992: 88). That is the proper way to approach Scripture.
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57-58, 62; 7:33; 8:23, 42; 11:41-42; 16:5, 27-28; 17:3, 5, 8, 18, 23, 25). He in fact did so (John 3:31; 13:3; 29-
30; 1 Cor 15:47; 1 John 4:9-10, 14).
3. He claimed to be the only one who knows the Father and can reveal the Father (Matt 11:27; John
6:46; 17:25). That is true (John 1:18; Heb 1:1-2; 1 John 5:20).
4. He claimed to do nothing on his own but only what the Father showed him (John 5:19, 30; 6:38;
8:28; 12:49; 14:10). He in fact lived a perfectly holy life and is the perfect manifestation of the Father (Matt
1:22-23; 27:3-4; Mark 1:24; Luke 1:35; 4:34; 23:22, 40-41, 47; John 5:30; 7:18; 8:29, 46; 14:6-11; 17:6;
Acts 3:14; 4:27, 30; 13:28, 35; 2 Cor 4:4; 5:21; Col 1:15, 19; 2:9; 1 Tim 3:16; Heb 1:3, 9; 3:2; 4:15; 7:26-
28; 9:14; 1 Pet 1:19; 2:22; 1 John 2:29; 3:5; Rev 3:7; 5:1-8).
5. The Bible says that God sends the prophets (2 Chron 36:15; Jer 26:5; Luke 11:49-51). To show that
He is God come to earth, Jesus said that He was the one who was sending the prophets (Matt 23:34-35).
6. He claimed to send and baptize with the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49; John 15:26; 16:7; 20:22). He in
fact does so (Matt 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33; Acts 1:8; 2:1-21).
7. He knows and can foretell the future (Matt 10:17-23; 12:40, 27-28; 16:21; 17: 9, 22-27; 20:17-19;
21:1-7; 23:34-36; 24:1-31; 26:1-2, 13, 20-25, 31-34, 69-75; Mark 8:31; 9:1, 9, 30-31; 10:32-34; 11:1-7; 13:1-
27; 14: 9, 12-21, 27-30, 66-72; 16:6-7; Luke 8: 49-56; 9:22, 43-44; 17:22-36; 18:31-33; 19: 29-35, 41-44;
21:7-28; 22: 7-13, 20-23, 31-34, 54-62; 24:6-8; John 2:18-22; 4:21; 6:70-71; 11:23, 43-44; 12:27-33; 13:18-
28, 36-38; 16:4, 16-20, 32; 18:4, 25-27; 21: 4-6, 18-19; Acts 1:5, 8).
8. He said and demonstrated that he was the Lord of the Sabbath (Matt 12:8; Mark 2:28; Luke 6:5).
The Pharisees claimed that Jesus’ disciples were guilty of breaking the Sabbath because they picked heads of
grain on the Sabbath. Jesus answered that “the disciples are innocent because [He] as the Son of Man is Lord of
the Sabbath” (Carson 1982: 67). By saying that, Jesus was asserting his “superiority over the Sabbath and,
hence, of the authority to abrogate or transform the Sabbath law” (Moo 1984: 17). This amounts to a claim to
being equal to God because the Sabbath was part of the Ten Commandments (the Decalogue), which was the
law of God given by God Himself to Moses on Mount Sinai (Exod 20:1-17). In other words, only God could
promulgate God’s Law, and therefore only God is superior to God’s Law and has the authority to change or
break His Law.
9. He claimed the authority to forgive people of their sins (Matt 9:2-8, 12-13; Mark 2:3-12; Luke
5:17-26, 31-32; 7:47-50; 9:56; 19:10; John 5:33-34; 8:1-11; 10:7-9; 12:47). He, in fact, is the savior who
alone can save people from their sins (Matt 1:21; Luke 2:11; John 1:29; 3:17; 4:42; Acts 3:26; 4:12; 5:31;
13:23, 38-39; 15:11; 16:31; Rom 3:24-26; 4:25; 5:1, 6-11, 15-21; 8:2; 10:9; 1 Cor 1:30; 6:11; 15:17; 2 Cor
5:18-21; Gal 1:3-4; Eph 2:13-16; 4:32; 5:2, 25-26; Phil 3:20; Col 1:12-14; 3:13; 1 Thess 1:10; 5:9-10; 1
Tim 1:15; 2 Tim 2:10; 3:15; Titus 1:4; 2:13-14; Heb 2:17; 5:9; 7:25; 13:20; 1 Pet 1:18-19; 3:18; 2 Pet 1:11;
1 John 3:5; 4:9-10, 14; Rev 5:9; 14:4).
C. S. Lewis noted the significance of Jesus’ claim to forgive sins—any sins: “We can all understand
how a man forgives offenses against himself. You tread on my toe and I forgive you, you steal my money and I
forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he
forgave you for treading on other men’s toes and stealing other men’s money? . . . Yet this is what Jesus did. He
told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had
undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly
offended in all offences. This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love
is wounded in every sin. In the mouth of any speaker who is not God, these words would imply what I can only
regard as silliness and conceit unrivalled by any other character in history.” (Lewis 1996: 55)
10. He claimed to have the power to give people eternal life (John 3:16; 4:14; 5:25-29, 40; 6:27, 32-40,
44, 47-58, 68; 10:10, 27-28; 11:25-26; 14:6, 19; 17:1-3; Rev 1:18). He in fact does so (Rom 6:23; 2 Tim 1:10;
1 John 5:11-13, 20; 21:27).
11. He claimed to be the author of life itself (John 11:25). He in fact is (John 1:4; 5:26; Rev 1:18).
12. He claimed to have all authority (Matt 11:27; 19:28; 26:64; 28:18; Mark 14:62; Luke 10:22;
22:29-30, 69; John 17:2; 18:36-37). He in fact has all authority and rules as King of Kings and Lord of Lords
(Luke 1:32-33; 2:11; 19:37-38; 23:42; John 3:31; 13:3; Acts 2:30-36; 5:31; 10:36; Rom 9:5; 14:9; 1 Cor
15:23-28; Eph 1:20-22; Phil 2:9-11; Col 2:10, 15; 1 Tim 6:15-16; 2 Tim 4:8; Heb 2:7-8; 10:12-13; 1 Pet
3:22; Rev 1:5; 5:12; 11:15; 12:10; 14:14; 17:14; 19:11-16; 20:4-6).
13. He says He will judge the world (Matt 7:21-23; 13:41; 16:27; 25:31-46; John 5:22, 27-29; Rev
2:23; 22:12). He in fact will do so (Matt 3:12; Luke 3:17; Acts 10:42; 17:31; Rom 2:16; 14:10; 1 Cor 4:4-5;
2 Cor 5:10; 2 Tim 4:1, 8; 1 Pet 4:5).
14. Jesus equated and identified himself with God in general (Mark 9:37; Luke 22:69-70; John 5:17-
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23; 8:12-58; 10:30, 34-38; 12:44-49; 14:1, 6-11; 15:23; 17:21-23). D. A. Carson summarizes some of the
evidence from the Gospel of John: “Jesus insists that to believe in him is to believe in the one who sent him
(12.44), to look at him is to look at the one who sent him (12.45; 14.9), to hate him is to hate the Father (15.23).
He says that all must honour the Son even as they honour the Father (5.23), that he and his Father are one
(10.30). We not only learn that the Son cannot do anything except what the father shows him, but that the Son
does whatever the Father does (5.19). . . . Jesus’ words are God’s words (3.34); that is the reason why the one
who receives Jesus’ witness confirms that God is true [3:33]. . . . In precisely the same way, the faith that leads
to life hears Jesus’ words and believes the one who sent him (5.24; 14.24). Only Jesus has seen the Father
(6.46); but to know Jesus is to know the Father (8.19).” (Carson 1994: 147, 156)
C. S. Lewis summarizes the significance of the above claims by Jesus: “Among these Jews there
suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has
always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among
Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be
nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their
language, meant the Being outside the world Who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else.
And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking
thing that has ever been uttered by human lips. . . . I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish
thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His
claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of
things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who
says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man
was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit
at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with
any patronizing nonsense about His being a great moral teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not
intend to.” (Lewis 1996: 55-56)

C. Jesus claimed to have a unique relationship with God the Father, calling Him “My Father”
In Matt 7:21; 10:32-33; 11:27; 12:50; 16:17; 18:10, 19; 20:23; 25:34; 26:39, 42, 53; Luke 2:49;
10:22; 22:29; 24:49; John 2:16; 5:17, 43; 6:32, 40; 8:19, 38, 49, 54; 10:18, 25, 29, 37; 14:2, 7, 20, 21, 23;
15:1, 8, 10, 15, 23, 24; 20:17; Rev 2:27; 3:5, 21 Jesus indicated his special relationship with God the Father by
calling him “My Father.” Hilali cites Jesus’ use of the term “Father” as indicating that Jesus was not God (Al-
Hilali 1998: 905). Again, Hilali does not appear to understand the significance of Jesus’ use of that term. Jesus
did not refer to God as “our Father,” which He taught His disciples to say when praying to God (Matt 6:9; see
also Luke 11:2; Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2; Gal 1:3; Eph 1:2; Phil 1:2; Col 1:2; 2 Thess 1:1; Phlm 1:3).
Rather, Jesus addressed the Father directly, using the Aramaic word “Abba,” a term of intimate, personal
affection (Mark 14:62). Although there are very rare instances of other Jews describing God as Abba, “we have
no evidence that others before Jesus addressed God as Abba” (Bauckham 1978: 249, emph. added).
It was Jesus’ calling God “my Father” that caused the Jews to try to kill him for blasphemy. They
recognized (as Hilali apparently does not) that when Jesus called God “my Father” he “was calling God His
own Father, making Himself equal with God” (John 5:18; see also John 8:38-59; 10:22-33). Similarly, Jesus
said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).
The intimate union between Christ and the Father was made clear on another occasion. In John 14:6-14
the following interchange took place between Jesus and his disciples Thomas and Philip: 6 Jesus said to him, “I
am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. 7 If you had known Me, you
would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” 8 Philip said to Him,
“Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet
you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us
the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I
do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. 11 Believe Me that I am in the
Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. 12 Truly, truly, I say to you,
he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I
go to the Father.13 Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the
Son.14 If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.
Carson observes that Jesus’ is describing the complete unity between himself and the Father; indeed, “it
is precisely this degree of unity that ensures Jesus reveals God to us” (Carson 1991: 494). There are important
implications of this unity between Jesus and the Father:
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• First, “Not all roads lead to possession of eternal life. Jesus is the God-appointed way.” (Ngewa 2006:
1283)
• Second, “A consequence of Jesus and the Father being one is that whatever is asked of the Father is also
asked of Jesus. The Father ultimately owns all things. Jesus, as Son, submits to him, but at the same time, he
and the Father act as one. Anything asked from or given by the Father is also asked from or given by Jesus.
Jesus thus becomes both the one to be asked for blessing (ask me) and the go-between who makes it easier
to have requests granted (in my name) ([John] 14:13b-14a).” (Ngewa 2006: 1284)
• Third, while distinctions exist between the Father and the Son (they are separate persons yet are one),
what Jesus says here negates the idea that he is merely a prophet or Messenger. “This ‘envoy’ [Messenger]
model is suddenly outstripped when we are told that everything Jesus does is what the Father gives him to
do, and that he does everything the Father does: now we are dealing in unique ‘sonship’ language. No mere
envoy [Messenger] would refer to the one who sent him as his Father, claim that whoever has seen him has
seen the Father, and affirm mutual indwelling between himself and the one who sent him.” (Carson 1991:
494-95; see also John 5:19-23)

D. Jesus’ use of the term “Son of Man” is a reference to His divinity

Jesus is called the “Son of Man” approximately 80 times in the Gospels; it is his most frequent
description of Himself. Hilali acknowledges that Jesus “used to call himself the ‘Son of Man’ (Mark 2:10)” (Al-
Hilali 1998: 905). However, Hilali evidently does not understand the meaning of that term. The “Son of Man” is
both human and divine, just as Jesus is both human and divine. The phrase “Son of Man” alludes to Dan 7:13-
14 (“I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was
coming, and He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him.14 And to Him was given
dominion, glory and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations and men of every language might serve Him. His
dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away; and His kingdom is one which will not be
destroyed.”). In Rev 1:13-14 John received a revelation from Jesus, who is described as “one like a son of man .
. . [whose] head and His hair were white like wool, like snow.” Those images are taken from Daniel’s vision in
Dan 7:9, 13. However, in Daniel’s vision (Dan 7:9) it was “the Ancient of Days” whose “vesture was like white
snow and the hair of His head like pure wool.” Given this context, “John sees ‘one like a son of man’ who is
distinguished from and identified with the Ancient of Days—a mysterious combination but consistent with the
fact that he lays claim to the title ‘the first and the last’ ([Rev] 1:17), by which God proclaimed his divine
eternity (Isa. 41:4; 44:6; 48:12). The Son of Man is God, infinite in wisdom and holiness.” (Johnson 2001: 59)
Thus, whenever Jesus used the term “Son of Man” he was making an assertion that he was, in fact, God
come to earth as a man. In John 3:13 he explicitly said, “No one has ascended into heaven, but He who
descended from heaven: the Son of Man.” Similarly, in John 6:62 Jesus said, “What then if you see the Son of
Man ascending to where He was before?” Carson comments that “Jesus the Son of Man (the title especially
connected with his function as the revealer from heaven) first descended [John 6:38], and so in ascending is
merely returning to where he was before (cf. 17:5). This not only affirms Jesus’ pre-existence, but places him in
a class quite different from antecedent Jewish religious heroes.” (Carson 1991: 301)25
We see Jesus claiming to be deity in his other references to the “Son of Man.” For example, Jesus’
claim that “the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Matt 9:6; Mark 2:10; Luke 5:24) is a

25
Carson’s point about the term “Son of Man” being especially connected with Jesus’ function as a revealer from heaven is
important. “According to Daniel 7:9-22 the Son of man was a heavenly figure who would participate in the judgment on the
last day; however, Jesus pours new content into the title by claiming that the Son of man must also suffer. Thus, Jesus links
together the Son of man and the Suffering Servant (Isa. 52:13-53:12 [see Matt 17:12; 20:25-28; Mark 10:42-45; Luke
22:25-27; John 3:14]).” (Schreiner 1989: 818) “The death and the exaltation of the Servant of the Lord are the way in
which God reveals his glory and demonstrates his deity to the world. . . . The Servant, in both his humiliation and his
exaltation, is therefore not merely a human figure distinguished from God, but, in both his humiliation and his exaltation,
belongs to the identity of the unique God” (Bauckham 1999: 49, 51). Thus, the term “Son of Man” reveals (along with
many of Jesus’ other statements and actions) the true nature of who God is. As Richard Bauckham puts it, “Jesus reveals
the divine identity—who God truly is—in humiliation as well as exaltation, and in the connexion of the two. God’s own
identity is revealed in Jesus, his life and his cross, just as truly as in his exaltation, in a way that is fully continuous and
consistent with the Old Testament and Jewish understanding of God, but is also novel and surprising.” (Ibid.: viii) The
nature of who God is and what he is like is a major point of contention between Christianity and Islam. In brief, Islam’s
Allah is, one might say, a “one dimensional” god, i.e., a god only of transcendent power; the idea of his also being a
personal god of love, suffering, and humiliation is foreign and, indeed, abhorrent to Muslims. However, the God of the
Bible, particularly as definitively revealed by Jesus, is far more complex than Islam’s Allah.
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claim to be God come to earth as a man, because only God has the authority to forgive sins; yet here Jesus is
claiming to forgive sins on his own authority (see the quote from C. S. Lewis [1996: 55] above). In Matt 12:8;
Mark 2:28; Luke 6:5 Jesus said, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” As was discussed above, by saying
that, Jesus was claiming to be God Himself. In Luke 9:58 Jesus said, “The Son of Man did not come to destroy
men’s lives, but to save them” (see also Luke 19:9-10). The granting of salvation to anyone is something that
only God can do. In Matt 13:41-42 Jesus said, “The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather
out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the
furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” This refers to the final judgment.
Similarly, in Matt 16:27 Jesus says that “the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His
angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds.” J. Knox Chamblin points out that “as in Daniel
7:13-14, the Son of man is revealed as divine (the angels are his, not just the Father’s, v. 27)” (Chamblin 1989:
743). Sending the angels and rendering eternal judgment are the acts of God. That is the same context in which
Jesus calls himself the “Son of Man” in Matt 24:30-31; 24:42-44; 25:31-46; Mark 8:38; 13:26; Luke 9:22-
26; 12:8-9; John 9:35-39. Jesus’ statements concerning forgiveness of sins, granting salvation, and judgment
reveal a fundamental difference between himself and Muhammad: Muhammad could only declare what Allah
could do in forgiving, saving, and judging people; Jesus said that he himself would do all those things.
In Matt 24:42-44 the “Son of Man” is specifically equated with the “Lord.” In Matt 25:31-46 the “Son
of Man” is equated with the “King” who “will sit on His glorious throne” and judge all the people of the earth,
sending some to hell and others to eternal life. That, of course, can only refer to God. Thus, again, when Jesus
calls himself the “Son of Man” he is equating himself with God Almighty. In Matt 19:27-28 Jesus says that,
“in the regeneration [or, renewal of all things] when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you also
shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (see also Luke 22:29-30). The “throne” can
only be the throne of God. In John 6:27 Jesus says that people should work for “the food which endures to
eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.” Again, eternal life is something that only God can give, and
here Jesus is saying that he will give it (see also John 6:40, 53-54).

E. Jesus used the term “Son of Man” in the same context with the term “Son of God” to show that the two
terms are equivalent
In Matt 16:13-17 Jesus equated being the “Son of Man” with being the “Son of God.” He asked his
disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Matt 16:13) In Matt 16:14 they replied, “Some say
John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” Jesus rejected the
answer that he was merely a prophet, because he then asked, “But who do you say that I am?” (Matt 16:15) In
Matt 16:16 Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” and Jesus responded, “Blessed are
you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Matt
16:17). Thus, although Jesus indeed was a prophet, he was not merely a prophet. Likewise, although Jesus
indeed was a man, he was not merely a man.
In John 1:49 Nathanael said, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.” Jesus did not
deny this but in John 1:50-51 explained, “You will see greater things than these. . . . Truly, truly, I say to you,
you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” While
the terms “Son of God” and “King of Israel” had messianic meanings, Jesus’ answer expands the meaning
Nathanael probably intended for “Son of God.” Jesus does this by alluding to the vision of Jacob in Gen 28:12.
The reference to “the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending” conveys the image of
“uninterrupted communion between Jesus and the Father” (Köstenberger 2007: 430). Jesus is saying that he “is
the locus of God’s self-revelation on earth. In this regard, this final verse reiterates the affirmation of the
prologue [John 1:1-18]: Jesus is the full revelation of the glory and presence of God.” (Burge 1989: 849)
In John 5:19-29, Jesus repeatedly calls himself the “Son,” the “Son of God,” and the “Son of Man.”
Jesus’ references to the “Son of God” and the “Son of Man” are in the same context of his executing judgment
on the day of resurrection and judgment. The two terms therefore are equivalent. Indeed, Jesus’ statements from
5:21-29 concerning judgment, particularly his statement in John 5:22 that “not even the Father judges anyone,
but He has given all judgment to the Son,” are remarkable assertions of Christ’s divine authority, since both the
Qur’an and the Hebrew Scriptures (the OT) affirm that judgment is the exclusive prerogative of God.
At his trial before the high priest in Matt 26:63-65 (Mark 14:61-63; Luke 22:66-71), the following
interchange took place: “The high priest said to Him, ‘I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether
You are the Christ, the Son of God.’ 64Jesus said to him, ‘You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you,
hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.’
65
Then the high priest tore his robes and said, ‘He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses?
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Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy.’” Craig Blomberg discusses why Jesus’ claim to be the “Son of
Man” in this context is so significant: “This ‘Son of Man’ saying, rather than the claim that he was some kind of
messiah, is what would have led the high priest to tear his garments and proclaim that Jesus had blasphemed
(26:65). Alleging messiahship was no capital offense; otherwise, the Jews could never have received a messiah!
But claiming to be the exalted, heavenly Son of Man, one who was Lord and next to the Father himself in
heaven, transgressed the boundaries of what most of the Jewish leaders deemed permissible for mere mortals.”
(Blomberg 2007: 93)

F. Jesus calls himself the “Son of God” and accepts to be called the “Son of God” by others
Hilali states that “Jesus never called himself Son of God as far as I know . . . although he heard himself
being called by that name he did not object . . . and did not consider the title exclusively for him” (Al-Hilali
1998: 905, citing Matt 5:9, 45 where the term “Son [or child] of God” is applied to “every God-fearing
righteous person”). Hilali is incorrect. While the phrase can have a broader meaning, its use concerning Jesus
clearly meant that Jesus was God come to earth as a man (i.e., he was the “Son of God” in a special sense, with a
unique relationship with God the Father).
First, Jesus did call himself the “Son” to describe his unique relationship with God the Father. In Matt
11:27 (Luke 10:22) Jesus said, “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the
Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to
reveal Him.” What Jesus is saying is that he is the only one who truly knows God, and the only way to know
God is through him! Note that it is the Son’s will which must be exercised if anyone is to know the Father. That
is a stunning claim which must be taken seriously, especially by those who call Jesus a great prophet. By
making this statement in Matt 11:27 about his unique relationship with the Father, Jesus is claiming divinity for
Himself and is placing Himself in a class far above Muhammad or anyone else. In telling his disciples to make
disciples of all the nations, Jesus told them to baptize believers “in the name of the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19). Again, he is calling himself the “Son” in a unique relationship with the Father.
In John 3:16-18 Jesus called himself the “only begotten Son,” the “Son,” and “the only begotten Son of
God.”26 In connection with the works he did, Jesus called himself the “Son of God” in John 5:25; 10:36; 11:4.
The context was his doing what only God has the power to do (raise the dead).
In the parable of the vineyard (Matt 21:33-46; Mark 12:1-12; Luke 20:9-19), Jesus contrasted himself
with all the prophets who had been sent before, predicted his own death, indicated that he was the only way of
salvation, said that the kingdom was not limited to the Jews, and refers to himself as the “Son” in a way that
negates the Islamic claim that Muhammad is the last of the prophets. In the parable, God the Father sent
prophets to Israel who had mistreated them; so at last he decided to send his own Son (Jesus). N. T. Wright
correctly concludes, that “once the father has sent the son to the vineyard, he can send nobody else. To reject the
son is to reject the last chance.” (Wright 1996: 362, 365)
Second, God Himself on more than one occasion called Jesus “His Son” in circumstances that can only
be referring to Jesus’ divine Sonship. At Jesus’ baptism “a voice out of heaven said, ‘This is My beloved Son, in
whom I am well-pleased” (Matt 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22). Again, when Jesus was transfigured before
three of His disciples, “a voice out of the cloud said, ‘This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased;
listen to Him!’”(Matt 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35).
Third, the angel Gabriel called Jesus the “Son of God.” When announcing to Mary that Jesus was to be
born, Gabriel stated, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High” (Luke 1:32). When Mary
then asked “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34), Gabriel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come
upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be
called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). In that context, Gabriel’s reference to “the Son of God” can only be
referring to Jesus’ divine Sonship.

G. Jesus’ opponents recognized that he was claiming to be God and sought to kill Him for blasphemy
because of his claim to be God’s unique Son
In Matt 9:2-3; 26:63-66; Mark 2:6-7; 14:61-64; Luke 5:20-21; 22:66-71; John 5:17-18; 8:53, 59;
10:30-33, 39; 19:7 Jesus’ opponents recognized that Jesus was claiming to be God’s unique Son and sought to
kill him because of that claim. The law of Moses prescribed the death penalty for blasphemy (Lev 24:14, 16, 23;

26
Since ancient texts did not use quotation marks or similar markers, there is dispute as to whether or not John 3:16-21 are
Jesus’ words (i.e., the end of his answer to Nicodemus that began in v. 10) or are a comment by the writer of the Gospel of
John (see Carson 1991: 203-04; Burge 1989: 851).
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see John 19:7). John 5:18 says that the Jews were seeking to kill Jesus “because He not only was breaking the
Sabbath [by healing a man on the Sabbath], but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal
with God.” Yusuf Ali admits that “Jesus was charged by the Jews with blasphemy as claiming to be God or the
son of God” (Ali 2006: Q. 3:55n.395). Bernard Ramm points out, “At this point, from the human perspective,
there is only one thing for Jesus to do. He ought to deny the charge and give some reason why he healed the man
on a Sabbath day. This he does not do. He says that the Jews were right. He is equal with God. In the verses that
follow Jesus specifies the kind of things only God can do but yet that he can do. Hence he is equal with the
Father.” (Ramm 1985: 43)

H. People worshipped or prayed to Jesus as God, and Jesus accepted that worship
The Bible makes it absolutely clear that only God is to be worshipped (Exod 20:3-5; 34:14; Deut 4:19;
5:7-9; 8:19; 1 Kgs 9:6-7; Isa 42:8). Jesus himself specifically said that only God is to be worshipped (Matt
4:10; Luke 4:8). The worship of mere mortals or even angels is idolatrous and sinful (Exod 20:1-5; Deut 5:6-
9; Rom 1:18-23). Jesus knew that.
Nevertheless, in Matt 2:11; 14:33; 28:9, 16-17; Luke 24:51-52; John 1:1-14; 5:22-23; 9:35-38;
20:28; 28:9; Acts 2:36; 7:59-60; 20:28; Rom 9:3-5; Phil 2:5-11; Titus 2:13; Heb 1:5-10; 2 Pet 1:1; 1 John
2:23; Rev 5:1-14 people worshipped or prayed to Jesus as they would to God Himself. Jesus accepted their
worship. The response of Jesus in accepting worship would be blasphemy and idolatry for anyone, even a
prophet, if he were only a man. The fact that Jesus did not object, but accepted people’s worshipping him,
showed that he knew he was God who had come to earth as a man—because only by being God come to earth as
a man could Jesus legitimately accept being worshipped. In fact, the worship of Jesus is known to have been
present long before the NT was even written. This is known, among other reasons, because the universal
worship of Jesus is stated in Phil 2:9-11, which is an early Christian creed that long pre-dated Paul’s writing of
the book of Philippians (see discussion of early Christian creeds in the section 2.IV.B. The earliness of
Christian creeds, above). Phil 2:9-11 alludes to Isa 45:22-23 which pertains to the worship of Yahweh; this,
again, shows that Jesus is equated with God.
There is an important implication of the fact that Jesus accepted worship of himself. Muslim scholar
Shaikh Abdul-Aziz bin Abdullah bin Baz states that “belief in Allah signifies that Allah is the true God Who
Alone deserves to be worshipped, as He is the Creator and the Sustainer of all human beings” (bin Baz 2002:
250; see, e,g., Q. 2:21-22; 11:1-2; 16:36; 21:25; 51:56-58). Since Jesus accepted worship of himself and
Muslims and the Qur’an acknowledge that Jesus was pure and sinless, that necessarily means that Jesus’
accepting worship of himself was not a sin. That could only be true if he was, in fact, God come to earth.

I. Jesus is specifically called “God” or “Lord” on multiple occasions throughout the NT

On more than one occasion the NT applies to Jesus the name “Lord” or “God”:
• Matt 7:22-23: Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord . . .” Then I will declare to them, “I never
knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”
• Luke 1:42-43: And she [Elizabeth] cried out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you [Mary]
among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And how has it happened to me that the mother of my
Lord would come to me?”
• John 1:1, 14: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . .
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from
the father, full of grace and truth.
• John 20:28: After being told to reach with his finger to feel the holes in Jesus’ hands and side, Thomas
said, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus did not rebuke Thomas for blasphemy but accepted those titles of deity.
• Acts 7:59-60: They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, “Lord Jesus, receive my
spirit!” Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!”
Having said this, he fell asleep.
• Acts 10:36: The word which He sent to the sons of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ (He is
Lord of all).
• Acts 16:31, 34: They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
. . . And he brought them into his house and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, having believed in
God with his whole household.
• Acts 20:28: Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you
overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.
• 1 Cor 2:7-8: But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined
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before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had
understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
• 1 Cor 11:26: For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until
He comes.
• Rom 9:5: Whose [referring to the Israelites] are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to
the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
• Phil 2:5-7: Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,who, although He existed
[literally, “being,” hupárchōn] in the form [morphē] of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be
grasped,but emptied Himself, taking the form [morphē] of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of
men.
• Col 2:9: For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.
• Titus 2:13: Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior,
Christ Jesus. In addition to being called “God,” it is significant that Jesus is also called “Savior,” because in
the OT God specifically said, “I, even I, am the Lord, and there is no savior besides Me” (Isa 43:11).
• 2 Pet 1:1: Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith
of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and savior, Jesus Christ.
• 1 John 5:20: And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we
may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and
eternal life.

J. The same names, titles, and other attributes that are applied to God in the OT or NT are applied to Jesus in
the NT
Sometimes a passage which applied to God is alluded to or directly quoted as applying to Jesus (in the
following table, x, y, z indicate direct quotes):
Name/Title/Attribute Applied to God Applied to Jesus
I AM Exod 3:13-14 John 8:24, 28, 58; 18:5-6
Lord Isa 40:3x; 45:23-24y; Joel 2:32z Mark 1:2-4x; Phil 2:10-11 y; Acts 2:36; Rom 10:13z
God Ps 45:6-7x Heb 1:8-9x; John 1:1, 14, 18; 20:28; 2 Pet 1:1
First and Last Isa 41:4; 44:6; 48:12 Rev 1:17; 2:8; 22:13
Alpha and Omega Rev 1:8x; 21:5-6x Rev 22:13x
Exalted above the Ps 57:5, 11; 108:5 Heb 7:26
heavens
Savior Isa 43:3, 11; 1 Tim 4:10 Matt 1:21; Luke 2:11; John 4:42; Titus 2:13
Redeemer Ps 130:7-8 1 Cor 1:30; Eph 1:7; Titus 2:13-14
Judge Gen 18:25; Ps 50:4-6; 96:13 John 5:22; 2 Cor 5:10; 2 Tim 4:1
King Ps 95:3 Rev 17:14; 19:16
King of Israel Isa 43:15; 44:6; Zeph 3:15 John 1:49; 12:13
Holy 1 Sam 2:2; John 17:11 Acts 3:14; Heb 7:26
Good27 Ps 34:8 John 10:11
Light Ps 27:1; Isa 60:20; Mic 7:8 John 1:4-5, 9; 3:19; 8:12; 9:5
Rock Deut 32:4; 2 Sam 22:32; Ps 89:26 1 Cor 10:4; 1 Pet 2:4-8
Husband Isa 54:5; Hos 2:16 Mark 2:18-19; 2 Cor 11:2; Rev 21:2
Shepherd Ps 23:1; 80:1; Isa 40:11 John 10:11, 16; Heb 13:20; 1 Pet 2:25; 5:4
Creator Gen 1:1; Ps 102:25-27x; Isa 40:28 John 1:3, 10; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2, 10-12x
Sustainer Job 34:14-14; Ps 3:5; 2 Pet 3:7 Col 1:17; Heb 1:3
Giver of life Deut 32:39; 1 Sam 2:6; Ps 36:9 John 5:22; 10:28; 11:25
Source of “living water” Jer 2:13 John 4:10, 14; 7:37-38
Forgiver of sin Exod 34:7; Isa 55:7; Dan 9:9 Matt 1:21; Mark 2:5; Acts 26:18; Col 2:13
Sovereign over all Neh 9:6; Isa 44:24-27; 45:22-23x Matt 28:18; Eph 1:20-22; Phil 2:9-11x; 3:21
Omniscient Job 21:22; Ps 33:13-15 John 16:30; 21:17
Searches hearts & minds 1 Chron 28:9; Ps 7:9; 139:1-4, 23; Mark 2:8; John 2:24-25; Rev 2:23
Jer 17:10

27
God’s attribute of “goodness” indicates what Jesus was getting at when he asked the rich young man, “Why do you call
Me good? No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19). He was not denying that he was God, as Hilali
(1998: 906-07) claims. Rather, he was affirming his divinity by asking a rhetorical question. In effect, he was saying to the
man, “Do you really know to whom you are speaking?” As Victor Babajide Cole puts it, “Jesus was not denying that he
was ‘good’. Rather, he was pressing the man to see the logical implication of addressing him as ‘good’, namely that he is
God!” (Cole 2006: 1189)
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Rewards according to Ps 62:12x; Jer 17:10; 32:19 Matt 16:27x; Rev 2:23
people’s deeds

K. Prophecies and statements that pertain to God or the Lord in the OT are quoted and applied to Jesus in
the NT
• I have set the LORD continually before me; because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. (Ps
16:8; applied to Jesus in Acts 2:25)
• Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom. (Ps
45:6; applied to Jesus in Heb 1:8)
• Of old You founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. Even they will perish, but
You endure; and all of them will wear out like a garment; like clothing You will change them and they will
be changed. (Ps 102:25-26; applied to Jesus in Heb 1:10-12)
• The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief corner stone. (Ps 118:22; applied to Jesus in
Acts 4:11)
• Isa 6:1-13: In Isa 6:5 Isaiah says, “Woe is me, for I am ruined. . . . For my eyes have seen the King, the
Lord of hosts.” In Isa 6:8-13 “the voice of the Lord” then commissions Isaiah to go and prophesy to the
people of Israel. John 12:40 quotes Isa 6:10. John 12:41 then applies all of Isaiah 6 to Jesus by saying,
“These things Isaiah said because he saw His [Jesus’] glory, and he spoke of Him.”
• Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and
she will call His name Immanuel. (Isa 7:14; applied to Jesus in Matt 1:22-23, which specifies that
“Immanuel” means “God with us”)
• It is the LORD of hosts whom you should regard as holy. And He shall be your fear, and He shall be
your dread. Then He shall become a sanctuary; but to both the houses of Israel, a stone to strike and a rock
to stumble over, And a snare and a trap for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. (Isa 8:13-14; applied to Jesus in
Rom 9:33; 1 Pet 2:8)
• A voice is calling, “Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway
for our God.” (Isa 40:3; applied to Jesus in Matt 3:3; John 1:23)
• My house will be called a house of prayer. (Isa 56:7; applied by Jesus to Himself in Matt 21:13)
• But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go
forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity. (Mic 5:2;
applied to Jesus in Matt 2:6. The language of the second sentence of Mic 5:2 is OT language that typically
describes the eternal God in such passages as Ps 74:12; 90:2; 93:2; Isa 43:13; 63:16)
• I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of
supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one
mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. (Zech
12:10; applied to Jesus in John 19:37; Rev 1:7)

L. Conclusion
Muslim apologists often contend that the worship of Jesus as the Son of God as part of the Godhead was
a later development “under the misleading influence of Greek philosophy” (A’la Mawdudi n.d.: Q. 4:171n.212;
see also ibid.: n.216; Ali 2006: Q.4:171n.676 [“Alexandrian and Gnostic mysticism”]; Dirks 2008: 68-69). To
the contrary, all of the above data demonstrate that “the highest possible Christology, the inclusion of Jesus in
the unique divine identity, was central to the faith of the early church even before any of the New Testament
writings were written, since it occurs in all of them. Although there was development in understanding this
inclusion of Jesus in the identity of God, the decisive step of so including him was made at the beginning of
Christology. . . . The New Testament writers did not see their Jewish monotheistic heritage as in any way an
obstacle to the inclusion of Jesus in the divine identity; they used its resources extensively in order precisely to
include Jesus in the divine identity; and they saw in this inclusion of Jesus in the divine identity the fulfilment of
the eschatological expectation of Jewish monotheism that the one God will be universally acknowledged as such
in his universal rule over all things.” (Bauckham 1999: 27)28 The basis for this conclusion primarily was what

28
John Gilchrist points out, “No historical records of any description challenging the Jesus of the canonical gospels exist
from any period during the 1st century” (Gilchrist 2015: 23). Oskar Skarsaune points out that, far from stemming from
Greek or Gnostic thought, “The available evidence shows, on the contrary, that most Hellenists [i.e., Greeks or people who
had adopted Greek philosophy and ideas] reacted with disgust and contempt at the very idea of a divine incarnation, and
with charges of blasphemy when they heard that the incarnate Son of God had suffered the uttermost shame of crucifixion.
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 Copyright © 2019-2020 by Jonathan Menn. All rights reserved.

Jesus himself said and what Jesus himself did.

Inasmuch as Muslims view Jesus as a sinless prophet who cannot lie, Jesus’ words and deeds confront
them (and everyone) with the same issue that confronted the first century Jews: Who is Jesus? Based upon the
evidence, multitudes of first century Jews accepted that Jesus was who he claimed to be, the Son of God, i.e.,
God come to earth, and their lives were changed. Jesus’ claims are so profound that everyone needs to look at
the evidence and make a choice, because if Jesus’ claims are true, then to reject Jesus as Lord is to reject God
and thereby to miss life itself, but to have Jesus as Lord is to have God the Father as well and thereby to have
eternal life (John 8:19; 1 John 2:23; 4:15; 2 John 9).

VII. Implications of the Fact that Jesus Christ is Fully God and Fully Man

A. God can be truly and personally known in Christ

“Jesus became human so that human beings could have some understanding of the infinite God. A
second reason God chose to become a man was to bridge the gulf between God and humankind. If Jesus had
been ‘only’ a man or created being, then the hugeness of the gulf between God and humanity—the infinite and
the finite, the Creator and the created, the Holy and the unholy—would have remained. For us to be able to
know God, God had to step down to us. No created being could have bridged the gigantic gap between God and
human beings any more than a piece of clay could aspire to understand and reach the level of the sculptor. Out
of love, God took that step down to us. He wanted to open a way that all might come to know Him.” (McDowell
and Larson 1983: 19) The fact that God became a man and lived among us in the person of Jesus Christ means
we can know him personally and truly. This makes Christianity unique among all the religions of the world.

B. Christ shows us what God’s true nature is and thereby also is our true example of how to live
Because Jesus is God, it is appropriate and necessary to believe in him and worship him. However,
because he is man, he is a true example of how we should live our lives here on earth: “By this we know that we
are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked” (1
John 2:5-6). Peter says that patiently enduring unjust suffering for doing what is right “finds favor with God.
For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to
follow in His steps.” (1 Pet 2:20-21) It is here that Christ’s divinity and humanity converge in a profound way.
Phil 2:5-11 describes how Christ was God (2:5-6) but emptied Himself to become a man, even a slave (2:7),
who was obedient to the point of death on a cross (2:8); therefore, God highly exalted him such that everyone
will worship him as Lord of all (2:9-11). “The exaltation of Christ to participation in the unique divine
sovereignty shows Him to be included in the unique divine identity. But since the exalted Christ is first the
humiliated Christ, since indeed it is because of his self-abnegation that he is exalted, his humiliation belongs to
the identity of God as truly as his exaltation does. The identity of God—who God is—is revealed as much in
self-abasement and service as it is in exaltation and rule. The God who is high can also be low, because God is
God not in seeking his own advantage but in self-giving. His self-giving in abasement and service ensures that
his sovereignty over things is also a form of his self-giving. Only the Servant can be the Lord. Only the Servant
who is also the Lord receives the recognition of his lordship—the acknowledgement of his unique deity—from
the whole creation.” (Bauckham 1999: 61)
God’s identification with us in Christ then leads us to identify with others, since we have received the
mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16) and the Spirit of Christ (Rom 8:1-17). We treat others with love and forgiveness

. . . And that means that the Christian doctrine of the incarnation can hardly be a product of a milieu—the Hellenistic—that
regarded this doctrine as a philosophical and theological monstrosity. Nor can it be the brilliant idea of someone trying to
speak the way Hellenists liked.” (Skarsaune 2002: 323-25) In the early fourth century, Arius did begin promulgating an
essentially Gnostic view of Christ, describing “the Son as a second, or inferior God, standing midway between the First
Cause and creatures” (“Arianism” 2012: Doctrine). That controversy resulted in the Nicene and Constantinople creeds of
325 and 381 which recognized that Christ is fully God and fully man. Richard Bauckham concludes that the idea that the
Christian doctrine of Christ stems from Greek philosophy or Gnostic mysticism is “virtually the opposite of the truth. . . . In
the context of the Arian controversies, Nicene theology was essentially an attempt to resist the implications of Greek
philosophical understandings of divinity and to re-appropriate in a new conceptual context the New Testament’s inclusion
of Jesus in the unique divine identity.” (Bauckham 1999: 78; see also Skarsaune 2002: 325, 333 [“Now if we could ask the
church fathers themselves what they thought was the background of the Christology of the (Nicene) creed, they would no
doubt have answered, this creed is biblical through and through, not only in substance, but also in wording. And by
‘biblical’ they would have meant that every word and clause in the creed can be substantiated from the Old Testament, not
only the New. . . . It goes without saying that a Christology like this could only arise in a Jewish setting among disciples
steeped in the Old Testament and Jewish categories of thought.”]).
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 Copyright © 2019-2020 by Jonathan Menn. All rights reserved.

because that is the way Christ has treated us (Eph 4:32; 1 John 4:7-21). Our lives and actions become more and
more like Christ’s as we are conformed to his image (Rom 8:29; 12:1-2). The Christian God is unlike any other
god and Christianity is unlike any other religion in the world—and it is only Christ who reveals this.

C. Redemption from our sin is only possible because Christ is both fully God and fully man
All people intuitively know that we have a problem: we are separated from God because we are sinful
and God is holy and perfect. The Bible correctly sees that mankind has a fatal flaw, an inner corruption known
as indwelling sin (e.g., Gen 6:5; Ps 51:5; Jer 17:9; Rom 3:9-18, 23; 7:14-24; Gal 3:21-22). Because all people
have a fundamental problem of a sinful nature, cannot change that, and therefore cannot save themselves, the
Bible reveals that God chose to do for mankind what mankind could not do for itself. That is why God became a
man in the person of Jesus Christ. By taking on a human body “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom 8:3) and
coming into the world, Christ lived the life we should have lived. He was “tempted in all things as we are, yet
without sin” (Heb 4:15; see also 2 Cor 5:21; Heb 2:18). That qualified Him to be our representative with the
Father, to die the death we should have died, and pay the penalty for our sins that we should have paid (Rom
8:3-4). As 1 Tim 2:5 says, “There is one God, and one mediator also between God and man, the man Christ
Jesus.” A mediator is someone who brings together two parties who are opposed to each other. A mediator
therefore has to identify with each of the parties. Because he is God, Christ identifies with God the Father.
Because he is man, Christ identifies with us. Because he did not sin, he did not have to atone for his own sin.
Instead, Christ could take our sin onto himself, pay the price for our sin that we should have paid, and also
impute to us his righteousness so that we can stand before God (Isa 53:5-6, 10-11; Rom 10:4; 2 Cor 5:21; Heb
2:17-18; 1 Pet 2:4; 3:18). He alone can thereby reconcile us to God (Col 1:19-20).
No one else who has ever lived—neither Muhammad, nor Buddha, nor anyone else—ever claimed to
redeem people from their sins. And no one else who has ever lived was qualified to redeem people from their
sins even if he wanted to do so, because: (1) no one else who has ever lived was both God and man like Christ
is; and (2) everyone else who has ever lived has had his or her own sinful nature and actual sins to deal with
(Acts 4:12; Rom 3:9-18). Consequently, Christianity alone recognizes that salvation is not, and cannot be,
based on what we do, but is, and can only be, based solely on what Christ has done for us. Salvation cannot be
earned by us but is a gift given to us by the grace of God through Christ (Rom 5:18-21; 6:23; Eph 1:7; 2:4-5,
8-9). Only in Christ can we have confidence to approach God, because Christ is our advocate who intercedes for
us with the Father (Rom 8:34; Heb 4:16; 7:25; 1 John 2:1). Therefore, “He, as no other human being in
history, is to be listened to, revered, and even worshipped. . . . To treat Jesus as a mere man (or even a god [in
the polytheistic sense]) under such circumstances would be blasphemy. To fail to adjust one’s life to His
teaching would be to miss life itself.” (McDowell and Larson 1983: 14-15)

BIBLIOGRAPHY
The full bibliographic references to the citations in the text are set forth in the bibliography of Christianity and Islam: The
Essentials which is on the ECLEA website at http://www.eclea.net/courses.html#islam.

THE AUTHOR
Jonathan Menn lives in Appleton, WI, USA. He received a B.A. in political science from the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, with honors, in 1974, and was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.
He then earned a J.D. from Cornell Law School, magna cum laude, in 1977, and was inducted into the
Order of the Coif legal honor society. He spent the next 28 years practicing law, as a civil trial attorney,
in Chicago and then as a partner at the Menn Law Firm in Appleton, WI. He became a believer and
follower of Jesus Christ in 1982. An increasing love for theology and ministry led to his pursuing a
Master of Divinity at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL. He received his M.Div. from
TEDS, summa cum laude, in May 2007. Between 2007-2013 he was the East Africa Director of
Equipping Pastors International. Now Jonathan is the Director of Equipping Church Leaders-East
Africa (www.eclea.net). His extensive written teaching materials on biblical subjects are available at
www.eclea.net. Jonathan may be contacted at: jonathanmenn@yahoo.com.

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