Jesus Christ and Muhammad: Why Christians and Muslims Do Not Worship the Same God
Many people casually say,
“Jesus was a Jew who started a religion; Muhammad was an Arab who started a religion. Big deal.”
But that is far too superficial. Christianity and Islam are the world’s two largest religions, and their claims concerning Jesus Christ could hardly be more different.
The difference between Jesus Christ and Muhammad—and between the religions that bear their names—touches the very nature of God, the identity of Jesus Christ, the authority of Scripture, the meaning of salvation, and the historical question of what happened to Jesus of Nazareth.
If you call yourself a Christian, these differences matter because we are commanded to know what we believe and why we believe it. If you are Muslim, or if you are simply exploring Islam and Christianity, I invite you to read this fairly. I am not writing this to attack Muslims. I am writing because Christianity and Islam make competing claims about ultimate truth, and those claims deserve to be examined honestly. The question is not whether Muslims are sincere in their beliefs. Many are. The question is whether what Christianity teaches about God and Jesus Christ is true.
Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?
This question requires some care.
Muslims and Christians both claim Abraham as part of their religious history. Both claim to worship the one supreme Creator. Both use the word “God” to speak of the Creator of all things. But using the same word does not necessarily mean that two religions have the same understanding of the One being worshiped.
Suppose two people claim to know the same person but give mutually exclusive descriptions of that person’s identity. The disagreement cannot be resolved simply by pointing out that they use the same name. The question is whether their descriptions actually refer to the same person. The same principle applies here.
Christianity teaches that the one true God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that the eternal Son became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. Islam explicitly rejects the incarnation, rejects the Sonship of Christ in the Christian sense, and rejects the Trinity. The Qur’an itself makes these differences clear. Qur’an 4:171 describes Jesus as the Messiah, the son of Mary, a messenger of Allah, His Word, and a Spirit from Him, while warning against saying “Three.” Qur’an 5:72–73 rejects the identification of Allah with the Messiah and rejects the confession of “three.” (legacy.quran.com). The difference therefore goes far beyond the use of different religious vocabulary. Christianity teaches that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who became flesh. Islam denies that claim.
The differences continue beyond the identity of Christ. Christianity proclaims that Jesus was crucified, died, and rose again, and that His death and resurrection are central to the gospel. The Qur’an gives a fundamentally different account of the crucifixion. Christianity teaches that Jesus Christ is the unique and sufficient way of reconciliation with the Father. Islam teaches that Muhammad is the final prophet and does not accept the Christian understanding of Christ’s person and saving work.
These are not minor differences between two religions that simply understand the same God in slightly different ways. They are fundamentally different claims about God’s identity and self-revelation, the identity of Jesus Christ, the meaning of the cross, and the way God reconciles sinners to Himself.
That is why the statement, “All religions worship the same God,” is not sufficient.
The question is not whether Christians and Muslims use similar language about God. The question is whether the God revealed in Jesus Christ is the same God described by Islam.
That is a question of truth, not merely terminology. The primary sources for examining these claims are the written texts themselves: the Bible and the Qur’an.
Revelation: How Do We Know What God Has Revealed?
The Christian faith rests upon God’s revelation through the Old Testament, which points forward to the coming Messiah, and the New Testament, which records the life, death, resurrection, and teaching of Jesus Christ and the testimony of His apostles.
The revelation of God did not begin with the New Testament. The Old Testament establishes the character of God, His covenant promises, His law, His dealings with Israel, and the promise of a coming Redeemer. Christianity understands these Scriptures as pointing forward to Jesus Christ. Then, “when the fulness of the time was come,” God sent forth His Son (Galatians 4:4). Jesus Christ did not merely bring another message from God. He came as God manifest in the flesh.
The New Testament then records the testimony of those who knew and followed Christ. The apostles did not present Christianity as a philosophy based upon private revelation or abstract religious teaching. They proclaimed what they had seen and heard.
Peter told Cornelius:
“And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree: Him God raised up the third day, and shewed him openly; Not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.” — Acts 10:39–41
Peter later wrote:
"For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty." - 2 Peter 1:16
This is important when we ask how Christians know what God has revealed. Christianity does not begin with a later prophet claiming to have received a new revelation that corrects what came before. It begins with the revelation God had already given, moves to the coming of Christ whom that revelation anticipated, and then rests upon the testimony of those whom Christ commissioned to bear witness to Him.
The Old Testament therefore points forward to Christ. Christ is God revealed in the flesh. And the New Testament records the apostolic witness to His life, death, resurrection, and teaching. The question of revelation is ultimately a question of testimony.
Who revealed the message?
What did He reveal?
Who witnessed it?
And does the later claim agree with what God had already revealed?
That question becomes especially important when we consider the Qur’an and its claims concerning Jesus Christ. Islam regards the Qur’an as the final revelation given through Muhammad. This creates a fundamental question in the Christian-Muslim discussion. The New Testament records the Christian proclamation concerning Jesus Christ, including His crucifixion and resurrection. The Qur’an, arising in the seventh century, gives a fundamentally different account of what happened to Jesus at the cross.
We cannot simply accept both accounts as equally authoritative, because they contradict one another at precisely the point where the identity and saving work of Jesus Christ are concerned. The question, therefore, is not merely whether both Christianity and Islam claim to possess revelation. The question is which revelation is true, and which testimony should be trusted concerning Jesus Christ?
What About the Corruption of Scripture?
One of the most common objections raised in Muslim-Christian discussions is that the Bible has been corrupted. The issue, however, deserves more careful examination than the simple statement, “The Bible was corrupted.”
Muslim scholars have historically understood tahrif in different ways. The term can refer to distortion, alteration, or turning something away from its proper meaning, and Muslim interpretations have differed over whether the alleged corruption concerns the text of Scripture itself, its interpretation, its concealment, or some combination of these. So the question should not be reduced to a slogan.
What does the Qur’an itself say about the Scriptures that came before it?
The Qur’an speaks positively about the Torah and the Gospel in several passages. It describes the Torah as having been given by Allah and containing “guidance and light.” It says that Jesus was sent “confirming” what came before Him in the Torah and that God gave Him the Gospel, “in which was guidance and light.” It then tells the People of the Gospel to judge by what Allah had revealed therein. (Qur’an 5:44–47 - Quran). The Qur’an also describes itself as confirming the Scripture that preceded it (Qur’an 5:48 - Quran). Now, this is important. Whatever one believes about the present form of the Christian Scriptures, the Qur’an does not describe the Gospel as a merely human document. It presents the Gospel as a genuine revelation from Allah and directs the People of the Gospel to what Allah revealed in it. This raises an important question: If the Gospel was truly revealed by Allah to Jesus, what exactly was that Gospel, and where is it today?
At the same time, the Qur’an accuses some of the People of the Scripture of distorting words, concealing portions of Scripture, and presenting something as Scripture that was not from God. Qur’an 3:78, for example, speaks of a group who “alter the Scripture with their tongues” so that people might think their words were part of Scripture when they were not (Quran). Qur’an 5:13–15 likewise speaks of distortion and concealment (Legacy.Quran). These passages need to be considered together. They show that the Qur’an contains accusations of distortion against some Jews and Christians, but they do not by themselves establish the modern claim that the entire biblical text had been corrupted beyond recovery before Muhammad.
The historical question that must be answered is therefore much more precise: Was the New Testament text substantially altered before the rise of Islam in the seventh century? The manuscript evidence is important here. The New Testament is preserved in a large and diverse body of Greek manuscript witnesses, and scholars continue to catalogue and study them. The Institute for New Testament Textual Research notes that the catalog of Greek New Testament manuscripts is continually expanding and includes witnesses ranging from the late second century onward (New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room). The famous Papyrus 52, a fragment of the Gospel of John held by the University of Manchester, is generally dated to the second century and is among the earliest surviving New Testament manuscripts (University of Manchester Library).
This does not mean that every manuscript agrees in every spelling, word, or sentence. New Testament textual criticism exists precisely because scribes made copying variations, and scholars compare the surviving witnesses to determine the earliest recoverable text (please see my article on the stability of the text here). But what scholars do comparing textual variants is very different from demonstrating that Christians at some point substantially rewrote the New Testament and inserted the central doctrines of Christ’s deity, crucifixion, and resurrection. And that brings us to the most important question.
The Christian Testimony Predates Islam
The New Testament documents were obviously written centuries before Muhammad, and they consistently present Jesus as the crucified and risen Son of God. The earliest Christian testimony is even earlier than the completed New Testament collection. Paul’s letters, for example, preserve traditions concerning Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection, and appearances that he received from the earliest Christian community (1 Corinthians 15:3–8). Paul’s wording is significant. In 1 Corinthians 15:3, he says that he “delivered” to the Corinthians what he had first “received.” He then summarizes the message: Christ died for our sins, was buried, rose again the third day, and appeared to numerous witnesses. Paul is therefore not presenting these central claims about Jesus as ideas he invented. He is passing on a body of teaching that he himself had received from the earliest Christian community. This places the proclamation of Jesus’ death and resurrection very close to the beginning of Christian Gospel proclamation—long before Islam arose in the seventh century.
This matters because the Qur’an appeared in the seventh century and presents a substantially different account of Jesus, particularly concerning His crucifixion and identity. The real question, then, is whether the Qur’an’s later testimony about Jesus can overturn the earlier testimony that was already being proclaimed, written, copied, and circulated throughout the Christian world long before Muhammad.
If the New Testament manuscript testimony concerning Jesus cannot simply be dismissed as a later corruption, then we must return to the central question: What does that testimony actually say about Jesus Christ?
The Question of Jesus’ Identity
Who is Jesus Christ?
The Qur’an gives Jesus an unusually significant place. He is called the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, a messenger of Allah, and “His Word” and “a Spirit from Him” (Qur’an 4:171). Yet the Qur’an does not give Him the identity that Christianity has confessed from its earliest testimony. Islam denies that Jesus is the divine Son of God and rejects the Christian confession that God Himself came in the person of Jesus Christ.
Here, then, is the fundamental question: Is Jesus merely a prophet and messenger of God, or is He the divine Son of God who came into the world to redeem sinners?
That is not a minor disagreement between Christianity and Islam. It is a disagreement about the identity and work of Jesus Himself. The answer requires us to examine the testimony that existed concerning Jesus long before Islam arose.
Jesus Shares the Divine Attributes of Jehovah
The New Testament repeatedly identifies Jesus with qualities and works that belong to God.
Consider just a few examples:
Divine attribute or work | Old Testament | Jesus Christ in the New Testament |
Eternal existence | “from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” — Psalm 90:2 | “Before Abraham was, I am” — John 8:58 |
Creator | “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made” — Psalm 33:6 | “All things were made by him” — John 1:3 |
Forgives sins | “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions” — Isaiah 43:25 | “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee” — Mark 2:5 |
Final Judge | “the LORD shall judge his people” — Psalm 96:13 | “the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son” — John 5:22 |
Receives worship | God alone is to be worshipped — Deuteronomy 6:13 | Jesus receives worship — Matthew 14:33; 28:9,17 |
Creator and sustainer | God is Creator of all | Christ is before all things and by Him all things consist — Colossians 1:16–17 |
The Christian claim is therefore much larger than saying that Jesus was a particularly holy man. The New Testament presents Him as sharing the divine identity and divine works. That is why Christians worship Jesus Christ.
The Crucifixion: A Historical and Theological Divide
Qur’an 4:157 says concerning Jesus:
“They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but it was made to appear so to them.”
The verse then says that those who differ concerning it are in doubt and that they did not kill Jesus “for certain” (Quran.com). Whatever interpretation a Muslim gives to the details of this passage, the basic point is unmistakable: The Qur’an rejects the Christian claim that Jesus was crucified and killed.
Christianity, however, places the crucifixion at the very center of its message.
Paul did not say merely that Jesus taught good morals. He wrote:
“Christ died for our sins…” (I Corinthians 15:3)
The death of Christ is not an incidental event in Christianity. It is essential to the gospel. This creates a profound historical problem. Christianity says Jesus was crucified, died, was buried, and rose again. The Qur’an, written centuries later, denies that Jesus was crucified in the manner Christians proclaim. These are not two complementary interpretations. They are contradictory claims about an event in history.
The Resurrection: The Hinge of the Christian Claim
This is where Christianity must be tested. The Christian faith does not ask people merely to accept a collection of moral teachings. It makes a historical claim:
Jesus Christ died and rose again from the dead.
Paul places the resurrection at the center of Christianity:
“And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.”—1 Corinthians 15:17
Paul also records that Christ appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, then to more than five hundred believers, then to James, then to the apostles, and finally to Paul himself (1 Corinthians 15:5–8). The resurrection is therefore not an optional doctrine added to Christianity after the fact. It is the hinge upon which the Christian message turns. If Christ did not rise, Christianity’s central claim collapses. But if Jesus Christ really rose from the dead, then His identity cannot be reduced to that of another prophet.
The resurrection demands an explanation. And it is precisely here that Christianity and Islam part company most dramatically. Islam rejects the Christian account of the crucifixion. Christianity proclaims the crucified and risen Christ. The question, therefore, is not simply:
Which religion do you prefer?
The question is:
What actually happened to Jesus?
Notice further,
Jesus’ Authority to Forgive Sins
There is another important distinction in the Gospels. In Mark 2:5-7, Jesus tells a paralytic:
“Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.”
The scribes immediately questioned this:
“Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only?”
Notice what happened. Jesus did not tell them that they had misunderstood Him.
Instead, He demonstrated His authority to forgive sins by healing the paralytic. The point of the passage is not merely that Jesus pronounced forgiveness. The point is that Jesus exercised an authority that belongs to God. This is consistent with the broader New Testament testimony concerning Christ. Jesus is not merely a messenger who tells sinners what God has said. He is the divine Son through whom God has accomplished redemption.
Salvation: How Is Man Reconciled to God?
The difference between Islam and Christianity becomes even more significant when we consider the question of salvation. If Jesus Christ is who the New Testament declares Him to be, and if His death and resurrection accomplished what Scripture says they accomplished, then the question of how a sinner is reconciled to God cannot be separated from the identity and work of Jesus Christ.
The Christian Gospel
The heart of Christianity is not moral improvement. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul summarized the message he had received and delivered:
“Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”—1 Corinthians 15:3–4
Jesus Himself said:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”—John 3:16
And Paul wrote:
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.”—Ephesians 2:8
Christianity therefore rests upon something God has accomplished for sinners through Jesus Christ. The sinner is not reconciled to God by his own righteousness or by accumulating sufficient good works to satisfy God’s judgment. The sinner is reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ and His finished work.
Peter declares:
"Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:" - 1 Peter 1:18–19
And, the Apostle Paul declares:
"Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." - 2 Corinthians 5:20–21
The Christian message, therefore, is not that man can make himself acceptable to God. It is that God has provided reconciliation through the person and finished work of Jesus Christ. Christ died for sinners, shed His blood for sinners, and rose again. Salvation is received by grace through faith in Him.
The Islamic Understanding
Islam has a fundamentally different understanding of the problem and the solution. Islam calls people to submit to Allah, believe the Islamic message, obey Allah’s commands, repent, and perform righteous deeds. The Qur’an repeatedly emphasizes human accountability for one’s deeds. For example, Qur’an 99:7–8 teaches that whoever does an atom’s weight of good or evil will see it. (Quran)
At the same time, it would be inaccurate to reduce Islam simply to “salvation by works.” Islamic teaching also strongly emphasizes Allah’s mercy, forgiveness, repentance, and judgment. In fact, Sahih al-Bukhari records Muhammad teaching that a person’s good deeds will not, by themselves, bring him into Paradise, but that Allah’s mercy is necessary. (Sunnah)
The important distinction, therefore, is not simply that Christians believe in grace while Muslims believe in works. The deeper difference is how God provides salvation and forgiveness for sinners. Christianity proclaims that God provided redemption through the sacrificial death and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. The sinner is reconciled to God through faith in Christ and His finished work.
Islam does not proclaim salvation through the substitutionary death and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Qur’an rejects the Christian claim that Jesus was crucified and killed, although Muslim interpreters have differed concerning how Qur’an 4:157 should be understood. That difference takes us directly to one of the most important disagreements between Christianity and Islam.
The Difference Between Jesus and Muhammad
Muhammad and Jesus cannot simply be placed side by side as two religious founders. Their claims are radically different.
Category | Jesus Christ | Muhammad |
Identity | The eternal Son of God who became flesh | Human prophet and messenger in Islam |
Relationship to God | God the Son incarnate | Servant and messenger of Allah |
Central message | Reconciliation to God through Himself | Submission to Allah and acceptance of Muhammad’s message |
Crucifixion | Jesus was crucified and died | Islam denies that Jesus was crucified in the Christian sense |
Resurrection | Jesus rose bodily from the dead | Islam rejects the Christian account of Jesus’ death and resurrection |
Salvation | By God’s grace through faith in Christ and His finished work | Submission, faith, repentance, righteous deeds, and Allah’s mercy |
Revelation | God revealed Himself supremely in Jesus Christ | Allah’s final revelation delivered through Muhammad |
Worship | Jesus is worshipped as God the Son | Muhammad is not worshipped as God |
The differences are therefore not merely cultural. They are not merely differences in worship style. They are not merely differences in religious tradition.
They concern God, Christ, Scripture, salvation, and eternity.
What Should a Muslim Do?
If the evidence presented in this article is true—if Jesus Christ really is the divine Son of God, if He truly died upon the cross for our sins, and if He truly rose again—then the implications for a Muslim are not merely intellectual. They are personal and eternal.
A Muslim should not merely attempt to reconcile these claims with Islam. He should come to Jesus Christ.
The New Testament does not call sinners merely to acknowledge Jesus as a prophet. It calls them to repent and believe on Him. Jesus said, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). The apostles likewise proclaimed that salvation is found in Christ alone: “Neither is there salvation in any other” (Acts 4:12).
To submit to Christ does not mean merely adopting another religious identity. It means turning from sin and from confidence in one’s own righteousness and placing one’s faith in Jesus Christ—the crucified and risen Son of God. It means receiving Him as Lord and trusting Him as the only sufficient Savior.
The question, therefore, is not simply, “Which religion is correct?” The deeper question is, “What will you do with Jesus Christ?”
If He is who the Christian Scriptures declare Him to be, then He cannot be left merely as an interesting figure in religious history. He must be believed, received, and obeyed.
Jesus Christ calls sinners to repentance and faith. He calls them to Himself.
What Should Christians Do?
The rise of Islam in America should not produce hatred toward Muslims. It should produce evangelism. Muslims are human beings made in the image of God. They are not enemies merely because they believe differently. If a Muslim sincerely believes Islam is true, Christians should take that belief seriously enough to explain why we believe it is false—and why we believe Jesus Christ is true.
Paul wrote:
“Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.”—2 Corinthians 5:11
Peter instructed Christians to be ready to give an answer concerning their hope,
“with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15).
That is the proper spirit.
We should be:
Bold — because the gospel is true.
Respectful — because Muslims are people, not theological targets.
Prepared — because Christians should know what they believe and why.
Biblical — because our authority is the Word of God, not political rhetoric.
Evangelistic — because Jesus commanded His followers to make disciples of all nations.
And that last point is particularly important. Islam is a missionary religion. Muslims actively invite people to embrace Islam. Christians should not be embarrassed that Christianity is also missionary.
Jesus commanded:
“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations…”—Matthew 28:19
The Christian response to the growth of Islam should therefore not be fear. It should be faithful evangelism.
One Final Appeal
Christianity and Islam do not merely offer two different cultural approaches to the same religious truth. They make fundamentally incompatible claims about God and Jesus Christ. Islam teaches that Allah is one in a manner that excludes the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and incarnation. It presents Jesus as the Messiah and messenger of Allah but rejects His divine Sonship. It denies that
Jesus was crucified in the manner proclaimed by Christianity.
Christianity teaches that there is one God who eternally exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; that Jesus Christ is God the Son made flesh; that He died for our sins; that He was buried; that He rose again bodily; and that salvation is found through faith in Him.
These claims cannot all be true at the same time.
So I would ask the Muslim reader to do something very simple.
Read the Gospel of John.
Do not begin with what a Christian says about Jesus. Read what the New Testament itself says. Then read the Qur’an’s teaching concerning Jesus.
Compare the two.
Ask yourself:
Who is Jesus?
Was He merely a prophet, or is He the eternal Son of God?
Was He crucified, or was He not?
Did He rise from the dead? And if He did rise from the dead, what does that mean about His identity and His claims?
Jesus said:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”—John 14:6
That is not a minor claim. It is an exclusive claim. The Christian faith stands or falls on the truth of Jesus Christ—His identity, His death, and His resurrection.
And if Jesus Christ really is who the New Testament declares Him to be, then the most important question any person can ever answer is not what religion they were born into.
It is this:
What will you do with Jesus Christ?
____________
Primary Sources
The Holy Bible, King James Version: John 1:1–14; John 8:58; John 10:30; John 14:6; John 20:28; Matthew 14:33; Matthew 28:9,17–20; Mark 2:1–12; Acts 10:39–41; 1 Corinthians 15:3–8,17; Ephesians 2:8–9; Colossians 1:16–17; Hebrews 1:1–3.
The Qur’an: Surah 3:85; 4:157; 4:171; 5:72–75. These passages are available in Arabic with multiple English translations through Quranic Arabic Corpus and Quran.com. (Quranic Arabic Corpus)
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