Christians and Muslims share certain beliefs that should be acknowledged honestly. Both believe in one God, final judgment, angels, prayer, fasting, moral accountability, divine revelation, and the prophetic importance of Jesus. Muslims usually speak of Jesus with reverence. They call Him the Messiah. They affirm His virgin birth. They believe He performed miracles. They believe He will return.
That common ground is real.
But common ground is not the same thing as common faith.
The central question is not whether Islam says respectful things about Jesus. It does. The question is whether Islam continues the faith preached by Jesus Christ’s apostles. And when the actual claims are compared, the answer is unavoidable: Islam is not a continuation of apostolic Christianity.
It is a later religious system that reinterprets Jesus while denying the heart of the apostolic gospel.
Christianity does not stand merely on belief in one God, respect for prophets, or moral seriousness. Christianity stands on a specific proclamation: Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God made flesh, truly crucified under Pontius Pilate, truly buried, truly risen from the dead, and the only Savior of the world.
Islam denies the very events and doctrines the apostles called essential.
That is not a small disagreement. That is a different gospel.
The New Testament does not present the Christian faith as an unfinished message waiting centuries for correction. Jude urges believers to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). Paul says he delivered what he had received: “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4).
That language matters.
The faith was delivered. The gospel was received. The apostolic message was handed down. Christians were not told to wait for a later prophet who would correct their understanding of Jesus. They were commanded to guard the gospel already preached.
Paul even warns the Galatians: “Even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8).
That warning is directly relevant to any later religious claim that revises the apostolic gospel.
Islam claims to confirm earlier revelation. But when it speaks about Jesus, it does not simply confirm the New Testament. It contradicts it.
The apostles preached that Jesus is far more than a prophet. The Gospel of John opens by identifying Him as the eternal Word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Thomas confesses the risen Christ as “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28). Paul says Christ existed “in the form of God” before taking the form of a servant (Philippians 2:6–7). Hebrews calls the Son “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature” (Hebrews 1:3).
This is not late medieval theology being projected backward. Devotion to Jesus as divine appears in the earliest Christian movement. Scholars such as Larry Hurtado argued that worship and devotion directed to Jesus emerged remarkably early within the first generation of Christians.
Islam rejects this. The Qur’an warns Christians not to say “Three,” rejects divine Sonship, and insists that God neither begets nor is begotten (Qur’an 4:171; 112:1–4). Islam honors Jesus as Messiah and messenger, but not as God the Son incarnate.
That creates a direct contradiction.
Christianity says Jesus is the eternal Son of God made flesh. Islam says He is a prophet, but not divine.
Both cannot be true.
The contradiction becomes even sharper with the crucifixion.
The crucifixion of Jesus is one of the strongest historical facts about His life. It is affirmed by all four Gospels, by Paul, by early Christian preaching, and by non-Christian sources. Tacitus, writing in the early second century, refers to Christ being executed under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius. Josephus also refers to Jesus, though scholars debate the exact wording of the famous passage because of likely Christian editing.
Even many skeptical scholars accept the crucifixion as historically certain. This is not merely a Christian doctrine. It is a historical event with early, multiple, and independent attestation.
Islam denies it.
Qur’an 4:157 says of Jesus: “They neither killed nor crucified him—it was only made to appear so.”
This creates a serious historical problem.
On one side, we have first-century Christian sources, early creedal tradition, Roman testimony, Jewish testimony, and broad scholarly agreement that Jesus was crucified. On the other side, we have a seventh-century religious text denying the event roughly six hundred years later.
That is not continuity. That is revision.
A Muslim may respond, “But the Christian message was corrupted before Muhammad.” But that claim has to be tested historically. Where is the evidence that the original followers of Jesus denied the crucifixion, denied the resurrection, denied His divine identity, and believed something closer to Islam?
The evidence does not point in that direction.
Paul’s letters are earlier than the written Gospels, and they already proclaim Christ crucified, risen, exalted, and worshiped. The creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3–7 is widely recognized as an early tradition Paul received, not something he invented decades later. It already contains the death, burial, resurrection, and appearances of Christ.
In other words, the “Islamic Jesus” does not appear in the earliest Christian sources. The crucified and risen Lord does.
The resurrection is equally decisive.
Christianity does not merely teach that Jesus was rescued, vindicated, or taken up by God. It teaches that He truly died, was truly buried, and truly rose bodily from the dead. Paul says plainly, “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14).
That is Christianity’s own test.
If Christ did not rise, Christianity collapses.
But if Islam denies the crucifixion, it necessarily destroys the apostolic meaning of the resurrection. If Jesus was not crucified and did not die, then He did not rise from the dead in the Christian sense. He may have been taken up, protected, or honored, but that is not the gospel the apostles preached.
The apostles did not preach, “Jesus escaped death.”
They preached, “Christ died for our sins… He was buried… He was raised.”
That difference is everything.
Islam also denies the saving meaning of the cross. In Christianity, the cross is not an accident, embarrassment, or defeat. It is the center of God’s saving work. Jesus says He came “to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). John the Baptist calls Him “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Paul says, “We preach Christ crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:23). Peter says Christ “bore our sins in His body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24).
The cross is not a side doctrine. It is the heart of the gospel.
Islam rejects that. In Islamic theology, Jesus does not die as the incarnate Son offering Himself for the sins of the world. Salvation is not grounded in union with Christ’s death and resurrection. The cross is not God’s victory over sin and death.
That means Islam does not merely disagree with Christians about one event. It rejects the central saving act of Christianity.
A critic might say, “But Islam still believes in Jesus, so isn’t it part of the same Abrahamic tradition?”
It depends what someone means by “Abrahamic.” Historically, Islam is related to Jewish and Christian traditions. It uses biblical figures, appeals to Abraham, speaks of Moses and Jesus, and claims continuity with earlier revelation.
But theological continuity is different.
A religion can borrow names, themes, and stories while changing their meaning. The question is not whether Islam mentions Jesus. The question is whether Islam preserves the apostolic witness about Jesus.
It does not.
The Jesus of the apostles is the crucified and risen Lord.
The Jesus of Islam is a prophet who was not crucified, is not divine, and did not die for sins.
Those are not two minor variations of the same faith. They are two different accounts of who Jesus is and what God has done through Him.
This is also why the early Church matters. Long before Islam arose in the seventh century, Christians were already worshiping Christ, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, celebrating the Eucharist as participation in Christ’s body and blood, confessing His death and resurrection, and defending His divine identity.
Ignatius of Antioch, writing in the early second century, speaks of “our God, Jesus Christ.” Justin Martyr defends Christ as the divine Logos. Irenaeus argues against heresies by appealing to the public apostolic faith preserved in the churches. The Nicene Creed did not invent Christ’s divinity; it defended the Church’s inherited worship against those who tried to reduce the Son to a creature.
This is important because Islam’s claim depends on the idea that Christians had lost the truth about Jesus. But if the earliest Christian evidence already shows belief in Christ’s death, resurrection, divine identity, and saving work, then Islam is not restoring original Christianity. It is replacing it with a later account.
A Muslim may say, “The Qur’an is God’s final revelation, so it has authority over the Bible.”
That is an Islamic theological claim. Christians should understand it fairly. But from a Christian and historical perspective, that does not solve the problem. It simply restates it.
The question remains: why should a seventh-century claim override the first-century apostolic witness?
The apostles knew Jesus, walked with Him, suffered for Him, preached His resurrection, and passed down the gospel at great personal cost. Islam comes centuries later and says the central Christian proclamation was wrong.
That is a massive claim. It requires massive evidence.
But historically, the evidence favors the earlier apostolic witness.
Another objection says, “The Bible has been corrupted.”
But again, this needs evidence. The New Testament has a massive manuscript tradition. While there are textual variants, none overturn the central proclamation that Jesus is the divine Son, crucified and risen. The crucifixion and resurrection are not hanging by one disputed verse. They run through the entire New Testament.
Remove the crucifixion and resurrection, and the New Testament becomes unintelligible.
The Gospels point toward the cross. Acts preaches the resurrection. Paul explains salvation through Christ’s death and resurrection. Hebrews presents Christ as priest and sacrifice. Revelation worships the Lamb who was slain.
This is not a later corruption added to Christianity. It is the structure of Christianity itself.
Another objection says, “Christians misunderstood Jesus.”
But the earliest Christians were Jews. They knew Jewish monotheism. They knew worship belonged to God alone. Yet they worshiped Jesus, prayed to Him, confessed Him as Lord, and identified Him with divine glory. That development requires explanation.
The Christian explanation is that the resurrection revealed who Jesus truly is.
The Islamic explanation requires us to believe that Jesus’ own followers radically misunderstood Him almost immediately, that the true message disappeared, and that the correction came six hundred years later in another language, another land, and another religious context.
That is possible only if one first accepts Islamic revelation as true. It is not the conclusion the historical evidence naturally gives us.
This does not mean Christians should mock Muslims. They should not. Muslims are made in the image of God. Many are sincere, prayerful, morally serious, and devoted to what they believe is true. Christians should speak with charity, patience, and honesty.
But charity is not confusion.
Respect does not require pretending that the differences are small.
The difference between Christianity and Islam is not merely pork, prayer posture, religious law, or terminology. It is Jesus Christ Himself.
Who is He?
Was He crucified?
Did He rise?
Is He Lord?
Did His death save us?
Christianity answers yes.
Islam answers no.
That is why Islam cannot be treated as a continuation of the apostolic faith.
It is a later religion that reveres Jesus while denying the apostolic gospel about Jesus.
And the apostles leave no room for that kind of revision. Paul says the gospel he preached is “of first importance” (1 Corinthians 15:3). He does not allow another gospel. Jude says the faith was “once for all delivered.” John warns against those who deny the Son. The early Church guarded the apostolic proclamation because Christianity stands or falls on Christ.
This is the dividing line:
If Jesus is merely a prophet, Islam may be right.
But if Jesus is the eternal Son of God, crucified and risen for the salvation of the world, then Islam is not a continuation of Christianity. It is a contradiction of Christianity at its center.
Christians and Muslims can speak respectfully. They can live peaceably. They can discuss theology without hatred. But honest dialogue has to begin with truth.
Islam honors a version of Jesus.
Christianity worships the crucified and risen Lord.
Those are not the same faith.
Sources:
The Holy Bible: Jude 1:3; 1 Corinthians 15:3–14; Galatians 1:8; John 1:1; John 20:28; Philippians 2:6–11; Hebrews 1:1–4; Mark 10:45; John 1:29; 1 Peter 2:24
The Qur’an: Surah 4:157; 4:171; 112:1–4
Quran.com, Surah 4:157: https://quran.com/en/an-nisa/157
Tacitus, Annals 15.44
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3; 20.9.1
Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians
Justin Martyr, First Apology
Irenaeus, Against Heresies
Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity
N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God
James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered
Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel