The Handbook / ISL
Answering Muslim friends with respect.
Christians agree that Jesus was a prophet and a servant of God; the question is whether he was only that. The earliest records of his life show him forgiving sins, accepting worship, claiming to share God's glory and identifying himself with the divine 'Son of Man' of Daniel 7. 'Son of God' never meant that God took a wife; it means Jesus shares the Father's very nature. A prophet points to God. Jesus pointed to himself as the way to God.
The crucifixion of Jesus is one of the best-attested facts of ancient history. It is reported by Christian, Roman and Jewish sources, including writers hostile to Christianity, and is accepted by virtually all historians, whatever their faith. Jesus predicted his death, the Hebrew prophets foresaw a suffering servant, and the cross was not God's defeat but his plan to deal with sin. God vindicated Jesus, not by sparing him from death, but by raising him from it.
The Qur'an itself speaks of the Torah and Gospel as guidance and light, tells Christians in Muhammad's day to judge by what God revealed in the Gospel, and invites anyone in doubt to ask those who read the earlier scripture. That assumes the Bible available in the seventh century was trustworthy. We possess thousands of biblical manuscripts from before Muhammad, and they teach the same message we read today: Jesus' death, resurrection and divine sonship.
Christians are monotheists. We confess with Jesus that 'the Lord our God, the Lord is one' and reject three gods, a God who takes a wife, and the worship of any creature. The Trinity means that the one God eternally exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not that a man was promoted to divinity. Shirk adds a partner to God; the Son and Spirit are not partners alongside God but are God's own Word and Spirit, sharing his one nature.
Read in context, both passages point elsewhere. Deuteronomy uses 'your brothers' for fellow Israelites, and the prophet like Moses must speak with God face to face and do mighty signs, which the New Testament sees fulfilled in Jesus. In John, Jesus explicitly names the Paraclete as the Holy Spirit, an invisible Helper who would live inside the disciples and arrive within weeks. No manuscript of John reads anything else.
