Jesus: More than a Prophet
Dear Friend,
This pamphlet is offered to you with love and respect. Our sincere wish is to share the Good News of Jesus Christ because we believe it is the most important message anyone could hear. We understand that you have your own faith and beliefs, and we want to honor that. Our desire is to invite you to consider Jesus Christ: who He claimed to be and what His coming means for every person. We pray that God will open your mind and heart as you consider these important questions.
The Good News of Jesus
Let’s begin with the greatest news ever announced.
God Created Us Out of Love
God created you out of love and desires a relationship with you now and forever in heaven. In the beginning, Adam and Eve, our first parents, lived in perfect friendship with God. But the devil tempted them, and they turned away from Him through disobedience. Sin entered the world, separating humanity from God. This separation affects every person and ultimately leads to death and eternal separation from God in Hell.
The Problem We Can’t Fix
We cannot restore our relationship with God by our own efforts. Good works have value, but they cannot erase sin. Because we have sinned against an infinitely holy God, our sin creates an infinite debt that finite creatures cannot repay. Since only God can save us, and since humanity is the one that sinned, God became man in the person of Jesus Christ to atone for our sins. This is the astonishing heart of the Christian message: God Himself entered His creation to rescue us.
Jesus’ Death and Resurrection
Jesus died on the Cross for the sins of the world. This was not a pagan sacrifice to appease an angry god, but God Himself laying down His life for us. By shedding His blood on the Cross, Jesus redeemed the human race. Three days later, He rose from the dead. His Resurrection revealed that sin and death had been defeated and that His sacrifice had accomplished what He promised.
Jesus Established the Catholic Church
Jesus did not leave us orphans. After He ascended into Heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit to remain with His Church until the end of time, empowering it to continue His mission, preserve His teaching, and give us the grace He won for us. Through faith in Jesus, repentance from sin, and baptism, we are brought into a saving relationship with God and incorporated into His Church.
Where in the Bible does Jesus claim to be God?
The most important question anyone can ask is: Who is Jesus? Islam honors Jesus as a prophet, but Christianity proclaims something far greater: that Jesus is God who became man for our salvation.
The Gospels show Jesus revealing His divine identity gradually through His words and actions. He did not simply announce who He was in a way that left no room for reflection; rather, He invited His followers to recognize the truth about Him. Through His teaching, miracles, and authority, Jesus revealed that He was not merely a created servant sent by the Father, but that He shared the Father’s own divine nature.
In John 10:30, Jesus says, “I and the Father are one.” His listeners recognized the implication of His words and accused Him of making Himself God (John 10:33). Some argue that Jesus was speaking only of unity of purpose, pointing to His prayer that His disciples would be “one” just as He and the Father are one (John 17:20–23). But the comparison breaks down. Believers can share God’s purposes while remaining creatures. Jesus, however, claimed a unique unity with the Father—a unity of divine nature. This is why His opponents sought to kill Him.
Jesus made the same claim in another way during His trial. When the high priest asked, “Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God,” Jesus affirmed that He was and identified Himself as the “Son of Man” from Daniel’s vision—the heavenly figure who comes on the clouds and receives everlasting dominion and worship (Matthew 26:63–64; Daniel 7:13–14). His opponents understood this as a claim to divine authority and accused Him of blasphemy.
In John 8:58, Jesus declares, “Before Abraham was, I am,” using the same divine name by which God revealed Himself to Moses (Exodus 3:14). Jesus also revealed His divine authority through His works. He forgave sins, calmed storms, healed the sick, raised the dead, and exercised authority over creation itself. When He calmed the storm, His disciples asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the sea obey him!” (Matthew 8:27). His works revealed the answer to that question: Jesus was not merely a prophet acting with God’s power; He possessed divine authority.
The Resurrection confirmed everything Jesus had revealed about Himself. Even after rising from the dead, some of His followers struggled to understand, but when Thomas encountered the risen Christ, he declared, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). Jesus accepted this worship and Thomas’s confession of faith. From the beginning, the Church proclaimed Jesus as Lord and God—not as a later invention, but as the fulfillment of His own words, works, and Resurrection.
The question Jesus asked His disciples remains the question every person must answer: “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15)
The Trinity: Understanding God’s Nature
A natural question is: How can God have a Son?
The Christian answer is the mystery of the Trinity. Christians believe there is only one God, who exists eternally as three distinct Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each Person is fully God, yet there are not three gods. The three divine Persons share one divine nature.
The Trinity does not mean God is divided into three gods, nor does it mean that God has physical offspring. God is one in being, with three distinct Persons who share one divine nature. St. Augustine compared the Trinity to the human mind, which possesses memory, understanding, and will. These are distinct aspects of the one mind, yet they are not separate beings. While no analogy can fully explain the mystery of the Trinity, this comparison helps show that distinction does not mean division. Likewise, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons who share one divine nature.
The Bible Affirms the Trinity
The Bible reveals the three divine Persons acting together as one God. At Jesus’ baptism, the Son is baptized, the Father speaks from heaven, and the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus (Matthew 3:16–17). In His final instructions to His disciples, Jesus commands them to baptize “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). He also speaks of the Father sending the Holy Spirit in His name (John 14:26).
The Trinity reveals something profound about God’s nature: God is love. The Father eternally loves the Son, the Son eternally loves the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from this eternal communion of love. This means that love is not something God created; it is who He is.
Addressing the Islamic Concern
The Qur’an rightly rejects the idea that God has physical children or partners. Christians agree. When Christians call Jesus the “Son of God,” they do not mean that God had a child through physical generation. Rather, the Son is eternally from the Father, sharing one divine nature. Jesus is not a created being, but the eternal Word of God who became man for our salvation.
Why the Gospel Is Trustworthy
If Jesus truly is the Son of God, then His words demand our attention. Christianity does not ask us to believe without evidence. The Gospel accounts are supported by eyewitness testimony, the conviction of Jesus’ disciples, fulfilled prophecy, and the historical reality of the Resurrection.
Eyewitness Testimony
The Gospels were written by men who knew Jesus personally or received their testimony directly from those who did. They preserve the testimony of those who witnessed His life, teaching, death, and Resurrection.
The Qur’an was written about 600 years after Jesus and presents different claims. The earliest Christian writings, however, come from the first generation of Jesus’ followers and preserve their testimony about His life, death, and Resurrection.
The Conviction of the Disciples
Jesus’ disciples endured persecution and death because they were convinced they had encountered the risen Christ. They did not merely believe a teaching about Jesus; they claimed to have seen, touched, and spoken with Him after His Resurrection.
Some Muslims believe Jesus was not crucified but that it only appeared so (Qur’an 4:157). Yet the crucifixion of Jesus is one of the most firmly established facts of ancient history, affirmed by both Christian sources and non-Christian historians such as Josephus and Tacitus.
The Fulfillment of Prophecy
Long before Jesus was born, the Old Testament revealed details about the coming Messiah. Isaiah 53 describes the suffering servant who bears the sins of many. Psalm 22 describes suffering that closely parallels crucifixion. Micah identifies Bethlehem as the Messiah’s birthplace, and Daniel points to the time of His coming.
Some Muslims interpret Deuteronomy 18:15–19 as a prophecy of Muhammad. However, the New Testament identifies this promise with Jesus (Acts 3:22–23). Jesus fulfills this prophecy as an Israelite, a prophet, and the promised Messiah who speaks God’s words with authority and performs mighty works.
Jesus fulfilled numerous Old Testament prophecies concerning His birth, ministry, suffering, death, and Resurrection. Their fulfillment shows that His life was not an accident of history, but the fulfillment of God’s plan of salvation.
The Resurrection
The Resurrection is the central confirmation of Jesus’ identity. All four Gospels proclaim that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to His disciples. These encounters transformed His followers into courageous witnesses who proclaimed what they had seen.
Many modern historians, including non-Christians, agree that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate and that His followers believed they encountered Him alive after His death.
Christian faith rests not on a legend that developed centuries later, but on the historical testimony of those who encountered the risen Jesus.
The Islamic Dilemma
Respectfully, if Jesus is truly God—as the Gospels teach—then this matters eternally for every person. Because the identity of Jesus is so important, we should carefully consider the claims made about Him.
The Core Problem
The Gospels clearly present Jesus as divine. To reject this, many Muslims argue that the Gospels were corrupted. However, the Qur’an itself presents a different picture. It instructs the “people of the Gospel” to judge by what God revealed in it (Surah 5:47), affirms that God revealed the Torah and the Gospel (Surah 3:3–4), and declares that God’s words cannot be changed (Surah 6:114–115).
If the Gospel is truly God’s revelation, then its testimony about Jesus must be taken seriously. The earliest Christian witness proclaims that Jesus is the Son of God who died, rose, and reigns as Lord.
We also possess ancient New Testament manuscripts from the second and third centuries, long before Muhammad. These manuscripts contain the same central teachings about Jesus’ identity that Christians hold today. The belief that Jesus is divine was not a later development; it was present from the beginning of Christianity.
The Logical Problem
This creates a serious question:
- If the Gospel is reliable, then its teaching about Jesus is true, and the denial of His divinity must be rejected.
- If the Gospel is unreliable, then the Qur’an’s affirmation of the Gospel as God’s revelation cannot be true.
The dilemma is unavoidable: if the Gospel is reliable, then the Qur’an is wrong about Jesus. If the Gospel is corrupted, then the Qur’an is wrong about the Gospel. Either way, the Qur’an is shown to be in error.
Next Steps
If this pamphlet has stirred something in your heart, we encourage you to take the next steps.
Read the Stories of Jesus. Pick up a Bible and read the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Read carefully. Listen to Jesus’ words. Notice His claims, His works, and how both His disciples and His opponents responded.
Pray honestly. After reading and reflecting, ask God to guide you toward the truth. You might pray:
“Jesus, according to the Gospels, You are the Son of God. You died for our sins and rose from the dead. Help me to know the truth. If You are who You claim to be, reveal Yourself to me. Give me the courage to follow You wherever You lead. Amen.”
God hears the sincere prayer of a seeking heart. Jesus promised: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7)
Find a community. Faith is not meant to be lived alone. To continue your journey, seek out a Catholic parish and ask about OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation of Adults). You will receive instruction, have your questions answered, and be welcomed into a community that walks with you.
Many people from Muslim backgrounds have come to believe in Jesus Christ, sometimes at great personal cost, and have found a home in the Catholic Church. If God is leading you to Him, know that you are not alone.
Thank you for reading. May God bless you on your faith journey.
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Copyright © St. Paul Street Evangelization, Inc.