What Jesus taught vs what Christians practice today is a question we hear often on our mosque tours in Kuala Lumpur, usually from a visitor who grew up going to church and started noticing a gap between the two. It is not a question meant as an attack. It is an invitation to sit with what Jesus himself is recorded as saying, in his own words, and to compare that honestly with what is preached and practised in many churches today.
We are not going to tell you what to conclude. We are simply going to place two things side by side: the words attributed to Jesus in the New Testament, and the general Christian practice most visitors grew up with. Then we will bring in what the Quran says about the very same man, Prophet Isa, peace be upon him, because the Quran has more to say about Jesus than about almost any other Prophet.
What Jesus actually taught about God
When a scribe asked Jesus which commandment mattered most of all, his answer did not point to himself.
“And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.” (Mark 12:29-30, KJV)
This is Jesus quoting the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4, the central declaration of God’s oneness in the Hebrew Bible. Asked to name the greatest command in the whole of the Law, Jesus reached first for the oneness of God, not for a claim about his own identity.
A second verse makes the same point from a different angle. Praying to God the night before his arrest, Jesus said:
“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3, KJV)
Notice the structure of that sentence. Jesus addresses the Father as “the only true God” and describes himself as the one that God sent. The sender and the sent are spoken of as two distinct parties in the same verse.
How Jesus prayed, and to whom
The night before the crucifixion, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is described praying like this:
“O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” (Matthew 26:39, KJV)
Here is a man addressing another as Father, asking that a decision be reconsidered, and then submitting his own will to that other party’s will. Whatever conclusion a reader draws about who Jesus is, this scene shows him relating to God the way a servant relates to a master, not simply talking to himself. On the cross, Luke and Matthew both record him quoting Psalm 22 directly: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” A man calling out to his own God is one of the more striking details in the Gospels for anyone weighing this question honestly.
Jesus and the Law he was given
Jesus was also clear about his relationship to the Law of Moses:
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matthew 5:17-18, KJV)
He positioned himself as operating within the Law given earlier, not replacing it with a new system of belief about his own divine status.
What many churches teach and practice today
This is where the gap that many visitors describe begins to show. The doctrine most Christians are taught today, that God exists as three co-equal, co-eternal persons in one substance, was formalised gradually, at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and the Council of Constantinople in 381 CE, roughly three centuries after Jesus. It is not a phrase Jesus is recorded using about himself, and it is not the language of the verses above.
In common practice today, many churches direct worship and prayer to Jesus himself, sing hymns addressed to him as God, and in some traditions use statues or icons of him and of Mary as aids in worship. Many Christians would describe these as expressions of devotion rather than worship of a separate being, and that distinction matters to them. We mention it here only to be fair and complete, not to caricature anyone’s faith.
Set next to each other, the contrast is what draws the question out of so many visitors: Jesus taught that God is one, prayed to that one God as someone distinct from himself, and called himself “sent.” Centuries later, doctrine and common practice moved toward worshipping Jesus as God in a way his own recorded prayers do not appear to describe.
The Quran’s testimony about Jesus, peace be upon him
Islam does not dismiss Jesus. The Quran devotes an entire chapter to his mother, Surah Maryam, and speaks of his virgin birth, his miracles by God’s permission, and his status as a Messenger with real reverence. What the Quran rejects is not Jesus, but the later claim of his own divinity, a claim it records Jesus himself denying.
As a newborn, speaking from the cradle to defend his mother’s honour, the Quran has Jesus say:
“Indeed, I am the servant of Allah. He has given me the Scripture and made me a prophet.” (Surah Maryam 19:30)
Later, addressing the Christians of his own and every era, the Quran instructs:
“O People of the Scripture, do not commit excess in your religion or say about Allah except the truth. The Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, was but a messenger of Allah and His word which He directed to Mary and a soul from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers. And do not say, ‘Three’; desist, it is better for you. Indeed, Allah is but one God.” (Surah An-Nisa 4:171)
Perhaps the most striking passage is a scene the Quran places on the Day of Judgment, where Allah questions Jesus directly:
“O Jesus, Son of Mary, did you say to the people, ‘Take me and my mother as deities besides Allah?’ He will say, ‘Exalted are You! It was not for me to say that to which I have no right… I said not to them except what You commanded me, to worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord.'” (Surah Al-Ma’idah 5:116-117)
Read together with Matthew 26:39 and John 17:3 above, this is close to the same picture from a different scripture: a Prophet who prayed to God, called him his God and his Lord, and never claimed to be that God himself.
The common ground: one God
This is not a call to abandon anyone’s faith. It is an observation that the very starting point of Jesus’s own teaching, “the Lord our God is one Lord,” is also the starting point of the Quran:
“Say, ‘He is Allah, who is One, Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born, nor is there to Him any equivalent.'” (Surah Al-Ikhlas 112:1-4)
Whatever else divides the two traditions, this is the ground both stand on: God is one, without partner or equal.
For contemplation
If any of this is new to you, sit with it rather than reacting to it. A few honest questions worth carrying with you:
- If Jesus prayed to God and submitted his will to God’s will, what does that relationship suggest about who is being addressed and who is doing the addressing?
- If Jesus said plainly that he came to fulfil the Law, not to replace it with a new claim about his own identity, how would he view a doctrine formalised three hundred years after him?
- When Jesus called out “My God, my God” in his final hours, what did he mean by those words?
- If both the Gospels and the Quran describe Jesus praying to, worshipping, and calling on a God distinct from himself, what changed between his own words and what came after him?
Where to take this question next
If this question has been sitting with you, the worst thing you can do is leave it unexamined.
- Read a full account of the Islamic view in What Muslims Believe About Jesus.
- Understand the deeper distinction behind this question in Difference Between Allah and God: What’s the Real Answer?
- If you are also asking why God cannot be seen, read If God Exists, Why Can’t We See Him?
- Learn the basics of what Muslims believe on our What is Islam? page.
- Come and visit a mosque, with no commitment and no pressure, or book a free guided tour in English, French or Spanish.
- Send this exact question to us directly through Ask About Islam.
- Muslims who want to learn how to discuss questions like this one respectfully can start with our Getting Started guide.
Jesus prayed to his God on his knees in a garden, called out to his God from a cross, and said his purpose was to fulfil a Law that was not his own to rewrite. That is what he taught. What came after him, formalised in councils centuries later and practised in churches today, is worth measuring honestly against his own recorded words.
For a closer look at every instance of Jesus praying, from Gethsemane to the cross, read Did Jesus Pray to God?