Did Jesus Die for Our Sins? A Biblical and Qur'anic Response

Of all the theological differences between Islam and Christianity, none is more fundamental than the question of atonement. The Christian doctrine, developed most fully by Augustine and later by Anselm and Calvin, holds that: 1. Every human being is born in a state of inherited guilt from Adam's original transgression. 2. This guilt creates a debt that human beings cannot repay by their own merit. 3. God's own justice required a payment — satisfied only by the sacrifice of His son, Jesus Christ. 4. Those who believe in this sacrifice are forgiven and reconciled to God. This is a sincere and deeply felt belief, and Muslims do not doubt the personal experience of those who find peace and meaning within it. What Islam questions is the theology — specifically whether the Bible's own prophets teach this mechanism, and whether it is consistent with God's character as revealed across the entire scriptural tradition.

The Islamic position, grounded in the Qur'an and the Hebrew Prophets themselves, answers with four distinct arguments: that sin is personal and non-transferable; that the Abraham narrative demonstrates the opposite of substitutionary atonement; that the titles 'Word of God' and 'Spirit from God' given to Jesus in the Qur'an do not imply divinity; and that Jesus himself, in Luke 24, denied being the kind of resurrected spiritual being that the atonement doctrine requires.

When Christians quote Ezekiel 18:20 in support of atonement theology, they typically cite only the first phrase: 'The soul that sinneth, it shall die.' This is read as proof that sin demands death — and that someone must die to satisfy that demand. But the verse does not end there. It continues immediately with a direct refutation of inherited guilt:

The full verse is remarkable. In a single breath, it establishes two things simultaneously: that sin is serious (its consequence is death) and that this consequence is personal and non-transferable. The son does not pay for the father's sin. We, as sons and daughters of Adam, do not carry his guilt as our own. The righteousness and wickedness of each person attach only to that person. This is not an obscure proof-text. It is the central verse of an entire chapter — Ezekiel 18 — devoted entirely to the principle of individual accountability. God opens the chapter by explicitly confronting the popular proverb that children suffer for parents' sins, and devotes the chapter to refuting it.

The same principle is enshrined in the Law of Moses:

If sin cannot pass from father to child even within a single generation — as a matter of divinely given law — how can it pass from Adam across six thousand years and all of humanity? The mechanism that Original Sin doctrine requires is the very mechanism that the prophetic tradition explicitly forbids.

What the Bible Says About the Path to Forgiveness

Ezekiel 18 does not merely refute inherited guilt — it also states plainly how God forgives. The formula given is not a future sacrifice but present repentance:

Turn from sin. Do what is just and right. Live. This is the biblical path to forgiveness as stated by God in the book of Ezekiel — no intermediary sacrifice, no blood debt, no requirement that an innocent person die. If God had intended to communicate that a future sacrifice would be required for salvation, the natural place to say so would have been in this passage, in this chapter, in this detailed discussion of exactly how sin and forgiveness work. He did not say it. Instead, He said: repent and live.

The Qur'an states the same principle with equal directness:

The sacrifice of Abraham's son is central to the Christian typological argument for atonement: God provided a ram in place of Abraham's son, and this prefigures God providing His son Jesus as a substitutionary sacrifice for humanity. It is an elegant argument — but it misreads what the narrative is designed to teach.

To understand what God was communicating through this event, we must understand its historical context. In Babylonia and Canaan during the time of Abraham, human sacrifice was widespread and culturally normalised. Societies had been conditioned — in the strongest possible way — to believe that the supreme act of religious devotion was to sacrifice what was most precious to you: your own child. People performed these acts with a sense of righteousness.

God's instruction to Abraham must be understood against this backdrop. He was not testing Abraham in ignorance of what Abraham would do — God is omniscient. The test was enacted for a purpose: to enact a public demonstration before Abraham, before his descendants, and through the preserved narrative, before all of humanity. The lesson that God was teaching was precisely this:

I want no human sacrifice. No sinner, no saint, no innocent man should die for somebody else. The moment Abraham showed his willingness — the moment the act of submission was complete in his heart — God intervened. 'I was only testing you.' The ram was provided not as a permanent model of substitution, but as a replacement that ended the act and delivered the lesson: this is where human sacrifice ends.

— Sheikh Ahmad Deedat

What God wants, the narrative teaches, is willing submission — not blood. He desired to see Abraham's unconditional obedience, his readiness to sacrifice what he loved most. God was satisfied with the willingness itself. The offering of the ram was not the point; it was the conclusion of a lesson against human sacrifice, not its endorsement.

The Psalmist makes God's position on sacrifice unmistakable:

Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 twice in the Gospels — in Matthew 9:13 and Matthew 12:7 — in exactly those moments when religious leaders are focused on ritual. If Jesus believed that his own coming sacrifice was the fundamental mechanism of God's forgiveness, his repeated endorsement of this verse — 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice' — becomes deeply inconsistent.

A sincere and common question from Christians engaging with Islam is this: if the Qur'an itself calls Jesus 'His word' (kalimatuhu) and 'a soul from Him' (ruhun minhu), is this not precisely the language of the Gospel of John — 'the Word was with God, and the Word was God'? Why does Islam use such elevated language and then refuse the conclusion it seems to imply?

The answer requires understanding what 'word of God' means in the Islamic theological framework. In Islamic understanding, God creates by His command — His will expressed as a command:

Everything in existence — the sun, the moon, the heavens and the earth, every human being — was created by God's word, His creative command. The Book of Genesis itself says the same: 'And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.' By His word, God brought everything into being. This does not make the sun God, or the stars God, or human beings God. The word of God is His creative will; it is not Him. Jesus was created in a uniquely miraculous way: without a human father, by God's direct command directed to Mary. This makes him the product of God's word — kalimatun minhu — in a direct and immediate sense. But being the product of God's word, even in this extraordinary way, is not the same as being God.

Notice the grammar: a word 'from Him' (minhu) — not a word that is Him. The preposition matters. The Qur'an places Jesus in the category of God's creation that comes directly from His command, making him uniquely honoured, but it does not collapse the distinction between Creator and created.

The same logic applies to 'Spirit from Him' (ruhun minhu). In Surah Al-Hijr 15:29, God describes breathing His spirit into Adam: 'When I have proportioned him and breathed into him of My spirit, then fall down in prostration to him.' Did this make Adam God? The spirit breathed into Adam was God's creation — something belonging to God, proceeding from God, but not God Himself. The same applies to the spirit associated with Jesus. The Qur'an's own statement in Surah An-Nisa makes the intended meaning explicit:

The verse opens with a warning: 'Do not commit excesses in your religion.' The Qur'an knows, in advance, that these very titles — 'His word', 'a soul from Him' — will be misread as proof of divinity. The verse pre-empts that reading. Jesus is the Messiah; he is a word from God; he is a soul from God; and he is — precisely — a Messenger of Allah. That is his identity. Everything else is excess.

Christians often point to the title 'Son of God' as definitive proof of Jesus' divine nature. The assumption is that this title is unique to Jesus. But this is not what the Bible says.

In the Semitic and biblical tradition, 'son of God' is a title given to any person or people who stand in a close relationship of obedience and love with God. The Bible uses it widely and freely:

• Israel: 'Israel is my son, even my firstborn.' (Exodus 4:22)
• Ephraim: 'For I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.' (Jeremiah 31:9)
• Adam: '...the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.' (Luke 3:38)
• Every righteous believer: 'For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.' (Romans 8:14)
• Angels: 'The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive.' (Genesis 6:2)

If 'son of God' simply means 'one who follows God's will, who is loved by God, who obeys God' — then it is a title of honour that does not imply divine nature. It is metaphorical language in the Hebrew tradition. Jesus uses it in this sense, and was understood in this sense by his Jewish audience.

The Problem With 'Begotten'

The Nicene Creed makes a specific doctrinal move: it distinguishes Jesus from all other 'sons of God' by calling him 'the only begotten Son' and, critically, 'begotten, not made.' This distinction is meant to convey that Jesus is of the same divine substance as the Father, not a creature. But this move creates a severe theological problem. The word 'begotten' in any language — English, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew — carries a specific meaning: it denotes physical, biological generation. To say that God 'begotten' a son is, in plain language, to attribute to God the lower biological functions of physical creation. It is to say that God entered into a reproductive act. This is precisely what the Qur'an reacts to with the strongest possible language:

The Qur'an's visceral response is not an overreaction. It is the appropriate theological response to attributing biological reproduction to a God who is self-sufficient, indivisible, and beyond all human analogy. When Christians say 'begotten, not made,' they mean to honour Jesus with the highest possible status. But the words themselves, taken seriously in their plain meaning, attribute to God something that demeans rather than exalts.

Christian theologians respond that 'begotten' in the creedal context is technical theological language, not biological description. The Islamic response is: if you do not mean what the word says, choose a different word. Language is the medium of revelation. If the plain meaning of the words you use leads to a false conclusion — that God has a biological son — then those are the wrong words for a truth that all monotheists should be able to affirm.

The doctrine of atonement requires not merely that Jesus died but that he rose from the dead in a transformed spiritual body — the firstfruits of resurrection, a spiritual and glorified form. The Christian claim is that after the crucifixion, Jesus appeared to his disciples in a risen, spiritual, resurrected state. But the Gospel of Luke records that when Jesus appeared to the disciples after the alleged crucifixion, he encountered a specific problem: they thought exactly that. They thought he was a ghost. And he explicitly, directly, and unambiguously corrected them.

This passage is among the most direct and significant in the entire Gospel. Jesus does five things in rapid succession, each one designed to prove the same point: 1. He invites them to look at his physical hands and feet. 2. He invites them to touch him — to physically handle his body. 3. He states the principle explicitly: 'A spirit has no flesh and bones, as you see me have.' 4. He shows them his hands and feet as material evidence. 5. He eats broiled fish and honeycomb in their physical presence. Every single one of these actions is designed to demonstrate that he is not a ghost, not a spirit, not a resurrected supernatural being. He is the same physical person — with flesh and bones, capable of eating, physically touchable — who stood before them before the events of the preceding days. He is not what the doctrine of the resurrection requires him to be.

The irony is complete: the entire Christian world understands Jesus after the crucifixion to be exactly what he denied being — a spiritual, glorified, resurrected figure. Jesus said: 'A spirit has no flesh and bones.' Christians say: he was a spirit with a glorified resurrection body. Jesus said: touch me and see. They see a mystery. Jesus ate fish to prove his physical continuity. They see the risen Christ. For Muslims, this passage — read in its plain meaning — is precisely what would be expected if Jesus survived the crucifixion and returned to reassure his disciples that he was physically alive, not dead and risen. The Qur'anic position — that Jesus was not killed, not crucified — makes this scene entirely coherent.

The arguments presented in this article are not weapons — they are invitations to thought. Islam's approach to dialogue with Christians, modelled by the Qur'an itself, is to call people to a word that is common between both traditions: the worship of the one God, without associating partners with Him.

The Muslim engaging in da'wah is not trying to win an argument. He is trying to share something he considers of infinite value: a clear, direct, unmediated relationship with God — without the theological complications of a Trinity, without the burden of inherited sin, without the requirement that an innocent man die for the sins of those who were not yet born. The Islamic message is simple and ancient: God created you pure. You are capable of both good and evil. When you sin, you are responsible for your own sins only. God forgives all sins through sincere repentance — directly, completely, without intermediary. Live righteously and return to your Lord.

This is the message of Ezekiel, of Isaiah, of the Psalms. It is the message the Hebrew prophets brought. And according to Islam, it is the message that Jesus himself brought — before the theology of his followers transformed his message into a theology about him.