43.64 – Surely God – He is my Lord and your Lord, so serve Him!
‘Īsā’s statement and command are similar to several other verses in which the Quran “quotes” ‘Īsā as denying his own deity (3.51; 5.72, 116–17; 19.36; cf. 4.172). This is the last such verse in the canonical progression.
Putting these words in the mouth of ‘Īsā in such passages gives the verses an apparent authority. However, the Quran is not accessing a record of the words of Jesus from eyewitnesses, nor does it point to fresh revelation of the words of Jesus six centuries after the Gospel accounts were written. It is, instead, a simple denial of the witness of the Gospel accounts – and of the New Testament generally.
Some Muslim polemicists contend that quranic “quotations” of ‘Īsā connect to the words of Jesus in John 20:17. However, they do not match. The context of the words of Jesus in the Gospel according to John is an account written to show the deity of Jesus (John 1:1–18; cf. 20:31). Immediately after John 20:17, for example, the apostle Thomas addresses Jesus as, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). Rather than rebuking Thomas’s confession like the quranic ‘Īsā might, Jesus commends Thomas and all who believe in him without seeing him.