One of the important controversial issues that Christianity and Islam disagree about is the person of Jesus Christ blessed be His name.

Who is the person of Jesus Christ?
The person of Jesus Christ has been one of the most controversial personalities in all the books and all that was written. The person of Jesus Christ has many names in the scriptures some of them are easily understandable and acceptable by the majority of people but some other names have not been welcomed by other main religions such as Judaism and Islam; In fact they were a source of disagreement.

Why this disagreement about the personality of Christ took place?
Because the person of Jesus Christ is not a common simple personality, but He came from heaven as He said about himself, and lived on earth. As God who showed Himself in the flesh, He died, was buried and resurrected, and now He is seated at the right hand of the Father alive as acknowledged by all religions that He is living in the throne of the Almighty God. So it was normal for many to disagree about His names and character attributes. Among the many names that were given to Jesus in the scriptures and the New Testament in specific are:Jesus Christ, the word of God, Emmanuel and the son of man. These ones are the names of Jesus not His attributes as His attributes are many and vary among different religions.

Let us consider each one of these names. For example, the first name that is mentioned is the name of Jesus. Where was this name first mentioned?
The first time this name was mentioned was in the gospel of Matthew, which is the first book of the New Testament. In the 1st chapter of the Gospel of Matthew and verse 18 we read, "as for the birth of Jesus […] for He delivers His people from their sins". This was the good news the angel delivered to the Virgin Mary.
Here we see that Joseph, Mary's Fiancé, did not give the name of Jesus at that time, but it was the name given from heaven. It is the name the angel gave to Mary in his message and he said that his name shall be called Jesus.

Was the angel aware at that time of how Jesus is going to come and die?
Yes, indeed he knew for the simple reason that the fact that the Lord Jesus was to come and die and to raise from the dead. This event was not a mere accident. Everything around the person of Jesus was mentioned in the Old Testament and a lot of prophecies were given about His name, birth place, the way He was to be born, the timing of his birth, and the village where He was to be born all in detail came in the Old Testament. So when the angel came to Mary with the message, he knew exactly what was going to happen. All the attributes that were given to Jesus are wonderful ones, but the name of Jesus was given to Him from heaven and it is the Greatest in the absolute sense.

What is was the meaning of the words "to deliver his people from their sins", and what kind of sins are the ones mentioned here?
The word Jesus means Savior. The name of Jesus is a very important name; it is a message to human kind. We all know that all human kind make mistakes and are born in sin. This is also a controversial issue in itself among different religions especially between Christianity and Islam. Christianity knows and acknowledges that human beings are born with the sinful nature and there is a difference between being born with sin nature and doing sin according to our New Testament. But in Islam we do not see this because Islam believes that a human being is born with a good nature that could do good and evil. A man is a sinner not because he does wrong things but because he is born with the nature of sin. If a man was born with the nature of sin, then this sin needs to be forgiven. (The word sin and not sins as the original word means, "nature of sin). If a man was born with sin, then this sin should be forgiven, wiped away and cleansed before God Almighty. For the sin to be cleansed and wiped away, an innocent man should die instead of the guilty one, or the guilty one himself should die.

Is the innocent man here was the person of Jesus Himself?
Yes, it is the person of Christ as He is the only One who wasn't born out of man and woman union (almost all religions admit the fact that He was born of a virgin woman not out of the will of man or the will of a fleshly human being and He is the only One who had such a unique birth). We know that Adam, of course, was not born but he was created. He had no mother or father because he was the first human being that existed on earth. So Jesus was the only One born not due to man and woman's union. He had not received the corrupted human nature of sin therefore, He was the only One qualified to redeem man and deliver him from his sins. For either the sinner should die or another one should take his place and this substitute should be a man, a spineless one who doesn't have the nature of sin in him. When God almighty looked around for someone of these attributes, He could find no one but Jesus. Therefore, He carried the name of Jesus, which is a serious name as He is the only One qualified to deliver His people from their sins. The word "his people", that is mentioned here, signifies all those who acknowledge Him, all those who look for him and all those who accept His salvation and their sins are forgiven. The people of Jesus today are not only the Christians or the Jews of His time or other nations, but everyone who confesses and acknowledges that Jesus was the perfect man who came in the flesh to die on behalf of us, pay the price of our sin and save us from that sin becomes one of the people of Christ.

The second name is "Christ", what does the name Christ means?
The word Christ comes from the word "anointed one". The word anointed one means the one that has been set apart and carrying a specific anointing. In the Old Testament it was a specific kind of oil or ointment that was called the oil of the anointing. It was poured on specific people in that time those who have been set apart for a spiritual ministry before God almighty.

Who are those anointed ones? When do we call someone an anointed one?
There were three kinds of people that we called anointed ones:
The prophet who receives his office from God Almighty, priest to do the work of priesthood and king. Those three were the three kinds of people who were anointed with the ointment of anointing, but Jesus was not called one anointed one but "The Anointed One". To be called one anointed he had to be one of the Old Testament prophets, kings or Priests but He was not either of the three in the earthly understanding. We have never heard that Christ joined the group of priests offering sacrifices in the temple, and He could not have done that, as He did not come of the tribe of Levi the one that was dedicated for priesthood. He came out of the tribe of Judah. The Lord Jesus was not a King as well in the Old Testament sense or else He would have started to establish his own kingdom. And He was not a prophet in the Old Testament sense as well He did not write a book as the Old Testament prophets did, but it is very important to understand that Jesus was spiritually a Priest and a Prophet and a King. He was a unique prophet because He had to speak God's words, and was a priest as He had to offer Himself as a sacrifice to save His people from their sins and was a King but His kingdom was not an earthly kingdom. It was a spiritual one and this was clearly stated during His trial when the Jews asked Him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" and Jesus answered clearly, "I am and my kingdom is not from this world." There are many anointed ones, but the anointed one is the unique person of God Himself Jesus Christ.

When Christ was on earth, He was anointed with oil as in the Old Testament?
Christ was not anointed with oil because He was not an earthly Priest, or an earthly king or an earthly Prophet, but He was a spiritual king, priest and prophet. He said about Himself," the spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me". When we speak about the Holy Spirit, we are not speaking about angels, but we mean the spirit of the Almighty Himself. Christ was not anointed with oil but with the Holy Spirit of God Himself because He came from heaven and went back to God (seated at the right hand of the Father in Heaven). As the Bible says so the earthly oil or anointing has no value in dealing with Christ, but He is anointed with the Holy Spirit. And in the Baptism the Bible says that the Holy Spirit came upon Him in the shape of a dove; this was the anointing that came upon Him.

Why did the Jews refuse to admit that Jesus was the One that God anointed or the anointed One?
In fact, the Jews have good reasons not to admit He was anointed because He was not an earthly priest or king or prophet in the way they understood. So He could have not been anointed as such, and they could not admit that He was the "Messiah". Because in their minds when the Messiah would come, He will come to rule over the nations and submit the nations under their feet, to deliver the Jews from there enemies and make their nation the first nation on earth. When Christ came, he did not come as a king or as military leader to fulfill the dreams of the Jews, but He was a humble man. When He was able to feed 5000 people, the crowds wanted to crown Him as a king because they felt this is the King who is coming to the world and who could feed the multitudes. Instead, He refused to be an earthly king because as He said that His kingdom is not from this world. When it became obvious for them that He was not going to fulfill their dreams of submitting other nations under their feet, and He clearly said that He was going to be crucified for the forgiveness of sins, they did not accept Him. They were expecting a strong Messiah who could destroy the enemy. Christ did not come to do that job, but He came to die on behalf of humanity.

What does the third name that was given to Jesus "Emmanuel "means?
The name Emmanuel is one of the names that confuses many people and caused disagreement among different religions. This name is the name that was given to Jesus from heaven, and it was also mentioned in the Old Testament and not only when Jesus was born in the New Testament. In the book of Matthew chapter 1 and verse 21 he says, "She will bear forth a son" (about the Virgin Mary) and his name shall be called Emmanuel which means God is with us. So the word Emmanuel means God with us, and this is the first chapter of the first book of the gospels pointing at Jesus as God with us. From here we see where the disagreement originates among the different religions.

The fourth name that was given to the person of Jesus Christ was the son of man? What about this name?
The word Son of man means He is the son of humanity, or He took the form of man and appeared as a man or He took human flesh. This name was not given to Him by any other one but by Himself.

How can God become a human being? This is limiting God into the form of a human being and He is the Almighty unlimited God?
Jesus was the one who called Himself the "Son of Man" and that only reflects His humility. But this does not limit His Sovereignty, for He is the One who sits on His throne and fills the universe. As the Bible says, that the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, but He took a human form. If He wanted to take human nature, no one has the right to question Him, for He can do what He wants. But there is a reason why He came in human form because as we said, the one who would redeem a man has to be a human being and in the same time equals to God. Because if He was a natural man, He would have been born with a sinful nature and because all man are prone to sin and no ordinary human being could redeem men. If a normal human being undertook this task, he would have not being qualified to do this because sin separated all men from God. So whoever redeems man should be equal to God and to man and coming in the form of a man. Therefore, Jesus was given the name Emmanuel that means God is with us, and for the same reason He called Himself the Son of Man. He was not a normal human being but the only one who is qualified to fulfill Redemption.

What about the Name "Allah", one of the names of God?
The Name Allah is one of the names that have a different implication in Christianity than the one in Islam. Both of the religions, Islam and Christianity, acknowledge that Jesus is the "Word of God ", but they differ in the implication. For there is a difference between the spoken word of God and the Word of God as mentioned in the Gospel of John in the very first verse, "In the Beginning was the Word and the Word was God ". The Jews and the Greeks were the greatest nations during that time clearly understood the term "word of God". In their minds the "Word of God" was equal to the word" God ". The Jews knew that God created the world by His word, and the word in this sense is not the spoken word but the Greeks knew "The Word" in person or what in that time; the "Mind of God "or" The Logos". He is the Word according to the original language not the English one. When we say Jesus is the word of God, it means He is the Mind of God and equal to God; He is God himself. We can see that this name has serious implications. Finally, I want to ask you about this one "Son of God ". As you can see, all the names of the Lord Jesus were not simple names. Each one caused problems more than the one before. The name Son of God caused serious disagreements, but as I said before these names were given to Him from heaven He never claimed to be the Son of God or Equal to God lightly but this was revealed from heaven. When we hear the word "Son of God", we think that God took Himself a wife as a man marries a woman. But every sensible man using simple reasoning cannot accept the idea that God married or got Himself a son. He is the One seated on His throne who reigns over the universe. God Forbid that He has a son, but the sonship of Jesus is a spiritual sonship, and not a carnal one. So God did not take wife and did not get a son, but He is the One who reigns over the universe, therefore He has no need for human assistance. The name Son f God here signifies born after His likeness and not through reproduction. Jesus, as we read in the four Gospels, came from heaven from God 's dwelling place. It is written in the book of Hebrews that He is the essence of God. That is why He was called the Son of God; a name that caused many problems in the minds of people who refused that God would have a son and so do we as Christians in the carnal sense. But there is a difference between begetting a son and the One that came from heaven the Son of God.