By citing this passage he sought, through the mention of a third, to prove the divinity of both the Father and the Son.

The reply is as follows:

It is indeed true that all the Jews who were confronted with the mission of the Messiah, peace be upon him, yet refused to believe in him, thereby fell into unbelief—just as those among them had already done before, whether by murdering the prophets, by denying them, by associating partners with God, or through any other form of rejecting the revelation God had sent down.

The same applies to every Christian to whom the call of Muhammad ﷺ has reached and against whom God has established the proof through him: if they do not believe in him, they are unbelievers, just as those among them were who had earlier disbelieved in what God revealed—whether by denying part of it, by substituting it with something else, by attributing to God what He never revealed, or by any other act that constitutes disbelief in what the Almighty has sent down.

Equally correct is what has been reported—that God established a new law and a new covenant, namely the dispensation with which He sent the Messiah, peace be upon him, in which some of what God had prohibited in the Torah was made lawful, as He says in the Quran about the Messiah:

“and so that I may permit for you some of what was forbidden to you” (Āl ʿImrān 3:50).

This too is true.