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offered, but upon the state of the worshipper's heart. Hence He does away with the possibility of
there ever afterwards being a true Qiblah on earth.
8. John xiv. 30. "The Prince of the World cometh." Many Muslims consider that these
words of Christ are a prediction of the coming of Muhammad. But, in the first place, the context
shows that here Christ was not speaking of a prophet who was to come after Him, for He adds,
"and he hath nothing in Me." This shows that the person spoken of was an enemy of all that
is good; which cannot be said of any prophet. Secondly, when we compare other passages of Scripture
where this or other equivalent titles are given to the person here spoken of we see that he is
Satan. See Luke x. 18; John xii. 31; xvi. 11; 2 Cor. iv. 4; Eph. ii. 2: vi. 11, 12.
9. John xiv. 16, 17, 26; xv. 26; xvi. 13, &c. Muslims assert that the Paraclete here
mentioned by Christ is Muhammad, whose name they fancy to be a translation of this word. They
contend that the prophecy was fulfilled in Muhammad, since he received the Qur'an from the Angel
Gabriel (whom Muslims imagine to be the Holy Spirit), and bore witness to Christ (John xv. 26) and
glorified Him (John xvi. 14) as a prophet, as born of a Virgin, as a worker of miracles, as having
ascended up to Heaven without dying, as not God's Son, and as never having claimed to be such, and
as having had the Gospel brought to Him. That the early Christians understood Christ to have
promised that another great prophet should come is, the Muslims assert, clear from the fact that
Mani claimed to be the Paraclete, and was on that account accepted by many Christians as having come
in fulfilment of this prophecy. But it is quite impossible for any scholar and for anyone who
carefully studies the New Testament to accept this explanation of our Lord's words in the 14th,
15th, and 16th chapters of St. John's Gospel. For:
(1) First of all, the word Paraclete does not mean anything at all like "Muhammad". It
means the
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"Comforter" or "Sustainer", and also the "Advocate"
(الوكيل). The
first of these titles is clearly unsuited to the "Prophet with the Sword", and the Qur'an
itself denies the title of Advocate to all but God Himself (Surahs xvii, Al Asra' or Banu
Isra'il, ver. 56: iv. An Nisa', ver. 83). Hence Muhammad cannot be the Paraclete. (2) In the New
Testament the title Paraclete is applied only to the Holy Spirit, as in these chapters (John xiv.
16, 17, 26; xv. 26; xvi. 13), and also by implication to Christ (John xiv. 16: see I John ii. 1).
(3) The Paraclete of whom Christ here speaks is therefore not a man, but a spirit, the Spirit
of Truth, invisible: He was then dwelling with Christ's disciples and was to be in their
hearts (John xiv. 17; xvi. 14). (4) He was to be sent by Christ (John xv. 26; xvi. 7), which Muslims
cannot admit concerning Muhammad. (5) His work was not to gather armies and gain victories with
earthly weapons, but to convict men of sin, the very essence of sin being disbelief in Christ
(xvi. 9). (6) His teaching was to glorify not Himself, but Christ, and was not to be His own,
but what Christ gave Him (John xvi. 14, 15). (7) To teach men to deny the truth of Christ's
Sonship, which Christ had affirmed on oath (Mark xiv. 61), and to oppose belief in His Divine
Nature, which (as we have seen) is taught in both Old Testament and New (for example in Isa. ix. 6;
Ps. xlv. 6; John x. 30; Heb. i), is not to glorify Christ, but to oppose Him. (8) To deny that
Christ was crucified and thereby atoned for the sins of the whole world is to deny another of the
most vital doctrines of the whole Bible (Ps. xxii; Isa. lii. 13 and liii; Matt. xx. 19, &c.
&c.), for on the fact of the Atonement made in His death on the cross depends the salvation of
all men. (9) Denial of His Crucifixion implies denial of His Resurrection, upon which the whole
Christian faith is based (I Cor. xv. 17-19). As therefore Muhammad contradicts the Injil in these
and other leading doctrines, and thereby utterly opposes the faith which Christ taught and which He
bade His disciples
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