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from the Suratu'n-Nisa' (iv) 169; 'Verily1 the Messiah, Jesus, son
of Mary, is the apostle of God and His Word: He cast it into Mary: and a Spirit
from2 Him.' From the testimony of these verses our Muslim friends
will see that the Qur'an teaches them that the Lord Jesus was not conceived as
other men are, but on the contrary that He was born of the Virgin Mary without a
father, simply through the power of God and the influence of His Spirit. It is
also stated that He is the Word of God
(كلمة
الله) and a Spirit from Him. Nothing at all
like this is said in the Qur'an regarding any one else that was ever born into
this world of a human mother. Hence it is clear that even the Qur'an attributes
to Christ superiority to all other prophets, and in fact to all men. From the
Gospels we Christians learn that this is very true. For in St. Matthew's Gospel
3 and also in that of St. Luke, 4 it is declared that the
Lord Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary through the influence of God's
Holy Spirit, without a human father; and in St. John's Gospel it is said of Him:
'In 5 the
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beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The
same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him
was not anything made that hath been made. In him was life; and the life was the
light of men.' Hence we learn that to call Christ 'The Word of God' is
meaningless unless His Deity be admitted, for that title implies His Deity. It
is true that the Qur'an denies Him the divine title, but it is not our present
purpose to point out discrepancies and contradictions in the Qur'an, so we need
not dwell upon this. In accordance with the Qur'anic verses which we have quote
above, the celebrated Jilani says: 'Jesus' self-revelation in reference to what
is within is the unity 1 of the plurality of the divine majesty;
therefore He is called "the Spirit of God", since He is from the perfect spirit,
which is the manifestation of God's whole name' (i.e. all His attributes). We
must again say that we do not quote either this passage or the above two verses
from the Qur'an for the purpose of proving the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We do not even begin to give any proof of that fact until we deal with it in the
first chapter of the treatise to which this is only an introduction; and we
admit that nothing in the Qur'an, the Traditions, or the works of Muslim
theologians has any value as a proof of
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