The Purpose of His First Coming to Earth
Nuzul-i-Isa: The Second Coming of Jesus Christ
Chapters
« The Present Status of Jesus in Heaven
There must have been a very special purpose for the coming of Jesus into the world if he came from heaven and returned there when his earthly course was over. He could not have been just a prophet for God had called many ordinary men out to be prophets and they had died at the end of their ministries and returned to the dust whence they had come. If Jesus came from heaven and returned there he must have come for a greater purpose.
There are, in the context of all that we have that far considered, two basic reasons for the coming of Jesus into the world. The first is that he came to bridge the gap between heaven and earth, between the God of holiness and sinful men. There is a very common phrase in the Qur'an - "To Allah is all that is in the heavens and in the earth" (Quran 2.284). Constantly the Qur'an distinguishes between the samaawaat, the "heavens", and the ardth, the "earth", and in the Bible too we find, in the very first verse of the book, the same distinction: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1).
No matter how long men live on earth none ultimately ascend to heaven. Of no man can it be said "he lived happily ever after". On the contrary, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that disaster comes to one and all. We all return to the dust when we die and come to nothing. As Jesus said, "No one has ascended into heaven" (John 3:13). There is an unbridgeable gap between heaven and earth, between God and men, and no man from the earth is able to bridge it. "God is in heaven and you upon earth; therefore let your words be few" (Ecclesiastes 5:2), is an exhortation that likewise bears out the distinction between the realms of God and men. The reason for this chasm between heaven and earth is plainly set out in this passage:
Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you so that he does not hear. Isaiah 59:1-2.
There is a great gulf between sinful men on earth and the holy God of heaven who dwells in unapproachable light with his holy angels. Sin has destroyed the capacity in man to rise by nature above the realm of the world in which he was made. He is, by nature, nothing more than mortal flesh and blood and "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable" (1 Corinthians 15:50). Jesus Christ, who from all eternity was in the presence of his holy Father and his angels in the kingdom of heaven, descended to the earth and was born in human form to bridge the gap between heaven and earth. He did this by bringing something of heaven into the world - he brought his very own self. He became a human being in every way and lived on earth as a normal man, but the spirit within him was a divine spirit which had come down from heaven.
He not only closed the gap between heaven and earth but bridged the gap the other way as well. When he came into the earth he came, as the Qur'an rightly puts it, as a ruhun minhu - a spirit from him (i.e. God). But when he returned to heaven he returned as an insaan, a human being. His divine spirit returned to its heavenly abode but he took something of earth to heaven with him - he took the human nature he had assumed when he first came into the world. He came then purely as a spirit, but he returned as a man, as a human being. He thus fully bridged the gap between heaven and earth. His living presence in the kingdom of heaven as a human being is our pledge and assurance that we too, though mortal men of flesh and blood, can one day be in heaven with him in eternal glory and bliss.
The second, and the greatest reason for the first coming of Jesus into the world, was to become like us in every respect so that he might save us from our sins. Because we are only flesh and blood, "he himself likewise partook of the same nature" (Hebrews 2:14) so that he might deliver us from the power of Satan and redeem us to God. From his heavenly throne he saw all men under the power of the evil one, enslaved to sin, and unable to overcome death. He saw the need of a mediator between men and God so that they might be saved from their sins and, to compensate for our guilt and sinfulness, he became a human being just like us so that, through the cross, he might endure the consequences of our sins in our place and make it possible for us to rise from earth to heaven and become partakers of the divine nature by receiving the Spirit of God (2 Peter 1:4), just as he had, in turn, descended from heaven to earth to become partaker of our human nature by assuming a body of flesh and blood.
Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people. Hebrews 2:17
The crucifixion of Jesus Christ, so complacently overlooked in Islam as an unsuccessful plot of the Jews, alone explains why Jesus came from heaven the first time and why he will return again. He came not to be a mere prophet, he came as God's chosen Deliverer and Redeemer to save millions of men and women by dying for them on the cross of Calvary, where he endured what was due to all of them for their sins, so that they might receive the hope of eternal life by following him as their Lord and Saviour.
He did not come like the Superman of the American comics, a man who can fly through the skies at his own discretion and from whose body bullets simply bounce off. He came like us in every respect and at no time did he use his divine powers to give himself any advantage over us. He came as a normal human being and he suffered, died and was buried so that he might bridge the gap between heaven and earth completely not only between God and men but to the very extreme of sinful man's separation from the Lord of heaven - between God and sinful men who lie hopelessly dead and buried in the dust of the earth.
Islam teaches that Jesus will return to earth because he did not finish his ministry as it likewise teaches that Jesus was raised to heaven without being crucified. It is no wonder that it teaches that Jesus did not accomplish his mission. It makes the life of Jesus on earth end just six hours before Christianity does, yet in those six hours that Jesus spent on the cross the whole purpose of his coming to earth was indeed fulfilled. In his last great prayer the night before he died he said:
"I glorified thee on earth, having accomplished the work which thou gavest me to do." John 17:4
In triumph he could boldly claim that he had indeed accomplished the work he had been given to do. As he began to breath his last on the cross, knowing that he had fully satisfied God's wrath against sin and that he had just accomplished the greatest work ever to be done by a man on earth, he cried out in triumph, "It is finished" (John 19:30). The original Greek text has only one word to describe this exclamation and it can, perhaps, more accurately be translated simply thus: "Accomplished!". He had descended from heaven to earth, had become an ordinary man and was now at the point of death and about be placed in a tomb. But this was no moment of defeat for him. It was all victory, the fulfilment and accomplishment of all that he had been sent to achieve to bring men back to God. It is against this background alone that we can conclude our study and discover why Jesus will return at the end of time and what he is destined to do for those who love him as their supreme Lord and Master.