Implications of the Uniqueness of Jesus
The Uniqueness of Jesus in the Qur'an and the Bible
Chapters
The unique features of the life of Jesus demand that he is more than a prophet. God has raised up many prophets who were ordinary men, who were born naturally, who died naturally, had failings common to other men, and were therefore in no way especially distinguished from other men except for the gift of prophecy and the work of God in their lives. But the virgin-birth of Jesus Christ, his sinlessness, his ascension and his second-coming demand and imply that he was not just a prophet. In the light of these unique features of his life, surely the Christian cannot be blamed for believing that he is pre-eminent in all things above all other men. Surely even the Muslim can see that, by the glorious nature of his life and destiny, there is more to him and his relationship with God than first meets the eye.
Quite obviously Jesus was not just a messenger. Whereas the Qur'an appeals to the fact that other messengers like him went before him (Quran 5.75), nevertheless in respect of his birth, life, destiny and second coming, it can hardly be said that those other messengers were like him. If Jesus was just a messenger of the same kind as the others, why did God interrupt its process of pro-creation to conceive Jesus in the womb of a virgin-woman by the power of his Spirit? Why did he lead him without blemish whatsoever in the ways of righteousness while leaving other messengers to wrong their souls occasionally? Why did God take Jesus to be with himself for all these centuries in his own glorious presence while leaving the other messengers to return to the dust whence they came? And why send him back to this world to take control of it and also choose him to be the herald of the Day of Judgment?
The suggestion that Jesus was just a messenger like all the others cannot be sustained against this wealth of evidence of his distinguished and exceptional life and honour - and particular closeness to God. While all other men have come by nature's way and gone by the way of nature, God seems to have deliberately pushed nature aside to have a direct influence and involvement in the life and destiny of Jesus Christ. God brought him into the world by having him conceived by his Spirit in the womb of a virgin-woman. God raised him to heaven to be with him in his own glorious presence for all these many centuries. God is to send him to earth again to wind up human history and herald his Judgment. It is quite obvious that God is in every way involved in this man Jesus Christ. While other men come from the dust and return to it, Jesus came from God and returned to God (John 16:28). In some way God and Jesus have a relationship that transcends that enjoyed by any other being that has ever lived.
The Qur'an admits Biblical evidence that implies that Jesus has this exceptionally intense relationship with God which correspondingly demands that he was far more than just a messenger. Does the Qur'an give us any significance of the uniqueness of Jesus and does it harmonize and reveal what it is about him that makes him so exceptional in human history? Let us see whether it does - or whether we have to turn to the Bible to find the answer we are looking for, and to discover just who the man Jesus Christ really was.