Ahmadiyya Movement — Page 56
56 “If he had attributed to Us some of his own words which We had not spoken to him, we would have caught him by the right arm and then cut off” his carotid artery. ” These verses show that if a man invents sayings and then gives them out to the world as revelations from God, he is not allowed to flourish and is cut off before his movement can obtain a strong foothold in the world. By applying this test to the claim of the Promised Messiah we are convinced of his truth, for he first claimed to have received revelation at the age of forty and lived for thirty-four or thir- ty-five years after the publication of this claim. He founded a flourishing community and lived out the normal span of life, and his death occured in accordance with his own prophecy which he had published beforehand and in which he had been informed, two and a half years before his death, that only two and a half draughts of the water of life were left to him. Sisters and brothers, is it conceivable that a Living God should permit a man deliberately to invent sayings and to ascribe them to God as revelations received by him for publication among mankind and thus to lead His creatures astray, unchecked and with impunity ? If this were so, what security could there be for faith and what protection would there be for righteousness? It may be that a man who is himself labouring under a miscon- ception, for instance, a madman, or one who regards revelation as mere inspiration and conceives his own ideas to be inspired, is to a certain extent excusable and does not deserve a severe chastisement, but when a man claims to be the recipient of verbal revelation, he must if his claim is not true, be either a madman or a deliberate impostor. If, therefore, it is established in the case of any such claimant that he is not a madman, and on the other hand, he survives his claim for a long period of time during which he accomplishes his mission, we must accept him as a righteous man and as a messenger of God. Again, in support of the truth of his claim may be cited those wonderful signs, which God caused to be revealed at his hands