Ahmadiyya Movement — Page 6
6 but was pure Judaism in a plain and simple form. Jesus says: “Think not that I am come to destroy, but to fulfil. For, verily I say unto you, till Heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. ” (Matt, v. , 17, 18. ) Similarly, in Matthew (Chapter viii. ), it is related that after Jesus had cleansed the leper, he said to him. “Show thyself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded. ” Again, it is related that Jesus said to his disciples and to the multitudes, “The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’s seat; all, therefore, that they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after the works; for they say, and do not. ” {Matthew xxiii. , 2,3. ) At the close of the sermon on the Mount, Jesus says: “This is the law and the Prophets. ” (Matthew vii. , 12) These verses show that Jesus regarded the law of Moses as still binding on the people, and he taught his disciples and others to follow the law, and described his own teachings as a summary of the law and the Prophets, and not as a new dispensation. A careful perusal of the Gospels makes it absolutely clear that Jesus did not establish any new law or dispensation. In the same way the Promised Messiah was not the bearer of a new law or dispensation, but was only an exponent of the real teachings of Islam. Just as by the time of Jesus the teachings of the Jewish religion had ceased, owing to the innovations and interpolations, which had been introduced into them, to represent the original teachings of Moses, so in the time of the Promised Messiah the teachings attributed to Islam had ceased to bear any resemblance to what Islam really taught, I must not, however, be understood to imply that that which is today known as Christianity truly represents the teachings of Moses, Nothing could be farther from the truth. What I mean is, that that which Jesus taught was: the same as that which Moses taught; the difference lay in the fact that each of them laid parti- cular stress on that portion of it which was being neglected during their respective times. The Torah contains injuctions re-