Claims and Teachings - Ahmad The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 38
38 know too well that adherence to such a literal interpretation brought a people to destruction before us. To await a physical and personal advent of the same Jesus as the Jews waited for a physical and personal advent of- the same Elijah, is to follow the footsteps of a people condemned by Jesus himself for adhering to such a literal significance of prophecies. . Several other considerations lead to the same conclusion, viz-, that the second Messiah, though spiritually one with the first Messiah, is not physically the same person who lived and died before In the Gospels Jesus likens his advent to that of a; thief. This shows that there will be some obscurity attending it. If the prophecies mentioned above are to be taken literally, the existence of any such obscurity is impossible. A person descending from heaven and met by an army of the elect in mid-heavens, can hardly be said to be coming like a thief. The thief is hidden from every eye except perhaps the eye of the watchman who is awake when the whole world sleeps. The sleepers cannot know or recognise the thief. Besides coming in the dark the thief comes in disguise, So must Jesus come. Those who trust to his glorious descent from the clouds are really. the sleepers while the watchmen are the few who understand the true inter- pretation of the prophecies. Moreover being spiritually the same man (as John was spiritually Elijah) he comes in the person of a different man, and for putting on this disguise his advent is likened to that of a thief, Another verse that deserves to be noticed in this connection is Luke 17, 26. "And as it came to pass in the days of Noah even so shall it be also in the days of the son of man. " What happened in the days of the Noah, was this that Noah announced himself a messenger of God but was rejected, and preached to the people but was not listened to and therefore God avenged Himself