Deliverance from the Cross — Page 114
pain and suffering that was inflicted upon them. They faced whatever came with steadfastness, and under the directions of their leader occupied themselves with measures of self-improvement, deepening their righteousness, intensifying their consciousness of the Divine, strengthening their communion with Him and moulding their lives into wholly beneficent patterns. Their principal means for the achievement of these purposes became sincere, humble and earnest supplication to the Divine. The pivot of the opposition and hostility encountered by the Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement on the part of the vast body of orthodox Muslims became his claim to be the Promised Messiah. Contrary to the clear affirmations of the Quran that Jesus had died a natural death long after the event of the crucifixion, they held fast to the erroneous belief that Jesus had, just before his crucifixion, been supernaturally raised to heaven in his physical body and would descend to earth in that physical body some time in the latter days. Indeed, they were awaiting his physical descent about the time when the Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement announced his claim of being the Promised Messiah. In their estimation his claim was preposterous as they could not understand how the Messiah who was sojourning with his physical body in heaven could suddenly reveal himself in the person of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, whom they had known since his birth (1835) as one of themselves with no supernatural pretensions 114