The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 555
PT. 15 BANI ISRĀ'ĪL CH. 17 مَنِ اهْتَدَى فَإِنَّمَا يَهْتَدِى لِنَفْسِهِ وَمَنْ He who follows the right. 16 way follows it only for the good ضَلَّ فَإِنَّمَا يَضِلُّ عَلَيْهَا وَلَا تَزِرُ وَازِرَةٌ of his own soul and he who goes astray, goes astray only to وِزْرَ أُخْرَى وَمَا كُنَّا مُعَذِّبِينَ حَتَّى his own loss. And no bearer of نَبْعَثَ رَسُولًا burden shall bear the burden of another. And "We never punish until We have sent Messenger. 1945 a a10:109; 39:42. 6:165; 35:19; 39:8; 53:39. 28:60. punishments and rewards of Heaven and Hell will only be so many embodiments and representations of the deeds, good or bad, of man. Thus in this life man is the architect of his own destiny and in the next he will be his own rewarder or punisher. 1945. Commentary: This verse further explains the purport of the previous verse. It shows that man himself benefits by his good deeds or suffers the evil consequences of his bad deeds. So whatever he does, he does for or against his own self. A murderer, in fact, murders his own self, and a thief steals his own property. Similarly when a man does good to another person, in reality he does good to himself. Christian theological writers sometimes quote this verse in support of the doctrine that Jesus took upon himself, and suffered for, the sins of man. They argue that according to this verse a sinner cannot bear the sins of another person, but Jesus, being sinless, could and did bear other people's sins. Without entering here into the sinlessness or otherwise of Jesus, it may be pointed out that what the verse means is only this, that man himself and no one else in his place can suffer the consequences of his actions. He has to bear his own cross; none else shall answer for him. Punishment or reward is no external thing but is another name for the consequences of man's actions, and it is evident that where the seed is sown only there does it bear fruit. So when punishment or reward proceeds from within the doer himself, how can any other person share it with him or be responsible for it? The verse under comment thus lends no support to the Christian doctrine of Atonement; on the contrary, it refutes and contradicts it. The Christian doctrine is based on the assumption that punishment is something external and therefore one person can atone for the sins of another person. The present verse clearly refutes this unnatural idea. In order to meet this objection Christians hold Hell to be a material thing. It is clearly unreasonable to believe that Hell is a material thing 1763