Page 142 - Demo

138the poor Christians to believe that by “Kingdom of God” Jesus (pbuh) only meant his Church, and that he himself was the “Son of Man”.These important points will be fully discussed, if Allah will, later on; but for the present I have to content myself with remarking that what Jesus (pbuh) announced was, it was Islam that was the Kingdom of God and that it was Muhammad (pbuh) who was the Son of Man, who was appointed to destroy the Beast and to establish thepowerful Kingdom of the People of the Saints of the Most High.The religion of God, until Jesus Christ (pbuh) , was consigned chiefly to the people of Israel; it was more material and of a national character. Its lawyers, priests, and scribes had disfigured that religion with a gross and superstitiousliterature ofthe traditions oftheirforefathers. Christ condemned those traditions, denounced the Jews and their leaders as “hypocrites” and “the children of the Devil.”Although the demon of idolatry had left Israel, yet later on seven demons had taken possession of that people (Matt. xii. 43-45; Luke xi. 24-26).Christ reformed the old religion; gave a new life and spirit to it; he explained more explicitly the immortality of the human soul, the resurrection and the life in the next world; and publicly announced that the Messiah whom the Jews were expecting was not a Jew or a son of David, but a son of Ishmá’íl whose name was Ahmad, and that he would establish the Kingdom of God upon earth with the power of the Word of God and with sword. Consequently, the religion of Islam received a new life, light and spirit, and its adherents were exhorted to be humble, to show forbearance and patience. They were beforehand informed of persecutions, tribulations, martyrdoms, and prisons. The early “Nassara,” as the Quran calls the believers in the Gospel of Jesus Christ (pbuh) , suffered ten fearful