The Mission of Jesus (a.s.)

Jesus the Messiah (a.s.) said that he came to them with a miracle from God and commanded two things: observing God-consciousness and obeying him: “I have brought you a sign from your Lord; so be wary of God and obey me.” Divine God-consciousness (taqwā) is obedience in matters of religious law. The command to obey Jesus (a.s.) alongside divine God-consciousness conveys that obedience to Jesus (a.s.) is obligatory because he is God’s guardian (walī), not because he is God’s messenger (rasūl), since a messenger only conveys the divine message, and obedience to the messenger is due to his authority as a guardian, while God-consciousness is itself nothing other than obedience to God’s commands. Of course, God-consciousness in general includes both types, but their separate mention here prevents their conflation; meaning that mentioning these two (God-consciousness and obedience to Jesus) side-by-side shows that each of them has its own specific meaning.

Jesus’s (a.s.) command regarding these two matters shows that he had two divine positions and missions: 1. Bringing divine laws and explaining what is permissible and forbidden. 2. Implementing divine ordinances.

Being inherently obeyed is exclusive to God’s sacred essence, and by extension belongs to whoever God permits to be obeyed, and no human can be the guardian of another human except by God’s permission, as He says about the prophets (a.s.): “We did not send any messenger but to be obeyed by God’s leave.”(443) Of course, obedience to the Messenger of God (s.a.w.), insofar as he possesses guardianship, returns to obedience to God.

The statement “And I have brought you a sign from your Lord, so be wary of God and obey me” cannot be merely repetition and emphasis, as it is quite distant from the previous statement. Also, the “so” in “so be wary of God” cannot be derived from “to make lawful for you some of what was forbidden to you”, as there is no harmony between that premise and this conclusion. However, the statement “And I have brought you a sign from your Lord” is in harmony with both statements “so be wary of God” and “obey me.” This is explained by the fact that Jesus (a.s.) considers God’s lordship (rubūbīyya) as the reason for both of his claims (God-consciousness and obedience); meaning that since God is my Lord and your Lord, you must obey Him and must also obey me, because I am your guardian by His permission and I obey Him like you do, so worship Him as I do, for the straight path is this servitude and worship of God: “so be wary of God and obey me. Indeed God is my Lord and your Lord, so worship Him. This is a straight path.”

From the centrality of divine lordship in the entirety of “And I have brought you a sign from your Lord, so be wary of God and obey me” and also in the following verse, one can understand that obedience to Jesus (a.s.) is due to his “guardianship” (wilāya), and this guardianship includes Jesus himself as well; meaning that just as others must obey his commands, he too must submit to his own rules and commands.(444)