The Word of God and Its Addressee and Listener

All contingent existence consists of divine words (kalimāt ilāhiyya): “Say, ‘If the sea were ink for the words of my Lord, the sea would be spent before the words of my Lord are spent, though We brought another like it for replenishment’” (18:109). However, since the blessed existence of Jesus is a superior word, He has called him specifically the divine word: “When the angels said, ‘O Mary, God gives you the good news of a Word from Him whose name is Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, distinguished in the world and the Hereafter, and one of those brought near [to God]’” (3:45). Just as in conventional matters, some words are particles while others are verbs and nouns, in existential matters too, words are not equal, and the friends of God are perfect words (kalimāt tāmma), as they themselves have said: “We are the perfect words of God” (naḥnu kalimāt allāh al-tāmmāt).(106)

The emergence of Jesus was from the breath of “Be, and it is” (kun fa-yakūn), which is a special virtue for him: “Thus did she seclude herself from them, whereupon We sent to her Our Spirit and he became incarnate for her as a well-proportioned human” (19:17). And that which comes into existence through “Be, and it is” (kun fa-yakūn) without the involvement of material causes is the perfect Word of God; similar to the emergence of Adam, whose bodily creation the Qur’an considers to be from the world of creation (ʿālam al-khalq), and only the breathing of the spirit into his form, which is from the world of command (ʿālam al-amr), is expressed through creative “Be” (kun ijādī): “Indeed the case of Jesus with God is like the case of Adam: He created him from dust, then said to him, ‘Be,’ and he was” (3:59).

It should be noted that the special characteristics of Jesus on one hand, and the capacity of the people of that era—like some people of this age—on the other hand, and the reasonable and acceptable expressions of the era of the Gospel’s revelation and the gradual evolution of conversational literature on the third hand, have provided the ground for some errors.

An explanation that God communicates with His messengers in different ways; but there is always a difference between the Word of God and its addressee, and they (the addressees) hear and bear the divine words (kalimāt ilāhiyya). However, regarding Jesus, the title of word (kalima) and addressee (mukhāṭab) are one; that is, he is both the Word of God and its listener (mustamiʿ). But the hearing (istimāʿ) of the creative word (kalima takwīniyya) will be proportionate to itself, just as the third-person pronoun in “and it is” (fa-yakūn) is the same as the second-person pronoun in “Be” (kun). And since the relationship of the word with the one who speaks is greater than the connection of the listener and addressee with Him, that same intimate expression (taʿbīr qurb-āmīz) has provided the ground for some misconceptions, neglecting the fact that other divine prophets are also each a divine word and also the addressee and creative listener of such words, because every perfect and infallible human being is, in their own degree, the Word of God (kalimat allāh), and the Seal of Prophethood and other sacred beings have been recognized as the perfect words of God (kalimāt tāmm allāh).(107)