`The Revelation of Jesus Christ...

`The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John.' Messages are brought to the prophets by the medium of the angels. The central feature of Islamic belief in angels relates to their role in revealing Scripture to the prophets. But the Bible also reflects Islamic belief that the angels are essen­tially different from human beings as separate creations.

The Islamic idea of being shy in the presence of angels and thus avoiding bad behavior is also Biblical. The angels' action of prostration is both Biblical and Islamic. The Biblical bearing up of the chariot of God is much like the Islamic idea of angels bearing the throne or Arsh of God. All in all, the Biblical passages referring to angels are well within the Islamic configuration of belief. Angels bring the divine revelation to certain people. Such people are called prophets.

The belief in prophecy is basic to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The principle of prophethood is mentioned in the Bible many times. `The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.' Deuteronomy 29:29. Whether we can do as God tells us to do is a false ques­tion.

Practically every story in the Bible is an illustration of the fact that God tells people to do things and holds them responsible if they do not. This is not to deny all of the ramifications of myth and history, symbol and poetry of the Bible. But it is to state a simple fact. God held Adam and Eve responsible for eating of the fruit of the tree of knowl­edge of good and evil.

Whatever depths of metaphorical or spiritual meaning there may be in the story, it does strongly imply that they were responsible for their actions. Again, when God told Noah to build an ark, something far beyond the possibilities of most of us, He expected Noah to build it and held him responsible. When God told Abraham to go, He expected him to do it. This is one of the obvious, incontrovertible facts of the Bible: God com­mands. A human being either obeys or disobeys.

The human being either enjoys or suffers the consequences. The true question is not whether we can fulfill the commandments of God, but how we can fulfill them. This text in Deuteronomy gives us the first step in how `we may do all the words of this law'.