The Rightly-Guided Injil

Chapter 24: The hour, and the promise of the Counsellor

1 Then the disciples asked Jesus, Teacher, when will the end be?

2 And Jesus answering said unto them, Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not even the angels in heaven but only the Father.1

3 For the prophets know nothing of the future which they are not taught, and they see nothing which they are not shown

4 Watch therefore: for ye know not when the day of our Lord cometh.

5 For as the days of Noah were, so shall also the day of our Lord be.

6 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark,

7 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away so shall the coming of the day of our Lord be.2

8 And it is also known only to God how much longer shall I abide with you.

9 I therefore bid you that ye keep my words, and follow the Law according to what I have taught you.

10 That ye worship the One True Living God in spirit and in truth, and that ye love one another.

11 It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away the Counsellor3 will not come.

12 But if I go away, God will send him, that he may teach all the nations,

13 And abide with them unto the end of the age.

14 I have yet many things to tell you, but ye cannot bear them now.

15 Howbeit when the Counsellor, the Spirit of truth, is come he will guide you into all truth and teach you all things, for he shall not speak of himself but what things he shall hear that shall he speak; and he will declare things that are to come.

16 He shall glorify me, because he will receive from the same Spirit, of which I have received.4

17 And after these sayings Jesus solemnly took the covenant of the prophets from his followers.

18 Saying, God hath given you wisdom and a book. Then cometh to you the Counsellor confirming what is with you, do ye believe and render him help? Do ye agree and take this God’s covenant as binding on you?

19 They said, We do. And Jesus said, Then bear witness, and God is with you among the witnesses.5

The Qur’anic text

The passages of the Qur’an that this chapter follows. All the passages are gathered on The Qur’an on Jesus.

Second Coming of Jesus

43:59 He (Jesus) was only a servant We showed favour to, and made as an example for the Children of Israel.

43:61 And his ˹second˺ coming is truly a sign for the Hour (Day of Resurrection). So have no doubt about it, and follow me. This is the Straight Path.

43:62 And do not let Satan hinder you, ˹for˺ he is certainly your sworn enemy.

From the Gospel of Thomas

The Gospel of Thomas keeps sayings on watching, on the end and on the kingdom. Green agrees with the Qur’an, blue is beyond the measure, gold is unclear.

  • Beyond the measure Thomas 11. This heaven and the one above it will pass. The dead do not live. Those who were one became two, and the question is what they will do as two.6
  • Unclear Thomas 18. The end is where the beginning is. Blessed is the one who stands at the beginning and will not taste death.7
  • Beyond the measure Thomas 38. The disciples have long wanted to hear these words and have no one else to hear them from. A time will come when they look for Jesus and do not find him.8
  • Agrees Thomas 103. Fortunate is the one who knows where the robbers will enter and can arm himself before they do. (Compare Matthew 24:43.)9
  • Agrees Thomas 113. The disciples ask when the kingdom will come. It will not come by watching for it. It is spread over the earth and people do not see it. (Compare Luke 17:20-21.)10

Sayings that conflict with the Qur’an, and sayings that only repeat another, are listed with the reason for each on the page of sayings set aside.

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Notes

  1. Mark 13:32; Matt. 24:36; Qur’an 33:63; 67:26; 79:42-46. The contradiction between this saying and the promise that the kingdom of God would be established within the lifetime of the first generation of Christians arises because of the failure of the Christian tradition to make distinction between the messianic kingdom and the end of the world, a distinction Jesus himself maintained. (Cf. Note 3, Chapter 19.) Jesus expected the former to be established during his life, while he declared ignorance about the time of the latter. ↩
  2. Matt. 24:37-39, 42. ↩
  3. Cf. John 16:7; 14:17; 15:26. In the King James Version of the New Testament, the original Greek title “Parakletos” (often written in English as “Paraclete”) is translated as “Comforter”, that is, one who consoles the loved ones after someone’s death. This translation is, however, rightly rejected by many of the great scholars on the ground that John does not portray the Parakletos as a comforter, nor does the Holy Spirit, with which he is identified in John, take such a role in the Jewish and Christian traditions. Moreover, the statement of John 16:7 (“… it is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, [the Paraclete] will not come …”) conflicts with the idea of the Paraclete as a comforter since it would be an absurdity to say that someone departs from his loved ones only in order that a consolater may come to console them.

    Probably the best explanation of the title is obtained by translating it (with some modern versions) as Counselor and relating the figure with “Geber” of the Qumran scrolls. Apart from the fact that Geber is also called Counselor (Note 5, Chapter 23), there are other close parallels between Geber and John’s Paraclete.
    a. One of the primary functions of the Paraclete is to teach (John 14:26; 16:13), and the same is true of Geber whose only explicitly given function is to “instruct the upright in the knowledge of the Most High and teach the wisdom of the sons of heaven to the perfect of way” (All quotations from the Qumran scrolls are from the Community Rule IV and Hymns III in Vermes’ translation.)
    b. Both Geber and the Paraclete are associated with lasting works and total manifestation of truth. Thus, with the coming of Geber, an everlasting Covenant will be established with the perfect of way, and “there shall be no more lies and all the works of falsehood shall be put to shame.” The Paraclete also brings something lasting and complete; he abides for ever and teaches all things and guides into all truth (John 14:16, 26; 16:13). (That the Paraclete abides forever does not mean that he will be physically immortal but simply that his work will be everlasting. Geber, too, can be said to abide forever, since, in Isaiah 9.6, he is given the title Abi ad, which the Targum of Jonathan renders as “one abiding for ever.”)
    c. The writer of Hymns III, speaking probably as the teacher of righteousness who founded the Qumran sect, talks about his sufferings at the hands of his wicked enemies and suggests that he has become a child-bearing crucible from which Geber shall be brought forth painfully, meaning that his sufferings are a means for the coming of Geber. This has a parallel in the introduction of the Paraclete in John 15:26-27 and 16:7 in the context of world’s persecution of Jesus and the statement in the latter passage that the departure of Jesus via the cross, painful as it may be for the disciples, is necessary for the coming of the Paraclete.
    d. In John (14:17; 15:26; 16:13), the Paraclete is also called “the Spirit of truth.” This title is of extremely rare occurrence in our sources for the New Testament study; and almost all of these rare references are found in one of the Qumran passages about Geber (Community Rule III-IV). The title is not given to Geber in that passage, but the way it closely links him with the total and lasting manifestation of truth and complete and final victory of the spirit of truth over the spirit of falsehood would require only a small step in seeing him as the Spirit of truth in human form or, applying the title to him in a hyperbolic way (something like the way the words of Jesus are called “Spirit” in John 6.63). Additional basis to think that “the Spirit of truth” became one of the titles of Geber is provided by Isaiah 9.6. In the LXX of this passage, which also provided the Qumran tradition with another title of Geber (cf. Note 5, Chapter 23), the man-child (= Geber) is called “Angel of great counsel”; and since in the Qumran documents the Spirit of truth is referred to by corresponding descriptions or titles, such as “Angel of truth,” “Spirit of true counsel,” etc., it is quite possible that “Angel of great counsel” and “the Spirit of truth” were understood to be equivalent concepts.

    In conclusion, Geber and the Paraclete have corresponding titles and functions and are probably corresponding figures, with the Paraclete being a Christianized form of Geber. ↩
  4. John 16:12-15. For the title “the Spirit of truth,” see the last note. ↩
  5. Qur’an 3:81. ↩
  6. The heaven that passes away and the one that became two. It depends on Thomas’s own doctrine of an original unity. ↩
  7. The end is where the beginning is. It belongs to Thomas’s scheme of origin and return, and its sense is obscure. ↩
  8. A time will come when the disciples look for Jesus and do not find him. No source confirms it; compare John 7:34. ↩
  9. Matthew 24:43; Luke 12:39. Qur’an 7:187 and 31:34: the Hour comes suddenly and its knowledge is with God. ↩
  10. Luke 17:20-21. Qur’an 7:187: the Hour comes upon you suddenly. ↩