158بَل رَفَعَهُ اللَّهُ إِلَيهِ ۚ وَكانَ اللَّهُ عَزيزًا حَكيمًاMuhammad Asadnay, God exalted him unto Himself1 - and God is indeed almighty, wise.Cf. 3:55, where God says to Jesus, "Verily, I shall cause thee to die, and shall exalt thee unto Me." The verb rafa ahu (lit., "he raised him" or "elevated him") has always, whenever the act of raf' ("elevating") of a human being is attributed to God, the meaning of "honouring" or "exalting". Nowhere in the Qur'an is there any warrant for the popular belief that God has "taken up" Jesus bodily, in his lifetime, into heaven. The expression "God exalted him unto Himself" in the above verse denotes the elevation of Jesus to the realm of God's special grace - a blessing in which all prophets partake, as is evident from 19:57, where the verb rafa nahu ("We exalted him") is used with regard to the Prophet Idris. (See also Muhammad 'Abduh in Manar III, 316 f., and VI, 20f.) The "nay" (bal) at the beginning of the sentence is meant to stress the contrast between the belief of the Jews that they had put Jesus to a shameful death on the cross and the fact of God's having "exalted him unto Himself".