If someone comes from God, why does he not come into the world as a baby?

He does come into the world as a baby, like every human being. Every person comes from God, and a messenger of God too was first a child and then grew up in the natural way.

Behind this question there is often an idea that is rarely spoken aloud. Surely someone who truly comes from God would have to appear in an unusual way, suddenly and already grown up, perhaps descending from heaven. Whoever is born and grows up as a child, on the other hand, seems to be just an ordinary person.

Yet every human being comes from God. The one asking comes from God, and so does his father. None of them came into the world as an adult. Each was first a baby and then grew up in the natural way. It was exactly the same with the messengers of God. They were born, were children, and grew up like everyone else.

That a messenger begins a perfectly ordinary life is therefore no argument against his mission. The first verse above shows that even the Holy Prophet Muhammad (saw) was told to say that he was a human being like others. What made him special was not the manner of his birth, but the revelation he received from God.

The Holy Qur’an already knows the objection behind the question. Many people refused to believe because the messenger was a human being, as the second verse says. The answer in the third verse is simple. If angels were walking about on the earth, God would send them an angel. But because it is human beings who are to be guided, He sends a human being.

There is deep sense in this. Only a person who was born as we were, who grew up and knows the same struggles, can be an example that we are truly able to follow.