The light is the same
and yet the mirror is not the Sun.
~ Abdu'l-Baha ~
Dear Ones,
“I and the Father are one,” proclaims the Gospel. Therefore, “Christ is God.”
Isn't this assertion customarily voiced as though it were axiomatic, as
if no scrutiny could touch it—an understanding that recasts the
unreachable Divine Substance into human likeness?
One may venture this question while preserving fidelity to the Gospel's
message, contemplating that text with peaceful discernment, not as an
incontestable reality that overwhelms all resistance. This is precisely
what is pursued here, grounded in the Baha'i Revelation:
Know thou of a certainty that the Unseen can in no wise incarnate His Essence and reveal it unto men. He is, and hath ever been, immensely exalted beyond all that can either be recounted or perceived.
Yes, and yet not in Essence. A Divine Manifestation is as a mirror reflecting the light of the Sun. The light is the same and yet the mirror is not the Sun.
The reality of Christ was a bright and polished mirror of the greatest purity and clarity. The Sun of Truth, the Essence of the Divinity, appeared in that mirror and manifested its light and heat therein, yet it did not descend from the heights of holiness and the heaven of sanctity to reside within it.
"I and the Father are one" stands as a vivid illustration of this analogy. Baha'u'llah articulates its authentic meaning with crystalline clarity: unified Will, not unified Essence.
The essence of belief in Divine unity consisteth in regarding Him Who is the Manifestation of God and Him Who is the invisible, the inaccessible, the unknowable Essence as one and the same. By this is meant that whatever pertaineth to the former, all His acts and doings, whatever He ordaineth or forbiddeth, should be considered… as identical with the Will of God Himself.
To every Manifestation are granted two stations: profound communion with
God via immaculate representation; essential separation from Him
through inevitable differentiation. The Gospel's veracity persists
eternally. Merely the prevailing interpretation evolves.
A mother embraces her child, yet the child exists as a being wholly
separate from her; identical twins spring from the same genesis yet
crystallize into two autonomous persons. Thus it unfolds with the
Manifestations.
Inasmuch as these Birds of the celestial Throne are all sent down from the heaven of the Will of God, and as they all arise to proclaim His irresistible Faith, they, therefore, are regarded as one soul and the same person. For they all drink from the one Cup of the love of God, and all partake of the fruit of the same Tree of Oneness.In the dimension of oneness, they embody a unified consciousness. Within this tangible realm of dust and matter, they persist as distinct personalities, each responding to the particular spiritual yearnings of their designated age, furnished with a specific calling, a prescribed duration, and constraints calibrated for that period. The luminous Light endures unchanging, though the teaching transmitted to each historical cycle possesses its own singular character. Matrimony, statecraft, and comparable institutional arrangements, together with the degree of sacred wisdom dispensed, shift because the epoch itself shifts—not because one Manifestation gleams with greater divinity than its predecessor or successor: the selfsame Sun breaks forth across another dawn.
Further reading: PROGRESSIVE REVELATION.
A Manifestation may nonetheless declare "I am God," Baha'u'llah emphasizes, with this essential qualification:
When I contemplate, O my God, the relationship that bindeth me to Thee, I am moved to proclaim to all created things “verily I am God”; and when I consider my own self, lo, I find it coarser than clay!
However warmly They light the world, Their lamp is not the eternal Flame it carries. If Their voice is God’s, Their human temple remains of clay. Kings and Sons of God, unquestionably. The Almighty in Pure Essence, emphatically not so.
Let us
honor the Gospel's truth, yet embrace the REVELATION that our present
age requires:
Three celestial stations illuminate the cosmic order: the Divine
Presence, Its radiant Manifestations embodied through Prophets, and
humanity itself. The Holy Spirit blazes forth as luminous rays emanating
from the transcendent sun of divinity. Neither the Manifestations nor
mortals constitute any fragment of this exalted, ineffable Essence.
Be
wonderfully blessed!
Loesha
Share this page...