A true prophet preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is in union with and submissive to the Catholic Church.
Dear vsedriver,
. Please allow me to enter into your dialogue, and hopefully you will accept from me that I perceive you to be quite sincere in your beliefs and understanding.
. The aforementioned statement discounts the “true prophets” prior to the coming Jesus, the Christ. (at least on face value) Hence, one is led to ask, Were there no true prophets prior to Him?
. For the moment I will assume that this was not what you intended, as I think that you recognize the numerous Old Testament Prophets as “true prophets”, i.e., Noah, Abraham, Moses, as well as the Lesser Prophets, such as Daniel, Jeremiah, Micah, etc., none of whom preached the Gospel of Christ, which had yet to be revealed long after Their days.
. For the sake of argument (but not in an argumentative spirit, mind you), let us suppose that our conversation took place 2500 years ago, well before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and the establishment of the Catholic Church, which means no one could be submissive to it. Then we must have an entirely different criteria than the above statement for determining the test of prophethood…
. Now that we have established that a “true prophet” can be other than conditioned by the standards proposed, allow us to frame it not only in the past, but in the future, at or following the time of the Return of the Lord. Also, let us consider that as true prophets existed prior to the Catholic Church and the definition thusly does not hinge upon it, again in the future, upon the coming of the promised Lord, Who is submissive not to the Church, but to God, even as Jesus was not submissive to the Pharisees and Sadducees of the Jewish religion, but only to God.
. The result of His not being submissive to the Jewish leaders was sufficient to reject His claim to prophethood as invalid in their eyes, the penalty for which was crucifixion, which they employed as a means of silencing the truths He spoke, to which they had no possible argument. Being bested on their own turf, through rational proofs, they resorted to torture and execution.
. The same means were employed against the Bab beginning in the year 1260 AH, as prophesied in the Books of Daniel and Revelation, by the religious authorities and learned divines of His age. As they could not refute a single word from His lofty utterances and were unable to produce a single line of revelation, no matter how painstakingly they tried, and were immensely embarrassed at their own impotence before Him, they resorted to torture, imprisonment in far away places, such as Chiriq and Mah-Ku, and finally public execution in Tabriz.
. As this thread addresses the topic of labeling as False Prophets anyone who even makes a claim to Prophethood, rest assured that while Muhammad, the Bab, and Baha’u’llah have been rejected for lack of understanding the basis of Their claims, so too was Jesus labelled as a False Prophet by the Jews, and Moses by the Pharaoh, and Abraham by the idolators of His city, and Noah before Him.
. May I suggest that rather than the simple repetition of “False Prophet… False Prophet…” as a mantra, some serious and unbiased research be established as the first criteria to be fulfilled before qualifying oneself to in any position to say Yea or Nay on the matter.
. Briefly, a careful study of the Quran, from cover to cover, would at least acquaint you with what is said to be a Revelation from God revealed through Prophet Muhammad.
. As to the Bab, availing oneself to Selections from the Writings of the Bab would suffice to exit the forests of ignorance and enter the meadow of knowledge and understanding of that which was revealed by Him.
. Again, for Baha’u’llah, begin by reading the Kitab-i-Iqan (Book of Certitude), which unseals all that which remained “sealed” to Daniel and John the Revelator. Another suggestion of something shorter would be the HIdden Words of Baha’u’llah, which begins:
. "HE IS THE GLORY OF GLORIES
.This is that which hath descended from the realm of glory, uttered by the tongue of power and might, and revealed unto the Prophets of old. We have taken the inner essence thereof and clothed it in the garment of brevity, as a token of grace unto the righteous, that they may stand faithful unto the Covenant of God, may fulfill in their lives His trust, and in the realm of spirit obtain the gem of Divine virtue."
. Upon even a rudimentary reading and familiarization of the verses will then qualify one to express intelligibly an opinion, whether for or against, without resorting to lynch mob mentality, which resulted as well in the crucifixion of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and the execution of the Bab, and forty years of exile and imprisonment of the Lord of Hosts, Baha’u’llah, and so many of their followers who, rather than recant their beliefs, accepted torture, imprisonment, and martyrdom in the same pattern as did the early believers in Christ.
. Please forgive me if this post was long.
Thank you for your serious consideration of that which has been said.
God Bless you
