What is the "good news"?

[Servant19]

You don’t teach that the Koran is also the revelation of God and that since it comes later than the Bible that the Koran represents the building of progressive style revelation from God? Muslims clearly taught the same thing based on their idea that the Bible has been tampered with. While the Bahai don’t say that the scriptures were tampered with, they embrace the idea that the Koran superseded the scriptures, correct? So if I were alive during the time the Koran was being drafted and finalized I should follow the Koran, correct?

Baha’is say that the Writings of Baha’u’llah supersedes everything ever revealed.
(This in no way denies the Truths contained in the Bible and Quran)

Baha’u’llah is the Promised One of all religions and non-religions ever.

.

 

[Kliska]

Baha’is say that the Writings of Baha’u’llah supersedes everything ever revealed.

Yes, I understand that, and that wasn’t the question.

(This in no way denies the Truths contained in the Bible and Quran)

Again, it doesn’t deny whatever truth you think is in those writings, but one supersedes the other, right? Just like you explained the view that the writings of Baha’u’llah supersedes all others. So, the Bahai believe the Koran superseded the Bible. This is an outflow of what the Muslims also taught, only for supposedly different reasons. The Muslims also don’t deny the original OT and NT they just don’t think it still exists, and they believe the Koran superseded the Bible, as do the Bahai.

There is a chain of progression here for sure, and it is man-made belief instead of God inspired truth.

Baha’u’llah is the Promised One of all religions and non-religions ever.

No, but you are free to believe that if you like, but it is in direct contradiction to God and His Word; Jesus Christ.

 

[Servant19]

No, but you are free to believe that if you like, but it is in direct contradiction to God and His Word; Jesus Christ.

People have declared this consistently but I don’t see how it is a contradiction…

Do you have any ideas please?

.

 

[Kliska]

People have declared this consistently but I don’t see how it is a contradiction…

Do you have any ideas please?.

That “Baha’u’llah is the Promised One of all religions and non-religions ever?” That is where you don’t see contradiction with scripture?

2 Peter 2:1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction

There were and are false teachers and false prophets. Scripture lays out for us how to test these people; Do they confess that Jesus is the Son? Do they Confess that He is God? Do they confess that He has come in the flesh and rose from the dead physically? That’s the test; if they can pass it, then the rest of their words can be considered, if they don’t pass that test, then they are accursed. The Bahai faith teaches another gospel, in fact, they teach multiple other gospels.

 

[Servant19]

2 Peter 2:1 But there were false prophets also among the people,

I can name many many false prophets from the past, especially during Jesus’ time, which is very likely what this is referring to.
Here’s a list:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Messiah_claimants

even as there shall be false teachers among you,

This is obviously now referring to the future. I can, again, name several false prophets AFTER Jesus’ ministry:
Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
David Koresh
Simon Magus
Dositheos the Samaritan
(I can name probably another 10 more at least)

who privily shall bring in damnable heresies,even denying the Lord that bought them,

oh yes, they did, there were a lot of heresies that were brought in by these souls and they were indeed, damnable, and often they did deny Jesus, Moses and others, but there is a difference…

They…

bring upon themselves swift destruction

Thats right. Where is Koresh now?
Where is Ghulam Ahmad now?
Where is Simon Magus now?

But, here we have a Prophet Muhammad. He’s still around and love for Him is growing after 1400 years…

And we have Baha’u’llah who’s lovers extend more widespread than any other religion on the planet, after 170 years.

But its between you and God how you read this passage.
Its your duty to test the Spirit friend

This is your judgment day…and mine too, but I was raised on the Bible and the Quran and the Baha’i Writings, just like my children are today. They can make a thoroughly informed decision…

 

[Kliska]

Again, you skip the part of testing these people, and God tells us how to do so: Scripture lays out for us how to test these people; Do they confess that Jesus is the Son? Do they Confess that He is God? Do they confess that He has come in the flesh and rose from the dead physically? That’s the test; if they can pass it, then the rest of their words can be considered, if they don’t pass that test, then they are accursed. The Bahai faith teaches another gospel, in fact, they teach multiple other gospels.

Swift destruction, btw, refers to judgment. Bahai faith denies the Master, the Lord, that bought them; Jesus Christ. Obviously there is only one Lord, one Master that bought them, and it isn’t Muhammad, nor Bab, nor Baha’u’llah. They brought other gospels, and are hence, accursed according to scripture.

 

[Servant19]

Did you know that according to Judaism, Jesus is a heretic?

According to Hilchot Teshuva Chapter 3 Halacha 7:

You are a heretic if:
One who accepts there is one Master of the world but maintains He has a body or a form.
They do not have a portion in the world to come. Their souls are cut off and they are judged for their sins.

Also, Paul who calls the Judaic law “death” is also a heretic:

According to Hilchot Teshuva Chapter 3 Halacha 8[6]:

Three peoples who can be classified as ‘One Who Denies Torah’

• One who denies that even one verse or one word of Torah is from God. Including those who say: “Moses made these statements independently”
• One who denies Torah’s interpretation, the oral law or disputes the authority of its spokesmen as did Tzadok and Beitus
• One who says that though the Torah came from God, The Creator has replaced one mitzvah with another one and nullified the original Torah, like the Arabs (Muslims) and the Christians

According to Hilchot Teshuva 3:6 “Those who deny Torah do not have a portion in the world to come. Their souls are cut off and they are judged for their sins”.

So why is it okay for Christianity to stray so far away from Judaism and supersede it, bring in a “new” gospel, yet other Prophets who have showered humanity with an abundance of vivifying grace cannot?

Friend if you want to test the Spirit, don’t look at the conditions set by the previous doctrines etc. If that was the case, none of your forefathers would ever have allowed a heretic like Jesus or Paul to dictate their beliefs.

Look at the Person, look at His teachings and the fruits of their Claims OBJECTIVELY, and without PREJUDICE…

God bless you all in your search…

.

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

Dear friend, why are you looking for passages from human beings who have finite minds making definitive declarations about who God is?

Because if God wants to reveal Truth to us and have it passed on throughout the ages,
God’s preferred medium is Sacred Writings. God did not give the Torah to Moses for no
reason, neither were the books by prophets written in vain. How do we distinguish truth
from lie? God gives us a source to turn to for information. We are finite beings, yes, but
it is the Holy Spirit (whom Christians take as God) inspires chosen men to write down
Scripture that way we can not be deceived.

Jesus Himself never said that He is God, and HE WAS JESUS?
Were the Apostles greater than Jesus?
Did they know God better than Jesus to assign definitions upon God as if they were closer to God than Jesus Himself?

Which leads us back to John 8:58, “Jesus said to them: ‘Amen, amen I say
to you, before Abraham was, I AM’,” and the Jews attempt to stone him. He
also never said the that he was a prophet, did he? As for the Apostles, they
are not ontologically greater than Jesus, though in John 14:12, he did actual-
ly say that the Apostles would do a greater works than than Jesus even, but
that’s another matter. The Apostles didn’t know God better than Jesus, how-
ever they did know Jesus, and knew that he is God. Recall from John 20:28
when said to the resurrected Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” From that, we
have NO reason to believe that Thomas meant anything other than ascribing
to Jesus PERFECT DEITY. And again, the Apostles were not closer to God
than Jesus was, rather they were all close enough to Jesus to know that he
was in fact God in the Flesh.

Nevertheless, Baha’u’llah did write about this in one of His Tablets as follows:

" O Jamal! On this Day it is befitting that you should exhibit such love, compassion, humility, detachment and sanctity that none of the servants (of God) may inhale from your words and deeds, the unsavoury odour of the words and deeds of past communities who, on hearing merely one word, would immediately anathematize and curse one another, for "We have created souls to be in diverse states. There are those who have attained to the highest levels of spiritual comprehension while others are different therefrom. For example, one person envisages the Unseen the Transcendent, the Inaccessible One in the Person of the Manifestation without making any distinction or connection. Others there are who recognise the Person of the Manifestation as the Appearance of God ([Himself] or theophany, and consider the commands and prohibitions of the Manifestation to be identical with such as originate with the one True God. These two positions are both acceptable before the throne of God. If however, the supporters of these two positions should contend and quarrel with one another in their exposition of the two perspectives, both groups are, and hath ever been, rejected. This inasmuch as the purpose of the spiritual understanding and the exposition of the highest levels of the elucidation of the teachings is to attract the hearts, cause fellowship between souls, and further the propagation of the Cause of God. As a result of contention and disputation amongst those who hold to these two positions, there hath been and will ever result the dissipation of the Cause of God and both groups shall return to the hellfire despite the fact that they, in their own estimation, soar in the highest horizon of spiritual understanding."

Okay, the most I got from that was that the “Manifestation” is not to be confused with
the one True God. Perhaps I’m missing it, but I can’t find where Baha’u’llah is actually
called the Creator.

 

[Servant19]

Okay, the most I got from that was that the “Manifestation” is not to be confused with
the one True God. Perhaps I’m missing it, but I can’t find where Baha’u’llah is actually
called the Creator.

Here you go friend

peyman.info/cl/Baha’i/Others/ROB/V4/p118-144Ch08.html#p125

…specifically :

"Naught is seen in My temple but the Temple of God, and in My beauty but His Beauty, and in My being but His Being, and in My self but His Self, and in My movement but His Movement, and in My acquiescence but His Acquiescence, and in My pen but His Pen, the Mighty, the All-Praised. There hath not been in My soul but the Truth, and in Myself naught could be seen but God. The Holy Spirit Itself hath been generated through the agency of a single letter revealed by this Most Great Spirit, if ye be of them that comprehend."

 

[Servant19]

Judas,

I think you would do well to (even superficially) study the life and station of the Bab, the forerunner to Baha’u’llah.

He says that He is the Primal Point of Creation, the Point from which the Word gushes forth.

But He also says that in comparison to Baha’u’llah He is a brass ring upon Baha’u’llahs finger which Baha’u’llah plays with at His leisure.

The Bab says He is the “adorer” and Baha’u’llah is the “Adored One”

.

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

Did you know that according to Judaism, Jesus is a heretic?

According to Hilchot Teshuva Chapter 3 Halacha 7:

You are a heretic if:
One who accepts there is one Master of the world but maintains He has a body or a form.
They do not have a portion in the world to come. Their souls are cut off and they are judged for their sins.

Also, Paul who calls the Judaic law “death” is also a heretic:

According to Hilchot Teshuva Chapter 3 Halacha 8[6]:

Three peoples who can be classified as ‘One Who Denies Torah’ - One who denies that even one verse or one word of Torah is from God. Including those who say: “Moses made these statements independently”

• One who denies Torah’s interpretation, the oral law or disputes the authority of its spokesmen as did Tzadok and Beitus
• One who says that though the Torah came from God, The Creator has replaced one mitzvah with another one and nullified the original Torah, like the Arabs (Muslims) and the ChristiansAccording to Hilchot Teshuva 3:6 “Those who deny Torah do not have a portion in the world to come. Their souls are cut off and they are judged for their sins”.

So why is it okay for Christianity to stray so far away from Judaism and supersede it, bring in a “new” gospel, yet other Prophets who have showered humanity with an abundance of vivifying grace cannot?

.

So how far back can we date this Hilchot Teshuva? It seems that it’s part of the Mishneh
Torah, written round about **ONE THOUSAND YEARS **after Jesus came. What you need
is to provide a Jewish source contemporaneous with Jesus and/or a little before that.

What did the Jews of Jesus’ time believe? Ancient Judaism is not the
same as Modern Judaism today or even a thousand years ago, didn’t
you know that? The Jews didn’t even have a 100% fixed canon until
after the Temple fell and Judaism needed reformation to survive.

Try Again.

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

Judas,
I think you would do well to (even superficially) study the life and station of the Bab, the forerunner to Baha’u’llah.
He says that He is the Primal Point of Creation, the Point from which the Word gushes forth.
But He also says that in comparison to Baha’u’llah He is a brass ring upon Baha’u’llahs finger which Baha’u’llah plays with at His leisure.
The Bab says He is the “adorer” and Baha’u’llah is the “Adored One”

Okay he said it, now he needs to prove it with Scripture.

And on the “Adorer” and “Adored One,” no one is to
be adored (in the religious context) safe God alone.

 

[Kliska]

Did you know that according to Judaism, Jesus is a heretic?

And the Jewish leaders in Jesus’ day tried to kill Him for claiming to be God.

Also, Paul who calls the Judaic law “death” is also a heretic:

Yes, Paul the former Pharisee who converted because of a post-resurrection encounter with the bodily risen Jesus.

So why is it okay for Christianity to stray so far away from Judaism and supersede it, bring in a “new” gospel, yet other Prophets who have showered humanity with an abundance of vivifying grace cannot?

As has already been pointed out to you, Judaism had to change. Jesus was Jewish, and fulfilled the Old Covenant, and instituted a New Covenant. Jesus didn’t abolish, but fulfilled.

Friend if you want to test the Spirit, don’t look at the conditions set by the previous doctrines etc. If that was the case, none of your forefathers would ever have allowed a heretic like Jesus or Paul to dictate their beliefs.

This again is a fail, for the test of future teachers was set by God Himself in the very scripture you claim to accept as actual revelation, but don’t really believe. God set the test for those coming after Jesus, and even claiming to be teachers, prophets, and messiah’s after Him. The “prophets” of the Bahai faith don’t pass the tests.

We aren’t saying that to be mean, but rather to be clear. And we are clear because people’s eternal souls are at stake.

Look at the Person, look at His teachings and the fruits of their Claims OBJECTIVELY, and without PREJUDICE…

I do that often by comparing the life, death and resurrection of Jesus to Muhammad’s life, death and non-resurrection. And, indeed I see the fruits of the claims of false prophets.

 

[Servant19]

So how far back can we date this Hilchot Teshuva? It seems that it’s part of the Mishneh
Torah, written round about **ONE THOUSAND YEARS **after Jesus came. What you need
is to provide a Jewish source contemporaneous with Jesus and/or a little before that.

What did the Jews of Jesus’ time believe? Ancient Judaism is not the
same as Modern Judaism today or even a thousand years ago, didn’t
you know that? The Jews didn’t even have a 100% fixed canon until
after the Temple fell and Judaism needed reformation to survive.

Try Again.

So youre trying to tell me that a God-man being the Messiah is not heretical to ancient Judaism?

You’re also saying that how Paul refers to the Law as the “ministry of death”, surpassed and superseded by the Gospel, is not a heresy to Judaism?

“7 Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? 9 If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! 10 For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. 11 And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!”

Yet when a Prophet comes and does the exact same thing to Christianity as Paul has done to Judaism, you call Him a false Prophet?

I say there is no justice, and this is the Day of Judgement…

.

 

[Servant19]

As has already been pointed out to you, Judaism had to change. Jesus was Jewish, and fulfilled the Old Covenant, and instituted a New Covenant. Jesus didn’t abolish, but fulfilled.

And as the New Covenant asks us to follow Him to make us “fishers of men”, Baha’u’llah fulfills this and ask us to follow Him to become “quickeners of mankind”

It’s never superseded, it’s always “fulfilled” and “advanced”



.

 

[Servant19]

Okay he said it, now he needs to prove it with Scripture.

And on the “Adorer” and “Adored One,” no one is to
be adored (in the religious context) safe God alone.

Why does He need to prove it with Scripture? Jesus never did that…

“Say: God sufficeth all things above all things. And nothing in the heavens or on the earth, but God sufficeth! Verily, He is in Himself, the Knower, the Sustainer, the Omnipotent.”

• The Bab

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

Here you go friend

peyman.info/cl/Baha’i/Others/ROB/V4/p118-144Ch08.html#p125

…specifically :

"Naught is seen in My temple but the Temple of God, and in My beauty but His Beauty, and in My being but His Being, and in My self but His Self, and in My movement but His Movement, and in My acquiescence but His Acquiescence, and in My pen but His Pen, the Mighty, the All-Praised. There hath not been in My soul but the Truth, and in Myself naught could be seen but God. The Holy Spirit Itself hath been generated through the agency of a single letter revealed by this Most Great Spirit, if ye be of them that comprehend."

Okay, so he is explicitly equating himself with God, but you also said,

And so did the Apostles of Baha’u’llah (Identify him as God), and thats coming from an EDUCATED Islamic background where the appearance of God in human form is totally a heresy, yet they saw in Baha’u’llah, God as a theophany.

So why in the Lights of Guidance (by Bahá’u’lláh, Abdu’l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi, and the Universal House of Justice, compiled by Helen Hornby) does it read:1553. Bahá’u’lláh is not God—But Through Him We Can Know God

“As regards your question: Bahá’u’lláh is, of course, not God and not the Creator; but through Him we can
know God, and because of this position of Divine Intermediary, in a sense, He ( or the other Prophets ) is
all we can ever know of that Infinite Essence which is God. Therefore, we address ourselves in prayer and
thought to Him, or through Him to that Infinite Essence behind and beyond Him.”

(From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, June 4, 1951)
​

The apparent Baha’i doctrine seems to be that no matter how close Baha’u’llah may be to the one and only God, the difference between Baha’u’llah and God
is as vast as the gulf between the creature and the Creator. Is that not how I am to understand this Baha’i doctrine? The Apostles clearly saw Jesus different-
ly from how the followers, even the early followers of Baha’u’llah. Jesus said identified himself as the I AM, the Apostles of Jesus very explicitly presented the
Jesus they knew as God, even the disciples of the Apostles continued to carry on the idea that Jesus and God were the exact same being, and though there
have been doctrinal battles over both the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit the Church was guided to hold firm that there was no differ–
ence between him and the very God who created all things.

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

Why does He need to prove it with Scripture? Jesus never did that…

“Say: God sufficeth all things above all things. And nothing in the heavens or on the earth, but God sufficeth! Verily, He is in Himself, the Knower, the Sustainer, the Omnipotent.”

• The Bab

Perhaps I shouldn’t target Baha’u’llah, but it should be the responsibility of the Baha’i.

Anyway, the Gospels (written by the Apostles) show how Jesus fulfilled many of the prophecies
which spoke of him from times of old. Jesus gave sight to the blind, speech to the mute, made
the deaf hear and lame walk, why he even raised the dead, just as the Scriptures claimed. God
gave us prophets so that we can test all things and Jesus passed the test.

 

[Kliska]

And as the New Covenant asks us to follow Him to make us “fishers of men”, Baha’u’llah fulfills this and ask us to follow Him to become “quickeners of mankind”

It’s never superseded, it’s always “fulfilled” and “advanced”.

Now, now, you skipped right over the first bit; the New Covenant asks us to follow who? Jesus; He is the ONLY one that purchased us, to follow another gospel is to spit in His face. Now, lets test the spirits;

Do you confess and testify that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God? Do you testify that He is Divine, being truly God as well as truly man? Do you testify that He came in a bodily incarnation, lived a perfect life, was crucified and physically rose 3 days later?

If you cannot testify to those things, then you are not teaching truth, for that is the first hurdle to pass.

 

[daler]

Okay, so he is explicitly equating himself with God, but you also said,

So why in the Lights of Guidance (by Bahá’u’lláh, Abdu’l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi, and the Universal House of Justice, compiled by Helen Hornby) does it read:1553. Bahá’u’lláh is not God—But Through Him We Can Know God

“As regards your question: Bahá’u’lláh is, of course, not God and not the Creator; but through Him we can
know God, and because of this position of Divine Intermediary, in a sense, He ( or the other Prophets ) is
all we can ever know of that Infinite Essence which is God. Therefore, we address ourselves in prayer and
thought to Him, or through Him to that Infinite Essence behind and beyond Him.”

(From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, June 4, 1951)
​

The apparent Baha’i doctrine seems to be that no matter how close Baha’u’llah may be to the one and only God, the difference between Baha’u’llah and God
is as vast as the gulf between the creature and the Creator. Is that not how I am to understand this Baha’i doctrine? The Apostles clearly saw Jesus different-
ly from how the followers, even the early followers of Baha’u’llah. Jesus said identified himself as the I AM, the Apostles of Jesus very explicitly presented the
Jesus they knew as God, even the disciples of the Apostles continued to carry on the idea that Jesus and God were the exact same being, and though there
have been doctrinal battles over both the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit the Church was guided to hold firm that there was no differ–
ence between him and the very God who created all things.

Judas,
. Just happened upon this thread today. The Baha’is see the Manifestations of God as Perfect Mirrors reflecting the Attributes of God. In Their Presence is His Presence, yet He is not composed of elements, such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. The physical “person” is composed of elements, whether that be you or me, or Jesus or Baha’u’llah.

. Baha’u’llah states that God “can in no wise incarnate His Essence”, so when we speak of “His Essence”, we are not speaking of His Manifestation which appears in human form.

. We might also say that God fashions for Himself an Instrument, a Divine Pen, which is the means of His expression and communication to mankind, whether verbal or written. We do not say that this Pen which He has fashioned is God.

. From your Christian theology, you say that the “Pen” which is named Jesus is God. Baha’is do not state the position of the Manifestation of God in this way. Understand, however, that if God, through the Instrument of His Pen, says to us: “I am God”, that this is indeed the Voice of God. It is in this sense that people may refer to the Manifestation of God as God, but for Baha’is, there is always this distinction that God is not compressed into human form and appearance. He is not subject to the laws of gravity, composition, and decomposition.

. That there is a “gulf” between God and any created thing, including the physical Person of His Manifestation refers to His supreme Station which is infinitely above all corporeal existence, names, numbers, or anything which the human mind can comprehend. That which we can comprehend appears to us in the Person of the Manifestation of God. His Words are the Words of God. His Presence is the Presence of God. Yet God is exalted above even this blessed Soul Who appears to teach us God’s truth and reveal His religion to us.

. When Jesus says: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man cometh to the Father but by Me.” this refers to the “Manifestation of God”, Who is that Way, Truth, and Life. The Sufis, for example, think that they can attain the presence of God independently from Muhammad, or Jesus, or Moses, etc. Baha’u’llah says this is not possible. This concept applies to any age or any Manifestation and to all people. Our only access to God is through Him Who is the Manifestation of God.

. Does this help?

. God bless
.