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The Day of Judgment |
… so shall it be in the end of this world [consummation
of the age]. The Son of man shall send
forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom
all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And
shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing
and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth
as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.—Matt. xiii,
40–43.
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The phrase “end of the world” used in the Authorized
Version of the Bible in this and similar passages has led many
to suppose that when the Day of Judgment comes, the earth
will suddenly be destroyed, but this is evidently a mistake. The
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true translation of the phrase appears to be “the consummation
or end of the age.” Christ teaches that the Kingdom of the
Father is to be established on earth, as well as in heaven. He
teaches us to pray: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on
earth as it is in heaven.” In the parable of the Vineyard, when
the Father, the Lord of the Vineyard, comes to destroy the
wicked husbandmen, He does not destroy the vineyard (the
world) also, but lets it out to other husbandmen, who will
render Him the fruits in their season. The earth is not to be
destroyed, but to be renewed and regenerated. Christ speaks of
that day on another occasion as “the regeneration when the
Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory.” St. Peter speaks
of it as “the times of refreshing,” “the times of restitution of
all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy
prophets since the world began.” The Day of Judgment of
which Christ speaks is evidently identical with the coming of
the Lord of Hosts, the Father, which was prophesied by Isaiah
and the other Old Testament prophets; a time of terrible punishment
for the wicked, but a time in which justice shall be
established and righteousness rule, on earth as in heaven.
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In the Bahá’í interpretation, the coming of each Manifestation
of God is a Day of Judgment, but the coming of the
supreme Manifestation of Bahá’u’lláh is the great Day of Judgment
for the world cycle in which we are living. The trumpet
blast of which Christ and Muḥammad and many other prophets
speak is the call of the Manifestation, which is sounded for all
who are in heaven and on earth—the embodied and the disembodied.
The meeting with God, through His Manifestation,
is, for those who desire to meet Him, the gateway to the
Paradise of knowing and loving Him, and living in love with all
His creatures. Those, on the other hand, who prefer their own
way to God’s way, as revealed by the Manifestation, thereby
consign themselves to the hell of selfishness, error and enmity.
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