A new version of the Bahá’í Reference Library is now available. This ‘old version’ of the Bahá’í Reference Library will be replaced at a later date.
The new version of the Bahá’i Reference Library can be accessed here »
A new version of the Bahá’í Reference Library is now available. This ‘old version’ of the Bahá’í Reference Library will be replaced at a later date.
The new version of the Bahá’i Reference Library can be accessed here »
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The Great Resurrection |
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The Day of Judgment is also the Day of Resurrection, of
the raising of the dead. St. Paul in his First Epistle to the
Corinthians says:—221
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Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep,
but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound,
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be
changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption,
and this mortal must put on immortality.—I Cor. xv,
51–53.
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… By the terms “life” and “death,” spoken of in the
scriptures, is intended the life of faith and the death of
unbelief. The generality of the people, owing to their failure
to grasp the meaning of these words, rejected and despised
the person of the Manifestation, deprived themselves
of the light of His divine guidance, and refused to
follow the example of that immortal Beauty. … … Even as Jesus said: “Ye must be born again” [John iii, 7]. Again He saith: “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” [John iii, 5–6]. The purpose of these words is that whosoever in every dispensation is born of the Spirit and is quickened by the breath of the Manifestation of Holiness, he verily is of those that have attained unto “life” and “resurrection” and have entered into the “paradise” of the love of God. And whosoever is not of them, is condemned to “death” and “deprivation,” to the “fire” of unbelief, and to the “wrath” of God. … In every age and century, the purpose of the Prophets of God and their chosen ones hath been no other but to affirm the spiritual significance of the terms “life,” “resurrection,” and “judgment.” … Wert thou to attain to but a dewdrop of the crystal waters of divine knowledge, thou wouldst readily realize that true life is not the life of the flesh but the life of the spirit. For the life of the flesh is common to both men and animals, whereas the life of 222 the spirit is possessed only by the pure in heart who have quaffed from the ocean of faith and partaken of the fruit of certitude. This life knoweth no death, and this existence is crowned by immortality. Even as it hath been said: “He who is a true believer liveth both in this world and in the world to come.” If by “life” be meant this earthly life, it is evident that death must needs overtake it.—Kitáb-i-Íqán, pp. 114, 118, 120–21. |
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Resurrection is the birth of the individual to spiritual life,
through the gift of the Holy Spirit bestowed through the Manifestation
of God. The grave from which he arises is the grave
of ignorance and negligence of God. The sleep from which he
awakens is the dormant spiritual condition in which many
await the dawn of the Day of God. This dawn illumines all
who have lived on the face of the earth, whether they are in the
body or out of the body, but those who are spiritually blind
cannot perceive it. The Day of Resurrection is not a day of
twenty-four hours, but an era which has now begun and will
last as long as the present world cycle continues. It will continue
when all traces of the present civilization will have been
wiped off the surface of the globe.
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