Brief compilation on Jesus, the Independent Prophet who appeared after Moses.

1)
The following passage on the two classes of Prophets names Abraham, Moses, Christ, Muhammad, the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh as "Manifestations of universal Prophethood" (Independent Prophets). Solomon, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel are examples of Dependent/Lesser Prophets.

THE TWO CLASSES OF PROPHETS

Question.--How many kinds of Prophets are there? Answer.--Universally, the Prophets are of two kinds. One are the independent Prophets Who are followed; the other kind are not independent and are themselves followers.

The independent Prophets are the lawgivers and the founders of a new cycle. Through Their appearance the world puts on a new garment, the foundations of religion are established, and a new book is revealed. Without an intermediary They receive bounty from the Reality of the Divinity, and Their illumination is an essential illumination. They are like the sun which is luminous in itself: the light is its essential necessity; it does not receive light from any other star. These Dawning-places of the morn of Unity are the sources of bounty and the mirrors of the Essence of Reality.

The other Prophets are followers and promoters, for they are branches and not independent; they receive the bounty of the independent Prophets, and they profit by the light of the Guidance of the universal Prophets. They are like the moon, which is not luminous and radiant in itself, but receives its light from the sun.

The Manifestations of universal Prophethood Who appeared independently are, for example, Abraham, Moses, Christ, Muhammad, the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh. But the others who are followers and promoters are like Solomon, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. For the independent Prophets are founders; They establish a new religion and make new creatures of men; They change the general morals, promote new customs and rules, renew the cycle and the Law. Their appearance is like the season of spring, which arrays all earthly beings in a new garment, and gives them a new life.

With regard to the second sort of Prophets who are followers, these also promote the Law of God, make known the Religion of God, and proclaim His word. Of themselves they have no power and might, except what they receive from the independent Prophets.
-- `Abdu'l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, p.165


2)
The pre-existence of Christ (Independent Prophet):

EXPLANATION OF VERSE FIVE, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, OF THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN

"And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was."

There are two kinds of priorities: one is essential and is not preceded by a cause, but its existence is in itself, as, for example, the sun has light in itself, for its shining is not dependent on the light of other stars. This is called an essential light. But the light of the moon is received from the sun, for the moon is dependent on the sun for its light; therefore, the sun, with regard to light, is the cause, and the moon becomes the effect. The former is the ancient, the precedent, the antecedent, while the latter is the preceded and the last.

The second sort of preexistence is the preexistence of time, and that has no beginning. The Word of God is sanctified from time. The past, the present, the future, all, in relation to God, are equal. Yesterday, today, tomorrow do not exist in the sun.

In the same way there is a priority with regard to glory--that is to say, the most glorious precedes the glorious. Therefore, the Reality of Christ, Who is the Word of God, with regard to essence, attributes and glory, certainly precedes the creatures. Before appearing in the human form, the Word of God was in the utmost sanctity and glory, existing in perfect beauty and splendor in the height of its magnificence. When through the wisdom of God the Most High it shone from the heights of glory in the world of the body, the Word of God, through this body, became oppressed, so that it fell into the hands of the Jews, and became the captive of the tyrannical and ignorant, and at last was crucified. That is why He addressed God, saying: "Free Me from the bonds of the world of the body, and liberate Me from this cage, so that I may ascend to the heights of honor and glory, and attain unto the former grandeur and might which existed before the bodily world, that I may rejoice in the eternal world and may ascend to the original abode, the placeless world, the invisible kingdom."
-- `Abdu'l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, p. 11


3)
All the Prophets (i.e. both Independent Prophets and Dependent/Lesser Prophets) are seated on the same throne. As indicated in the subsequent passage, Jesus (an Independent Prophet) ruled on the throne of David (a Dependent Prophet in the era of Moses).

It is clear and evident to thee that all the Prophets are the Temples of the Cause of God, Who have appeared clothed in divers attire. If thou wilt observe with discriminating eyes, thou wilt behold them all abiding in the same tabernacle, soaring in the same heaven, seated upon the same throne, uttering the same speech, and proclaiming the same Faith. Such is the unity of those Essences of being, those Luminaries of infinite and immeasurable splendour. Wherefore, should one of these Manifestations of Holiness proclaim saying: "I am the return of all the Prophets," He verily speaketh the truth. In like manner, in every subsequent Revelation, the return of the former Revelation is a fact, the truth of which is firmly established. Inasmuch as the return of the Prophets of God, as attested by verses and traditions, hath been conclusively demonstrated, the return of their chosen ones also is therefore definitely proven. This return is too manifest in itself to require any evidence or proof.
-- Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 153

The obstacle which prevents the so-called religious man from accepting the teachings of God is literal interpretation. Moses announced the coming of Christ. The Israelites were awaiting him with the greatest impatience and anxiety, but when he came they called him Beelzebub. "The conditions laid down in the Bible for the coming of the expected one were not fulfilled," they said. They did not understand that the conditions were symbolical.

For instance, it is written -- "He will come from an unknown place." Jesus came from Nazareth. "How can this be the Messiah?" they reasoned. "It is written -- he will carry an iron scepter, that is to say, his shepherd's staff will be a sword. This man has no sword. It was prophesised -- he will be seated on the throne of David; behold this man has not so much as a mat whereon to sit. He was to spread the law of Moses; this man, on the contrary, seeks to destroy it. How can he be the promulgator of God's law?" they scornfully laughed.

It was prophesised that the east and west would be united under the Jewish law; the animals would be at peace one with another; that the wolf would no longer devour the sheep. They did not see these conditions fulfilled. Roman tyranny enveloped the world and they crucified the Christ.

The Jews were blind to reality. The real Christ came from the city of light in the eternal realms Christ is a king. His shepherd's staff, that is, his tongue, was a sword dividing the true from the false. The throne of David is not a material throne but an eternal kingdom. Christ re-established this kingdom; it has been forgotten. Christ conquered the east and the west. This means a spiritual victory, not a material one.
-- Abdu'l-Baha, Divine Philosophy, p. 35

653. If Christians of all denominations and divisions should investigate reality, the foundations of His Holiness Christ would unite them. No enmity or hatred will remain for they will all be under the one guidance of reality itself. Likewise in the wider field, if all the existing religious systems will turn away from ancestral imitations and investigate the reality, seeking the real meanings of the Holy Books, they will unite and agree upon the same foundation, the reality itself. As long as they follow counterfeit doctrines or imitations instead of reality, animosity and discord will exist and increase. Let me illustrate this. His Holiness Moses and the prophets of Israel announced the advent of the Messiah but expressed it in the language of symbols. When His Holiness Christ appeared, the Jews rejected Him although they were expecting His manifestation, and in their temples and synagogues were crying and lamenting, saying "O God, hasten the coming of the Messiah!" Why did thy deny Him when He announced Himself? Because they had followed ancestral forms and interpretations and were blind to the reality of Christ [i.e. the Manifestation of God]. They had not perceived the inner significances of the Holy Bible. They voiced their objections, saying, "We are expecting His Holiness Christ, but His coming is conditioned upon certain fulfillments and prophetic announcements. Among the signs of His appearance is one that He shall come from an unknown place, whereas now this claimant of Messiahship has come from Nazareth. We home and we are acquainted with his mother.
"Second: One of the signs or messianic conditions is that his scepter would be an iron rod, and this Christ has not even a wooden staff.
"Third: He was to be seated upon the throne of David whereas this messianic king is in the utmost state of poverty and has not even a mat.
-- Compilations, Baha'i Scriptures, p. 331


4)
11:25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
11:26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
11:27 She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.
-- King James Bible, John.

2:19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
2:20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
-- King James Bible, Ephesians.


5)
XXXVI. Know thou that when the Son of Man [Jesus] yielded up His breath to God, the whole creation wept with a great weeping. By sacrificing Himself, however, a fresh capacity was infused into all created things. Its evidences, as witnessed in all the peoples of the earth, are now manifest before thee. The deepest wisdom which the sages have uttered, the profoundest learning which any mind hath unfolded, the arts which the ablest hands have produced, the influence exerted by the most potent of rulers, are but manifestations of the quickening power released by His transcendent, His all-pervasive, and resplendent Spirit.

We testify that when He came into the world, He shed the splendor of His glory upon all created things. Through Him the leper recovered from the leprosy of perversity and ignorance. Through Him, the unchaste and wayward were healed. Through His power, born of Almighty God, the eyes of the blind were opened, and the soul of the sinner sanctified.

Leprosy may be interpreted as any veil that interveneth between man and the recognition of the Lord, his God. Whoso alloweth himself to be shut out from Him is indeed a leper, who shall not be remembered in the Kingdom of God, the Mighty, the All-Praised. We bear witness that through the power of the Word of God every leper was cleansed, every sickness was healed, every human infirmity was banished. He it is Who purified the world. Blessed is the man who, with a face beaming with light, hath turned towards Him.
-- Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 85


6)
Surely for everything there is an all-comprehending wisdom; especially for the great and important affairs of life. The supreme and most important happening in the human world is the Manifestation of God and the descent of the law of God. The holy, divine Manifestations did not reveal themselves for the purpose of founding a nation, sect or faction. They did not appear in order that a certain number might acknowledge their prophethood. They did not declare their heavenly mission and message in order to lay the foundation for a religious belief. Even His Holiness Christ did not become manifest that we should merely believe in him as the Christ, follow him and adore his mention. All these are limited in scope and requirement whereas the Reality of Christ is an unlimited essence. The infinite and unlimited Reality cannot be bounded by any limitation. Nay, rather His Holiness Christ appeared in order to illumine the world of humanity, to render the earthly world celestial, to make the human kingdom a realm of angels, to unite the hearts, to enkindle the light of love in human souls, so that such souls might become independent, attaining complete unity and fellowship, turning to God, entering into the divine Kingdom, receiving the bounties and bestowals of God and partaking of the manna from heaven. Through Christ they were intended to be baptized by the Holy Spirit, attain a new spirit and realize the life everlasting. All the holy precepts and the announcements of prophetic laws were for these various and heavenly purposes. Therefore we offer thanks to God that although no earthly relation obtains among us, yet -- Praise be to God! -- ideal and divine bonds blend us together. We have gathered here in this meeting, eagerly anticipating the showing forth of the divine bestowals.
-- Abdu'l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p. 104.


7)
In one era he is called Abraham, at another time Moses, again he is called Buddha, another time Jesus, and yet another time Mohammad. All turned to the divine reality for their strength. Those who followed Moses accepted him as their mediator; those who followed Zoroaster accepted him as their mediator; but all the Israelites deny Zoroaster, and the Zoroastrians deny Moses. They fail to see in both the one light. Had the Zoroastrians comprehended the reality of Zoroaster, they would have understood Moses and Jesus. Alas! the majority of men attach themselves to the name of the mediator and lose sight of the real purport.
-- Abdu'l-Baha, Divine Philosophy, p. 32


8)
3:84. Say: "We believe in Allah, and in what has been revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham, Isma'il, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and in (Books) given to Moses, Jesus, and the Prophets, from their Lord; we make no distinction between one and another among them, and to Allah do we bow our will (in Islam)."
3:85. If anyone desires a religion other than Islam (submission to Allah), never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter he will be in the ranks of those who have lost (all spiritual good).
3:86. How shall Allah guide those who reject faith after they accepted it and bore witness that the Messenger was true and that clear signs had come unto them? But Allah guides not a people unjust.
-- The Qur'an (Yusuf Ali tr), Surah 3

2:87. We gave Moses the Book and followed him up with a succession of Messengers; We gave Jesus the son of Mary clear (Signs) and strengthened him with the holy spirit. Is it that whenever there comes to you a Messenger with what ye yourselves desire not, ye are puffed up with pride? Some ye called impostors, and others ye slay!
2:88. They say, "Our hearts are the wrappings (which preserve Allah's word, we need no more)." Nay, Allah's curse is on them for their blasphemy; little is it they believe.
2:89. And when there comes to them a Book from Allah, confirming what is with them, although from of old they had prayed for victory against those without faith, when there comes to them that which they (should) have recognized, they refused to believe in it; but the curse of Allah is on those without Faith.
-- The Qur'an (Yusuf Ali tr), Surah 2.


9)
To conclude: in the Book of Daniel, from the rebuilding of Jerusalem to the martyrdom of Christ [crucified by Jews, who rejected Him], seventy weeks are appointed; for by the martyrdom of Christ the sacrifice is accomplished and the altar destroyed. This is a prophecy of the manifestation of Christ.
-- `Abdu'l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, p. 40

10)
This fatherhood and sonship are allegorical and symbolical. The Messianic reality is like unto a mirror through which the sun of divinity has become resplendent. If this mirror expresses "The light is in me" - it is sincere in its claim; therefore Jesus was truthful when he said, "The Father is in me."
The sun in the sky and the sun in the mirror are one, are they not? - and yet we see there are apparently two suns.
The Jews were expecting the coming of the Messiah, lamenting day and night, saying: "O God, send to us our deliverer!" But as they walked in the path of dogmas, rather than reality, when the Messiah appeared they denied him. Had they been investigators of reality, they would not have crucified - but would have recognized him instantly.
-- Abdu'l-Baha, Divine Philosophy, p. 152

The epitome of the discourse is that the Reality of Christ was a clear mirror, and the Sun of Reality -- that is to say, the Essence of Oneness, with its infinite perfections and attributes -- became visible in the mirror. The meaning is not that the Sun, which is the Essence of the Divinity, became divided and multiplied -- for the Sun is one -- but it appeared in the mirror. This is why Christ said, "The Father is in the Son," meaning that the Sun is visible and manifest in this mirror.
-- Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 114


11)
His Holiness Moses and the prophets of Israel announced the advent of the Messiah but expressed it in the language of symbols. When His Holiness Christ appeared, the Jews rejected Him although they were expecting His manifestation, and in their temples and synagogues were crying and lamenting, saying "O God, hasten the coming of the Messiah!" Why did thy deny Him when He announced Himself? Because they had followed ancestral forms and interpretations and were blind to the reality of Christ [i.e. the Manifestation of God]. They had not perceived the inner significances of the Holy Bible. They voiced their objections, saying, "We are expecting His Holiness Christ, but His coming is conditioned upon certain fulfillments and prophetic announcements. Among the signs of His appearance is one that He shall come from an unknown place, whereas now this claimant of Messiahship has come from Nazareth. We home and we are acquainted with his mother.
"Second: One of the signs or messianic conditions is that his scepter would be an iron rod, and this Christ has not even a wooden staff.
"Third: He was to be seated upon the throne of David whereas this messianic king is in the utmost state of poverty and has not even a mat.
-- Compilations, Baha'i Scriptures, p. 331


12)
O thou, the firm one in the Covenant! Give my respectful greeting to they honored wife and say to her from me: "The Jewish people were expecting the manifestation of Jesus and were at the same time attracted to Moses. When His Holiness Christ appeared, they (the Jewish people) thought that holy personality intended to take away the eternal honor of Moses. Moses, in the eye of Israel, had no equal. Now, these had never thought that a greater than him (Moses) would appear. So this way of thinking became the cause of their being kept away from the Light of Christ and they were prevented from the precious things of the Holy Spirit, notwithstanding the fact that the greatest friend of Moses was Christ and He made His Holiness Moses great in the eye of the world and made Him to be glorious in the contingent world; whereas, even now, Israel (that is, the Jews) deny His Holiness, the promised Christ, and count Him to be an enemy of His Holiness Moses and of Aaron and David; and they were kept away from the bounties of Christ. They think that no other great person like Moses could ever come upon the earth and if such a person should be sent (by God), he must come under the shadow of His Holiness Moses and promulgate the law of the Torah. This negligence on the part of the Jews became the cause of keeping away a multitude from the heavenly bounties and from the beneficence of the Holy Spirit for nineteen-hundred [now 2,000] years.

"The Sun is ever the same, but the place whence the Sun hath appeared hath changed. Then, at Christ's time, it appeared in the sign of Aquarius, but now it hath manifested itself from the sign of Cancer. These signs are just for an illustration. The sun is the same sun, no matter from what sign it may manifest itself or from what spot it may arise. Thou must look at the Sun; do not become veiled by the places from which the Sun appears."
-- Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets of Abdu'l-Baha v2, p. 341


13)
And it is a basic principle of the Law of God that in every Prophetic Mission, He entereth into a Covenant with all believers -- a Covenant that endureth until the end of that Mission, until the promised day when the Personage stipulated at the outset of the Mission is made manifest. Consider Moses, He Who conversed with God. Verily, upon Mount Sinai, Moses entered into a Covenant regarding the Messiah, with all those souls who would live in the day of the Messiah. And those souls, although they appeared many centuries after Moses, were nevertheless -- so far as the Covenant, which is outside time, was concerned -- present there with Moses. The Jews, however, were heedless of this and remembered it not, and thus they suffered a great and clear loss.
-- Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 206


14)
Similarly the Jews were believers in His Holiness Moses, awaiting the coming of the Messiah. The virtues and perfections of Moses became apparent in His Holiness Jesus Christ most effulgently but the Jews held to the name Moses, not adoring the virtues and perfections manifest in him. Had they been adoring these virtues and seeking these perfections they would assuredly have believed in His Holiness Jesus Christ when the same virtues and perfections shone in him.
-- Abdu'l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p. 16


15)
The Jews were expecting the appearance of the Messiah, looking forward to it with devotion of heart and soul but because they were submerged in imitations they did not believe in His Holiness Jesus Christ when he appeared. Finally they rose against Him even to the extreme of persecution and shedding His blood. Had they investigated reality they would have accepted their promised Messiah. These blind imitations and hereditary prejudices have invariably become the cause of bitterness and hatred and have filled the world with darkness and violence of war. Therefore we must seek the fundamental truth in order to extricate ourselves from such conditions and then with illumined faces find the pathway to the kingdom of God.
-- Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith - Abdu'l-Baha Section, p. 238




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