Resurrection.

 

194. Resurrection is a term used  in the bible to denote the raising of the dead, but there is more to it than that: Bahá’ís or Babis do not look at the raising of the dead during the time of the resurrection as an event that will take place physically in this physical plane of existence, but as a spiritual event where the dead coming to life means man now has the belief in the new word of God and starts living the life accordingly:  Babi Religion: “This is the Day of Resurrection,’ he told her, ‘the day when all secrets shall be searched out. Not by their outward appearance, but by the character of their beliefs and the manner of their lives, does God judge His creatures, be they men or women.”’

The Bab: (Shoghi Effendi, The Dawn-Breakers, p. 551)

 CHRISTIANITY: Matthew 22:31 “But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,” Matthew 22:32 “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Luke 20:36 “Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” Luke 20:37 “Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth The Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Luke 20:38 “For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.” Thomas 2:51 “His (Jesus’) disciples said to Him, ‘When will the repose of the dead come about, and when will the new world come?’ He said to them, ‘What you look forward to has already come, but you do not recognize it.’” (The Gospel of Thomas) Thomas 2:50 “We are… (God’s) children, we are the elect of the Living Father.’ If they ask you, ‘What is the sign of your Father in you?’ say to them, ‘It is movement and repose.”’ 2:60 “He said to them, ‘You too, look for a place for yourself within the Repose, lest you become a corpse,” 2:61 “Jesus said, ‘Two will rest on a bed: the one will die, and other will live,” or one will be spiritually blind and dead to the word of God, becoming a symbolic corpse, and the other will be liberated and live onto the word of God or be spiritually awakened and be taken up into the non-literal kingdom of God that is found within us: Luke 17:20 “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:” Luke 17:21 “Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” Thomas 2:3 “The Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you,” or found within us and all around us where ever we might find our self.

Clearly the repose talked about here by Thomas is not the rest in the grave envisioned by many when they think of the meaning of the word repose, but something fundamentally different. The true believer bows and shows reverence to God when he reposes himself physically or mentally in worship to God, so the meaning of the word is apparently different symbolically from what first comes to mind: Thomas 2:90 “Jesus said, ‘Come unto me and you will find repose for yourselves.”’  According to Luke and Thomas the dead have already risen. Jesus tells us in Luke that he considers the dead to have already risen during his ministry, “Now that the dead are raised,” and Jesus earlier in Matthew states that “the resurrection of the dead,” was happening, and in Luke 20:36 the children of the resurrection which he states in Luke 20:37 are the dead being raised, which argues the point that the spiritual dead had risen from the graves of their bodies and became living souls believing in Christ. And this is further re-enforced by Thomas stating that according to Jesus the raising of the dead and the coming of the new world had already happened and they just didn’t recognize it for what it was.

BAHA’I FAITH: “And the time of the dead, that they should be judged means that the time has come that the dead, that is to say, those who are deprived of the spirit of the love of God and have not a share of the sanctified eternal life — will be judged with justice, meaning they will arise to receive that which they deserve.”

(Bahá’í faith, Abdu’l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 58)

 BABI RELIGION: “THE Day of Resurrection is a day on which the sun riseth and setteth like unto any other day. How oft hath the Day of Resurrection dawned, and the people of the land where it occurred did not learn of the event. Had they heard, they would not have believed, and thus they were not told!”

(The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 78)

This resurrection, or rising of the dead is not unique and only for that given time. The raising of the dead happens whenever a new messenger of God appears and mankind is asked to open up their hearts to a new messiah.  Babi Religion: “True resurrection from the sepulchers means to be quickened in conformity with His Will, through the power of His utterance.” “The Day He revealeth Himself is Resurrection Day which shall last as long as He ordaineth.”

(The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 157)

During the time of Christ that new Messiah was Jesus and if you turned to the words of Jesus your heart would be opened to God’s new message for the day and you became a living soul believing in the true word of God. In this day the new manifestation for this day is Bahá’u’lláh and we are asked to turn to the ocean of his wisdom for our enlightenment and understanding, as in times past we were ask to turn to other manifestations of God for the resurrection of the soul.  Judaism: 2 Maccabees 7:14 “So when he was ready to die he said thus, It is good, being put to death by men, to look for hope from God to be raised up again by Him: as for thee, thou shalt have no resurrection to life.” 7:35 “For thou hast not yet escaped the judgment of Almighty God, who seeth all things.” (Deuterocanonical Apocrypha) Ecclesiastes 12:14 “God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” Jeremiah 8:7 “Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of The LORD.”

BAHA’I FAITH: “The Bugle hath sounded, the Trumpet hath been blown, the Crier hath raised his call, and all upon the earth have swooned away — but still do the dead, in the tombs of their bodies, sleep on.”

(Bahá’í Faith, Abdu’l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, p. 13)

 BABI RELIGION: “Thus hath Thy Lord put thee to proof in the Day of Resurrection. Verily He is the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.” “Verily He doth exercise undisputed authority over His revelations unto all mankind.”

(The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab, pp. 29 and 33)

 CHRISTIANITY: Matthew 11:5 “The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” The dead, as I just stated, were raised up symbolically by having the gospel preached to them and then answering the call which made them living souls in the cause of God. All those people that remained wrapped in the dense veils of self remained trapped in the prisons of their flesh unaware of the new light that had dawned on the new spiritual horizon engulfing the world. Matthew 27:52 “And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,” Matthew 27:53 “And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.” John 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:” Jesus tells us quite plainly here, that he is the resurrection and those people though they are spiritually dead will become spiritually alive, coming out of the grave of self, if they believe in him. 1 Peter 4:6 “For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.” John 4:23 “The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.”

 BABI RELIGION: “We had called thee into being for the purpose of attaining Our presence in the Day of Resurrection.”

(The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 29)

BAHA’I FAITH: ‘“That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.’ It is evident, therefore, according to Christ that the human spirit which is not fortified by the presence of the Holy Spirit is dead and in need of resurrection by that divine power; otherwise, though materially advanced to high degrees, man cannot attain full and complete progress.”

(Bahá’í Faith, Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 182)

 ISLAM: 18. “That Day shall ye be brought to Judgment: not an act of yours that ye hide will be hidden.” 56. “But those endued with knowledge and faith will say: ‘Indeed ye did tarry, within Allah’s (God‘s) Decree, to the Day of Resurrection, and this is the Day of Resurrection: but ye were not aware!” Muhammad declares his day to be the day of resurrection for his day though the populous in general were unaware of that fact.

(The Qur’an (Yusuf Ali tr), Surahs 30 and 69)

Islam: “This is the judgment (day) of Allah and His Apostle, (Muhammad declared).” Resurrection is at hand.

(Hadith, Bukhari Vol 9, Book 84, # 58)

Islam: “But they to whom knowledge and faith have been given will say, Ye have waited, in accordance with the book of God, till the day of Resurrection: for this is the day of the Resurrection – but ye knew it not.”

(The Qur’an (Rodwell tr), Sura 30 – The Greeks)

 ZOROASTRIANISM: “O Lord! make the world of Resurrection appear, at Thy will, under Thy sovereign rule.”

(Zoroaster, The Zend-Avesta, Avesta – Vendidad 11)

 Zoroastrianism: Denkard. Zoroaster, “He foretold the cessation or disappearance of idolatry, misery and demon-worship, as well as all sorts of pernicious pollution, decay, and ruin from water, fire, earth, and other good things of creation, from the districts of Iran, and the prevalence therein of renewed courage and victory for the religion of Ohrmazd (Ahura Mazda, God) in the millennium of Zartosht; and that, finally (i.e. at the time of the resurrection), in accordance with the will and decree of the Almighty”  “The resurrection all men for their fidelity to the Mazdayasnian religion shall be renovated by means of their good-natured or virtuous deeds, and shall in their conduct obey the precepts of the Gathas.” Zoroaster states the true meaning of the resurrection clearly, like he does on so many other occasions, the dead, on the day of resurrection will be renovated, by their fidelity, thereby becoming living souls obeying the rules of the Gathas.

 HINDUISM: 3. “Here (shall be) thy (life’s) spirit, here thy in-breathing, here thy life, here thy mind! We rescue thee from the toils of Nirriti (destruction) by means of our divine utterance.” 4. “Rise up hence, O man! Casting off the foot-shackles of death, do not sink down!” “Dead, they rise up again to meet the Living One.” The spiritually dead they rise up again, defying destruction through divine utterance, and become alive through the resurrection.

(Hindu, Vedas, Atharva Veda and Rig Veda – Book 1)

 BUDDHISM: “Wrong-doers grieve in this world, and they grieve in the next; they grieve in both. They grieve and are afflicted when they see the wrong they have done.” 1. “Many do not realize that we must all come to an end here;” “The world…..is given to pleasure, delighted with pleasure, enchanted with pleasure. Verily, such beings will hardly understand the law of conditionality, the Dependent Origination of everything; incomprehensible to them will also be the end of all formations, the forsaking of every substratum of rebirth, the fading away of craving; detachment, extinction, Nirvana.” “This, truly, is the Peace, this is the Highest, namely the end of all formations, the forsaking of every substratum of rebirth, the fading away of craving: detachment, extinction-Nirvana.” (the resurrection of the living soul out of the world of dust)

(Buddhist, Dhammapada – Sayings of the Buddha 2 and The Eightfold Path), Buddha, the Word (The Eightfold Path))

 SABEANISM: “The Life (Haiyi, God) will count you in His reckoning And the good will set you up in their midst. To the place to which the good go they will guide you And in the place in which they stand they will set you up.” (Sabeanism, Ginza Rba- chapters 67)

Sabeanism: “Who establisheth our strength and cutteth us not off From the House of our trust; Who restoreth our souls at the House of Ransom On the Day of Judgement, and perfecteth our souls.” “He sundered Light from darkness and sundered Good from Evil, He sundered Life from Death, And He brought out those who love His name of Truth From Darkness to Light and from Evil to Good And from Death to Life and set them On roads of Truth and Faith.” “Well is it for thee, ‘He rose and took me up with Him,’ ‘The day that the soul goeth forth’ and ‘Ye are set up and raised up, My Chosen.” (Sabeanism, Ginza Rba- chapters 74, 75 and 76)

Sabeanism: “For the perfect ones he prepared a path and granted salvation to the perfect ones. Salvation he granted to the perfect ones and remembered their names in the house of the Mighty Life.” “Spiritual resurrection: ceremony to aid the ascent of the soul.” (Sabeanism, Ginza Rba, The Way of Salvation)

 BABI RELIGION: “O Qurratu’l-‘Ayn! Persevere steadfastly as Thou art bidden and let not the faithless amongst men nor their utterances grieve Thee, since Thy Lord shall, by the righteousness of God, the Most Great, pass judgement upon them on the Day of Resurrection, and surely God witnesseth all things.”

(The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 70)

 Babi Religion: “What is meant by the Day of Resurrection is this, that from the time of the appearance of Him Who is the Tree of divine Reality, at whatever period and under whatever name, until the moment of His disappearance, is the Day of Resurrection. For example, from the inception of the mission of Jesus — may peace be upon Him — till the day of His ascension was the Resurrection of Moses.”

(The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 105)

BAHA’I FAITH: “Arise, and proclaim unto the entire creation the tidings that He Who is the All-Merciful hath directed His steps towards the Ridvan and entered it. Guide, then, the people unto the garden of delight which God hath made the Throne of His Paradise. We have chosen thee to be our most mighty Trumpet, whose blast is to signalize the resurrection of all mankind.” “Behold how the generality of mankind hath been endued with the capacity to hearken unto God‘s most exalted Word — the Word upon which must depend the gathering together and spiritual resurrection of all men….” “Behold how their evil doings have hindered them from recognizing, in the Day of Resurrection, the Word of Truth, exalted be His glory.”

(Bahá’í Faith, Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, pp. 31, 69 and 96)