GOD-MAN
Tablet of Ishrakat (p. 5).—Praise be to God who manifested the Point and sent forth from it the knowledge of what was and is (i.e. all things); who made it (the Point) the Herald in His Name, the Precursor to His Most Great Manifestation, by which the nerves of nations have quivered with fear and the Light has risen from the horizon of the world. Verily it is that Point which God hath made to be a Sea of Light for the sincere among His servants, and a ball of fire for the deniers among His creations and the impious among His people.—This shows that Baha-'ullah did not regard the so-called Bāb as a mere forerunner.
The want of a surely attested life, or extract from a life, of a God-man will be more and more acutely felt. There is only one such life; it is that of Baha-'ullah. Through Him, therefore, let us pray in this twentieth century amidst the manifold difficulties which beset our social and political reconstructions; let Him be the prince-angel who conveys our petitions to the Most High. The standpoint of Immanence, however, suggests a higher and a deeper view. Does a friend need to ask a favour of a friend? Are we not in Baha'ullah ('the Glory of God'), and is not He in God? Therefore, 'ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you' (John xv. 7). Far be it that we should even seem to disparage the Lord Jesus, but the horizon of His early worshippers is too narrow for us to follow them, and the critical difficulties are insuperable. The mirage of the ideal Christ is all that remains, when these obstacles have been allowed for.
We read much about God-men in the narratives of the Old Testament, where the name attached to a manifestation of God in human semblance is 'malak Yahwè (Jehovah)' or 'malak Elohim'—a name of uncertain meaning which I have endeavoured to explain more correctly elsewhere. In the New Testament too there is a large Docetic element. Apparently a supernatural Being walks about on earth—His name is Jesus of Nazareth, or simply Jesus, or with a deifying prefix 'Lord' and a regal appendix 'Christ.' He has doubtless a heavenly message to individuals, but He has also one to the great social body. Christ, says Mr. Holley, is a perfect revelation for the individual, but not for the social organism. This is correct if we lay stress on the qualifying word 'perfect,' especially if we hold that St. Paul has the credit of having expanded and enriched the somewhat meagre representation of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels. It must be conceded that Baha-'ullah had a greater opportunity than Christ of lifting both His own and other peoples to a higher plane, but the ideal of both was the same.
Baha-'ullah and Christ, therefore, were both 'images of God'; [Footnote: Bousset, Kyrios-Christos, p. 144. Christ is the 'image of God' (2 Cor. iv. 4; Col. i. 15); or simply 'the image' (Rom. viii. 29).] God is the God of the human people as well as of individual men, so too is the God of whom Baha-'ullah is the reflection or image. Only, we must admit that Baha-'ullah had the advantage of centuries more of evolution, and that he had also perhaps more complex problems to solve.
And what as to 'Ali Muḥammad of Shiraz? From a heavenly point of view, did he play a great rôle in the Persian Reformation? Let us listen to Baha-'ullah in the passage quoted above from the Tablet of Ishrakat.