Christ’s Promise Fulfilled/Introduction

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INTRODUCTION

THIS exposition of the teaching of Jesus Christ forms part of Some Answered Questions. It was given by ‘Abdu’l-Baha ex tempore, in the most informal manner, at the table, in answer to questions put by an American lady who paid several visits to ‘Akka during the years 1904-1906. It was originally intended for private study only and not for publication. But His words were taken down and the record was afterward examined by Him and passed as correct.

In His Western Letters and Addresses ‘Abdu’l-Baha often explained the greatness of the station of Christ and the real purpose and achievement of Christianity. But the part of the chapters in Some Answered Questions here reprinted form His longest connected discourse on the subject.

Jesus taught eternal truth in the childhood of the world. He measured His Revelation to the capacity and to the needs of His audience and presented it in the form best suited to their condition. He spoke in general terms. He used concrete imagery, symbols, allegories, parables, as the prophets of the Old Testament had done. His teaching, He said, was more advanced than that of Moses but less advanced than that which, when people were able to bear it, would one day be given by “The Spirit of Truth.” In spite of its simplicity and the inspiration of His presence, the disciples, as well as the public, were often baffled by His words: took them too literally, or in the wrong sense, or could not understand them at all. The time soon came when Jesus was no

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longer with them to explain or to correct; and St. Paul shows by the doctrinal elaborations in his epistles what extreme liberties of interpretation an apostle might take, and by his schism with Peter how serious a divergence of opinion might exist in the very earliest days. All down the centuries uncertainty as to the meaning of Scripture has continued. It has been fostered by love of leadership, by scientific ignorance and, alas, by the self-interest of the “false prophets” against whom Christ warned His followers. It has so engaged the thought of Christendom and filled its records that to this day, as Archbishop Temple wrote, “when people talk about Church History they usually have in mind a record of the clerical controversies, General or other Councils, and the formulation of doctrines.”

Now a new Age has dawned. People are more tolerant. They desire reality and are eager in their search for it. In the realm of religion they are not content to follow in the paths of belief and custom trodden by the feet of their forefathers. They wish to get direct by a sure way to the meaning of Christ’s own spiritual messages and to its illumination.

But this meaning is not easy to find. More than scholarship and reason are needed in the search, as history has proved from the time of the scribes and Pharisees to now. Freedom from prejudice also is essential, intellectual and moral courage, pure love of truth, faith and the aid of the Holy Spirit.

These were all possessed in the highest degree by ‘Abdul-Baha. And, as His distinguished questioner pointed out in her Introduction to Some Answered

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Questions, beyond His oral teaching there was “always the greater lesson—the lesson of His personal life.”

His exposition in some ways is reminiscent of the Gospel itself. Here is the same certainty and spontaneity of utterance: a question is asked and however difficult or profound it be, the answer comes easily, instantly as the sound follows when you touch a bell. Here is the same simplicity and clearness, the same gentleness and fearlessness, the same power, the same intense spirituality, the same all-surrendering love for God and witness to His supreme and immeasurable exaltation.

‘Abdu’l-Baha maintains at the full all the claims Jesus Christ made as to His divine station. For instance, in commenting on the verse John 17:5 “And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was,’ He writes :—

“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 the ignorant and at last was crucified.”

But He did not accept the Advent of Christ as an isolated miracle in the history of the planet. He illustrated from the Bible the principle of a succession

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of prophets. He emphasized the oneness and the continuity of the Bible story and showed a carefully graduated system of progressive revelation carried on Age after Age by such divine messengers as Abraham, Moses, and Christ throughout the Old and the New Testaments.

The pith and center of His interest is not a speculative doctrine nor a linguistic refinement: it is spiritual truth. He speaks from the point of view of the spiritual realm. He makes spiritual things appear as constituting Reality, and material things as contingent. And since He holds that religion must be in accord with science, and must not only be a way to God but a way of practical human life, He pictures a comprehensive, balanced, unified Christianity which is very different from that interpretation that has failed to hold the imagination of the modern man.

The most original, the boldest of all restatements of Christian Doctrine, the most faithful to what is best in Ancient Tradition, on the other side, and to what is best in the Modern Spirit on the other; these answers deserve the careful study of those who hope that ere long a full understanding of Christian doctrine will bring all true believers in Jesus Christ together and will enable them to go forward for the regeneration of mankind with unanimity and irresistible power.

GEORGE TOWNSHEND

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