160. VERILY, THERE IS NONE OTHER GOD BESIDES ME
# 143
The Bahá’í Writings contain many passages that elucidate the nature of the Manifestation and His relationship to God. Bahá’u’lláh underlines the unique and transcendent nature of the Godhead. He explains that “since there can be no tie of direct intercourse to bind the one true God with His creation” God ordains that “in every age and dispensation a pure and stainless Soul be made manifest in the kingdoms of earth and heaven”. This “mysterious and ethereal Being”, the Manifestation of God, has a human nature which pertains to “the world of matter” and a spiritual nature “born of the substance of God Himself”. He is also endowed with a “double station”:
The first station, which is related to His innermost reality, representeth Him as One Whose voice is the voice of God Himself… The second station is the human station, exemplified by the following verses: “I am but a man like you.” “Say, praise be to my Lord! Am I more than a man, an apostle?”
Bahá’u’lláh also affirms that, in the spiritual realm, there is an “essential unity” between all the Manifestations of God. They all reveal the “Beauty of God”, manifest His names and attributes, and give utterance to His Revelation. In this regard, He states:
Were any of the all-embracing Manifestations of God to declare: “I am God”, He, verily, speaketh the truth, and no doubt attacheth thereto. For it hath been repeatedly demonstrated that through their Revelation, their attributes and names, the Revelation of God, His names and His attributes, are made manifest in the world…
While the Manifestations reveal the names and attributes of God and are the means by which humanity has access to the knowledge of God and His Revelation, Shoghi Effendi states that the Manifestations should “never … be identified with that invisible Reality, the Essence of Divinity itself”. In relation to Bahá’u’lláh, the Guardian wrote that the “human temple that has been the vehicle of so overpowering a Revelation” is not to be identified with the “Reality” of God.
Concerning the uniqueness of Bahá’u’lláh’s station and the greatness of His Revelation, Shoghi Effendi affirms that the prophetic statements concerning the “Day of God”, found in the Sacred Scriptures of past Dispensations, are fulfilled by the advent of Bahá’u’lláh:
To Israel He was neither more nor less than the incarnation of the “Everlasting Father”, the “Lord of Hosts” come down “with ten thousands of saints”; to Christendom Christ returned “in the glory of the Father”; to
Shí’ah Islám the return of the Imám Ḥusayn; to Sunní Islám the descent of the “Spirit of God” (Jesus Christ); to the Zoroastrians the promised
Sháh-Bahrám; to the Hindus the reincarnation of Krishna; to the Buddhists the fifth Buddha.
Bahá’u’lláh describes the station of “Divinity” which He shares with all the Manifestations of God as
…the station in which one dieth to himself and liveth in God. Divinity, whenever I mention it, indicateth My complete and absolute self-effacement. This is the station in which I have no control over mine own weal or woe nor over my life nor over my resurrection.
And, regarding His own relationship to God, He testifies:
When I contemplate, O my God, the relationship that bindeth me to Thee, I am moved to proclaim to all created things “verily I am God”; and when I consider my own self, lo, I find it coarser than clay!
