But you can?
The Return
- Thread starter Tony Bristow-Stagg
- Start date
Tony Bristow-Stagg
One Planet One People Please
But I don’t agree with him
Tony Bristow-Stagg
One Planet One People Please
Yes we will all leave soon. It is the only thing we truly know eh?
We have plenty of prophets which will tell us G!d's word and plenty of their acolytes which will spout interpretations...
Often seems more.entertainment and need to find agreeable peers to justify beliefs.
But Moses was not a manifestation of God. In the Abrahamic Traditions, prophets are not considered manifestations of God. They are accorded reverence and respect, but nor worship. They – especially Moses – are intercessors with God on behalf of the people, but they are not divine, rather they are instruments of the divine.
Indeed, but this is in the context of a larger discourse – John 5:17-47. His argument is that had His audience believed in Moses absolutely, then they would recognise Jesus as the prophesied Messiah.
The discourse embodies a complete Johannine theology, but then John's theology is the Message and Mission of Christ.
The 'trigger' is the healing at Bethesda. Rather than acknowledge the miracle, the He is accused because of performing 'works' on the Sabbath. Jesus' response that "My Father worketh until now; and I work" (v17) only enrages them the more: "Hereupon therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he did not only break the sabbath, but also said God was his Father, making himself equal to God" (v18).
This is an instance of the unique status of the Son as the onlybegotten of the Father, the Jews clearly saw His words as a claim to divine status, and furthermore doing so while marking a clear distinction between Himself and the Father (and I work) – in that sense, two Persons or acting entities.
Jesus then takes His accusers to task for their intransigence. He tells of the nature of His relationship to the Father and furthermore His relation to the world – in effect its only hope – and the promise of eternal life in Him.
Finally, if they cannot believe Him, then they should believe the Five Testimonies that bear witness to Him and who He is:
1: The testimony of John the Baptist (v33-35)
2: The testimony of the works He does (v36)
3: The testimony of the Father (v37-38)
4: The testimony of Scripture (v39)
5: The testimony of Moses (v45-47)
The text says Messiah, singular, not plural.
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In a sense, whenever and wherever a person reaches out to another, motivated by love, by compassion, by empathy, by kindness, call it what you will, that person is doing God's work, and there God is. When that person declares the work 'in her or his own name', then a question arises.
Sadly, here we part ways. The Trinity was declared by Christ in Scripture. Indeed, some would say it was veiled in the Old Testament, but disclosed in the New. The doctrine derives from and depends on His own words. Had He not said (and done) as He did, the doctrine would never have arisen.
Let's face it, it's been a great deal of trouble ... but then apprehension of the Mystery of the Godhead is never going to be easy, or easily explained.
Depends on who is interpreting the text. To my eyes, Quran Chapter 3 ‘Al-Imran’ and Chapter 19 ‘Maryam’ say much the same as Luke with regard to the Annunciation and Divine Conception.
To your satisfaction, not mine.
But this is not at all what the Scriptures say regarding the Prophets. The station of prophet – like priest and king – is not inherently Divine. Nor would the prophets of Israel ever declare themselves to be God, or 'the Self of God', the embodiment of Names or Attributes, indeed what Baha'u'llah claims for them they would consider blasphemy.
Eureka!
The same is said of the perfected faith of the saints! In that sense I would agree, but understand it to mean that Baha'u'llah is not declaring his own divinity, but rather his complete surrender to the Divine.
I think this highlights a semantic problem, what the Baha'i means by divine is not the Abrahamic – or at least Christian – understanding of the term.
I would allow that as hyperbole but theologically and metaphysically somewhat dubious.
I prefer Augustine: "You (God) were more inward to me than my most inward part" (Confessions, Book III)
And a number of saints and mystics who have said words akin to, 'when I go into my deepest self, there He is' – but again, they maintain the distinction between creature and Creator.
Or, more bluntly, as Jesus spoke to St Catherine of Siena "I am He Who Is, you are she who is not."
I think you're in error there.
Then Jesus was wiser, He saw that no man-made institution would ever achieve that. Only at the End of Days ...
I am lost for words.
Tony Bristow-Stagg
One Planet One People Please
Indeed we will all leave this matrix wil.
As to how we can identify what is the Truth we need to embrace in the age we live, Baha'u'llah has offered this.
"Weigh not the Book of God with such standards and sciences as are current amongst you, for the Book itself is the unerring Balance established amongst men. In this most perfect Balance whatsoever the peoples and kindreds possess must be weighed, while the measure of its weight should be tested according to its own standard, did ye but know it."
Bahá’u’lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 128
So that is indeed a quandary, but a blessing. Look at the conflict that the world.currently faces, to me, that quote tells us that the Message will be the balance the age needs.
So we can only know that, if we weight what is written against the issues the world now faces.
Hard to do that, if one does not look at that evidence. Regards Tony
Tony Bristow-Stagg
One Planet One People Please
Maybe that is the best path for us to take upon these topics and let God’s Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven by living our Faiths.
Regards Tony
Context makes a difference, in my opinion.
arthra
Baha'i
Thanks for sharing this Tony...The "creator" of The Shirt.... Dale Ramsdale was active in my community for some years. He also had dialogue with some Adventists at Loma Linda University for awhile. I also knew Fari Ramsdale who gifted my family with an orange tree sprout in a small Milk carton. We cultivated and cared for the sprout for several years. The sprout was from a tree cultivated by the Bab at His residence.. After the destruction of the house of the Bab in 1979 seedlings were sent to Baha'is around the world. Soon the sapling became a tree. I wondered if it would ever bear fruit... then on the occasion of the bicentennial of the Birth of the Bab I couldn't believe it... The tree bore fruit on the eve of the Bicentenary in 2019! https://bicentenary.bahai.org/
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Tony Bristow-Stagg
One Planet One People Please
Thank you for that Arthra. That was a great story about the orange tree.
I know Dale was a good friend of yours, great you would have shared many activities. I was in contact with Dale when "The Shirt" on FB was started. We printed and distributed some of the first shirts in the Solomon Islands, most likely one of the first few posts on that page, We did about 30 of them and they all went quickly out amongst the SI communities.
Stay well, stay happy, all the best. Regards Tony
arthra
Baha'i
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
Even in Bahaollah's time, Allah sent Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. He was born in 1835.
That he gave even to Zoroaster. So what is new?
I don't see any reason why Hindus should abandon their many Gods and Goddesses. Hindus think that One God hypothesis has no legs to stand upon.
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