I believe that the Divine Standard
for this age has been announced by Baha'u'llah, but as yet the Divine Standard
for this age has not been recognized by many. However, eventually that will change....The complete unfurling of the divine standard is yet to come, and it is this that many Baha'is look forward to with eager expectation.
“The day is approaching when the intervening clouds will have been completely dissipated, when the light of the words, “All honor belongeth unto God and unto them that love Him,” will have appeared, as manifest as the sun, above the horizon of the Will of the Almighty...” Gleanings, p. 306
I believe that the gospel message was the Divine Standard for a former age. That belief is based upon my belief in Dispensations, and that each successive Dispensation abrogates all the Dispensations that preceded it..
Dispensation
- the divine ordering of the affairs of the world.
- an appointment, arrangement, or favor, as by God.
- a divinely appointed order or age:
e.g. the old Mosaic, or Jewish, dispensation; the new gospel, or Christian, dispensation.
Definition of dispensation | Dictionary.com
I do not believe that the gospel of Jesus has not been abrogated because the Word of God can never be abrogated. It is only the Dispensation of Jesus that has been abrogated.... That means by an arrangement of God the divine ordering of the affairs of the world is now according to the Revelation of Baha'u'llah, not according to the gospel of Jesus.
It really is quite simple. Every time God sends a new Messenger (Manifestation), His Revelation supersedes all the Revelations that have come before it. A Dispensation is the divine ordering of the affairs of the world, and that can be only according to one Manifestation at a time. Once a Manifestation of God has completed His Mission on earth and revealed scriptures, what He revealed is pertinent only until the next Manifestation of God appears; and then He completes His Mission and His scriptures are pertinent until the next Manifestation of God appears.
Once the Mission is completed, it is completed, as Jesus said:
John 17:4 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
John 17:11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
John 19:30 When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
Once the Mission of Jesus was completed and Christianity fulfilled its purpose for humanity, there was no reason for Jesus to remain in this world or to return to this world. God always sends another Messenger, and religion is renewed in order to suit the circumstances of the age in which He appears. The new Messenger always brings a new remedy that is needed for the age in which He appears.
“And now concerning thy question regarding the nature of religion. Know thou that they who are truly wise have likened the world unto the human temple. As the body of man needeth a garment to clothe it, so the body of mankind must needs be adorned with the mantle of justice and wisdom. Its robe is the Revelation vouchsafed unto it by God. Whenever this robe hath fulfilled its purpose, the Almighty will assuredly renew it. For every age requireth a fresh measure of the light of God. Every Divine Revelation hath been sent down in a manner that befitted the circumstances of the age in which it hath appeared.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 81
The gospel had been preached in all the inhabited earth by the mid-19th century, when all the other prophecies for the return of Christ were also fulfilled, as was proven in the book
Thief in the Night by William Sears.
The follow is in an excerpt from the book (
http://bahai-library.com/pdf/s/sears_thief_night.pdf)
The millennial zeal reached its climax in the year 1844. I wanted to know exactly why. What had led all these people to the same year?
I found the answer. This date in history had been chosen primarily because of three specific promises made by Christ Himself to His disciples.
He gave three promises, saying that when these three things came to pass, He (Christ) would return to earth.
The first promise:
His Gospel would be preached everywhere on earth.
The
first promise of Christ was easy to find. He made it to His disciples in direct reply to their questions. They asked Him:
“Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” (Matthew 24:3)
This verse is found in the twenty–fourth chapter of
Matthew. Christ then gave His disciples in the following words:
“But he that shall endure until the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness … then shall the end come.” (Matthew 24:13)
This was clear enough. The end would come, and Christ would return, when His Gospel was preached throughout the world.
My next step was to discover when the Gospel of Christ was considered to have been preached throughout the world.
A study of the spread of Christianity made by scholars of the 1840’s, convinced them that the message of Christ had, by their day, already encircled the globe. The Gospel was being taught in all the continents. By 1844 it was being taught even in the interior of Africa, not by solitary missionaries, but on an organized scale. A commercial history of East Africa states: “Christian missions began their activities amongst the African people in 1844. (Year Book and Guide to East Africa, Ed. by Robert Hale Ltd., London, 1953, p. 44)
Dr D. L. Leonard, historian of the Mission movement, in his
A Hundred Years of Missions, says of the spread of the Word of Christ and His Gospel: “… for the first time since the apostolic period, (there) occurred an outburst of general missionary zeal and activity.”
He is speaking of the last years of the eighteenth century, leading to the nineteenth century, to 1844, and beyond. “Beginning in Great Britain, it soon spread to the Continent and across the Atlantic. It was no mere push of fervour, but a mighty tide set in, which from that day to this has been steadily rising and spreading.”
Another account states: “In 1804 the British and Foreign Bible Society was organised. Students of the prophetic word felt at the time that these agencies were coming in fulfilment of the prophecy.” (Our Day in the Light of Prophecy, Spicer, p. 308.)
This was a direct reference to the prophecy of Christ that He would return when His gospel was preached everywhere in the world.
Before 1804, the Bible had already been printed and circulated in fifty languages. In 1816 the American Bible Society was formed. George Storrs in the newspaper,
Midnight Cry, on 4 May 1843, stated that these two societies (British and American) with their innumerable branches were spreading the Gospel of Christ in every part of the world.
G. S. Faber in
Eight Dissertations, which was completed in the very year of greatest prophetic fervour, 1844, declares: “The stupendous endeavours of one gigantic community to convey the Scriptures in every language to every part of the globe may well deserve to be considered as an eminent sign even of these eventful times. Unless I be much mistaken, such endeavours are preparatory to the final grand diffusion of Christianity, which is the theme of so many inspired prophets, and which cannot be far distant in the present day.’
M. H. Goyer writes in his book on prophetic fulfilment: “The British and Foreign Bible Society (for one example) has issued, since its foundation in1804, over 421 million copies of the Scriptures, in practically every country known throughout the globe.”
In
Our Day in the Light of Prophecy, Spicer wrote that the Gospel in his day had been spread ‘to ninety-five per cent of the inhabitants of the earth.’ He added: “It was in 1842 that five treaty-ports in China were open to commerce and to missions—advance steps in the opening of all China to the Gospel. In 1844 Turkey was prevailed upon to recognise the right of the Moslems to become Christians, reversing all Moslem tradition. In 1844 Alan Gardiner established the South American Mission. In 1842 Livingstone’s determination was formed to open the African interior.”
Dr A. T. Pierson in
Modern Mission Century wrote: “India, Siam, Burma, China, Japan, Turkey, Africa, Mexico, South America … were successively and successfully entered. Within five years, from 1853 to 1858, new facilities were given to the entrance and occupation of seven different countries, together embracing half the world’s population.”
There were many additional references which made it clear that the Gospel of Christ, and its teachers, had entered every continent by the year 1844, spreading the Word of Jesus the Christ throughout the world.
This was considered by the students of Scripture to be in exact fulfilment of the words of Christ given in
Mark:
“And the gospel must first be published among all nations.” (Mark 13:10)
In this same chapter, Christ warns that when this takes place: “Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.” (Mark 13:33)
When this Gospel is published in all nations, Christ again promises:
“… then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.” (Mark 13:26)
The millennial scholars of the 1840s felt that Christ’s first promise had been fulfilled. They felt it had been clearly demonstrated that the Gospel of Christ had been ‘preached in all the world for a witness’ and, therefore, the hour for His coming must now be at hand.
I was convinced myself that the first promise of Christ had indeed been fulfilled by the year 1844. There could be no doubt of this.
It was an interesting beginning.
