Dear Bahá'í Friend,
The Universal House of Justice has received your letter of 24 November 1992 and has asked us to send you the following reply.
That the House of Justice's reference to Bahá'u'lláh as "the most precious Being ever to have drawn breath on this planet" has caused, as you say, such misconceptions among the believers is a sign of the degree to which the friends need to study the Writings and deepen their understanding of the Teachings of the Faith. Had they done so sufficiently they would surely have been able to comprehend the context in which the statement was made, as you did, and would have been untroubled by it.
In answer to a recent letter on the subject, the following comments were conveyed on behalf of the House of Justice, and we repeat them here as an assistance to you in explaining the matter to any friends who raise it with you.
It would seem that the agitation shown by certain of the friends to the description of Bahá'u'lláh as "the most precious Being ever to have drawn breath on this planet", and their impression that this indicates some new doctrine, arises from their lack of familiarity with the range of expressions used in the Sacred Writings and by the beloved Guardian, and their inability to grasp that such expressions are used in the context of the illumination of the stations of the Manifestations of God as conveyed by Bahá'u'lláh in the Kitáb-i-Íqán and elucidated by the Guardian in "The Dispensation of Bahá'u'lláh".
This description, in fact, is not so different from the Guardian's words in his cablegram of 3 June 1957, which appears on page 122 of "Messages to the Bahá'í World". He refers to:
“… the adoption and execution of preliminary measures designed to herald the construction in future decades of the stately, befitting Mausoleum to enshrine the holiest dust the earth ever received into its bosom.”
In the letter written on behalf of the Guardian on 19 October 1947, which was quoted in our letter of 15 October 1992, the crucial point is made:
“No distinction can be made amongst the Prophets in the sense that They all proceed from one source, and are of one essence. But Their stations and functions in this world are different.”
In the phrase "the most precious Being ever to have drawn breath on this planet" the Universal House of Justice was obviously referring to the Person of Bahá'u'lláh as He appeared in this world — that Soul who was the channel of the Most Great Revelation of God. The Guardian's reference to "the holiest dust the earth ever received into its bosom" likewise refers to the physical remains of that Person. The preciousness and sanctity of both aspects being the consequence of their being the vehicle of a Revelation the splendour and magnitude of which eclipses all previous Revelations. There is nothing new or strange in such a concept, nor does it in any way contradict the essential unity of all the Manifestations of God. The parallels between the various Dispensations, and the varying terminology used to describe the same spiritual event in successive ages, are illustrated by the following quotation from a letter written by Shoghi Effendi which was published in "Messages to America 1932-1946" on page 100:
“It was in such dramatic circumstances, recalling the experience of Moses when face to face with the Burning Bush in the wilderness of Sinai, the successive visions of Zoroaster, the opening of the heavens and the descent of the Dove upon Christ in the Jordan, the cry of Gabriel heard by Muhammad in the Cave of Hira, and the dream of the Báb, in which the blood of the Imam Husayn touched and sanctified His lips, that Bahá'u'lláh, He "around Whom the Point of the Bayán hath revolved," and the Vehicle of the greatest Revelation the world has yet seen, received the first intimation of His sublime Mission, and that a ministry which, alike in its duration and fecundity, is unsurpassed in the religious history of mankind, was inaugurated. It was on that occasion that the "Most Great Spirit," as designated by Bahá'u'lláh Himself, revealed itself to Him, in the form of a "Maiden," and bade Him "lift up" His "voice between earth and heaven" — that same Spirit which, in the Zoroastrian, the Mosaic, the Christian, and Muhammadan Dispensations, had been respectively symbolized by the "Sacred Fire," the "Burning Bush," the "Dove," and the "Angel Gabriel."”
To clarify their own understanding of the station of Bahá'u'lláh and His relationship to the other Manifestations of God, the Bahá'ís should unhesitatingly turn to "The Dispensation of Bahá'u'lláh".
As to teaching the Cause to Christians, it seems to be important for the Bahá'ís to recognize that the concepts of Christian theology and the Teachings of the Bahá'í Faith constitute two different universes of discourse. They perceive the same truths, but their terminologies are not uniformly interchangeable. When a Christian reads Bahá'u'lláh's words "There hath not been in My soul but the Truth, and in Myself naught could be seen but God" or His statement in the Tablet of Tarázát, "He Who heralded this Revelation hath declared: ‘He shall proclaim under all conditions: "Verily, verily, I am God, no God is there but Me, the Help in Peril, The Self-Subsisting."'" he naturally reads this in the context of a doctrine of incarnation, and could take as dissimulation Bahá'u'lláh's statement, "Certain ones among you have said: ‘He it is Who hath laid claim to be God.' By God! This is a gross calumny. I am but a servant of God Who hath believed in Him and in His signs, and in His Prophets and in His angels. My tongue, and My heart, and My inner and My outer being testify that there is no God but Him, that all others have been created by His behest, and been fashioned through the operation of His Will. There is none other God but Him, the Creator, the Raiser from the dead, the Quickener, the Slayer. I am He that telleth abroad the favors with which God hath, through His bounty, favored Me. If this be My transgression, then I am truly the first of the transgressors."
It is only in the light of the Bahá'í doctrine of the nature of the Manifestations of God and their relationships to God, to one another and to mankind that such statements can be clearly understood. So also the Guardian's unequivocal statement that "the Sonship and Divinity of Jesus Christ are fearlessly asserted".
As ‘Abdu'l-Bahá repeatedly demonstrated, for example in His elucidation of the Doctrine of the Trinity, and as you yourself have illustrated in your books, the way to teach Christians is to build a bridge from their universe of discourse to ours, to widen their vision, to challenge them with the implications of their own teaching, to help them to see Jesus through the greater measure of understanding that Bahá'u'lláh has brought, and thus to accept Bahá'u'lláh as the fulfilment of their own aspirations.
To hold Bahá'u'lláh up in competition to Jesus is not only a fruitless way to teach Christians but is a violation of Bahá'u'lláh's own Teachings. But this does not mean that, within our own understanding, Bahá'ís should not appreciate the significance of Bahá'u'lláh's being the Universal Manifestation of this Universal Cycle, or strive to comprehend the unprecedented magnitude of the Revelation of which He is the chosen Vehicle.
With loving Bahá'í greetings,
For Department of the Secretariat
(Baha’i Library Online)