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The Great Resurrection
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Pages 220-222
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The Great Resurrection
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The Day of Judgment is also the Day of Resurrection, of
the raising of the dead. St. Paul in his First Epistle to the
Corinthians says: --
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Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep,
but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound,
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be
changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption,
and this mortal must put on immortality. -- I Cor. xv,
51-53.
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As to the meaning of these passages about the raising of the
dead, Bahá'u'lláh writes in the Book of Íqán: --
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... By the terms "life" and "death," spoken of in the
scriptures, is intended the life of faith and the death of
unbelief. The generality of the people, owing to their failure
to grasp the meaning of these words, rejected and despised
the person of the Manifestation, deprived themselves
of the light of His divine guidance, and refused to
follow the example of that immortal Beauty. ...
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... Even as Jesus said: "Ye must be born again" [John
iii, 7]. Again He saith: "Except a man be born of water
and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of
God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that
which is born of the Spirit is spirit" [John iii, 5-6]. The
purpose of these words is that whosoever in every dispensation
is born of the Spirit and is quickened by the breath of
the Manifestation of Holiness, he verily is of those that
have attained unto "life" and "resurrection" and have entered
into the "paradise" of the love of God. And
whosoever is not of them, is condemned to "death" and
"deprivation," to the "fire" of unbelief, and to the "wrath"
of God. ...
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In every age and century, the purpose of the Prophets
of God and their chosen ones hath been no other but to
affirm the spiritual significance of the terms "life," "resurrection,"
and "judgment." ... Wert thou to attain to but
a dewdrop of the crystal waters of divine knowledge, thou
wouldst readily realize that true life is not the life of the
flesh but the life of the spirit. For the life of the flesh is
common to both men and animals, whereas the life of
the spirit is possessed only by the pure in heart who have
quaffed from the ocean of faith and partaken of the fruit
of certitude. This life knoweth no death, and this existence
is crowned by immortality. Even as it hath been said:
"He who is a true believer liveth both in this world and
in the world to come." If by "life" be meant this earthly
life, it is evident that death must needs overtake it. --
Kitáb-i-Íqán, pp. 114, 118, 120-21.
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According to the Bahá'í teaching the Resurrection has nothing
to do with the gross physical body. That body, once dead,
is done with. It becomes decomposed and its atoms will never
be recomposed into the same body.
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Resurrection is the birth of the individual to spiritual life,
through the gift of the Holy Spirit bestowed through the Manifestation
of God. The grave from which he arises is the grave
of ignorance and negligence of God. The sleep from which he
awakens is the dormant spiritual condition in which many
await the dawn of the Day of God. This dawn illumines all
who have lived on the face of the earth, whether they are in the
body or out of the body, but those who are spiritually blind
cannot perceive it. The Day of Resurrection is not a day of
twenty-four hours, but an era which has now begun and will
last as long as the present world cycle continues. It will continue
when all traces of the present civilization will have been
wiped off the surface of the globe.
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