|
Remember, if we are to do without the New Testament completely, then we are not allowed to use proofs such as this: "The Hebrew Scriptures state that the Messiah was to be born of a virgin, and Jesus was indeed born of a virgin. This, therefore, is evidence of His fulfilling prophecy." To this, the Jew could respond, "What proof do you have that Jesus was born of a virgin?" Knowledge of the virgin birth is contained in the New Testament only, which the Jews do not regard as truth. If the ground rules of the discussion were to be followed, the story of Christ's birth is inadmissible evidence (93:1) Another problem, touched on earlier, that the Christian would face, would be that there is essentially no way, based on the words of the Old Testament alone, to understand what should be taken literally and what symbolically. For example, how could a Christian explain to a Jew that in the prophecy of Micah, "Bethlehem" has a literal meaning but "ruler" a symbolic one? If we consider the prophetic references to Christ, we see that they are certainly not self-explanatory (93:2) A Christian who would require the proof of Baha'u'llah's mission to be based solely upon the Bible is essentially asking the Baha'i to perform what the Christian cannot: namely, to have the scriptures explain themselves. If the Old Testament could explain itself, then the Jews would have known how the Christ was to come. And if the New Testament could explain itself, then the Christians should agree on His Second Coming. Neither is the case, however (93:3) If the true test of whether or not Jesus is the Christ is based on whether or not He has fulfilled the outward meaning of the scriptures, then certainly everyone must reject Him, because He did not fulfill the prophecies in this way (93:4) And if the true test of whether or not Baha'u'llah's claim to be the Promised One of all ages is based on whether or not He has fulfilled the outward meaning of the prophecies referring to the Second Coming, then certainly, too, His claim must be false, for neither has He fulfilled prophecies in this way (93:5) At His First Coming, the Christians were not deceived by the outward meaning of the prophecies. They obviously did not base their faith in their Lord on the literal meaning of the prophecies. At His Second Coming, are they to change the basis of their faith in Him? (93:6) The heart of the matter is this: what is our faith based upon? How do we know that Jesus is indeed the Christ? (93:7) Faith explains Scripture, but all Faith itself is a mystery (93:8) It is easily demonstrated that there is no simple answer to this question. Faith is in many ways a mystery, and mysteries, by definition, do not lend themselves to being fully understood. Upon questioning, we see that one's faith simply cannot be fully explained. If you ask people why they believe, you will get many different answers
(93:9)
|