\u201cShe wasn\u2019t really a Christian.\u201d That was the punchline of an encounter my college-aged daughter had with a Christian friend, Eli, who had engaged her and several other Baha\u2019i students in conversation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The \u201cshe\u201d in question was me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The assessment came about through Eli\u2019s curiosity about how my daughter came to be a Baha\u2019i. She explained that she had been born into a Baha\u2019i family but that her mother had come into the Faith from a Christian background. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
RELATED: Did Baha\u2019u\u2019llah Fulfill the Prophecies of Jesus?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Eli asked, \u201cWhat denomination?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The answer to that was \u201cmany\u201d because of how my<\/em> mother felt about hearing messages from the pulpit unsupported by the Biblical text. When I was a child, our family attended Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalian, Congregationalist, and non-denominational churches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Eli then asked, \u201cDid her churches teach that Jesus is God?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n My daughter told him that she thought my churches taught that Christ Jesus was the Son<\/em> of God, which sparked Eli\u2019s open-and-shut response that I had not really been a Christian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of you may be thinking that it should <\/em>be an open-and-shut response. Either Jesus is God, or he is not God, and you might think that believing one or the other is the criteria for salvation. But the reality is that this binary certitude only exists in the chasm between God\u2019s infinite spiritual reality and our ability to comprehend it from our very finite, physical \u2014 dare I say, materialistic \u2014 point of view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The answer I\u2019d give Eli if he asked me directly is this: Insofar as we can comprehend God, Christ Jesus is<\/em> God. Insofar as God is sanctified from human limitation, Jesus is not<\/em> God \u2026 but he perfectly reflects God\u2019s Divine reality because his own Spirit \u2014 the Spirit who speaks in the Book of Revelation \u2014 is begotten of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s go to the Bible to test this, beginning with the sort of Being Christ tells us God is in the Gospel of John: \u201cGod is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Bible also states in Hebrews 1<\/em> that although he appears as a human being, Christ Jesus is the son and \u201cexpress image\u201d of this Spirit: <\/p>\n\n\n\n God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son \u2026 through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person \u2026 sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Revised Standard translation of the Bible says Christ \u201cbears the very stamp of <\/strong>[God\u2019<\/em>s] nature<\/strong>;\u201d the International Standard Version says he is \u201cthe reflection of God<\/strong>\u2019<\/em>s glory<\/strong>;\u201d the Holman translation gives us \u201cthe exact expression of His nature.<\/strong>\u201d None of these descriptions even imply that God, the ultimate spiritual reality, left the spiritual realm and literally descended into a human body or that the Infinite became finite. In fact, all of them keep God in \u201cheaven\u201d by describing Christ as a stamp, an imprint, an expression, a reflection of the Spirit of God in human form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When confronted with the Baha\u2019i Faith<\/a> at the age of 19, I naturally retreated to my own Christian scriptures to grapple with its implications. I was struck by the way Baha\u2019u\u2019llah<\/a> explained what the author of the Book of Hebrews struggled to capture \u2014 the divine yet human nature of Christ. Here is one of those passages<\/a>, from Baha\u2019u\u2019llah\u2019s Book of Certitude<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The door of the knowledge of the Ancient of Days being thus closed in the face of all beings, the Source of infinite grace \u2026 hath caused those luminous Gems of Holiness to appear out of the realm of the spirit, in the noble form of the human temple, and be made manifest unto all men, that they may impart unto the world the mysteries of the unchangeable Being \u2026 These sanctified Mirrors, these Day Springs of ancient glory, are, one and all, the Exponents on earth of Him Who is the central Orb of the universe, its Essence and ultimate Purpose. From Him proceed their knowledge and power; from Him is derived their sovereignty. The beauty of their countenance is but a reflection of His image, and their revelation a sign of His deathless glory. \u2026 These Tabernacles of Holiness, these Primal Mirrors which reflect the light of unfading glory, are but expressions of Him Who is the Invisible of the Invisibles. By the revelation of these Gems of Divine virtue all the names and attributes of God, such as knowledge and power, sovereignty and dominion, mercy and wisdom, glory, bounty, and grace, are made manifest. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Here, Baha\u2019u\u2019llah paints a portrait of the ones God sends to guide us as perfect mirrors pointed directly at the Primal Light, reflecting God\u2019s spiritual reality in such a way that we may recognize it and turn the mirrors of our own hearts toward it. The agency by which that Most Great Light reflects in the flesh and blood mirror is the Holy Spirit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With this portrait, Baha\u2019u\u2019llah affirms the words Christ and his disciples used to explain the marriage of divinity and humanity he represented. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ prayed to his divine Father with these words: \u201cI have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In II Corinthians, the Apostle Paul also wrote of this relationship between God and Christ: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Paul\u2019s message is clear: by beholding the glory of God in the mirror of Christ Jesus, the believers are themselves transformed into reflectors (albeit imperfect ones) of Christ\u2019s divine qualities. This is the same analogy Baha\u2019u\u2019llah offers to the \u201cmystery\u201d of divine manifestation: The human mirror reflects the glory of the Spirit that is God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We now come to a crucial difference in the way that Eli and I understand Christ\u2019s relationship with God. Eli believes, as I once did, that the Spirit of Christ was manifest just once in all of humankind\u2019s tortured history. It was manifest solely in a tiny region caught fast in the talons of the Roman Empire. It was manifest for a brief three years out of millions. Only a handful of individuals were graced with its presence. Those who inhabited other parts of the world \u2014 India, the Americas, Europe, and Asia \u2014 lived and died in the darkness beyond the reach of Christ\u2019s light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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