Sequential excerpts from the book ‘God Passes By’, written in 1944 by Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith

December 16, 2024

Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation in relation to “all the Dispensations gone before it”

In conclusion of this theme, I feel, it should be stated that the Revelation identified with Bahá’u’lláh

  • abrogates unconditionally all the Dispensations gone before it,
  • upholds uncompromisingly the eternal verities they enshrine,
  • recognizes firmly and absolutely the Divine origin of their Authors,
  • preserves inviolate the sanctity of their authentic Scriptures,
  • disclaims any intention of lowering the status of their Founders or of abating the spiritual ideals they inculcate,
  • clarifies and correlates their functions,
  • reaffirms their common, their unchangeable and fundamental purpose,
  • reconciles their seemingly divergent claims and doctrines,
  • readily and gratefully recognizes their respective contributions to the gradual unfoldment of one Divine Revelation,
  • unhesitatingly acknowledges itself to be but one link in the chain of continually progressive Revelations,
  • supplements their teachings with such laws and ordinances as conform to the imperative needs, and are dictated by the growing receptivity, of a fast evolving and constantly changing society,
  • and proclaims its readiness and ability to fuse and incorporate the contending sects and factions into which they have fallen into a universal Fellowship, functioning within the framework, and in accordance with the precepts, of a divinely conceived, a world-unifying, a world-redeeming Order. 
- Shoghi Effendi  (God Passes By, chapter 6)