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

12/16/24

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)