The Book of Isaiah announces that the Messiah will conquer
the East and the West, that all the nations of the earth will gather under His
shadow, that His kingdom will be established, that He will come from an unknown
place, that the sinners will be judged, and that justice will prevail to such a
degree that the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid, the sucking child
and the asp will all gather at one spring, in one meadow, and in one abode. The
first coming was also subject to these conditions, although none of them came
to pass outwardly. Thus the Jews cavilled at Christ, and—God forbid!—called Him
a monster,[1] regarded Him as the destroyer of the edifice of God and the
breaker of the Sabbath and the Law, and sentenced Him to death. Now, each and
every one of these conditions had an inner meaning, but the Jews failed to understand
and were therefore veiled from recognizing Him.
The second coming of Christ follows a similar pattern. All
the signs and conditions that have been indicated have inner meanings and are
not to be taken literally. For otherwise it is said, among other things, that
the stars will fall upon the earth. Yet the stars are endless and innumerable,
and modern mathematicians have established and proven that the mass of the sun
is approximately one and a half million times greater than that of the earth,
and that each one of the fixed stars is a thousand times larger than the sun.
If these stars were to fall upon the surface of the earth, how could there be
room for them? It would be as though a thousand million mountains as mighty as
the Himalayas were to fall upon a grain of mustard seed. Such a thing is, by
reason and by science (and indeed as a matter of simple common sense), utterly
impossible. And yet even more astonishing is that Christ said: Perchance I
shall come when you are sleeping, for the coming of the Son of man is like the
coming of a thief.[2] Perhaps the thief will be in the house and the owner will
be unaware.
It is therefore clear and evident that these signs have
inner meanings and should not be taken literally. These meanings have been
fully explained in the Kitáb-i-Íqán: Refer to it.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (Table talks in
Akka, authenticated by ‘Abdu’l-Baha; ‘Some Answered Questions’ – 2014 revised
translation by the Baha’i World Centre)
[1] Masíkh (monster), a distortion of Masíḥ (Messiah).
[2] Cf. 1 Thess. 5:2; 2 Pet. 3:10
