Covenant of Baháʼu'lláh

“ Certain weak, capricious, malicious and ignorant souls have been shaken by the earthquake of hatred, of animosity, have striven to efface the Divine Covenant and Testament, and render the clear water muddy so that in it they might fish. They have arisen against the Center of the Covenant like the people of Bayán who attacked the Blessed Beauty and every moment uttered a calumny. Every day they seek a pretext and secretly arouse doubts, so that the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh may be completely annihilated in America. ”

“ The Guardian of the Faith must not under any circumstances, and whatever his merits or his achievements, be exalted to the rank that will make him a co-sharer with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the unique position which the Center of the Covenant occupies—much less to the station exclusively ordained for the Manifestation of God. So grave a departure from the established tenets of our Faith is nothing short of open blasphemy. ”

“ Thou didst establish His covenant with every one who hath been created in the kingdoms of earth and heaven and in the realms of revelation and of creation. Thou didst raise Him up to such heights that the wrongs inflicted by the oppressors have been powerless to deter Him from revealing Thy sovereignty, and the ascendancy of the wayward hath failed to prevent Him from demonstrating Thy power and from exalting Thy Cause. ”

“ Before the Faith, however, could plant its banner in the midmost heart of the North American continent, and from thence establish its outposts over so vast a portion of the Western world, the newly born Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh had, as had been the case with the Faith that had given it birth, to be baptized with a fire which was to demonstrate its solidity and proclaim its indestructibility to an unbelieving world. ”

“ The work of the noble Edifice that the mighty hands of the All-wise Master has reared in this world can suffer no delay, nor can its foundations be made to totter, whatever the apparent obstacles its enemies in their impotent wrath and despair may throw in its way. We need not wait too long, for already from various quarters there comes the news that the awful promises of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá regarding the Covenant-breakers have been strikingly fulfilled! ”

“ Chapter 2 1 And the Messenger of YHWH goes up from Gilgal to Bochim, 2 and says, "I cause you to come up out of Egypt, and bring you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers, and say, I do not break My covenant with you for all time; and you make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land—you break down their altars; and you have not listened to My voice—what [is] this you have done? 3 And I have also said, I do not cast them out from your presence, and they have been for adversaries to you, and their gods are for a snare to you." ”

“ But the Teacher has not yet done with the wealth of the Mosaic types of our full salvation. He has more to say about the profound truth that the New Covenant needed for its Mediator, its Herald, its Guarantor and Conveyer of blessing, not a Moses but a Messiah, who could both die and reign, could at once be Sacrifice and Priest. Covenants, in the normal order of God's will in Scripture, demanded death for their ratification. "Where covenant is, there must be brought in the death of the covenant-victim." ”

“ And this is the covenant I will make with them saith the Lord—I will write my law in their hearts, print it in their thoughts, and they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord. ”

“ O ye children of Israel ! remember my favours which I have favoured you with; fulfil my covenant and I will fulfil your covenant; me therefore dread. Believe in what I have revealed, verifying what ye have got, and be not the first to disbelieve in it, and do not barter my signs for a little price, and me do ye fear. Clothe not truth with vanity, nor hide the truth the while ye know. 40 Be steadfast in prayer, give the alms, and bow down with those who bow. Will ye order men to do piety and forget yourselves ? ”

“ The only religion that can be real to us is that which we believe in with personal faith and surrender ourselves to with willing obedience. Even when the law is recorded on parchment, it must also be written on the fleshy table of the heart if it is to be effective.
But there is another side to the covenant-sealing. The very existence of a covenant is significant. The word "covenant" suggests an agreement between two parties, a mutual arrangement to which each is pledged. ”

“ One of the Jewish rabbin says, This is a promise that she shall attain to the life of the world to come, which is absolute eternity or perpetuity.
3. The manner in which this covenant shall be made. (1.) In righteousness and judgment, that is, God will deal sincerely and uprightly in covenant with them; they have broken covenant, and God is righteous. "But," says God, "I will renew the covenant in righteousness." ”

“ The kingdom of Israel had become a fact, and was called the kingdom of God. Being a type of the everlasting kingdom of God, the time had come when by it those to whom the oracles of God were committed would be better qualified to understand the meaning of the gospel of the kingdom of God as embodied in the covenants of promise, so that the covenant with David deals especially with a kingdom. ”

“ It is related from Abú Hurairah that, 'The Apostle of God said, "O God, verily I have received a covenant from Thee which Thou wilt never break. But I am only a man, therefore whomsoever of the believers I injure, or revile, or curse, or scourge, do Thou make these for him prayers and alms and a means by which Thou mayest bring him near to Thyself on the day of resurrection."'—Muslim, Al Bukhárí. ”

“ The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me. He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. Although my house be not so with God yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure; for this is all my salvation and all my desire, although he make it not to grow.
Psa 89:4, 19-29, 34-37 - Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations. ”

“ By virtue of the covenant, heaven is not only made possible, but certain to all believers, and certain by way of oath. It is by virtue of the covenant that we call Him Father, and may lay claim to all the power, wisdom, goodness and mercy, that are in God. As Jehoshaphat told the king of Israel, to whom he was joined in covenant, "I am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses:" so doth God say to all that are in covenant with Him, "My power is thine, My holiness is thine." ”

“ Least the Jewes should feare (as it commeth to passe in doubtfull matters) they heare that the rule of life is prescribed unto them of the true and only God, who is theirs by Covenant. Least diffidence should make them slacke, God comes familiarly, and commends his gracious Covenant unto them. The reason from all this is plaine, that Covenant wherin the Lord promiseth, or proclaimeth himselfe to be the God of Israel, is the Covenant of grace, which God made with Israel. But in giving the Law upon Mount Sinai God promised, and proclaimed himself to be the God of Israel. ”

“ I will by no means send him with you, until you give me a firm covenant in Allah's name that you will bring him back to me, unless you are completely surrounded. And when they gave him their covenant, he said: Allah is Guardian over what we say. ”

“ But the promises contained already in the law, of prolongation of life and numerous offspring, which in the past have been only at certain intervals partially fulfilled, because of Israel's sin and disobedience, shall, under the new and unconditional covenant, into which the people shall then be brought, be fully realised. ”

“ Verses 31-32 Jer 31:31-32 כּרת בּרית does not mean "to make an appointment," but "to conclude a covenant," to establish a relation of mutual duties and obligations. Every covenant which God concludes with men consists, on the side of God, in assurance of His favours and actual bestowal of them; these bind men to the keeping of the commands laid on them. The covenant which the Lord will make with all Israel in the future is called "a new covenant," as compared with that made with the fathers at Sinai, when the people were led out of Egypt ”

“ Behold, thou wilt call a mass of people that thou knowest not; and a mass of people that knoweth thee not will hasten to thee, for the sake of Jehovah thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel, that He hath made thee glorious.” The expression “make a covenant” (kârath berı̄th) is not always applied to a superior in relation to an inferior (compare, on the contrary, Ezr 10:3) ”

“ Those he advised and earnestly obtested to break all their sinful covenants, to loathe and abhor them, and be humbled for them: and to come and fall in with this covenant, to say in sincerity that whereas other lords have had too long dominion over them, henceforth they would make mention only of the name of the Lord as their Lord; and that their name should henceforth be Jacob, and their sirname Israel, and to sign and seal the same with their oath and subscription. ”

“ An earthly father may incorporate, among other things, conditions, in his testament, or will, and it is in force, by his death, even though his children find fault with it. So it mattered not whether any man in ancient Israel was satisfied with that ancient “testament.” But the Bible nowhere limits the term covenant to the people's agreement to keep the decalogue. On the contrary, it is said, “And He declared unto you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, even ten commandments ”

“ Thus he says:—
“Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and [75] keep, and do them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.” [148]
It was not the act of your fathers that placed this responsibility upon you, but your own individual acts that brought you into the bond of this covenant. ”

“ The circumstance that the Servant of God is, without farther qualification, called the Covenant of the people, shows that He stands in a different relation to the covenant from that of Moses, to whom the name of the Mediator of the covenant does not the less belong than to Him. ”

“ It is a holy exercise. Both in the Old Testament and in the New, the Covenant of God is declared to be holy. He himself is holy, and he requires that his people be holy too. And dissuading Israel from confederating with the heathen, and in language addressed to all, calling them to the exercise of Covenanting embodied in fearing his name, he commands them to approach him as holy. ”

“ We can have such, as truly as Noah had, if we use the Revelation given us in Jesus.
In God's covenant with Noah, the fact of the covenant may first be noted. What is a covenant? The term usually implies a reciprocal bond, both parties to which come under obligations by it, each to the other. But, in this case, there are no obligations on the part of man or of the creatures. This covenant is God's only. It is contingent on nothing done by the recipients. He binds Himself, whatever be the conduct of men. This covenant is the self-motived promise of an unconditional mercy. ”

“ Privileges should be improved as engagements to duty. Should not a people be ruled by their God?
II. A particular direction to them with great solemnity to register the words of this law, as soon as they came into Canaan. It was to be done but once, and at their entrance into the land of promise, in token of their taking possession of it under the several provisos and conditions contained in this law. There was a solemn ratification of the covenant between God and Israel at Mount Sinai, when an altar was erected, with twelve pillars, and the book of the covenant was produced, Exod. ”