|
From this world catastrophe mankind will emerge chastised and purified; through the vivifying forces of the new revelation, it will experience a spiritual rebirth. The kingdom of peace promised and sung by the prophets, when the swords will be beaten into ploughshares-- God's kingdom on earth as promised by Jesus Christ-- will appear on earth through the power of the Holy Spirit and through the world order revealed by Baha'u'llah. Its model is the legal structure of the Baha'i community and the functional role played by its parts. It is not a transcendental but rather an immanent kingdom, not a Utopian anarchy of love, as Tolstoy understood it, but rather a "world federal system, ruling the whole earth,... blending and embodying the ideals of both the East and the West, liberated from the curse of war and its miseries,... a system in which Force is made the servant of Justice, whose life is sustained by its universal recognition of one God and by its allegiance to one common Revelation." The promise that God himself will rule his people, that there will be "one fold and one shepherd" will then be fulfilled: "This is the Day whereon the unseen world crieth out: 'Great is thy blessedness, O earth, for thou hast been made the foot-stool of they God, and been chosen as the seat of His mighty throne!'"
(132:1)
|