ding to flow. The learning current amongst men I studied not;
their schools I entered not. Ask of the city wherein I dwelt, that thou
mayest be well assured that I am not of them who speak falsely.(98)

The mission to which He had devoted His entire life, which had cost Him
the life of a cherished younger son(99) , as well as all of His material ,
possessions which had undermined His health, and brought imprisonment,
exile, and abuse, was not one that He had initiated. "Not of Mine own
volition," He said, had He entered on such a course:

Think ye, O people, that I hold within My grasp the control of God's
ultimate Will and Purpose?... Had the ultimate destiny of God's Faith been
in Mine hands, I would have never consented, even though for one moment,
to manifest Myself unto you, nor would I have allowed one word to fall
from My lips. Of this God Himself is, verily, a witness.(100)

Having surrendered unreservedly to God's summons, He was equally in no
doubt about the role which He had been called upon to play in human
history. As the Manifestation of God to the age of fulfillment, He is the
one promised in all the scriptures of the past, the "Desire of all
nations," the "King of Glory." To Judaism He is "Lord of Hosts"; to
Christianity, the Return of Christ in the glory of the Father; to Islam,
the "Great Announcement"; to Buddhism, the Maitreya Buddha; to Hinduism,
the new incarnation of Krishna; to Zoroastrianism, the advent of
"_Sh_ah-Bahram."(101)

Like the Manifestations of God gone before Him, He is both the Voice of
God and its human channel: "When I contemplate, O my God, the relationship
that bindeth me to Thee, I am moved to proclaim to all created things
'verily I am God!'; and when I consider my own self, lo, I find it coarser
than clay!"(102)

"Certain ones among you," He declared, "have said: 'He it is Who hath laid
claim to be God.' By God! This is a gross calumny. I am but a servant of
God Who hath believed in Him and in His signs... My tongue, and My heart,
and My inner and My outer being testify that there is no God but Him, that
all others have been created by His behest, and been fashioned through the
operation of His Will.... I am He that telleth abroad the favors with
which God hath, through His bounty, favored Me. If this be My
transgression, then I am truly the first of the transgressors...."(103)

Baha'u'llah's writings seize upon a host of metaphors in their attempt to
express the paradox