ages about the raising of the dead,
Baha'u'llah writes in the Book of Iqan:--
... By the terms "life" and "death," spoken of in the scriptures,
is intended the life of faith and the death of unbelief. The
generality of the people, owing to their failure to grasp the
meaning of these words, rejected and despised the person of the
Manifestation, deprived themselves of the light of His divine
guidance, and refused to follow the example of that immortal
Beauty....
... Even as Jesus said: "Ye must be born again" [John iii, 7].
Again He saith: "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,
he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the
flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit"
[John iii, 5-6]. The purpose of these words is that whosoever in
every dispensation is born of the Spirit and is quickened by the
breath of the Manifestation of Holiness, he verily is of those
that have attained unto "life" and "resurrection" and have entered
into the "paradise" of the love of God. And whosoever is not of
them, is condemned to "death" and "deprivation," to the "fire" of
unbelief, and to the "wrath" of God....
In every age and century, the purpose of the Prophets of God and
their chosen ones hath been no other but to affirm the spiritual
significance of the terms "life," "resurrection," and "judgment."
... Wert thou to attain to but a dewdrop of the crystal waters of
divine knowledge, thou wouldst readily realize that true life is
not the life of the flesh but the life of the spirit. For the life
of the flesh is common to both men and animals, whereas the life
of the spirit is possessed only by the pure in heart who have
quaffed from the ocean of faith and partaken of the fruit of
certitude. This life knoweth no death, and this existence is
crowned by immortality. Even as it hath been said: "He who is a
true believer liveth both in this world and in the world to come."
If by "life" be meant this earthly life, it is evident that death
must needs overtake it.--Kitab-i-Iqan, pp. 114, 118, 120-21.
According to the Baha'i teaching the Resurrection has nothing to do with
the gross physical body. That body, once dead, is done with. It becomes
decomposed and its atoms will never be recomposed into the same body.
Resurrection is the birth of the individual to
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