Matthew 9:16-17

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Category: Alison Marshall's Column
Created: Wednesday, 19 April 2006 12:53
Published: Wednesday, 19 April 2006 12:53
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"No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment and the rent is made worse. Neither do men put new wine into old bottles, else the bottles break and the wine runneth out and the bottles perish. But they put new wine into new bottles and both are preserved." Matthew 9:16-17

"In like manner, strive thou to comprehend from these lucid, these powerful, conclusive, and unequivocal statements the meaning of the 'cleaving of the heaven' - one of the signs that must needs herald the coming of the last Hour, the Day of Resurrection. As He hath said: 'When the heaven shall be cloven asunder.'[Qur?an 82:1] By 'heaven' is meant the heaven of divine Revelation, which is elevated with every Manifestation, and rent asunder with every subsequent one. By 'cloven asunder' is meant that the former Dispensation is superseded and annulled. I swear by God! That this heaven being cloven asunder is, to the discerning, an act mightier than the cleaving of the skies! Ponder a while. That a divine Revelation which for years hath been securely established; beneath whose shadow all who have embraced it have been reared and nurtured; by the light of whose law generations of men have been disciplined; the excellency of whose word men have heard recounted by their fathers; in such wise that human eye hath beheld naught but the pervading influence of its grace, and mortal ear hath heard naught but the resounding majesty of its command—what act is mightier than that such a Revelation should, by the power of God, be "cloven asunder" and be abolished at the appearance of one soul? Reflect, is this a mightier act than that which these abject and foolish men have imagined the 'cleaving of the heaven' to mean?" Baha'u'llah: Kitab-i-Iqan, pp 44-45

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