As Christians are want to do I was reading my Bible and came across these verses, “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (John 8.12)
“I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.” (John 12.46)
And it says of John the Baptist “He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.” (John 1:8)
Now according to Baha’i theology Jesus Christ and John the Baptist were supposedly mirrors to reflect the light, which is God. However, as we read in the above verses the Bible fails to support such a theology. Jesus Christ clearly said that He is the Light and not a reflection or witness of it. And John is a witness of the Light and not a reflection of it. How can one be a reflection of the Light when one is the Light?
Well this is a misrepresentation of what Baha'is believe.. we do not accept John the Baptist as a Manifestation of God as his mission was primarily to prepare the Way for Jesus and he had no Holy Book or new dispensation that came from him..
The Baha'i view is as follows:
"Bahá'u'lláh asserts that the principal bridge between God and all of creation is the Manifestation of God; individuals in whom all the attributes of God exist not only potentially, but in whom they are all perfectly expressed. Manifestations are the mouthpieces of God; the exemplars of God's qualities; they are God's vice-regents on earth.
An analogy for the Manifestations found in the Bahá'í writings (
Kitáb-i-Íqán 79, 142;
Gleanings 74;
Some Answered Questions 147-48;
Promulgation of Universal Peace 114-15) is that they are like perfect mirrors, reflecting the light of the sun so faithfully that the image of the sun, seen in such a mirror, is indistinguishable from the sun in the sky.
Ordinary human beings, no matter how much they polish the mirrors of their own souls, can never become perfect mirrors; and nature also, however much it reflects God's beauty and magnificence, remains an imperfect mirror. To see God truly, we need to turn to the Manifestations. It is interesting to note that the mirror analogy was not unknown to early Christians; the great theologian Origen (185-254 C.E.), citing the Book of Wisdom, called Christ 'the spotless mirror' of God's workings (Origen, On
First Principles 26).
Source:
http://bahai-library.com/articles/stockman.jesus.html
You might like to read what Thomas Aquinas wrote:
And these images illumined by the Divine light have more of the nature of a mirror than the Divine essence: since in a mirror images are formed from other things, and this cannot be said of God. Yet the prophet's mind thus enlightened may be called a mirror, in so far as a likeness of the truth of the Divine foreknowledge is formed therein, for which reason it is called the "mirror of eternity," as representing God's foreknowledge, for God in His eternity sees all things as present before Him, as stated above
(
Q[172], A[1]).
This is inaccurate or possibly a misrepresentation.. John the Baptist is not a Manifestation of God in our belief. What Jesus represents to Baha'is is a Manifestaion..
A Manifestation of God brings a Holy Book and a new dispensation.. As far as we know John the Baptist was solely to prepare the Way