The Mission of the Prophets

The Mission of the Prophets

1986 3 March 12 The Mission of the Prophets (353) We often come across the view that only a small minority of the messengers of God were able to achieve their goal; that most of them could not go beyond the mere proclamation of the truth; that is, they failed to establish truth on earth.

But such views are far from the truth. How was it possible for the messengers of God to have failed in the task assigned to them while God was at their sides? The question of their failure just does not arise. Such a conception is misguided.

The real fault lies in choosing the wrong criterion by which to judge the mission of the Prophets, that, the degree to which they brought about a social and political revolution. This is the criterion by which to judge the success or failure of ordinary mortals. By this token, those Prophet who brought about political revolution would be considered successful and those who did not would be considered failures.

This is not, however, the right way to judge the mission of the Prophets. Their mission was simply proclamation of the truth. In no sense were they meant to establish a system. The Prophets were sent to convey to the people the word of God in its pure form and it was to be presented in the best possible way. They had to convey it in such a way that the congregation would fully understand the message and would bear witness to having been shown the true path – whether or not the message was accepted by them. When a Prophet fulfilled these two conditions he had fully discharged his responsibility.

When we set this standard of judgement, we find that all of the Prophets fully succeeded in achieving their goal, since each of them did his utmost to carry out the duty assigned to him – that of proclamation of truth. The Prophets spared no effort in conveying the will of God to their nations. So much so that their congregations were never left with the excuse that they had not been shown the way. They could never come before God, pleading their ignorance.