That the Spiritual Assemblies of today will be replaced in time by the
Houses of Justice, and are to all intents and purposes identical and not
separate bodies, is abundantly confirmed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself. He has
in fact in a Tablet addressed to the members of the first Chicago
Spiritual Assembly, the first elected Bahá’í body instituted in the United
States, referred to them as the members of the “House of Justice” for that
city, and has thus with His own pen established beyond any doubt the
identity of the present Bahá’í Spiritual Assemblies with the Houses of
Justice referred to by Bahá’u’lláh. For reasons which are not difficult to
discover, it has been found advisable to bestow upon the elected
representatives of Bahá’í communities throughout the world the temporary
appellation of Spiritual Assemblies, a term which, as the position and
aims of the Bahá’í Faith are better understood and more fully recognized,
will gradually be superseded by the permanent and more appropriate
designation of House of Justice. Not only will the present-day Spiritual
Assemblies be styled differently in future, but they will be enabled also
to add to their present functions those powers, duties, and prerogatives
necessitated by the recognition of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, not merely as
one of the recognized religious systems of the world, but as the State
Religion of an independent and Sovereign Power. And as the Bahá’í Faith
permeates the masses of the peoples of East and West, and its truth is
embraced by the majority of the peoples of a number of the Sovereign
States of the world, will the Universal House of Justice attain the
plenitude of its power, and exercise, as the supreme organ of the Bahá’í
Commonwealth, all the rights, the duties, and responsibilities incumbent
upon the world’s future super-state.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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