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Baha'u'llah's Revelation Roles

Baha’u’llah is as central to the Apocalypse as he is to the Baha’i Faith. As its main Angel Messenger, he is the fleeting master-of-ceremonies Messenger who opens it, who shape-shifts swiftly into a Son of Man amid its sets of seven churches, Spirits, Menorah-Lamps, and stars, who addresses its Seven-Churches in Chapters 2–3, and then simply vanishes. He reappears as the main Angel Messenger only in Chapter 22, regaining center-stage and closing the Apocalypse.
But in between where on earth and where in heaven does he disappear to—between Chapters 4 and 22? The riddle of St. Ives offers an answer. It asks:
As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Each wife had seven sacks. Each sack had seven cats. Each cat had seven kittens. How many were going to St. Ives?
 
The answer to this riddle is just one. This one is the lone “I” who is posing the riddle—the only person truly going to St. Ives! Everybody else—the man and his telescoping-out sets of seven wives, cats, and kittens—are all coming from St. Ives. Those various sets of seven serve simply as red-herrings that distract you from spotting that true lone, fleeting, opening “I” who is the only one going to St. Ives.
In similar style, telescoping-out sets of seven in the Apocalypse also serve as simply red herrings that stop you spotting its main Messenger who remains hidden. Instead, he plays many different roles, shines a range of faces, donsing diverse disguises, puts on various masks, speaks varied voices, and slips into assorted costumes between Chapters 4 and 21. These roles include him as
the Angel; the Word of God; the A and the Z; a Son of Man; the First and the Last; this Spirit; the true Holy One; the Amen; the trustworthy true Witness; the Beginning of creation; the Enthroned-One; the Living-Being like a Lion; a certain of the elders; the Lion from the tribe of Judah; the root of a beloved David; a certain of the four Living-Beings; the Presence of God; the Gold Incense-Altar; the third Trump-Ta-Ra; the mighty Angel; the seventh Angel; a reed like a rod; the Messiah; a certain of the four Living-Beings; a ruler from the rising-place of the sun; the Glory of God; a seventh Angel; a certain of these seven Angels; one of Jesus’s Witnesses; a certain mighty Angel; the rider on a white stallion; the Word of God; the King of kings and Lord of lords; a certain Angel standing in the sun; ‘as God’; the Beginning and the Ending; the person speaking with me; the shining Dawn-Star; and the one witnessing to.

Prophetic license lets Baha’u’llah play all these Revelation roles simultaneously, just as acting license let Peter Sellers in a more worldly way play the parts of Dr Strangelove, President Merkin Muffley, and Group-Captain Mandrake simultaneously in the movie Dr Strangelove.