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The Natural Love Versus The Divine Love
By Dr. Leslie R. Stone
I have read many hundreds of books at the Library of Congress at Washington, D.C. Many of these books that claim to receive communications from the Spirit World contain many wonderful and beautiful truths. But I have not found in any of these books the great fundamental truth of real Christianity, and that is the true meaning of the New Birth as taught by Jesus in His messages through Mr. J.E. Padgett.
Jesus when on earth in the flesh, did teach moral precepts: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all they mind, and with all thy strength; this is the First commandment. And the Second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these."
But teaching moral precepts was not Jesus’ outstanding mission. Love to God and love to our fellowman is mere exercise of the natural love that all souls are created with. You don’t have to pray for a bestowal of this love. But since the natural love has become perverted by sin and error, it needs to become from this blight.
Jesus knew that many would refuse the greater Love that comes from God by His Holy Spirit. This Divine Love is a separate and distinct quality of Love from the natural love, even though the natural love is developed in its highest and purest state. Divine Love is the greatest attribute of God, composed of His Divine Essence and Substance, while the natural love in its purest state is not.
Those souls who are making their progress by good deeds and good thoughts and renunciation of those things that prevent the purification of the natural love eventually become pure and perfect like the first parents before their fall, and then comes to them stagnation after they reach the highest plane of the Sixth Sphere, unless they are willing to seek for the Divine Love where progress goes on for all eternity, even after they reach the Celestial Heavens.
Jesus said in his message through Mr. Padgett that it was part of his mission to show the way to the perfect man because he knew that many would refuse the great outstanding truth, the New Birth, that no soul either mortal or spirit could obtain until the privilege had again been rebestowed at the time when Jesus came to earth.
Jesus made known that he was sent by the Father to proclaim and declare that the great privilege of obtaining the Divine Love that the first parents forfeited was again rebestowed upon all mortals and spirits alike, right back to the time when the first parents were created.
Furthermore, you will not find in any book, not even the Bible, a clear explanation to the true meaning of the New Birth and the great importance of obtaining it. When this Love fills the soul in sufficient abundance, there comes to that soul the consciousness and certainty of immortality.
The natural love in its purest state can never give to the soul the consciousness and certainty of immortality. The spirits in the highest planes of the Sixth Sphere believe and hope and thing they are immortal. Their belief in immortality is depending upon what speculation proves. Knowledge is wanting and speculation is not proven fact. As Jesus says, “If God requires them to live for all eternity, they will.”
Man is an object of God’s creation not an emanation of His Essence, and possesses only the natural love which is no part of the Divine Essence. There was a time when the soul was not created and the soul that does not possess the Divine Love and refuses to seek for it man, as eternity rolls on, cease to exist as a conscious individualized being. Change is the law in the Spirit World as well as on earth, and who can say that no change can come to the perfect natural man in the way of depriving him of everlasting existence. He may be immortal and he may not, but there is no certainty and cannot be unless he knows what is immortal and possesses the greatest attribute of God, the Divine Love.
Jesus came to earth and brought immortality to light. Only in messages from Jesus that come through Mr. Padgett will you find a clear explanation of what way Jesus brought immortality to light. No other books give a clear explanation of this great truth. So you see, there is certainty of immortality in the one case and the great uncertainty in the other.
Where will you find the great outstanding truths of true Christianity that are to be found in those messages received by Mr. J. E. Padgett? It you can tell me of any book that can give more enlightenment in showing the way to the certainty of immortal life in the Celestial Heavens, and the great supreme happiness that comes to the soul as it makes its progress nearer and nearer to the Fountainhead of the Father, I certainly would be glad to have such a book.
I pray the Heavenly Father to Bless you by filling your soul with His Great Divine Love in increased abundance. When it does, I know it will open your soul perceptions and then there will come to you a realization that the Messages From Jesus is not mere babbling of mere children that you said in your letter but the greatest and most important truths that have ever been given to the world since Jesus taught them on earth nearly 2000 years ago.
* Excerpts from a letter written by Dr. Stone in March 1950 to an individual who doubted the authenticity of the messages from Jesus that Dr. Stone published in his books.
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What It Means To Be Born Again
By Rev. John Paul Gibson
Jesus of Nazareth wrote through Mr. James E. Padgett: Except a man be born again he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. This is the inflowing of the Divine Love into the soul, transforming the soul into the Divine Nature and unity with God, our Heavenly Father.
Divine Love is the Christ that Jesus manifested in his life when on earth. St. Paul wrote that without this Love our faith as Christians is in vain. The degree that one possesses this Love, to that degree they become Christians and At-one with the Father.
The question has been asked all down the centuries, Why did God create my soul? The answer simply is this: He created all souls so that He could bestow upon them the privilege of obtaining in their souls His Great Divine Love, which brings to the possessors of it the greatest supreme happiness and joy that last for all eternity.
In the light of these Truths, you can readily understand the importance of praying with all the earnest, sincere longings of the soul for the Divine Love of the Father, and not giving mere lip service. Unless the minds desire is transferred to the heart and soul desire, the Love will not enter into the soul.
Spiritualism, as it is being taught, is doing a great and mighty work in bringing humans on earth in closer communication with the Spirit World. It has done more to break up the superstitious beliefs and the creeds and dogmas that enslaved mankind for many centuries than any other beliefs and teachings.
Many of the Spiritualists are satisfied to communicate with relatives and friends who have passed over, but are not interested in discovering what is essential to learn from the higher spirits that constitutes real soul progress.
Spiritualism as now taught by the great majority teaches the way to the perfect natural man. This purifying process, by living up to moral precepts and living in harmony with natural and spirit laws, and renunciation of those things that are the perversions of the natural love, will eventually bring about the purification of the soul until it becomes again like the perfect natural man, as the first parents before their fall.
When the soul becomes perfect in its natural love, it has then reached the limit of its purifying process that it has passed through, and then comes stagnation. Of course, there is always something new coming along for them to study, both material and spiritual laws which have to do more with the mind of intellect. But the real happiness of these spirits is their love nature, and that is their natural love in a pure state. They have then reached a condition of stagnation.
Now the great and most important thing for mortals and spirits to follow is the true and higher teachings of Jesus and those Celestials who know, by the greater purifying process they have passed through, the way to obtain into the soul the Divine Love, which is an additional Love to the natural love. All souls are created with the natural love and we do not have to pray for that. The Divine Love is the very Essence and Substance of the Father, while the natural love as taught by Moses, love to God and to your fellowman, is not.
There is only one way to obtain the Divine Love, and that only comes into the soul by the earnest, sincere prayer and real longings of the heart and soul that is filled with real longing for its inflowing. Where the Divine Love fills the soul, error and sin cannot, So, as you begin to obtain the Divine Love of the Father, you also begin to eradicate sin and error.
When the soul obtains the Divine Love in that abundance where there is no room for sin and error, then you will not only become free from those things not in harmony with the Father’s Will, but you will be entitled and qualified to enter the Celestial Kingdom: and the soul will be transformed from the natural man into the Divine Nature and become a part of the Father’s Divinity and with it the consciousness and certainty of immortality. With these spirits that have immortal life, stagnations is not know and progress goes onward and upward, nearer and nearer to the Fountainhead of the Father, for all eternity.
The spirits who hae developed their natural love into a pure state are glorious and beautiful spirits and in harmony and in at-onement with the natural love in which they were created. They believe and hope that they are immortal. However, believing and hoping are not knowledge. Speculation is not a proven fact. So you see, their belief in immortality is depending upon what speculation proves.
Is that wise, to depend upon what speculation proves? The mere fact that one survives the change called death is no proof that that soul with only the natural love will live for all eternity. That is, if God’s Law requires that such souls live for all eternity, they will; but certainty is wanting. Changes in the law in the Spirit World as well as upon earth make changes in your souls progression; and since there was a time when the soul was not created, it is possible that such a soul may cease to exist as a conscious, coordinated existence, and go back into the elements from which it was first created.
Now, the fact that the Celestials have a greater glory and beauty than the perfect natural man is proof beyond doubt that they possess a quality of Love that causes that greater glory and beauty of Love that the perfect natural man has not, the Divine Love of our Heavenly Father, which is available to one and all for the sincere asking.
By Rev. John Paul Gibson
Jesus of Nazareth wrote through Mr. James E. Padgett: Except a man be born again he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. This is the inflowing of the Divine Love into the soul, transforming the soul into the Divine Nature and unity with God, our Heavenly Father.
Divine Love is the Christ that Jesus manifested in his life when on earth. St. Paul wrote that without this Love our faith as Christians is in vain. The degree that one possesses this Love, to that degree they become Christians and At-one with the Father.
The question has been asked all down the centuries, Why did God create my soul? The answer simply is this: He created all souls so that He could bestow upon them the privilege of obtaining in their souls His Great Divine Love, which brings to the possessors of it the greatest supreme happiness and joy that last for all eternity.
In the light of these Truths, you can readily understand the importance of praying with all the earnest, sincere longings of the soul for the Divine Love of the Father, and not giving mere lip service. Unless the minds desire is transferred to the heart and soul desire, the Love will not enter into the soul.
Spiritualism, as it is being taught, is doing a great and mighty work in bringing humans on earth in closer communication with the Spirit World. It has done more to break up the superstitious beliefs and the creeds and dogmas that enslaved mankind for many centuries than any other beliefs and teachings.
Many of the Spiritualists are satisfied to communicate with relatives and friends who have passed over, but are not interested in discovering what is essential to learn from the higher spirits that constitutes real soul progress.
Spiritualism as now taught by the great majority teaches the way to the perfect natural man. This purifying process, by living up to moral precepts and living in harmony with natural and spirit laws, and renunciation of those things that are the perversions of the natural love, will eventually bring about the purification of the soul until it becomes again like the perfect natural man, as the first parents before their fall.
When the soul becomes perfect in its natural love, it has then reached the limit of its purifying process that it has passed through, and then comes stagnation. Of course, there is always something new coming along for them to study, both material and spiritual laws which have to do more with the mind of intellect. But the real happiness of these spirits is their love nature, and that is their natural love in a pure state. They have then reached a condition of stagnation.
Now the great and most important thing for mortals and spirits to follow is the true and higher teachings of Jesus and those Celestials who know, by the greater purifying process they have passed through, the way to obtain into the soul the Divine Love, which is an additional Love to the natural love. All souls are created with the natural love and we do not have to pray for that. The Divine Love is the very Essence and Substance of the Father, while the natural love as taught by Moses, love to God and to your fellowman, is not.
There is only one way to obtain the Divine Love, and that only comes into the soul by the earnest, sincere prayer and real longings of the heart and soul that is filled with real longing for its inflowing. Where the Divine Love fills the soul, error and sin cannot, So, as you begin to obtain the Divine Love of the Father, you also begin to eradicate sin and error.
When the soul obtains the Divine Love in that abundance where there is no room for sin and error, then you will not only become free from those things not in harmony with the Father’s Will, but you will be entitled and qualified to enter the Celestial Kingdom: and the soul will be transformed from the natural man into the Divine Nature and become a part of the Father’s Divinity and with it the consciousness and certainty of immortality. With these spirits that have immortal life, stagnations is not know and progress goes onward and upward, nearer and nearer to the Fountainhead of the Father, for all eternity.
The spirits who hae developed their natural love into a pure state are glorious and beautiful spirits and in harmony and in at-onement with the natural love in which they were created. They believe and hope that they are immortal. However, believing and hoping are not knowledge. Speculation is not a proven fact. So you see, their belief in immortality is depending upon what speculation proves.
Is that wise, to depend upon what speculation proves? The mere fact that one survives the change called death is no proof that that soul with only the natural love will live for all eternity. That is, if God’s Law requires that such souls live for all eternity, they will; but certainty is wanting. Changes in the law in the Spirit World as well as upon earth make changes in your souls progression; and since there was a time when the soul was not created, it is possible that such a soul may cease to exist as a conscious, coordinated existence, and go back into the elements from which it was first created.
Now, the fact that the Celestials have a greater glory and beauty than the perfect natural man is proof beyond doubt that they possess a quality of Love that causes that greater glory and beauty of Love that the perfect natural man has not, the Divine Love of our Heavenly Father, which is available to one and all for the sincere asking.
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The True Mission Of Jesus
by Dr. Daniel G. Samuels
Whatever one may believe regarding the source of the Messages from Jesus and Celestials, the contents are so new and revolutionary, yet so compelling by their logic and sublime simplicity, that a serious study of them must be undertaken in order to comprehend their significance and challenge.
In these messages Jesus of Nazareth stands forth as the Master of what he calls the Celestial Heavens, wherein only those spirits possessed of the New Birth through prayer to the Father for His Divine Love can dwell in light and happiness, and conscious of their immortality through their at-onement with Him in soul nature.
If these messages are authentic as coming from Jesus and his Celestial spirits, then mankind has at last been given the true mission which Jesus proclaimed on earth. This mission taught the transformation of man's soul from the image of God--the work of the original creation--into the very essence of God through the bestowal of the Father's Love upon whosoever should seek that Love in earnest longing.
It revealed that Jesus himself first manifested the Father's Love in his soul, thus making him at one with the Father in nature and giving him that clear consciousness of his kinship with the Father and his immortality of soul.
It showed that in this development of soul Jesus was indeed his Father's true Son, not in the metaphysical and mysterious way of a hypothetical virgin birth, but through the Holy Spirit, that agency of the Father which conveys His Love into the souls of His creatures who seek it in earnest prayer.
It brings to light that Jesus was born of Mary and Joseph, of human parents like other human beings, but that he was none the less the Messiah promised to the Hebrews and to mankind in the Old Testament.
For wherever he taught the "glad tidings" that God's Love was available, and that it was this Love which bestowed immortality upon the soul filled with this Love, Jesus brought with him the nature of God--the Kingdom of God.
At the same time Jesus tells us that neither was he God, nor was his mother Mary the mother of God, nor a virgin after her marriage to Joseph, but that she was in truth the mother of eight children, of which he was the eldest, and that he had four brothers and three sisters in the flesh, and not cousins, as some versions of the Bible relate.
In addition, he relates that he did not come to die on a cross, nor did, or does, his shed blood bring remission of sins. He also shatters the time honored statements now found in the New Testament that he ever instituted a bread and wine sacrament on the eve of his arrest at the Last Supper.
This pious statement, he declares, was never his, nor did any of his apostles or disciples ever teach it, but was inserted about a century later so that such a doctrine might accord with the ideas then prevalent among the Greek converts to Christianity.
Communion with the Heavenly Father can never take place through the mistaken notion that he had to be impaled on a cross by Roman soldiers, on the order of Pilate, the Procurator of Judaea, and in accord with the uncomprehending high priests, so that he could appear as a sacrifice for sin. There is no sacrifice for sin, affirms Jesus, and his dried up blood cannot do what only man himself must do, by turning in repentance and prayer to the Heavenly Father, to effect that change in his heart whereby his soul will give up evil and sin, and embrace what is righteous.
The Father's help in the elimination of sin from the human soul is His Divine Love which, on entering the soul through prayer, removes sin and error from that soul and provides not only purification but its transformation into a divine soul, at-one with the Father's great soul in nature.
This real communion, which Jesus himself had achieved, is, he declares, the only communion between God and His children, which He has provided for their salvation and eternal life with Him.
The vicarious atonement, Jesus states, is a myth, and its appearance in the New Testament is one of many false statements inserted therein to make it harmonize with later concepts concerning his relationship to the Father, which these later Greek and Roman copyists did not understand. It is a terrible thing to believe that God, in order to bring about His son's sacrifice, approved the unlawful arrest of Jesus on the Passover, the bloody scourges, the treachery of Judas, the palpably unfair trial by high priests and Sanhedrinites, as well as Pilate's fear of Judaean revolt against Roman rule, to encompass the inhuman death of Jesus, His Messiah, on a cross. As though God needed to bring about through wickedness and sin the very wickedness and sin He seeks to blot out in His children.
In the light of these messages, a new interpretation of Jesus' death on the cross is certainly in order. We are told by the orthodox churches that Jesus gave himself up willingly as a sacrifice for sin because he loved humanity to the degree of self sacrifice, and because as the Messiah he had come for that purpose.
He is supposed to take the place of the Hebrew sacrifice, the lamb, and he is called in the New Testament the Lamb of God. As a matter of fact, the Old Testament sacrifice of an animal was never intended to take away sin, and this is shown by the fact that although these sacrifices were not permitted during the Babylonian captivity, the people still put their faith in redemption through turning away from sin and seeking God through a life of moral and ethical conduct.
Jesus did sacrifice himself, indeed, but in a way never related or understood by the writers of the New Testament. Jesus went to his death because he would not deny his mission: that, as the first human to attain through prayer an immortal soul filled with the essence of the Father--the Divine Love--he was in this way the first true son of God and therefore the Messiah.
Jesus could have saved his life if he had retracted at his trial, but he died because he remained true to himself, true to his Messiahship, and true to the Father who had sent him. Jesus sacrificed his whole life preaching the Father's Love: he gave up home, his chance to marry and have a family of his own, a chance to devote himself to the quiet pursuits of a Nazarene carpenter; instead, he chose the hatred and opposition of those who understood not and preferred the status quo; he chose the incomprehension of his loved ones, who considered him mad and sought to have him leave Galilee; he chose constant travels and journeys, so that often he had no place to lay his head; he chose to preach in the Temple at Jerusalem, chase the money lenders, defy the conspiracy of those who sought his death, and bravely faced the consequences of what he knew must inevitably occur.
Yes, Jesus did sacrifice himself, but it is high time to put aside myth and metaphysics, and to know and to realize what that sacrifice consists of. When we understand his sacrifice, then Jesus stands forth in all his greatness, in all his courage, in all his serenity and forgiveness and love for mankind, with his absolute faith in the Father and His Love, in that day of his teaching, tribulation, and death.
Jesus tells us many things about himself and his life in the Holy Land. He states that the Bible story of his birth, minus the many supernatural elements in it, is substantially true, and that he was born in Bethlehem, taken by his parents to Egypt to avoid destruction by Herod, that the Wise Men did come from the East to pay him homage and that he was taught the elements of the Hebrew faith from teachers; but that it was the Father Himself who taught him the truth of the Divine Love and made him realize what his mission was. He tells us that John the Baptist, his cousin, was a great psychic and had some understanding of him as the Messiah and that both planned the Master's public ministry.
He states that John never sent emissaries when in prison to be reassured that Jesus was "him whom we seek," and that Jesus as a boy of twelve never appeared before the doctors of the Law in the Temple at Jerusalem.
Jesus also tells about some of the miracles which he performed. Most of these, he explains, dealt with his healing power; but that he never raised Lazarus or anyone else from the dead, nor has anyone else been able to do so, regardless of what the Scriptures say, for the spirit body cannot return to the flesh once the physical conditions of life have been destroyed.
He also relates that he never quieted a storm by rebuking the waves on the Sea of Galilee, but that he did calm the fears of the disciples with him through his example of courage and assurance.
Some of the greatest messages which, to my mind, Jesus and some of the high spirits write are those connected with the Master's resurrection from the dead after his crucifixion. Jesus informs Mr. Padgett that he did die on the cross and that he did appear to Peter, John, Mary Magdalene and his mother on the third day, but that the true explanation of this occurrence is quite different from the accepted views of the churches.
Here, Jesus is supposed to reveal his divinity by arising from the dead; but actually, Jesus' soul never died, as no man's soul dies with physical death, and the Master goes on to state that, with the power inherent in his soul with the Divine Love, he simply dematerialized his mortal frame, announced in the Spirit World the availability of Immortality to mortals and spirits through the Father's Love which he was the first to manifest, and then on the third day materialized a body like flesh and blood drawn from the elements of the universe; and that it was in this materialized body, which he was able to assume without mediumistic aid, that he appeared to Mary Magdalene and the others. It is the reason, he states, why Mary did not at first recognize him and thought him to be the gardener and the same may be said of his disciples at Emmaus.
The great misconception of Christians of all ages has been to believe that Jesus revealed himself to be part of the godhead by this resurrection; that is to say, rising from the dead, but actually his feat consisted in the assumption of a flesh-like body, indeed, so real, as to convince even the doubting Thomas.
by Dr. Daniel G. Samuels
Whatever one may believe regarding the source of the Messages from Jesus and Celestials, the contents are so new and revolutionary, yet so compelling by their logic and sublime simplicity, that a serious study of them must be undertaken in order to comprehend their significance and challenge.
In these messages Jesus of Nazareth stands forth as the Master of what he calls the Celestial Heavens, wherein only those spirits possessed of the New Birth through prayer to the Father for His Divine Love can dwell in light and happiness, and conscious of their immortality through their at-onement with Him in soul nature.
If these messages are authentic as coming from Jesus and his Celestial spirits, then mankind has at last been given the true mission which Jesus proclaimed on earth. This mission taught the transformation of man's soul from the image of God--the work of the original creation--into the very essence of God through the bestowal of the Father's Love upon whosoever should seek that Love in earnest longing.
It revealed that Jesus himself first manifested the Father's Love in his soul, thus making him at one with the Father in nature and giving him that clear consciousness of his kinship with the Father and his immortality of soul.
It showed that in this development of soul Jesus was indeed his Father's true Son, not in the metaphysical and mysterious way of a hypothetical virgin birth, but through the Holy Spirit, that agency of the Father which conveys His Love into the souls of His creatures who seek it in earnest prayer.
It brings to light that Jesus was born of Mary and Joseph, of human parents like other human beings, but that he was none the less the Messiah promised to the Hebrews and to mankind in the Old Testament.
For wherever he taught the "glad tidings" that God's Love was available, and that it was this Love which bestowed immortality upon the soul filled with this Love, Jesus brought with him the nature of God--the Kingdom of God.
At the same time Jesus tells us that neither was he God, nor was his mother Mary the mother of God, nor a virgin after her marriage to Joseph, but that she was in truth the mother of eight children, of which he was the eldest, and that he had four brothers and three sisters in the flesh, and not cousins, as some versions of the Bible relate.
In addition, he relates that he did not come to die on a cross, nor did, or does, his shed blood bring remission of sins. He also shatters the time honored statements now found in the New Testament that he ever instituted a bread and wine sacrament on the eve of his arrest at the Last Supper.
This pious statement, he declares, was never his, nor did any of his apostles or disciples ever teach it, but was inserted about a century later so that such a doctrine might accord with the ideas then prevalent among the Greek converts to Christianity.
Communion with the Heavenly Father can never take place through the mistaken notion that he had to be impaled on a cross by Roman soldiers, on the order of Pilate, the Procurator of Judaea, and in accord with the uncomprehending high priests, so that he could appear as a sacrifice for sin. There is no sacrifice for sin, affirms Jesus, and his dried up blood cannot do what only man himself must do, by turning in repentance and prayer to the Heavenly Father, to effect that change in his heart whereby his soul will give up evil and sin, and embrace what is righteous.
The Father's help in the elimination of sin from the human soul is His Divine Love which, on entering the soul through prayer, removes sin and error from that soul and provides not only purification but its transformation into a divine soul, at-one with the Father's great soul in nature.
This real communion, which Jesus himself had achieved, is, he declares, the only communion between God and His children, which He has provided for their salvation and eternal life with Him.
The vicarious atonement, Jesus states, is a myth, and its appearance in the New Testament is one of many false statements inserted therein to make it harmonize with later concepts concerning his relationship to the Father, which these later Greek and Roman copyists did not understand. It is a terrible thing to believe that God, in order to bring about His son's sacrifice, approved the unlawful arrest of Jesus on the Passover, the bloody scourges, the treachery of Judas, the palpably unfair trial by high priests and Sanhedrinites, as well as Pilate's fear of Judaean revolt against Roman rule, to encompass the inhuman death of Jesus, His Messiah, on a cross. As though God needed to bring about through wickedness and sin the very wickedness and sin He seeks to blot out in His children.
In the light of these messages, a new interpretation of Jesus' death on the cross is certainly in order. We are told by the orthodox churches that Jesus gave himself up willingly as a sacrifice for sin because he loved humanity to the degree of self sacrifice, and because as the Messiah he had come for that purpose.
He is supposed to take the place of the Hebrew sacrifice, the lamb, and he is called in the New Testament the Lamb of God. As a matter of fact, the Old Testament sacrifice of an animal was never intended to take away sin, and this is shown by the fact that although these sacrifices were not permitted during the Babylonian captivity, the people still put their faith in redemption through turning away from sin and seeking God through a life of moral and ethical conduct.
Jesus did sacrifice himself, indeed, but in a way never related or understood by the writers of the New Testament. Jesus went to his death because he would not deny his mission: that, as the first human to attain through prayer an immortal soul filled with the essence of the Father--the Divine Love--he was in this way the first true son of God and therefore the Messiah.
Jesus could have saved his life if he had retracted at his trial, but he died because he remained true to himself, true to his Messiahship, and true to the Father who had sent him. Jesus sacrificed his whole life preaching the Father's Love: he gave up home, his chance to marry and have a family of his own, a chance to devote himself to the quiet pursuits of a Nazarene carpenter; instead, he chose the hatred and opposition of those who understood not and preferred the status quo; he chose the incomprehension of his loved ones, who considered him mad and sought to have him leave Galilee; he chose constant travels and journeys, so that often he had no place to lay his head; he chose to preach in the Temple at Jerusalem, chase the money lenders, defy the conspiracy of those who sought his death, and bravely faced the consequences of what he knew must inevitably occur.
Yes, Jesus did sacrifice himself, but it is high time to put aside myth and metaphysics, and to know and to realize what that sacrifice consists of. When we understand his sacrifice, then Jesus stands forth in all his greatness, in all his courage, in all his serenity and forgiveness and love for mankind, with his absolute faith in the Father and His Love, in that day of his teaching, tribulation, and death.
Jesus tells us many things about himself and his life in the Holy Land. He states that the Bible story of his birth, minus the many supernatural elements in it, is substantially true, and that he was born in Bethlehem, taken by his parents to Egypt to avoid destruction by Herod, that the Wise Men did come from the East to pay him homage and that he was taught the elements of the Hebrew faith from teachers; but that it was the Father Himself who taught him the truth of the Divine Love and made him realize what his mission was. He tells us that John the Baptist, his cousin, was a great psychic and had some understanding of him as the Messiah and that both planned the Master's public ministry.
He states that John never sent emissaries when in prison to be reassured that Jesus was "him whom we seek," and that Jesus as a boy of twelve never appeared before the doctors of the Law in the Temple at Jerusalem.
Jesus also tells about some of the miracles which he performed. Most of these, he explains, dealt with his healing power; but that he never raised Lazarus or anyone else from the dead, nor has anyone else been able to do so, regardless of what the Scriptures say, for the spirit body cannot return to the flesh once the physical conditions of life have been destroyed.
He also relates that he never quieted a storm by rebuking the waves on the Sea of Galilee, but that he did calm the fears of the disciples with him through his example of courage and assurance.
Some of the greatest messages which, to my mind, Jesus and some of the high spirits write are those connected with the Master's resurrection from the dead after his crucifixion. Jesus informs Mr. Padgett that he did die on the cross and that he did appear to Peter, John, Mary Magdalene and his mother on the third day, but that the true explanation of this occurrence is quite different from the accepted views of the churches.
Here, Jesus is supposed to reveal his divinity by arising from the dead; but actually, Jesus' soul never died, as no man's soul dies with physical death, and the Master goes on to state that, with the power inherent in his soul with the Divine Love, he simply dematerialized his mortal frame, announced in the Spirit World the availability of Immortality to mortals and spirits through the Father's Love which he was the first to manifest, and then on the third day materialized a body like flesh and blood drawn from the elements of the universe; and that it was in this materialized body, which he was able to assume without mediumistic aid, that he appeared to Mary Magdalene and the others. It is the reason, he states, why Mary did not at first recognize him and thought him to be the gardener and the same may be said of his disciples at Emmaus.
The great misconception of Christians of all ages has been to believe that Jesus revealed himself to be part of the godhead by this resurrection; that is to say, rising from the dead, but actually his feat consisted in the assumption of a flesh-like body, indeed, so real, as to convince even the doubting Thomas.
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Death, Where Is Thy Sting
by Rev. John Paul Gibson
The question propounded by Job, “If a man die shall he live again?” has been asked by millions since his day. It has been an absorbing thought all down the ages, and even today the question to many minds remains unanswered.
Some persons still assert that the death of the body ends all; but the consensus of opinion is that there is a celestial as well as a terrestrial life, that throughout the illimitable space there are places inhabited by intelligent, spiritual beings, who once lived on earth in mortal form as we now live.
Jesus said: “In my Father’s House are many mansions.” It certainly is logical to conclude that mansions in the heavens, like mansions on earth, are intended to be occupied.
We teach with conviction and certainty that the Spirits of mankind, retaining their mental and soul attributes, as well as their individuality, pass on to live in homes or mansions suited to their various spiritual conditions. Furthermore, it is now a well established fact that the so-called dead can and do, under proper conditions, communicate with those who still remain in the flesh. From these communications we have learned much of the kind of life which awaits us when the Spirit leaves the body.
We have also learned in the writings from Jesus and many Celestials that God is just, but not cruel, to the Spirits of the departed; that we must bear the responsibility and suffer for the evil we have done and thought; and that we must work out our Salvation through earnest sincere prayer to the Father for His Divine Love both here and in the hereafter by conquering the evil in our natures and letting the good, the pure, the gentle and the loving qualities of our souls dominate our thoughts and actions.
Jesus said, “I go unto my Father, and if I go, I will return and receive you unto myself, that where I am there may you be also.” This promise Jesus kept. He had promised proof of Immortality and the proof came when after three days he appeared to his Disciples and the walk to Emmaus. Also, in the upper chamber where the Disciples were gathered together, he appeared before them.
When one considers birth, as the culmination of desire, when one watches the law of growth as the natural development for greater things, then one can regard death as the natural growth of the soul, clothed upon with a finer body.
As the see placed in the ground obeys natural law, comes out of the ground with a different body, yet the same personality, mayhap of grain, or of blossom, yet the same individual life is clothes upon with different garments, more beautiful than the little seed, so there is a physical body and there is a spirtual body.
The glory of the physical body passes on into a more beautiful body, the mind of man progresses into a broader and higher vision of realities, more wonderful than he had ever before conceived, and man has entered into his reak Kingdom of the soul. Thus, death hath lost its sting.
Why should we of earth grieve for our dear departed ones who have simply followed the law of growth? Why do we weep and bemoan the fact that they have entered into a far more interesting life than earth can give? as a rule, our tears are for ourselves, we are bemoaning the loss and blinding our eyes with useless tears, to the glorious freedom our Eternal Heavenly Father has prepared for them and for us.
by Rev. John Paul Gibson
The question propounded by Job, “If a man die shall he live again?” has been asked by millions since his day. It has been an absorbing thought all down the ages, and even today the question to many minds remains unanswered.
Some persons still assert that the death of the body ends all; but the consensus of opinion is that there is a celestial as well as a terrestrial life, that throughout the illimitable space there are places inhabited by intelligent, spiritual beings, who once lived on earth in mortal form as we now live.
Jesus said: “In my Father’s House are many mansions.” It certainly is logical to conclude that mansions in the heavens, like mansions on earth, are intended to be occupied.
We teach with conviction and certainty that the Spirits of mankind, retaining their mental and soul attributes, as well as their individuality, pass on to live in homes or mansions suited to their various spiritual conditions. Furthermore, it is now a well established fact that the so-called dead can and do, under proper conditions, communicate with those who still remain in the flesh. From these communications we have learned much of the kind of life which awaits us when the Spirit leaves the body.
We have also learned in the writings from Jesus and many Celestials that God is just, but not cruel, to the Spirits of the departed; that we must bear the responsibility and suffer for the evil we have done and thought; and that we must work out our Salvation through earnest sincere prayer to the Father for His Divine Love both here and in the hereafter by conquering the evil in our natures and letting the good, the pure, the gentle and the loving qualities of our souls dominate our thoughts and actions.
Jesus said, “I go unto my Father, and if I go, I will return and receive you unto myself, that where I am there may you be also.” This promise Jesus kept. He had promised proof of Immortality and the proof came when after three days he appeared to his Disciples and the walk to Emmaus. Also, in the upper chamber where the Disciples were gathered together, he appeared before them.
When one considers birth, as the culmination of desire, when one watches the law of growth as the natural development for greater things, then one can regard death as the natural growth of the soul, clothed upon with a finer body.
As the see placed in the ground obeys natural law, comes out of the ground with a different body, yet the same personality, mayhap of grain, or of blossom, yet the same individual life is clothes upon with different garments, more beautiful than the little seed, so there is a physical body and there is a spirtual body.
The glory of the physical body passes on into a more beautiful body, the mind of man progresses into a broader and higher vision of realities, more wonderful than he had ever before conceived, and man has entered into his reak Kingdom of the soul. Thus, death hath lost its sting.
Why should we of earth grieve for our dear departed ones who have simply followed the law of growth? Why do we weep and bemoan the fact that they have entered into a far more interesting life than earth can give? as a rule, our tears are for ourselves, we are bemoaning the loss and blinding our eyes with useless tears, to the glorious freedom our Eternal Heavenly Father has prepared for them and for us.
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God And The Human Soul
by Dr. Daniel G. Samuels
As to who and what is God, I dare say that never has the Bible, either the Old or the New Testament, given man an understanding of the Deity and His attributes to the extent and depth as appears in the messages signed Jesus and the Celestials. According to these high spirits, man is at-one with the Father to the degree that His love abounds in their souls.
God is Soul, composed of His greatest attribute, Divine Love, which is His very nature and essence, followed by Mercy, Goodness, Power, Omniscience, and Will, and with the Mind, so much worshipped by mankind, only an aspect of this Being.
Although God has no form such as He gives to mankind on incarnation, nor a spirit body, which is manifested by man after his physical death, yet God possesses His definite Soul form, which becomes more clearly perceptible to the soul which feels or perceives' God's Oversoul, or the divine attributes thereof, as it comes into closer rapport with God through its soul development. For while God is Soul alone, unique in its Oneness, and while He has no material or spirit body, yet He has personality, the divine personality manifesting His Love and Mercy, His kindness and solicitude for all His creatures.
God, then, is not a cold intellect, an abstract mind, or forces indifferent and unfeeling, but a personal warm and loving Father, eager for the happiness of His children, regardless of race or color or creed. He seeks through His ministering angels to turn His children to Him, and have them keep in harmony with His laws, or have them come indeed to Him in the longing of their human souls for that something they know not what and obtain at-onement with Him through the inflowing of His Love into their souls in response to their earnest prayers.
Soul is God and God is Soul and all His attributes added together do not make up who and what God is. These attributes radiate from His Great Soul and flood the universe, so when men say they live and have their being in God they are in error for they do not, but they do live and have their being in the attributes that God has given them: the human soul. When one obtains the greatest attribute of God, the Divine Love, which manifests itself as a warm glow burning in the soul, as occurred to the refugees at Emmaus (Luke, 24, 32), then he is actually feeling or perceiving the Great Soul of God to the degree he partakes of that ove.
Information regarding the human soul not even mentioned in the Scriptures, which presumably should be the place to look for such material, abounds in theMessages from Jesus.To be sure, we are told in Genesis that God created man "in His image," but everything that such a statement implies or suggests is tantalizingly wanting and we are left to our own ideas or compelled to accept what the churches believe should be the meaning. The result is that the conception of what was meant by the creation in man varies in accordance with the interpretation which each church, claiming for itself the truth, lays upon those meager words.
The early Hebrews, of course, were not interested overly much in the life beyond the grave, and their conception of the soul or its habitat after mortal experience is limited mainly to Paradise or Gehenna (and these, we may note, were originally conceived to be places on this earth; in the first case, the Garden of Eden supposed to be near the Euphrates; in the second, in the valley of Hinnom where the Jebusites once offered up human sacrifices). It is strange, perhaps, that the Greeks, with their love of physical culture, form and beauty, should have a much more detailed view of the afterlife: the dark realm of Pluto, the glory and happiness of the Elysian Fields, where the souls of the righteous dwell in peace and communion with their god, the shadow forms of the harpies, the influence, perhaps, of an older Egyptian religion.
But in these messages signed the Master and his celestial spirits, the information given is clear and logical, even though such information is new and hitherto unknown. Certainly, no one up to the time of Padgett's mediumship was able to obtain messages of that high quality directly from these spirits themselves, although Swedenborg, the Swedish seer, was permitted experiences in the spirit world which in many respects parallel what Padgett obtained.
Jesus tells us that just as God is Infinite Love, so is His universe infinite matter which, like God, has neither beginning nor end. At some time in this infinity of time and space, God created a habitat designed for "man". Exactly when we "men" were created as living souls, (that is to say, before or after the creation of our world) is not known, but God created human souls which dwelt, and have been so dwelling, with Him before their incarnation in the flesh. After the mortal experience, the soul, manifesting its spirit body acquired with incarnation, returns to the spirit world to inhabit a locality commensurate with its condition.
Human souls created by the Father, according to the messages, are duplex: they are male and female in composition and at the time of incarnation divide into their two component parts. Each thereafter in the flesh is a complete soul as to itself. These soul mates may or may not meet and marry in the flesh, depending upon various conditions and circumstances which prevail at the time of their marriage, but such marriage is in no way a guarantee of happiness, for the different education, religious beliefs, family traditions, upbringing and other circumstances of each may often hinder rather than aid in their marital relations. On the other hand souls which are not mates have a better chance of marital harmony if their marriage is based on similar interests, upbringing, education and general social condition on the plane of the material world. Soulmates, after death, eventually meet and stay together in real soulmate love, though not before a period of purification, and in accordance with their condition of soul.
The messages are unequivocal in their insistence that human souls are, as theBook of Genesis states, creations in the image of God, and that therefore there is nothing of the Divine in us. They also insist that man is not the product of evolution such as Darwin or his followers have taught, but that ours represents a material form similar to, but more highly developed than, other creations consistent with the development of life on this planet and harmonizing with the conditions for life which this planet presents. Man was provided with a human soul which, with its special appendage, the mind, enabled him to make the advances and progress which exalt him as lord over the other creatures of this life and give him the potentiality of exploring and mastering the physical surroundings into which he has been placed.
But men are tragically mistaken, declares Jesus, when they believe that the mind is superior to, or the equal of, the soul, or that the soul is merely a name which is given to an entity whose existence is either doubtful or has no basis in fact. For the mind is limited and dependent upon the soul, the seat of the emotions and the passions, and it is the soul which is the real man. It is through the soul perceptions that man knew instinctively that he was linked to his Creator, whom he was to revere and obey. Man, says Jesus, can know and knows God only because he possesses a soul, and he can never know God if he seeks Him intellectually and with his mind alone. Doubt and speculation is a product of the mind, but faith is a product of the soul and we know that God exists through our soul perceptions, so that we can create the spiritual link with God through prayer. Not a mental prayer, but a prayer that comes from man's soul-earnest, sincere, full of longing, faith and love.
by Dr. Daniel G. Samuels
As to who and what is God, I dare say that never has the Bible, either the Old or the New Testament, given man an understanding of the Deity and His attributes to the extent and depth as appears in the messages signed Jesus and the Celestials. According to these high spirits, man is at-one with the Father to the degree that His love abounds in their souls.
God is Soul, composed of His greatest attribute, Divine Love, which is His very nature and essence, followed by Mercy, Goodness, Power, Omniscience, and Will, and with the Mind, so much worshipped by mankind, only an aspect of this Being.
Although God has no form such as He gives to mankind on incarnation, nor a spirit body, which is manifested by man after his physical death, yet God possesses His definite Soul form, which becomes more clearly perceptible to the soul which feels or perceives' God's Oversoul, or the divine attributes thereof, as it comes into closer rapport with God through its soul development. For while God is Soul alone, unique in its Oneness, and while He has no material or spirit body, yet He has personality, the divine personality manifesting His Love and Mercy, His kindness and solicitude for all His creatures.
God, then, is not a cold intellect, an abstract mind, or forces indifferent and unfeeling, but a personal warm and loving Father, eager for the happiness of His children, regardless of race or color or creed. He seeks through His ministering angels to turn His children to Him, and have them keep in harmony with His laws, or have them come indeed to Him in the longing of their human souls for that something they know not what and obtain at-onement with Him through the inflowing of His Love into their souls in response to their earnest prayers.
Soul is God and God is Soul and all His attributes added together do not make up who and what God is. These attributes radiate from His Great Soul and flood the universe, so when men say they live and have their being in God they are in error for they do not, but they do live and have their being in the attributes that God has given them: the human soul. When one obtains the greatest attribute of God, the Divine Love, which manifests itself as a warm glow burning in the soul, as occurred to the refugees at Emmaus (Luke, 24, 32), then he is actually feeling or perceiving the Great Soul of God to the degree he partakes of that ove.
Information regarding the human soul not even mentioned in the Scriptures, which presumably should be the place to look for such material, abounds in theMessages from Jesus.To be sure, we are told in Genesis that God created man "in His image," but everything that such a statement implies or suggests is tantalizingly wanting and we are left to our own ideas or compelled to accept what the churches believe should be the meaning. The result is that the conception of what was meant by the creation in man varies in accordance with the interpretation which each church, claiming for itself the truth, lays upon those meager words.
The early Hebrews, of course, were not interested overly much in the life beyond the grave, and their conception of the soul or its habitat after mortal experience is limited mainly to Paradise or Gehenna (and these, we may note, were originally conceived to be places on this earth; in the first case, the Garden of Eden supposed to be near the Euphrates; in the second, in the valley of Hinnom where the Jebusites once offered up human sacrifices). It is strange, perhaps, that the Greeks, with their love of physical culture, form and beauty, should have a much more detailed view of the afterlife: the dark realm of Pluto, the glory and happiness of the Elysian Fields, where the souls of the righteous dwell in peace and communion with their god, the shadow forms of the harpies, the influence, perhaps, of an older Egyptian religion.
But in these messages signed the Master and his celestial spirits, the information given is clear and logical, even though such information is new and hitherto unknown. Certainly, no one up to the time of Padgett's mediumship was able to obtain messages of that high quality directly from these spirits themselves, although Swedenborg, the Swedish seer, was permitted experiences in the spirit world which in many respects parallel what Padgett obtained.
Jesus tells us that just as God is Infinite Love, so is His universe infinite matter which, like God, has neither beginning nor end. At some time in this infinity of time and space, God created a habitat designed for "man". Exactly when we "men" were created as living souls, (that is to say, before or after the creation of our world) is not known, but God created human souls which dwelt, and have been so dwelling, with Him before their incarnation in the flesh. After the mortal experience, the soul, manifesting its spirit body acquired with incarnation, returns to the spirit world to inhabit a locality commensurate with its condition.
Human souls created by the Father, according to the messages, are duplex: they are male and female in composition and at the time of incarnation divide into their two component parts. Each thereafter in the flesh is a complete soul as to itself. These soul mates may or may not meet and marry in the flesh, depending upon various conditions and circumstances which prevail at the time of their marriage, but such marriage is in no way a guarantee of happiness, for the different education, religious beliefs, family traditions, upbringing and other circumstances of each may often hinder rather than aid in their marital relations. On the other hand souls which are not mates have a better chance of marital harmony if their marriage is based on similar interests, upbringing, education and general social condition on the plane of the material world. Soulmates, after death, eventually meet and stay together in real soulmate love, though not before a period of purification, and in accordance with their condition of soul.
The messages are unequivocal in their insistence that human souls are, as theBook of Genesis states, creations in the image of God, and that therefore there is nothing of the Divine in us. They also insist that man is not the product of evolution such as Darwin or his followers have taught, but that ours represents a material form similar to, but more highly developed than, other creations consistent with the development of life on this planet and harmonizing with the conditions for life which this planet presents. Man was provided with a human soul which, with its special appendage, the mind, enabled him to make the advances and progress which exalt him as lord over the other creatures of this life and give him the potentiality of exploring and mastering the physical surroundings into which he has been placed.
But men are tragically mistaken, declares Jesus, when they believe that the mind is superior to, or the equal of, the soul, or that the soul is merely a name which is given to an entity whose existence is either doubtful or has no basis in fact. For the mind is limited and dependent upon the soul, the seat of the emotions and the passions, and it is the soul which is the real man. It is through the soul perceptions that man knew instinctively that he was linked to his Creator, whom he was to revere and obey. Man, says Jesus, can know and knows God only because he possesses a soul, and he can never know God if he seeks Him intellectually and with his mind alone. Doubt and speculation is a product of the mind, but faith is a product of the soul and we know that God exists through our soul perceptions, so that we can create the spiritual link with God through prayer. Not a mental prayer, but a prayer that comes from man's soul-earnest, sincere, full of longing, faith and love.
The Problem Of Sin
By Dr. Daniel G. Samuels
When the first parents, or whom they represent, possessed their God-given souls, these souls were in the image of God, but they had nothing of the essence of God in them. They were given the opportunity, however, to obtain the nature of God through prayer for His Love, which on entering the human soul through the agency of the Holy Spirit, transforms that soul from the image of God into the essence of God.
But the first parents, instead of turning to God and His Love, sought mastery of their material surroundings alone and, instead of developing their souls so that they would partake of the nature of God through Divine Love, chose the development of their intellectual faculties. For it is through his intellectual attainments that man acquires the material possessions and wealth by which he so much sets his store and which marks him as a success by worldly standards. And thus came the story of the apple, and the Tree of Knowledge. And it is through this material knowledge that sin began, for man turned from God to be independent of God, and with it came pride. He became puffed up, cruel, heartless and merciless, where he had been created with a soul full of human love and mercy and tenderness and sympathy for his fellow beings.
Thus man, in his ruthlessness, lost the use of his soul qualities and the potentiality of partaking of the Father's nature through the inflowing of the Divine Love into his soul, and this was the death which man suffered when he sinned. For, says Jesus, the material body was not in question; it was, rather, the penalty of having lost the opportunity of achieving at-onement in soul with the Father. Men lost the potentiality for salvation through becoming immortal souls. The wages of sin, as Jesus explains it, is spiritual death: loss of the soul's chance to partake of God's nature and [to] live. Death in the flesh, Jesus assures us, is merely an incident in the progress of man's soul from preexistence to the point where he returns to the spirit world with his individuality assumed at the time of incarnation, and manifested in his spirit body.
The problem of sin, then, is the defilement of the soul during its period of incarnation. Sin is the violation of God's laws, says Jesus, as given to mankind by those of His messengers who transmit His will to mortals attuned to their suggestions, either because they are more pure in heart and are closer to the Father or because of their psychic or mediumistic powers.
An interesting message signed Elijah tells us that he could receive messages from the unseen world because of prayers and religious instinct. Here, perhaps, is the story of the great religious founders and reformers of all lands and ages up to the coming of the Messiah. They all sought to turn man to the moral life, and the Eight Steps of Buddha, the Hammurabi Code and the Decalogue of Moses may, perhaps, be viewed as the success which the Father's messengers attained in planting into man's mind an awareness of the existence of God's laws, which were to be observed by all His children for the purity of their souls.
Some of the finest messages in this collection are those from Old Testament Prophets, like Elijah, Samuel, Moses and Daniel, who tell us of their efforts to turn their compatriots away from sin and error in the conduct of their lives to standards of ethical living, and seeking to give effect to their sermons through recourse to threats of punishment to be meted out by an angry and wrathful God.
They explain that His Love was not available to them nor was it known to them as a reality, and they conceived of Him as a stern taskmaster who was vengeful and jealous "of His name." Their highest concept of Judaism, which graces the most exalted pages of the Old Testament, was intense faith in God, righteousness and obedience to His laws. There also runs through the Scriptures the theme of the new heart--the promise of the Father's Love, to be bestowed in the fullness of time upon the Jews first and thereafter upon all mankind, but this is a subject which, as far as I know, has never been given adequate treatment in the study of the Hebrew religion.
By Dr. Daniel G. Samuels
When the first parents, or whom they represent, possessed their God-given souls, these souls were in the image of God, but they had nothing of the essence of God in them. They were given the opportunity, however, to obtain the nature of God through prayer for His Love, which on entering the human soul through the agency of the Holy Spirit, transforms that soul from the image of God into the essence of God.
But the first parents, instead of turning to God and His Love, sought mastery of their material surroundings alone and, instead of developing their souls so that they would partake of the nature of God through Divine Love, chose the development of their intellectual faculties. For it is through his intellectual attainments that man acquires the material possessions and wealth by which he so much sets his store and which marks him as a success by worldly standards. And thus came the story of the apple, and the Tree of Knowledge. And it is through this material knowledge that sin began, for man turned from God to be independent of God, and with it came pride. He became puffed up, cruel, heartless and merciless, where he had been created with a soul full of human love and mercy and tenderness and sympathy for his fellow beings.
Thus man, in his ruthlessness, lost the use of his soul qualities and the potentiality of partaking of the Father's nature through the inflowing of the Divine Love into his soul, and this was the death which man suffered when he sinned. For, says Jesus, the material body was not in question; it was, rather, the penalty of having lost the opportunity of achieving at-onement in soul with the Father. Men lost the potentiality for salvation through becoming immortal souls. The wages of sin, as Jesus explains it, is spiritual death: loss of the soul's chance to partake of God's nature and [to] live. Death in the flesh, Jesus assures us, is merely an incident in the progress of man's soul from preexistence to the point where he returns to the spirit world with his individuality assumed at the time of incarnation, and manifested in his spirit body.
The problem of sin, then, is the defilement of the soul during its period of incarnation. Sin is the violation of God's laws, says Jesus, as given to mankind by those of His messengers who transmit His will to mortals attuned to their suggestions, either because they are more pure in heart and are closer to the Father or because of their psychic or mediumistic powers.
An interesting message signed Elijah tells us that he could receive messages from the unseen world because of prayers and religious instinct. Here, perhaps, is the story of the great religious founders and reformers of all lands and ages up to the coming of the Messiah. They all sought to turn man to the moral life, and the Eight Steps of Buddha, the Hammurabi Code and the Decalogue of Moses may, perhaps, be viewed as the success which the Father's messengers attained in planting into man's mind an awareness of the existence of God's laws, which were to be observed by all His children for the purity of their souls.
Some of the finest messages in this collection are those from Old Testament Prophets, like Elijah, Samuel, Moses and Daniel, who tell us of their efforts to turn their compatriots away from sin and error in the conduct of their lives to standards of ethical living, and seeking to give effect to their sermons through recourse to threats of punishment to be meted out by an angry and wrathful God.
They explain that His Love was not available to them nor was it known to them as a reality, and they conceived of Him as a stern taskmaster who was vengeful and jealous "of His name." Their highest concept of Judaism, which graces the most exalted pages of the Old Testament, was intense faith in God, righteousness and obedience to His laws. There also runs through the Scriptures the theme of the new heart--the promise of the Father's Love, to be bestowed in the fullness of time upon the Jews first and thereafter upon all mankind, but this is a subject which, as far as I know, has never been given adequate treatment in the study of the Hebrew religion.
Redemption From Sin
By Daniel G. Samuels
To the pious Hebrew of the Old Testament, it appeared that his wickedness both as a nation and as individuals was the cause of his national disasters and that his successes were the result of his faithfulness to the Covenant between God and the Patriarchs.
The Prophets emphasized the necessity in times of national stress to avoid alliances with other countries, and to put their faith in God's protection. Failure to heed the warnings of the Prophets led to calamity as in the days of Jeremiah, when disregard of his advice brought captivity in Babylonia. Again, in the sorest hour of Judaea's history, when the people were being provoked almost beyond endurance to bloody rebellion against mighty Rome, a Prophet out of Nazareth came with a message of peace and forbearance, only to be rejected by those in power; Judaea was crushed and the people--those that remained--dispersed over the face of the earth.
For those of us who know that the Heavenly Father is our God of Love, we cannot believe that He brought about the horrible destruction of the Hebrews in the revolt of 67-70 A.D. But we do believe that the condition of men's souls was such that it embraced wrath and the violence of warfare rather than love and patience and that this condition of the soul made inevitable the dreadful consequences that followed.
In the Spirit World, the soul that sins must likewise reap the whirlwind. On leaving the flesh, it is received by Spirits whose duty it is to instruct it in the things of its new existence. It is told that everything in the Spirit World is controlled by law. One of these is the "law of compensation," applicable to all Spirits who pass over from mortal to spirit life. This life calls for the expiation of the sins which the soul has committed as a mortal.
Since the soul is the "real man," and is in possession of its faculties, this includes the memory of deeds committed in the earth life. All the evil works and thoughts which the soul has accumulated as a mortal now come back to haunt and assail him and the terrible remorse and suffering that ensue continue constantly and unabated until these evil memories have left him, and it is this that constitutes the judgment day and the hell.
The condition of the soul creates the home in which it lives when it first passes over into spirit life; a home which accurately and exactly reflects the state of that soul and the spirit body which it manifests. Hence a soul filled with thoughts and deeds spiritual and in accord with God's laws will abide in a place suitable to its soul condition filled with light and reflecting the happiness of that soul; but a soul filled with deeds and thoughts of the material plane alone, and out of harmony with God's laws, engenders an abode of darkness and suffering, and in accordance with the abuses and unlawful material pleasures which it pursued when on earth.
But one of the most pernicious doctrines taught by the churches and whose damnable falsity is exposed by Jesus, is that which fixes the destiny of the delinquent soul in hell for all eternity. This is not true, for as soon as the soul wills it, and repents of his sins as a mortal, he may make his progress out of the lowest hells to the Spiritual heavens or, should he seek and obtain the Father's Love, continue to eternally progress as an immortal soul in the Celestial Heavens towards the throne of God.
The reason for this, the Master explains, is that the soul of man is the same, whether in the flesh or as a Spirit, and the same conditions of forgiveness obtain here as in the Spirit World. All sins are pardonable in this world or the next whenever the soul makes the sincere effort to receive it, and the only sin not pardonable is that which, in New Testament parlance, blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, or in the language which the Master makes clear, refuses the Divine Love of the Father which can transform the human soul into a divine soul and bestow upon it immortality.
It is not true that man has the sorry alternative of either repenting of his evils ways in the brief existence in the flesh or living in hell throughout all eternity as a Spirit. Some churches state that man cannot live a mortal life of pleasure and evil and then turn to God to avoid eternal suffering as a Spirit. At the same time they teach that despite a life of sin a last minute return to God will insure forgiveness of their sins, when they come to the next world. These churches seem to be unaware of the existence of the law of compensation which exacts payment for the evils committed in the flesh "to the last farthing." This is justice, indeed, if that is what these churches desire, but the time comes when the debt is paid, the soul is released from the workings of the law and forgiveness is achieved.
The law, then, acts upon the soul undergoing the process of purification, but the soul that seeks the Father's Love invokes the higher law of Grace. Here no justice is involved; only the Divine Love which the Father bestows upon His aspiring children and transforms them into divine souls, bringing about the elimination of those evil desires and the forgetfulness of those evil deeds upon which the law of compensation operates. The pernicious doctrine of eternal damnation often prevents the unhappy soul from seeking the Father's Love through prayer, in the terrible belief that his position in hell is fixed forever and that God can no longer help him. Yet God, as Jesus explains it, helps His children wherever they are, in this world or the next, or in whatever condition of soul they may be in, provided they come to Him as their Heavenly Father in earnest longing of their souls and seek His Love and mercy.
It is the awakening of the soul to the iniquities it worked and cogitated as a mortal that brings about the workings of the law of compensation, and the abode of the spirit. Sometimes, the soul that passes over, because of the peculiar character of its make-up, is impervious at first to this awakening, and in that case, the soul lives on the level of its evil earth plane life and seeks in spiritual counterparts those evils which it practiced as a mortal, or roams the earth seeking to obsess mortals susceptible to its baleful influence.
Jesus refers in the Gospels of the New Testament to his having liberated mortals from possession by demons, and these demons were nothing more than evil spirits which had taken possession of human beings at the time. In respect to these evil spirits of once mortal beings, Jesus tells us that some of the narratives related in the New Testament are true, but that others are false, and he refers concretely to the story of the possessed swine which ran madly down the cliff to be destroyed. This, he asserts, he never brought about, first because he would harm no creature, and because of the financial loss such an act of his would have entailed their owner. But, as regards the evil spirits, these awaken in time to the law of compensation and pass through their period of suffering for their mischief and evil. They are helped in this condition by others who are somewhat more advanced than themselves, and who instruct them in the ways that exist to progress out of their deplorable condition.
Hence, souls in suffering eventually learn to give up their evil inclinations, whether it be a fondness for money, possessions, gratification of pleasures or the desire to injure others--greed, lusts, covetousness, hatred, envy, injustice and other sinful creations of the human heart--and they may use their will power and intellectual faculties to enable them to cause the forgetfulness of the things that make for a soul stricken with remorse. But the soul in suffering and darkness may also seek outside aid if it so wishes: the Divine Love of the Heavenly Father which, pouring out into the soul which earnestly seeks His Love, causes the purification of that soul through possessing it and thus forcing from it the excrescences that mar and defile that soul; and indeed, as the Father's Love continues to fill the soul of him who seeks it, there takes place the transformation of the human soul reflecting the Soul of God into a Divine soul filled with the very nature and essence of God, His Love.
With that Love the soul is changed, and the evils which contaminated it are eradicated and the memories thereof, so that the law of compensation has nothing on which to operate, and the soul is freed from its inexorable workings. For God's Love sought for by the soul in earnestness and longing invokes a higher law of love and the once evil soul, now filled with God's Love, and mercy, and kindness, consideration, pity and sympathy, progresses out of its abode of darkness and suffering into realms of love and light, and eventually into the Celestial Heavens, where only those souls filled with His Love can enter. Jesus is the Master of the Celestial Heavens, where the inhabitants are the possessors of the Father's Love to that degree in their souls that they are conscious of their immortality. For God's Soul being Immortal, those souls possessing His Love to a sufficient degree are in the same way Immortal.
This is what Jesus meant when he said, "The Father and I are one." He meant there was a oneness between God's Soul and His own because of the great abundance of the Father's Love which he possessed, which enabled him to realize that in this way he was the Father's real and redeemed son. He did not mean, as some churches have erroneously interpreted the remark, that he was God or equal to God; only that there was a kinship in nature between his soul and God's, which had been established by his possession of the Father's Love through prayer.
In short, we come to the real explanation of "forgiveness," which is startlingly different from the traditional conception imposed upon mortals by the churches. God does not arbitrarily forgive sin; but rather, God aids those who, truly penitent and contrite, come to Him to seek His forgiveness with the intention of mending their ways. He may therefore send the Spirit of God to strengthen the soul that seeks to avoid sin and error through his own will power or, in response to prayer, He will send His Holy Spirit to convey His Love into the soul so that His own nature and essence provide the aid in eradicating the evils with which that soul is contending.
In the same way, Jesus lays bare the sterility of the traditional concept of the "judgment day." It is not a weighing in the balance of the good and evil deeds of man during his earth life; neither is it a vague indefinite time when the earth shall be destroyed and men's souls tried for condemnation or resuscitation into physical life from the grave. For, as St. Paul says in Corinthians, "flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom." And Mary, the Mother of Jesus, explains that the flesh of the lifeless body must return to the elements in accordance with God's law, and that therefore any writings to the effect that she ascended into heaven in the flesh is mere speculation and wishful thinking on the part of those who exalt her because of her relationship to her son. Mary states that, indeed, as a Spirit filled with the Father's Love, she is an inhabitant of the Kingdom high up in the Celestial Heavens, yet not because of any relationship to Jesus, but because of her own exalted soul condition.
Eventually, declares Jesus, all souls will progress out of their condition of suffering and unhappiness and attain to either the sixth sphere, known to the Hebrews as Paradise (for such is the condition of man possessing purity of soul whether he be in the flesh or devoid of it) or will accept the way to the Father's Love and reach the Celestial Heavens. The perfect natural man, however, must eventually reach a state of stagnation, for the time comes when he can no longer progress beyond the perfection of his human soul; but the soul possessed of the Father's Love may continue to obtain His Love throughout all eternity, for it is infinite, and the soul thus filled with the Father's essence continues to obtain more and more of it and, consequently, to progress nearer and nearer to the fountainhead of the Father's abode, with increased knowledge of things divine and gaining in happiness and joy as a Divine son of the Father.
By Daniel G. Samuels
To the pious Hebrew of the Old Testament, it appeared that his wickedness both as a nation and as individuals was the cause of his national disasters and that his successes were the result of his faithfulness to the Covenant between God and the Patriarchs.
The Prophets emphasized the necessity in times of national stress to avoid alliances with other countries, and to put their faith in God's protection. Failure to heed the warnings of the Prophets led to calamity as in the days of Jeremiah, when disregard of his advice brought captivity in Babylonia. Again, in the sorest hour of Judaea's history, when the people were being provoked almost beyond endurance to bloody rebellion against mighty Rome, a Prophet out of Nazareth came with a message of peace and forbearance, only to be rejected by those in power; Judaea was crushed and the people--those that remained--dispersed over the face of the earth.
For those of us who know that the Heavenly Father is our God of Love, we cannot believe that He brought about the horrible destruction of the Hebrews in the revolt of 67-70 A.D. But we do believe that the condition of men's souls was such that it embraced wrath and the violence of warfare rather than love and patience and that this condition of the soul made inevitable the dreadful consequences that followed.
In the Spirit World, the soul that sins must likewise reap the whirlwind. On leaving the flesh, it is received by Spirits whose duty it is to instruct it in the things of its new existence. It is told that everything in the Spirit World is controlled by law. One of these is the "law of compensation," applicable to all Spirits who pass over from mortal to spirit life. This life calls for the expiation of the sins which the soul has committed as a mortal.
Since the soul is the "real man," and is in possession of its faculties, this includes the memory of deeds committed in the earth life. All the evil works and thoughts which the soul has accumulated as a mortal now come back to haunt and assail him and the terrible remorse and suffering that ensue continue constantly and unabated until these evil memories have left him, and it is this that constitutes the judgment day and the hell.
The condition of the soul creates the home in which it lives when it first passes over into spirit life; a home which accurately and exactly reflects the state of that soul and the spirit body which it manifests. Hence a soul filled with thoughts and deeds spiritual and in accord with God's laws will abide in a place suitable to its soul condition filled with light and reflecting the happiness of that soul; but a soul filled with deeds and thoughts of the material plane alone, and out of harmony with God's laws, engenders an abode of darkness and suffering, and in accordance with the abuses and unlawful material pleasures which it pursued when on earth.
But one of the most pernicious doctrines taught by the churches and whose damnable falsity is exposed by Jesus, is that which fixes the destiny of the delinquent soul in hell for all eternity. This is not true, for as soon as the soul wills it, and repents of his sins as a mortal, he may make his progress out of the lowest hells to the Spiritual heavens or, should he seek and obtain the Father's Love, continue to eternally progress as an immortal soul in the Celestial Heavens towards the throne of God.
The reason for this, the Master explains, is that the soul of man is the same, whether in the flesh or as a Spirit, and the same conditions of forgiveness obtain here as in the Spirit World. All sins are pardonable in this world or the next whenever the soul makes the sincere effort to receive it, and the only sin not pardonable is that which, in New Testament parlance, blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, or in the language which the Master makes clear, refuses the Divine Love of the Father which can transform the human soul into a divine soul and bestow upon it immortality.
It is not true that man has the sorry alternative of either repenting of his evils ways in the brief existence in the flesh or living in hell throughout all eternity as a Spirit. Some churches state that man cannot live a mortal life of pleasure and evil and then turn to God to avoid eternal suffering as a Spirit. At the same time they teach that despite a life of sin a last minute return to God will insure forgiveness of their sins, when they come to the next world. These churches seem to be unaware of the existence of the law of compensation which exacts payment for the evils committed in the flesh "to the last farthing." This is justice, indeed, if that is what these churches desire, but the time comes when the debt is paid, the soul is released from the workings of the law and forgiveness is achieved.
The law, then, acts upon the soul undergoing the process of purification, but the soul that seeks the Father's Love invokes the higher law of Grace. Here no justice is involved; only the Divine Love which the Father bestows upon His aspiring children and transforms them into divine souls, bringing about the elimination of those evil desires and the forgetfulness of those evil deeds upon which the law of compensation operates. The pernicious doctrine of eternal damnation often prevents the unhappy soul from seeking the Father's Love through prayer, in the terrible belief that his position in hell is fixed forever and that God can no longer help him. Yet God, as Jesus explains it, helps His children wherever they are, in this world or the next, or in whatever condition of soul they may be in, provided they come to Him as their Heavenly Father in earnest longing of their souls and seek His Love and mercy.
It is the awakening of the soul to the iniquities it worked and cogitated as a mortal that brings about the workings of the law of compensation, and the abode of the spirit. Sometimes, the soul that passes over, because of the peculiar character of its make-up, is impervious at first to this awakening, and in that case, the soul lives on the level of its evil earth plane life and seeks in spiritual counterparts those evils which it practiced as a mortal, or roams the earth seeking to obsess mortals susceptible to its baleful influence.
Jesus refers in the Gospels of the New Testament to his having liberated mortals from possession by demons, and these demons were nothing more than evil spirits which had taken possession of human beings at the time. In respect to these evil spirits of once mortal beings, Jesus tells us that some of the narratives related in the New Testament are true, but that others are false, and he refers concretely to the story of the possessed swine which ran madly down the cliff to be destroyed. This, he asserts, he never brought about, first because he would harm no creature, and because of the financial loss such an act of his would have entailed their owner. But, as regards the evil spirits, these awaken in time to the law of compensation and pass through their period of suffering for their mischief and evil. They are helped in this condition by others who are somewhat more advanced than themselves, and who instruct them in the ways that exist to progress out of their deplorable condition.
Hence, souls in suffering eventually learn to give up their evil inclinations, whether it be a fondness for money, possessions, gratification of pleasures or the desire to injure others--greed, lusts, covetousness, hatred, envy, injustice and other sinful creations of the human heart--and they may use their will power and intellectual faculties to enable them to cause the forgetfulness of the things that make for a soul stricken with remorse. But the soul in suffering and darkness may also seek outside aid if it so wishes: the Divine Love of the Heavenly Father which, pouring out into the soul which earnestly seeks His Love, causes the purification of that soul through possessing it and thus forcing from it the excrescences that mar and defile that soul; and indeed, as the Father's Love continues to fill the soul of him who seeks it, there takes place the transformation of the human soul reflecting the Soul of God into a Divine soul filled with the very nature and essence of God, His Love.
With that Love the soul is changed, and the evils which contaminated it are eradicated and the memories thereof, so that the law of compensation has nothing on which to operate, and the soul is freed from its inexorable workings. For God's Love sought for by the soul in earnestness and longing invokes a higher law of love and the once evil soul, now filled with God's Love, and mercy, and kindness, consideration, pity and sympathy, progresses out of its abode of darkness and suffering into realms of love and light, and eventually into the Celestial Heavens, where only those souls filled with His Love can enter. Jesus is the Master of the Celestial Heavens, where the inhabitants are the possessors of the Father's Love to that degree in their souls that they are conscious of their immortality. For God's Soul being Immortal, those souls possessing His Love to a sufficient degree are in the same way Immortal.
This is what Jesus meant when he said, "The Father and I are one." He meant there was a oneness between God's Soul and His own because of the great abundance of the Father's Love which he possessed, which enabled him to realize that in this way he was the Father's real and redeemed son. He did not mean, as some churches have erroneously interpreted the remark, that he was God or equal to God; only that there was a kinship in nature between his soul and God's, which had been established by his possession of the Father's Love through prayer.
In short, we come to the real explanation of "forgiveness," which is startlingly different from the traditional conception imposed upon mortals by the churches. God does not arbitrarily forgive sin; but rather, God aids those who, truly penitent and contrite, come to Him to seek His forgiveness with the intention of mending their ways. He may therefore send the Spirit of God to strengthen the soul that seeks to avoid sin and error through his own will power or, in response to prayer, He will send His Holy Spirit to convey His Love into the soul so that His own nature and essence provide the aid in eradicating the evils with which that soul is contending.
In the same way, Jesus lays bare the sterility of the traditional concept of the "judgment day." It is not a weighing in the balance of the good and evil deeds of man during his earth life; neither is it a vague indefinite time when the earth shall be destroyed and men's souls tried for condemnation or resuscitation into physical life from the grave. For, as St. Paul says in Corinthians, "flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom." And Mary, the Mother of Jesus, explains that the flesh of the lifeless body must return to the elements in accordance with God's law, and that therefore any writings to the effect that she ascended into heaven in the flesh is mere speculation and wishful thinking on the part of those who exalt her because of her relationship to her son. Mary states that, indeed, as a Spirit filled with the Father's Love, she is an inhabitant of the Kingdom high up in the Celestial Heavens, yet not because of any relationship to Jesus, but because of her own exalted soul condition.
Eventually, declares Jesus, all souls will progress out of their condition of suffering and unhappiness and attain to either the sixth sphere, known to the Hebrews as Paradise (for such is the condition of man possessing purity of soul whether he be in the flesh or devoid of it) or will accept the way to the Father's Love and reach the Celestial Heavens. The perfect natural man, however, must eventually reach a state of stagnation, for the time comes when he can no longer progress beyond the perfection of his human soul; but the soul possessed of the Father's Love may continue to obtain His Love throughout all eternity, for it is infinite, and the soul thus filled with the Father's essence continues to obtain more and more of it and, consequently, to progress nearer and nearer to the fountainhead of the Father's abode, with increased knowledge of things divine and gaining in happiness and joy as a Divine son of the Father.