Page Six
The Literalist says:
"Jesus Said 'Strait Is The Gate, And Narrow Is The Way' -
Therefore You Must Accept Our Way Or Perish!"
One of the common objections of the Fundamentalist to liberal Christianity and universal salvation, is a passage found in Matthew 7:14 - "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." Here, naturally, the Fundamentalist might say that only by being "born again" (according to their concept of salvation) can a person "get saved" and that all other ways lead to destruction.
However, if the Literalist was able to set aside his conditioning for one second, he would see that he has made for himself a narrow mind instead of the narrow way which Jesus the Christ was talking about.
Once again, we must return to the original Christ, we must look at Christ as Christ was and is. Choosing to be born into poverty although He deserved a King's welcome; working ceaselessly and tirelessly, first for His family and then for mankind; being so humble that He washed the feet of His own followers; teaching endlessly about love, compassion, understanding, forgiveness and the Kingdom of God; healing the sick and bringing hope to the poor and downhearted; giving up all and taking nothing with Him wherever He went, and calling with an unimaginable courage to others to do the same; the King of kings condemned to the Cross by those He truly loved and whom He had come to save, sacrifice in the highest sense because of the love thrown back which crucified Him eventually. All of these things and more, owning nothing of the world, being humble of heart, taking on and enduring to the end the deep heartaches of life and the sorrows of others - these are the kind of things which constitute the narrow way - the Christ Way.
As always, the things of Christ are simple, very simple; but man has taken the simple things of Jesus and added his own complicated dogmatic teachings. And the Fundamentalist, intolerant of other faiths and belief systems to greater or lesser degree, passes into another world to find that he is not so elevated as he expected and has much to work out because of his lack of interest and charitable acceptance of his brother - he has failed to do what he would like to have done to himself: to accept. And now he must learn to truly accept others who think differently to himself but he has cast his thoughts and presumptions in clay although he had the chance to accept others according to the way that Christ demonstrated.
Looking at the mechanics of the transition in general, many pass out of the earth life with their lessons unlearnt because they chose a life of material desire and had no room nor great interest in the state of health of their soul-bodies. And so each goes to his own place according to the state of health of his soul. If it is still full of earthly desire, then the brighter Spheres of God which have been culled out of the hearts and minds of dedicated people willing to sacrifice - these Spheres are not available to the one who neglected his spiritual path while on earth, and much time and hard work has yet to pass before he is in a state of spiritual health where he can climb the steep hill to God through the increasingly purified Heavenly Spheres. While on earth either the desire for power, possessions, the adulation of the masses or freedom from true spiritual commitment were prominent, and the path which leads to the life which God desires the individual to have was not followed nor indeed found.
"Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it" is of course consistent with Christ's other teachings such as: "It is as difficult for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven as it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle". These teachings are not based on dogmatic claims of salvation, they are based on the state of a person's heart and spirituality. Christ Jesus was drawing comparisons between the broad way and the narrow way: the broad way was the way of physical desire of the lesser self, the desire to control and rule others, to possess power and riches, the living of an easy, comfortable and carefree life which avoids true responsibility, burdens and spiritually profitable experiences; and the narrow way was the Christ Way, the Way He laid down in Person as He walked the Earth and gently displayed Divine Love for all to see.
The narrow way as spoken by Christ has nothing at all to do with the acceptance of a contrived metaphysical concept i.e. being made perfect for the upper echelons of Heaven in an instant by accepting an ideal just once while living in a body of flesh on Earth; or in other words, the narrow way as spoken by Christ is not dependent upon being "born again" according to the extreme Fundamentalist Christian dogmatic claim.
"Moral Right" Christianity Is Better Than None?
The conservative literal Fundamentalist says that the resurgence of Moral Right Christianity has brought God to the foreground. And the thinking is that this is good even if the Fundamentalist cannot hold a dialogue with others of other faiths because his scripture apparently tells him that his way is the only way and that all other ways are a consequence of being misled by the Devil.
However, the liberal Christian can hold dialogue with others of other faiths and this brings harmony - unity in diversity - and harmony is of God. It is sad to see those who cannot hold a dialogue with others because they think differently - it is sad for mankind and it is sad for God. If only they would remove their literalism and work with other religious and spiritual pathways, they would see that they hold a great deal in common with others in the way of ideals, goals and general outlook.
Only in this way will fundamental extremism in any religion - including violent terror - be made impossible. But sadly, the literalist who is a so-named biblical Christian of the Moral Right, will not at this time tolerate working in harmony with other faiths and beliefs in any great depth, and thereby perpetuates extremism instead of being part of the catalyst which will transform it.
A vast amount of service is being done in this world for man and God by those who don't call themselves biblical or "Fundamentalist" Christians, so really the claim of the "Biblical Christian" that it is worth being narrow and separate because more is being done in God's name, is a bogus claim. Any philanthropic work they do for mankind and God could just as easily be done if they didn't follow a separatist concept of faith, and this would be vastly preferable because less offence, friction and bad feelings would be caused.
A Redeemer From The Beginning
From the beginning of time God the Redeemer, the Restorer, the Saviour, has been amongst His children seeking to retrieve for them what they have thrown away. The Christ is not limited to being a one-off Redeemer, but He has tried all methods to bring His children out of their ignorance, and He will continue to show His children how they can reclaim their rightful inheritance, and He should not be restricted to the God and Saviour portrayed by limited man-made dogmas.
The Great Redeemer always has attempted, and always will attempt to bring His children out of a state of ignorance into enlightenment. His acts of redemption go far beyond anything which man of this present civilization calls recorded history.
Dogma Does Not Want Humanity
To Know Who Its God Really Is
God loves all of His children, whether they consider themselves the only ones saved or whether they know that all will be saved eventually through His most merciful processes. God knows the limitations of the human mind and there is no blame from Him because of man's limitations concerning what is actual Truth and what is only half-truth. There is the evolution of the soul for everyone, and this continues long after this world has been left.
The God who gives life only on this earth to accept a particular man-made dogma (the failure of which shall mean for them torture with no end), is not the God of love who has been seeking the prodigal children since the beginning of time, when they entered imperfection through seeking power by "eating" of the tree with the temptation of instant power, instead of being obedient and doing as God had decreed, and learning about life in its fullness and how to use the freewill without error.
And who could truly love the limited God of Dogma? Surely that love would be somewhat twisted in those who attributed to their God the characteristics which really belong to the lesser and callous side of human beings. No, God is the God who has set into being a process whereby all of His children shall be saved, even if this means thousands of years in awful conditions which are so indescribable that this little earth does not sustain any conditions which are truly comparable. I use the word "are" to describe the hells in the present tense, because the hells - those areas which are dark, darker still, and also those of the "outer darkness" (Matt. 8:12) to which the hypocritical, cheats and exploiters (Matt. 23:14) were to go - already exist and are coexistent with both life on earth and those conditions which are known as Paradise (which can be called the Bright Spheres), and this is clearly evident in Christ's parable of the rich man and the poor man.
"God's Justice And Holiness Demands
That There Is No Universal Salvation"?
The pedants desire us to believe the following: "But there is no universal salvation because the Bible clearly indicates that the justice and holiness of God will see that all those who oppose Him will be destroyed; therefore there is no universal salvation". In short, the Literalist is trying to convince us that if we do not accept his concept of salvation, then because God's justice and holiness cannot be altered, we must go into an everlasting punishment of eternal hellfire.
However, God is Love, and God's justice is a quality of Love, and God's holiness is a quality of Love. Because God is Love, He is holy, and because God is Love, He is just. Justice emanates from Love and holiness emanates from Love. From Love come all attributes which are Divine, including justice and holiness.
Love has always existed and therefore so has justice and holiness, but they exist because Love is what God is, and out of Love comes justice and holiness. Justice and Holiness are not equal with Love, but they are a part of Love. God is Love. God is not justice but He is just, and God is not holiness but He is holy.
God's justice, being based on Love, demands that all of His creations be redeemed to a state perfection. It is divinely just that anything He creates should not be lost to evil forever but should be saved. God's justice would not be Divine if anything which came from Him was lost forever.
In regard to God's holiness, the Literalist might say that all those not "saved" (again, according to the Fundamentalist concept of salvation) is living in iniquity and will perish in hell because God "cannot look on iniquity". But they have misinterpreted the whole meaning because they forget that God's holiness is based on Love. God's holiness means that He "cannot look on iniquity", and an everlasting punishment would mean that God would have to contemplate iniquity forever, as evil would be sustained for ever without end. Such an idea is absurd. God shall be "avenged", so to speak, when all of His children are returned Home and all of the imperfect characteristics within their souls have been transformed back to perfection by the end of the "Aeon of aeons".
That Is Called Hope?
Some people naming themselves Christians and thinking of themselves as the few chosen for salvation, assure us: "Our way is full of hope!" This is one of the strangest and most absurd assertions in the universe, because if only a few of our fellow members of humanity are to receive "salvation", then most sensitive people would suffer from a deep depression rather than hope.
How these relatively few "saved" people can eat heartily, sing and make merry at all - when the majority of good people who do not accept their misconceived dogmas are going to receive the eternal torment and horrors of Hell (according to them) - is simply beyond comprehension; and if one points this out to them, they suggest that one need not go to Hell if one just accepts their beliefs (the issue of freewill can enter at this point and that has been dealt with above).
To be able to enjoy life when the majority of ones fellow beings, who can often be more sensitive and spiritual, are going to be tortured forever (for a difference in thinking!) - amounts to a most subtle form of elistist selfishness. This, the unthinking Literalists dogmatically exclaim, is "hope".
The Larger Hope which is God's preordained desire is as follows: that all of His children are to be saved, that God "is long-suffering with us not willing that any should perish", that He awaits the return of the prodigal son with great eagerness and longing, that He cares enough to leave the other sheep to seek the lost one until it is found - that "in the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ" and that there shall be perfect harmony and sweet Divine joy for each and every one of the children He ever thought into existence (albeit after aeons of purification) - that is Hope.
The "Be Saved Or Be Damned" Dogma Prevents People From Seeing The Universality Of Salvation In The Sacred Record
The "be saved or be damned" doctrine is but one of many interpretations which the mind of man has put together, and which have been handed down by man to man, but God loves them for trying and being sincere.
The Bible gives plenty of references to universal salvation, which are unseen by the over-indoctrinated. For instance...
"I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to me"
John 12:32
Comment: In the above statement, not only was Jesus prophesying about the kind of death He was to have (lifted up while on the Cross), but He was also prophesying about the universal salvation that this would bring about by "drawing" true love and devotion from all men and women to Himself, thus enabling the inevitable process of spiritual purification resulting in eventual perfection to be brought into being for "all".Jesus...."is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world"
1 John 2:2
Comment: While the fundamentalist pedants claim themselves the only ones saved, this statement declares the very opposite. Not only were those early seekers who followed Christ to receive the blessings generated by Christ's birth, death and rising, "but also" all others too, namely, "the whole world.""The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world"
1 John 4:14
Comment: The Christ "proceeded forth from the Father" in order that "the world" (its inhabitants), might be redeemed by the Saviour. The Christ did not emerge from the Father and manifest as the man Jesus to be the Saviour of the limited and exclusive few, but, indeed, to be the Saviour and Redeemer of all of His children who would pass through the earth, whether in the past, present or future (the full effects of Christ's earthly sojourn are inconceivable to the mind of man)."...who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time"
1 Tim.2:6
Comment: The selfless love inherent in God, meant that He would give Himself for the sake of His children. So immensely powerful is this gift that its unending effects mean that the spiritual redemption and attainment of eternal happiness, joy and perfection "for all" is assured - and in its own time this goal shall be achieved for each and every one.."We trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially those that believe"
1 Tim.4:10
Comment: Those early seekers of Truth had found the everlasting God, and had had this belief reinforced by His brief sojourn in the flesh with the exceedingly beneficial consequences His presence and deeds in the earth plane had brought to them. They trusted in God and knew His reassurances were beyond doubt, but He was not their Saviour alone but, indeed, "of all men" - as inspired Biblical statements like this one clearly testify."The lord is long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish"
2 Pet.3:9
Comment: God is Spirit. And His children, made in the image of God, made of the same substance of God, brought into being out of His love because Love desires to share His treasures with others, for Love finds happiness only in giving and giving again - His children have the never-dying love of their Great Parent. His patience is beyond the imagination of any being, let alone those restricted by a body of flesh - Indeed, He "is long-suffering towards us". His children, having fallen from their initial state of perfection and having gone on a long, long journey to gain the experience which would allow them to receive the never-ending blessings and glories which a loving Father and Lord longs to bestow upon His children - His children have the assurance from such statements as this, that their God will not allow them to perish, even in their own extreme ignorance and wickedness. God is "not willing that any should perish"."And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself..."
Col. 1:20
Comment: The Saviour of the world knew that He must go to the Cross to achieve His Goal. If there was no powerful memory of His qualities - the qualities of the Christ of God - Love, Purity and Sacrifice, then the mark would have been missed. The Cross would ensure that throughout all time He would be remembered, and as a consequence reconcile the souls of those whether in the body on Earth or those in the darker regions where - by His own Example (preaching to the spirits in prison) - redemption also takes place. Christ, Who had come so that there would be a restitution of all things (Acts 3:21) was to reconcile all things, not just a few "elect people", to Himself."The grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all men"
(Titus 2:11)
Comment: Many Literalists assume that they cannot receive salvation until something supernatural happens to them - that by accepting a metaphysical concept they shall be spiritually perfect and therefore capable of existing in a spiritual state where the most advanced and highest of angels can exist - and they then say that this salvation is the Grace of God which saved them, meaning that they have been saved and anyone who has not been saved in this way is damned. However, the original Christian teachings before the heresies of eternal damnation and annihilation corrupted them, state that through the Grace of God all men shall receive salvation, and this fact was sealed through the accomplishments of Christ when He came in the flesh and claimed victory through the Cross.
Moreover, how will God be "all in all" (all things in all beings) if the majority of His creations are to be in "everlasting punishment"? (1 Cor. 15:28)
Christ waits "until the times of restitution of all things" (Acts 3: 20,21). This time shall be that spoken of by Isaiah: "I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear" (Isa.45:23).
Indeed, Isaiah tells the truth when he says Christ "shall see the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied". This is the good God who shall save all of the life He has brought into being. Teaching otherwise - that God saves only a small amount of His children - only causes divisions and ill-feelings among people who may be following a spiritual path which is also very Christian in its teachings and which allows them to grow above personal likes and dislikes and to love humanity unconditionally.
The salvation of a restricted few is a misguided teaching which gives a misconception of God and His love. Indeed, before the proud and cruel early Latin race adopted Christianity, early Christians - the ones who were closest to the Source of Christianity, Jesus the Christ - were most certainly Universalists: Gregory of Nyasa, Clement and Origen all clearly refused to dogmatize and corrupt the original Christianity. When, under Constantine, Christianity became the State Religion of the Roman Empire with its harsh and exclusive instincts, a further distortion was impressed upon Christ's original Universalist teaching. A study of the Alexandrian and Carthaginian Theologies shows that it was the contact of the earlier Christian Religion with the Latin race which caused an extremely unfortunate bias towards a restricted view of God's Purpose and Christ's Saviourhood.
All are equal in the sight of the Lord, who is the living, radiant Christ, who would welcome anyone into His kingdom who would offer kindness and love to the less fortunate, because they do it to Him. What comes from the heart is what matters, not necessarily that which comes out of the mouth.
The teachings of Jesus were more than interspersed with Universal Salvation, they were wholly and completely about Universal Salvation - that is the Good News that He scattered - it is the Best News that any child of God could ever wish to hear! Because the Law of Consequences (Divine Law) has been made of none effect by the damnation heresies, it is claimed that "teaching Universal Salvation incites people to sin by letting them become complacent". However, if Divine Law was taught properly, if the seriousness of the consequences of our thoughts and actions after physical death was clearly explained, if the unconditional Love of Christ was given its true status instead of a pseudo-unconditional Love, and if the idea of receiving salvation based solely on a one-time belief and acceptance of a metaphysical concept meaning all others were destined for an everlasting punishment was consigned to history - then there would be far, far less complacency than exists today under the literalistic Fundamentalist's theological offerings.
Lazarus And The Rich Man: "Jesus Said The Dead And The Living Cannot Communicate"?
The parable of "Lazarus and the selfish rich man" is often used by Literalists as a means to deny God's most generous gift of Spirit Communion where the Veil between this world and the next is penetrated. The Fundamentalist also uses this parable to spread an erroneous idea that there is instant perfection at physical death for those adhering to Fundamentalist belief, and to reinforce a belief in an eternal Hell for those not adhering to Fundamentalist belief; hence, knowledge of God's mighty plan of redemption is withheld from humanity.
Basically, the Literalist says that the different states into which people go at death are completely separate and never the twain shall meet, neither shall there be any change for the inhabitants of those conditions, i.e. everlasting punishment. There is a very definite misunderstanding in the Literalist's mind about what Jesus meant in this parable.
Christ's parable shows Lazarus and the rich man dying: "...the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried". With absolutely no sleeping or being unconscious for any length of time, they are very much alive in Hades (Luke 16:19-31).
Generally speaking, Hades in the minds of the Greek Jews at the time represented both Paradise and Hell, i.e. Hades represented the Afterlife in the minds of many. "Abraham's bosom" was a term used for Paradise. The rich man, however, finds himself in a very different part of Hades which is a different locality of Hades-life to that of "Abraham's bosom" and is extremely hellish in nature - it is a hell.
Hades, according to the Rabbinical writings, is the place to where both the "just and righteous" and the "unjust and wicked" go after physical death. The rich man gives a clear indication as to the nature of the environment of that particular aspect of Hades into which he passed, and indeed, which he had built up for himself, as he went to his "own place", in the same manner that Acts reports Judas as having done (Acts 1:25). The change from physical death to the next state of being is reported by Jesus - when relating the death of both the rich man and Lazarus - as being immediate; this was an instant transition (throwing more light onto the "mystery" which Paul told us about: "...we shall all be changed in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye").
The selfish rich man lifted up his eyes from his hell: "And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame" (Luke 16:24), but Abraham replied: "Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented".
Apart from anything else, we see here in Christ's parable the true course taken by the soul after the death of the body; we see clearly that the Literalist doctrine or dogma (receiving salvation solely by acceptance of a belief, i.e. Fundamentalist-type "born again" salvation) has little bearing on the soul's position after death. Rather, the rich man finds himself in a hellish place through utter selfishness, and Lazarus finds himself truly compensated for the hardship endured during his life - Divine Law at work - indeed, Divine Justice. The conditions into which each had passed is based solely on how they had lived their lives, and claiming allegiance to a religious metaphysical belief system does not change that.
Why the Fundamentalists would choose this parable to support his or her way - the dogma that salvation is achieved only by an acceptance of a metaphysical belief and not through living itself - is more than a little baffling; they claim that one can only go to Paradise if one accepts the fact that Jesus was a "blood sacrifice" (a human in place of the traditional animal) which took away all of the sin of anyone who believes it, and thus is the only way to be "saved", and ignore the fact that Lazarus did in fact belong to a pre-Crucifixion society which followed Mosaic Law and he did not need to be "born again" to go to Paradise. And as the Fundamentalists themselves point out, this was said by Jesus Himself. However, what Lazarus did do was very Christ-like, he suffered mentally and physically, and while the "dogs licked his open wounds" he was persecuted by poverty and a wilful lack of charity from people including the rich man and his family, for which they received their due cumuppance. It is so plain what this parable is about.
Abraham continues: "And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence". The Literalist assumes that this statement by Abraham means that there is never any contact between those who have passed over. That is where the biggest error arises.
The "gulf" mentioned is not a gulf of a 'physical' nature, it is a gulf of moral and spiritual attainment, or lack of it.
Certainly, in terms of locality, the conditions in which Lazarus and the rich man are different, and yet both localities are simultaneously coexistent with the earth and those living upon it. The rich man assumes that he can visit his relatives who are clearly depicted as living on the earth at the same time that the rich man was in one of the hells and Lazarus was in Abraham's Bosom; Christ does not relate Abraham as saying that the rich man's relatives are long dead and "asleep" in a grave, but He declares the opposite: Christ confirms the assumption of the rich man that his relatives are living on the earth at that very moment, thus Christ confirms co-existence. But (as Abraham points out) it would be a pointless exercise attempting to prove to his relatives the existence of life after death - and the inevitable reaping of consequences - to those who did not heed any type of spiritual law, and in the case of the rich man's relatives this was the Law of Moses and the warnings of the prophets: "And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead" (Luke 16:31).
The Literalist is asked to consider this sentence with deep honesty and ask himself or herself why Jesus did not relate Abraham as saying that the rich man's relatives could have had the Literalists' "born again" salvation doctrine that would instantly free them from their sins, thus becoming "saved" and enabling them to be transported to Paradise at physical death, as was Lazarus the beggar; but instead, Jesus clearly states that they had the Law of Moses as a religious system to save themselves from the same fate as the rich man's torments. If the Literalists' "born again" salvation doctrine had been the reason for Our Lord's earthly sojourn, then surely He would have made a point of saying it here and not something entirely different.
All this shows many things, not least that there is and always has been a process of spiritual evolution and involution occurring. The hells, Paradise and earth all exist at the same time and each goes to his "own place" at physical death to undertake the next stage of spiritual life he has made for himself. And it sounds as if the next stage of life for the rich man's relatives was going to be a similar state of torment; they were creating a "great gulf" between themselves and Divine happiness too.
Christ's parable (NB. the Lazarus and the rich man story was used in parabolic form by followers of Mosaic Law before Christ-Jesus was born) is about how to behave and live during the earth life and He is giving a severe warning of how it will be for those who ignore their duties to the less fortunate, allowing them to suffer needlessly, and instead simply serve themselves; it is a severe warning because He wants people to realise it is a reality. Christ was showing that although there was communication between those in very different conditions, there could be no relief for those who had brought upon themselves - through negligence and their own self-seeking motives - the consequences that must be faced.
In other words, we are being told that the selfishness of the rich man was such that on his arrival in his new state, there was no escape from his predicament because of the health of his soul-body, and the consequences he must face. He had done it to himself through utter selfishness and must suffer the results.
Thus, there was not going to be relief from his burning torment by any cooling water (from Lazarus) because not only was there no accomodation for such a thing in his present environment but the scales of Divine Justice could not be altered and he therefore had to reap what he had sown and there was no relief possible, not even a temporary respite from that which scorched.
The literalistic religionist encounters a great stumbling block with this parable told by Jesus, especially the sentences of Luke 16:26, because he or she would say that it declares that nobody can cross between Heaven and Hell, i.e. "...they which would pass from hence to you cannot". But a basic understanding of the mechanics of the Spiritual World with it's punitive but redemptive aspects, provides the explanation and reveals the truth behind this sentence, which must be taken in context of the whole parable.
When a person is sent to jail then he forfeits the privileges that the free man has, and in the rich man's case, the "sentence" he had brought upon himself did not include the quenching of his fiery torment with "water". So he pleaded for water but even those who wanted to bring things from the free man's heaven could not, because such things cannot exist in the rich man's hellish condition and such a prison-house does not have the environmental capacity or potential to contain such things as water.
Neither was there any escape for the rich man or others in the same self-imposed hellish predicament to a more congenial condition (until, by expiation, all debts were paid): "...neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence". He was in his own condition and the "great gulf" was the gulf he had "fixed" himself.
But let us not forget the wonderful love of Christ. However permanent the position this self-imposed torment may appear to be to one who has put himself there (and very permanent it seems to such a one), there is always a time when, after a hellish purification and correction (or "age-long pruning"), such a one will have eventually had enough selfishness 'pruned' away, to be able to learn something of the selfless nature of the Gospel of Love from Christ and His angels, and slowly but surely be able to lighten the conditions around. The gulf which was fixed through selfishness and wickedness, can, piece by piece, be transformed into a bridge by learning selflessness, compassion and love, and all those Divine qualities exemplified in the life of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:18-20, 4:6).
God is all-wise and all-loving, and has accounted for everything in His Plan for the redemption of His children. There may be those of God's children who fix a great gulf between their self-centred, unsympathetic and uncompassionate natures, and the spiritual health and attainment to be gained by learning from God and those ministering spirits who work for Him who would relieve them of their "debt", as it were, but the Law of Consequences which has been in force from the very beginning for the redemption of God's children cannot be altered; those who have imprisoned themselves in such a way must remain in their self-created jail until all "debts" are paid, yet because of God's love and wisdom, they shall at some future time be free of their darkness - God has ordained it.
Indeed, we can see the state of such a one in another parable told by Jesus: "And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him" (Matt. 18:34). It is impossible to disassociate this parable from the parable of the selfish rich man under discussion because the state of the wicked servant and the selfish rich man is the same state, albeit in parabolic form. The Fundamentalist will probably have missed this association due to his erroneous assumption that he, and those who think like him, will be the only ones who are not going to Hell for eternity. However, it is important to notice the word "until" in Christ's parable about the wicked servant. He, like the selfish rich man, must reap what he had sown "until" he should "pay all that was due".
This is brought powerfully home to us by the example of the loving Good Shepherd Who seeks the lost sheep "until He finds it" (Luke 15:4), when He left His dead body on the Cross and went in His spirit to teach people who were once wicked (who had since undergone a long 'pruning' period and were now ready to learn) about His Gospel of Love; Christ was: "put to death in the flesh, but quickened *by the Spirit*: by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing" (1 Pet. 3:18-20).
NB: *by the Spirit* - This should be 'in the spirit' with a small 's' but the interpreters, being conditioned to a limited salvation doctrine, altered this to 'by the Spirit' to fit in with their scheme of things, as continuity of life was either consciously or subconsciously ruled out by them i.e. they could not contemplate that the spirit leaves the physical body alive, conscious and sentient, or they could not condone the claim that those killed in the Flood were able to be redeemed from the hells. The Greek words and possible definitions are given below with the correct translation to contrast with the rendering of the Translators:
"But Some Spiritualists Openly Deny Christ"?
Every one is different but some generalization must be made to cover the following subject; it is, perhaps, misleading to make a generalisation because there is such a wide range of attitudes concerning those who deny Christ. There are Spiritualists who do not despise Christ but do not have a desire to follow what they think is the Christ teachings, and they may view the literalist teachings as unfair and unbalanced, and so remain open-minded about the issue. These people carry love in the hearts and seek to help their neighbours and even seek out strangers to help them. Such people are following the Christ Way although they may not claim to. Indeed, they are truly blessed. But there are a few who name themselves Spiritualists and these few repudiate Christ, belittle Him, and deny His existence whether it be His earthly sojourn or His Omnipresence, and they resent the spiritual principles He demonstrated.
Indeed, such as these have a lot to learn and a lot to work out when the body is no more (perhaps a long time after leaving the physical covering behind). Being able to hear and see spirits does not mean that the individual is acquainted with Divine Truth. Enlightenment comes by degree and according to the measure of release of the Spirit within. These types of person calling themselves Spiritualists have never encountered or entered into the Christ vibrations and are ignorant of the Light which such vibrations bring. These people can cause much disunity between God's children, although they seem content with such disharmony, and a small number even seem to thrive on rebuking the very existence of the Christ.
Spiritualists who dismiss the Christ with derision, will at one stage see for themselves that they could not even have lifted the arm of their physical body without using the power of the Christ. And at such a time of self-revelation, any excuse that the teaching of the Christ Way was lacking in those who were supposed to be teaching about Christ, will seem to themselves a very poor excuse indeed for repudiating the Christ, Who is bound to them in every way, and Who has watched them and has sought to help them since the beginning of their being. Anguish is experienced by degree when just a partial light of revelation comes as to the heavy price paid by Love for the sake of His children - and in this connection, there is nobody at all, who shall not feel some measure of compunction because realisation of the illimitable and unbounded love of the Christ for His creation is made ones own when greater freedom comes at a future time.
The one who has repudiated the real and true Christ who is Divine Love with contempt, will go from condition to condition and gradually the meaning and reality of the Christ will dawn on him or her, and he or she will go back over their own past in minute detail and will hear their own words of ingratitude and repudiation but worse still, they will see that others listened to them and have been led even deeper into the thickets of the earth plane. This anguish must be worked out by the one concerned by insistently calling to those they misled and seeking to bring them up from the mire they find themselves in.
Genuine Trance Mediums Would Be Disintegrated If Truly 'Taken Over' By The Soul Of Jesus Of Nazareth
Also, there are well-meaning and loving Spiritualists who listen to spirits who, during the earth-life were deluded as to their own true identity although they appear loving themselves in many respects. God our Father does not interfere with freewill and is also very fair-minded; if a person in the flesh thinks that they are someone who they are not, and yet that person is good and loving to others while he or she is on the earth plane, then at physical death that spirit enters a fitting state. The change of the body does not change the attitude towards life or the desires of the heart, and the same 'person' lives on but in another world. Thus, there are spheres 'close' to earth inhabited by spirits who do not know much of a higher Truth but who, nevertheless, find themselves in conditions which are 'pleasant' (in comparison to the dark spheres where those who have been selfish and wicked to their brothers and sisters go).
There are some spirits claiming to be highly evolved spiritual beings, and there are a number who will also claim to be Jesus Himself and actually believe they are Him (it should be noted that claims by trance mediums that Jesus actually uses their bodies in precisely the same way as other spiritual beings use their bodies for trance communication, should be viewed with extreme caution, for the spiritual power of Christ would instantly disintegrate a human body if the same method is used). And so, the mediums who listen to these spirits are impressed by what such disembodied souls tell them, and believe the claim of the spirit as to their identity.
It should be understood that the Law of Divine Love governs all life. Therefore anyone, either in the flesh or in the Spiritual World, who can help another of God's children to follow the Law of Love receives the blessing of the Father God, even if what they teach is faulty as far as the higher Divine Truth is concerned. If there are spirits living in their 'own world' of understanding which they believe to be true even if it is far from ultimate Truth, and yet they are able to bring others a little closer to the Law of Love, then they receive the blessings of Love anyway because Love yearns for His children to be free from anything which inhibits them from receiving His wonderful love.
So, the freewill not being interfered with, a person can choose to believe what they will. Often there are many different levels of teaching because not everybody is able to learn the same things. The unfortunate thing about Spiritualists who listen to spirits who deny the Divinity of Christ (that Jesus was not God) is that they miss out on so much revelation of the true love of God in its highest aspects.
For instance, what would it tell a person about God's love if an ordinary mortal washed the feet of his friends? Very little. But what would it tell a person about the love of God if God Himself washed the feet of His friends? A great deal indeed - the sweetness and humility of God! The humility of subjecting Himself to His own laws so as to be able to help redeem His fallen children wandering around in their sadness; the love which made Tenderness Personified suffer the worst temptations and rejection of love a human could ever experience; the Great Heart Who yearned to give comfort to His suffering little ones by showing them that He could undergo the worst sufferings and even feel separated from His Godhead temporarily (the Crucifixion), and therefore so could they but that they would never have to take on anything like His earthly suffering. Indeed, the revelation of the love of God through His Manifestation as Jesus of Nazareth showed mankind a thousand, thousand things, about Divine Love, many of which pass unnoticed.
One of the wonders of His Manifestation as Man - God as Man, is that it is so inclusive - there is a message for everyone according to what they are able to believe and accept as true, for not everyone can believe or understand the same truth. Thus Jesus Christ the Man is seen as God by some, and those (whether human or spirit) who cannot achieve that realisation also benefit even if they only see Him as a great celestial Teacher and nothing more.
Although the child of God can never become the Great Parent, within each of God's children is Divinity in miniature - gifted at creation - which means that all of the gifts of God are there, in miniature, waiting to be released by spiritual advancement - this being achieved over aeons of time in fullness by effort and striving and climbing the steep and narrow hill to God - and one of these gifts is the gift of discernment. Earnest prayer, sincere motive and honest desire, and communing with the Spirit within, shall enable the individual to discern the truth contained within each item that comes under his or her attention; and by seeking the things which are of God first, the bright and glorious ones are able to guide the soul into the Truth of all matters.
N.B. More on Deep Trance...
About Roy's Trance State
Total Control
Rev. Arthur Chambers Has A Conversation With A Spiritual Being And Receives Spiritual Instruction
The Only Real Peace, Hope And Joy, Is To Know That God's Plan Includes Peace, Hope And Joy For Everyone Else Too
There are those who consider salvation to be theirs alone and the largest part of humanity do not receive it. That is their idea of happiness, peace and joy. One wonders how they can be happy with that conclusion; it must be a strange kind of happiness indeed. In Reality, God is much greater than that though; He has planned real happiness.
There is no end as there was no beginning to the Love of God and its varied manifestations in countless forms, all expressing miracles of infinite Love and Grace.
There are dark spheres made ugly by the folly and selfishness of man, and there are Bright Spheres made beautiful by sacrifice and enhanced by the melody culled out of the hearts and minds of those seeking to do the mundane task, and those which are dark have the potential to draw a little nearer to that which is lighter still. All these shall be brought together as one in God's Plan through spiritual evolution, and will transcend the beauty which we cannot even conceive of now.
Hence, even the bright spheres are themselves only relatively age-long, and they will be further transformed over countless aeons into something greater in God's Mind. Heaven, as we call it, is far beyond anyone to attempt to understand, far beyond the scope of the human mind to grasp even a fraction of the reflection of the degree of light and purity which exists and always has existed in such a state of spiritual perfection.
Into such states of Being, God has ordained that each one shall enter regardless of how many aeons it takes, no matter how far each one wanders - universal salvation has been ordained by God. This is the only real happiness, peace and joy. So, to God we offer our humble obeisances for the all-glorious future He has in store for those who seek to do His Will and keep His Word.
"God Detests Astrologers Therefore The Greater World Is Misguided Because Of The Use Of The Name 'Zodiac'!"
With regard to the Christ Messenger who uses the name'Zodiac': humans, with the limitations of the flesh, could neither pronounce his real spiritual name nor understand its spiritual meaning. In the records of Zodiac's Addresses, he has mentioned a number of times that the use of the word 'Zodiac' is to encourage us to raise our hearts and minds away from earthly matters and 'upwards' towards the 'heavens' and therefore spiritual matters. In all of the hundreds of Zodiac Messages I have read, I have not encountered any reference to the authenticity of astrology. The same can be said about the other literature which is held in trust by the Greater World in the 'Classics' section. Perhaps if the poster had made a genuine effort investigating this channel of Truth, then perhaps no such statement would have been made. As with all things spiritual, one has to learn to be discerning, we have to work it out for ourselves and not just be told something without testing it thoroughly.
The poster may say something like:"To use the name 'Zodiac' is enough to prove it's wrong whether it has anything to do with astrology or not!". This objection is rather foolish and somewhat childish. It is akin to saying that naming a person 'Damien' means that they will be evil-incarnate because that was the name of the child in the film the Exorcist; or conversely, naming a child by the name of a prophet, disciple or even Biblical event such as 'Easter', does not mean that that child will not turn out to be a sadistic torturer.
From a personal point of view, for years I have been asking people who believe in astrology how some twins can have totally different lives from each other altogether, having different experiences, tragedies, working environments, losses, gains, partners, nuclear families etc. when according to the most basic and fundamental criteria of astrology, twins should have identical lives because they share the same ascendancies of the sun, moon and planets, were born to the same parents at the same time (within 4 minutes of each other), in the same place and under the same conditions.
We need to apply some of our God-given reason to this subject. Again, from a personal point of view, I wonder if the use of the name 'Zodiac' - although its primary reason is explained as wanting to lift the mind of the listener away from the earth - is not also to encourage us to realize that there is a great difference between man's traditional thinking and the direction in which God wants us to turn our thinking.
Are we not to shake off the teachings that have come from the mind of man and which have been passed down to us over the centuries, where words and concepts have been utilized in religious theories - i.e. where man has changed the pure and simple teaching of Christ into some twisted and convoluted theory - man's religion?
Are we not to use our spiritual discernment and God-given common sense to rise above the narrow confines of manmade theories derived from written human words which have been ordered in a certain sequence in the minds of men and women, and to which prominence is given to certain areas according to their own mental makeup and preference?
Should we not now be entering a world where we can see the basic teachings and examples of Jesus the Christ of God as being the true fundamental and spiritual Way(hodos), laying aside the religions of man and going back to the fundamental roots of Christ: a travelled way, road, a traveller's way, journey, a course of conduct, a manner of thinking, feeling, deciding?
Should we place the momentous Example of suffering and self-denial, of generosity and selflessness, of healing the sick and going the extra mile, of All-Power willingly laying aside His Godhead to be humbled as one of us and subjected to the laws of His own creation for our own sake, of the many more attributes of pure altruistic Divinity - should we place all this in the background and give manmade doctrines of salvation first place - doctrines built on man's fear for himself?
No, we should be strong in the faith of God to know that He has us under His care and that He shall never forsake us, and we should go onwards and upwards as He has called us to do - in the Christ Way - with our staff of faith based on Christ instead of faith in religious theories that have sprung from the mind of man.
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