November 13, 1918
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, St. Stephen.
Let me write a few words tonight as I am one of the spirits whom your wife wrote of last night would come tonight with the desire to write.
My subject is: "What is the meaning of the Divine Nature which the soul of man partakes of, upon the transformation of that soul by the inflowing and possession of the Divine Love?"
This, as you may perceive, will be somewhat difficult to explain and, principally, because men have no very definite conception of what is comprehended by the term "Divine." They, of course, associate this word with God, and to them God is a being whose nature and qualities are above their finite conceptions and, as a result of their thoughts, is that which is over and above everything that is called or supposed to be understood as natural. To some, God is a being of personality, and to others, a kind of nebulous existence included in and composing all the various manifestations which are transcendently above what they conceive to be the merely natural or human.
I will not attempt to discuss who or what God is, except as to one of His qualities or attributes, and that the greatest - for you must know that all the qualities of God are not of equal greatness or degree of importance in the workings of His essence of substance. All, of course, partake of His Divine Being, but, as you might say, there is a difference in the workings and scope of their operations.
You have been told that the Divine is that which has in it, to a sufficient degree, the very Substance and Essence of God, Himself; and this is true, for Divinity belongs to God alone and can be possessed by others, spirits or mortals, only when He has transfused into or bestowed upon the souls of men a portion of this Divinity, and to the extent thereof made them a part of Himself.
There is nothing in all His universe that is Divine or partakes of the Divine except that which is of the soul, for all else is of the material, and this even when it has the form or appearance of the spiritual. And even the soul, as created, is not Divine and cannot become such, until it is transformed into the Divine by the transfusion into it of that which, in its very substance, is Divine.
Many souls in the spirit world, although pure and in exact harmony with their created condition, are not Divine and never will become such, and this only because these souls will not desire and seek to become Divine in the only way provided by the Father.
It is a mistake for men to believe that because God has created this or that object or thing, it is necessarily Divine, for His creations are no more a part of Himself than are the creations of men a part of themselves; and thus you will see that in all God's creation, there is nothing Divine except what has been privileged by His grace to partake of His Divinity. And, hence, the stars and worlds and trees and animals and rocks and man himself, as created, are not Divine.
Men have claimed that in man there is a spark of the Divine - a part as they say of the "Oversoul," and that it needs only the proper development to make the soul of man wholly Divine. And this theory is based upon the idea that this development can be accomplished by the exercise of the mind or the moral qualities guided by the conscience, which they assert is of itself Divine; especially when dominated by reason, which has been so often worshiped by philosophers and others (to whom the mind is supreme) as Divine. And they have attempted to differentiate man and the lower animals and attributed to the former the qualities of Divinity, because he is endowed with reason and the lower animals are not and have substituted degrees in the order and objects of creation in the place of differentiation between the Divine and non-Divine.
God is wholly Divine and every part and attribute of Him is Divine, and while they are parts of the whole, yet they may be separated in their workings and bestowals; and the man or soul that is the recipient of the bestowal of one of these qualities or attributes is not necessarily the recipient of the others.
Omnipotence and omniscience are those attributes of God's Divinity which He never bestows upon the souls of men or spirits, and as to them He is the exclusive possessor, although in all His attributes there are powers and knowledge, and they accompany the bestowal of all attributes of which they are parts; and one of these Divine attributes may be bestowed upon man, and yet man not become Deity. There is and can be only one God, although He may give of His Essence and very Substance, so that a man can become as He is in that Essence and Substance, to the extent that it is bestowed.
As regards man and his salvation and happiness, the greatest of God's qualities or attributes is His Divine Love, which is the only one that can bring the souls of men into a oneness and nature with the Father, and which has in it the quality of immortality. This Love has a transforming power and can make that which is of a quality foreign to and different from itself of the same essence as itself; and, more than this, can eliminate from that thing those constituents which naturally and necessarily are its components, without injuring or destroying the thing itself.
Well we must stop here. I will finish later.
I am St. Stephen
**********
Helen confirms that St. Stephen wrote on the meaning of the Divine Nature.
I am here, your own true and loving Helen.
Well dear, you have had a very interesting letter tonight upon a very vital and important subject, and I am sorry that the writer could not finish his message, but the rapport became very weak and he was compelled to stop. He will come again soon and finish as he is very anxious to do so. It was Stephen who wrote and he is a most beautiful spirit possessing this Love to a degree that I cannot conceive of, and a most glorious spirit in his appearance.
I am glad that you were in such good condition and I hope that you will continue to improve so that more of the messages may be delivered to you every other night. There are so many messages to be written.
Your own true and loving,
Helen
Showing posts with label Divine Nature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Divine Nature. Show all posts
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Mary Baker Eddy Writes that there are Misleading Errors in Some of Her Teachings
June 13, 1918
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
Let me write a line, for I have been interested in the conversation of the Doctor (Leslie R. Stone) and want to express to him my thanks for his efforts to enlighten one of my followers as to the truth; and my obligation is based on the fact that I recognize the misleading errors of some of my teachings, and that I am responsible for the beliefs of many mortals that are not true and have the effect of keeping them from the truth; and further, that whenever any of those who have embraced the beliefs that I taught are shown the light and directed to the errors of my teachings, I am to that extent happier and relieved from the burdens which I carry with me - that my teachings are keeping so many from the truth. In all this I refer to the great question of the Divine Love and the way in which mortals may obtain the same and become in harmony with the Father, and partake of His Divine Nature and immortality.
I have examined these truths since I came to the spirit world and realize with a great conviction, that the reflection of the Divine Love is not the possession of that mind which comes only with the possession of the Love of the Father.
I wish that I had time tonight to write you a longer letter on this subject, but your guide says that you are not in condition to receive a lengthy letter and I must stop.
Let me express the hope that you and your friend, whenever the opportunity occurs, will attempt to enlighten my followers as to the truths which you know and as to errors and the want of the true explanation of a salvation, which my books do not contain.
With my love I will say good night.
Mrs. Eddy
**********
Helen affirms Mrs. Eddy's message.
I am here, your own true and loving Helen.
Well dear, I have been with you all evening and enjoyed your conversation. You may believe that the last communication was from Mrs. Eddy, for she actually wrote and was glad that she could do so, and because she carries the burden of which she wrote, we permitted her to write.
She realizes that, although she has a great amount of the Divine Love, yet the knowledge that she believed and taught others to believe the errors of her writings causes her much unhappiness in the way of possessing a great desire to undo or neutralize the effect of what she taught.
Love me and pray to the Father. Good night.
Your own true and loving,
Helen
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
Let me write a line, for I have been interested in the conversation of the Doctor (Leslie R. Stone) and want to express to him my thanks for his efforts to enlighten one of my followers as to the truth; and my obligation is based on the fact that I recognize the misleading errors of some of my teachings, and that I am responsible for the beliefs of many mortals that are not true and have the effect of keeping them from the truth; and further, that whenever any of those who have embraced the beliefs that I taught are shown the light and directed to the errors of my teachings, I am to that extent happier and relieved from the burdens which I carry with me - that my teachings are keeping so many from the truth. In all this I refer to the great question of the Divine Love and the way in which mortals may obtain the same and become in harmony with the Father, and partake of His Divine Nature and immortality.
I have examined these truths since I came to the spirit world and realize with a great conviction, that the reflection of the Divine Love is not the possession of that mind which comes only with the possession of the Love of the Father.
I wish that I had time tonight to write you a longer letter on this subject, but your guide says that you are not in condition to receive a lengthy letter and I must stop.
Let me express the hope that you and your friend, whenever the opportunity occurs, will attempt to enlighten my followers as to the truths which you know and as to errors and the want of the true explanation of a salvation, which my books do not contain.
With my love I will say good night.
Mrs. Eddy
**********
Helen affirms Mrs. Eddy's message.
I am here, your own true and loving Helen.
Well dear, I have been with you all evening and enjoyed your conversation. You may believe that the last communication was from Mrs. Eddy, for she actually wrote and was glad that she could do so, and because she carries the burden of which she wrote, we permitted her to write.
She realizes that, although she has a great amount of the Divine Love, yet the knowledge that she believed and taught others to believe the errors of her writings causes her much unhappiness in the way of possessing a great desire to undo or neutralize the effect of what she taught.
Love me and pray to the Father. Good night.
Your own true and loving,
Helen
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Luke Writes that Religion is the Relationship and Harmony of Men's Souls with the Soul of God
April 25, 1918
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
Let me write a line - Luke.
I was with you tonight at the church and listened to what the preacher (Gordon) said in reference to religions and their point of contact and was somewhat surprised at his declarations as to the analogy which he drew between the believers in the various so-called Christian religions.
While, as you know, there is implanted in the souls of men a longing for that which tends to elevate and spiritualize them, even though this longing may not be consciously present with a large number of them; yet the beliefs as to the ways in which this longing may be made manifest and develop the spiritual nature of the soul are very different among those professing these various religions and the ways are not equally efficacious in causing their spiritual development.
Religion is a matter of soul and not of intellect, and the greater the development of the soul in the right direction, the higher will be the spiritual state or condition of the soul. Mere intellectual belief, no matter how intense and undoubting, will not tend to bring about this spiritual development, for "religion is really nothing but the relationship and harmony of men's souls with the Soul of God." The mind will not be sufficient to create this state because the mind of man cannot possibly bring into harmony the Soul of the Creator and that of the creature. Mind, in its exercise, may tend to awaken the soul to this possibility of relationship, but only the workings of the soul can effectuate the complete unity of the Creator and the created. Only soul can speak to soul, and mind is only a helper, provided the soul is alive in its longings.
So it is apparent that that form of belief which is wholly of the intellect can have no common meeting place with that belief which is the result of the development of the soul; and, hence, to say that men of all the various religions, just because they are what are called Christians, are in an equal relationship to the Father, is erroneous and misleading.
As regards the condition of man as the perfect man, these several religions may tend to bring about this state of perfection, if the moral precepts which they teach are observed and practiced by men. But as regards man as the Divine Angel; that is, as a spirit having in itself the Essence of the Divine, only that religion which teaches the true way to acquire this Divinity can lead men to the at-onement with the Father in His very nature. There can be, in this respect, only one true religion, and only one way in which that religion can be practiced and possessed; and to say that all religions have a common point of approach is misleading and deceiving.
I know that among these various religions there are individuals who have found the way to the method of becoming transformed into the Divine Nature of the Father, and this notwithstanding that the teachings and creeds of the several churches do not show the way to this soul development into the spiritual of the Divine. But in these churches there is wanting in their dogmas and doctrines that which will help men to this true religion.
Because it may be found that in the churches there are some who have, to a degree, this Divine spirituality, there is no justification in saying that there is any common place of meeting in these several religions. Of course, the moral precepts may be and are taught by all the Christian churches, and when observed will ultimately lead all men to the condition of the perfect natural man, and only to this extent can it be said that they may have a common ground of religion arising from the belief in the moral teachings.
And the church which declares and teaches as its religion with great exactness and more enlarged comprehension is the church in which this, as I may call it, natural religion exists; and the more dissimilar these churches are in these teachings the farther apart is their approach. If a preacher of one church knows, with the conviction that arises from his sincere and honest investigation of the moral laws, that some other church is not teaching or insisting on the observation on the part of its members of these great moral truths, then he has no right to conclude and say this latter church is the possessor of religion, as is the church in which these moral truths are taught and followed by its adherents.
It is a mistake for a preacher to say that because there may be good and spiritual men in all churches, therefore, one church is as good and religious in its teachings as another church. Truth is of such a nature that it cannot be compromised, and the man or preacher who would compromise the truth is not fulfilling his duty to God or man.
The church which teaches that there is nothing greater than morality, and that man can become no more transcendent than the perfect man, is devoid of the truth and would not be accepted as a teacher of the full truth, as should the church which knows and teaches the way by which man may become a Divine Angel.
That the preachers of the various churches should accept as equal and the possessors of the true religion whenever these moral lessons are alike taught by these churches, and have a common point of approach, is not to be wondered at, because these preachers do not know the higher religion, or are able to teach the way to the same. And when it is understood that a moral truth is a truth no matter where it may appear and by whom taught, there is some justification in declaring that all churches which teach the moral truths are on a plane of equality, and that one is entitled to as much respect and freedom from criticism as another. And further, as the great truth of the rebestowal of the potentiality of receiving the Divine Love, and the effect on men's souls, was never known and taught until the coming of the Master, it is not surprising that none of the churches can or do teach this great spiritual truth and the only true religion arising there from. The knowledge of this truth perished from the earth a short time after the passing of the Master and, hence, no church can teach this religion of the soul that transforms the mortal into the Divine.
The religion of the perfect man may exist in varying degrees in all the Christian churches, but the religion of the Divine Angel exists in none, although some individuals of these churches, to some extent, have received in their souls the great truth - the Divine Love - even though they have no intellectual knowledge of the same.
I thought it advisable to make these few remarks on the declaration of the preacher as showing that his broad assertion that the religions mentioned, which to him is all embracing, may have a common meeting point with every religion. When he learns the truth, he will realize the errors of his human and brotherly declarations. I will not write more. Good night and God bless you.
Your brother in Christ,
Luke
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
Let me write a line - Luke.
I was with you tonight at the church and listened to what the preacher (Gordon) said in reference to religions and their point of contact and was somewhat surprised at his declarations as to the analogy which he drew between the believers in the various so-called Christian religions.
While, as you know, there is implanted in the souls of men a longing for that which tends to elevate and spiritualize them, even though this longing may not be consciously present with a large number of them; yet the beliefs as to the ways in which this longing may be made manifest and develop the spiritual nature of the soul are very different among those professing these various religions and the ways are not equally efficacious in causing their spiritual development.
Religion is a matter of soul and not of intellect, and the greater the development of the soul in the right direction, the higher will be the spiritual state or condition of the soul. Mere intellectual belief, no matter how intense and undoubting, will not tend to bring about this spiritual development, for "religion is really nothing but the relationship and harmony of men's souls with the Soul of God." The mind will not be sufficient to create this state because the mind of man cannot possibly bring into harmony the Soul of the Creator and that of the creature. Mind, in its exercise, may tend to awaken the soul to this possibility of relationship, but only the workings of the soul can effectuate the complete unity of the Creator and the created. Only soul can speak to soul, and mind is only a helper, provided the soul is alive in its longings.
So it is apparent that that form of belief which is wholly of the intellect can have no common meeting place with that belief which is the result of the development of the soul; and, hence, to say that men of all the various religions, just because they are what are called Christians, are in an equal relationship to the Father, is erroneous and misleading.
As regards the condition of man as the perfect man, these several religions may tend to bring about this state of perfection, if the moral precepts which they teach are observed and practiced by men. But as regards man as the Divine Angel; that is, as a spirit having in itself the Essence of the Divine, only that religion which teaches the true way to acquire this Divinity can lead men to the at-onement with the Father in His very nature. There can be, in this respect, only one true religion, and only one way in which that religion can be practiced and possessed; and to say that all religions have a common point of approach is misleading and deceiving.
I know that among these various religions there are individuals who have found the way to the method of becoming transformed into the Divine Nature of the Father, and this notwithstanding that the teachings and creeds of the several churches do not show the way to this soul development into the spiritual of the Divine. But in these churches there is wanting in their dogmas and doctrines that which will help men to this true religion.
Because it may be found that in the churches there are some who have, to a degree, this Divine spirituality, there is no justification in saying that there is any common place of meeting in these several religions. Of course, the moral precepts may be and are taught by all the Christian churches, and when observed will ultimately lead all men to the condition of the perfect natural man, and only to this extent can it be said that they may have a common ground of religion arising from the belief in the moral teachings.
And the church which declares and teaches as its religion with great exactness and more enlarged comprehension is the church in which this, as I may call it, natural religion exists; and the more dissimilar these churches are in these teachings the farther apart is their approach. If a preacher of one church knows, with the conviction that arises from his sincere and honest investigation of the moral laws, that some other church is not teaching or insisting on the observation on the part of its members of these great moral truths, then he has no right to conclude and say this latter church is the possessor of religion, as is the church in which these moral truths are taught and followed by its adherents.
It is a mistake for a preacher to say that because there may be good and spiritual men in all churches, therefore, one church is as good and religious in its teachings as another church. Truth is of such a nature that it cannot be compromised, and the man or preacher who would compromise the truth is not fulfilling his duty to God or man.
The church which teaches that there is nothing greater than morality, and that man can become no more transcendent than the perfect man, is devoid of the truth and would not be accepted as a teacher of the full truth, as should the church which knows and teaches the way by which man may become a Divine Angel.
That the preachers of the various churches should accept as equal and the possessors of the true religion whenever these moral lessons are alike taught by these churches, and have a common point of approach, is not to be wondered at, because these preachers do not know the higher religion, or are able to teach the way to the same. And when it is understood that a moral truth is a truth no matter where it may appear and by whom taught, there is some justification in declaring that all churches which teach the moral truths are on a plane of equality, and that one is entitled to as much respect and freedom from criticism as another. And further, as the great truth of the rebestowal of the potentiality of receiving the Divine Love, and the effect on men's souls, was never known and taught until the coming of the Master, it is not surprising that none of the churches can or do teach this great spiritual truth and the only true religion arising there from. The knowledge of this truth perished from the earth a short time after the passing of the Master and, hence, no church can teach this religion of the soul that transforms the mortal into the Divine.
The religion of the perfect man may exist in varying degrees in all the Christian churches, but the religion of the Divine Angel exists in none, although some individuals of these churches, to some extent, have received in their souls the great truth - the Divine Love - even though they have no intellectual knowledge of the same.
I thought it advisable to make these few remarks on the declaration of the preacher as showing that his broad assertion that the religions mentioned, which to him is all embracing, may have a common meeting point with every religion. When he learns the truth, he will realize the errors of his human and brotherly declarations. I will not write more. Good night and God bless you.
Your brother in Christ,
Luke
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Jesus Writes About the Great Abundance of Divine Love Inflowing Into James Padgett's Soul
January 6, 1918
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
Well my brother, I am glad to tell you that your communion with the Father tonight has been responded to. His Love has inflowed into your soul in great abundance. His Holy Spirit has been bringing the Love in wonderful abundance and your soul is now filled with it, and the influence of this Great Love is working in your soul, and you realize its presence.
If you will meditate and long for and pray to the Father as you have tonight, your soul will soon be so filled with this Love, that you will receive the knowledge that you have a near at-onement with Him, and you will be conscious of the possession of a part of His Divinity of which we have written you.
The Pentecostal Shower will come to you as it did to my disciples in the days that followed my departing from them; and I will be with you also just as I was with them and power and Essence Divine will be bestowed upon you so that you will be able to display the marvelous presence of this Love just as they were able.
So you must pray and long, and your experience tonight has given you some foretaste of what will come to you. There is nothing in all the world that can take the place of this Love in its power to draw you near to - and make you in at-onement with - the Father. All beliefs and faiths in any and every other thing will not suffice. Sacrifice and sorrow on account of sin and vicarious sufferings and mediators will not work the transformation, because it is solely a conjunction between this Divine Love and your soul that is capable of bringing you into this relationship to the Father, and the resultant consciousness that you have partaken of and possess, to some extent, His Divine Nature in Love.
Now you are in condition that makes my rapport with you complete, and I have that possession of your brain that enables me to write as I may desire, and I know that I could convey a message to you tonight in a most satisfactory way; but I will not do so, for I think it best to permit the rapport to become a little more intense, and thus enable me to write a long message without the probability of tiring you; for as you know these messages of deep truths, such as the ones on the "Soul" and "God," necessarily cause me to draw very intensely on your brain power.
But soon now, I will come and commence to deliver my messages and continue to do so if our rapport can be maintained. And it can be, if you will only meditate and pray as you have done tonight. I have been with you very much today, entering into your thoughts and endeavoring to influence the longings of your soul. I was with you at the spiritualist's meeting and sometime I will write you in reference to the claims of the speaker and the real facts as to how much of what she said was inspired, or as she claims, was spoken through her by a controlling spirit.
I now want you to think more than ever of the importance of your work and of the necessity for you putting all your energies and desires into the work. No one can conceive of what it means and, above all, you must realize its great importance and the place that you occupy in carrying it to a successful issue. I will be with you very often and I know that you will feel my presence and influence and, as you do, turn all your thoughts to the Father's Love and let all your longings go to Him.
Tonight, I will not write more, but will soon write as I have said. Have faith and know that you have been selected to do the work, and that upon you rests the responsibility that is upon no other man. With my love and the Father's blessings, I will say good night.
Your brother and friend,
Jesus
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
Well my brother, I am glad to tell you that your communion with the Father tonight has been responded to. His Love has inflowed into your soul in great abundance. His Holy Spirit has been bringing the Love in wonderful abundance and your soul is now filled with it, and the influence of this Great Love is working in your soul, and you realize its presence.
If you will meditate and long for and pray to the Father as you have tonight, your soul will soon be so filled with this Love, that you will receive the knowledge that you have a near at-onement with Him, and you will be conscious of the possession of a part of His Divinity of which we have written you.
The Pentecostal Shower will come to you as it did to my disciples in the days that followed my departing from them; and I will be with you also just as I was with them and power and Essence Divine will be bestowed upon you so that you will be able to display the marvelous presence of this Love just as they were able.
So you must pray and long, and your experience tonight has given you some foretaste of what will come to you. There is nothing in all the world that can take the place of this Love in its power to draw you near to - and make you in at-onement with - the Father. All beliefs and faiths in any and every other thing will not suffice. Sacrifice and sorrow on account of sin and vicarious sufferings and mediators will not work the transformation, because it is solely a conjunction between this Divine Love and your soul that is capable of bringing you into this relationship to the Father, and the resultant consciousness that you have partaken of and possess, to some extent, His Divine Nature in Love.
Now you are in condition that makes my rapport with you complete, and I have that possession of your brain that enables me to write as I may desire, and I know that I could convey a message to you tonight in a most satisfactory way; but I will not do so, for I think it best to permit the rapport to become a little more intense, and thus enable me to write a long message without the probability of tiring you; for as you know these messages of deep truths, such as the ones on the "Soul" and "God," necessarily cause me to draw very intensely on your brain power.
But soon now, I will come and commence to deliver my messages and continue to do so if our rapport can be maintained. And it can be, if you will only meditate and pray as you have done tonight. I have been with you very much today, entering into your thoughts and endeavoring to influence the longings of your soul. I was with you at the spiritualist's meeting and sometime I will write you in reference to the claims of the speaker and the real facts as to how much of what she said was inspired, or as she claims, was spoken through her by a controlling spirit.
I now want you to think more than ever of the importance of your work and of the necessity for you putting all your energies and desires into the work. No one can conceive of what it means and, above all, you must realize its great importance and the place that you occupy in carrying it to a successful issue. I will be with you very often and I know that you will feel my presence and influence and, as you do, turn all your thoughts to the Father's Love and let all your longings go to Him.
Tonight, I will not write more, but will soon write as I have said. Have faith and know that you have been selected to do the work, and that upon you rests the responsibility that is upon no other man. With my love and the Father's blessings, I will say good night.
Your brother and friend,
Jesus
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Jesus Writes Further About "Who and What is God?"
May 25, 1917
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
I have been with you as you prayed and joined in your prayer to the Father for the inflowing of His Great Love into your soul in great abundance; and I know that His Holy Spirit is present and that His Love is flowing into your soul, and that you are becoming in at-onement with the Father. His Love will always come to you when you pray as you have tonight, and His listening ear is always open to the earnest aspirations of His children who come to him with the true longings of the soul.
You have the secret of reaching the Father's Love, and on all occasions when you feel that you need that Love, or desire a nearness to the Father, use the secret and you will not be disappointed.
You are in better condition tonight in your soul development and perceptions and can receive my message which I have desired for some time to communicate and to do which I was waiting only for you to be in a complete rapport with me.
Well, you will remember that in the early stages of our writings, I communicated to you my knowledge and conception of: "Who and what God is," and that I have recently told you that I desired to rewrite the message, as your condition is now so much better to receive these truths than it was when the message was written; and so, tonight, I will deliver the message and will take a more complete possession of your brain and control of your hand than I was able to do at the time mentioned.
Then the question is: Who and What is God?
In dealing with this question, you must realize that it is not so easy to describe in language that mortals can comprehend the Essence and Attributes of God, and I feel the limitations that I am under in endeavoring to give you a satisfactory description of the only and true God; not because of the paucity of knowledge and conception on my part, but because of the fact that you have not the required soul development to enable me to form the necessary rapport with you in order that through your brain may be expressed the exact truth as to who the Father is.
Well, to begin, God is Soul and Soul is God. Not the soul that is in the created man, but the Soul that is Deity and self-existent, without beginning or ending, and whose entity is the one great fact in the universe of being.
God is without form, such as has been conceived of by man in nearly all ages, and especially by those who believe in the Bible of the Hebrews, as well as in that of the Christians. But nevertheless, He is of form, which only the soul perceptions of the soul of a man, which has arrived at a certain degree of development, that is taken on the Divine Nature of the Father and, thus, become a part of the Soul of God can discern and realize as an entity. There is nothing in all nature with which men are acquainted or have knowledge of that can be used to make a comparison, even in the spirit perceptions, with this Great Soul; and, hence, for men to conceive of God as having a form in any manner resembling that of man, is all erroneous; and those who, in their beliefs and teachings deny the anthropomorphic God are correct.
But, nevertheless, God is of form such as to give him an entity and Substance and seat of habitation, in contradistinction to that God which, in the teachings of some men, is said to be everywhere in this Substance and entity - in the trees and rocks, and thunder and lightning, and in men and beasts, and in all created things, and in whom men are said to live and move and have their being. No, this concept of God is not in accord with the truth, and it is vital to the knowledge and salvation of men that such conception of God be not entertained or believed in.
To believe that God is without form is to believe that he is a mere force or principle or nebulous power and, as some say, the resultant of laws; which laws, as a fact, He has established for the controlling of His universe of creation, and which are expressed to men by these very powers and principles, that to some extent, they can comprehend.
The child has asked: "Who made God?"
And because the wise men cannot answer that question, in their wisdom, they conclude and assert that there can be no real God of personality or soul form and, hence, only force, principle or evolved laws can be God; and in their own conceit think that they have solved the question.
But the child may not be satisfied with the answer, and may ask the wise men: "Who made principle and force and laws that must be accepted as the only God?"
And then, the wise men cannot answer unless they answer: "God," which they do not believe, but which let me say, is the true and only answer.
God is back of force and principle and law, which are only expressions of His being, and which without Him could not exist; and they are only existences, changeable, dependent and subject to the will of God, who only, is Being.
God then, is Soul, and that Soul has its form, perceptible only to Itself, or that of man, which, by reason of the sufficient possession of the very Substance of the Great Soul has become like unto God, not in image only, but in very Essence. We spirits of the highest soul progression are enabled by our soul perceptions to see God and His form. But here, I use the words "see" and "form," as being the only words that I can use to give mortals a comparative conception of what I am endeavoring to describe.
When it is remembered that mortals can scarcely conceive of the form of the spirit body of a man, which is composed or formed of the material of the universe, though not usually accepted to be of the material, it will be readily seen that it is hardly possible for me to convey to them a faint idea even of the Soul form of God, which is composed of that which is purely spiritual - that is, not of the material, even though to the highest degree sublimated.
And although I am not able, because of the limitations mentioned, to describe to men that form which they may glean a conception of the Soul's form - as such form can be seen only with the soul's eye, which eyes men do not possess - it must not be believed that because men cannot understand or perceive the truth of the Soul's form, therefore, it is not a truth. A truth, though not conceived or perceived by men, spirits or angels, is still a truth, and its existence does not depend upon its being known; and even though all the mortals of earth, and the spirits and Angels of Heaven, save one, could not perceive the existence of that truth, yet its existence perceived by that one irrefutably proves its reality.
But, as I have said, the truth of God's form - the Soul's form can be testified to by more than one of the Celestial Spirits of men passed from earth; and the possibility is before mortals of the present life, in the great future, if their souls have become possessed of the Divine Substance of God's Love in sufficient abundance to perceive God as I have attempted to explain.
The created soul of man has its form, it being made in the image of God, yet man cannot see that form, although it is a fact and can be testified to by many in the spirit realms. And here it needs to be said that when in our message we speak of God as being without form, we mean any such form as men have or think they have conceived of, and our expressions must not be considered as contradictory to what I have tried to explain as the form of God.
Well, in addition to the form, God has a personality, and this is expressed and made known to man by certain attributes, which to the consciousness of man is existent in the universe; and to some philosophers and scientists and wise men these attributes are their impersonal God himself, and to them the only God. They make the created, the Creator, not realizing that behind the expression must be the Cause; and that greater than the attribute must be that from which the expression of the attribute is projected or, as they better like to say, evolved.
And here, I, who know, desire to say that these manifested attributes or forces and powers and principles and laws and expressions do not, all together, constitute or be that from which they flow or in which they have their source. God is Himself, alone. His Attributes or expressions manifested to mortals or spirits, are only the results or effects of the workings of His Spirit, which Spirit is only the active energy of His Soul - Himself. And, hence, the form of God is not distributed over the whole universe of creation where His attributes may be, or because they are everywhere manifested.
No, as was said by Moses of old, and as was said by me when on earth: God is in His Heavens. And although it may be surprising and startling to mortals to hear, God has His habitation, and God the Substance, the Self-existing and Soul form, has His locality, and men do not live and move and have their existence in God; but in His emanations and expressions and spirit they do.
As you are somewhat exhausted, I think this a good place to stop. I am pleased that you are in such good condition. So be prepared for an early resumption of the message.
With my love and blessings, I will say, good night.
Your brother and friend,
Jesus
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
I have been with you as you prayed and joined in your prayer to the Father for the inflowing of His Great Love into your soul in great abundance; and I know that His Holy Spirit is present and that His Love is flowing into your soul, and that you are becoming in at-onement with the Father. His Love will always come to you when you pray as you have tonight, and His listening ear is always open to the earnest aspirations of His children who come to him with the true longings of the soul.
You have the secret of reaching the Father's Love, and on all occasions when you feel that you need that Love, or desire a nearness to the Father, use the secret and you will not be disappointed.
You are in better condition tonight in your soul development and perceptions and can receive my message which I have desired for some time to communicate and to do which I was waiting only for you to be in a complete rapport with me.
Well, you will remember that in the early stages of our writings, I communicated to you my knowledge and conception of: "Who and what God is," and that I have recently told you that I desired to rewrite the message, as your condition is now so much better to receive these truths than it was when the message was written; and so, tonight, I will deliver the message and will take a more complete possession of your brain and control of your hand than I was able to do at the time mentioned.
Then the question is: Who and What is God?
In dealing with this question, you must realize that it is not so easy to describe in language that mortals can comprehend the Essence and Attributes of God, and I feel the limitations that I am under in endeavoring to give you a satisfactory description of the only and true God; not because of the paucity of knowledge and conception on my part, but because of the fact that you have not the required soul development to enable me to form the necessary rapport with you in order that through your brain may be expressed the exact truth as to who the Father is.
Well, to begin, God is Soul and Soul is God. Not the soul that is in the created man, but the Soul that is Deity and self-existent, without beginning or ending, and whose entity is the one great fact in the universe of being.
God is without form, such as has been conceived of by man in nearly all ages, and especially by those who believe in the Bible of the Hebrews, as well as in that of the Christians. But nevertheless, He is of form, which only the soul perceptions of the soul of a man, which has arrived at a certain degree of development, that is taken on the Divine Nature of the Father and, thus, become a part of the Soul of God can discern and realize as an entity. There is nothing in all nature with which men are acquainted or have knowledge of that can be used to make a comparison, even in the spirit perceptions, with this Great Soul; and, hence, for men to conceive of God as having a form in any manner resembling that of man, is all erroneous; and those who, in their beliefs and teachings deny the anthropomorphic God are correct.
But, nevertheless, God is of form such as to give him an entity and Substance and seat of habitation, in contradistinction to that God which, in the teachings of some men, is said to be everywhere in this Substance and entity - in the trees and rocks, and thunder and lightning, and in men and beasts, and in all created things, and in whom men are said to live and move and have their being. No, this concept of God is not in accord with the truth, and it is vital to the knowledge and salvation of men that such conception of God be not entertained or believed in.
To believe that God is without form is to believe that he is a mere force or principle or nebulous power and, as some say, the resultant of laws; which laws, as a fact, He has established for the controlling of His universe of creation, and which are expressed to men by these very powers and principles, that to some extent, they can comprehend.
The child has asked: "Who made God?"
And because the wise men cannot answer that question, in their wisdom, they conclude and assert that there can be no real God of personality or soul form and, hence, only force, principle or evolved laws can be God; and in their own conceit think that they have solved the question.
But the child may not be satisfied with the answer, and may ask the wise men: "Who made principle and force and laws that must be accepted as the only God?"
And then, the wise men cannot answer unless they answer: "God," which they do not believe, but which let me say, is the true and only answer.
God is back of force and principle and law, which are only expressions of His being, and which without Him could not exist; and they are only existences, changeable, dependent and subject to the will of God, who only, is Being.
God then, is Soul, and that Soul has its form, perceptible only to Itself, or that of man, which, by reason of the sufficient possession of the very Substance of the Great Soul has become like unto God, not in image only, but in very Essence. We spirits of the highest soul progression are enabled by our soul perceptions to see God and His form. But here, I use the words "see" and "form," as being the only words that I can use to give mortals a comparative conception of what I am endeavoring to describe.
When it is remembered that mortals can scarcely conceive of the form of the spirit body of a man, which is composed or formed of the material of the universe, though not usually accepted to be of the material, it will be readily seen that it is hardly possible for me to convey to them a faint idea even of the Soul form of God, which is composed of that which is purely spiritual - that is, not of the material, even though to the highest degree sublimated.
And although I am not able, because of the limitations mentioned, to describe to men that form which they may glean a conception of the Soul's form - as such form can be seen only with the soul's eye, which eyes men do not possess - it must not be believed that because men cannot understand or perceive the truth of the Soul's form, therefore, it is not a truth. A truth, though not conceived or perceived by men, spirits or angels, is still a truth, and its existence does not depend upon its being known; and even though all the mortals of earth, and the spirits and Angels of Heaven, save one, could not perceive the existence of that truth, yet its existence perceived by that one irrefutably proves its reality.
But, as I have said, the truth of God's form - the Soul's form can be testified to by more than one of the Celestial Spirits of men passed from earth; and the possibility is before mortals of the present life, in the great future, if their souls have become possessed of the Divine Substance of God's Love in sufficient abundance to perceive God as I have attempted to explain.
The created soul of man has its form, it being made in the image of God, yet man cannot see that form, although it is a fact and can be testified to by many in the spirit realms. And here it needs to be said that when in our message we speak of God as being without form, we mean any such form as men have or think they have conceived of, and our expressions must not be considered as contradictory to what I have tried to explain as the form of God.
Well, in addition to the form, God has a personality, and this is expressed and made known to man by certain attributes, which to the consciousness of man is existent in the universe; and to some philosophers and scientists and wise men these attributes are their impersonal God himself, and to them the only God. They make the created, the Creator, not realizing that behind the expression must be the Cause; and that greater than the attribute must be that from which the expression of the attribute is projected or, as they better like to say, evolved.
And here, I, who know, desire to say that these manifested attributes or forces and powers and principles and laws and expressions do not, all together, constitute or be that from which they flow or in which they have their source. God is Himself, alone. His Attributes or expressions manifested to mortals or spirits, are only the results or effects of the workings of His Spirit, which Spirit is only the active energy of His Soul - Himself. And, hence, the form of God is not distributed over the whole universe of creation where His attributes may be, or because they are everywhere manifested.
No, as was said by Moses of old, and as was said by me when on earth: God is in His Heavens. And although it may be surprising and startling to mortals to hear, God has His habitation, and God the Substance, the Self-existing and Soul form, has His locality, and men do not live and move and have their existence in God; but in His emanations and expressions and spirit they do.
As you are somewhat exhausted, I think this a good place to stop. I am pleased that you are in such good condition. So be prepared for an early resumption of the message.
With my love and blessings, I will say, good night.
Your brother and friend,
Jesus
Sunday, March 9, 2014
St. James Writes About the Progress of Dr. Leslie R. Stone, Who is His Special Charge to Guide Him
May 13, 1917
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, James, Apostle of Jesus.
I have heard you read the messages, and I have listened to your conversation, and I am much pleased that you both enjoyed the messages so much, for if you had not had the soul development that is yours, you would not have been able to understand the purport of the messages as you did.
It is a wonderful message of truth, and if men could only understand what its real significance is, they would soon renounce not only their sins and evil thoughts, but their belief in the false creeds that cause them to neglect the true way to the Kingdom of God, that many of them, even though they may not receive the Divine Love that is so necessary to lead them along the way to the Celestial Heavens.
I am glad that this great knowledge has come to you both and that you are on the way to this greater and grander Kingdom, where are men who are men no longer, but are Angels of the Divine Nature that the Master has to such a degree of perfection.
Well, I want to say a few words to my special charge (Dr. Leslie R. Stone) tonight and he must believe me and trust in me as his special angel. I would desire to inform him that his soul is developing more and more each day, and that we are all well pleased at his progress. Soon he will be in that condition that he will not have to wait until he gets into the spiritual world in order to have some of the Celestial Heaven in his soul, and with it that happiness and peace that comes only to those who possess the Divine Love in a degree that many spirits of that soul development don't have. He is pursuing the right course and he must not let doubt enter his mind or soul, for he is, in truth, one of the redeemed of this Love that he has been so often told is waiting for him without limitation.
I am with him very often, trying to help and influence his thoughts for good of the Divine, and he must continue to pray and believe; and I, James, his own true friend and guide, assure him that he will not be disappointed.
Life on earth, at the most, is short and fleeting, and his work is one that only he can do. His is not the gift that another may have, but is his all alone and in a short time now, it will be developed in him, and he will be informed of just what his work will be. He is now doing a good work but its results he has no conception of, for there are many spirits who a short time ago were in darkness and now are in light and much happiness, who give to him the credit of being the one who started them on their progress to light and happiness.
So tell him to have courage and faith and he will not be forsaken or left to the influence of evil or depraved spirits who are so very numerous in the earth plane at all times trying to influence mortals to become as sinful and depraved as they themselves are.
I will not write more, as I feel that he would like to hear from some others who are present. But tell him that I, as well as many others of the higher spirits, love him and are with him very much and pray to the Father to shower upon him the blessings of the Divine Love.
So with my love to you both, I will say good night and God bless you,
Your brother in Christ,
James
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, James, Apostle of Jesus.
I have heard you read the messages, and I have listened to your conversation, and I am much pleased that you both enjoyed the messages so much, for if you had not had the soul development that is yours, you would not have been able to understand the purport of the messages as you did.
It is a wonderful message of truth, and if men could only understand what its real significance is, they would soon renounce not only their sins and evil thoughts, but their belief in the false creeds that cause them to neglect the true way to the Kingdom of God, that many of them, even though they may not receive the Divine Love that is so necessary to lead them along the way to the Celestial Heavens.
I am glad that this great knowledge has come to you both and that you are on the way to this greater and grander Kingdom, where are men who are men no longer, but are Angels of the Divine Nature that the Master has to such a degree of perfection.
Well, I want to say a few words to my special charge (Dr. Leslie R. Stone) tonight and he must believe me and trust in me as his special angel. I would desire to inform him that his soul is developing more and more each day, and that we are all well pleased at his progress. Soon he will be in that condition that he will not have to wait until he gets into the spiritual world in order to have some of the Celestial Heaven in his soul, and with it that happiness and peace that comes only to those who possess the Divine Love in a degree that many spirits of that soul development don't have. He is pursuing the right course and he must not let doubt enter his mind or soul, for he is, in truth, one of the redeemed of this Love that he has been so often told is waiting for him without limitation.
I am with him very often, trying to help and influence his thoughts for good of the Divine, and he must continue to pray and believe; and I, James, his own true friend and guide, assure him that he will not be disappointed.
Life on earth, at the most, is short and fleeting, and his work is one that only he can do. His is not the gift that another may have, but is his all alone and in a short time now, it will be developed in him, and he will be informed of just what his work will be. He is now doing a good work but its results he has no conception of, for there are many spirits who a short time ago were in darkness and now are in light and much happiness, who give to him the credit of being the one who started them on their progress to light and happiness.
So tell him to have courage and faith and he will not be forsaken or left to the influence of evil or depraved spirits who are so very numerous in the earth plane at all times trying to influence mortals to become as sinful and depraved as they themselves are.
I will not write more, as I feel that he would like to hear from some others who are present. But tell him that I, as well as many others of the higher spirits, love him and are with him very much and pray to the Father to shower upon him the blessings of the Divine Love.
So with my love to you both, I will say good night and God bless you,
Your brother in Christ,
James
Monday, March 3, 2014
Jesus Writes on the Only Way Men Can Reach the Kingdom of God or the Way to the Perfect Man
May 5, 1917
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
I come tonight to write on the only way by which men can reach the Kingdom of God, or the way to the perfect man.
This is a subject that many men and teachers have endeavored to explain to mankind, and the ways described have been as varied and sometimes contradictory as the thoughts and education of these men have differed; and all have sought to base their teachings and conclusions on the Bible. I, of course, mean those who profess to be Christians. As to other teachers and reformers, as they have been called, their teachings are based on the doctrines of the various sects to which they have belonged or professed allegiance. But the Kingdom of God is more peculiarly a phrase that is found in and belongs to the Christian Bible, and to some extent in the Hebrew scriptures.
In considering the subject of this message it is first important to understand what is meant by the "Kingdom of God." Some understand or conceive it to be a kingdom on earth in which the will and laws of God will be followed and obeyed by men in the mortal life, and others understand it to be that Kingdom of God, which exists and will continue to exist in perfection in the spirit world; and some few, that Kingdom which will find its home or place of existence in the Celestial Spheres.
Now, the way to each of these kingdoms is not the same, although in pursuing the way to one, and that the Celestial Kingdom, the way to the others, must necessarily be followed, or in other words, he who follows the way to the Celestial Kingdom pursues that course which, in its pursuit, will cause him to do those things and obey those laws of God that are necessary to establish the kingdoms on earth and in the spirit world; but he who pursues only the way that leads to the establishment of the kingdom on earth and in the spirit world cannot possibly become an inhabitant of the Celestial Kingdom. The Kingdom of God on earth, or in the spirit world, may be obtained by man, or spirit, by obeying the will of God in those essentials that will work a purification of his natural love and cause that coming into harmony with His laws which affect and control man as mere man; that is, that will restore man to the condition of perfection that existed before the fall of the first parents; and many of my teachings, when on earth, of which there are preserved a number in the Bible, were intended to instruct men into that way of life that would develop their moral qualities and free them from the taint and destructiveness of sin in which they were then and are now living.
By the observance of my teachings and sincere obedience to these moral precepts, man will lose those things that belong to his appetites and passions and evil thoughts and desires, and realize that in their places will come a purer love and more spiritual desires and thoughts which lead to a cleansing of his heart and soul, and which means a living and thinking in harmony with the will and laws of God. For God is all good, and all His laws require that man shall become good in order that this kingdom in the spirit world shall be established.
Naturally, and I mean according to His creation, man is good, and not the depraved creature that for so many centuries the teachings and doctrines of the church have declared him to be; and when he shall arrive at that state of goodness that was his in the beginning, he will merely have rid himself of those contaminating appetites, thoughts and desires that made him the sinful and inharmonious being that he now is.
So, from this, you will see that the work of man, in order to enable the kingdom to become established on earth, is largely a work of renunciation; and this truth was taught by prophets and teachers prior to the time of my coming to earth and teaching the way to the Celestial Kingdom; and the same truth applies to the spirits that shall make up and establish the kingdom in the spirit world.
In these kingdoms of the purification and regaining of the perfected natural love, there will be nothing of the Divine Nature of the Father, except as may be generally said, all the objects of His creation, by reason of being such objects, may partake of the image of the divine. But this is not the divine. The Divine in its true sense is that which partakes of the very essence and nature of God and not that which is merely the object of His creation.
Man, in body, soul and spirit body, is only a creation of God and, as to the soul, an image of its Creator, but this creation was not made of any, the least part of the essence or substance of God; and this creation can, if it so please the Father, in its composite and coordinated existence, be utterly destroyed and reduced to the elements of which it was created, without in the smallest degree affecting the true substance or nature of God. So you will see that in truth, there is in or of man nothing of the divine; and, hence, when the Kingdom of God shall be established on earth, or in the spirit world, there will be therein, nothing of the divine, only the existence of the perfect creatures, living and thinking in harmony with the laws of God which control their creation and existence.
So that the way in which these two kingdoms of the non-divine can be established, is by man pursuing that course of thinking and living that will enable him to renounce and get rid of those things - foreign to his true nature - which prevent him from coming again into the exact harmony with the will of God as expressed and made obligatory by the law of man's creation.
The observance of the moral law will enable men to accomplish this end. The love with which man was endowed, as the perfect man, enables him, as it becomes purified and more harmonious, to love God and to love his fellow-man as himself, for this natural love is one that in its perfection and nature is universal, and in its exercise every man is his neighbor's brother.
The progressive qualities of this love which every man may obtain, are truly and wonderfully set forth by Peter in one of his epistles as contained in the Bible (II Peter, Chapter 1, Verses 5, 6, 7) and if men will seek these successive steps in acquiring the purifying development of this love, they will obtain the great object sought for. As I have written, the Bible contains many of my teachings which if followed, will lead to this end, and men will realize the Kingdom of God on earth.
And here let me correct one mistaken belief or idea that has so long prevailed among mankind, and which, in its results, has delayed the coming of the kingdom on earth; and the correction is, that God by His mere fiat, or irrespective of the desires and workings of men's souls, will not establish this kingdom. Its establishment depends upon men, themselves, and until their loves become and they become in harmony with God's will, this kingdom will never be established.
I know that it is believed and taught and emphasized, and men place all their hopes and expectations of a heaven of bliss on the statement, that I will at sometime come in the clouds of Heaven with a great shout, to earth, and by the power which they believe exists in me, establish the Kingdom of God - a kind of kingdom in which I will be the king and rule supreme, and receive as my subjects those who believe in and worship me, and send those who do not into eternal damnation and outer darkness.
Well, this is pitiable, untrue and all erroneous. This kingdom will never be established in this way, for only man, himself, can call into existence this kingdom, only by becoming the pure perfect man that existed when God's earthly kingdom had at man's creation, its existence. Man alone, brought sin into the world, and man must himself destroy sin, and then harmony with the Father's will will be restored, and also this kingdom.
But, from what I have written, it must not for a moment or in the slightest degree be inferred even, that God is not taking and will not take any part in the reestablishment of this kingdom, for it is a fact, that He is working through His Angels upon the souls and thoughts of men to bring this kingdom on earth; but He will not force its establishment - it must come voluntarily on the part of men.
When He created man, He gave him a free will - the most wonderful of the natural gifts to man - and He will not, by the exercise of His power arbitrarily control the direction of that will, but as to it leaves man supreme. Of course while this is so, yet if man in such exercise contravenes the laws of God, man must suffer the consequences, for He never changes or sets aside His laws. Man may exercise his free will as he desires and as his thoughts and appetites may influence him to do, but the freedom of exercise does not prevent the imposition of the penalties that the laws prescribe when they are violated. Thus you see there is freedom without limitation, but every inharmonious exercise of that freedom must invite the infliction of that which necessarily follows the violation of harmony.
God wants and is patiently waiting for the love of man, and is always the loving Father who delights not in the suffering of His creatures, for He wants their love to come voluntarily and without constraint or fear of punishment or hope of reward, except that reward which must necessarily follow the blending of God's Love and the love of man.
Then I say, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth is not the Divine Kingdom, and has not in it that which is necessarily divine, except the love of God to His creatures to bless and make them happy. His essence and substance are not conferred upon them, for if they were, men would not remain in the kingdom of earth, but would, to a degree, be in the Celestial Heaven, even while on earth, and as I know some men, while still mortals, are in this Divine Heaven.
Now, what I have said with reference to the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, applies with equal truth to the Kingdom of God in the spirit world, for there the inhabitants are merely the spirits of men after they have surrendered their physical bodies, and become purified in their natural love and in harmony with the will and laws of God controlling their existence as perfect men.
While the Kingdom of God has not yet been established on earth, it has been in the spirit world, for in the highest sphere of that world the souls of men have become purified and harmony has been restored, and the souls of men enjoy the supreme happiness that was bestowed upon them at the time of their first creation, which God pronounced very good. Sometime you will have described to you the bliss and wonderful happiness of that kingdom; and I will not say that this is beyond all conception of men, and was established not by the mere power and will of God, but by the exercise of the will of men after they became spirits in renouncing evil and sin, and having their thoughts and desires and soul in its natural love purified and made harmonious. And here I must say, that all men who have ever lived, or who shall ever live, will, at sometime live in this Kingdom of God in the spirit world, or in the Kingdom of the Celestial Spheres; but the large majority will find their homes in the former kingdom.
The hells and dark places will be emptied of their inhabitants and abolished forever, and, surprising as it may seem to mortals, not by the fiat of God, but the exercise of men's will and desires and longings for the attainment of the purification of their love, and by their reaching the goal of their aspirations. But God will be with them in their efforts, and his angels will do his will in helping mortals and spirits along this way to the spiritual kingdom.
Then how important it is that mortals should understand and realize the great work that they must do in establishing the kingdom on earth and the kingdom in the spirit world, and not rest supinely in the mere intellectual belief that God will in His own way and at His own time, establish this kingdom, and that they who believe in God and observe the creeds and doctrines of their churches and perform their duties as church members, will become inhabitants of that kingdom, and in a moment become pure and undefiled and in harmony with the will of God and His laws.
It is a very harmful belief, because the only way to this kingdom is the way of renunciation and purification, and all the beliefs ever possessed by men that do not lead to this purification of men's souls, will not lead to this kingdom. Man, with the help of the Father, must hew his own destiny, and the Father, without the effort of man will not make for him a destiny that his condition of soul and love do not entitle him to.
But there is a Kingdom greater and different and unlike these kingdoms of which I have been writing, and that is the Celestial Kingdom of God; and only those who receive of the Divine Essence can become inhabitants of this Kingdom. The souls of men must become transformed into the very Nature Divine of God, and the natural love of man be changed in all its qualities and elements into the Divine Love of the Father.
I have written that many of my moral teachings are recorded in the Bible, and that I came, or rather my acceptance by the Father as His beloved son, and the reception into my soul of His Divine Love qualified me to teach the way to the several kingdoms; and as was said in that Book, what was lost by the disobedience of the first man was restored by the coming of the second, and that only means, that by reason of the knowledge that came to me of truth and of the laws of harmony that govern God's universe, I was enabled to teach men the way to a return to the purity and development of their souls in natural love that existed before the great loss caused by the disobedience of the first man. I was not to bring about this restoration by any great power or Godlike qualities of omniscience that I might be supposed to possess, but merely by teaching men to love God and their brothers, and to pursue that course of living and thinking that would necessarily enable them to renounce sin and evil and come into a state of harmony with the laws of their creation.
Now, while I taught these moral truths, I also taught the great spiritual truths that show men the way to the Celestial Kingdom, for in my communions with the Father there came to me not only the Divine Love which transformed my soul into the substance of the Father in its love qualities, but also the knowledge by which this Divine Love might be acquired and the certain way to the Celestial Kingdom, even though to a degree while in the flesh.
But my spiritual teachings that show the way to the Celestial Kingdom were not so well understood by my hearers - and not even by my intimate disciples - but more so by John, and consequently were not preserved in the Bible, as were my moral teachings. And as to the Bible, I mean the original manuscripts were not written until many years after my death. Even in these manuscripts not many of my teachings as to the way that leads to this Celestial Kingdom, were contained; and afterwards when these manuscripts were copied, and the copies recopied, these important truths were not preserved - scarcely any. Though the fundamental ones, namely: God is love, and except a man be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven were retained.
And as time went by and the recopying continued, fewer and fewer of my precepts were preserved, and men came to know less and less of these higher truths, and, consequently, the mere moral teachings became better understood and were used by the teachers and instructors of the masses to lead men to a kingdom of God.
And in addition to this, these leaders changed even these moral truths and the interpretations of the early writers in such a way as to enable these leaders to attain to wealth and power and control over the common people in their beliefs and observances of worship. The God of love then, to a large extent, became a God of hatred and wrath, inflicting punishment upon those who dared to disobey those injunctions that the hierarchy of the church placed upon them as the demands and will of God.
But these matters have been written upon more fully elsewhere, and I will not further enlarge upon them, and will now disclose the true way that leads to the Kingdom of God in the Celestial Heavens. Well, we have written a long time tonight, and I think it best to postpone my further writing till later. I must say this though, that I am pleased that you are in so much better condition, and I feel that now we can proceed more rapidly with our messages.
Remember this, that my promises will be fulfilled, and you must have faith. I am with you very often, and love you as you know, and will continue to pray to the Father for you. So trust me and be assured that I am helping you in your desire. Good night and God bless you.
Your brother and friend,
Jesus
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
I come tonight to write on the only way by which men can reach the Kingdom of God, or the way to the perfect man.
This is a subject that many men and teachers have endeavored to explain to mankind, and the ways described have been as varied and sometimes contradictory as the thoughts and education of these men have differed; and all have sought to base their teachings and conclusions on the Bible. I, of course, mean those who profess to be Christians. As to other teachers and reformers, as they have been called, their teachings are based on the doctrines of the various sects to which they have belonged or professed allegiance. But the Kingdom of God is more peculiarly a phrase that is found in and belongs to the Christian Bible, and to some extent in the Hebrew scriptures.
In considering the subject of this message it is first important to understand what is meant by the "Kingdom of God." Some understand or conceive it to be a kingdom on earth in which the will and laws of God will be followed and obeyed by men in the mortal life, and others understand it to be that Kingdom of God, which exists and will continue to exist in perfection in the spirit world; and some few, that Kingdom which will find its home or place of existence in the Celestial Spheres.
Now, the way to each of these kingdoms is not the same, although in pursuing the way to one, and that the Celestial Kingdom, the way to the others, must necessarily be followed, or in other words, he who follows the way to the Celestial Kingdom pursues that course which, in its pursuit, will cause him to do those things and obey those laws of God that are necessary to establish the kingdoms on earth and in the spirit world; but he who pursues only the way that leads to the establishment of the kingdom on earth and in the spirit world cannot possibly become an inhabitant of the Celestial Kingdom. The Kingdom of God on earth, or in the spirit world, may be obtained by man, or spirit, by obeying the will of God in those essentials that will work a purification of his natural love and cause that coming into harmony with His laws which affect and control man as mere man; that is, that will restore man to the condition of perfection that existed before the fall of the first parents; and many of my teachings, when on earth, of which there are preserved a number in the Bible, were intended to instruct men into that way of life that would develop their moral qualities and free them from the taint and destructiveness of sin in which they were then and are now living.
By the observance of my teachings and sincere obedience to these moral precepts, man will lose those things that belong to his appetites and passions and evil thoughts and desires, and realize that in their places will come a purer love and more spiritual desires and thoughts which lead to a cleansing of his heart and soul, and which means a living and thinking in harmony with the will and laws of God. For God is all good, and all His laws require that man shall become good in order that this kingdom in the spirit world shall be established.
Naturally, and I mean according to His creation, man is good, and not the depraved creature that for so many centuries the teachings and doctrines of the church have declared him to be; and when he shall arrive at that state of goodness that was his in the beginning, he will merely have rid himself of those contaminating appetites, thoughts and desires that made him the sinful and inharmonious being that he now is.
So, from this, you will see that the work of man, in order to enable the kingdom to become established on earth, is largely a work of renunciation; and this truth was taught by prophets and teachers prior to the time of my coming to earth and teaching the way to the Celestial Kingdom; and the same truth applies to the spirits that shall make up and establish the kingdom in the spirit world.
In these kingdoms of the purification and regaining of the perfected natural love, there will be nothing of the Divine Nature of the Father, except as may be generally said, all the objects of His creation, by reason of being such objects, may partake of the image of the divine. But this is not the divine. The Divine in its true sense is that which partakes of the very essence and nature of God and not that which is merely the object of His creation.
Man, in body, soul and spirit body, is only a creation of God and, as to the soul, an image of its Creator, but this creation was not made of any, the least part of the essence or substance of God; and this creation can, if it so please the Father, in its composite and coordinated existence, be utterly destroyed and reduced to the elements of which it was created, without in the smallest degree affecting the true substance or nature of God. So you will see that in truth, there is in or of man nothing of the divine; and, hence, when the Kingdom of God shall be established on earth, or in the spirit world, there will be therein, nothing of the divine, only the existence of the perfect creatures, living and thinking in harmony with the laws of God which control their creation and existence.
So that the way in which these two kingdoms of the non-divine can be established, is by man pursuing that course of thinking and living that will enable him to renounce and get rid of those things - foreign to his true nature - which prevent him from coming again into the exact harmony with the will of God as expressed and made obligatory by the law of man's creation.
The observance of the moral law will enable men to accomplish this end. The love with which man was endowed, as the perfect man, enables him, as it becomes purified and more harmonious, to love God and to love his fellow-man as himself, for this natural love is one that in its perfection and nature is universal, and in its exercise every man is his neighbor's brother.
The progressive qualities of this love which every man may obtain, are truly and wonderfully set forth by Peter in one of his epistles as contained in the Bible (II Peter, Chapter 1, Verses 5, 6, 7) and if men will seek these successive steps in acquiring the purifying development of this love, they will obtain the great object sought for. As I have written, the Bible contains many of my teachings which if followed, will lead to this end, and men will realize the Kingdom of God on earth.
And here let me correct one mistaken belief or idea that has so long prevailed among mankind, and which, in its results, has delayed the coming of the kingdom on earth; and the correction is, that God by His mere fiat, or irrespective of the desires and workings of men's souls, will not establish this kingdom. Its establishment depends upon men, themselves, and until their loves become and they become in harmony with God's will, this kingdom will never be established.
I know that it is believed and taught and emphasized, and men place all their hopes and expectations of a heaven of bliss on the statement, that I will at sometime come in the clouds of Heaven with a great shout, to earth, and by the power which they believe exists in me, establish the Kingdom of God - a kind of kingdom in which I will be the king and rule supreme, and receive as my subjects those who believe in and worship me, and send those who do not into eternal damnation and outer darkness.
Well, this is pitiable, untrue and all erroneous. This kingdom will never be established in this way, for only man, himself, can call into existence this kingdom, only by becoming the pure perfect man that existed when God's earthly kingdom had at man's creation, its existence. Man alone, brought sin into the world, and man must himself destroy sin, and then harmony with the Father's will will be restored, and also this kingdom.
But, from what I have written, it must not for a moment or in the slightest degree be inferred even, that God is not taking and will not take any part in the reestablishment of this kingdom, for it is a fact, that He is working through His Angels upon the souls and thoughts of men to bring this kingdom on earth; but He will not force its establishment - it must come voluntarily on the part of men.
When He created man, He gave him a free will - the most wonderful of the natural gifts to man - and He will not, by the exercise of His power arbitrarily control the direction of that will, but as to it leaves man supreme. Of course while this is so, yet if man in such exercise contravenes the laws of God, man must suffer the consequences, for He never changes or sets aside His laws. Man may exercise his free will as he desires and as his thoughts and appetites may influence him to do, but the freedom of exercise does not prevent the imposition of the penalties that the laws prescribe when they are violated. Thus you see there is freedom without limitation, but every inharmonious exercise of that freedom must invite the infliction of that which necessarily follows the violation of harmony.
God wants and is patiently waiting for the love of man, and is always the loving Father who delights not in the suffering of His creatures, for He wants their love to come voluntarily and without constraint or fear of punishment or hope of reward, except that reward which must necessarily follow the blending of God's Love and the love of man.
Then I say, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth is not the Divine Kingdom, and has not in it that which is necessarily divine, except the love of God to His creatures to bless and make them happy. His essence and substance are not conferred upon them, for if they were, men would not remain in the kingdom of earth, but would, to a degree, be in the Celestial Heaven, even while on earth, and as I know some men, while still mortals, are in this Divine Heaven.
Now, what I have said with reference to the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, applies with equal truth to the Kingdom of God in the spirit world, for there the inhabitants are merely the spirits of men after they have surrendered their physical bodies, and become purified in their natural love and in harmony with the will and laws of God controlling their existence as perfect men.
While the Kingdom of God has not yet been established on earth, it has been in the spirit world, for in the highest sphere of that world the souls of men have become purified and harmony has been restored, and the souls of men enjoy the supreme happiness that was bestowed upon them at the time of their first creation, which God pronounced very good. Sometime you will have described to you the bliss and wonderful happiness of that kingdom; and I will not say that this is beyond all conception of men, and was established not by the mere power and will of God, but by the exercise of the will of men after they became spirits in renouncing evil and sin, and having their thoughts and desires and soul in its natural love purified and made harmonious. And here I must say, that all men who have ever lived, or who shall ever live, will, at sometime live in this Kingdom of God in the spirit world, or in the Kingdom of the Celestial Spheres; but the large majority will find their homes in the former kingdom.
The hells and dark places will be emptied of their inhabitants and abolished forever, and, surprising as it may seem to mortals, not by the fiat of God, but the exercise of men's will and desires and longings for the attainment of the purification of their love, and by their reaching the goal of their aspirations. But God will be with them in their efforts, and his angels will do his will in helping mortals and spirits along this way to the spiritual kingdom.
Then how important it is that mortals should understand and realize the great work that they must do in establishing the kingdom on earth and the kingdom in the spirit world, and not rest supinely in the mere intellectual belief that God will in His own way and at His own time, establish this kingdom, and that they who believe in God and observe the creeds and doctrines of their churches and perform their duties as church members, will become inhabitants of that kingdom, and in a moment become pure and undefiled and in harmony with the will of God and His laws.
It is a very harmful belief, because the only way to this kingdom is the way of renunciation and purification, and all the beliefs ever possessed by men that do not lead to this purification of men's souls, will not lead to this kingdom. Man, with the help of the Father, must hew his own destiny, and the Father, without the effort of man will not make for him a destiny that his condition of soul and love do not entitle him to.
But there is a Kingdom greater and different and unlike these kingdoms of which I have been writing, and that is the Celestial Kingdom of God; and only those who receive of the Divine Essence can become inhabitants of this Kingdom. The souls of men must become transformed into the very Nature Divine of God, and the natural love of man be changed in all its qualities and elements into the Divine Love of the Father.
I have written that many of my moral teachings are recorded in the Bible, and that I came, or rather my acceptance by the Father as His beloved son, and the reception into my soul of His Divine Love qualified me to teach the way to the several kingdoms; and as was said in that Book, what was lost by the disobedience of the first man was restored by the coming of the second, and that only means, that by reason of the knowledge that came to me of truth and of the laws of harmony that govern God's universe, I was enabled to teach men the way to a return to the purity and development of their souls in natural love that existed before the great loss caused by the disobedience of the first man. I was not to bring about this restoration by any great power or Godlike qualities of omniscience that I might be supposed to possess, but merely by teaching men to love God and their brothers, and to pursue that course of living and thinking that would necessarily enable them to renounce sin and evil and come into a state of harmony with the laws of their creation.
Now, while I taught these moral truths, I also taught the great spiritual truths that show men the way to the Celestial Kingdom, for in my communions with the Father there came to me not only the Divine Love which transformed my soul into the substance of the Father in its love qualities, but also the knowledge by which this Divine Love might be acquired and the certain way to the Celestial Kingdom, even though to a degree while in the flesh.
But my spiritual teachings that show the way to the Celestial Kingdom were not so well understood by my hearers - and not even by my intimate disciples - but more so by John, and consequently were not preserved in the Bible, as were my moral teachings. And as to the Bible, I mean the original manuscripts were not written until many years after my death. Even in these manuscripts not many of my teachings as to the way that leads to this Celestial Kingdom, were contained; and afterwards when these manuscripts were copied, and the copies recopied, these important truths were not preserved - scarcely any. Though the fundamental ones, namely: God is love, and except a man be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven were retained.
And as time went by and the recopying continued, fewer and fewer of my precepts were preserved, and men came to know less and less of these higher truths, and, consequently, the mere moral teachings became better understood and were used by the teachers and instructors of the masses to lead men to a kingdom of God.
And in addition to this, these leaders changed even these moral truths and the interpretations of the early writers in such a way as to enable these leaders to attain to wealth and power and control over the common people in their beliefs and observances of worship. The God of love then, to a large extent, became a God of hatred and wrath, inflicting punishment upon those who dared to disobey those injunctions that the hierarchy of the church placed upon them as the demands and will of God.
But these matters have been written upon more fully elsewhere, and I will not further enlarge upon them, and will now disclose the true way that leads to the Kingdom of God in the Celestial Heavens. Well, we have written a long time tonight, and I think it best to postpone my further writing till later. I must say this though, that I am pleased that you are in so much better condition, and I feel that now we can proceed more rapidly with our messages.
Remember this, that my promises will be fulfilled, and you must have faith. I am with you very often, and love you as you know, and will continue to pray to the Father for you. So trust me and be assured that I am helping you in your desire. Good night and God bless you.
Your brother and friend,
Jesus
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Paul Writes About "Hell: What It Is and What Its Purpose Is"
November 21, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, St. Paul.
I desire tonight to finish my message on: "Hell: What it is and what its purpose is."
As I said before, Hell is a place as well as a condition and, the man who believes that it is nothing more than a condition of his mind or soul will be wonderfully surprised as well as disappointed. I know the condition of mind and soul to a very large extent creates a man's Hell and is the chief source of his suffering and the darkness that surrounds and envelops him; yet, this condition is not the only source of that suffering or of darkness in which he finds himself.
Hell is a place; and a place that has all the appearances and ingredients that are in exact agreement with his state as produced or caused by the condition of his mind or soul and is not a place of universal character and fitted for the habitation of souls, irrespective of conditions of degrees of defilement and sin and darkness.
It is not a single place forming a common home for all fallen souls, but is composed of many and different places and as has been said, there are many Hells having gradations of appearances and surroundings that are suitable for causing additional sufferings which souls may have to endure.
The expression, "The lowest depths of Hell," is not a meaningless one, but portrays a truth, a real existing fact that many spirits are now experiencing the reality of. In its broadest sense, Hell is every place outside of Heaven, and Heaven is that place where everything entering into it - its appearance and qualities and its inhabitants - is in perfect harmony with the respective Laws of God and His will concerning the same.
And this statement involves the fact that there are several Heavens, because the Heaven of the redeemed, or those who have received the Divine Essence in their souls and become of the Divine Nature of the Father, is a distinct Heaven from that wherein live those who have been restored in their natural love to the perfect condition that the first parents possessed before the fall - the condition of the restitution to mankind of that perfection which was lost by the disobedience of the first man and woman.
Mortals usually believe that Heaven is a condition, and the Bible, in which so many believe, attempts to describe this Heaven with its streets of gold and pearly gates, etc., and as a fact, it is a real substantial place having all the elements and appearances of a home of bliss, which help to bring to its inhabitants happiness and joy in addition to the happiness which their soul perfection and development cause them to have.
Then as Heaven is a place having real substance perceptible to the spirits that inhabit it, why should not Hell be a place of real substance, also, with those qualities and appearances exactly suited to add to the unhappiness of those who are fitted for it? The spirit world, both Heaven and Hell are places of substance having their planes and divisions and limitations of occupancy and not mythical, invisible conceptions of mind as you mortals ordinarily conceive ghosts to be. The spirits of mortals are real and more substantial than are the physical bodies of mortals, and these planes and divisions, whether of Heaven or Hell, have a more real existence than have the mortals in their places of habitation or confinement in the earth life.
The Hells are places of darkness and sufferings but in them are no fires or brimstone, etc., as have been so commonly represented by the preachers and teachers of the orthodox churches, because there is nothing therein that would feed fires or that fires could affect, and there are no devils or Satan, though there are evil spirits of men that are more wicked and vicious and horrifying than have ever been pictured of the devil and his angels.
In your communications, you have had some very realistic descriptions of Hell from those who are actually living therein and are realizing its tortures and realities, and I will not take the time here to attempt to describe it in detail and will only say that as it has not entered into the minds of men to conceive the wonders and beauties of Heaven, neither have they ever conceived of the horrors and sufferings of Hell. But from all this, men must not understand that the punishment and darkness which the spirits of evil endure in the Hells are specifically inflicted by the Father because of any wrath that He may have towards these spirits, or to gratify any feelings of revenge, or even to satisfy any outraged justice, for it is not true.
Man, when he becomes a spirit, is his own judge and executioner, submitting to and receiving the inexorable results of the Law that: "Whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap." This is a law that is necessary to preserve or bring about the harmony of God's universe, which, of course, is absolutely necessary, and while it may appear to man, at first sight, to be a harsh and cruel Law, yet in its workings and results, even to the individual spirit who may suffer in the reaping, it is a most benign and beneficial law, for the darkness and sufferings of a few years, as you mortals say, bring about an eternity of light and happiness.
The Law must rule; and in all the apparent harshness and suffering and want of mercy, the Great Divine Love of the Father overshadows the sufferer and finally makes the defiled and wicked soul become one of purity and goodness. Men may never have thought of the fact; that if it were possible for these evil spirits to live in Heaven, their sufferings and unhappiness would be greater than what they endure by living in the place that is more in agreement in its surroundings and appearances with their own distorted conditions of soul. So even in their Hells, the Father is Merciful and Good.
And regarding the second proposition of the preacher (Dr. Ratcliff) in his sermon, namely, the duration of suffering or of the life of the spirit in Hell. His conclusion was that this duration of the spirit is eternal, everlasting and without end. How it must have hurt and violated the teachings of his soul and his conception of the loving Father to come to such a conclusion! But, yet, being bound by his creeds and the domination of his belief that the Bible is the sole authority upon Hell, as well as Heaven, in the conviction of his mind - and here I want to emphasize mind, for his heart was not in agreement - he declared that the duration of the sufferings and life of the Hells is eternal and the saying of Jesus proved it to be, not only because it was in the Bible, but because the true meaning of the original Greek word can have no other translation; not knowing, or if knowing, not recalling, that Jesus, even if he used such expression, did not speak in Greek, and that back of the Greek word, in order to obtain the true meaning of the word used by Jesus, he, the preacher, must go to the word as it was uttered by Jesus and its true meaning.
So many preachers and commentators on the Bible attempt to determine a most vital truth by a shade of meaning that they conceive a particular word in its original, may have, when they are not justified in concluding that such word had at the time used, such shade of meaning, or that the original as they conceive it to be, was the original word actually spoken or written. They seem to lose sight of the fact that the writings of the Bible, I mean the manuscripts, to which they make reference to prove the correctness of their conclusions, are far removed from the original writings, and that by reason of the copying and recopying of the word upon which they rely, and the shade of meaning that they give it in their interpretations may not have been the word originally used. Of course, they have no way of learning this fact and, consequently, they have to resort to the best authority that they can have access to. But under such circumstances, it is not a justifiable thing to have a vital question of man's future and destiny determined by the shade of meaning that may be given to one word or more words, without reference to other declarations of the same Book having relation to the subject matter of the inquiry.
The preacher said that in his conclusion as to the question, he must be governed by the Bible alone and had no right to indulge in speculation of the philosophies of other men and, that in the Bible, he could find nothing that would justify him in coming to any other conclusion than that the duration of punishment in Hell is eternal. Well, he was not honest with himself, for if he had searched a little more deeply and have given as much credence to other parts of the Bible as to the passage that he quoted, he would have found a strong statement to the effect that the evil spirits in Hell have the possibility of leaving it, and not only that but that a part of the great mission of Jesus, upon whose supposed declaration the preacher based his conclusion, was to show the way and induce these spirits of evil to leave their Hells.
This was the Master's first work after he became a spirit, and he would not have attempted to preach to these wicked spirits in Hell, so wicked, according to the Bible, that God because of their great sins when mortals, punished them as He never punished any other of His children, for their disobedience, utterly destroying them as a race and His only living human creatures from the face of the earth, by one great catastrophe, leaving only Noah and his family as a reminder of the great failure of God in His creation - the most perfect and the "very good." So I say, if the preacher had searched the Bible, he would have found that the Hell that contained the spirits of all the human race that was living at the time of the flood, except Noah and his family was not in its duration eternal.
And again, had the preached searched further he would have found that the Master Himself declared by necessary implication, that, at least, for some of the wicked who became inhabitants of Hell, there was possibility of release and certainty upon conditions. I refer to the declaration attributed to him where he said, "He that sinneth against the son of man, it shall be forgiven him, but he that sinneth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come." (Matt. Chapter 12--Verse 32)
Now, to any reasonable man there is only one interpretation of this declaration and, that is, that for any and all sins, except that against the Holy Ghost, there is forgiveness in the next world as well as in the mortal world, and that being a fact, it is an irresistible conclusion that the Father would not compel a spirit to remain in Hell after He had forgiven that spirit's sins.
No, the preacher had not searched the Scriptures, as he was in duty bound to do, else his conclusion, could he have ridden his mind of the beliefs that the creeds of his church had driven into his intellect, and of the teachings of the ancient fathers, and of the churches that had taught such false and damnable doctrines for so many years, would have been very different. The preacher repudiated the old teachings that there would be physical suffering in Hell, or fire or brimstone, etc., and expressed his commiseration for those preachers and others who had taught such doctrine and for their awful responsibility and accounting, and his commiseration was needed and appropriate. But l want to say here that he needs as much, if not more, commiseration for the preaching of his false doctrines, as did those preachers to whom he refers. He has more light, or may have, and his accounting will be correspondingly greater.
I have written a long letter, and you are tired and I must stop, but before doing so, let me declare the truth to be that:
"Hell is not a place of eternal punishment; that all the Hells as well as other parts of the spirit world are places of progression and the privilege of probation is not taken from any spirit no matter how wicked, for all are God's children and in His Plans for the perfecting of the harmony of the universe, and man's salvation, all the Hells will be emptied and the Hells themselves destroyed."
But men must not think from this that the duration of suffering in these Hells is necessarily short, for that is not true; some of the evil inhabitants of these places have been in such darkness and suffering for centuries, as mortals count time and may be for centuries more, but the time will come when they will have the awakening to the fact that they may become children of light, and then when they make the effort to progress, they will succeed. The sooner that mankind learns that Hell is not a place of punishment to satisfy the wrath of an angry God, but merely the natural and necessary living place of the spirit, whose condition of soul and mind demands, and that condition changes, and it will change, the Hell of its habitation will change until finally for that spirit all the Hells will disappear.
You are tired and I must stop. So thanking you, and leaving you my love and blessings,
I am your brother in Christ,
Paul
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, St. Paul.
I desire tonight to finish my message on: "Hell: What it is and what its purpose is."
As I said before, Hell is a place as well as a condition and, the man who believes that it is nothing more than a condition of his mind or soul will be wonderfully surprised as well as disappointed. I know the condition of mind and soul to a very large extent creates a man's Hell and is the chief source of his suffering and the darkness that surrounds and envelops him; yet, this condition is not the only source of that suffering or of darkness in which he finds himself.
Hell is a place; and a place that has all the appearances and ingredients that are in exact agreement with his state as produced or caused by the condition of his mind or soul and is not a place of universal character and fitted for the habitation of souls, irrespective of conditions of degrees of defilement and sin and darkness.
It is not a single place forming a common home for all fallen souls, but is composed of many and different places and as has been said, there are many Hells having gradations of appearances and surroundings that are suitable for causing additional sufferings which souls may have to endure.
The expression, "The lowest depths of Hell," is not a meaningless one, but portrays a truth, a real existing fact that many spirits are now experiencing the reality of. In its broadest sense, Hell is every place outside of Heaven, and Heaven is that place where everything entering into it - its appearance and qualities and its inhabitants - is in perfect harmony with the respective Laws of God and His will concerning the same.
And this statement involves the fact that there are several Heavens, because the Heaven of the redeemed, or those who have received the Divine Essence in their souls and become of the Divine Nature of the Father, is a distinct Heaven from that wherein live those who have been restored in their natural love to the perfect condition that the first parents possessed before the fall - the condition of the restitution to mankind of that perfection which was lost by the disobedience of the first man and woman.
Mortals usually believe that Heaven is a condition, and the Bible, in which so many believe, attempts to describe this Heaven with its streets of gold and pearly gates, etc., and as a fact, it is a real substantial place having all the elements and appearances of a home of bliss, which help to bring to its inhabitants happiness and joy in addition to the happiness which their soul perfection and development cause them to have.
Then as Heaven is a place having real substance perceptible to the spirits that inhabit it, why should not Hell be a place of real substance, also, with those qualities and appearances exactly suited to add to the unhappiness of those who are fitted for it? The spirit world, both Heaven and Hell are places of substance having their planes and divisions and limitations of occupancy and not mythical, invisible conceptions of mind as you mortals ordinarily conceive ghosts to be. The spirits of mortals are real and more substantial than are the physical bodies of mortals, and these planes and divisions, whether of Heaven or Hell, have a more real existence than have the mortals in their places of habitation or confinement in the earth life.
The Hells are places of darkness and sufferings but in them are no fires or brimstone, etc., as have been so commonly represented by the preachers and teachers of the orthodox churches, because there is nothing therein that would feed fires or that fires could affect, and there are no devils or Satan, though there are evil spirits of men that are more wicked and vicious and horrifying than have ever been pictured of the devil and his angels.
In your communications, you have had some very realistic descriptions of Hell from those who are actually living therein and are realizing its tortures and realities, and I will not take the time here to attempt to describe it in detail and will only say that as it has not entered into the minds of men to conceive the wonders and beauties of Heaven, neither have they ever conceived of the horrors and sufferings of Hell. But from all this, men must not understand that the punishment and darkness which the spirits of evil endure in the Hells are specifically inflicted by the Father because of any wrath that He may have towards these spirits, or to gratify any feelings of revenge, or even to satisfy any outraged justice, for it is not true.
Man, when he becomes a spirit, is his own judge and executioner, submitting to and receiving the inexorable results of the Law that: "Whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap." This is a law that is necessary to preserve or bring about the harmony of God's universe, which, of course, is absolutely necessary, and while it may appear to man, at first sight, to be a harsh and cruel Law, yet in its workings and results, even to the individual spirit who may suffer in the reaping, it is a most benign and beneficial law, for the darkness and sufferings of a few years, as you mortals say, bring about an eternity of light and happiness.
The Law must rule; and in all the apparent harshness and suffering and want of mercy, the Great Divine Love of the Father overshadows the sufferer and finally makes the defiled and wicked soul become one of purity and goodness. Men may never have thought of the fact; that if it were possible for these evil spirits to live in Heaven, their sufferings and unhappiness would be greater than what they endure by living in the place that is more in agreement in its surroundings and appearances with their own distorted conditions of soul. So even in their Hells, the Father is Merciful and Good.
And regarding the second proposition of the preacher (Dr. Ratcliff) in his sermon, namely, the duration of suffering or of the life of the spirit in Hell. His conclusion was that this duration of the spirit is eternal, everlasting and without end. How it must have hurt and violated the teachings of his soul and his conception of the loving Father to come to such a conclusion! But, yet, being bound by his creeds and the domination of his belief that the Bible is the sole authority upon Hell, as well as Heaven, in the conviction of his mind - and here I want to emphasize mind, for his heart was not in agreement - he declared that the duration of the sufferings and life of the Hells is eternal and the saying of Jesus proved it to be, not only because it was in the Bible, but because the true meaning of the original Greek word can have no other translation; not knowing, or if knowing, not recalling, that Jesus, even if he used such expression, did not speak in Greek, and that back of the Greek word, in order to obtain the true meaning of the word used by Jesus, he, the preacher, must go to the word as it was uttered by Jesus and its true meaning.
So many preachers and commentators on the Bible attempt to determine a most vital truth by a shade of meaning that they conceive a particular word in its original, may have, when they are not justified in concluding that such word had at the time used, such shade of meaning, or that the original as they conceive it to be, was the original word actually spoken or written. They seem to lose sight of the fact that the writings of the Bible, I mean the manuscripts, to which they make reference to prove the correctness of their conclusions, are far removed from the original writings, and that by reason of the copying and recopying of the word upon which they rely, and the shade of meaning that they give it in their interpretations may not have been the word originally used. Of course, they have no way of learning this fact and, consequently, they have to resort to the best authority that they can have access to. But under such circumstances, it is not a justifiable thing to have a vital question of man's future and destiny determined by the shade of meaning that may be given to one word or more words, without reference to other declarations of the same Book having relation to the subject matter of the inquiry.
The preacher said that in his conclusion as to the question, he must be governed by the Bible alone and had no right to indulge in speculation of the philosophies of other men and, that in the Bible, he could find nothing that would justify him in coming to any other conclusion than that the duration of punishment in Hell is eternal. Well, he was not honest with himself, for if he had searched a little more deeply and have given as much credence to other parts of the Bible as to the passage that he quoted, he would have found a strong statement to the effect that the evil spirits in Hell have the possibility of leaving it, and not only that but that a part of the great mission of Jesus, upon whose supposed declaration the preacher based his conclusion, was to show the way and induce these spirits of evil to leave their Hells.
This was the Master's first work after he became a spirit, and he would not have attempted to preach to these wicked spirits in Hell, so wicked, according to the Bible, that God because of their great sins when mortals, punished them as He never punished any other of His children, for their disobedience, utterly destroying them as a race and His only living human creatures from the face of the earth, by one great catastrophe, leaving only Noah and his family as a reminder of the great failure of God in His creation - the most perfect and the "very good." So I say, if the preacher had searched the Bible, he would have found that the Hell that contained the spirits of all the human race that was living at the time of the flood, except Noah and his family was not in its duration eternal.
And again, had the preached searched further he would have found that the Master Himself declared by necessary implication, that, at least, for some of the wicked who became inhabitants of Hell, there was possibility of release and certainty upon conditions. I refer to the declaration attributed to him where he said, "He that sinneth against the son of man, it shall be forgiven him, but he that sinneth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come." (Matt. Chapter 12--Verse 32)
Now, to any reasonable man there is only one interpretation of this declaration and, that is, that for any and all sins, except that against the Holy Ghost, there is forgiveness in the next world as well as in the mortal world, and that being a fact, it is an irresistible conclusion that the Father would not compel a spirit to remain in Hell after He had forgiven that spirit's sins.
No, the preacher had not searched the Scriptures, as he was in duty bound to do, else his conclusion, could he have ridden his mind of the beliefs that the creeds of his church had driven into his intellect, and of the teachings of the ancient fathers, and of the churches that had taught such false and damnable doctrines for so many years, would have been very different. The preacher repudiated the old teachings that there would be physical suffering in Hell, or fire or brimstone, etc., and expressed his commiseration for those preachers and others who had taught such doctrine and for their awful responsibility and accounting, and his commiseration was needed and appropriate. But l want to say here that he needs as much, if not more, commiseration for the preaching of his false doctrines, as did those preachers to whom he refers. He has more light, or may have, and his accounting will be correspondingly greater.
I have written a long letter, and you are tired and I must stop, but before doing so, let me declare the truth to be that:
"Hell is not a place of eternal punishment; that all the Hells as well as other parts of the spirit world are places of progression and the privilege of probation is not taken from any spirit no matter how wicked, for all are God's children and in His Plans for the perfecting of the harmony of the universe, and man's salvation, all the Hells will be emptied and the Hells themselves destroyed."
But men must not think from this that the duration of suffering in these Hells is necessarily short, for that is not true; some of the evil inhabitants of these places have been in such darkness and suffering for centuries, as mortals count time and may be for centuries more, but the time will come when they will have the awakening to the fact that they may become children of light, and then when they make the effort to progress, they will succeed. The sooner that mankind learns that Hell is not a place of punishment to satisfy the wrath of an angry God, but merely the natural and necessary living place of the spirit, whose condition of soul and mind demands, and that condition changes, and it will change, the Hell of its habitation will change until finally for that spirit all the Hells will disappear.
You are tired and I must stop. So thanking you, and leaving you my love and blessings,
I am your brother in Christ,
Paul
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Jesus Writes on How the Soul of a Mortal Receives the Divine Love
November 10, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
I come tonight to tell you that you are in a better condition than you were last night and, in fact, have been for some nights past. I desire to write you a message on the question of: "How the soul of a mortal receives the Divine Love, and what its effect is, even though subsequently his mind may indulge in those beliefs that may tend to prevent the growth of the soul - what is a lost soul?"
As you know, the inflowing of this Love is caused by its bestowal by the Holy Spirit in response to sincere prayer and longings. I mean prayer and longings for the Love Itself, and not prayers in general,for the material benefits that men more often and more naturally, as they believe, ask for and desire. The prayers of mortals for these things that may tend to make them successful and happy in their natural love are answered also, if it be best that they should be, but these are not the prayers that bring the Divine Love or cause the Holy Spirit to work with men.
As the prayers of the sincere, earnest soul ascend to the Father, that soul becomes opened up to the inflowing of this Love, and the soul's perceptions enlarge and come more in rapport with the conditions or influence that always accompanies the presence of this Love and, consequently, its entrance into the soul becomes easier and its reception more perceptible to the soul sense. The more earnest the prayer and sincere the longings, the sooner faith comes and with this faith, the realization that the Divine Love is permeating the soul.
When once the Divine Love finds a lodgment in the soul, it, to the extent that it receives the Love, becomes as it were a changed substance, partaking of the Essence of the Love; and as water may become colored by an ingredient foreign to itself, and which changes not only its appearance but its qualities, so this Divine Love changes the appearance and qualities of the soul, and this change of qualities continues ever thereafter. The natural qualities of the soul and the Essence of the Love become one and united and the soul is made altogether different in its constituency from what it was before the inflowing of the Love, but this only to the extent of the Love received. As this Love increases in quantity, the change and transformation becomes correspondingly greater, until at last the transformation may and will become so great, that the whole soul becomes a thing of this Divine Essence, and partakes of its very Nature and Substance, a being of Divinity.
When once this Love enters and truly possesses the soul and works the change mentioned, It, the Love, never leaves nor disassociates Itself from the soul - its character of Divine Essence never changes to that of the mere natural love, and so far as It is present, sin and error have no existence, because it is just as impossible for this Essence and sin and error to occupy the same parts of the soul at the same time as it is for two material objects to occupy the same space at the same time, as your philosophers say. Divinity never gives place to that which is not of the Divine. Man is working towards the attainment of the Divine, when he pursues the way provided for obtaining the Divine Nature, and as he advances and obtains a portion of this Divine, no matter how small, he can never retrace his steps to the extent of ridding himself of this transforming Essence, and again become without its presence.
But this does not mean that a man may not lose the consciousness of the existence of this Essence within his soul, for he frequently does. The indulgence of his carnal appetites and evil desires will place him in the condition that he may cease to have a consciousness of the existence of the Divine Love in his soul, and to himself, he will be as if he had never had any experience of the change that I speak of.
And while this Love can never be eradicated by the evils that man may indulge in or by the mental beliefs that he may acquire, yet the progress of this Love in his soul may be checked and become stagnant, as if the Love were not, and sin and error may appear to be the only dominant elements of his life and being. But yet, when once possessed, the Love cannot be crowded out of his soul by sin and error, no matter, how deep and intense they may be. I know that this may seem strange and impossible to man's intellectual thinking, and that it is not in accordance with what has been attributed to me as teaching that a soul may be lost, nevertheless, a soul that has once received this Divine Essence cannot be lost, though its want of realization of the presence of this Love and its awakening from its dormant condition caused by sin and error and its misdirected beliefs may delay its manifestation of life and existence for a long time, and much suffering and darkness may have to be endured by the soul that is in such condition. And I must not be understood by this, as meaning that a soul cannot be lost, for it can, and many have been and will be, and many will realize the fact when too late.
Now, what is a lost soul? Not one that a man may actually lose in the sense of being deprived of it, separated from it actually, or even as regards his consciousness of not having a soul, for while, at times, he may believe that he has lost his soul in the sense of not having any, yet he is mistaken, for the soul, which is the man, can never be separated from himself, and as long as he lives in the physical body or in the spiritual body, his soul will be with him. And yet he may have a soul, consciously or not, and at the same time have lost it. This may seem a paradox to the mortal intellect or to the intellect of spirit, but it is true.
Then what is a lost soul? When God gave to man a soul, that soul was made in the image but not in the Substance of its Maker, and at the same time there was bestowed on him the privilege of having that soul become of the Substance of the Father, and to an extent, Divine, and entitled to and capable of living in the Celestial Kingdom of the Father, where everything is of the Divine Essence and Nature. When the first parents by their act of disobedience forfeited that privilege their souls lost the possibility of becoming of the Divine Nature and at-one with the Father in His Kingdom, and they thereby lost not the natural soul, which was a part of their creation, but the soul having the possibility of obtaining the Essence of Divinity and Immortality as the Father has Immortality.
As I have said, heretofore, with my coming this great privilege was restored to mankind, and the lost soul became again the object of man's recovery, and now he has that privilege as did the first parents before the fall; but also men may lose it as did they. As with them their souls were lost until they received into it the Divine Essence of the Father, so with men now, their souls are lost until and unless they receive this Divine Essence therein. As the first parents by their disobedience and refusal, forfeited their privilege of having their souls become a living, Divine Substance, so now, men by their disobedience and refusal will forfeit their privilege to save their souls from separation from the Divine Unity with the Father. The lost soul is as real as the verities of the Father's immutable laws, and only by the operation of the Divine Love can the soul lost, become the soul found.
Men may believe and teach that within them is a part of the Divine that will cause their souls to progress and develop until it reaches the condition of Divinity that will make it a part of the Divinity of the Father. But in this they are all wrong, for, while man was the highest creation of God, and the most perfect, and made in his image, yet in man is no part of the Divine, and having no part of the Divine, it is wholly impossible for him to progress to the possession of the Divine. He, of himself, no matter what his development may be, can never become greater or more perfect or of a higher nature, than he was at his creation.
The Divine comes from above and when once planted in a man's soul, there can be no limit to its expansion and development, even in the Celestial Heavens. Let all men seek this Love and there will be no lost souls; but, alas, many will not do so, and the Spiritual Heavens will be filled with lost souls not having the Divine Essence of the Father.
I have written enough for tonight, and I am pleased at the way in which you received my message. Continue to pray to the Father for more and more of His Divine Love, and your prayers will be answered, and you will realize with the certainty of conscious possession of the Divine Essence, that your soul is not lost and never will be. So with my love and blessings, I will say good night and God bless you.
Your brother and friend,
Jesus
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
I come tonight to tell you that you are in a better condition than you were last night and, in fact, have been for some nights past. I desire to write you a message on the question of: "How the soul of a mortal receives the Divine Love, and what its effect is, even though subsequently his mind may indulge in those beliefs that may tend to prevent the growth of the soul - what is a lost soul?"
As you know, the inflowing of this Love is caused by its bestowal by the Holy Spirit in response to sincere prayer and longings. I mean prayer and longings for the Love Itself, and not prayers in general,for the material benefits that men more often and more naturally, as they believe, ask for and desire. The prayers of mortals for these things that may tend to make them successful and happy in their natural love are answered also, if it be best that they should be, but these are not the prayers that bring the Divine Love or cause the Holy Spirit to work with men.
As the prayers of the sincere, earnest soul ascend to the Father, that soul becomes opened up to the inflowing of this Love, and the soul's perceptions enlarge and come more in rapport with the conditions or influence that always accompanies the presence of this Love and, consequently, its entrance into the soul becomes easier and its reception more perceptible to the soul sense. The more earnest the prayer and sincere the longings, the sooner faith comes and with this faith, the realization that the Divine Love is permeating the soul.
When once the Divine Love finds a lodgment in the soul, it, to the extent that it receives the Love, becomes as it were a changed substance, partaking of the Essence of the Love; and as water may become colored by an ingredient foreign to itself, and which changes not only its appearance but its qualities, so this Divine Love changes the appearance and qualities of the soul, and this change of qualities continues ever thereafter. The natural qualities of the soul and the Essence of the Love become one and united and the soul is made altogether different in its constituency from what it was before the inflowing of the Love, but this only to the extent of the Love received. As this Love increases in quantity, the change and transformation becomes correspondingly greater, until at last the transformation may and will become so great, that the whole soul becomes a thing of this Divine Essence, and partakes of its very Nature and Substance, a being of Divinity.
When once this Love enters and truly possesses the soul and works the change mentioned, It, the Love, never leaves nor disassociates Itself from the soul - its character of Divine Essence never changes to that of the mere natural love, and so far as It is present, sin and error have no existence, because it is just as impossible for this Essence and sin and error to occupy the same parts of the soul at the same time as it is for two material objects to occupy the same space at the same time, as your philosophers say. Divinity never gives place to that which is not of the Divine. Man is working towards the attainment of the Divine, when he pursues the way provided for obtaining the Divine Nature, and as he advances and obtains a portion of this Divine, no matter how small, he can never retrace his steps to the extent of ridding himself of this transforming Essence, and again become without its presence.
But this does not mean that a man may not lose the consciousness of the existence of this Essence within his soul, for he frequently does. The indulgence of his carnal appetites and evil desires will place him in the condition that he may cease to have a consciousness of the existence of the Divine Love in his soul, and to himself, he will be as if he had never had any experience of the change that I speak of.
And while this Love can never be eradicated by the evils that man may indulge in or by the mental beliefs that he may acquire, yet the progress of this Love in his soul may be checked and become stagnant, as if the Love were not, and sin and error may appear to be the only dominant elements of his life and being. But yet, when once possessed, the Love cannot be crowded out of his soul by sin and error, no matter, how deep and intense they may be. I know that this may seem strange and impossible to man's intellectual thinking, and that it is not in accordance with what has been attributed to me as teaching that a soul may be lost, nevertheless, a soul that has once received this Divine Essence cannot be lost, though its want of realization of the presence of this Love and its awakening from its dormant condition caused by sin and error and its misdirected beliefs may delay its manifestation of life and existence for a long time, and much suffering and darkness may have to be endured by the soul that is in such condition. And I must not be understood by this, as meaning that a soul cannot be lost, for it can, and many have been and will be, and many will realize the fact when too late.
Now, what is a lost soul? Not one that a man may actually lose in the sense of being deprived of it, separated from it actually, or even as regards his consciousness of not having a soul, for while, at times, he may believe that he has lost his soul in the sense of not having any, yet he is mistaken, for the soul, which is the man, can never be separated from himself, and as long as he lives in the physical body or in the spiritual body, his soul will be with him. And yet he may have a soul, consciously or not, and at the same time have lost it. This may seem a paradox to the mortal intellect or to the intellect of spirit, but it is true.
Then what is a lost soul? When God gave to man a soul, that soul was made in the image but not in the Substance of its Maker, and at the same time there was bestowed on him the privilege of having that soul become of the Substance of the Father, and to an extent, Divine, and entitled to and capable of living in the Celestial Kingdom of the Father, where everything is of the Divine Essence and Nature. When the first parents by their act of disobedience forfeited that privilege their souls lost the possibility of becoming of the Divine Nature and at-one with the Father in His Kingdom, and they thereby lost not the natural soul, which was a part of their creation, but the soul having the possibility of obtaining the Essence of Divinity and Immortality as the Father has Immortality.
As I have said, heretofore, with my coming this great privilege was restored to mankind, and the lost soul became again the object of man's recovery, and now he has that privilege as did the first parents before the fall; but also men may lose it as did they. As with them their souls were lost until they received into it the Divine Essence of the Father, so with men now, their souls are lost until and unless they receive this Divine Essence therein. As the first parents by their disobedience and refusal, forfeited their privilege of having their souls become a living, Divine Substance, so now, men by their disobedience and refusal will forfeit their privilege to save their souls from separation from the Divine Unity with the Father. The lost soul is as real as the verities of the Father's immutable laws, and only by the operation of the Divine Love can the soul lost, become the soul found.
Men may believe and teach that within them is a part of the Divine that will cause their souls to progress and develop until it reaches the condition of Divinity that will make it a part of the Divinity of the Father. But in this they are all wrong, for, while man was the highest creation of God, and the most perfect, and made in his image, yet in man is no part of the Divine, and having no part of the Divine, it is wholly impossible for him to progress to the possession of the Divine. He, of himself, no matter what his development may be, can never become greater or more perfect or of a higher nature, than he was at his creation.
The Divine comes from above and when once planted in a man's soul, there can be no limit to its expansion and development, even in the Celestial Heavens. Let all men seek this Love and there will be no lost souls; but, alas, many will not do so, and the Spiritual Heavens will be filled with lost souls not having the Divine Essence of the Father.
I have written enough for tonight, and I am pleased at the way in which you received my message. Continue to pray to the Father for more and more of His Divine Love, and your prayers will be answered, and you will realize with the certainty of conscious possession of the Divine Essence, that your soul is not lost and never will be. So with my love and blessings, I will say good night and God bless you.
Your brother and friend,
Jesus
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Helen Writes of Her Work in Revealing Soulmates to Higher Spirits and Teaching Lower Spirits God's Plan of Salvation
October 28, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, your own true and loving Helen.
Well, my dear, I am here as I promised you today and will try to write my letter, although I hesitated about doing so, as there are some spirits here who are very anxious to write, but I told them that I had made the engagement with you, and that they must wait until another time to write and, of course, they very willingly acquiesced. Well, I want to tell you that I was with you tonight at the meeting and saw that you enjoyed some of the soul love and influence that were present. These people have a great deal of this love and attract many spirits of the spiritual kind and receive a great amount of the Divine Love for the Holy Spirit is present with them doing the work of the Father. But I did not come to write of them, so I will not write more.
As your father just wrote you, I am in the higher planes of the Celestial Heavens and I am so happy that I hardly know how to express myself to you, for your language has no words adequate to express what I should like to tell you. All the descriptions of my several homes that I have heretofore given you, if combined, could not faintly describe the home in which I now have or the happiness which is mine.
As I go higher, the things of earth gradually fade away from my memory and only my love for you and the children remain in its strength and realness. And if it were not for this love, I do not think that I would often come to the earth plane, for my special work, as you know, is among the spirits of the higher spheres in revealing to them the soulmates that they have and in bringing to them the consequent happiness. But as I have told you while you remain on earth, I will never be able to remain away from you, as the great attraction which our love creates would not permit me to do so, even if I did not desire to come, if you can imagine such a thing to be possible.
The Father is so loving and good that He never prevents his spirits of the Celestial Kingdom from indulging in those things that will make them happy and contented and, consequently, there are more of the spirits in the earth planes doing their missions of love than might be expected, when the happiness that their homes gives them is considered. But these spirits know not selfishness in the sense of desiring all this happiness for themselves. Of course, it they have no attraction on earth - if love for the mortal does not call them to earth, then they live mostly in the spiritual or Celestial Heavens doing their work, but always work for others.
These spirits are never idle, indulging their own pleasures in such a way as the majority of Christians may believe. They have their harps and their music of various kinds and all these things that are commonly conceived by the Christian mortals to exist in the Kingdom of Heaven, yet they enjoy them only in the moments of cessation from their work in helping other spirits to progress towards the fountainhead of the Father's Love.
I am also now working in teaching the spirits of the lower spheres the plan of God for the salvation of their souls, and it is a glorious work and the reflected happiness is beyond all explanation. As we give our knowledge and love to these spirits and realize their happiness and joy, this Love that streams down upon us from the higher planes seems to fill our souls with increased abundance, and we realize the saying, that the more we give the more we receive. Never are we made poor by giving and never cease to give when the opportunity presents itself. Only are we disappointed when those to whom we try to give our love and share our happiness with, refuse to receive these gifts, and this frequently happens especially in the lower spheres and in the intellectual spheres, for you must know that these spirits of the Divine Nature spend much time in the intellectual spheres, endeavoring to lead the spirits of these spheres in the way that will bring to them this Divine Love and endless progress.
But strange as it may seem to you, these intellectual spirits - whose natural love has become to a great degree purified - are the most difficult to convince or even interest in the great plan of the Father for their souls' redemption and entrance into the Celestial Spheres. They are comparatively happy as they progress in these intellectual and moral spheres, and they do not desire anything until they arrive at the limit of their progress and then many of them have an awakening to the fact that there may be something beyond their present powers of acquiring, and that the Celestial Spirits may know a way to greater progress and happiness.
We, of the Celestial Spheres, all engage in this work, for we know the importance of it, and the certainty that at some time the Celestial Kingdom will be closed but we do not know when our work with these spirits will have to cease, and then they will be left through all eternity to the limited happiness and ended progression. The more experience I have in this work, the more I am astonished at the great and wonderful power of the human will, and when I say this I include the will that these pure spirits of the natural love have. It seems to me that they approach nearest the greatness of the Father in this will power and in the untrammeled exercise of it.
I know of no power or function that these spirits of the natural love have, that the spirits of the Celestial Spheres cannot control or subordinate, except this great will power, and as to that we are as helpless as babes so far as compulsion is concerned. When we try to influence them with love as our weapon and, unless love can work its way, our influence is almost hopeless. Of course, persuasion of their intellects is also necessary and reason must be taken in the account, but as I say, the approach to persuasion and reason must be through love, which is the power that moves and governs the spirit world.
Well dear, don't you think I have written enough for tonight? You are somewhat exhausted and I think it best to stop.
Your own true and loving,
Helen
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, your own true and loving Helen.
Well, my dear, I am here as I promised you today and will try to write my letter, although I hesitated about doing so, as there are some spirits here who are very anxious to write, but I told them that I had made the engagement with you, and that they must wait until another time to write and, of course, they very willingly acquiesced. Well, I want to tell you that I was with you tonight at the meeting and saw that you enjoyed some of the soul love and influence that were present. These people have a great deal of this love and attract many spirits of the spiritual kind and receive a great amount of the Divine Love for the Holy Spirit is present with them doing the work of the Father. But I did not come to write of them, so I will not write more.
As your father just wrote you, I am in the higher planes of the Celestial Heavens and I am so happy that I hardly know how to express myself to you, for your language has no words adequate to express what I should like to tell you. All the descriptions of my several homes that I have heretofore given you, if combined, could not faintly describe the home in which I now have or the happiness which is mine.
As I go higher, the things of earth gradually fade away from my memory and only my love for you and the children remain in its strength and realness. And if it were not for this love, I do not think that I would often come to the earth plane, for my special work, as you know, is among the spirits of the higher spheres in revealing to them the soulmates that they have and in bringing to them the consequent happiness. But as I have told you while you remain on earth, I will never be able to remain away from you, as the great attraction which our love creates would not permit me to do so, even if I did not desire to come, if you can imagine such a thing to be possible.
The Father is so loving and good that He never prevents his spirits of the Celestial Kingdom from indulging in those things that will make them happy and contented and, consequently, there are more of the spirits in the earth planes doing their missions of love than might be expected, when the happiness that their homes gives them is considered. But these spirits know not selfishness in the sense of desiring all this happiness for themselves. Of course, it they have no attraction on earth - if love for the mortal does not call them to earth, then they live mostly in the spiritual or Celestial Heavens doing their work, but always work for others.
These spirits are never idle, indulging their own pleasures in such a way as the majority of Christians may believe. They have their harps and their music of various kinds and all these things that are commonly conceived by the Christian mortals to exist in the Kingdom of Heaven, yet they enjoy them only in the moments of cessation from their work in helping other spirits to progress towards the fountainhead of the Father's Love.
I am also now working in teaching the spirits of the lower spheres the plan of God for the salvation of their souls, and it is a glorious work and the reflected happiness is beyond all explanation. As we give our knowledge and love to these spirits and realize their happiness and joy, this Love that streams down upon us from the higher planes seems to fill our souls with increased abundance, and we realize the saying, that the more we give the more we receive. Never are we made poor by giving and never cease to give when the opportunity presents itself. Only are we disappointed when those to whom we try to give our love and share our happiness with, refuse to receive these gifts, and this frequently happens especially in the lower spheres and in the intellectual spheres, for you must know that these spirits of the Divine Nature spend much time in the intellectual spheres, endeavoring to lead the spirits of these spheres in the way that will bring to them this Divine Love and endless progress.
But strange as it may seem to you, these intellectual spirits - whose natural love has become to a great degree purified - are the most difficult to convince or even interest in the great plan of the Father for their souls' redemption and entrance into the Celestial Spheres. They are comparatively happy as they progress in these intellectual and moral spheres, and they do not desire anything until they arrive at the limit of their progress and then many of them have an awakening to the fact that there may be something beyond their present powers of acquiring, and that the Celestial Spirits may know a way to greater progress and happiness.
We, of the Celestial Spheres, all engage in this work, for we know the importance of it, and the certainty that at some time the Celestial Kingdom will be closed but we do not know when our work with these spirits will have to cease, and then they will be left through all eternity to the limited happiness and ended progression. The more experience I have in this work, the more I am astonished at the great and wonderful power of the human will, and when I say this I include the will that these pure spirits of the natural love have. It seems to me that they approach nearest the greatness of the Father in this will power and in the untrammeled exercise of it.
I know of no power or function that these spirits of the natural love have, that the spirits of the Celestial Spheres cannot control or subordinate, except this great will power, and as to that we are as helpless as babes so far as compulsion is concerned. When we try to influence them with love as our weapon and, unless love can work its way, our influence is almost hopeless. Of course, persuasion of their intellects is also necessary and reason must be taken in the account, but as I say, the approach to persuasion and reason must be through love, which is the power that moves and governs the spirit world.
Well dear, don't you think I have written enough for tonight? You are somewhat exhausted and I think it best to stop.
Your own true and loving,
Helen
Friday, September 13, 2013
Jesus Writes About the Difference in Progression and Limitations of the Natural Love versus the Divine Love
September 28, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
I come tonight to tell you that you are in a better condition to write than you have been for sometime and I think it best that I deliver to you a message. Well, I will write on the subject of: "The destiny of the man who has not the Divine Love in his soul, and dies with only the natural love and a belief in the creeds and dogmas of the churches."
I know that many men believe that the creeds of the churches is what is necessary for the salvation of mankind. I mean as to baptism and observance of the sacraments and the belief that in my name men may be saved are sufficient and all that are necessary to ensure them an entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven; and in such belief rest with the feeling of assurance that nothing else is required or in any way to be sought for and acquired.
The large majority of professing Christians are in this state of belief and, hence, the greater number of mankind will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, or become in their natures Divine. I have already told you what is the future of those who possess this Divine Nature of the Father and now I will confine my message to the future of this great majority.
As you may know, "the river can never run higher than its source," and neither can this majority attain to a perfection and happiness superior to that which was possessed by man before the time of the fall from the state of his perfect creation and, hence, no matter how great his progress may be in his natural love or in his moral or mental qualities, he can never excel the first created man as he was before the fall. And the only possible future for this vast majority is the condition and development that existed in the perfect man of God's first creation.
I know it is said that man has in him that which is a part of the Divinity of God, and that by his own efforts he may develop that Divine Substance until he becomes Divine himself and of the nature of the Father. But this is not true, and it is not possible to develop the Divine Love or any Essence of the Divine out of that which has not (that) in itself. There is nothing of the Nature of the Divine (in man).
In the spirit world, and I mean the spiritual as well as Celestial, laws prevail, and are just as certain in their operations as are the laws of the material world and a fundamental law is that only like produces like; although in the physical world it may appear that a derivative is not like that from which it is derived, but this is in appearance only, for in substance and essence the likeness exists and cannot be eradicated.
And so as to the real condition of the soul of man. If he has only the natural love - the created love - the development of that love will result in that which cannot possibly be greater or other than that which in its constituent parts is only the natural love, and no matter what the perfection may become, the Divine element is absent and all the limitations that are inherent in the created being still continue to form a part of and control that being. There is a limit to the development of this natural love and to the state of happiness beyond which it is not possible for this being to go, and that limit is the qualities and excellence possessed by the first man before he became defiled and impregnated with sin. The mind of such being is also limited in the progress which it may make in obtaining knowledge, for that mind being a thing of creation is bound by the limitations that that creation imposed.
So I say, such a man can never progress higher than those attributes or qualities with which he was endowed when he was the perfect man, either spiritually or mentally, unless he seeks for and obtains the Divine Love. When spirits come and write that life in this spirit world is always progressive, these spirits who write have never attained to this limit of which I speak and, hence, to them progression is endless and this belief is very beneficial, because it inspires them to make an effort to progress.
There are many spirits in this perfect state in the highest sphere of natural love or mentality, but they are spirits who have been in the spirit world for a vast number of years and are what you might call ancient spirits. These spirits have realized this limitation of which I write, and while they can change the objects of their seeking and the sources of their happiness, yet their progress has its ending, and often there comes to them dissatisfaction and a realization that over and beyond their sphere, there must be something that may be obtained that surpasses their perfect state and development. And as a result of this dissatisfaction many of these spirits, in moments of their unrest, give heed to the suggestions of those spirits who have become possessed of the Divine Essence, and upon whom is no limitation of progress; for these latter spirits are at all times in the highest sphere of these spirits of perfected natural love trying to show them the way to the higher development and happiness of the Celestial Spheres.
It may seem surprising to you, but it is a fact, that these spirits of the natural love, during their periods of progression and especially as they make nearer approach to their perfection in the satisfaction and happiness that they experience in that progression, will not listen to the spirits of the Divine Spheres, or believe that there can be any other methods of progress more desirable or excellent than the ones that they are pursuing, and only when they come to realize the dissatisfaction that I speak of, will awaken to the fact, or consent to be awakened to the fact, that there may be a way that leads to things beyond their limits of progress and the perfection that they may have acquired. So, as I say, the higher the progress of these spirits and the farther away they advance from the earth plane, the greater the difficulty in persuading them that there is a state of perfection and happiness surpassing that which they are seeking for, and a way, different from the way they are pursuing.
As these spirits progress in their natural love and in the development of their created minds, much happiness and satisfaction come to them, and in each stage of progress, so much greater do these experiences become, that they readily conceive that there can be no way superior to the one that they are travelling and, hence, having such belief, the difficulty of convincing them to the contrary becomes almost insurmountable. As a consequence, the spirits of the Celestial Spheres and those of the spirit spheres, who are progressing in the Divine Love, give the greater part of their time and efforts to convincing spirits of these higher truths while they are in the earth planes, before the happiness that I mention is experienced.
The life on earth and that in the earth planes of the spirit world are the states in which the souls of mortals and of spirits have the best opportunities for learning and believing these truths that show them the way to the progression that is without limitation or ending and hence, the importance of men knowing these truths, and of spirits also, before they experience the satisfaction and pride, I may say, that the advancement in the development of their natural love and mental and moral qualities gives them.
Until the time comes when the Father shall withdraw from man and spirit the privilege of obtaining this Divine Love and Essence, which time will bring the second death, these spirits and all spirits and mortals will have the opportunity of seeking for and finding the way to the Celestial Spheres and Immortality. But after that time, this privilege will no longer exist and then those spirits and mortals, who have not found and followed the way of that privilege, will be and become only the perfect beings, as were their first parents. They will have no assurance of Immortality, or even continuous life, and that dissatisfaction and longing for something unknown, will be theirs.
They will remain only the created beings in spirit body, soul and mind, and as the first parents had all the qualities that these restored men will have, and fell, and why may it not be that they will fall (or) that there may come some change in the individualized spirit that will destroy that individuality and dissolve it into its elements of pre-creation? No spirit knows that such a change will take place, that the perfect spirit will not always retain the same individuality, or that the happiness of such spirit will not always exist. And neither does any spirit know that these things will continue to be.
Then why should he not choose that course which leads to Divinity and certainty of Immortality and progress, rather than the one which leads to limitation of progress and happiness, and to uncertainty of Immortality?
I have written enough for tonight. I will come again soon. So remember that I love you and am with you trying to help you spiritually and that I pray to the Father to bless you. Good night.
Your brother and friend,
Jesus
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
I come tonight to tell you that you are in a better condition to write than you have been for sometime and I think it best that I deliver to you a message. Well, I will write on the subject of: "The destiny of the man who has not the Divine Love in his soul, and dies with only the natural love and a belief in the creeds and dogmas of the churches."
I know that many men believe that the creeds of the churches is what is necessary for the salvation of mankind. I mean as to baptism and observance of the sacraments and the belief that in my name men may be saved are sufficient and all that are necessary to ensure them an entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven; and in such belief rest with the feeling of assurance that nothing else is required or in any way to be sought for and acquired.
The large majority of professing Christians are in this state of belief and, hence, the greater number of mankind will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, or become in their natures Divine. I have already told you what is the future of those who possess this Divine Nature of the Father and now I will confine my message to the future of this great majority.
As you may know, "the river can never run higher than its source," and neither can this majority attain to a perfection and happiness superior to that which was possessed by man before the time of the fall from the state of his perfect creation and, hence, no matter how great his progress may be in his natural love or in his moral or mental qualities, he can never excel the first created man as he was before the fall. And the only possible future for this vast majority is the condition and development that existed in the perfect man of God's first creation.
I know it is said that man has in him that which is a part of the Divinity of God, and that by his own efforts he may develop that Divine Substance until he becomes Divine himself and of the nature of the Father. But this is not true, and it is not possible to develop the Divine Love or any Essence of the Divine out of that which has not (that) in itself. There is nothing of the Nature of the Divine (in man).
In the spirit world, and I mean the spiritual as well as Celestial, laws prevail, and are just as certain in their operations as are the laws of the material world and a fundamental law is that only like produces like; although in the physical world it may appear that a derivative is not like that from which it is derived, but this is in appearance only, for in substance and essence the likeness exists and cannot be eradicated.
And so as to the real condition of the soul of man. If he has only the natural love - the created love - the development of that love will result in that which cannot possibly be greater or other than that which in its constituent parts is only the natural love, and no matter what the perfection may become, the Divine element is absent and all the limitations that are inherent in the created being still continue to form a part of and control that being. There is a limit to the development of this natural love and to the state of happiness beyond which it is not possible for this being to go, and that limit is the qualities and excellence possessed by the first man before he became defiled and impregnated with sin. The mind of such being is also limited in the progress which it may make in obtaining knowledge, for that mind being a thing of creation is bound by the limitations that that creation imposed.
So I say, such a man can never progress higher than those attributes or qualities with which he was endowed when he was the perfect man, either spiritually or mentally, unless he seeks for and obtains the Divine Love. When spirits come and write that life in this spirit world is always progressive, these spirits who write have never attained to this limit of which I speak and, hence, to them progression is endless and this belief is very beneficial, because it inspires them to make an effort to progress.
There are many spirits in this perfect state in the highest sphere of natural love or mentality, but they are spirits who have been in the spirit world for a vast number of years and are what you might call ancient spirits. These spirits have realized this limitation of which I write, and while they can change the objects of their seeking and the sources of their happiness, yet their progress has its ending, and often there comes to them dissatisfaction and a realization that over and beyond their sphere, there must be something that may be obtained that surpasses their perfect state and development. And as a result of this dissatisfaction many of these spirits, in moments of their unrest, give heed to the suggestions of those spirits who have become possessed of the Divine Essence, and upon whom is no limitation of progress; for these latter spirits are at all times in the highest sphere of these spirits of perfected natural love trying to show them the way to the higher development and happiness of the Celestial Spheres.
It may seem surprising to you, but it is a fact, that these spirits of the natural love, during their periods of progression and especially as they make nearer approach to their perfection in the satisfaction and happiness that they experience in that progression, will not listen to the spirits of the Divine Spheres, or believe that there can be any other methods of progress more desirable or excellent than the ones that they are pursuing, and only when they come to realize the dissatisfaction that I speak of, will awaken to the fact, or consent to be awakened to the fact, that there may be a way that leads to things beyond their limits of progress and the perfection that they may have acquired. So, as I say, the higher the progress of these spirits and the farther away they advance from the earth plane, the greater the difficulty in persuading them that there is a state of perfection and happiness surpassing that which they are seeking for, and a way, different from the way they are pursuing.
As these spirits progress in their natural love and in the development of their created minds, much happiness and satisfaction come to them, and in each stage of progress, so much greater do these experiences become, that they readily conceive that there can be no way superior to the one that they are travelling and, hence, having such belief, the difficulty of convincing them to the contrary becomes almost insurmountable. As a consequence, the spirits of the Celestial Spheres and those of the spirit spheres, who are progressing in the Divine Love, give the greater part of their time and efforts to convincing spirits of these higher truths while they are in the earth planes, before the happiness that I mention is experienced.
The life on earth and that in the earth planes of the spirit world are the states in which the souls of mortals and of spirits have the best opportunities for learning and believing these truths that show them the way to the progression that is without limitation or ending and hence, the importance of men knowing these truths, and of spirits also, before they experience the satisfaction and pride, I may say, that the advancement in the development of their natural love and mental and moral qualities gives them.
Until the time comes when the Father shall withdraw from man and spirit the privilege of obtaining this Divine Love and Essence, which time will bring the second death, these spirits and all spirits and mortals will have the opportunity of seeking for and finding the way to the Celestial Spheres and Immortality. But after that time, this privilege will no longer exist and then those spirits and mortals, who have not found and followed the way of that privilege, will be and become only the perfect beings, as were their first parents. They will have no assurance of Immortality, or even continuous life, and that dissatisfaction and longing for something unknown, will be theirs.
They will remain only the created beings in spirit body, soul and mind, and as the first parents had all the qualities that these restored men will have, and fell, and why may it not be that they will fall (or) that there may come some change in the individualized spirit that will destroy that individuality and dissolve it into its elements of pre-creation? No spirit knows that such a change will take place, that the perfect spirit will not always retain the same individuality, or that the happiness of such spirit will not always exist. And neither does any spirit know that these things will continue to be.
Then why should he not choose that course which leads to Divinity and certainty of Immortality and progress, rather than the one which leads to limitation of progress and happiness, and to uncertainty of Immortality?
I have written enough for tonight. I will come again soon. So remember that I love you and am with you trying to help you spiritually and that I pray to the Father to bless you. Good night.
Your brother and friend,
Jesus
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Jesus Writes on "Why the Divine Love of God is necessary for man to possess in order that he may become at-one with the Father"
June 27, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
I wish tonight to write you upon a subject that is of interest to all mankind, and I hope that we will be able to communicate and you receive the message. I desire to write on the subject of : "Why the Love of God - I mean the Divine Love - is necessary for man to possess in order that he may become at one with the Father and an inhabitant of the Celestial Kingdom."
Already I have written you what this Divine Love is in contradistinction to the natural love, and how it is necessary to save men from their sins so that they may become inhabitants of the Celestial Kingdom, and that nothing but this Love will make a man at-one with the Father, and that no mere ceremony or belief in me as the saviour of men will effectuate that end; and now I will try to show you why this Divine Love is necessary, or as your learned men might say, show you the philosophy of the transformation of the mere man into the Divine Angel, which every man becomes who receives this Love into his soul.
In the first place, man, as you have been informed, is a special creation of God, and is no greater than the component parts that enter into his creation as they are in their individual and aggregate qualities, and these parts are merely what God in His act of creation designed them to be.
It must not be assumed that these parts or any of them are a part of God, or of His Essence or qualities, for they are not, and are as separate and distinct from Him and His qualities as are the lower creations of His will, such as animals and vegetables and mineral substances. The only difference is that man is of a much higher order of creation, and in one particular, made in the image of God, and no other of His creatures has this image in its creation. But, nevertheless, man is no part of God, but a merely distinct creation, and in his best and purest state - only a man, having simply those qualities which were created in him at the time of his coming into existence.
There are certain qualities which man possesses, such as love and wisdom and the reasoning faculties which may be said to resemble the God-like attributes, and so they do; but yet, they are not a part of God's Essence or qualities, and when men assert that man is Divine, or that he has in him the Divine Nature, or even a portion of the Divine Essence, they are wrong for the qualities in them that appear to be of this Divine resemblance are merely those which were created for the purpose of making the human a perfect man.
And because of this conception of man as to his inherent qualities, he has and does and will lose the opportunity of becoming possessed of the nature or Essence of the Father which he may obtain, if he will pursue the proper and only method that God has provided for him in order to be at-one with Him.
The universe of man can and will continue to exist, even though man may never become a partaker of this Divine Nature of the Father, and man will live and enjoy the happiness that was bestowed upon him at the time of his creation, and he will not lose the perfect condition of this creation after he shall have been separated from sin and error, his own creatures. But he will not be anything more than the perfect man and in the time to come will not be anything less and, yet, he will always, as long as he exists remain distinct from the Nature and Essence of the Father, just as he was at the time of his creation, unless he obtains this Divine Nature and Essence of the Father in the way that I mentioned.
The highest endowment of man, either in soul or heart or intellect is merely that which belongs to him as a part of his creation and is not the smallest part of the Divine Nature and qualities of the Father. No part or portion of Divinity enters into man's creation, no matter how divinely constituted man may appear to be or God-like, he may seem in the greatness of his intellect or in the extent of his love nature.
So you see, man is as distinct from God and from His Divinity, as is the animal - the brute - from man and must forever remain so unless he follows the only way the Father has prescribed for him to obtain a portion of this Divinity.
Now, all this shows that man, no matter how highly he may develop his intellect or to what extent he may develop his moral and love nature cannot become more than the mere man that he was in the beginning - perfect in every particular - for he was in the beginning perfect in every particular, and as I have said before, God never makes a mistake as to the perfection of His creatures, even though in the case of man it may appear that He did in giving him the great power of free will, which in its wrongful exercise has caused sin and evil to appear in the word of man's consciousness.
And man was made finite, and his capacity for exercising any and all his qualities, is limited beyond which he cannot possibly go. His intellect is bound by limits as determined as the Law of God which controls it and, also, his capacity for loving and for the enjoyment of his happiness; and though he may live for all eternity either as man or spirit, he cannot possibly extend or pass beyond the boundary lines of his creation. He cannot enter into the Realm of the Divine where limitations do not exist and capacity for receiving knowledge and wisdom and love and for progression that is commensurate with the very fountainhead of God Himself.
Then such being the nature and limitation and capacity of man, it is apparent that he can never, by virtue of his creation and the qualities which he possess, become a partaker of the nature and Essence of God, unless he receives something in addition to these qualities, and he must receive this something from without. It will not do to say, that there is within him, as an inherent part of him that, which when developed, will make him of a nature divine and a part of the essence of the Father for this is not true. There is nothing in man of this nature, and it is impossible to produce an Essence Divine unless there be something from which it can be produced, that in some degree has the nature of that Essence. It would be the equivalent of producing something from nothing which even God does not attempt to do.
Then as man is, thus, limited all that flows from the qualities and attributes which he possesses is necessarily limited. The enjoyment of his intellect, the pleasures of his love, the satisfaction of his reasoning powers, and as a sum total, his capacity for happiness have their bounds and besides the consciousness of immortality can never be his, either as spirit or mortal, even though he may strive for it to be.
When man takes on the Divine Nature and becomes absorbed in the Essence of the Father, he then becomes like the Father, and whatever his image to the Father may have been when he was mere man, now he becomes the real Substance and limitations of possibilities become removed, Love sees no ending and intellectual development, no boundaries, happiness no limitations, and Immortality becomes a thing of knowledge, and the soul a new creature having the Divine Essence of the Father; and until this new creation has taken place, and the transformation becomes a thing of reality, and the soul be made at-one with the Father, man cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Then no longer man, but now an Angel.
Now, as I have written you before, all this can be accomplished only by the operation of the New Birth, that is, the inflowing into the soul of man of the Divine Love of the Father. This Love contains the Essence of God's Divinity, and when man obtains it, he is then of the same Essence as the Father, and for the first time becomes a part of the Divine and fitted to inhabit the Celestial Heavens. In no other way can man partake of this nature, and it does not require much reasoning to show the logical truth of this statement, for man in his earthly affairs and in his material experiments in producing compounds from elements applies the same principle that I assert in my statement, "The dough cannot be leavened unless leaven is placed in the batch."
So you see, that without this Divine Love entering into the soul, it will be impossible for the natural man to become the Divine Angel. Beliefs and creeds and doctrines and sacrifices cannot work this transformation, and even though the beliefs may be without doubt, and the creeds and doctrines satisfactory, and the sacrifices without end, yet they will all be futile to change the soul of the mere man into the soul of the Divine Angel and all this, in part, is why man should seek to obtain the Divine Love and become an inhabitant of the Celestial Spheres.
I have written enough for tonight and I am pleased at the way in which you received it. So with all my love and blessings, I am
Your brother and friend,
Jesus
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
I wish tonight to write you upon a subject that is of interest to all mankind, and I hope that we will be able to communicate and you receive the message. I desire to write on the subject of : "Why the Love of God - I mean the Divine Love - is necessary for man to possess in order that he may become at one with the Father and an inhabitant of the Celestial Kingdom."
Already I have written you what this Divine Love is in contradistinction to the natural love, and how it is necessary to save men from their sins so that they may become inhabitants of the Celestial Kingdom, and that nothing but this Love will make a man at-one with the Father, and that no mere ceremony or belief in me as the saviour of men will effectuate that end; and now I will try to show you why this Divine Love is necessary, or as your learned men might say, show you the philosophy of the transformation of the mere man into the Divine Angel, which every man becomes who receives this Love into his soul.
In the first place, man, as you have been informed, is a special creation of God, and is no greater than the component parts that enter into his creation as they are in their individual and aggregate qualities, and these parts are merely what God in His act of creation designed them to be.
It must not be assumed that these parts or any of them are a part of God, or of His Essence or qualities, for they are not, and are as separate and distinct from Him and His qualities as are the lower creations of His will, such as animals and vegetables and mineral substances. The only difference is that man is of a much higher order of creation, and in one particular, made in the image of God, and no other of His creatures has this image in its creation. But, nevertheless, man is no part of God, but a merely distinct creation, and in his best and purest state - only a man, having simply those qualities which were created in him at the time of his coming into existence.
There are certain qualities which man possesses, such as love and wisdom and the reasoning faculties which may be said to resemble the God-like attributes, and so they do; but yet, they are not a part of God's Essence or qualities, and when men assert that man is Divine, or that he has in him the Divine Nature, or even a portion of the Divine Essence, they are wrong for the qualities in them that appear to be of this Divine resemblance are merely those which were created for the purpose of making the human a perfect man.
And because of this conception of man as to his inherent qualities, he has and does and will lose the opportunity of becoming possessed of the nature or Essence of the Father which he may obtain, if he will pursue the proper and only method that God has provided for him in order to be at-one with Him.
The universe of man can and will continue to exist, even though man may never become a partaker of this Divine Nature of the Father, and man will live and enjoy the happiness that was bestowed upon him at the time of his creation, and he will not lose the perfect condition of this creation after he shall have been separated from sin and error, his own creatures. But he will not be anything more than the perfect man and in the time to come will not be anything less and, yet, he will always, as long as he exists remain distinct from the Nature and Essence of the Father, just as he was at the time of his creation, unless he obtains this Divine Nature and Essence of the Father in the way that I mentioned.
The highest endowment of man, either in soul or heart or intellect is merely that which belongs to him as a part of his creation and is not the smallest part of the Divine Nature and qualities of the Father. No part or portion of Divinity enters into man's creation, no matter how divinely constituted man may appear to be or God-like, he may seem in the greatness of his intellect or in the extent of his love nature.
So you see, man is as distinct from God and from His Divinity, as is the animal - the brute - from man and must forever remain so unless he follows the only way the Father has prescribed for him to obtain a portion of this Divinity.
Now, all this shows that man, no matter how highly he may develop his intellect or to what extent he may develop his moral and love nature cannot become more than the mere man that he was in the beginning - perfect in every particular - for he was in the beginning perfect in every particular, and as I have said before, God never makes a mistake as to the perfection of His creatures, even though in the case of man it may appear that He did in giving him the great power of free will, which in its wrongful exercise has caused sin and evil to appear in the word of man's consciousness.
And man was made finite, and his capacity for exercising any and all his qualities, is limited beyond which he cannot possibly go. His intellect is bound by limits as determined as the Law of God which controls it and, also, his capacity for loving and for the enjoyment of his happiness; and though he may live for all eternity either as man or spirit, he cannot possibly extend or pass beyond the boundary lines of his creation. He cannot enter into the Realm of the Divine where limitations do not exist and capacity for receiving knowledge and wisdom and love and for progression that is commensurate with the very fountainhead of God Himself.
Then such being the nature and limitation and capacity of man, it is apparent that he can never, by virtue of his creation and the qualities which he possess, become a partaker of the nature and Essence of God, unless he receives something in addition to these qualities, and he must receive this something from without. It will not do to say, that there is within him, as an inherent part of him that, which when developed, will make him of a nature divine and a part of the essence of the Father for this is not true. There is nothing in man of this nature, and it is impossible to produce an Essence Divine unless there be something from which it can be produced, that in some degree has the nature of that Essence. It would be the equivalent of producing something from nothing which even God does not attempt to do.
Then as man is, thus, limited all that flows from the qualities and attributes which he possesses is necessarily limited. The enjoyment of his intellect, the pleasures of his love, the satisfaction of his reasoning powers, and as a sum total, his capacity for happiness have their bounds and besides the consciousness of immortality can never be his, either as spirit or mortal, even though he may strive for it to be.
When man takes on the Divine Nature and becomes absorbed in the Essence of the Father, he then becomes like the Father, and whatever his image to the Father may have been when he was mere man, now he becomes the real Substance and limitations of possibilities become removed, Love sees no ending and intellectual development, no boundaries, happiness no limitations, and Immortality becomes a thing of knowledge, and the soul a new creature having the Divine Essence of the Father; and until this new creation has taken place, and the transformation becomes a thing of reality, and the soul be made at-one with the Father, man cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Then no longer man, but now an Angel.
Now, as I have written you before, all this can be accomplished only by the operation of the New Birth, that is, the inflowing into the soul of man of the Divine Love of the Father. This Love contains the Essence of God's Divinity, and when man obtains it, he is then of the same Essence as the Father, and for the first time becomes a part of the Divine and fitted to inhabit the Celestial Heavens. In no other way can man partake of this nature, and it does not require much reasoning to show the logical truth of this statement, for man in his earthly affairs and in his material experiments in producing compounds from elements applies the same principle that I assert in my statement, "The dough cannot be leavened unless leaven is placed in the batch."
So you see, that without this Divine Love entering into the soul, it will be impossible for the natural man to become the Divine Angel. Beliefs and creeds and doctrines and sacrifices cannot work this transformation, and even though the beliefs may be without doubt, and the creeds and doctrines satisfactory, and the sacrifices without end, yet they will all be futile to change the soul of the mere man into the soul of the Divine Angel and all this, in part, is why man should seek to obtain the Divine Love and become an inhabitant of the Celestial Spheres.
I have written enough for tonight and I am pleased at the way in which you received it. So with all my love and blessings, I am
Your brother and friend,
Jesus
Monday, August 12, 2013
John Writes About "The Condition of the Soul When and After the Divine Love Flows Into It"
June 19, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, John.
I come tonight to tell you that you are in a better condition than you were last night, and that I desire to write a short message if you think that you can receive it. Well, I will not write very long, and what I shall say will have to do with "the condition of the soul when and after the Divine Love flows into it."
As you know, the soul in the condition in which man possesses it before the entrance of the Divine Love is not in accord with the Love of God, nor is it a part of the Great Oversoul. It is only a special creation made in the image of the Father, having in it the natural love, which was conferred upon man at the time of his creation and not having in it any part of the Essence of the Father, or any quality that makes it of the Divine Nature of the Father or necessarily immortal.
But when the Divine Love enters into it, and it becomes permeated, as it were, with the Divine Essence, then it takes on the Divine Nature of the Father, and to the extent that it receives and possesses this Love, it becomes at-one with God and ceases to be a mere image and becomes transformed into the substance.
The soul in this condition is altogether a different entity from the soul in the condition in which it was created, and no longer is subject to the dominion of either the mind or of the animal appetites and desires and, hence, the spirit possessing such a soul is, in essence, a part of the Father, or as Jesus said, is in the Father and the Father in it.
Now, do not understand that such a soul is the soul that man originally possessed with increased development of purity and goodness or freedom from sin, because such is not the case. Such soul by such transformation becomes a new thing, and never again can it relapse into the soul of man's origin. Because of the qualities that it then possesses, it becomes immortal, and such immortal nature can never be taken from it.
It is now a thing of love and purity, and consciousness of its true condition is always with the spirit that has such soul. This transformation is gradual, and men must not think that by the mere act of conversion from their state of death. they at once become possessed of the nature of the Divine, for such is not the fact. The transformation is gradual and comes according to the susceptibility of the the soul to receive this Love of which I speak.
But when once the inflowing of the Love commences, it continues eternally. Although there may be times of stagnation and apparent loss of this Divine Essence, yet always is the transformation taking place, and at certain stages in its progress, the possession of this Divine Love will be so great that the original soul, or its original qualities will entirely disappear and leave only the new qualities which the Divine Love has implanted in it. The leaven when once deposited never ceases to work until the whole shall become leavened.
I will not write more tonight, but only further say, that this condition of transformation may be obtained by all men if they will only seek for it in the proper way and with faith.
I will soon write you again. In leaving you, I give you my love and blessings and the assurance that I am helping you in your efforts to carry forward the work and in accomplishing all the promises. So my dear brother, good night.
Your brother in Christ,
John
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, John.
I come tonight to tell you that you are in a better condition than you were last night, and that I desire to write a short message if you think that you can receive it. Well, I will not write very long, and what I shall say will have to do with "the condition of the soul when and after the Divine Love flows into it."
As you know, the soul in the condition in which man possesses it before the entrance of the Divine Love is not in accord with the Love of God, nor is it a part of the Great Oversoul. It is only a special creation made in the image of the Father, having in it the natural love, which was conferred upon man at the time of his creation and not having in it any part of the Essence of the Father, or any quality that makes it of the Divine Nature of the Father or necessarily immortal.
But when the Divine Love enters into it, and it becomes permeated, as it were, with the Divine Essence, then it takes on the Divine Nature of the Father, and to the extent that it receives and possesses this Love, it becomes at-one with God and ceases to be a mere image and becomes transformed into the substance.
The soul in this condition is altogether a different entity from the soul in the condition in which it was created, and no longer is subject to the dominion of either the mind or of the animal appetites and desires and, hence, the spirit possessing such a soul is, in essence, a part of the Father, or as Jesus said, is in the Father and the Father in it.
Now, do not understand that such a soul is the soul that man originally possessed with increased development of purity and goodness or freedom from sin, because such is not the case. Such soul by such transformation becomes a new thing, and never again can it relapse into the soul of man's origin. Because of the qualities that it then possesses, it becomes immortal, and such immortal nature can never be taken from it.
It is now a thing of love and purity, and consciousness of its true condition is always with the spirit that has such soul. This transformation is gradual, and men must not think that by the mere act of conversion from their state of death. they at once become possessed of the nature of the Divine, for such is not the fact. The transformation is gradual and comes according to the susceptibility of the the soul to receive this Love of which I speak.
But when once the inflowing of the Love commences, it continues eternally. Although there may be times of stagnation and apparent loss of this Divine Essence, yet always is the transformation taking place, and at certain stages in its progress, the possession of this Divine Love will be so great that the original soul, or its original qualities will entirely disappear and leave only the new qualities which the Divine Love has implanted in it. The leaven when once deposited never ceases to work until the whole shall become leavened.
I will not write more tonight, but only further say, that this condition of transformation may be obtained by all men if they will only seek for it in the proper way and with faith.
I will soon write you again. In leaving you, I give you my love and blessings and the assurance that I am helping you in your efforts to carry forward the work and in accomplishing all the promises. So my dear brother, good night.
Your brother in Christ,
John
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