From the book "True Gospel Revealed Anew by Jesus" Vol I. page XVII.
Can also be found on www.divinelove.org
God bless you
Ssam
THE TRUE MISSION OF JESUS
I. JESUS AND HIS RELATIONSHIP TO GOD
Whatever one may believe regarding the source of the Messages from Jesus
and
Celestials, the contents are so new and revolutionary, yet so compelling
by
their logic and sublime simplicity, that a serious study of them must be
undertaken in order to comprehend their significance and challenge.
In these messages Jesus of Nazareth stands forth as the Master of what he
calls the Celestial Heavens, wherein only those spirits possessed of the
New
Birth through prayer to the Father for His Divine Love can dwell in light
and happiness, and conscious of their immortality through their at-onement
with Him in soul nature.
If these messages are authentic as coming from Jesus and his celestial
spirits, then mankind has at last been given the true mission which Jesus
proclaimed on earth. This mission taught the transformation of man's soul
from the image of God--the work of the original creation--into the very
essence of God through the bestowal of the Father's Love upon whomsoever
should seek that Love in earnest longing. It revealed that Jesus himself
first manifested the Father's Love in his soul, thus making him at one
with
the Father in nature and giving him that clear consciousness of his
kinship
with the Father and his immortality of soul. It showed that in this
development of soul Jesus was indeed his Father's true Son, not in the
metaphysical and mysterious way of a hypothetical virgin birth, but
through
the Holy Spirit, that agency of the Father which conveys His Love into the
souls of His creatures who seek it in earnest prayer. It brings to light
that Jesus was born of Mary and Joseph, of human parents like other human
beings, but that he was none the less the Messiah promised to the Hebrews
and to mankind in the Old Testament. For wherever he taught the "glad
tidings" that God's Love was available, and that it was this Love which
bestowed immortality upon the soul filled with this Love, Jesus brought
with
him the nature of God--the Kingdom of God. At the same time Jesus tells us
that neither was he God, nor was his mother Mary the mother of God, nor a
virgin after her marriage to Joseph, but that she was in truth the mother
of
eight children, of which he was the eldest, and that he had four brothers
and three sisters in the flesh, and not cousins, as some versions of the
Bible relate.
In addition, he relates that he did not come to die on a cross, nor did,
or
does, his shed blood bring remission of sins. He also shatters the time
honored statements now found in the New Testament that he ever instituted
a
bread and wine sacrament on the eve of his arrest at the Last Supper. This
pious statement, he declares, was never his, nor did any of his apostles
or
disciples ever teach it, but was inserted about a century later so that
such
a doctrine might accord with the ideas then prevalent among the Greek
converts to Christianity. Communion with the Heavenly Father can never
take
place through the mistaken notion that he had to be impaled on a cross by
Roman soldiers, on the order of Pilate, the Procurator of Judaea, and in
accord with the uncomprehending high priests, so that he could appear as a
sacrifice for sin. There is no sacrifice for sin, affirms Jesus, and his
dried up blood cannot do what only man himself must do, by turning in
repentance and prayer to the Heavenly Father, to effect that change in his
heart whereby his soul will give up evil and sin, and embrace what is
righteous. The Father's help in the elimination of sin from the human soul
is His Divine Love which, on entering the soul through prayer, removes sin
and error from that soul and provides not only purification but its
transformation into a divine soul, at-one with the Father's great soul in
nature. This real communion, which Jesus himself had achieved, is, he
declares, the only communion between God and His children, which He has
provided for their salvation and eternal life with Him. The vicarious
atonement, Jesus states, is a myth, and its appearance in the New
Testament
is one of many false statements inserted therein to make it harmonize with
later concepts concerning his relationship to the Father, which these
later
Greek and Roman copyists did not understand. It is a terrible thing to
believe that God, in order to bring about His Son's sacrifice, approved
the
unlawful arrest of Jesus on the Passover, the bloody scourges, the
treachery
of Judas, the palpably unfair trial by high priests and Sanhedrinites, as
well as Pilate's fear of Judaean revolt against Roman rule, to encompass
the
inhuman death of Jesus, His Messiah, on a cross. As though God needed to
bring about through wickedness and sin the very wickedness and sin He
seeks
to blot out in His children.
In the light of these messages, a new interpretation of Jesus' death on
the
cross is certainly in order. We are told by the orthodox churches that
Jesus
gave himself up willingly as a sacrifice for sin because he loved humanity
to the degree of self sacrifice, and because as the Messiah he had come
for
that purpose. He is supposed to take the place of the Hebrew sacrifice,
the
lamb, and he is called in the New Testament the Lamb of God. As a matter
of
fact, the Old Testament sacrifice of an animal was never intended to take
away sin, and this is shown by the fact that although these sacrifices
were
not permitted during the Babylonian captivity, the people still put their
faith in redemption through turning away from sin and seeking God through
a
life of moral and ethical conduct.
Jesus did sacrifice himself, indeed, but in a way never related or
understood by the writers of the New Testament. Jesus went to his death
because he would not deny his mission: that, as the first human to attain
through prayer an immortal soul filled with the essence of the Father--the
Divine Love--he was in this way the first true son of God and therefore
the
Messiah. Jesus could have saved his life if he had retracted at his trial,
but he died because he remained true to himself, true to his Messiahship,
and true to the Father who had sent him. Jesus sacrificed his whole life
preaching the Father's Love: he gave up home, his chance to marry and have
a
family of his own, a chance to devote himself to the quiet pursuits of a
Nazarene carpenter; instead, he chose the hatred and opposition of those
who
understood not and preferred the status quo; he chose the incomprehension
of
his loved ones, who considered him mad and sought to have him leave
Galilee;
he chose constant travels and journeys, so that often he had no place to
lay
his head; he chose to preach in the Temple at Jerusalem, chase the money
lenders, defy the conspiracy of those who sought his death, and bravely
faced the consequences of what he knew must inevitably occur. Yes, Jesus
did
sacrifice himself, but it is high time to put aside myth and metaphysics,
and to know and to realize what that sacrifice consists of. When we
understand his sacrifice, then Jesus stands forth in all his greatness, in
all his courage, in all his serenity and forgiveness and love for mankind,
with his absolute faith in the Father and His Love, in that day of his
teaching, tribulation, and death.
Jesus tells us many things about himself and his life in the Holy Land. He
states that the Bible story of his birth, minus the many supernatural
elements in it, is substantially true, and that he was born in Bethlehem,
taken by his parents to Egypt to avoid destruction by Herod, that the Wise
Men did come from the East to pay him homage and that he was taught the
elements of the Hebrew faith from teachers; but that it was the Father
Himself who taught him the truth of the Divine Love and made him realize
what his mission was. He tells us that John the Baptist, his cousin, was a
great psychic and had some understanding of him as the Messiah and that
both
planned the Master's public ministry. He states that John never sent
emissaries when in prison to be reassured that Jesus was "him whom we
seek,"
and that Jesus as a boy of twelve never appeared before the doctors of the
Law in the Temple at Jerusalem.
Jesus also tells about some of the miracles which he performed. Most of
these, he explains, dealt with his healing power; but that he never raised
Lazarus or anyone else from the dead, nor has anyone else been able to do
so, regardless of what the Scriptures say, for the spirit body cannot
return
to the flesh once the physical conditions of life have been destroyed. He
also relates that he never quieted a storm by rebuking the waves on the
Sea
of Galilee, but that he did calm the fears of the disciples with him
through
his example of courage and assurance.
Some of the greatest messages which, to my mind, Jesus and some of the
high
spirits write are those connected with the Master's resurrection from the
dead after his crucifixion. Jesus informs Mr. Padgett that he did die on
the
cross and that he did appear to Peter, John, Mary Magdalene and his mother
on the third day, but that the true explanation of this occurrence is
quite
different from the accepted views of the churches. Here, Jesus is supposed
to reveal his divinity by arising from the dead; but actually, Jesus' soul
never died, as no man's soul dies with physical death, and the Master goes
on to state that, with the power inherent in his soul with the Divine
Love,
he simply dematerialized his mortal frame, announced in the Spirit World
the
availability of Immortality to mortals and spirits through the Father's
Love
which he was the first to manifest, and then on the third day materialized
a
body like flesh and blood drawn from the elements of the universe; and
that
it was in this materialized body, which he was able to assume without
mediumistic aid, that he appeared to Mary Magdalene and the others. It is
the reason, he states, why Mary did not at first recognize him and thought
him to be the gardener and the same may be said of his disciples at
Emmaus.
The great misconception of Christians of all ages has been to believe that
Jesus revealed himself to be part of the godhead by this resurrection;
that
is to say, rising from the dead, but actually his feat consisted in the
assumption of a flesh-like body, indeed, so real, as to convince even the
doubting Thomas.
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