Although the many doctrines built up about the personality of Jesus
attribute to him in some peculiar sense the relation of sonship with
God, he does not so say of himself, but by every word and work
declares a common spiritual fatherhood and human brotherhood. When
Nicodemus testified to his superior power, Jesus did not trace its
origin to a special interposition of Providence in his birth or life,
but he made of general application the law that governed his
conception by the emphatic assertion that all men must realize
themselves as begotten and born from above before they can understand
the forces of the unseen universe within and without. He affirmed the
kingdom of God and of heaven to be latent in the life of man, and
promised no peace for the soul here or hereafter until its innate
capabilities for wisdom, love, and power for good are developed and
exercised. His precepts and example would be foolishness and a
stumbling-block, his character an unattainable ideal, were it other
than the first fruit ripened on the tree of life, the promise of a
perfected race.
We only apprehend its vital value, as we can trace in our own
experience and that of others, the growth and fruition of that
seed-principle of Truth around which the New Testament story has been
crystallized. This re-conception of the Christ is, like the first one,
essentially of the soul and intrinsically immaculate. It then matters
little when or by whom the Gospels and Epistles were originally
written; for the book as a whole is lifted forever above the level of
legend and myth, on the one hand, and that of a merely historical
narrative on the other, because the persons and events mentioned and
described represent laws and principles permanent in operation, and
reveal faculties whose reality and value we are daily called upon to
demonstrate. We can, when we so will it, verify, each in his own
subjective consciousness, all that the wondrous story of nineteen
centuries ago relates as having taken place in the outward objective
world of form and phenomena. For unto every "excellent Theophilus,"
every lover of the good and true, the gospel of the Christ is, through
the conscience, reconveyed, even as delivered by those who from the
first have been its messengers.
The faith of Abraham and law of Moses, the line of patriarch, priest,
and prophet, that linked the life of Jesus with that of primitive man,
we find repictured in the working of those evolutionary forces that
constitute each one of us an epitome of the past, a miniature of
society. As children of earth we give due credit to each factor in
heredity and environment that makes us what we are as we pass through
planes of physical, intellectual, and moral development. But a still
higher kingdom of consciousness is at hand, which forces us to feel
that as brethren of the Son of Man we are also sons of God.
In every wilderness of human life that stands instead of the oncoming
paradise, a voice of preparation loudly calls. It is the self-same cry
which of old the Baptist first sent forth, and which the Nazarene with
emphasis took up. This watchword, Repent ye, repent ye! means, as
_metanoia_ always meant, _newness and rightness of thought_, and
consequently a thorough and abiding betterment of motive, character,
disposition and habit, in every department and relation of individual
and social human life. To effect this transformation from ignorance to
knowledge, from selfishness to its opposite, is eternally the mission
of that principle of truth personified as Jesus. We recognize its
saving power only as it is set up within us as a rule of thought and
action. When we pattern after it, we then realize all sin to be just
what the Hebrew _chattah_ and the Greek _amartia_ indicate, _i. e._, a
missing of the mark, a lack of conformity to type, the type being man
finished in his creation, harmoniously developed, physically,
intellectually, morally, spiritually. And we learn that sins are not
forgiven by the setting aside of any law, or the amelioration of the
consequences of the violation of law, knowingly, or unknowingly; but
by the ordination in the nature of things of those agencies that tend,
even though it be through the penalty of pain, to bring us to the
knowledge of, and obedience to, every law written in the body and mind
of man and governing his environment seen or unseen. Sin is
incompletion, immaturity, unwholeness, ignorance, as well as the
violation of some understood and accepted moral code. As the green
fruit on the tree is forgiven for its unripeness by the baptism of
sunlight, moisture, and all other forces needed to mature it, so man
forgives and is forgiven by the impartation of strength where weakness
is in body or in mind, by the diffusion of science to take the place
of superstition, and by every other sure though slow, as we count
time, redemptive evolutionary trend. The only sin unpardonable in this
aeon or the next is _non-receptivity_ to the spirit that in every age
impels to righteousness. So long as man keeps his eyes closed, he
cannot be forgiven for being in a state of darkness. But it is an
utterly unthinkable as well as unscriptural idea that there be any so
perverse as to refuse throughout an endless time, to look upon the
glory of a world of light and color, when by opening the windows of
the soul they can exchange their trouble and unrest for peace that
will not pass away.
As for the babe of Bethlehem there was no other birthplace than a
manger, so when the universal Christ is cradled in our souls, its
resting place is in the midst of a well-nurtured animalism. The Herod
of a ruling selfishness seeks to obliterate the loftier ideal. But
while he summons all his strength to prevent the embodiment of the new
thought, there are other faculties that perceive the star of promise
and follow it as a harbinger of truth.
The years of Jesus' life of which we have no record, save the one
instance of his questioning and answering the wise ones in the temple,
represent the time of preparation, discipline, study, culture,
contemplation, necessary to fit us to give to others the benefit of
our experience and attainment. For no one can lift another to a higher
round of the ladder of life than that upon which he stands himself.
The immersion in the Jordan shows a willingness to conform to existing
customs, when no principle is sacrificed thereby and a point of
contact with the masses can thus be established, so that the truth
symbolized by the rite of baptism can be shown forth through the
action of those formative, purifying, spiritual forces that sustain to
the psychical realm the same relation that water bears to the physical
world.
The temptation of Jesus is typical of the time of testing that comes
to every one who takes a step in advance of the age in which he
lives. The principle of resistance called Satan confronts such an one
at the very outset of his mission, and seemingly insuperable obstacles
arise as foes to his progress. But he who first meets and masters all
inward opposition, through knowledge of the law and allegiance
thereto, can conquer every outward phase of hybrid beast and human,
whose selfish pride and cruel greed have been well imaged as a devil
with cloven foot and fiendish face.
The Sermon on the Mount is a statement of spiritual axioms. It lays
before us the law of love for the neighbor, as the very instinct of
self-preservation. Not to do for others as we would be done by, is to
fail to furnish food, raiment, and shelter for our own souls. Physical
and intellectual man gains worldly strength and honor as he takes to
himself and retains riches and knowledge regardless of the rights of
others. In contradistinction to this, the spiritual man gets treasure
and wisdom imperishable, as he serves his fellow men, and freely gives
of whatsoever he may have, of which his neighbor stands in need.
The beatitudes, with which the speech begins, such as man never spake
before, tell, in a symbolism that is self-evidently true, the way by
which alone, real happiness is won. We are blessed or cursed of God,
through the working of His laws immutable, according as our relation
to those laws is one of knowledge and obedience, or of ignorance and
perversity. As, in the Hebrew tongue the words we render, "to curse,"
and "to bless," run back to the same root idea, so in point of fact,
the very suffering which, sooner or later, comes to us when we are out
of touch with the divine order of love to God and love to man, is the
means appointed to bring us to that harmony which all must gain.
The lowest things are often seen to signify the things most high. A
parable, _paraballo_, is that which "throws before" us such concrete
imagery as best serves to foreshadow and to fit the mind to understand
a certain abstract principle. As we become disciples, "learners" of
the Truth, we find it speaks to us only through such emblems as enable
us to reason from the things we do already know to those concerning
which we wish to be informed. The words of Jesus went forth
full-freighted with vitality. They were truly spirit and life, because
charged with a virtue that can only come from a soul in submission to
the law by his lips enunciated. Hence we see why, in the mystical
language with which the Gospel of St. John begins, he is called the
Logos, Reason or Word of God, from God and one with God, because he
reveals the divine thought concerning man, inherently perfect from the
first, but requiring time and space for its outworking. That human
individuality may be maintained, man is uplifted only over the fulcrum
of his own will. This volitional power is the ray in us of that
Creative Energy whose name Jehovah signifies, _I will be what I will
to be_. Thus, then, oneness with God is not sameness with God, nor the
absorption of human personality in the Infinite Being. It is simply a
state to be reached in our progressive creation where we will come to
a knowledge of the laws of life, and will consciously co-operate with
those divine decrees governing the origin, nature, and destiny of the
soul. To illustrate the possibility of such achievement and exemplify
the way of its attainment, was the mission of the Christ. But it has
been so much easier to idolatrously worship his person than to embody
his principles, that ceremonials and doctrines have been substituted
for the life he lived. This is a sufficient reason for the manifestly
unsaved condition that the so-called Christian world still exhibits in
all manner of bigotry and disease, social unrest and iniquity.
The name Jesus signifies "_that which makes whole_." So we find the
one who bore it, true to his title, healing the bodies of men and
giving to their souls a cure for sorrow. Yet, even he was made to feel
that of himself he could do nothing, so keenly was he conscious of the
fact that every self-denying sympathetic soul becomes a mediator,
through whom the reconstructive forces of the universe make their
impress felt upon the race. He speaks of prayer and faith, as mental
states to be entered into and maintained, if we would _be_ and _do_
the best we can. His injunctions in reference to prayer correspond
well with the meaning of the Greek verb _euchomai_ which we render "to
pray," and which signifies to put forth effort rightly, _i. e._, along
the lines of laws understood. He said that true prayer is not the
repetition of any words, nor the asking for that which we may think it
best that we should have. For the spiritual man knows that his labor
for others insures of himself the results that are best. So the
discourse of Jesus in this connection defines prayer, in its highest
sense, as an inward, not an outward attitude; a state of mental
receptivity to the guidance of truth and desire for the good of
others, always to be observed, not the mere utterance of terms of
petition or praise. He tells us to withdraw into the soul's most
secret place, where God already sits enthroned, and there commune with
Him.
Before in spirit and with understanding we can in thought, and word,
and deed, articulate Our Father! we must pass back in review through
all the cycles that have rolled around, since this old earth of ours
first turned in space. We then behold the most attenuate form of
matter of which we can conceive, as a condensation of creative energy,
yet but a matrix fitted for the reception of a planet seed or soul. We
recognize a divine involution as the antecedent and causation of all
so-called natural evolution. We see each link in the chain of being,
from least to greatest, from the simplest to the most complex; grass,
herb, and tree, fish, reptile, bird, and beast, as multiple yet
orderly expressions of the immanence and permanence of the fatherhood
of God. We view the creation of man as His highest handiwork, in which
the seed of human life, bearing latent within it every high attribute
and potency possessed by its celestial source, is placed or planted in
a prepared material environment. We look back through the ages upon
the travail of this our soul, and are satisfied as we see it gradually
rising to the mastery and reformation of the physical form and animal
soul, in which and with which it has been tabernacled to gain a
necessary experience. From savagery to civilization, through planes of
physical, intellectual, and moral consciousness we pass, borne upward
by the overshadowing power of God to realize the omnipresence of its
fatherhood. From this right starting-point there follows of necessity
a conception of that vital fraternity of man which makes us members of
one body, and which precludes the possibility of the gaining of a
lasting good by any individual part thereof without a benefit to all.
Each other portion of the prayer of prayers is seen to have a
correspondingly deep significance, when carefully analyzed, although
formulated as an object lesson in our spiritual kindergarten, the
church. The name of God we hallow, but not as did the ancient
Israelites, by refusing even to mention the sacredly incommunicable
_Yahweh_. For we have learned that the right name is what expresses
the nature of that which is named. So that the only way in which we
can reverence the name of God or Christ is by the consecration of our
time and talent to the expression of all the God-like, Christ-like
qualities with which, as human beings, we are gifted.
What foolishness, if not blasphemy, it would be for us to ask that the
will of God should be obeyed in the world about us, when His laws of
gravitation and chemical affinity, crystallization and cell-growth,
rule supremely in each of earth's kingdoms. But the constant
aspiration of our hearts should be that the elements of earthiness
within us, that militate against the expression of our highest ideals,
shall hear and heed a juster rule than that of selfishness. For no
outward act of legislation can usher in heaven's kingdom on the earth,
in human institutions, until many individuals have by its inward
presence been guided and illumined.
For a sufficiency of material food from day to day, we rightly ask by
the proper use of each faculty and member God has given us, to compel
the earth to yield up its resources for our sustenance, which it would
do in ample abundance for all, were it not for the inordinate greed
and lust, or the gross lethargy, of that many-phased, still
unhumanized beast that man has to conquer in himself. But happy is he
who hungers for the manna of law and the bread of truth, whose prayer
is a sincere desire to be so fed thereon that there shall be such
strength in the muscles of his soul as shall make of him a power for
good to all with whom he comes in contact.
As to our enemies, we can no longer cherish feelings of resentment
toward anyone, however they may misconstrue our purest motive, or
malign our best intent. We see that every one must show, when tested,
the exact degree of growth he has attained. Hence, the slander and
persecution, the "all manner of evil" falsely arrayed against us, we
apprehend as the necessary means to determine our fidelity to the
truth to which we have pledged allegiance, and to prove that what is
of good cannot come to naught though all the powers of earth and hell
be set against it. To forgive, _aphiemi_, is to cause advancement, to
bear away burdens. Thus we see it as an axiom that only as we aid the
weak, instruct the ignorant, develop the undeveloped, can we receive
in turn what we most need to carry us farther forward on the upward
path.
Lead us not into temptation, is what we silently say when our thought
and action show that we have well learned the lessons that were for us
in past trial and tribulation, and so order our course that the
leading of His laws, by which alone God ever guides, brings to us joy
instead of pain. Then, whatsoever may betide, as men count weal or
woe, we see the gold pass from the fire freed from its base alloy.
Then all the prayer is answered as with the eye of the prophet to whom
the future is as now, we see the soul delivered from, born out of
evil, _poneros_, which well represents the six days or epochs of
labor, strife, and friction, of gestation in materiality, that precede
and prepare the way for the Sabbath day to dawn.
The word "amen" is a Hebrew term for faith, which it defines as a firm
prop or support, a foundation that abides. It pictures to us faith,
not as emotion or credulity, nor the mere belief in, or acceptance of,
some formulated creed; but as that clear assurance of what the present
will produce or what the future has in store, which can only come as
we perceive how God, by laws immutable, has ruled throughout the past.
And faithful prayer is oneness of the will of man with that of God,
through knowledge of His laws and glad obedience thereto. Thus, this
word, as a symbol, stands for that which is the first and last of all
true prayer.
The works of Jesus, like his words, were all of a symbolic character,
in that each so-called miracle foreshadowed a result to be realized as
a common heritage of men through the age-lasting evolution of the same
intelligence that then produced the transient tokens of its presence.
In the New Testament there are four words used, in the original Greek,
which have been translated as descriptive of miraculous occurrences.
Their basic meaning is as follows: 1, _dunamis_, power, energy, a
faculty or ability to do; 2, _ergon_, a work, an arrangement in order,
with purpose and skill; 3, _teras_, to turn, to resolve, to excite
wonder or fear; 4, _semeion_, the word most frequently employed,
indicates a sign, mark, or token by which a thing is shown, something
used to represent something else. Our word "miracle" is often and
erroneously used for a phenomenon supposed to have occurred outside
the realm of law. Yet, in the strictest sense, the bursting of a blade
of grass from out the ground, the conception and birth of any form of
life, are as stupendous miracles, marks of creative power, as the mind
of man can ever contemplate.
The wise and great in any department of progress have always towered
like gods above their fellowmen. The natural product of their lives
has been a constant miracle to those about them. In spiritualizing the
story of the prodigies performed by Jesus, we would not question the
psychic power, transforming virtue of such an one as he, who was
fitted to convey a re-creative influence to the world. But we would
wish to show how far those phenomenal evidences of power and
intelligence transcended the domain of mediumistic wonder-working or
spiritistic occultism. This is easily accomplished as we continue to
apply the same principle of interpretation that has already shown us
that the supposed miraculous conception and birth of the Christ was
but a consummation of the plan, and in obedience to the same laws by
which the heavens were made, the earth begotten and born, mineral and
vegetable kingdoms formed and sustained, animal life brought forth and
evolved, and, finally, man progressively created in the image,
according to the likeness of his God. Because the same spiritual
nature that the typical man so perfectly embodied has been begotten in
our souls and is seeking to express itself along the lines he pointed
out, the truth, of which his so-called miracles were illustrative and
prophetical, is made apparent. His walking on the sea of Galilee, or
bidding its tempestuous waves be still, was not so marvelous a proof
of power as has been the advancement of the principle he represented
upon the seething ocean of humanity, causing the tumultuous tides of
lust and passion, sin and ignorance to subside. The literal narrative
of the miraculous draught of fishes vouchsafed to the disciples
affords but a feeble symbol of the abundant life that has come to men
and nations who have cast their nets, put forth their efforts, in
obedience to the injunctions of the Law-giver of the New Testament.
The wonder of the marriage-feast is re-performed as Christ attends the
wedding of our souls to truth, that union which cannot by man be put
asunder. As this takes place the water turns to wine; that within our
mental make-up which before was unformed, unstable, in a condition of
flux and change, becomes vivified with creative power, and bubbles and
sparkles with newness of life and inspiration, refreshing and
stimulating the soul with higher emotions and desires, imparting to
the very cells and tissues of the body a reconstructive tendency to
health.
By the breaking of the bread of life, the hidden manna of the Word,
the reality behind appearance, the multitude of faculties is fed and
that unseen assembly nourished whose lives are linked with ours at
this Lord's Supper of the soul. Blinded perceptions are restored to
sight from day to day, and gifted with a constantly enlarging field of
vision in the realm of truth and law. The understanding that was deaf
vibrates with joy in response to the call of a salvatory science. The
antitypes of palsied arm and crippled foot, which are the lack of
power to do and of ability to advance in a higher, mental life, are
healed by the transforming touch that makes its impress on the soul
when first made conscious, that by its own free will its highest
ideals are to become realities. Even those who have been so
earth-bound and selfish as to be lifeless, cold, and dead to the
knowledge of God and love to the neighbor are commencing to arise in
answer to the spirit of the approaching altruistic age. Accompanying
this present resurrection, the veil is being rent that for so long has
intervened between this life and the next. And although no outward
cloud is sundered for a personal Messiah to descend to rule as
temporal prince, the denser fogs of a gross materialism are parting
fast before the rising glory of that day whose dawn we see afar on the
horizon. For the signs are many and are strikingly apparent that those
splendid souls, the wisely great ones of the past, the saviors and
educators of the race, are to co-operate with us in the formation of
that kingdom and republic which their prophetic vision saw and fervent
words foretold. Then, as a spiritual reality, will we understand the
truth symbolized by the doctrines of the church concerning the
resurrection of the dead and communion with the saints, as the first
fruits of them that slept appear to us. And what is now prefigured by
the phenomena and personations of modern spiritualism, will then
become a blessed fact as our missing loved ones labor with us for our
and their redemption and the good of all mankind. Had they been
permitted, or were they able, to return for any other purpose, the
result would be the furtherance of selfishness and materiality.
Spiritualism, with its convincing tests of an unseen intelligence, and
its crude communications, sustains the same relation to the angelic
intercourse which it simulates, that the symbolic conversion, baptism,
and bread and wine of the church bear to the organic experiences of
a true life. They are all, alike, signs and forms, shadows cast before
the substance drawing nigh, the Christ that is to be.
Our present space will not permit us now to even touch upon, much less
delineate, the all-important principles symbolized by the recorded
martyrdom of Jesus, and the doctrine of atonement. But they, and all
the eschatology of the Gospels, and with which the apocalyptic book of
riddles is filled, will be readily unravelled as we still farther
trace the working of those laws already seen, that are not restricted
in their operation by relations of time and space, but govern through
the ages the travail of the embodied or disembodied soul. Suffice it
then to say that hell and heaven are not the names of _places_ to
which the wicked or the good are called upon to go. Sheol, Gehenna,
Hades, Tartarus, and the opposite Kingdom of God, are terms expressing
symbolically the experiences and conditions of undeveloped and
developed souls here as well as hereafter.