These sermons, of course, were not given all at once, at one particular time, as it is recorded in the Gospel, but rather as the result of a great number of sermons dealing with the spiritual lives of the Hebrews at the time, and which were put together in the form of a synopsis to cover a considerable vista of spiritual truths.
Much of what is said pertained to the development of the natural love, because this was the only love that was known to the Jews at the time and it was these sermons dealing with the development of this love as found in the moral code and the exhortations of the Old Testament that could be best understood by my hearers and could be used as the bridge that led to the new subject of the New Birth and the Divine Love.
In the Gospels, there are a number of blessings which I evoked, but not in the particular forms as given in the Gospels, because some of them I never used at all and some of them were the subjects of considerable sermons rather than the brief blessings therein recorded.
I did say, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" for I meant not that they were indeed without spirituality, but that those that realized that they were without spiritual development were blessed because this knowledge, or intuition, of their spiritual lack would turn them to the Father and seek either His laws and obtain spiritual development that way, or turn to the Divine Love and obtain the soul development necessary for at-onement with Him and a rebirth into His Celestial mansions. And I exhorted my listeners to seek, rather, the Father's Love, for it was now available to all those who sought it in sincerity; and with that Love would come knowledge and possession of immortality.
And I also blessed the people who listened to me because of their meekness, for they would inherit the land. Now, by this, I meant that violence and quarrels and wars were sinful in the eyes of the Father, and that keeping from these offenses would enable the mortal to get into harmony with the Father's laws and enable him to purify his soul to the point of eventually reaching the Heaven of the purified souls.
But I also taught that gentility of heart could now be obtained through the Father's Love, which would not merely purify the soul but transform that soul so that the sins of vengeance and hatred and ambition and murder and bitterness would cease to be an encrustation on the human soul, and the resultant gentility of heart transformed through the Father's Love for His children would fit these children for a home in the Celestial Heavens. And this is what I meant by, "The meek shall inherit the earth," for I did not mean the material earth but the promised land of the soul spheres, or the New Jerusalem, not for the material body but for the human soul transformed into the Divine Angel.
I also said, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" And by that, I meant more than a mere religious consolation that comes from resignation with the death of a loved one and the thought that we must all depart, and that the sufferings of the departed have ceased, for this is true and such an attitude leads to the development of the natural love.
But I also meant that the comfort for those who have lost loved ones would come from the faith that God is our Father and that His universe is peopled with the spirits of those who have departed from earth, and that these spirits are alive and are working out their progress towards happiness such as can never be achieved on earth; and that the grave simply took the envelope of flesh and that their dear departed were still alive and with them.
This was the comfort I spoke of for the Hebrew people, who had a very limited understanding of the spiritual aspects of life after death.
I also blessed the people, saying, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God" And I meant this not in a literal way, for this is impossible, but in a spiritual way; and I meant by "the pure in heart" not merely those who had achieved the Paradise of the Hebrews, who do not see God but have an understanding intellectually of His existence, but by the pure in heart in the SOUL sense - that is to say, transformed by the Divine Love, and through this Divine Love would come the ability of the transformed to actually feel the presence of God in his own soul; for the Divine Love is of the Essence of God, and in this way the transformed soul would see God through his soul perceptions.
By "see," I mean "perceive with the soul perceptions," and that means to actually feel God's presence through the Love glowing in his own soul.
Thus you see that the blessings had a spiritual and a soul aspect, and those who could not understand the meaning of the Father's Love could understand the blessings as they pertained to the natural man.
There were two other blessings attributed to me which I never mentioned, and these were the so-called blessings given to men who were persecuted for the sake of righteousness, and the blessing given to those who were persecuted because of faith in me.
Well, I never sought to convey such a blessing on people whose religion taught the doing of righteousness, and there was no reason to encourage them to do righteousness because of my blessings upon them; nor did I ever bless at this time my hearers because they might be persecuted for believing in me.
I never taught them to believe in me except as a teacher who had come to show them the way to at-onement with the Father through prayer; and there was never a thought in their minds, or in mine, that they would, or could, be persecuted for these teachings.
And it is plain that these two blessings were inserted into the Gospels long after they had been originally composed and were interpolated to meet the situation that confronted Christians many years after my death, when they were persecuted by the Jews and Greek pagans and the Romans.
And the authority for these insertions was that Christians should be encouraged in their faith because I, myself, had blessed them because of their faith and persecutions, and that the Gospels covered precisely the situation which they were in. And the later copyists, as we have seen, did this type of interpolation to meet the current needs of the early Christian church.
But while the intentions were good, they are not the truth, and my interest in exposing these insertions for what they are is motivated by my desire, and the great need to know what the original writers actually wrote and what is due to the imaginations and designs of others.
I think I have written enough for tonight and I am glad to have this opportunity to write as I have. I should like you to keep studying the New Testament and I shall come repeatedly to show you what I actually did and said.
And, so, I urge you to keep in good soul condition by constant prayers to the Father for His Divine Love and loving-kindness; and I add my prayers and love to those of the many Celestial Spirits who join me, that the Father bestow His Love in increased portions upon you and the Doctor.
And I want you to be encouraged in regard to your material affairs, which we are working to improve to your satisfaction and that of all concerned.
So I will say good night and with all my love to you, I will sign myself,
Jesus of the Bible
and
Master of the Celestial Heavens
