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| Dr. Daniel G. Samuels |
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.
Dr. Daniel G. Samuels
January 10th, 1916
I am here, Jesus.
I come to-night to tell you of a truth which is important to all mankind, and which I desire that you receive just as I write it, so give your best care to receiving just what I shall attempt to write.
I have read with you to-night many sayings contained in the alleged epistles of Paul and Peter, and I realize that they do not seem to be consistent with the truth that has been declared to you by myself and by the apostles who have written to you, and I desire that you shall understand some of these inconsistencies and discard from your mind these sayings of the epistles wherever they do not agree with what we have written or what we shall write.
In the first place, the continual reference of these epistles to my being God is all wrong and must not be believed; also the statement that my blood washes away sin or that I died on the cross for the salvation of men, or that I took upon myself the sins of mankind and thereby relieved them from the burden of their sins, and the punishment which
they must suffer in expiation of their evil deeds and thoughts.
Again, when it said, that from the beginning the Father had foreordained my death on the cross that man might be redeemed from the penalties of sin in all men who lived thereafter, are all wrong and have no foundation as facts in the plan of God for the salvation of man and the restoring of the harmony of His universe and the eradication
of all sin and error from the world.
Neither Paul nor Peter wrote these things, and never did I teach them, for they are not in accord with the great plan of salvation; and the further away will be the realization by them of the truth of the only plan the Father has provided for their redemption, which I came to earth to declare and explain to my apostles first, and then to the whole world.
In these epistles too much emphasis is given to the importance of faith and works. I mean faith in the mere beliefs which these epistles taught followed by works - and not enough importance to the foundation truth of man's redemption from sin and becoming reconciled to the Father. I mean the New Birth by the inflowing into their souls of the Divine Love of the Father's through the ministrations of the Holy Spirit.
Many of their teachings as to man's conduct towards man and as to the lives that the recipients of these truths should lead as effecting their own purification and becoming in a condition of righteousness, are true, and are as applicable to the conduct and living of men today as they were in the days in which the apostles taught, but when the epistles teach or lead men in any particular to understand that these, what may be called merely moral principles will enable a man by their observance to enter into the Kingdom of God or the Celestial Kingdom, they are false and misleading and men when they become spirits will realize that while leading the lives which these teachings call them to lead, they will become very happy and occupy conditions and positions in the spirit world that will make their happiness far superior to that which they enjoy on earth and even enable them to become occupants of higher spiritual spheres; yet they will never be permitted to enter the Kingdom of the Father, which can only be attained to by the possession of Divine Love.
So I say, men must understand and realize the difference between the results to them from leading merely good and moral lives which affect and develop the natural love and those results which ensue from the New Birth.
I have attempted to explain to you why the great and important truth of my mission to earth, as I explained it to my apostles and as was taught by them and written by them, was not preserved and contained in the Bible as now written and accepted by the church as canonical.
The great desire in those days was to show and impress upon men those teachings which affected their conduct on earth, and to hold out to them the rewards that would follow
such living, and also the rewards which would follow their lives in the spirit world which would become their homes after death. And, as I have said, the leading of lives in accordance with these teachings would ensure men a great happiness in the spirit world, but not the happiness which my teachings, if observed, would lead to.
In the various copyings and compilations of the writings of the apostles many changes from the originals were made, and those persons who performed this work, and I mean by this the dignitaries and rulers of the church, did not know the difference between those things which would bring about a purification of the natural love and those things
which were necessary to fit a soul for entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. And hence, when they came to perform this work they made the error of teaching that the living of the moral life would entitle the soul to a reward which they supposed, would be the Kingdom of Heaven and immortality.
And this erroneous teaching has prevented many a man from gaining the right to the Kingdom of Heaven, as they honestly and sincerely believed would be theirs, when they came to pass into the spirit world.
Many of these teachings are intended to make a reformation in the lives of men and to purge their souls from sin and error so far as the natural love forms a part of the condition of the soul; and I taught these moral truths to a very large extent, for such teachings were necessary, because men's will were out of harmony with God's laws, which affected
the natural love, as well as out of harmony with the laws that affected the Divine Love of the Father; and it is the object and plan of God to bring into harmony both of these loves, and thereby enable man to enjoy those things which are provided and waiting for him.
As I said when on earth, "Narrow is the way and strait is the gate which leads to life everlasting and few there be that enter therein," I repeat now; for it is apparent from the observation of the way in which mankind from the beginning have exercised their wills, which God leaves free to their own volition, that a vast majority of men will never enter in at the strait gate, but be contented to live in the spheres and happiness which their natural love, in its perfect state and progress, will fit them for.
That all men will ultimately be brought into harmony with God, in either the natural love or in the Higher One, is certain, and that all sin and error will finally be eradicated from God's universe is decreed, but the time will depend to a great extent, upon the wills and desires of men, and, hence, while my great mission in coming to earth and teaching men, was to show the way to the Celestial Kingdom, yet a lesser part of my mission was to teach them a way to their redemption from sin and error that would result in the purification of the natural love; and to my great regret and to the untold injury to man, my moral teachings were more at large set forth in portions of the Bible, as now accepted, than were my teachings of the Higher Truths.
I will not write more to-night but will continue later.
Well my dear brother, I see that you are in a much better condition spiritually than you have been for some time, and you must thank the Father for it. Your conception of last night's experience is true, and you received a wonderful amount of the Divine Love, and I was was with you in love and blessing.
So continue to pray and trust in the Father and you will realize a wonderful happiness and power and peace.
I must stop now.
Your brother and friend,
Jesus
January 6th, 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
January 2nd, 1917
I am here, Jesus.
I have been present as you read the article on Christian Science and was interested in your comments, and am pleased to assure you that your annotations were correct, and that in the particulars that you criticized the statements of the writer the same were erroneous and not in accord with the spiritual laws of truth and the understanding thereof.
Sometime I will come and write you a message at some length on the doctrines of Christian Science, for the reason that I think a correction of the claims of this cult is very important.
The doctrines that it proclaims to the world contain many truths and are beneficial to mankind, and are doing much good, both spiritually and physically, but some of the claims are so much in violation of the truth that they must not be permitted to pass as truths uncontradicted.
The founder of this science or discovery, as her writings and followers claim, is here now, and deplores the fact that she left to the world so many false and misconceived concepts of the truth that so many persons believe and teach. She is a spirit of much soul development, and is in possession of much of the Divine Love, which she did not conceive the meaning of by her carnal mind, as she called it, and was not therefore able to teach what this Divine Love is, and its operations upon the souls of men, and the effect of its presence in such souls.
She never conceived any higher ideal for man than the perfect man. One who should become wholly delivered from the sins and errors which all men have to a more or less extent. And her teachings that sin and error and disease are not things of reality, because God did not create them, are all wrong, for they have a reality that not only makes men unhappy and causes them suffering in the mortal life, but also prevents their progress towards her ideal of the perfect man in the spirit world.
God only is good, and everything that He created is necessarily good, and cannot contain that which is evil or in conflict with His creations; but, as we have explained to you, while He created man perfect, knowing only good, yet He bestowed upon him that great power of free will, and after his disobedience, he exercised it in such a way that he violated the laws of his being, and sin and error resulted - this made man the creator of evil.
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| Mary Baker Eddy |
Mrs. Eddy will write you very soon on the subject of her Science, as she is very anxious to remedy the errors that she taught, and we have determined that it is advisable that she do so, on account both of her followers and her own account, for her work here and so far as possible in the mortal world, is to unteach, as it were, the errors that she taught.
I expected to write my message, or rather finish the message which I partly wrote a few nights ago, but you are not just in condition to receive it, and I prefer waiting until you feel better in this respect.
I am glad that you are so much interested in that message, and when you receive it, I don't think that you will be disappointed, for as you say, the subject is the one fundamental truth to be made known to mortals. I will deal with it in all its phases, and you must try to get in the best possible condition to receive it.
Well, I do not think that that will be necessary for there will be such powers present, that the presence of any mortal and the favorable influences that he may attract will not afford any assistance to you.
You must know that I have greater power than all the other spirits have, and when I come to you the assistance of the powers of any other spirit is not needed. If you will only get your soul in the best condition possible, so that I can make the proper rapport, nothing else will be needed.
I will not write more tonight. I love you very much and am with you quite frequently, throwing around you my love and influence, and trying to help you develop your soul condition and become in greater at-onement with the Father.
Yes, I have kept my promises, and when you call for me to come with you and pray, I come, and send up my earnest supplications in your behalf, and I know that the Father answers my prayers, not only because of the faith that I have, but because I can see the effect in your soul's condition.
Well, you must not think that I am God or one of the Godhead, for as I have told you, I am only His son, and the possessor of so much of His Divine Love that I get very close to Him, and have communion.
I have my home in the Highest Heaven, that the spirit of man has not yet so far reached, but, notwithstanding, I am not of so exalted a condition, or in such position, that I do not come to you in love and sympathy and as your elder brother.
In my exaltation, I am most humble, and I must tell you that humility is a certain and eternal accompaniment of great spiritual and soul development.
And because I am the highest of the Father's sons, you must not doubt that I come to you, and deliver my messages and pray for you and throw around you my love and influence.
I have explained to you the great reason why I am doing this, and this reason is one that involves the salvation and good of all mankind, and you. I will tell you now that you are engaged and made a co-worker with me, and the spirits who write you, in the greatest work that any spirit or man can engage in. And I want further to say, that you will accomplish the work, and successfully; and when the time comes for you to lay down this work and come to the spirit world, your reward will be beyond all conception, and your happiness will be complete.
I see that you have in your mind the thought as to what will be the future of your two friends. Well, they will perform their work and it will be a great and important work, that will bring them a reward similar to the one that is in store for you; and this reward is not the result of any special dispensation of the Father, but is the result of the work and the associations and experience that you all will have in doing and completing the tasks that are before you.
You, and they too, are now doing a work which is laying up rewards in the spirit world for you when you come over, and not only there but you are now experiencing some of the benefits that flow from your work. Continue in the efforts that you are making to show spirits and mortals the way to the Father's Love and my Kingdom, and you will find a wonderful reflex happiness come to you while you are yet mortals.
If you men could realize the love and spiritual influences, and the number of highly developed spirits that are with you so often, and the efforts the latter make to help you and bring happiness to you, you would feel that you are the truly blessed of the Father.
Well, I must stop now. Remember what I have said and believe that I am,
Your brother and friend,
Jesus
