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I am here, Jesus:
In the first place, I wish to explain more thoroughly and with textual references my visit to the house of Lazarus and my healing him of the unconscious state, which has been erroneously described as death by the gospel copyists, as I have already written through Mr. Padgett* I did not say, "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of Man might be glorified thereby," for this meant that the sickness would not end in death, only because I might be glorified by raising him from death. Rather did I say, "This sickness is not unto death, for through the power of God will the Son of God heal and be glorified," which simply meant, I would show I had been sent by God by curing Lazarus of his illness. Furthermore, I did say, as recorded in John, Chapter 11, and verse 11, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." Now the gospel of John, which at this point was not written by John, declares that by sleep, I meant death, and this is not true, for had I meant that Lazarus was dead, I would have used the expressions which were used to indicate death, and these were, "To sleep with one's fathers," or "To sleep in the dust," or "To sleep a perpetual sleep." Hence when I said, "Lazarus was asleep," I meant that he was in that unconscious state, when one is dying in sleep. In the same, way, Thomas the Twin did not say, "Let us go and die with him," meaning Lazarus, (verse 16) nor did he have in mind to go and die with me, on the supposition that I might be taken by the Temple hirelings, for this too was inserted many years after the Crucifixion to exaggerate the danger which beset me and my resolution in confronting them, although it is true that I was aware of the animosity with which they regarded me. When I wept, and this is true, for I did weep, it was because I was touched and my emotions of love for him aroused more because he had been entombed as dead and brought to such a pass, and not because I thought he was dead, for I knew he was not.
I also wish to explain to you some of the expressions which, if not correctly understood, tend to give an impression of cruelty and indifference to human suffering in my teachings, for I never advocated or taught mutilation of the body in any form and any such sayings attributed to me in the gospels were never said by me and thus could not have been written by the gospel writers.
Take the expression, " If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish and not that thy whole body be cast into hell." This does not give the true meaning of my saying, for I meant that the eye reflects the state of the soul, the seat of the emotions, so that if the eye reveals a wicked emotion, it means the soul is possessed of a wicked emotion, and by plucking out the wicked eye, I simply meant to pluck out the evil emotion from the soul. In the same way, my reference to cutting off the hand that offends, did not mean, to refer literally to the physical hand, but to the action performed by the hand resulting from a sinful soul, and I simply meant eradication of the evil emotion in the soul resulting in an evil action. Physical plucking out of an eye or cutting off of a limb could have no effect on the body as far as freeing it from sin, for it is not the body but the soul that is sinful, as the body simply carries out the desires of the soul, nor could such mutilations have any effect upon the soul in the way of eliminating sin, for sin in mankind is eliminated through will power and prayer for the Father's Love and through a change in soul condition which causes man to turn to God and in earnestness of prayer to seek forgiveness; and forgiveness is brought about through the change in the soul condition, or, as I said, by the elimination of the wicked emotion, in the soul. Thus you will understand that I never said, nor could my disciples have written. "For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." You see why I am anxious to write you and give mankind the truths of what I said, for these are the truths of the Father and His Divine Love.
And again, as reported in Matthew, Chapter 19, verse 12, when I said: There are some eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake, I did not preach or teach cutting off of the testicles, but the expression was simply a reference to the prophet Isaiah, Chapter 56, verses 3-5, wherein the eunuch mentioned was simply the Gentile who believed in the Hebrew Deity, but who was deemed "cut off," so to speak, or separated from the vine of Israel because he was not a member of the Jewish race. Such a Gentile, if a believer in Jehovah, was not to be considered a "dry tree" or non-productive and cut off from the vine of Israel. In short, a eunuch in this sense meant a convert to the Jewish religion. I did not teach that men should mutilate their God-given bodies to eliminate an emotion which in the minds of early Christians had become associated with sin. Such a feeling, given to man by God for a given purpose, is never displeasing to God when it is in harmony with his laws, but when it is not in harmony with God's laws, may be kept away through prayers for the Divine Love, so that material thoughts and desires may disappear and be replaced by emotions and thoughts of a spiritual nature. Of course, when in the previous sentence I said, "there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men", it was a play upon words, for here I referred to physical mutilation imposed upon men who served in women's quarters among Oriental rulers.
I think I have said enough regarding misinterpretations and distortions of my sayings in the New Testament, of which there are many more, and so with my love and blessings I shall stop and sign myself. Your Elder Brother and Friend.
Jesus of the Bible
and
Master of the Celestial Heavens
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* Mr. James E. Padgett Instrument that received writing from Jesus and other Celestial writers.
