| |
THE NEW HEART IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
I am here, Jesus:
Yes, I am here tonight to tell you about the New Heart, and what it really means to mankind. I want to tell you that it is the New Heart that made of me, and makes me now, the Messiah of God, and that it was the New Heart which was foretold in the Old Testament by those ancient writers who had the spiritual perception to learn what was to be the plan of the soul salvation for mankind, and recognized by the apostles and disciples who followed my teachings that the New Heart, and what it really was, constituted the fulfillment of God's promise of salvation, in the days when I was on earth and preached my mission of the Father's Love.
I have been telling you in my sermons that the Way to the Father is only through prayer to the Father for His Divine Love which, on being conveyed into the human soul by the agency of the Holy Spirit, effects the elimination in the soul of those accretions and tendencies at odds with the purity of the soul, and brings about, above all, the transformation of that soul into a divine soul, the abode wherein the essence of God dwells in mankind, and bringing the kingdom of God to whomsoever that personality may be.
This transformation of the human soul into a Divine Soul through prayer to the Father for His Love was, and is, the New Heart, which the writers and prophets foretold in the Old Testament, and which was fulfilled by my coming. These predictions were the true portents of the coming of the Messiah, for they told in what way the Messiah would prove his claim to be the son of God: he would be the first on earth to be possessed of a soul filled with the Divine Love of the Father, and it would be in the sense of a human being possessed of a divine soul that the Christ would have the New Heart and bring the kingdom of God to earth with him.
Many of the predictions regarding the time and place and conditions associated with the Messiah are, of course, true, and I shall in due time deal with each of them as pertinent to my plan of setting forth the truths of the Father, but here I must tell you that much distortion was resorted to by those who sought to establish that I was born of a virgin or of the seed of woman, or had come as a priest-king or sacrificial atonement, and these so-called predictions are false and merely man-made interpretations to fit elaborated and preconceived notions to attract pagans into the church.
First I want to tell you about the idea of the New Heart and what it meant, at the periods it refers to, to the writers who conveyed the thought of the New Heart in the Old Testament, and then I want to tell you how the thought of a New Heart became acceptable to Hebrews when religion meant, to a large extent, fear of an omnipotent God, and the placating of that God through sacrifices.
Now the prophet Samuel, in writing his early account of the anointment of Saul as first king of the Jews, recounts what he told Saul to do -- to go towards Mt. Tabor, which many centuries later would be the scene of many of my activities, and there he would receive the Spirit of the Lord, which would turn him into a new man, and God would be with him. To the prophet Samuel, this meant, and he expounded it to Saul in this way, that he would have to be thereafter a man after God's own heart, a man pure in his thoughts and conduct. Of course, neither Samuel nor Saul had any understanding of the New Heart as being a transformation of soul brought about by the Father's Love, for His Love was unavailable to mankind at this time, but they understand a new heart to mean elimination of sin through purification wrought in man's soul by the influence of the Father. This cleansing effect, they believed, was effected by the Spirit of the Lord, as it was called in the Old Testament, sent by Jehovah.
This means of purification was not an original thought with Samuel, but was used by him because he knew that God had wrought a new heart in Jacob, that is, He had caused a change in Jacob's character so that, indeed, he was a new man, and God Himself changed his name to Israel. So was Abraham a man of God, a man after God's own heart. Thus it was that Samuel felt that Saul, with his responsibilities as king of the Jews, would discard from his soul those sins and evil tendencies adhering to it, and be purified, through the Spirit of God, of these evils. He did not have the gift of prophesying, as was inserted into the Bible many centuries later by different editors, only recognition that Saul could become a new man in heart and be purified of sin through God's help, if Saul so willed it. And this did happen, as we know, until the old evils of the earth plane began to reassert themselves, as Saul began to turn from prayer to God and go his own way, impelled by his own desires and self will.
This thought reoccurs when Jeremiah (Chapter 24, verse 7) spoke of the good and the bad figs, at the time of the captivity in Babylon, and said, "I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, for they shall return unto me with their whole heart." It meant that the means would be given the Hebrews in Chaldea to realize that faith in God and obedience to His commandments of righteousness and justice and mercy were the only necessary requirements to insure survival over material disasters.
Ezekiel, too, in receiving his messages from the spirit world, which were of hope for the captives in the strange land, stated that the people of Israel would have another chance to be men after God's own heart, not by their own efforts, but through the help of God, for God would give them one heart (Chapter 11, verse 19) and that meant, as I understood it, His Own, and He would give them a new spirit, His Own; He would take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and would give them a heart after His Own. His help, in short, would enable them to rid themselves of their sins, so that, as the prophet saw it after, meant the ability of the people to obey God's laws and statutes. And again (in Chapter 36, verse 26) Ezekiel was impressed to use the same language: "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh." (in verse 27) "and I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments, and do them."
And it meant that man himself could not help himself to purify himself, but could do so with the help of God, for if man were willing, God would give him that new heart which would be free of sin and evils. Not by any rite or ceremony or dance, but as the prophet Micah said, by doing what was right in the sight of God, and as Amos said, by letting justice well up as a mighty stream.
Now, as I have said, tile New Heart for Samuel, for Jeremiah, and for Ezekiel, meant the purification of man's soul from sin, for nothing beyond such purification was known to the Hebrews before my coming, but there were other things in the Old Testament which spoke, not of law and of justice, but of Love -- the Father's Love for His children -- and it was this Love which I finally grasped and realized was the New Heart which God had promised unto the Hebrews through His prophets. And while for them the New Heart meant one thing, for me, in the full experience of the Father's Love aglow in my own soul, the New Heart meant the Father's Love, the help that would free man from sin forever, and more, give him that heart at-one with the Father's, divine with the Father's throughout all eternity. It was in this way that I understood and knew in my soul that I was the divine child of the Father.
In my next sermon I shall tell you about the Father's Love promised in the Old Testament, how the people came to realize that God was not a primitive God of fear, to be appeased through sacrifice, but a God of Love unto His children, and how I came to understand that I was the Messiah because of that Love in my own soul.
Jesus of the Bible
and
Master of the Celestial Heavens
