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I AM HERE. Jesus.
I will continue my letter as to my birth and work, as I commenced it last night.
When I was satisfied that I was chosen by my Father to perform His work of declaring to the world the bestowal of His great gift of the divine love that was in His nature, and which formed the predominant principle of that nature, I commenced my ministry, and continued to work for the redemption of mankind, on earth, until my death on the cross. I was not then as perfect as I am now, and my knowledge of the truths of the Father was not so great as it is now.
Let men know though, that what I taught was true, even though I did not teach all the truth, and they will learn that I am my Father's true son, and the special messenger by whom these great truths was to be taught to mankind.
I was not, when on earth, so filled with the love of the Father as I am now, and had not the power to make men feel that this love is the only thing that will reconcile them to the Father and make them at one with Him, as I have now. So men must believe that I am communicating to them the real truths which will show them the way to the Fathers love and to their own salvation.
You have in your mind the desire to know how it was that the wise men came to me with their offerings and adoration, if I was not specially created by God to become His son and representative on earth.
Well, the wise men came, but their coming was not because of any knowledge they had that I was a child divinely created, or that I was not a natural child, but because they were astrologers and at the time saw a new and brilliant star in the heavens, and which to them meant that some important event had taken place; and, being students of the Old Testament, wherein such a star was referred to as the forerunner of the birth of a saviour, they concluded that that star was the one intended, and that my birth being a lowly one, as they expected was the one that the Scriptures meant, and, consequently, that I was the Christ spoken of. But outside of this knowledge as astrologers and that of the Scriptures, they had no knowledge that I was the Christ to be born; and when it is asserted that they had any information from God or His angels that I was the Christ, that assertion is not true.
I know this, because since my coming to the spirit world, I have met these men and talked with them, and they have told me what I write. So, while I was the Christ referred to in the Bible--I mean in the prophecies of the Old Testament--yet, those wise men had no other knowledge of that fact than what I have told you.
I know that I was sent by the Father to perform the mission which I performed, and that it was intended in the beginning that I should be anointed as the Christ, but this I did not know until after I became a man and was then told what my mission was by the angel and my own inner voice.
My mother or father or brethren did not know, and even after I had proclaimed my mission and showed the wonderful powers that had been given to me, they did not believe in my mission, but thought that I was besides myself, that is, as you say, crazy with the belief that I was the chosen one of my Father. The Bible, itself, shows that this was their condition of mind.
So, while I am the Christ of the Bible, and the chosen instrument of the Father to make known the great truths which I have proclaimed, and which I shall proclaim through you, yet I am not the only begotten son of God in the sense in which it is usually accepted. And much less am I God. As I have said, there is only one God, and I am merely His son and teacher sent to the world to declare to mankind the bestowal of the gift of immortality and the way in which men may obtain it.
I will deal further with myself as we progress in our writings.
Let no man believe that I was born of the Virgin Mary, or that I was begotten by the Holy Spirit, or that I am God, for all these things are not true.
For the present I will stop, and with all my love and blessings and the blessings of the Father, will say good-night.
Your friend and brother,
JESUS.Vol. I, p. 9
