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I AM HERE. Jesus.
I will continue my discourse of last night.
I was saying that the Jews and the teachers of the church that became established or rather controlled after the death of my followers, and those who understood the true teachings of my disciples, taught the conduct of men towards their fellowmen, and the observance of certain ceremonies and feasts were the important things for men to learn and practice in order to gain salvation, rather than the truths which made man a child of the Father and at one with Him through the operations of the New Birth.
OF COURSE, BEFORE MY COMING, THE JEWS COULD NOT HAVE TAUGHT THE TRUTH OF THE NEW BIRTH, BECAUSE THE GREAT GIFT OF THE REBESTOWAL OF THE DIVINE LOVE HAD NOT BEEN MADE, AND IT WAS NOT POSSIBLE FOR THAT GREAT TRUTH, WHICH WAS NECESSARY FOR IMMORTALITY AND THE POSSIBILITY OF MAN'S PARTAKING OF GOD'S DIVINE LOVE, TO BE KNOWN TO THE JEWS, AND HENCE, THEY COULD NOT TEACH IT; AND THEIR TEACHINGS WERE LIMITED AND CONFINED TO THE THINGS WHICH WOULD MAKE THEM PURER IN THEIR NATURAL LOVE AND IN THE RELATION OF THAT LOVE TO THE FATHER.
God, at that time, while He never gave them the privilege of becoming at one with Him in the Divine Love or even of becoming such beings in their character and spiritual qualities as were Adam and Eve, commonly supposed to be our first parents, yet did require of them obedience to His laws which would develop in them their natural love to such a degree, as would cause it to become in harmony with His laws that controlled and governed their natural love.
If you will study the ten commandments you will see that these commandments deal only with the natural love, and by their observance would tend to make men better in that natural love, and in their conduct with one another and in their relationship to God, so far as that love brought them in communion with Him. This natural love, as I have said, was possessed by men, just as the first parents possessed it, and was never taken from them, and in its purity was in perfect harmony with God's creation and the workings of His universe; but not withstanding these great qualities men were mere men and had in them no part of the divinity of the Father. And this being so, the Jews, while they were supposed to be more in contact with God through the prophets and seers, than were any of the other races or sects of God's children, yet, never looked for a Messiah that would come with any other or greater power than that, which would enable them to become the great ruling nation of the earth, to whom all other peoples would be subordinated and subjected, and powerless to ever again conquer or subject their nation to bondage.
In a way this Messiah was to be a kind of supernatural being, having power which no other man ever had, and a kind of god to be worshiped and served in their earthly lives.
Many of the Jews, notwithstanding what may be said to the contrary and the teachings of the prophets, believed in other gods than the one which Moses declared, as is evidenced in their histories, both sacred and secular, for whenever their God, that is, the God of Moses, did not treat them just as they thought He should, they would create and worship other gods--even the golden calf. So I say, they never expected a Messiah who would be other than a most powerful ruler on earth.
Their ideas and beliefs of the life after death were very hazy, and even that part of them known as the Pharisees, who believed in a kind of resurrection, never conceived that when they should drop the mortal life, they would be anything different in their qualities and characters from what they were as mortals, minus the physical bodies, and the great increased happiness which would come to them as such mortals, changed in their appearances.
This was the idea of the common people and also of the priests and scribes; and notwithstanding the many beautiful and spiritual psalms ascribed to David, the happiness or glory that they might expect, was only that which would come to them as spiritualized mortals having only the natural love.
So you see, the GREAT GIFT of the Father that is the rebestowal of the Divine Love, was not known or even dreamed of by the Jews, nor conceived of nor taught by their scribes, nor even by their great prophets, or law-givers such as Moses and Elias and others.
Their conception of God was that of an exalted personal being, all powerful and all knowing, and one whom they would be able to see face to face, as they might any king or ruler when they should come into the heavens which he had prepared for them, and where he had his habitation.
I will defer the writing until later.
JESUS.Vol. I, p. 104
