salvation

101:6.8The teach­ings of Je­sus con­sti­tuted the first Uran­tian re­li­gion which so fully em­braced a har­mo­nious co-or­di­na­tion of knowl­edge, wis­dom, faith, truth, and love as com­pletely and si­mul­ta­ne­ously to pro­vide tem­po­ral tran­quil­lity, in­tel­lec­tual cer­tainty, moral en­light­en­ment, philo­sophic sta­bil­ity, eth­i­cal sen­si­tiv­ity, God-con­scious­ness, and the pos­i­tive as­sur­ance of per­sonal sur­vival. The faith of Je­sus pointed the way to fi­nal­ity of hu­man sal­va­tion, to the ul­ti­mate of mor­tal uni­verse at­tain­ment, since it pro­vided for:

101:6.91. Sal­va­tion from ma­te­rial fet­ters in the per­sonal re­al­iza­tion of son­ship with God, who is spirit.

101:6.102. Sal­va­tion from in­tel­lec­tual bond­age: man shall know the truth, and the truth shall set him free.

101:6.113. Sal­va­tion from spir­i­tual blind­ness, the hu­man re­al­iza­tion of the fra­ter­nity of mor­tal be­ings and the mor­ontian aware­ness of the broth­er­hood of all uni­verse crea­tures; the ser­vice-dis­cov­ery of spir­i­tual re­al­ity and the min­istry-rev­e­la­tion of the good­ness of spirit val­ues.

101:6.124. Sal­va­tion from in­com­plete­ness of self through the at­tain­ment of the spirit lev­els of the uni­verse and through the even­tual re­al­iza­tion of the har­mony of Ha­vona and the per­fec­tion of Par­a­dise.

101:6.135. Sal­va­tion from self, de­liv­er­ance from the lim­i­ta­tions of self-con­scious­ness through the at­tain­ment of the cos­mic lev­els of the Su­preme Mind and by co-or­di­na­tion with the at­tain­ments of all other self-con­scious be­ings.

101:6.146. Sal­va­tion from time, the achieve­ment of an eter­nal life of un­end­ing pro­gres­sion in God-rec­og­ni­tion and God-ser­vice.

101:6.157. Sal­va­tion from the fi­nite, the per­fected one­ness with De­ity in and through the Su­preme by which the crea­ture at­tempts the tran­scen­den­tal dis­cov­ery of the Ul­ti­mate on the post­fi­naliter lev­els of the ab­so­nite.

182:2.1The apos­tles were greatly shocked when they re­turned to their camp and found Ju­das ab­sent. While the eleven were en­gaged in a heated dis­cus­sion of their traitorous fel­low apos­tle, David Zeb­e­dee and John Mark took Je­sus to one side and re­vealed that they had kept Ju­das un­der ob­ser­va­tion for sev­eral days, and that they knew he in­tended to be­tray him into the hands of his en­e­mies. Je­sus lis­tened to them but only said: “My friends, noth­ing can hap­pen to the Son of Man un­less the Fa­ther in heaven so wills. Let not your hearts be trou­bled; all things will work to­gether for the glory of God and the sal­va­tion of men.”

94:11.13At times the Ab­so­lute was even thought of as con­tained within the in­fi­nite I AM. But these spec­u­la­tions were chill com­fort to the hun­gry mul­ti­tudes who craved to hear words of prom­ise, to hear the sim­ple gospel of Salem, that faith in God would as­sure di­vine fa­vor and eter­nal sur­vival.

98:2.10But the av­er­age men of these times could not grasp, nor were they much in­ter­ested in, the Greek phi­los­o­phy of self-re­al­iza­tion and an ab­stract De­ity; they rather craved promises of sal­va­tion, cou­pled with a per­sonal God who could hear their prayers. They ex­iled the philoso­phers, per­se­cuted the rem­nants of the Salem cult, both doc­trines hav­ing be­come much blended, and made ready for that ter­ri­ble or­gias­tic plunge into the fol­lies of the mys­tery cults which were then over­spread­ing the Med­i­ter­ra­nean lands. The Eleusinian mys­ter­ies grew up within the Olympian pan­theon, a Greek ver­sion of the wor­ship of fer­til­ity; Diony­sus na­ture wor­ship flour­ished; the best of the cults was the Or­phic broth­er­hood, whose moral preach­ments and promises of sal­va­tion made a great ap­peal to many.

103:9.5Al­though re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence is a purely spir­i­tual sub­jec­tive phe­nom­e­non, such an ex­pe­ri­ence em­braces a pos­i­tive and liv­ing faith at­ti­tude to­ward the high­est realms of uni­verse ob­jec­tive re­al­ity. The ideal of re­li­gious phi­los­o­phy is such a faith-trust as would lead man un­qual­i­fiedly to de­pend upon the ab­so­lute love of the in­fi­nite Fa­ther of the uni­verse of uni­verses. Such a gen­uine re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence far tran­scends the philo­sophic ob­jec­ti­fi­ca­tion of ide­al­is­tic de­sire; it ac­tu­ally takes sal­va­tion for granted and con­cerns it­self only with learn­ing and do­ing the will of the Fa­ther in Par­a­dise. The ear­marks of such a re­li­gion are: faith in a su­preme De­ity, hope of eter­nal sur­vival, and love, es­pe­cially of one’s fel­lows.

156:5.20The God-con­scious mor­tal is cer­tain of sal­va­tion; he is un­afraid of life; he is hon­est and con­sis­tent. He knows how bravely to en­dure un­avoid­able suf­fer­ing; he is un­com­plain­ing when faced by in­es­cap­able hard­ship.

188:4.9All this con­cept of atone­ment and sac­ri­fi­cial sal­va­tion is rooted and grounded in self­ish­ness. Je­sus taught that ser­vice to one’s fel­lows is the high­est con­cept of the broth­er­hood of spirit be­liev­ers. Sal­va­tion should be taken for granted by those who be­lieve in the fa­ther­hood of God. The be­liever’s chief con­cern should not be the self­ish de­sire for per­sonal sal­va­tion but rather the un­selfish urge to love and, there­fore, serve one’s fel­lows even as Je­sus loved and served mor­tal men.

• free gift to all who believed in Melchizedek covenant

93:4.5And that was the whole of the creed of the Salem colony. But even such a short and sim­ple dec­la­ra­tion of faith was al­to­gether too much and too ad­vanced for the men of those days. They sim­ply could not grasp the idea of get­ting di­vine fa­vor for noth­ing—by faith. They were too deeply con­firmed in the be­lief that man was born un­der for­feit to the gods. Too long and too earnestly had they sac­ri­ficed and made gifts to the priests to be able to com­pre­hend the good news that sal­va­tion, di­vine fa­vor, was a free gift to all who would be­lieve in the Mel­chiz­e­dek covenant. But Abra­ham did be­lieve half­heart­edly, and even that was “counted for righ­teous­ness.”

• progressive morontia transformation

101:9.9Faith be­comes the con­nec­tion be­tween moral con­scious­ness and the spir­i­tual con­cept of en­dur­ing re­al­ity. Re­li­gion be­comes the av­enue of man’s es­cape from the ma­te­rial lim­i­ta­tions of the tem­po­ral and nat­u­ral world to the su­per­nal re­al­i­ties of the eter­nal and spir­i­tual world by and through the tech­nique of sal­va­tion, the pro­gres­sive mor­ontia trans­for­ma­tion.

• technique of divine evolution of mortal mind

103:7.2True sal­va­tion is the tech­nique of the di­vine evo­lu­tion of the mor­tal mind from mat­ter iden­ti­fi­ca­tion through the realms of mor­ontia li­ai­son to the high uni­verse sta­tus of spir­i­tual cor­re­la­tion. And as ma­te­rial in­tu­itive in­stinct pre­cedes the ap­pear­ance of rea­soned knowl­edge in ter­res­trial evo­lu­tion, so does the man­i­fes­ta­tion of spir­i­tual in­tu­itive in­sight presage the later ap­pear­ance of mor­ontia and spirit rea­son and ex­pe­ri­ence in the su­per­nal pro­gram of ce­les­tial evo­lu­tion, the busi­ness of trans­mut­ing the po­ten­tials of man the tem­po­ral into the ac­tu­al­ity and di­vin­ity of man the eter­nal, a Par­a­dise fi­nal­i­ter.

• spiritualization of moral consciousness

133:6.6“The sav­ing or los­ing of a soul has to do with whether or not the moral con­scious­ness at­tains sur­vival sta­tus through eter­nal al­liance with its as­so­ci­ated im­mor­tal spirit en­dow­ment. Sal­va­tion is the spir­i­tu­al­iza­tion of the self-re­al­iza­tion of the moral con­scious­ness, which thereby be­comes pos­sessed of sur­vival value. All forms of soul con­flict con­sist in the lack of har­mony be­tween the moral, or spir­i­tual, self-con­scious­ness and the purely in­tel­lec­tual self-con­scious­ness.

• not result of righteous life; cannot be earned

143:2.6“Sal­va­tion is by the re­gen­er­a­tion of the spirit and not by the self-righ­teous deeds of the flesh. You are jus­ti­fied by faith and fel­low­shipped by grace, not by fear and the self-de­nial of the flesh, al­beit the Fa­ther’s chil­dren who have been born of the spirit are ever and al­ways mas­ters of the self and all that per­tains to the de­sires of the flesh. When you know that you are saved by faith, you have real peace with God. And all who fol­low in the way of this heav­enly peace are des­tined to be sanc­ti­fied to the eter­nal ser­vice of the ever-ad­vanc­ing sons of the eter­nal God. Hence­forth, it is not a duty but rather your ex­alted priv­i­lege to cleanse your­selves from all evils of mind and body while you seek for per­fec­tion in the love of God.

• revealed by divine Sons

150:5.3“Sal­va­tion is the gift of the Fa­ther and is re­vealed by his Sons. Ac­cep­tance by faith on your part makes you a par­taker of the di­vine na­ture, a son or a daugh­ter of God. By faith you are jus­ti­fied; by faith are you saved; and by this same faith are you eter­nally ad­vanced in the way of pro­gres­sive and di­vine per­fec­tion. By faith was Abra­ham jus­ti­fied and made aware of sal­va­tion by the teach­ings of Mel­chiz­e­dek. All down through the ages has this same faith saved the sons of men, but now has a Son come forth from the Fa­ther to make sal­va­tion more real and ac­cept­able.”

• free gift to all with faith to believe they are God’s sons
• not result of righteous life; cannot be earned

150:5.5In sum­ming up his fi­nal state­ment, Je­sus said: “You can­not buy sal­va­tion; you can­not earn righ­teous­ness. Sal­va­tion is the gift of God, and righ­teous­ness is the nat­u­ral fruit of the spirit-born life of son­ship in the king­dom. You are not to be saved be­cause you live a righ­teous life; rather is it that you live a righ­teous life be­cause you have al­ready been saved, have rec­og­nized son­ship as the gift of God and ser­vice in the king­dom as the su­preme de­light of life on earth. When men be­lieve this gospel, which is a rev­e­la­tion of the good­ness of God, they will be led to vol­un­tary re­pen­tance of all known sin. Re­al­iza­tion of son­ship is in­com­pat­i­ble with the de­sire to sin. King­dom be­liev­ers hunger for righ­teous­ness and thirst for di­vine per­fec­tion.”

• available to all who sincerely seek

166:3.3“You also have an­other say­ing among you, and one that con­tains much truth: That the way which leads to eter­nal life is straight and nar­row, that the door which leads thereto is like­wise nar­row so that, of those who seek sal­va­tion, few can find en­trance through this door. You also have a teach­ing that the way which leads to de­struc­tion is broad, that the en­trance thereto is wide, and that there are many who choose to go this way. And this proverb is not with­out its mean­ing. But I de­clare that sal­va­tion is first a mat­ter of your per­sonal choos­ing. Even if the door to the way of life is nar­row, it is wide enough to ad­mit all who sin­cerely seek to en­ter, for I am that door. And the Son will never refuse en­trance to any child of the uni­verse who, by faith, seeks to find the Fa­ther through the Son.

166:3.4“But herein is the dan­ger to all who would post­pone their en­trance into the king­dom while they con­tinue to pur­sue the plea­sures of im­ma­tu­rity and in­dulge the sat­is­fac­tions of self­ish­ness: Hav­ing re­fused to en­ter the king­dom as a spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence, they may sub­se­quently seek en­trance thereto when the glory of the bet­ter way be­comes re­vealed in the age to come. And when, there­fore, those who spurned the king­dom when I came in the like­ness of hu­man­ity seek to find an en­trance when it is re­vealed in the like­ness of di­vin­ity, then will I say to all such self­ish ones: I know not whence you are. You had your chance to pre­pare for this heav­enly cit­i­zen­ship, but you re­fused all such prof­fers of mercy; you re­jected all in­vi­ta­tions to come while the door was open. Now, to you who have re­fused sal­va­tion, the door is shut. This door is not open to those who would en­ter the king­dom for self­ish glory. Sal­va­tion is not for those who are un­will­ing to pay the price of whole­hearted ded­i­ca­tion to do­ing my Fa­ther’s will. When in spirit and soul you have turned your backs upon the Fa­ther’s king­dom, it is use­less in mind and body to stand be­fore this door and knock, say­ing, ‘Lord, open to us; we would also be great in the king­dom.’ Then will I de­clare that you are not of my fold. I will not re­ceive you to be among those who have fought the good fight of faith and won the re­ward of un­selfish ser­vice in the king­dom on earth. And when you say, ‘Did we not eat and drink with you, and did you not teach in our streets?’ then shall I again de­clare that you are spir­i­tual strangers; that we were not fel­low ser­vants in the Fa­ther’s min­istry of mercy on earth; that I do not know you; and then shall the Judge of all the earth say to you: ‘De­part from us, all you who have taken de­light in the works of in­iq­uity.’

166:3.5“But fear not; ev­ery one who sin­cerely de­sires to find eter­nal life by en­trance into the king­dom of God shall cer­tainly find such ev­er­last­ing sal­va­tion. But you who refuse this sal­va­tion will some day see the proph­ets of the seed of Abra­ham sit down with the be­liev­ers of the gen­tile na­tions in this glo­ri­fied king­dom to par­take of the bread of life and to re­fresh them­selves with the wa­ter thereof. And they who shall thus take the king­dom in spir­i­tual power and by the per­sis­tent as­saults of liv­ing faith will come from the north and the south and from the east and the west. And, be­hold, many who are first will be last, and those who are last will many times be first.”

• free gift to all with faith to believe they are God’s sons
• not result of righteous life; cannot be earned

167:5.1On the way to Judea Je­sus was fol­lowed by a com­pany of al­most fifty of his friends and en­e­mies. At their noon lunchtime, on Wednes­day, he talked to his apos­tles and this group of fol­low­ers on the “Terms of Sal­va­tion,” and at the end of this les­son told the para­ble of the Phar­isee and the pub­li­can (a tax col­lec­tor). Said Je­sus: “You see, then, that the Fa­ther gives sal­va­tion to the chil­dren of men, and this sal­va­tion is a free gift to all who have the faith to re­ceive son­ship in the di­vine fam­ily. There is noth­ing man can do to earn this sal­va­tion. Works of self-righ­teous­ness can­not buy the fa­vor of God, and much pray­ing in pub­lic will not atone for lack of liv­ing faith in the heart. Men you may de­ceive by your out­ward ser­vice, but God looks into your souls. What I am telling you is well il­lus­trated by two men who went into the tem­ple to pray, the one a Phar­isee and the other a pub­li­can. The Phar­isee stood and prayed to him­self: ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men, ex­tor­tion­ers, un­learned, un­just, adul­ter­ers, or even like this pub­li­can. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the pub­li­can, stand­ing afar off, would not so much as lift his eyes to heaven but smote his breast, say­ing, ‘God be mer­ci­ful to me a sin­ner.’ I tell you that the pub­li­can went home with God’s ap­proval rather than the Phar­isee, for ev­ery one who ex­alts him­self shall be hum­bled, but he who hum­bles him­self shall be ex­alted.”

• revelation of divine purpose

170:2.87. The new gospel af­firmed that hu­man sal­va­tion is the rev­e­la­tion of a far-reach­ing di­vine pur­pose to be ful­filled and re­al­ized in the fu­ture des­tiny of the end­less ser­vice of the sal­vaged sons of God.

• free gift to all with faith to believe they are God’s sons

170:2.211. Faith, sin­cer­ity. To come as a lit­tle child, to re­ceive the be­stowal of son­ship as a gift; to sub­mit to the do­ing of the Fa­ther’s will with­out ques­tion­ing and in the full con­fi­dence and gen­uine trust­ful­ness of the Fa­ther’s wis­dom; to come into the king­dom free from prej­u­dice and pre­con­cep­tion; to be open-minded and teach­able like an un­spoiled child.

• free gift to all with faith to believe they are God’s sons

191:5.3“Peace be upon you. For a full week have I tar­ried that I might ap­pear again when you were all pres­ent to hear once more the com­mis­sion to go into all the world and preach this gospel of the king­dom. Again I tell you: As the Fa­ther sent me into the world, so send I you. As I have re­vealed the Fa­ther, so shall you re­veal the di­vine love, not merely with words, but in your daily liv­ing. I send you forth, not to love the souls of men, but rather to love men. You are not merely to pro­claim the joys of heaven but also to ex­hibit in your daily ex­pe­ri­ence these spirit re­al­i­ties of the di­vine life since you al­ready have eter­nal life, as the gift of God, through faith. When you have faith, when power from on high, the Spirit of Truth, has come upon you, you will not hide your light here be­hind closed doors; you will make known the love and the mercy of God to all man­kind. Through fear you now flee from the facts of a dis­agree­able ex­pe­ri­ence, but when you shall have been bap­tized with the Spirit of Truth, you will bravely and joy­ously go forth to meet the new ex­pe­ri­ences of pro­claim­ing the good news of eter­nal life in the king­dom of God. You may tarry here and in Gal­i­lee for a short sea­son while you re­cover from the shock of the tran­si­tion from the false se­cu­rity of the au­thor­ity of tra­di­tion­al­ism to the new or­der of the au­thor­ity of facts, truth, and faith in the su­preme re­al­i­ties of liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. Your mis­sion to the world is founded on the fact that I lived a God-re­veal­ing life among you; on the truth that you and all other men are the sons of God; and it shall con­sist in the life which you will live among men—the ac­tual and liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of lov­ing men and serv­ing them, even as I have loved and served you. Let faith re­veal your light to the world; let the rev­e­la­tion of truth open the eyes blinded by tra­di­tion; let your lov­ing ser­vice ef­fec­tu­ally de­stroy the prej­u­dice en­gen­dered by ig­no­rance. By so draw­ing close to your fel­low men in un­der­stand­ing sym­pa­thy and with un­selfish de­vo­tion, you will lead them into a sav­ing knowl­edge of the Fa­ther’s love. The Jews have ex­tolled good­ness; the Greeks have ex­alted beauty; the Hin­dus preach de­vo­tion; the far­away as­cetics teach rev­er­ence; the Ro­mans de­mand loy­alty; but I re­quire of my dis­ci­ples life, even a life of lov­ing ser­vice for your broth­ers in the flesh.”

• free gift to all with faith to believe they are God’s sons

193:1.2“Peace be upon you. You re­joice to know that I am the res­ur­rec­tion and the life, but this will avail you noth­ing un­less you are first born of the eter­nal spirit, thereby com­ing to pos­sess, by faith, the gift of eter­nal life. If you are the faith sons of my Fa­ther, you shall never die; you shall not per­ish. The gospel of the king­dom has taught you that all men are the sons of God. And this good news con­cern­ing the love of the heav­enly Fa­ther for his chil­dren on earth must be car­ried to all the world. The time has come when you wor­ship God nei­ther on Ger­izim nor at Je­ru­sa­lem, but where you are, as you are, in spirit and in truth. It is your faith that saves your souls. Sal­va­tion is the gift of God to all who be­lieve they are his sons. But be not de­ceived; while sal­va­tion is the free gift of God and is be­stowed upon all who ac­cept it by faith, there fol­lows the ex­pe­ri­ence of bear­ing the fruits of this spirit life as it is lived in the flesh. The ac­cep­tance of the doc­trine of the fa­ther­hood of God im­plies that you also freely ac­cept the as­so­ci­ated truth of the broth­er­hood of man. And if man is your brother, he is even more than your neigh­bor, whom the Fa­ther re­quires you to love as your­self. Your brother, be­ing of your own fam­ily, you will not only love with a fam­ily af­fec­tion, but you will also serve as you would serve your­self. And you will thus love and serve your brother be­cause you, be­ing my breth­ren, have been thus loved and served by me. Go, then, into all the world telling this good news to all crea­tures of ev­ery race, tribe, and na­tion. My spirit shall go be­fore you, and I will be with you al­ways.”

• free gift to all with faith to believe they are God’s sons

193:2.2“Peace be upon you. You re­joice to know that the Son of Man has risen from the dead be­cause you thereby know that you and your breth­ren shall also sur­vive mor­tal death. But such sur­vival is de­pen­dent on your hav­ing been pre­vi­ously born of the spirit of truth-seek­ing and God-find­ing. The bread of life and the wa­ter thereof are given only to those who hunger for truth and thirst for righ­teous­ness—for God. The fact that the dead rise is not the gospel of the king­dom. These great truths and these uni­verse facts are all re­lated to this gospel in that they are a part of the re­sult of be­liev­ing the good news and are em­braced in the sub­se­quent ex­pe­ri­ence of those who, by faith, be­come, in deed and in truth, the ev­er­last­ing sons of the eter­nal God. My Fa­ther sent me into the world to pro­claim this sal­va­tion of son­ship to all men. And so send I you abroad to preach this sal­va­tion of son­ship. Sal­va­tion is the free gift of God, but those who are born of the spirit will im­me­di­ately be­gin to show forth the fruits of the spirit in lov­ing ser­vice to their fel­low crea­tures. And the fruits of the di­vine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-know­ing mor­tals are: lov­ing ser­vice, un­selfish de­vo­tion, coura­geous loy­alty, sin­cere fair­ness, en­light­ened hon­esty, undy­ing hope, con­fid­ing trust, mer­ci­ful min­istry, un­fail­ing good­ness, for­giv­ing tol­er­ance, and en­dur­ing peace. If pro­fessed be­liev­ers bear not these fruits of the di­vine spirit in their lives, they are dead; the Spirit of Truth is not in them; they are use­less branches on the liv­ing vine, and they soon will be taken away. My Fa­ther re­quires of the chil­dren of faith that they bear much spirit fruit. If, there­fore, you are not fruit­ful, he will dig about your roots and cut away your un­fruit­ful branches. In­creas­ingly, must you yield the fruits of the spirit as you pro­gress heav­en­ward in the king­dom of God. You may en­ter the king­dom as a child, but the Fa­ther re­quires that you grow up, by grace, to the full stature of spir­i­tual adult­hood. And when you go abroad to tell all na­tions the good news of this gospel, I will go be­fore you, and my Spirit of Truth shall abide in your hearts. My peace I leave with you.”

• faith alone

96:7.7Only at Ur did a voice arise to cry out the mercy of God, say­ing: “He shall pray to God and shall find fa­vor with him and shall see his face with joy, for God will give to man di­vine righ­teous­ness.” Thus from Ur there is preached sal­va­tion, di­vine fa­vor, by faith: “He is gra­cious to the re­pen­tant and says, ‘De­liver him from go­ing down in the pit, for I have found a ran­som.’ If any say, ‘I have sinned and per­verted that which was right, and it prof­ited me not,’ God will de­liver his soul from go­ing into the pit, and he shall see the light.” Not since the times of Mel­chiz­e­dek had the Lev­an­tine world heard such a ring­ing and cheer­ing mes­sage of hu­man sal­va­tion as this ex­traor­di­nary teach­ing of Elihu, the prophet of Ur and priest of the Salem be­liev­ers, that is, the rem­nant of the one­time Mel­chiz­e­dek colony in Mes­o­po­ta­mia.

• faith alone

140:10.1That evening while teach­ing in the house, for it had be­gun to rain, Je­sus talked at great length, try­ing to show the twelve what they must be, not what they must do. They knew only a re­li­gion that im­posed the do­ing of cer­tain things as the means of at­tain­ing righ­teous­ness—sal­va­tion. But Je­sus would re­it­er­ate, “In the king­dom you must be righ­teous in or­der to do the work.” Many times did he re­peat, “Be you there­fore per­fect, even as your Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect.” All the while was the Mas­ter ex­plain­ing to his be­wil­dered apos­tles that the sal­va­tion which he had come to bring to the world was to be had only by be­liev­ing, by sim­ple and sin­cere faith. Said Je­sus: “John preached a bap­tism of re­pen­tance, sor­row for the old way of liv­ing. You are to pro­claim the bap­tism of fel­low­ship with God. Preach re­pen­tance to those who stand in need of such teach­ing, but to those al­ready seek­ing sin­cere en­trance to the king­dom, open the doors wide and bid them en­ter into the joy­ous fel­low­ship of the sons of God.” But it was a dif­fi­cult task to per­suade these Galilean fish­er­men that, in the king­dom, be­ing righ­teous, by faith, must pre­cede do­ing righ­teous­ness in the daily life of the mor­tals of earth.

• recognition of God’s sovereignty, our sonship, faith in our ability to be like God

140:10.9John asked Je­sus, “Mas­ter, what is the king­dom of heaven?” And Je­sus an­swered: “The king­dom of heaven con­sists in these three es­sen­tials: first, rec­og­ni­tion of the fact of the sov­er­eignty of God; sec­ond, be­lief in the truth of son­ship with God; and third, faith in the ef­fec­tive­ness of the su­preme hu­man de­sire to do the will of God—to be like God. And this is the good news of the gospel: that by faith ev­ery mor­tal may have all these es­sen­tials of sal­va­tion.”

• believing gospel, accepting divine forgiveness

141:6.4That night Je­sus dis­coursed to the apos­tles on the new life in the king­dom. He said in part: “When you en­ter the king­dom, you are re­born. You can­not teach the deep things of the spirit to those who have been born only of the flesh; first see that men are born of the spirit be­fore you seek to in­struct them in the ad­vanced ways of the spirit. Do not un­der­take to show men the beau­ties of the tem­ple un­til you have first taken them into the tem­ple. In­tro­duce men to God and as the sons of God be­fore you dis­course on the doc­trines of the fa­ther­hood of God and the son­ship of men. Do not strive with men—al­ways be pa­tient. It is not your king­dom; you are only am­bas­sadors. Sim­ply go forth pro­claim­ing: This is the king­dom of heaven—God is your Fa­ther and you are his sons, and this good news, if you whole­heart­edly be­lieve it, is your eter­nal sal­va­tion.”

• faith alone

141:7.6Je­sus laid great em­pha­sis upon what he called the two truths of first im­port in the teach­ings of the king­dom, and they are: the at­tain­ment of sal­va­tion by faith, and faith alone, as­so­ci­ated with the rev­o­lu­tion­ary teach­ing of the at­tain­ment of hu­man lib­erty through the sin­cere rec­og­ni­tion of truth, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Je­sus was the truth made man­i­fest in the flesh, and he prom­ised to send his Spirit of Truth into the hearts of all his chil­dren af­ter his re­turn to the Fa­ther in heaven.

• believing gospel, accepting divine forgiveness
• faith alone

150:5.2“When men and women ask what shall we do to be saved, you shall an­swer, Be­lieve this gospel of the king­dom; ac­cept di­vine for­give­ness. By faith rec­og­nize the in­dwelling spirit of God, whose ac­cep­tance makes you a son of God. Have you not read in the Scrip­tures where it says, ‘In the Lord have I righ­teous­ness and strength.’ Also where the Fa­ther says, ‘My righ­teous­ness is near; my sal­va­tion has gone forth, and my arms shall en­fold my peo­ple.’ ‘My soul shall be joy­ful in the love of my God, for he has clothed me with the gar­ments of sal­va­tion and has cov­ered me with the robe of his righ­teous­ness.’ Have you not also read of the Fa­ther that his name ‘shall be called the Lord our righ­teous­ness.’ ‘Take away the filthy rags of self-righ­teous­ness and clothe my son with the robe of di­vine righ­teous­ness and eter­nal sal­va­tion.’ It is for­ever true, ‘the just shall live by faith.’ En­trance into the Fa­ther’s king­dom is wholly free, but prog­ress—growth in grace—is es­sen­tial to con­tin­u­ance therein.

• faith alone

157:2.2When Je­sus had thus spo­ken, he with­drew and pre­pared for the evening con­fer­ence with his fol­low­ers. At this con­fer­ence it was de­cided to un­der­take a united mis­sion through­out all the cities and vil­lages of the De­capo­lis as soon as Je­sus and the twelve should re­turn from their pro­posed visit to Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi. The Mas­ter par­tic­i­pated in plan­ning for the De­capo­lis mis­sion and, in dis­miss­ing the com­pany, said: “I say to you, be­ware of the leaven of the Phar­isees and the Sad­ducees. Be not de­ceived by their show of much learn­ing and by their pro­found loy­alty to the forms of re­li­gion. Be only con­cerned with the spirit of liv­ing truth and the power of true re­li­gion. It is not the fear of a dead re­li­gion that will save you but rather your faith in a liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence in the spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties of the king­dom. Do not al­low your­selves to be­come blinded by prej­u­dice and par­a­lyzed by fear. Nei­ther per­mit rev­er­ence for the tra­di­tions so to per­vert your un­der­stand­ing that your eyes see not and your ears hear not. It is not the pur­pose of true re­li­gion merely to bring peace but rather to in­sure prog­ress. And there can be no peace in the heart or prog­ress in the mind un­less you fall whole­heart­edly in love with truth, the ide­als of eter­nal re­al­i­ties. The is­sues of life and death are be­ing set be­fore you—the sin­ful plea­sures of time against the righ­teous re­al­i­ties of eter­nity. Even now you should be­gin to find de­liv­er­ance from the bond­age of fear and doubt as you en­ter upon the liv­ing of the new life of faith and hope. And when the feel­ings of ser­vice for your fel­low men arise within your soul, do not sti­fle them; when the emo­tions of love for your neigh­bor well up within your heart, give ex­pres­sion to such urges of af­fec­tion in in­tel­li­gent min­istry to the real needs of your fel­lows.”

• faith alone

163:2.4Then An­drew brought to Je­sus a cer­tain rich young man who was a de­vout be­liever, and who de­sired to re­ceive or­di­na­tion. This young man, Mata­dor­mus, was a mem­ber of the Je­ru­sa­lem San­hedrin; he had heard Je­sus teach and had been sub­se­quently in­structed in the gospel of the king­dom by Pe­ter and the other apos­tles. Je­sus talked with Mata­dor­mus con­cern­ing the re­quire­ments of or­di­na­tion and re­quested that he de­fer de­ci­sion un­til af­ter he had thought more fully about the mat­ter. Early the next morn­ing, as Je­sus was go­ing for a walk, this young man ac­costed him and said: “Mas­ter, I would know from you the as­sur­ances of eter­nal life. See­ing that I have ob­served all the com­mand­ments from my youth, I would like to know what more I must do to gain eter­nal life?” In an­swer to this ques­tion Je­sus said: “If you keep all the com­mand­ments—do not com­mit adul­tery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false wit­ness, do not de­fraud, honor your par­ents—you do well, but sal­va­tion is the re­ward of faith, not merely of works. Do you be­lieve this gospel of the king­dom?” And Mata­dor­mus an­swered: “Yes, Mas­ter, I do be­lieve ev­ery­thing you and your apos­tles have taught me.” And Je­sus said, “Then are you in­deed my dis­ci­ple and a child of the king­dom.”

• faith alone

170:2.20Je­sus taught that, by faith, the be­liever en­ters the king­dom now. In the var­i­ous dis­courses he taught that two things are es­sen­tial to faith-en­trance into the king­dom:

• truth hunger

170:2.222. Truth hunger. The thirst for righ­teous­ness, a change of mind, the ac­quire­ment of the mo­tive to be like God and to find God.

• Melchizedek taught favor with God by faith

93:6.4This covenant of Mel­chiz­e­dek with Abra­ham rep­re­sents the great Uran­tian agree­ment be­tween di­vin­ity and hu­man­ity whereby God agrees to do ev­ery­thing; man only agrees to be­lieve God’s promises and fol­low his in­struc­tions. Here­to­fore it had been be­lieved that sal­va­tion could be se­cured only by works—sac­ri­fices and of­fer­ings; now, Mel­chiz­e­dek again brought to Uran­tia the good news that sal­va­tion, fa­vor with God, is to be had by faith. But this gospel of sim­ple faith in God was too ad­vanced; the Semitic tribes­men sub­se­quently pre­ferred to go back to the older sac­ri­fices and atone­ment for sin by the shed­ding of blood.

• Gautama Buddha › dying words were, ‘Work out your own s.’

94:7.6Gau­tama’s wife be­lieved her hus­band’s gospel and was the founder of an or­der of nuns. His son be­came his suc­ces­sor and greatly ex­tended the cult; he grasped the new idea of sal­va­tion through faith but in his later years wa­vered re­gard­ing the Salem gospel of di­vine fa­vor through faith alone, and in his old age his dy­ing words were, “Work out your own sal­va­tion.”

• Gautama Buddha › taught universal s.

94:7.7When pro­claimed at its best, Gau­tama’s gospel of uni­ver­sal sal­va­tion, free from sac­ri­fice, tor­ture, rit­ual, and priests, was a rev­o­lu­tion­ary and amaz­ing doc­trine for its time. And it came sur­pris­ingly near to be­ing a re­vival of the Salem gospel. It brought suc­cor to mil­lions of de­spair­ing souls, and not­with­stand­ing its grotesque per­ver­sion dur­ing later cen­turies, it still per­sists as the hope of mil­lions of hu­man be­ings.

• Gautama Buddha › taught achievement by human effort apart from divine help

94:8.17Ac­cord­ing to the orig­i­nal teach­ings of Gau­tama, sal­va­tion is achieved by hu­man ef­fort, apart from di­vine help; there is no place for sav­ing faith or prayers to super­hu­man pow­ers. Gau­tama, in his at­tempt to min­i­mize the su­per­sti­tions of In­dia, en­deav­ored to turn men away from the bla­tant claims of mag­i­cal sal­va­tion. And in mak­ing this ef­fort, he left the door wide open for his suc­ces­sors to mis­in­ter­pret his teach­ing and to pro­claim that all hu­man striv­ing for at­tain­ment is dis­taste­ful and painful. His fol­low­ers over­looked the fact that the high­est hap­pi­ness is linked with the in­tel­li­gent and en­thu­si­as­tic pur­suit of wor­thy goals, and that such achieve­ments con­sti­tute true prog­ress in cos­mic self-re­al­iza­tion.

• Tibetans believed endless repetition of rituals bestowed s.

94:10.2These sim­ple-minded Ti­betans would not wholly give up their an­cient magic and charms. Ex­am­i­na­tion of the re­li­gious cer­e­mo­ni­als of pres­ent-day Ti­betan rit­u­als re­veals an over­grown broth­er­hood of priests with shaven heads who prac­tice an elab­o­rate rit­ual em­brac­ing bells, chants, in­cense, pro­ces­sion­als, rosaries, im­ages, charms, pic­tures, holy wa­ter, gor­geous vest­ments, and elab­o­rate choirs. They have rigid dog­mas and crys­tal­lized creeds, mys­tic rites and spe­cial fasts. Their hi­er­ar­chy em­braces monks, nuns, ab­bots, and the Grand Lama. They pray to an­gels, saints, a Holy Mother, and the gods. They prac­tice con­fes­sions and be­lieve in pur­ga­tory. Their monas­ter­ies are ex­ten­sive and their cathe­drals mag­nif­i­cent. They keep up an end­less rep­e­ti­tion of sa­cred rit­u­als and be­lieve that such cer­e­mo­ni­als be­stow sal­va­tion. Prayers are fas­tened to a wheel, and with its turn­ing they be­lieve the pe­ti­tions be­come ef­fi­ca­cious. Among no other peo­ple of mod­ern times can be found the ob­ser­vance of so much from so many re­li­gions; and it is in­ev­i­ta­ble that such a cu­mu­la­tive liturgy would be­come in­or­di­nately cum­ber­some and in­tol­er­a­bly bur­den­some.

• Amida Buddha teaching of attainment by faith

94:12.3Among these be­liev­ers it is taught that the soul, upon ex­pe­ri­enc­ing death, may elect to en­joy a so­journ in Par­a­dise prior to en­ter­ing Nir­vana, the ul­ti­mate of ex­is­tence. It is pro­claimed that this new sal­va­tion is at­tained by faith in the di­vine mer­cies and lov­ing care of Amida, God of the Par­a­dise in the west. In their phi­los­o­phy, the Amidists hold to an In­fi­nite Re­al­ity which is be­yond all fi­nite mor­tal com­pre­hen­sion; in their re­li­gion, they cling to faith in the all-mer­ci­ful Amida, who so loves the world that he will not suf­fer one mor­tal who calls on his name in true faith and with a pure heart to fail in the at­tain­ment of the su­per­nal hap­pi­ness of Par­a­dise.

• Nalda dodged issue of personal s.

143:5.5By this time Nalda was sobered, and her bet­ter self was awak­ened. She was not an im­moral woman wholly by choice. She had been ruth­lessly and un­justly cast aside by her hus­band and in dire straits had con­sented to live with a cer­tain Greek as his wife, but with­out mar­riage. Nalda now felt greatly ashamed that she had so un­think­ingly spo­ken to Je­sus, and she most pen­i­tently ad­dressed the Mas­ter, say­ing: “My Lord, I re­pent of my man­ner of speak­ing to you, for I per­ceive that you are a holy man or maybe a prophet.” And she was just about to seek di­rect and per­sonal help from the Mas­ter when she did what so many have done be­fore and since—dodged the is­sue of per­sonal sal­va­tion by turn­ing to the dis­cus­sion of the­ol­ogy and phi­los­o­phy. She quickly turned the con­ver­sa­tion from her own needs to a the­o­log­i­cal con­tro­versy. Point­ing over to Mount Ger­izim, she con­tin­ued: “Our fa­thers wor­shiped on this moun­tain, and yet you would say that in Je­ru­sa­lem is the place where men ought to wor­ship; which, then, is the right place to wor­ship God?”

143:5.6Je­sus per­ceived the at­tempt of the woman’s soul to avoid di­rect and search­ing con­tact with its Maker, but he also saw that there was pres­ent in her soul a de­sire to know the bet­ter way of life. Af­ter all, there was in Nalda’s heart a true thirst for the liv­ing wa­ter; there­fore he dealt pa­tiently with her, say­ing: “Woman, let me say to you that the day is soon com­ing when nei­ther on this moun­tain nor in Je­ru­sa­lem will you wor­ship the Fa­ther. But now you wor­ship that which you know not, a mix­ture of the re­li­gion of many pa­gan gods and gen­tile philoso­phies. The Jews at least know whom they wor­ship; they have re­moved all con­fu­sion by con­cen­trat­ing their wor­ship upon one God, Yah­weh. But you should be­lieve me when I say that the hour will soon come—even now is—when all sin­cere wor­shipers will wor­ship the Fa­ther in spirit and in truth, for it is just such wor­shipers the Fa­ther seeks. God is spirit, and they who wor­ship him must wor­ship him in spirit and in truth. Your sal­va­tion comes not from know­ing how oth­ers should wor­ship or where but by re­ceiv­ing into your own heart this liv­ing wa­ter which I am of­fer­ing you even now.”

143:5.7But Nalda would make one more ef­fort to avoid the dis­cus­sion of the em­bar­rass­ing ques­tion of her per­sonal life on earth and the sta­tus of her soul be­fore God. Once more she re­sorted to ques­tions of gen­eral re­li­gion, say­ing: “Yes, I know, Sir, that John has preached about the com­ing of the Con­verter, he who will be called the De­liv­erer, and that, when he shall come, he will de­clare to us all things”—and Je­sus, in­ter­rupt­ing Nalda, said with startling as­sur­ance, “I who speak to you am he.”

• Zaccheus found s.

171:6.2They went at once to the home of Zac­cheus, and those who lived in Jeri­cho were much sur­prised that Je­sus would con­sent to abide with the chief pub­li­can. Even while the Mas­ter and his apos­tles lin­gered with Zac­cheus be­fore the door of his house, one of the Jeri­cho Phar­isees, stand­ing near by, said: “You see how this man has gone to lodge with a sin­ner, an apos­tate son of Abra­ham who is an ex­tor­tioner and a rob­ber of his own peo­ple.” And when Je­sus heard this, he looked down at Zac­cheus and smiled. Then Zac­cheus stood upon a stool and said: “Men of Jeri­cho, hear me! I may be a pub­li­can and a sin­ner, but the great Teacher has come to abide in my house; and be­fore he goes in, I tell you that I am go­ing to be­stow one half of all my goods upon the poor, and be­gin­ning to­mor­row, if I have wrong­fully ex­acted aught from any man, I will re­store four­fold. I am go­ing to seek sal­va­tion with all my heart and learn to do righ­teous­ness in the sight of God.”

171:6.3When Zac­cheus had ceased speak­ing, Je­sus said: “To­day has sal­va­tion come to this home, and you have be­come in­deed a son of Abra­ham.” And turn­ing to the crowd as­sem­bled about them, Je­sus said: “And mar­vel not at what I say nor take of­fense at what we do, for I have all along de­clared that the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost.”

187:4.1One of the brig­ands railed at Je­sus, say­ing, “If you are the Son of God, why do you not save your­self and us?” But when he had re­proached Je­sus, the other thief, who had many times heard the Mas­ter teach, said: “Do you have no fear even of God? Do you not see that we are suf­fer­ing justly for our deeds, but that this man suf­fers un­justly? Bet­ter that we should seek for­give­ness for our sins and sal­va­tion for our souls.” When Je­sus heard the thief say this, he turned his face to­ward him and smiled ap­prov­ingly. When the male­fac­tor saw the face of Je­sus turned to­ward him, he mus­tered up his cour­age, fanned the flick­er­ing flame of his faith, and said, “Lord, re­mem­ber me when you come into your king­dom.” And then Je­sus said, “Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you to­day, you shall some­time be with me in Par­a­dise.”

187:4.2The Mas­ter had time amidst the pangs of mor­tal death to lis­ten to the faith con­fes­sion of the be­liev­ing brig­and. When this thief reached out for sal­va­tion, he found de­liv­er­ance. Many times be­fore this he had been con­strained to be­lieve in Je­sus, but only in these last hours of con­scious­ness did he turn with a whole heart to­ward the Mas­ter’s teach­ing. When he saw the man­ner in which Je­sus faced death upon the cross, this thief could no longer re­sist the con­vic­tion that this Son of Man was in­deed the Son of God.

187:4.3Dur­ing this episode of the con­ver­sion and re­cep­tion of the thief into the king­dom by Je­sus, the Apos­tle John was ab­sent, hav­ing gone into the city to bring his mother and her friends to the scene of the cru­ci­fix­ion. Luke sub­se­quently heard this story from the con­verted Ro­man cap­tain of the guard.

187:4.4The Apos­tle John told about the cru­ci­fix­ion as he re­mem­bered the event two thirds of a cen­tury af­ter its oc­cur­rence. The other rec­ords were based upon the recital of the Ro­man cen­tu­rion on duty who, be­cause of what he saw and heard, sub­se­quently be­lieved in Je­sus and en­tered into the full fel­low­ship of the king­dom of heaven on earth.

187:4.5This young man, the pen­i­tent brig­and, had been led into a life of vi­o­lence and wrong­do­ing by those who ex­tolled such a ca­reer of rob­bery as an ef­fec­tive pa­tri­otic protest against po­lit­i­cal op­pres­sion and so­cial in­jus­tice. And this sort of teach­ing, plus the urge for ad­ven­ture, led many oth­er­wise well-mean­ing youths to en­list in these dar­ing ex­pe­di­tions of rob­bery. This young man had looked upon Barab­bas as a hero. Now he saw that he had been mis­taken. Here on the cross be­side him he saw a re­ally great man, a true hero. Here was a hero who fired his zeal and in­spired his high­est ideas of moral self-re­spect and quick­ened all his ide­als of cour­age, man­hood, and brav­ery. In be­hold­ing Je­sus, there sprang up in his heart an over­whelm­ing sense of love, loy­alty, and gen­uine great­ness.

187:4.6And if any other per­son among the jeer­ing crowd had ex­pe­ri­enced the birth of faith within his soul and had ap­pealed to the mercy of Je­sus, he would have been re­ceived with the same lov­ing con­sid­er­a­tion that was dis­played to­ward the be­liev­ing brig­and.

187:4.7Just af­ter the re­pen­tant thief heard the Mas­ter’s prom­ise that they should some­time meet in Par­a­dise, John re­turned from the city, bring­ing with him his mother and a com­pany of al­most a dozen women be­liev­ers. John took up his po­si­tion near Mary the mother of Je­sus, sup­port­ing her. Her son Jude stood on the other side. As Je­sus looked down upon this scene, it was noon­tide, and he said to his mother, “Woman, be­hold your son!” And speak­ing to John, he said, “My son, be­hold your mother!” And then he ad­dressed them both, say­ing, “I de­sire that you de­part from this place.” And so John and Jude led Mary away from Gol­go­tha. John took the mother of Je­sus to the place where he tar­ried in Je­ru­sa­lem and then has­tened back to the scene of the cru­ci­fix­ion. Af­ter the Pass­over Mary re­turned to Beth­saida, where she lived at John’s home for the rest of her nat­u­ral life. Mary did not live quite one year af­ter the death of Je­sus.

187:4.8Af­ter Mary left, the other women with­drew for a short dis­tance and re­mained in at­ten­dance upon Je­sus un­til he ex­pired on the cross, and they were yet stand­ing by when the body of the Mas­ter was taken down for burial.

149:6.4“In­tel­li­gent chil­dren do not fear their fa­ther in or­der that they may re­ceive good gifts from his hand; but hav­ing al­ready re­ceived the abun­dance of good things be­stowed by the dic­tates of the fa­ther’s af­fec­tion for his sons and daugh­ters, these much loved chil­dren are led to love their fa­ther in re­spon­sive rec­og­ni­tion and ap­pre­ci­a­tion of such mu­nif­i­cent benef­i­cence. The good­ness of God leads to re­pen­tance; the benef­i­cence of God leads to ser­vice; the mercy of God leads to sal­va­tion; while the love of God leads to in­tel­li­gent and free­hearted wor­ship.

192:2.1When they had fin­ished break­fast, and while the oth­ers sat by the fire, Je­sus beck­oned to Pe­ter and to John that they should come with him for a stroll on the beach. As they walked along, Je­sus said to John, “John, do you love me?” And when John an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, with all my heart,” the Mas­ter said: “Then, John, give up your in­tol­er­ance and learn to love men as I have loved you. De­vote your life to prov­ing that love is the great­est thing in the world. It is the love of God that im­pels men to seek sal­va­tion. Love is the an­ces­tor of all spir­i­tual good­ness, the essence of the true and the beau­ti­ful.”

188:5.2The cross for­ever shows that the at­ti­tude of Je­sus to­ward sin­ners was nei­ther con­dem­na­tion nor con­do­na­tion, but rather eter­nal and lov­ing sal­va­tion. Je­sus is truly a sav­ior in the sense that his life and death do win men over to good­ness and righ­teous sur­vival. Je­sus loves men so much that his love awak­ens the re­sponse of love in the hu­man heart. Love is truly con­ta­gious and eter­nally cre­ative. Je­sus’ death on the cross ex­em­pli­fies a love which is suf­fi­ciently strong and di­vine to for­give sin and swal­low up all evil-do­ing. Je­sus dis­closed to this world a higher qual­ity of righ­teous­ness than jus­tice—mere tech­ni­cal right and wrong. Di­vine love does not merely for­give wrongs; it ab­sorbs and ac­tu­ally de­stroys them. The for­give­ness of love ut­terly tran­scends the for­give­ness of mercy. Mercy sets the guilt of evil-do­ing to one side; but love de­stroys for­ever the sin and all weak­ness re­sult­ing there­from. Je­sus brought a new method of liv­ing to Uran­tia. He taught us not to re­sist evil but to find through him a good­ness which ef­fec­tu­ally de­stroys evil. The for­give­ness of Je­sus is not con­do­na­tion; it is sal­va­tion from con­dem­na­tion. Sal­va­tion does not slight wrongs; it makes them right. True love does not com­pro­mise nor con­done hate; it de­stroys it. The love of Je­sus is never sat­is­fied with mere for­give­ness. The Mas­ter’s love im­plies re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, eter­nal sur­vival. It is al­to­gether proper to speak of sal­va­tion as re­demp­tion if you mean this eter­nal re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

132:7.2“Ga­nid, the man was not hun­gry for truth. He was not dis­sat­is­fied with him­self. He was not ready to ask for help, and the eyes of his mind were not open to re­ceive light for the soul. That man was not ripe for the har­vest of sal­va­tion; he must be al­lowed more time for the tri­als and dif­fi­cul­ties of life to pre­pare him for the re­cep­tion of wis­dom and higher learn­ing. Or, if we could have him live with us, we might by our lives show him the Fa­ther in heaven, and thus would he be­come so at­tracted by our lives as sons of God that he would be con­strained to in­quire about our Fa­ther. You can­not re­veal God to those who do not seek for him; you can­not lead un­will­ing souls into the joys of sal­va­tion. Man must be­come hun­gry for truth as a re­sult of the ex­pe­ri­ences of liv­ing, or he must de­sire to know God as the re­sult of con­tact with the lives of those who are ac­quainted with the di­vine Fa­ther be­fore an­other hu­man be­ing can act as the means of lead­ing such a fel­low mor­tal to the Fa­ther in heaven. If we know God, our real busi­ness on earth is so to live as to per­mit the Fa­ther to re­veal him­self in our lives, and thus will all God-seek­ing per­sons see the Fa­ther and ask for our help in find­ing out more about the God who in this man­ner finds ex­pres­sion in our lives.”

146:2.54. There is a ba­sic law of jus­tice in the uni­verse which mercy is pow­er­less to cir­cum­vent. The un­selfish glo­ries of Par­a­dise are not pos­si­ble of re­cep­tion by a thor­oughly self­ish crea­ture of the realms of time and space. Even the in­fi­nite love of God can­not force the sal­va­tion of eter­nal sur­vival upon any mor­tal crea­ture who does not choose to sur­vive. Mercy has great lat­i­tude of be­stowal, but, af­ter all, there are man­dates of jus­tice which even love com­bined with mercy can­not ef­fec­tively ab­ro­gate. Again Je­sus quoted from the He­brew scrip­tures: “I have called and you re­fused to hear; I stretched out my hand, but no man re­garded. You have set at naught all my coun­sel, and you have re­jected my re­proof, and be­cause of this re­bel­lious at­ti­tude it be­comes in­ev­i­ta­ble that you shall call upon me and fail to re­ceive an an­swer. Hav­ing re­jected the way of life, you may seek me dili­gently in your times of suf­fer­ing, but you will not find me.”

150:5.1One evening at Shunem, af­ter John’s apos­tles had re­turned to He­bron, and af­ter Je­sus’ apos­tles had been sent out two and two, when the Mas­ter was en­gaged in teach­ing a group of twelve of the younger evan­ge­lists who were la­bor­ing un­der the di­rec­tion of Ja­cob, to­gether with the twelve women, Rachel asked Je­sus this ques­tion: “Mas­ter, what shall we an­swer when women ask us, What shall I do to be saved?” When Je­sus heard this ques­tion, he an­swered:

150:5.4When Je­sus had left off speak­ing, there was great re­joic­ing among those who had heard these gra­cious words, and they all went on in the days that fol­lowed pro­claim­ing the gospel of the king­dom with new power and with re­newed en­ergy and en­thu­si­asm. And the women re­joiced all the more to know they were in­cluded in these plans for the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom on earth.

2:4.1Mercy is sim­ply jus­tice tem­pered by that wis­dom which grows out of per­fec­tion of knowl­edge and the full rec­og­ni­tion of the nat­u­ral weak­nesses and en­vi­ron­men­tal hand­i­caps of fi­nite crea­tures. “Our God is full of com­pas­sion, gra­cious, long-suf­fer­ing, and plen­teous in mercy.” There­fore “whoso­ever calls upon the Lord shall be saved,” “for he will abun­dantly par­don.” “The mercy of the Lord is from ev­er­last­ing to ev­er­last­ing”; yes, “his mercy en­dures for­ever.” “I am the Lord who ex­e­cutes lov­ing-kind­ness, judg­ment, and righ­teous­ness in the earth, for in these things I de­light.” “I do not af­flict will­ingly nor grieve the chil­dren of men,” for I am “the Fa­ther of mer­cies and the God of all com­fort.”

131:3.4“Cheer­ful­ness and glad­ness are the re­wards of deeds well done and to the glory of the Im­mor­tal. No man can rob you of the lib­erty of your own mind. When the faith of your re­li­gion has eman­ci­pated your heart, when the mind, like a moun­tain, is set­tled and im­mov­able, then shall the peace of the soul flow tran­quilly like a river of wa­ters. Those who are sure of sal­va­tion are for­ever free from lust, envy, ha­tred, and the delu­sions of wealth. While faith is the en­ergy of the bet­ter life, nev­er­the­less, must you work out your own sal­va­tion with per­se­ver­ance. If you would be cer­tain of your fi­nal sal­va­tion, then make sure that you sin­cerely seek to ful­fill all righ­teous­ness. Cul­ti­vate the as­sur­ance of the heart which springs from within and thus come to en­joy the ec­stasy of eter­nal sal­va­tion.