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word of God

14 paragraphs · about 7 minutes

Every paragraph the index cites under word of God, once, in the order of the book. Beside each stand the entries that cite it.

6:0.1The Eter­nal Son is the per­fect and fi­nal ex­pres­sion of the “first” per­sonal and ab­so­lute con­cept of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. Ac­cord­ingly, when­ever and how­ever the Fa­ther per­son­ally and ab­so­lutely ex­presses him­self, he does so through his Eter­nal Son, who ever has been, now is, and ever will be, the liv­ing and di­vine Word. And this Eter­nal Son is res­i­den­tial at the cen­ter of all things, in as­so­ci­a­tion with, and im­me­di­ately en­shroud­ing the per­sonal pres­ence of, the Eter­nal and Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

6:1.3The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther never per­son­ally func­tions as a cre­ator ex­cept in con­junc­tion with the Son or with the co-or­di­nate ac­tion of the Son. Had the New Tes­ta­ment writer re­ferred to the Eter­nal Son, he would have ut­tered the truth when he wrote: “In the be­gin­ning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him, and with­out him was not any­thing made that was made.”

6:2.2The Eter­nal Son is the eter­nal Word of God. He is wholly like the Fa­ther; in fact, the Eter­nal Son is God the Fa­ther per­son­ally man­i­fest to the uni­verse of uni­verses. And thus it was and is and for­ever will be true of the Eter­nal Son and of all the co-or­di­nate Cre­ator Sons: “He who has seen the Son has seen the Fa­ther.”

6:8.3As per­sons you may con­ceive of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther and the Eter­nal Son as sep­a­rate in­di­vid­u­als, for they in­deed are; but in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the uni­verses they are so in­ter­twined and in­ter­re­lated that it is not al­ways pos­si­ble to dis­tin­guish be­tween them. When, in the af­fairs of the uni­verses, the Fa­ther and the Son are en­coun­tered in con­fus­ing in­teras­so­ci­a­tions, it is not al­ways prof­itable to at­tempt to seg­re­gate their op­er­a­tions; merely re­call that God is the ini­ti­at­ing thought and the Son is the ex­pres­sion­ful word. In each lo­cal uni­verse this in­sep­a­ra­bil­ity is per­son­al­ized in the di­vin­ity of the Cre­ator Son, who stands for both Fa­ther and Son to the crea­tures of ten mil­lion in­hab­ited worlds.

10:3.3The di­vine Sons are in­deed the “Word of God,” but the chil­dren of the Spirit are truly the “Act of God.” God speaks through the Son and, with the Son, acts through the In­fi­nite Spirit, while in all uni­verse ac­tiv­i­ties the Son and the Spirit are ex­qui­sitely fra­ter­nal, work­ing as two equal broth­ers with ad­mi­ra­tion and love for an hon­ored and di­vinely re­spected com­mon Fa­ther.

14:6.15The Ha­vona worlds and their per­fect in­hab­i­tants are the first and the eter­nally fi­nal dem­on­stra­tion that the Son is the Word of the Fa­ther. Thereby is the con­scious­ness of the Son as an in­fi­nite com­ple­ment of the Fa­ther per­fectly grat­i­fied.

20:5.1The Eter­nal Son is the eter­nal Word of God. The Eter­nal Son is the per­fect ex­pres­sion of the “first” ab­so­lute and in­fi­nite thought of his eter­nal Fa­ther. When a per­sonal du­pli­ca­tion or di­vine ex­ten­sion of this Orig­i­nal Son starts on a be­stowal mis­sion of mor­tal in­car­na­tion, it be­comes lit­er­ally true that the di­vine “Word is made flesh,” and that the Word thus dwells among the lowly be­ings of an­i­mal ori­gin.

56:2.1The Thought-Fa­ther re­al­izes spirit ex­pres­sion in the Word-Son and at­tains re­al­ity ex­pan­sion through Par­a­dise in the far-flung ma­te­rial uni­verses. The spir­i­tual ex­pres­sions of the Eter­nal Son are cor­re­lated with the ma­te­rial lev­els of cre­ation by the func­tions of the In­fi­nite Spirit, by whose spirit-re­spon­sive min­istry of mind, and in whose phys­i­cal-di­rec­tive acts of mind, the spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties of De­ity and the ma­te­rial reper­cus­sions of De­ity are cor­re­lated the one with the other.

98:7.96. The per­sonal view­point of Paul of Tar­sus. And it should be re­corded that Mith­ra­ism was the dom­i­nant re­li­gion of Tar­sus dur­ing his ado­les­cence. Paul lit­tle dreamed that his well-in­ten­tioned let­ters to his con­verts would some­day be re­garded by still later Chris­tians as the “word of God.” Such well-mean­ing teach­ers must not be held ac­count­able for the use made of their writ­ings by later-day suc­ces­sors.

153:3.2One of the vis­it­ing Phar­isees, mount­ing a lamp­stand, shouted out this ques­tion: “You tell us that you are the bread of life. How can you give us your flesh to eat or your blood to drink? What avail is your teach­ing if it can­not be car­ried out?” And Je­sus an­swered this ques­tion, say­ing: “I did not teach you that my flesh is the bread of life nor that my blood is the wa­ter thereof. But I did say that my life in the flesh is a be­stowal of the bread of heaven. The fact of the Word of God be­stowed in the flesh and the phe­nom­e­non of the Son of Man sub­ject to the will of God, con­sti­tute a re­al­ity of ex­pe­ri­ence which is equiv­a­lent to the di­vine sus­te­nance. You can­not eat my flesh nor can you drink my blood, but you can be­come one in spirit with me even as I am one in spirit with the Fa­ther. You can be nour­ished by the eter­nal word of God, which is in­deed the bread of life, and which has been be­stowed in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh; and you can be wa­tered in soul by the di­vine spirit, which is truly the wa­ter of life. The Fa­ther has sent me into the world to show how he de­sires to in­dwell and di­rect all men; and I have so lived this life in the flesh as to in­spire all men like­wise ever to seek to know and do the will of the in­dwelling heav­enly Fa­ther.”

155:6.2You have come out from among those of your fel­lows who choose to re­main sat­is­fied with a re­li­gion of mind, who crave se­cu­rity and pre­fer con­for­mity. You have elected to ex­change your feel­ings of au­thor­i­ta­tive cer­tainty for the as­sur­ances of the spirit of ad­ven­tur­ous and pro­gres­sive faith. You have dared to protest against the gru­el­ing bond­age of in­sti­tu­tional re­li­gion and to re­ject the au­thor­ity of the tra­di­tions of rec­ord which are now re­garded as the word of God. Our Fa­ther did in­deed speak through Moses, Eli­jah, Isa­iah, Amos, and Hosea, but he did not cease to min­is­ter words of truth to the world when these proph­ets of old made an end of their ut­ter­ances. My Fa­ther is no re­specter of races or gen­er­a­tions in that the word of truth is vouch­safed one age and with­held from an­other. Com­mit not the folly of call­ing that di­vine which is wholly hu­man, and fail not to dis­cern the words of truth which come not through the tra­di­tional or­a­cles of sup­posed in­spi­ra­tion.

155:6.3–11 · nine paragraphs not cited here ·

155:6.3I have called upon you to be born again, to be born of the spirit. I have called you out of the dark­ness of au­thor­ity and the lethargy of tra­di­tion into the tran­scen­dent light of the re­al­iza­tion of the pos­si­bil­ity of mak­ing for your­selves the great­est dis­cov­ery pos­si­ble for the hu­man soul to make—the su­per­nal ex­pe­ri­ence of find­ing God for your­self, in your­self, and of your­self, and of do­ing all this as a fact in your own per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence. And so may you pass from death to life, from the au­thor­ity of tra­di­tion to the ex­pe­ri­ence of know­ing God; thus will you pass from dark­ness to light, from a racial faith in­her­ited to a per­sonal faith achieved by ac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence; and thereby will you pro­gress from a the­ol­ogy of mind handed down by your an­ces­tors to a true re­li­gion of spirit which shall be built up in your souls as an eter­nal en­dow­ment.

155:6.4Your re­li­gion shall change from the mere in­tel­lec­tual be­lief in tra­di­tional au­thor­ity to the ac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence of that liv­ing faith which is able to grasp the re­al­ity of God and all that re­lates to the di­vine spirit of the Fa­ther. The re­li­gion of the mind ties you hope­lessly to the past; the re­li­gion of the spirit con­sists in pro­gres­sive rev­e­la­tion and ever beck­ons you on to­ward higher and holier achieve­ments in spir­i­tual ide­als and eter­nal re­al­i­ties.

155:6.5While the re­li­gion of au­thor­ity may im­part a pres­ent feel­ing of set­tled se­cu­rity, you pay for such a tran­sient sat­is­fac­tion the price of the loss of your spir­i­tual free­dom and re­li­gious lib­erty. My Fa­ther does not re­quire of you as the price of en­ter­ing the king­dom of heaven that you should force your­self to sub­scribe to a be­lief in things which are spir­i­tu­ally re­pug­nant, un­holy, and un­truth­ful. It is not re­quired of you that your own sense of mercy, jus­tice, and truth should be out­raged by sub­mis­sion to an out­worn sys­tem of re­li­gious forms and cer­e­monies. The re­li­gion of the spirit leaves you for­ever free to fol­low the truth wher­ever the lead­ings of the spirit may take you. And who can judge—per­haps this spirit may have some­thing to im­part to this gen­er­a­tion which other gen­er­a­tions have re­fused to hear?

155:6.6Shame on those false re­li­gious teach­ers who would drag hun­gry souls back into the dim and dis­tant past and there leave them! And so are these un­for­tu­nate per­sons doomed to be­come fright­ened by ev­ery new dis­cov­ery, while they are dis­com­fited by ev­ery new rev­e­la­tion of truth. The prophet who said, “He will be kept in per­fect peace whose mind is stayed on God,” was not a mere in­tel­lec­tual be­liever in au­thor­i­ta­tive the­ol­ogy. This truth-know­ing hu­man had dis­cov­ered God; he was not merely talk­ing about God.

155:6.7I ad­mon­ish you to give up the prac­tice of al­ways quot­ing the proph­ets of old and prais­ing the heroes of Is­rael, and in­stead as­pire to be­come liv­ing proph­ets of the Most High and spir­i­tual heroes of the com­ing king­dom. To honor the God-know­ing lead­ers of the past may in­deed be worth while, but why, in so do­ing, should you sac­ri­fice the su­preme ex­pe­ri­ence of hu­man ex­is­tence: find­ing God for your­selves and know­ing him in your own souls?

155:6.8Ev­ery race of man­kind has its own men­tal out­look upon hu­man ex­is­tence; there­fore must the re­li­gion of the mind ever run true to these var­i­ous racial view­points. Never can the re­li­gions of au­thor­ity come to uni­fi­ca­tion. Hu­man unity and mor­tal broth­er­hood can be achieved only by and through the super­en­dow­ment of the re­li­gion of the spirit. Racial minds may dif­fer, but all man­kind is in­dwelt by the same di­vine and eter­nal spirit. The hope of hu­man broth­er­hood can only be re­al­ized when, and as, the di­ver­gent mind re­li­gions of au­thor­ity be­come im­preg­nated with, and over­shad­owed by, the uni­fy­ing and en­nobling re­li­gion of the spirit—the re­li­gion of per­sonal spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence.

155:6.9The re­li­gions of au­thor­ity can only di­vide men and set them in con­sci­en­tious ar­ray against each other; the re­li­gion of the spirit will pro­gres­sively draw men to­gether and cause them to be­come un­der­stand­ingly sym­pa­thetic with one an­other. The re­li­gions of au­thor­ity re­quire of men uni­for­mity in be­lief, but this is im­pos­si­ble of re­al­iza­tion in the pres­ent state of the world. The re­li­gion of the spirit re­quires only unity of ex­pe­ri­ence—uni­for­mity of des­tiny—mak­ing full al­lowance for di­ver­sity of be­lief. The re­li­gion of the spirit re­quires only uni­for­mity of in­sight, not uni­for­mity of view­point and out­look. The re­li­gion of the spirit does not de­mand uni­for­mity of in­tel­lec­tual views, only unity of spirit feel­ing. The re­li­gions of au­thor­ity crys­tal­lize into life­less creeds; the re­li­gion of the spirit grows into the in­creas­ing joy and lib­erty of en­nobling deeds of lov­ing ser­vice and mer­ci­ful min­is­tra­tion.

155:6.10But watch, lest any of you look with dis­dain upon the chil­dren of Abra­ham be­cause they have fallen on these evil days of tra­di­tional bar­ren­ness. Our fore­fa­thers gave them­selves up to the per­sis­tent and pas­sion­ate search for God, and they found him as no other whole race of men have ever known him since the times of Adam, who knew much of this as he was him­self a Son of God. My Fa­ther has not failed to mark the long and un­tir­ing strug­gle of Is­rael, ever since the days of Moses, to find God and to know God. For weary gen­er­a­tions the Jews have not ceased to toil, sweat, groan, tra­vail, and en­dure the suf­fer­ings and ex­pe­ri­ence the sor­rows of a mis­un­der­stood and de­spised peo­ple, all in or­der that they might come a lit­tle nearer the dis­cov­ery of the truth about God. And, not­with­stand­ing all the fail­ures and fal­ter­ings of Is­rael, our fa­thers pro­gres­sively, from Moses to the times of Amos and Hosea, did re­veal in­creas­ingly to the whole world an ever clearer and more truth­ful pic­ture of the eter­nal God. And so was the way pre­pared for the still greater rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther which you have been called to share.

155:6.11Never for­get there is only one ad­ven­ture which is more sat­is­fy­ing and thrilling than the at­tempt to dis­cover the will of the liv­ing God, and that is the su­preme ex­pe­ri­ence of hon­estly try­ing to do that di­vine will. And fail not to re­mem­ber that the will of God can be done in any earthly oc­cu­pa­tion. Some call­ings are not holy and oth­ers sec­u­lar. All things are sa­cred in the lives of those who are spirit led; that is, sub­or­di­nated to truth, en­no­bled by love, dom­i­nated by mercy, and re­strained by fair­ness—jus­tice. The spirit which my Fa­ther and I shall send into the world is not only the Spirit of Truth but also the spirit of ide­al­is­tic beauty.

155:6.12You must cease to seek for the word of God only on the pages of the olden rec­ords of the­o­logic au­thor­ity. Those who are born of the spirit of God shall hence­forth dis­cern the word of God re­gard­less of whence it ap­pears to take ori­gin. Di­vine truth must not be dis­counted be­cause the chan­nel of its be­stowal is ap­par­ently hu­man. Many of your breth­ren have minds which ac­cept the the­ory of God while they spir­i­tu­ally fail to re­al­ize the pres­ence of God. And that is just the rea­son why I have so of­ten taught you that the king­dom of heaven can best be re­al­ized by ac­quir­ing the spir­i­tual at­ti­tude of a sin­cere child. It is not the men­tal im­ma­tu­rity of the child that I com­mend to you but rather the spir­i­tual sim­plic­ity of such an easy-be­liev­ing and fully-trust­ing lit­tle one. It is not so im­por­tant that you should know about the fact of God as that you should in­creas­ingly grow in the abil­ity to feel the pres­ence of God.

174:5.7“He who be­lieves this gospel, be­lieves not merely in me but in Him who sent me. When you look upon me, you see not only the Son of Man but also Him who sent me. I am the light of the world, and whoso­ever will be­lieve my teach­ing shall no longer abide in dark­ness. If you gen­tiles will hear me, you shall re­ceive the words of life and shall en­ter forth­with into the joy­ous lib­erty of the truth of son­ship with God. If my fel­low coun­try­men, the Jews, choose to re­ject me and to refuse my teach­ings, I will not sit in judg­ment on them, for I came not to judge the world but to of­fer it sal­va­tion. Nev­er­the­less, they who re­ject me and refuse to re­ceive my teach­ing shall be brought to judg­ment in due sea­son by my Fa­ther and those whom he has ap­pointed to sit in judg­ment on such as re­ject the gift of mercy and the truths of sal­va­tion. Re­mem­ber, all of you, that I speak not of my­self, but that I have faith­fully de­clared to you that which the Fa­ther com­manded I should re­veal to the chil­dren of men. And these words which the Fa­ther di­rected me to speak to the world are words of di­vine truth, ev­er­last­ing mercy, and eter­nal life.

179:5.3When they had fin­ished drink­ing this new cup of re­mem­brance, the Mas­ter took up the bread and, af­ter giv­ing thanks, broke it in pieces and, di­rect­ing them to pass it around, said: “Take this bread of re­mem­brance and eat it. I have told you that I am the bread of life. And this bread of life is the united life of the Fa­ther and the Son in one gift. The word of the Fa­ther, as re­vealed in the Son, is in­deed the bread of life.” When they had par­taken of the bread of re­mem­brance, the sym­bol of the liv­ing word of truth in­car­nated in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, they all sat down.

Onward

See Jesus: personality and nature: God incarnate in man

Cited alongside: Eternal Son, Universal Father, Jesus, Creator Sons, sacred books, bread, God, Infinite Spirit