From Bethlehem to Calvary - Daily: Friday, 7th of November [Chapter V - The Fourth Initiation - The Crucifixion] II. When the Church lays its emphasis upon the living Christ, and when it recognizes that its forms and ceremonies, its festivals and rituals are inherited from a very ancient past, we shall then have the emergence of a new religion which will be as much divorced from form and the past as the kingdom of God is divorced from matter and the body nature. Orthodox religion, as a whole, can be regarded as cross upon which we have crucified Christ; it has served its purpose as the custodian of the ages and the preserver of ancient forms, but it must enter into new life and pass through the resurrection if it is to meet the need of the deeply spiritual humanity of today. Nations, like individuals, we are told, are made, not only by what they acquire but by what they resign, and this is true also of religion at this time. (The Supreme Spiritual Ideal, by Sir Radhakrishnan, Hibbert Journal, October 1936.) Its form must be sacrificed upon the Cross of Christ in order that it may be resurrected into true and vital life for the meeting of the peoples need. Let a living Christ be its theme, and not a dying Savior. Christ has died. About that let there be no mistake. The Christ of history passed through the gates of death for us. The cosmic [189] Christ its still dying upon the Cross of Matter. There He hangs fixed until the last weary pilgrim shall find his way home. (The Secret Doctrin, Vol. I, p. 229.) The planetary Christ, the life of the four kingdoms of nature, has been crucified on the four arms of the planetary Cross down the ages. But the end of this period of crucifixion is close upon us. Mankind can descend from the cross as Christ did, and enter into the kingdom of God, a living spirit. The sons of God are ready to be manifested. Today as never before: The Spirit Himself bears witness with our own spirits that we are children of God; and if children, then heirs too - heirs of God and coheirs with Christ; if indeed we share Christs sufferings, in order to share also His glory... All creation is yearning, longing to see the manifestation of the sons of God. For the Creation was made subject to futility, not of its own choice, but by the will of Him who so subjected it; yet with the hope that at last the Creation itself would be set free from the thralldom of decay to enjoy the liberty that comes with the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole of Creation is moaning in the pangs of childbirth until this hour. And more than that, we ourselves, though we possess the Spirit as a foretaste of bliss, yet we ourselves moan as we wait for full sonship in the redemption of our bodies. - Romans, VIII, 16-24, Weymouths Translation. Towards this glorification of God we are all moving. Some of the sons of men have already achieved, through the realization of their divinity.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 00:00:24 +0000
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