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September 10th, 2001
Received by H.R.
Cuenca, Ecuador
My dear H___, before continuing with the story of my
voyage through the
spheres of the spirit world, I would like to answer M___'s
question on the
passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 4,
verse 13:
"Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of
the knowledge of the Son
of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the
stature of the fullness
of Christ."
M___ suspects the "perfect man" here means having "put
on that new man,
which after God is created in righteousness and true
holiness" (Ephesians
4:24); that is, being a possessor of the Divine Love.
Assuming then it means
"possessor of the Divine Love," does the "perfect man"
then mean "he who has
experienced the New Birth," or any possessor of the
Divine Love?
My dear brother M___, in spite of your doubts, your
perceptions are truly
very keen, and you should really have a little bit
more confidence in
yourself.
It is true that in the aforementioned context the
expression "perfect man"
refers to the man, who has received our Heavenly
Father's Love. It doesn't
refer to the perfect man in his natural love, as this
term is defined it in
the Padgett messages.
A whole series of verses points to this theme. And in
these verses you can
also find the key to the best understanding of this
passage.
"One Lord, one faith, one baptism," this, of course,
refers to true baptism
through the Holy Ghost, that is, the reception of
Divine Love by means of
the Holy Ghost.
But most important in this context is verse 7, stating
that "unto every one
of us is given grace according to the measure of the
gift of Christ."
As you will understand, M___, perfection only exists
in the Father. All
mortals and all spirits may come closer to perfection,
as in form of an
asymptotic curve, but we will never become perfect
like unto the Father.
The form of perfection, however, which Paul referred
to, is freedom from
sin. Mortals may obtain more than enough Divine
Love, even while living
on earth, in order to achieve this goal.
As to your question, whether Paul referred to any man
who has received a
certain quantity of Divine Love, or to those who have
experienced the New
Birth, ask yourself if it is necessary to obtain the
New Birth in order to
achieve freedom from sin, or if this is also possible
without the New Birth.
You may answer this question yourself.
Chapter 4 of the Epistle to the Ephesians is a very
difficult and dangerous
text. This is not only due to its contents, but also
to how this chapter has
been treated in the course of history. It is common
knowledge that the
gospels suffered severe alterations in their
transmission, and it is
common belief that Paul's letters were transmitted in
a purer way. Although
it is true that large passages of the so-called Corpus
Paulinum still
contain the original wording, it is also true that
this set of epistles has
suffered serious modifications.
I don't refer just to the fact that for example a long
letter had been
reconstituted using several shorter ones, or that many
of Paul's original
writings have been lost, or that some epistles
contained in this collection
were not written by Paul, but also that very early in
their transmission
quarrels and theological opinions left their traces in
the text.
In the very beginnings of Christendom, in the first
century, there already
welled up a controversy between mainly Judeo-Christian
groups, teaching that
Jesus was a simple mortal like any other mortal, and
that he had obtained
"divinity" at a certain moment of his life, a divinity
called Christ, and
other groups, mainly gentiles, who maintained that
Jesus was divine from his
birth on, and beyond that, that he preexisted with the
Heavenly Father from
the "beginnings of eternity," and that he incarnated
in order to save
humanity through his sacrifice.
This kind of theological or ideological conflicts
always entailed
alterations in the text, "corrections" or
"improvements", as the authors
called them, or "falsifications", as their opponents
named them.
In the fourth chapter of Ephesians there are some
verses which were interpolated with the intention of making Jesus'
preexistence clear, and therefore, to refute the argument of the
Judeo-Christians and later of other mostly gentile groups, who adhered
to the same vision of Jesus, that is to say, they considered Jesus
a mortal man who had obtained "Christ", the Divine principle,
a principle which all mortals could obtain, becoming Divine or Christs
themselves. This teaching is called adoptionism.
Beginning with the second century, a paradoxical
situation built up. Another
group of Christians arose who taught that Jesus was
in truth God Father,
incarnated to assume the sacrifice in order to redeem
humanity. This
conception of Jesus, of course, was unacceptable for
the group, which would
result victorious after some centuries, forming the
orthodoxy ("the correct
opinion") of the future, this orthodoxy where most
Christian
denominations derive from, Catholics as well as
Protestants.
This situation was absurd, because these
proto-orthodox Christians had to
defend their position, that Jesus was God, against the
adoptionists, and
that Jesus was not God Father, against the
patripassionists, as the other
grouping was called (because the Father himself
suffered the passion,
according to their teachings). And on the other hand,
they had to defend
themselves against the accusation of preaching
polytheism, or ditheism,
teaching that there was a superior God (the Father)
and another inferior God
(the Son). Features of manipulations in this sense can
also be found in the
same chapter of Ephesians.
Out of this tension and out of such a paradoxical
situation originated the
doctrine of trinity, an absurd teaching trying to
reconcile a hidden
polytheism with Judaism's pure monotheism.
Dear M___, as you know well, there was even another
struggle, which left
deep scars in Paul's work, and that was the fight
between Marcion and the
proto-orthodox Christians. Marcion rejected the God of
the Old Testament as an inferior and even wicked God of the Jews, as he
taught, and based his
teachings exclusively on ten letters attributed to
Paul and the gospel
according to Luke. But he did not accept the epistles
and the gospel just as
they were to hand at that time, but rather carried out
a series of
"cleansings," removing among other things all
quotations from the Old
Testament. Proto-orthodox Christians accused him of
falsification, and he
accused them of falsification, and both were right,
because both tampered
the texts according to their convenience.
I tell you this just to remind you that it is not only
important to find the
original meaning of a passage in the New Testament,
but also to try to
discover if the passage itself is really original.
I hope I have answered your questions satisfactorily,
M___. I thank you
deeply for your dedication to our work of Love.
It is time to say goodbye. I want to extend my
blessings to all those who
work for the spreading of the message of Love in the
world, and I thank you,
H___, for the time that you have granted me.
Judas
a true follower of Jesus
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