Sunsets Into Sunrises
Bishop Martin - The Progress of a Soul in the Beyond
- Chapter 28 -
BISHOP MARTIN, AS A BLIND RATIONALIST, IS IN A FIX.
1
(Bishop Martin): "Oh, what are you talking about? God, the Most High Eternal Being, dwelling in the forever inaccessible light, filling infinity with His might and power, should ever manifest in a man and work with His hands as we do?
2
God does fill such men and spirits with the light of His grace - some more, some less. But there will always remain an immense gulf between God and man.
3
Jesus, although filled with more of God's power than other men, was still no more a god than we are. No sensible man or spirit could assume that, for if so, one would also have to believe that the small planet earth is the center of all creation, which assumption would be very foolish.
4
Therefore, let us be more sensible in this eternal realm of spirits. We have been foolish enough in the world, taking bread, wine and sometimes even carved images for deities, forgetting about the sun as the most magnificent image of God.
5
Take me and my two dearest and best friends for what we really are and you will not suffer from such unreasonable fear.
6
I am quite aware that the lord and master of this house is mightier and wiser than all of us put together. And he might even be that Jesus who gave us the wisest teaching, but you must not take him for God, only what he really is: the best, the wisest and most godinspired man on earth.
7
You know how he was put to death on earth. Could you seriously believe that God, as the primordial source of life, would let Himself be killed by wretched men?
8
What would happen to a house if its foundations were destroyed? It would no doubt collapse very soon.
9
And what would happen to God's house, the whole of creation, the moment God Himself were annihilated? Would not, through His death, all life and being have been destroyed long ago? Therefore, my dearest friends, do be sensible here in the realm of the spirits."
10
(Says one of the party): "Friend, even though your words appear wise, you are still much farther from the goal than we are - notwithstanding the fact that you enjoy the constant presence of the Lord, whilst we poor sinners must fear to face Him.
11
And I, as a sinner, must tell you that you have not even made the first grade in wisdom, yet you want to judge God's inner wisdom! Naturally, if you judge God only by volume, Jesus must seem far too small to you. But if you take into consideration that God created not only suns and planets, but also the gnats, you might understand that He concerns Himself quite as much with the tiniest things as He does with the biggest, and that He would be able to show Himself as a man to teach and guide men onto the right path. And He, as the Sun of suns, no doubt guides also the solar systems.
12
But since we can understand only a human being, we conceive God through the man Jesus. The suns and their God would be inconceivable for us without Jesus.
13
This is as I see it. Go now and find out more about the Master of this house, and then return to us and tell us whether I was wrong."