from
Myths and Legends of Jesus
Special Session Riverside, California
Uranda
March 16, 1947
When we pause to consider the fact that
virtually all of the so-called world saviours, and many of the pagan gods, came
into manifestation on earth, according to legend or history, through some type
of Divine visitation to some woman especially set apart or perfected for such
purpose, we have to come to some conclusion. It is not necessary to examine all
such legends or stories in order to come to the truth. It is significant that
the points of similarity that exist with respect to so-called world saviours in
this regard, is limited to characters, real or legendary, who have had a
tremendous influence upon the trends of thought and function of the people of the
world down through the ages.
We recognize that there is some truth in
every teaching that exists for any period of time, else it could not exist, and
when we find any one point re-appearing in such a wide range with respect to so
many different teachings and teachers, it seems to me that it is reasonable to
suppose that there must be some basis in truth for such concepts, whether real
or legendary, and that if there is such a truth then it is important that that
truth be recognized so that the real meaning behind the stories may begin to
have an influence in our lives.
With respect to all of these stories,
the very fact that the concepts developed with respect to them have tended to
make the people of the world feel these world saviours, or any one of them, to
be something separate and apart from the world of humanity, having some special
process of birth or origin which made it possible for that particular being to
manifest Divinity, but which, according to the concept, likewise provides an
excuse for humanity as a whole for failing to attain to such perfection; and
causes the human mind to say that, if, in the case of Jesus for instance, He
was born under such conditions He had it comparatively easy to achieve what He
did, and because we are so separated from Him in the matter of birth, we are
necessarily separated from Him in the processes of life—and there is a great
gulf fixed insofar as the human consciousness is concerned, between that which
the Master achieved and that which human beings can achieve. Thus it is that
the devil, seizing upon a truth, presents it in a false light, and uses that
very truth to defeat the purposes of the truth.
The so-called miraculous, or immaculate,
conception of Jesus Christ is a matter that is controversial from the standpoint
of religionists, and with many of them the point is established so thoroughly
in prejudice that if it is even suggested that the meaning generally accepted
is erroneous, anything else that may be said is rejected in advance. Therefore,
to the degree that we can come free of any tendency toward prejudice in this
regard, it seems reasonable to suppose that if there is any fundamental truth
in the story of the birth of the Master Jesus, then He, being the greatest
Teacher that the world has ever known, must surely have given something in his
own words which should reveal or provide the key for, at least an understanding
of the truth with respect to His manifestation in the world.
If Jesus neglected to provide a key to
the understanding of any phase of His own revelation of Deity on earth, then
how could He say, in His great prayer of intercession, as given in John 17:
"I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do"? Our time
tonight does not permit our examining the whole Teaching of Jesus in search of
the key, so I shall draw your attention directly to it. In John 14 we have a
record of the Master’s words where He said: "The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself,
but the Father Who dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." During the Master’s
Ministry He spoke often of His Father, and He spoke often of the Oneness of His
Father and the manifest being whom we call Jesus, and in this text He says:
"My Father Who dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works."
Human beings have lost the vision of
their relationship to God. The Saviour was born to re-establish in
consciousness an understanding of man’s relationship to God. Man, in the fallen
human consciousness, thinks of his parentage as being limited to that generally
recognized in the human sense—his earthly father and his earthly mother. The
one point wherein man in the fallen state is permitted to participate in
relationship to true Creative work in the physical sense, is with respect to
procreation, but because of this fact man has tended to think of the whole
matter as if it were a purely physiological proposition instead of recognizing
that the one point where he is still permitted to have a relationship with true
Creative work is still the point where he could, if he would, discover his
fundamental relationship with God.
In the story of the Master's birth we
have a presentation which is properly designed to take attention away from the
earthly father, in order to establish a consciousness or awareness of the
relationship of God to birth, not just the birth of Jesus Christ, but the birth
of every man, woman and child on the face of the earth. It has always seemed to
me to be utterly ridiculous to claim, on the one hand, that Jesus is supposed
to be our example and then to claim, on the other hand, that He had a birth
into the world so far different from that which we are privileged to have. If
our birth into the world is so far different from His birth into the world,
then God would be asking the impossible of us, to expect us to accept Him as
our example, because if there was anything true with respect to the Master's
birth that is not true with respect to our birth, then He is not our example—He
is simply a Being so far separated from us, and so far above us, that there is
no hope of our ever achieving that which He achieved.
But He, Himself, said: "The works
that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye do,"
thereby pointing out that that which He achieved we can achieve, and if we can
achieve what He achieved, then that which was true of Him is true of us. It is
not sacrilegious, on the basis of the Master's own words, to undertake to
determine the truth with respect to His birth which will, at the same time,
reveal the truth with respect to our birth, and if we recognize the truth with
respect to our birth, we find that we are not so far separated from God that it
is foolish and futile for us to accept Jesus Christ as our example.
The story of the Master's birth
emphasizes rightly, to start with, that God was His Father. With the world
consciousness as it was, and as it still is to such a high degree, there was no
other way by which the truth of the Master's Divinity in relationship to His
parentage could be focalized into the consciousness of the world in a way that
would make it have vital influence in the attitude of the world. As the
translation stands the wording of it does not necessarily give a clear
indication of the truth of the matter, but rather tends to support the
prejudiced viewpoint whereby the truth has been presented in a false light that
defeats the purpose of the truth. So, the light wherewith we view this matter
must come from the Master's own words. When He said that the works that He did
were possible to us, and when l said that the Father within Him accomplished
the works which He did, it is evident that He was recognizing the Father within
us and recognizing that, to the degree that we let the Father do the works, the
works of the Father would be done through us as surely as they were done
through Him.
We recognize that in the processes of
birth the physical seed is present, and must be present, and if that is true of
us and we say that it was not true of Jesus with respect to His birth, then we
set Him apart from us where His Life can have no real meaning to us, and that
peculiar distinction which has been established in consciousness has caused His
life to not have very much real meaning, even to the mass of people numbered in
Christendom, because they have felt that lie was too far removed from them for
them to achieve; therefore, under the direction of the devil they developed the
idea of mere acceptance with the lips, assuming that that would be enough, that
Jesus did it all and they would not have to do anything but believe with the
lips. How convenient!—and how certain to bring failure and maintain the
supremacy of the devil!
The physical seed was present with
respect to the birth of Jesus. That may seem to you as an arbitrary statement
on my part, and if you ask for Biblical proof I am not in position to give it,
and prejudices tend to arise at this point and say that such an idea is utterly
sacrilegious, but such prejudices are fostered by the devil so that he may
maintain supremacy and defeat the purposes of the truth, and keep Jesus Christ
from becoming the Ruler in the lives of men.
Let us go back a little. The fall came
into manifestation through Eve, and she was promised that through her seed
salvation should come. Woman represents the negative manifestation of humanity;
man represents the positive phase of humanity; but humanity as a whole is
represented as a woman in relationship to the positive expression of God. We have,
for instance in Revelation, the Church and its membership of men and women
forming the Bride of the Lamb. From the standpoint of the relationship in
actuality, in the right sense of man and God, man and woman are one, and the
two in oneness are negative to God so that in that absolute oneness of man and
woman the manifestation of woman in relationship to God is made manifest, so that
the fatherhood of God, working through the woman, manifest as the oneness of
man and woman, permits the manifestation of the birth of the child as revealed
in the case of Jesus Christ.
The perfect woman, insofar as this world
is concerned, is the perfect manifestation or blending of man and woman, so
that together they make a complete unit, and a unit that is negative or
responsive to God, so that that which is of God may come through that one being
into the world. This is the central, fundamental truth back of the story of the
birth of Jesus, for the mother of Jesus, pictured in its idealism, simply
symbolizes the perfect blending of man and woman. "They two shall be one
flesh," and if they are one flesh they cannot be two pieces of flesh and
separated, and considered as being distinct, one from the other; therefore, to
the degree that we recognize that man and woman, as one flesh, become perfectly
negative and responsive to God, then the fatherhood of God in relationship to
birth or Creative activity on earth, becomes a reality.
Now it is true that the degree of
perfection in this cycle
was higher in the case of Jesus Christ than is true in the case of most human
beings. Nevertheless, it is true for each child who is born of a love union. In
that union the male and female are one flesh and they constitute the woman in
union with God the Father, so that God the Father is the father of the child,
and the recognition of the Father in the Divine sense is absolutely essential
to a realization that we are not far from God, and that in Reality we can, if
we will, let it be so, fulfilling the Master's words, "Verily, verily I
say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do, shall he do also;
and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father."
How? On the same basis, by reason of which His works were made manifest.
"The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the Father
that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works."
So here we have briefly, directly
stated, the real truth back of the story of the immaculate conception, and when
we recognize this truth we realize it is not ridiculous, nor is God asking the
impossible of us for us to recognize that Jesus Christ is our example, and that
we are to follow Him.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
