The Spiritual Body of the Son of God

The  Spiritual  Body  of  the  Son  of  God

Martin Cecil   March 16, 1980

“The real ministry of speaking the Word is very largely an individual matter.”

It has been emphasized that this is in fact a spiritual ministry. Some have spoken of it as a vibrational ministry, one that originates at a level other than the material. While there are forms and appearances, necessarily so, these are entirely secondary, rightly, to the spiritual, to the fact of our own spiritual expression in living.

A few months ago I said something about the structured Emissary state. The point I was making then was that there has been a tendency for many to give greater weight to these structures of their own concepts than to the essential requirement of spiritual expression. I certainly was not denying the fact that there necessarily must be structures. We ourselves exist on earth because there is a structure, our own physical body. However insofar as our ministry is concerned the structure rightly puts in an appearance, and it is a living structure also, because of the fact of spiritual expression. Spiritual expression is primary; whatever structure appears is quite secondary, even though necessary.

This brings up a point with respect to our continuing movement in the unfolding of increased understanding. Necessarily I introduce something new, or a new way of looking at something, from time to time. I did this in connection with these Emissary structures. However the human tendency is, when something of this sort is brought to focus, to give all the attention to what it is that has been brought to focus, apparently forgetting all the rest of the understanding that the individual should have. It is rather like what might happen in a crowded boat when some particular factor of interest was pointed out and everybody on the boat rushed to the side to have a look. The boat would likely capsize. This has tended to happen all too often in our ministry. Obviously something new needs to unfold in consciousness, but whatever it is that is unfolding at the moment certainly does not deny all that has unfolded thus far. So it is not a matter of forsaking all the understanding that one has in order to rush after the new idea. That creates an unbalance, and I have found myself under the necessity, continuously, of moving in another direction very quickly heretofore, so that balance might be maintained.

There was, as I say, this tendency to move in a particular direction, apparently forgetting what was already known, when this understanding would have provided a balancing element, so that the new vision might be seen as it really is in relationship to all that went before. Consequently we have moved from side to side almost more than we have moved forward. I would that we might go in a straight line. It would be much quicker. But it can only happen as all concerned maintain a balance within themselves which is possible because of all that has gone before. There is no other balance available for what is now present but what has previously been understood and experienced. Here is the foundation upon which we stand and from which we may move forward, but not forsaking what went before.

This is something that also occurred, apparently, with respect to a subject that I introduced a few years ago in connection with the length of time which has succeeded the initiation of this ministry. Today is exactly forty-seven years and six months from the point when this ministry, the Third Sacred School, was initiated in its present form by Uranda, and it has been unfolding since that time. I mentioned that there would be seven seven-year cycles completed in 1981, September of 1981. I mentioned this because it provided a basis for understanding of what was necessary in our own experience when that point was reached. In other words something needed to be done in present experience, that we might be in the right place when that point was reached. As is usually the tendency in human nature, speculation arises. Speculation usually relates to external events: What's going to happen? I wasn't prophesying about what was going to happen in the external sense. We are well aware that the world is undergoing a certain amount of disintegration which is intensifying. So in that sense I suppose we could say things are going to get worse rather than better. But this is a spiritual ministry. Our concern is with what is happening spiritually speaking, and what is happening spiritually speaking relates to all of us individually. If our primary concern is with spiritual expression then we are not overly concerned as to what it is that may be happening materially speaking.

Those of you who had the opportunity of viewing the video last evening, I am sure were impressed by the impossible state in the external sense of the material world the way it is. This has passed the point of no return long ago. There is no way that the material world as we now know it can survive. That's the fact of the matter. This could be very discouraging, I suppose, to those who see no other possibility. The question is, do we see any other possibility? Are we aware of any other possibility? Are we in position to allow the expression of that other possibility? If we are not, then, like all the rest of the population of the earth, we have passed the point of no return.

It is indicated in a prophetic sense in the Book of Revelation that the first heaven and the first earth, which now are, pass away. Yes, the material world as it is now known passes away. Looking at that picture, it seems as though nothing could survive. That's true, nothing of the material world as it now is can survive. That's the fact of the matter. It isn't a fact that has really been faced by very many people yet. Human beings are continuing to exist as though the world were the way it was fifty years ago. It had probably passed the point of no return then, but it should be dramatically obvious in these days. Those who begin to see something of this sort try to do something about it, but it's too late—it's already too late. Radioactive material, for instance, is all over the place, and this is only one threat to material existence on earth. There are plenty of others. Add them all together and what do we have? Doom, doom for the material world!

If one is wedded to that world then it's a sad situation. There seems to be no other possibility, however. So human beings must frantically try to correct what is in-correctable. This needs to be seen clearly by us, surely. If such a view engenders fear then obviously we are still in and of the material world. What is happening in the material world is no threat to the spiritual world. In fact it is a cause for rejoicing spiritually speaking: “Rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to … the earth.” We need to see clearly that it is woe to the earth. The question is whether we can see that clearly and face the fact of it realistically without fear, without panic, without any futile endeavor to try to correct the thing. It can't be done. There is no way. Those who have not had the opportunity of seeing and understanding what the real way is may take such attitudes as were taken by this lady, that there is need for a great deal of protest. But protest never achieves anything. The attitude of being against something never achieves anything. It locks one into a position of disintegration. One is polarized in the disintegration. One is being governed by what one is protesting against. The question always arises as to what we are for, not what we are against.

Human beings, many of them, are against sin, but what are they for, what's the alternative? In the usual human view of things there isn't any other alternative. All human beings are sinners—that's it—if they are, then they disappear with the material world. Exactly what the alternative is in its manifest experience is something that is not known. It is futile to speculate about it. It is futile to speculate as to when the ultimate crunch comes. Thus far the news, the bad news of the point of no return having been long past, has been kept from the awareness of most human beings on earth. You can imagine what chaos there would be if the conviction of this suddenly came to everybody!—the conviction that everybody was moving toward an impenetrable barrier beyond which they couldn't go; they were going to smash up against it, which is what is happening. We don't attempt to speculate as to how long it takes for human beings to hit the barrier. We are not concerned with that. We are concerned with the one and only alternative. It isn't a material alternative.

There is nothing that can be done materially speaking to correct the situation that is now present and a fact in the world. No matter how many sincere people there may be on earth attempting to straighten things out somehow, they have undertaken an absolutely impossible task. It can't be done. “I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.” Gone! What is the nature of the new heaven and the new earth? Let us not speculate, other than to recognize that it can be known only from the standpoint of spirit. It is a spiritual world primarily—that's the heaven of it—and it takes form accordingly. But what sort of form, and what sort of substance that form would be composed of, is an unknown quantity insofar as human beings now are concerned. It is assumed that there is no other possible substance than the substance that we now know. This in fact isn't true at all.

There is a great deal of substance in the universe of which human beings now know nothing. It is already a fact. However this doesn't acquaint human beings, in their present state of consciousness, with the truth of the matter. There is no way by which the truth can be known except by continuing in the Word. The Word must be spoken on earth if anyone is to continue in it. The concepts and ideas about what Jesus said, for instance, are of little moment; the Word needs to be spoken now. The concepts would only apply in the Christian world anyway. There are immense numbers of people who pay no attention to Christianity, even among those who might think of themselves as Christians. Paying attention to the concepts that have been engendered in Christianity would do no one much good anyway. That's all a part of the first heaven and the first earth which is passing away. Theoretically we say, “Let it go. It's no use holding on to it; we can't stop it from going.” But in a practical sense we need to understand how it is we let go of it. We let go of it because we are no longer interested in sustaining it in ourselves or external to ourselves.

When this ministry was initiated on earth forty-seven and a half years ago there was just one man. The only way that anything could begin to appear on a sound basis was in fulfilment of the One Law, which may be defined as, initially, radiation—spiritual radiation—to which there might be response. So this is the basis for the initiation of this present cycle in which we now share, in whatever measure—radiation, to which some human beings responded. The intent of the radiation was to engender response, response which would be followed by attraction, attraction to the point of radiation. The point of radiation was the spiritual point, and so the response would be a spiritual response, at least the response that had any meaning. If the response was merely based in material attitudes it wouldn't work, and there are those, of course, over the years who have come and gone because their response was certainly conditioned by material expectation.

The purpose, then, of the initial radiation was to engender response which would allow those who responded to draw close spiritually and thereby to begin to allow what was inherently present in the spiritual radiation to take material form. But the first requirement was for it to take spiritual form. The material form simply reflects whatever it is that has been established spiritually speaking. It is not a matter of trying to build something in form, even if that were possible, which it isn't. Perhaps I should modify that; it is certainly possible to build things in form but they don't mean anything. This is what was attempted and has produced what is called Christianity—to build a form, to build a church, somehow or other, when there was no spiritual focus to allow the form to be true to the spiritual design. It was the doctrine of men, and human beings building such things cannot build anything living. Anything that is not living is disintegrating.

Life is the only basis for integration, and life is very effective in integrating things when allowed to do so. It defies all the laws that human beings have invented to explain their environment. The law of gravity, for instance, is defied by the trees. It is actually defied by many things, because the law of gravity as human beings understand it doesn't exist. It isn't the truth of the matter at all. It is a human concept that has been developed to explain something that is inexplicable to them, and the concept that is developed is invariably a false one. A tremendous structure has been built based upon the idea of gravity and inertia, but it is a totally false structure. It is just a human way of looking at things, which doesn't reveal the truth to them at all. I am not suggesting that we should start tearing down the concepts which relate to gravity and inertia. That would be being against something, wouldn't it? We're agin the scientists! Mind you, there are some scientists who have begun to see a little further and have begun to find that many of the things they thought were true were not.

So what has been necessary was the building of a spiritual body. To do this and have it have meaning on earth flesh people were required. The flesh came along to the extent that there was true spiritual response, to the extent that those concerned were not interested in trying to translate everything into material terms. There have been a lot of people, of course, who have taken the attitude, “Explain it to me!”—in other words, “Translate it into material terms for me.” You can't do it without engendering all kinds of false ideas and false speculation. Over the years, then, there was the gathering together on the basis of the working of the Law: spiritual radiation, spiritual response, spiritual attraction. A body, a spiritual body, began to take form and there was flesh related to it, because these were people. But the flesh wasn't all that important; it was the spiritual body that was being formed, and in that formation certain evidences appeared materially speaking which became structures in the consciousness of all too many people, as though these structures were primary. They merely gave evidence, in whatever measure, to the extent that there were spiritually oriented people, of what was occurring spiritually.

When I mentioned these things before, there was a tendency on the part of many to try to throw out all the structures, which is not something that I suggested, but merely that there should be greater emphasis placed upon the spiritual body than upon the material body and the forms that had put in an appearance relative to that material body. They put in an appearance. They were necessary. They are a part of what has been unfolding. But if people get polarized in these external things, then the spiritual body is neglected and disintegrates once more. Our concern is to let this spiritual body take form spiritually speaking, and there will be some evidences of what is taking place in that sense materially speaking; these material forms of manifestation are all right, quite all right, as long as the spiritual body is there.

There is another element in here which has caused some trouble at times, when there wasn't adequate conscious experience of spiritual expression, because spiritual expression in one particular material situation might seem to be contradictory to spiritual expression in another material situation. If you judge by the appearance you judge falsely. You say, “Well look, there's a contradiction here.” Wait a minute! Let's go back to the spirit. If it is in fact the same spirit that is finding expression there is no contradiction, even though it may appear to be so in form. That appearance comes because there are a variety of circumstances. You know very well that in speaking to somebody, conveying some spiritual idea, you will convey it in one way to one person and in another way to somebody else; at least if you are functioning on the basis of spiritual expression you will do this. And what you convey to one person might, if judged by the appearance, seem to be contradictory to what you convey to somebody else; but it isn't if you are functioning correctly. It simply is handling that situation, whatever it is, rightly, on the basis of spiritual expression. The spirit is the same in any case but the form is different. Judge not by the appearance, and yet this is about the first thing that people judge, constantly jumping to conclusions. That is the most popular sport on earth.

So there has been the need to allow a spiritual body to take spiritual form, and in doing so there will be a material form associated with it. We do not deny the material form that is associated with it but we do not place the emphasis there. The emphasis is in spirit. Obviously this spiritual body needs to take form for some purpose. We have spoken of this as the body of the Son of God. The Son of God, in other words, has some purpose for this spiritual body which also has material form. Therefore the continuing requirement changes, doesn't it? Initially there is the requirement of allowing the spiritual form to appear. As it appears, there is something for that form to do. Initially everything was geared to finding those who would participate in this spiritual form. There wasn't anything else that could be done. Nothing else can be done until that spiritual form is present, composed of human beings who were willing to respond spiritually to the radiation. That spiritual form taking shape spiritually and materially has the ability, principally because of the material aspect of it, to speak the Word, the creative Word on earth. Then that becomes the primary requirement of the body.

There has been a great deal of shopping around to try to get people to come close to our Emissary structures; but this is not really the purpose of the body. For the body to take form spiritually speaking that was necessary, and it still is valid for a few people who reveal the fact that they rightly participate in this spiritual body, but the vast majority of people don't. They don't need to. We don't try to make them. Those who compose the body spiritually speaking may rightly be called Emissaries of Divine Light; but once the body is formed, Emissaries of Divine Light relates to something internal and the impact externally is not on the basis of Emissaries of Divine Light. Here is a way of defining something internal relative to the spiritual body that forms, the spiritual body of the Son of God. The Son of God incarnates in His body and speaks the creative Word, releases the creative tone on earth, so that there is radiation.

Now you see that here is the completion of that cycle: The initial radiation in miniature, the response of various ones to that radiation, their attraction into a spiritual formation so that there might be union. Union in that formation indicates that those concerned are present in that formation forever. They can't duck in and out. They cannot have any personal ambitions or expectations. Anyone who has those is not capable of passing the flaming sword and coming to the tree of life. All that involvement with the material world must dissolve in the experience of those who participate in the spiritual body of the Son of God.

We have, over the years, approached that quite gently, because most people would be scared out of their wits if it was suggested to them too soon. Of course the point is that there is a totally new experience here, a new heaven and a new earth. We have, I'm sure, ourselves repeated, “It is not a patch-up job.” We're not trying to repair the first heaven and the first earth. This is all that most people can see and all they can attempt to do. There is a new heaven and a new earth, a new state entirely, including a new material state. Now I'm not suggesting this merely from the standpoint of civilization or the organization that human beings have on earth, a new system, but an entirely new material state which would include an entirely new material, physical body. How else could the point of no return be passed? Tell me, how else? As long as the material body subject to all these terrible disasters is present and identifies people on earth, they're doomed. This has always been true in every generation all down through the millennia, but it comes to particular point now because the whole human race is faced with it.

They have been faced with it before at certain points in the historical unfoldment of things. This is not the first occasion when nuclear experimentation has been present on earth. Fortunately, before, there was the opportunity to bury everything under the sea. Now you'd have to bury all the land, so that everything would be sea. It seems to me the promise was that the flood would not reoccur. So we are again faced with the same situation as was true at the time of Noah. Everything that human beings do, all the thoughts of their hearts, are only evil continually, and the results of this are obvious to anyone who is honest enough to look at them. So something happens; something is happening. There are changes occurring at levels of which human beings have virtually no conscious comprehension. In one sense it could be said that those changes are driving people crazy. Of course they were crazy to start with, but it is becoming more paranoid as the years go by. The irrational and ridiculous actions of human beings are obvious to anyone who is honest enough to look at them or who can stand back sufficiently far from his own irrationality to see them.

So here we are, with whatever spiritual formation has appeared at this point. Now what I was suggesting before when I spoke of the fall of 1981 is that that spiritual formation had better be a fact, a reality, by then. It simply related to US—not to that world out there but to what we have done. There has been so much determination on the part of so many to retain their human nature approaches, and if you are honest you will recognize that is true of yourself. There has been an insistence upon maintaining the human nature state, which cannot survive. That's irrational, isn't it?—to try to hang on to a state in one's own experience which is doomed. Stupid! So we have the opportunity to associate ourselves with the Word that is spoken by the Son of God on earth. If that is so, there is no other word that we can speak; and when that is so, we find ourselves a part of a spiritual body which is present all over the earth.

Obviously this which has been taking form does not concentrate human beings all together in one geographical place, because it is a spiritual body with one accord spiritually, in one place spiritually. When this is so for the individuals who have let it be so, so that this spiritual body could take form, then each individual is responsible for his or her own world. In handling that responsibility it may be necessary that there should be those who are closer together materially and physically speaking. Obviously in the development as it has occurred it has been necessary to have this happen on Sunrise Ranch, because there were things to be done there that required a number of people to do them—but the real ministry of speaking the Word is very largely an individual matter, because all the individuals who are part of that spiritual body can be anywhere at any time with anyone and function on the basis of providing what is necessary in that circumstance. Heretofore, partly because there was the necessity of developing a spiritual body, there has been a great deal of inward looking; and there are those who have felt that it was important that groups should congeal all over the place. Well some of these groups may have a purpose, certainly to provide a setting for those who are drawing close into the spiritual body to begin to sense the quality and nature of that. But once it is sensed, once there is a going beyond the attraction phase into the union phase, there is absolutely no reason to be associated with somebody else in order to maintain one's spiritual orientation. One has taken that responsibility for oneself and no one else can change that, once there is the union in the spiritual body. But this experience only comes because of the fact of the spiritual body.

Now when this occurs, and it is suggested that people begin to relate more specifically to others in the world around them, there also has been the tendency to swing to an extreme and say, “Oh well, now, the Emissary business is all shot and we're going out on our own.” Good-bye, if you do that! It's not a matter of going out on one's own. Which own? Who's going out? Is it a human being trying to be spiritual? That's still a material person, a part of the material world which is doomed. So we stand together spiritually speaking, and because we do that we are capable as individuals, spiritually speaking, to handle our own fields of responsibility. These fields of responsibility relate to people everywhere on earth. We no longer are fishing in stocked ponds, as the analogy was used recently, and we are no longer fishing in the same way that we were before. The Son of God has a ministry on earth relative to the world, and the individuals who compose His spiritual body on earth are responsible for that ministry as individuals. But they do not see their ministry as separated or isolated from the whole spiritual body. It's all one thing.

It certainly does require, naturally so, a change of outlook. It is no longer a matter, which it should never have been in the first place, of trying to make converts for the Emissary ministry. There was never that necessity. There are those who naturally are drawn by the radiation, in response, to find union in the spiritual body, and when that body has grown in grace and stature to a certain point, that's it. As we noted before, we as individuals don't keep on growing physically all our lives. We reach a certain size and that's it. Of course some become more rotund. They can't add a cubit to their stature upward, so they grow horizontally, which is rather indicative of what is happening in the world, isn't it? There is horizontal existence, with practically no vertical orientation. We make that vertical orientation possible as the spiritual body of the Son of God takes form. As I say, that spiritual body which we allow to take form has a material component because we bring along our flesh bodies. We can't leave them behind, anyway, and still have any meaning on earth. So there is a flesh body.

It is only because this occurs that there is a means of orientation on earth by which others may be saved—that's a word that I hesitate to use and yet it's the right word—by which there may be a transformation of human beings on earth into a new state. This has been our expectation spiritually speaking for a long time but it hasn't been brought out in such specific terms. We've talked about the resurrection of Jesus, and we've nodded our heads sagely probably but didn't really comprehend that something of the sort could happen. There are those who try to believe that it happened, which is one thing, but to let it happen is something quite again. We need to recognize that there is a way already provided; it's present and may be experienced to the extent that the spiritual body of the Son of God is here on earth to open the door.

As you observe this now relative to yourselves I am sure you would feel somewhat inadequate. Are you going to be subject to that sense of inadequacy? or reveal in your living momentarily, intelligently, the expression of the spirit of the living God? If you do that you will live. If you don't do it you won't. That's true of all of us. I use the word you but I include myself in it. So here are the facts. Let's face them. 

© Emissaries of Divine Light