SALVATION

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SALVATION

A symbol of the liberation of the soul from the lower nature, preceded by the process of purification through suffering and evil, during the cycle of evolution.

But Christ is entered "into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: Nor yet that he should offer himself often. For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." - HEB. ix. 24-8.

The Higher Self (Christ) during the process of involution commences its evolution in the higher mind, the soul-centre, and so forms the germ-soul. This spiritual evolution proceeds upwards and prepares the patterns on the higher planes, which, when the lower evolution is begun, are capable of being reflected downward on the lower planes, where they become distorted beyond recognition owing to the fact that they do not appear in a sequential or coherent form in the evolving souls of humanity.

So it is that Christ enters into heaven and stands in the presence of the Supreme, while below, at the "foundation of the world" and at the "end of the ages" of involution, he is the "Lamb slain," the Divine sacrifice, the Archetypal Man, who dies once in order that the many souls, who are his "limbs,"-his "members,”-shall evolve in evil and sorrow, and finally be "washed in the blood of the Lamb," i.e. be purified by the Divine Life which wells up within the soul. When Christ shall appear a second time, it will be in the glorified souls of the saints awaiting their final deliverance, which is the union of the lower self and the higher self, or the "marriage of the Lamb."

"If then deliverance be based at one time on the conquest of all desire, and at another on the knowledge of the Brahma, both may be regarded merely as the expression of one and the same thought. What keeps the soul bound in the cycle of birth, death, and re-birth? Buddhism answers: desire and ignorance. Of the two the greater evil is ignorance, the first link in the long chain of causes and effects, in which the sorrow-working destiny of the world is fulfilled." - DR. OLDENBERG, Buddha, etc., trans. p. 52.

"There is no such thing as individual retribution or individual salvation. For good or for evil the human race is a solidarity; we are all members one of another; we suffer and achieve in common. There is no heaven that does not imply willingness to share the sinner's hell; there is no hell that is not heaven in the making. God has no interest in punishment as such, and no evil-doer can bear his punishment alone. Indeed, there is no such thing as punishment in the sense that so much pain must be endured for so much sin." - R. J. CAMPBELL,Thursday Mornings, p. 166.

"The way Christ saves you is to take possession of your soul and conform it entirely to his own likeness, and this he cannot do until you yourself see what is needed." - R. J. CAMPBELL, Serm., Hell.

By the deeds of the law, shall no man living be justified. Salvation is by faith: a state of heart right with God. . . Salvation is God's Spirit in us, leading to good. Destruction is the selfish spirit in us, leading to wrong." - F. W. ROBERTSON, Sermons, 3rd Series, p. 249.

“The gift and blessing of salvation is primarily a spiritual gift, and only involving outward consequences secondarily and subordinately. It mainly consists in the heart being at peace with God, in the whole soul being filled with Divine affections, in the weight and bondage of transgression being taken away, and substituted by the impulse and the life of the new love. Therefore, neither God can give, nor man can receive, that gift upon any other terms than just this, that the heart and nature be fitted and adapted for it. Spiritual blessings require a spiritual capacity for the reception of them; or, as my text says, you cannot have the inheritance unless you are sons (Rom. viii. 17)." - A. MACLAREN, Sermons, 1st Series, p. 70.

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Understanding Biblical Symbolism

SALVATION

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