Such utterances as the above are growing common, both from without the churches and from within. People are beginning to realize that they have not made the most of their religious traditions; that there is more in them than they have so far gotten out of them. They suspect that the Gospel narratives contain valuable truths that have been missed. The Christ is not merely a personality, but also a symbol, as is shown by the above writer; a symbol of the Divine in Man, recognized by the world ages before the Christian era.
The importance of the Christian Gospel today consists in its power to help us to realize that we are Divine in essence, and to aid us on the Path or Way which leads to a realization of that Divinity. Is it possible that now, for the first time, after all these centuries, the real import of that Gospel is about to be grasped? that the age-long worship of a wrong ideal—that of the personal God and his rewards and punishments, his propitiations and forgivenesses—is about to depart and make room for a more virile and ennobling, as well as more rational and holier faith?
Is it possible that a Resurrection is in progress, a Resurrection of Christ from the tomb in which we have buried him?[1]
[1] The reader of course will not think any allusion is here made to a possible physical appearance of Christ. Such preposterous suggestions are made in some quarters, but it is needless to say Theosophy has nothing to do with them.—H. T. E.
What we understand by a Resurrection of Christ is the Resurrection of the ancient but buried truth that Man is essentially Divine—to replace the idea that he is essentially evil. This latter idea emphasizes the lower side of man's nature and actually weakens his faith in the Divine Power. Having thus lost his faith, he assumes an attitude of expectation and deprecation, praying to an imaginary deity instead of invoking by action the real Divinity within.
Ancient symbology, to which the above writer refers as being substantially identical with that of the Christian Gospel, speaks of the "Father" and the "Son." By the word "Father" was understood the Supreme; the "Son" was the Word, the Divine life in Man, which turned him from an animal being to what he is. Through the Son we approach the Father; that is, man must invoke the power of his own Higher Self. Another ancient teaching, taught in fables as well as sacred allegories, is that only by acting can man invoke the Divine aid. The Divine gift to Man is the Will, and he himself is the only one who can exert it. The fable tells that a carter invoked Hercules to lift his cart out of a rut, and Hercules told him to put his own shoulder to the wheel. For Hercules means strength, and strength is invoked by exerting it. In the same way we have to assert our Divinity by acting in a Divine way; and it seems that the Gospels give us ample instructions.
It may be that this was after all the real message, and that those who gave it have been waiting all this time for man to get up off his knees and be somebody.
There are many religious gospels in the world, but they are all modifications of one great eternal gospel. That one gospel, clothed in many garbs, legendary, allegoric, theological, is the Drama of the Soul in its pilgrimage through life, its struggles with great adversaries, and its final victory. Christianity contains the same ancient wisdom; it has been covered over with accretions of theology and ecclesiasticism; it is now being disentombed. The process is a long and eventful one; for people cling fondly to old habits, and many still hope that they will be able to admit everything and yet set early medieval theology on the summit as the crowning revelation. The success with which they can do this depends upon what they can make of Christianity, for the less cannot contain the greater.