“You are not permitted to hear what he says, because the fallacies of your natural life have not been sufficiently removed; and your mind would pervert his divine truths, or change them into the opposite falsities. You will be instructed in due season, and all things necessary to your life and happiness will be given you.
“In the mean time,” he continued, “let us be seated under this beautiful tree, whose boughs make mysterious music, while I endeavor to bring it clearly to your mind that Jesus is God; for without an acknowledgment of his supreme divinity, no genuine spiritual truth can be received. The idea of God is a fundamental idea; and every one’s state depends upon it or is determined by it. If that be false all is false; the mind is a dark chamber full of motes and cobwebs.
“Did not the Jews stone Jesus for affirming his equality and identity with God? Did not Jesus declare his pre-existence in saying that before Abraham lived, he lived? Did he not teach his omnipotence, his infinity, when he claimed to be one with the Father, and told his disciples that whoever had seen him, had seen the Father? Is not his name Immanuel—‘God with us?’ ”
“Yes.”
“Did not the prophets affirm that the Messiah who was [pg 197]to be born of a virgin, and to redeem Israel in the form of a man, was really the mighty Counselor, the Prince of Peace, the everlasting Father, Jehovah? Did they not repeatedly mention the Holy One of Israel, the Messiah that was to come, under such titles as ‘the Lord of hosts,’ ‘the God of the whole earth,’ and other names applicable only to the Supreme Being?”
“True.”
“Why then should you be astonished that God is present in both worlds at the same time? Is He not omnipresent? ubiquitous? Unlimited by time or space, does He not manifest Himself to his creatures in all times and in all places? Can He not, if He will, appear simultaneously to all created intelligences in all the natural and spiritual spheres He has created?
“This Jesus, the Messiah, is everywhere. If you ascend into the heaven next above us, on fitting occasions you would see Him there in a more glorified form. If you mount still higher, you will only be coming nearer to Him, and behold Him in still more transcendent glory. Sometimes He appears to the angels as a Divine Man standing in the sun of the spiritual world. It was this truth, transmitted by tradition to the ancient people of Asia, which gave rise (as they fell into naturalism) to the worship of the natural sun and the adoration of fire.”
At these words I seemed to see my good and generous uncle Beltrezzor bowing his head reverently to the great luminary, from which the celestial face of Jesus looked down, smiling benediction upon the childlike old man.
“What you tell me,” said I, “of Christ, is so strange [pg 198]that at first sight it appears incomprehensible. I perceive, indeed, that if Jesus be the supreme God of the universe, He may be seen simultaneously from every stand-point in the spiritual world, in every sphere, in every society, and by every individual soul, and everywhere take on a form accommodated to the spiritual states of those who behold Him. The difficulty in my mind lies in identifying the man Jesus whom I knew in Bethany, with this sublime resemblance of Him that I see in the world of spirits; and in comprehending that they are one person leading a simultaneous life in two spheres; and, finally, that this one person is the Supreme God.