4816 Justice of God.... guilt and atonement.... bondage - redemption....

January 11, 1950: Book 55

All creatures that are in the state of free will have reached a certain level of cognition, i.e., they are able to receive a certain knowledge. But whether it is comprehensible to them, whether it really puts them into the state of cognition, depends on how the human being uses his free will. For the state of knowledge is the sign of the human being's ascent development, it is a degree of maturity of the soul which the human being's free will should strive for and which is therefore not arbitrarily assigned to him. But the upward development is the result of a way of life according to God's will, and God's will is a life in love. Consequently, only a person who is active in love can stand in knowledge, thus higher knowledge can only be acquired when the person makes an effort to live a life of love. But then he will have understanding for everything, he will only need to occupy himself with a question in thought, and the right answer will also come to him in thought.... he will think truthfully and gain rich knowledge....

Yet there will also be problems whose solution requires divine support, because the human intellect in itself would eternally be unable to cope with them, for they require the human being's spiritual rebirth, they require a degree of maturity which is not often found in people. Yet God never refuses to answer such questions if they are seriously put to Him. He alone can also present what is incomprehensible to people in such a way that it becomes understandable to them if they sincerely ask Him for it, yet a certain faith is always necessary which also accepts what seems incomprehensible as long as the human being's spirit is still unawakened, for everything is understandable to the awakened spirit.

(13.1.1950) There is nothing that does not reveal God's love, that does not have God's love as its reason. But the righteousness of God cannot be eliminated, because the perfection of God requires it. And this already clarifies a major problem: the redemption of humanity through Christ.... On the one hand there was a great guilt, on the other hand the eternal Godhead, to whom the spiritual became guilty. But the guilt was so great because the spiritual possessed knowledge, thus it did not sin as a result of a lack of knowledge. This sin also challenged the justice of God, because the perfection of God can never depart from His fundamental principle. Atonement for every violation of the divine order, which took place with the apostasy of the spiritual from God. But the atonement was unspeakably heavy, because sin was endlessly heavy. The distance from God resulted in the weakening of the spiritual. The spiritual beings lost all strength, they could no longer walk uphill on their own but sank deeper and deeper until a being of light took pity on these spiritual beings, until this being came to the aid of the weak, sunken being before it completely lost itself in the depths. The being of light wanted to atone for the guilt, it wanted to sacrifice itself for the unfortunate beings who, after an infinitely long course of development, now threatened to fail in the human stage because they were powerless. And this being of light descended to earth.... A child of God embodied itself as a human being in order to help its fellow human beings. The being of light was in contact with God and knew about the wretched state of the beings who lived on earth and forgot their actual purpose.... But the being of light also knew a path which led out of this unhappy state. It knew about everything that was happening in the spiritual kingdom, on earth and under the earth, i.e. about the fate of those who dwelled in the abyss. And as coming from the kingdom of light Itself, It wanted to provide people with the same enviable condition. But it encountered a great resistance.... It worked a being from darkness against the being of light with word and deed. It bound where the being of light wanted to loosen, i.e., the being of darkness had great influence on people and drove them to their thinking, wanting and doing. But the latter did not correspond to God's will, thus the essence of darkness worked in a God-opposing sense and the human being would have had to resist its influence if he had wanted to make up for his past wrong against God. But the human being was too weak to do so, he was, so to speak, bound by the will of God's adversary.... If people were to be redeemed from God's power they had to be confronted by a being which possessed strong willpower, which consciously stood by God and made use of His strength and power in the battle against Him. And this being was Jesus Christ, He was the being of light embodied as a human being, Who was exceedingly strong-willed and opposed the adversary with a weapon against which he was powerless.... The love which united Jesus with God and made Him the recipient of strength from God.... And thus He was superior to the adversary, and He delivered countless people from the yoke of dark power....

(14.1.1950) But the yoke consisted of the fact that the human being, as being able to decide upwards or downwards, felt the greatest incentive downwards through the influence of that to which he owed his state of imperfection, that he thus took pleasure in everything that was contrary to God, that he strived for everything that pleased the body and dragged down the soul. The adversary of God sought to win over man's thinking, feeling and willing, and in doing so he met with little resistance because all the urges that were the adversary's principle were found in man. Thus man was to a certain extent in bondage to that power which did not give him freedom but always pressed him more and more so that he always carried out its will and distanced himself more and more from God. The human being was a weak creature whose will was bound, which is why he was unable to defend himself.... which would certainly have been very easy if he had used love as a counterforce, against which God's adversary is powerless. For this reason one had to come as saviour Who proved to people for the first time that a release from the adversary was indeed possible but only through love, which provides the human being with the strength to resist, thus results in strength of will. Furthermore, he had to enlighten people about their task in life because they lacked all knowledge due to the influence of God's adversary. The saviour out of spiritual adversity therefore had to bring light to people and impart strength.... He had to help them to freedom, He had to loosen the chains of the bound ones from which they could not free themselves alone. Christ's work of redemption only extends to people's spiritual state, which was so indescribably low that it was impossible for them to rise up on their own.... precisely because of the lack of love.... And therefore Jesus Christ first instructed people, and He gave them the commandment of love as the most important thing, so that people could bring themselves into possession of strength and light. But then He acquired a spiritual fund through His death on the cross, i.e. a treasure of grace which every person who believes in Him and His act of salvation can draw from. He acquired for the weak-willed strengthening of the will and forgiveness of their guilt.... God looked favourably upon a person's work of love and granted Him fulfilment of the request which the man Jesus presented to Him for His fellow human beings.... He was satisfied with the death of one human being Who wanted to save His fellow human beings from spiritual death. The love of the God-man Jesus was so strong that it satisfied the eternal deity, Who yearned for the love of all people. He gave His blood for the sins of humanity, He extinguished the guilt with His blood, but mind you.... only of those who acknowledge Him and His act of salvation and want to belong to the flock of the redeemed, otherwise all spiritual beings would already be redeemed but then they would not be able to reach the state of perfection which requires the free test of will....

Amen

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