Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/8375

8375 The church of Christ in its beginnings....

January 8, 1963: Book 88

My disciples received the Gospel of love from Me directly when I lived on earth, and thus they were able to carry it into the world in its pure and unadulterated form after I accomplished My act of Salvation and ascended to My kingdom of light again. And they, on their part, also kept My teaching pure and people came to know Me as their Redeemer from sin and death.... They were instructed by My disciples that they would have to take the path to the cross and live a life of love in order to be able to fulfil the purpose of their earthly life and to enter My kingdom after their death. My disciples were guided into truth by Me and also passed on the same truth because My spirit was able to work in them.... In the beginning, therefore, people accepted My pure Gospel and also made an effort to live a life of love, and thus they, too, became spiritually alive and I was able to work in them Myself. And so My teaching remained pure for a certain period of time, My disciples passed on their teaching ministry because they recognised the spiritual state of those they appointed as their successors....

Yet it did not take long before people assumed such a teaching ministry by themselves, partly due to selfish reasons, partly due to overzealousness of complying with My will but without waiting for the inner calling.... And so it came to pass that this teaching ministry was eventually conferred indiscriminately.... that the inner ability, the human being’s spiritual state, was no longer pertinent but that external circumstances played a part and thus increasingly endangered the pure truth as well which, however, was not noticed precisely because of the teachers’ unenlightened spirit.... The people, however, to whom the Gospel was preached were denied the right to form their own opinion and to voice doubts about the absolute truth of what they were taught.... Those who deemed themselves spiritual leaders were convinced of their mission and authority and allowed no contradiction whatsoever. And those who were being taught were obliged to accept without scrutiny that everything they were offered was true. It was only possible for the truth to remain pure as long as its guardians were spiritually enlightened themselves. Yet the number of those who were placed into positions of authority without being enlightened by My spirit soon predominated and all objections by a spiritually awakened person were dismissed.... The former grew more powerful and the pure truth became interspersed with error.... with ideas which had originated in people’s intellect and were endorsed by them as divine truth. And although spiritually enlightened people time and again tried to eliminate this error.... My adversary succeeded to assert himself, for his followers’ power was already too great and the pure truth was no longer recognised as such.

This explains to you that in the course of time something entirely different established itself as the ‘church of Christ’ than what was founded by Me on earth.... Only this explains how an organisation came into power, why time and again divisions occurred within this organisation and why I only ever want the ‘church founded by Me’ to be regarded as a spiritual edifice that includes those people who live in truth due to of a life of love, which results in a living faith and the awakening of the spirit. And this church has indeed kept itself alive to this day, for time and again My spirit could pour itself out over people who made an effort to live a life of love and to fulfil My will.... And so the pure truth which exposes all misguided teachings could always be imparted to them again, and every genuinely truth-seeking person will receive an explanation how humankind was able to fall into such confused thinking and is unwilling to free itself from it. Yet it will also be understandable to everyone that the masses will never be open to the truth but willingly accept error, and thus every individual person should try to free himself from wrong spiritual knowledge as soon as My grace offers him the pure truth, for just his sincere desire will enable him to differentiate between truth and error, and then he will also belong to the church which I founded on earth Myself....

Amen

Translated by Heidi Hanna