Message continued from Jesus, found in The Gospel of God’s Love, pages 153-158.
“When the Bible speaks of those men of ancient times who were God’s prophets and beloved children as “walking with Him,” it meant that they had obtained such a high development of their natural love that they could, upon their physical death, occupy those spheres in the spirit world which made them, as spirits of mortals, close to the Father and supremely happy. They were not in the same condition of soul attributes as was Adam before his fall, for they did not have this potentiality; and so any interpretation of anything written in the Old Testament which gives to any human or spirit at that time the possibility of receiving the divine essence of the Father is erroneous.
“As I have said, my death or sacrifice or blood, as is emphasized in the creeds and worship of the Christian churches, did not in the slightest degree work to bring about the restoration of this great favor of God to humans. They were merely the result of the conditions and beliefs of men and women in the Jewish nation who would not tolerate my declarations of truth. My death, etc., did not appease any supposed wrath of God towards mortals, but of His own great love for His creatures He bestowed this Gift, or privilege of the soul, which humans had lost by Adam’s disobedience.
It was the disobedience of believing that he was not dependent upon God for the soul quality or potentiality that made it possible for him to partake of God’s divine nature. The tree of good and evil merely represented the knowledge that God had reserved unto Himself of the existence of that which, if known to Adam, would have subjected him to temptations that would destroy this soul quality of which I have spoken.
“Regarding the statement that if Adam should eat of the “tree of life,” he would live forever and become “as a god,” he was, in a sence, already the recipient of this tree of life, in that attribute of his soul which could, by its proper development, make himself “like the gods.” And here you must understand that “gods” could mean only those who possessed this divine nature of the Father.” To be continued…
(So, the title of this long message “As one of the gods,” refers to becoming divine.)