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EIGHTEENTH DAY

THE WORK OF CHRIST

            (In answer to a question.)

            Spirit loq. Do not give up any practical work, but rather take more on you gradually. It is a false theory and contrary to truth that practical work unfits for spiritual work. Practical work develops the spiritual nature and can never be dissociated from its development. No life can be balanced or whole that is given up entirely to contemplation and meditation.

            There comes to be a need in such a life, of realizing idea into action. Idea itself is meaningless apart from

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action; and this is the secret of Christ’s mighty strength which still pours and streams from his teaching into Humanity’s inmost hearing. He taught that which he practiced, he practiced that which he taught. He proved his claim over men’s hearts for all time in so doing. It is true that the origin of his practice was in his being, in his immediate contact with the Source of all life and practical power. Therefore was practice no effort to him. It flowed from and through him in the absolute harmony of a pure life-stream, and detracted nothing from his strength for further action. Born the offspring of Divine Understanding and Sympathy, Action radiated within and around him as light radiates within and around the sun. Perfect thought or knowledge, and perfect love, with their resultant perfect action, was Christ, and is Christ, and shall be Christ for ever and ever.

            This is the secret of the Christ in man. Jesus was the first full manifestation of it on Earth, the first Heaven-born and Earth-born Son of God and Son of man combined; the first witness to the glorious goal and end to which Earth and man exist. He towers above all other men, radiant with hope and promise to all mankind, standing forth the full realization of a spiritual manhood instinct with the combined power and love of God. No longer confuse with this glorious image the surroundings and suffering which were a necessary incident in Christ’s manifestation at the time he appeared, and a necessary consequence of Earth’s non-comprehension of his vast import and promise to mankind. Do not for a moment imagine that the promise made to Abraham, “In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed,” referred to a distant salvation (after what you call death) from the just punishment of sin. It referred first and foremost to this glorious evolution manifested through Christ Jesus, of Christhood; it referred to the developed incorporation of God Himself within man,

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which Christ Jesus, the offspring of Abraham, should realize and reveal to mankind. Herein is the everlasting power over man of Christ. As the dawn is to the daylight, so was he to Humanity the precursor of Humanity’s greatness in God. “Greater works than these shall ye do because I go to my Father,” because my life on your Earth has discovered to you the full attainment of your own manhood.

            As the faithful moonlight which enlightens man’s darkness, so was Christ Jesus the reflection to men of their sun, their God, as the cause, the vivifying power of their lives. It matters not what churches, what creeds or what sects embody man’s allegiance to Christ, or how they embody it; it matters not what errors, what misconceptions, what poverty-stricken results arise out of their worship of him. He is the truest idea Earth has expressed. He is the Everlasting Type which prefigures to man, alike the unfoldment of God through his race, and the unfoldment of God through each individual member of that race.