This chapter shows how a sin-filled soul is a dead soul which needs to come to an awakening (an aspect of the New Birth) in order to be receptive to the path of salvation. It points out how the Old Testament prophecies of the new heart became fulfilled in Jesus’ coming to announce and exemplify the availability of the Divine Love. Two kinds of repentance – that exhorted to by John the Baptist and that called to by Jesus – are contrasted, as are the old and new covenant.
A soul in a state of sin and error is not responsive to the inflowing of the Divine Love imparted by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, to get into a state of receptivity, it must be awakened to its condition of enslavement by sin. Until such awakening occurs, receiving the Love of God is impossible. Neither is such soul open to turning its thoughts to God’s truths and practices of life that will help it progress towards a condition of freedom.
The awakening doesn’t come through the Holy Spirit, but must come from other causes that influence the mind, as well as the soul. The person has to arrive at the realization that their life is not in accord with the laws of God, or with the real longings of their heart and soul. Until such awakening takes place, the soul is dead as far as consciousness of the truths regarding its redemption is concerned. Such death means a continuance in thoughts and desires of sin and evil, and in a life which beyond death will lead to long years of suffering. When the awakening occurs, the Holy Spirit can fulfil its mission and bestow the Father’s Love into that soul. (Based on TGRABJ/1/113)
Paraphrased, TGRABJ/1/317 tells us: No one can come to the Father’s Love, except they be born again. This is the fundamental truth which humans must learn and believe, for without this New Birth one cannot partake of the divine essence of God’s Love, which makes a person at one with the Father. This Love comes to an individual through the Holy Spirit, which causes it to flow into and progressively fill the heart and soul, so that ultimately all sin and error, which tends to make the person unhappy, is eradicated.
Here the New Birth is equated with the soul awakening and condition for the Holy Spirit being able bring the Divine Love into the heart and soul of a person. Elsewhere, we learn that the New Birth is the end-result of the transformation, when the soul has become fully changed from divine image into divine substance. So we can conclude that as in the Greek, the word genao denotes the entire process from conception to birth, the spiritual New Birth can be regarded in the same way. It spans from the first soul opening (of which many may be initially unaware), to a full soul transformation and complete at-onement with the Father.
The gospel of John echoes the truth regarding the ability to receive Jesus’ teaching and be open to the Divine Love:
John 6:44-45, 65 – “No one can come to me [Jesus] unless the Father who sent me draws him, … It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me [and receives my teaching.] … [Jesus] went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.”
With the initial opening of the soul, followed by soul transformation by the Divine Love imparted by the Holy Spirit comes receptivity to spiritual knowledge and development of soul perceptions – understanding at the soul level of what cannot be grasped by the mind.
Some people’s soul condition may not be conducive for them to actively pursue the path of salvation through the Divine Love, but they may be more naturally attracted to a path of morality taught by spiritual teachers like the Buddha, Confucius and others. Even the teachings of Jesus were twofold. While bringing the truth of salvation through the Divine Love, for those unable to understand his higher spiritual truths, he gave principles, which if followed, would make them better men and women and help them develop their natural love. Such teachings, even today in churches and elsewhere, may turn the hearts and minds of hearers to spiritual things. This in turn may open their souls to the influence of Celestial spirits, and from this may follow the longings for the Love of the Father.
Everything that helps people progress towards a way of love is commendable. The Divine Love operates at the soul level, and frequently comes into a person’s soul without their intellectual understanding of what it is. All humans are children of God by creation, and if they will not become His beloved children in the divine sense (by possessing His substance and nature), He wants them to become the pure and perfect beings that the first parents were before the fall. (Based on TGRABJ/3/303)
The Bible sheds further light on the truth of heart transformation. Old Testament prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel foresaw people receiving a new heart – which Jesus later equated with receiving the Divine Love. As the scriptures below and other passages show, the new heart would lead to a radical change in the relationship between God and the individual, abolish the old covenant based largely on letter-of-the-law obedience, and establish the new covenant wherein the law written in the heart through the Divine Love would motivate to loving actions. This heart change would enable doing what is right from within in contrast to striving to keep the law and do the right thing based on just will power and through one’s own strength.
Old Testament history proves that the Israelites, with, and despite, all their good intentions to obey God, failed time after time when relying on their own will power and strength to obey God’s commandments. The result was repeated cycles of promises to obey, rebellions against God, consequences of disobedience in the form of oppression by enemies and other curses, repentance and crying out to God for help, and deliverance out of trouble. Not only does disobedience to, and lack of harmony with, God’s laws bring suffering here and now, but after death, in the spirit world, everyone is destined to reap the penalties of the law of compensation. More on this point, and how the law of compensation can be transcended, later.
Ezekiel 36:26-27 – “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit [my Love] in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” [This can be interpreted to mean that when a person accepts God’s Love (i.e., receives the new heart), they will naturally come into harmony with God’s laws rather than being motivated by fear and relying on their own will and strength to obey.]
Jeremiah 31:31 … “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me.”
A similar language is used in the New Testament book of Romans:
Romans 2:13-15 – For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law [they didn’t receive all the laws and instructions that Israel did], do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)
The gift of a new heart (God’s Love), if accepted, has the ability to profoundly change a person’s relationship with God. The individual is no longer reliant upon their own self to overcome sin and follow God’s laws. By partaking of the new heart, they partake of God’s divinity which changes their soul from being created in the image of God into the very essence of Him. This transformation results in naturally living in harmony with God’s laws.
To reiterate, the new covenant is of the spirit or inner transformation, and is based on love. By contrast, the old covenant was of the letter or written code and based on law keeping. We are also told that the letter kills while the spirit gives life (Romans 2:29; 2 Corinthians 3:6). The law only pointed to, or was a shadow of, ultimate spiritual realities (Hebrews 10:1). With the advent of the new covenant, the old covenant becomes obsolete (Hebrews 8:13).
Even though we are in the new covenant dispensation, some Christians still have the mentality of the Jews and Pharisees in Jesus’ time. They tend to judge others based on how well they keep laws – be it biblical laws and/or church laws and traditions. Judgement and criticism is often unloving and leads to divisiveness, discrimination and disunity. We are exhorted not to judge (Luke 6:37, Matthew 7:1-5), and reminded that as followers of Jesus in God’s Love, we are all one body (Ephesians 4:1-6).
Repentance involves coming to recognize one’s sinful behaviors and wanting to change and to follow God’s way. It is turning around, or returning to God – which is what the Old Testament prophets so often exhorted the people of Israel and Judah to do. This was also the repentance preached by John the Baptist in preparing the people for Jesus’ message. We read in the gospel of Mark:
Mark 1:2-8 – It is written in Isaiah the prophet: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way – a voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’” And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. … This was [John’s] message: “After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
We read further in Mark’s gospel:
Mark 1:14-15 – After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news [of the re-bestowal of the Divine Love that will open to its recipients God’s Kingdom]!”
In another source (NTR-4), we learn of the difference between the repentance preached by John the Baptist and by his younger cousin, Jesus.
John preached repentance in the traditional sense of the word – turning away from sin and error and renewed obedience to the Law of Moses, with love of God and one's neighbor. This leads to the condition of the perfect natural man. Jesus also preached repentance, but he meant a turning anew to God and seeking the Celestial Kingdom of God through prayer. He taught that God had re-bestowed upon humankind the great gift of immortality in his person, and that the soul’s yearning for God’s Love and seeking this Love through earnest prayer was real repentance. When he said, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance,” (Luke 5:32), he meant that by turning to God, sinners, as well as the righteous, could receive the gift of the Divine Love. But while it was available to both, it was not the righteous in Jesus’ day, but the sinners who repented and sought God and His Love. Unfortunately, the righteous, or those who considered themselves righteous, refused in their self-satisfaction the great gift that was theirs for the asking.
In the Acts of the Apostles following Jesus’ death, we read about Peter telling a crowd of onlookers that gathered after witnessing the miraculous healing of a crippled man: “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out.” (Acts 3:19).
While a soul is not instantly cleansed by receiving a portion of the Divine Love, the inflowing of the Love into a person’s soul starts them on the way of right thinking and makes them realize that their soul is open to the influence of the Love. Both mortals and spirits may receive this awakening of divine grace as soon as they recognize that they have sinned and fall under judgment (penalties of the law of compensation), and that this Love is the only thing that will free them from having to pay these penalties. (TGRABJ/2/56). This is the act of repentance, exhorted to by Jesus and his apostles.
Many Christian writers, including John Wesley, also use the term conversion. This is a turning around, leaving one orientation for another. It may be sudden and dramatic, or gradual and cumulative. But in any case, it is a new beginning and can also be seen as rebirth, new life in Christ, or regeneration.
The calling / drawing / enabling / awakening / rebirth / regeneration / coming to repentance / being converted / becoming open to receiving the Divine Love / starting on a new life in Christ can all be compared to human conception. The first inflowing of God’s Love changes a child of God by creation – which we all are because our souls were created by God – into a true redeemed child of God. Like the male sperm impregnating the female ovum, the initial amount of the Divine Love has started the person off on a journey to the Celestial Kingdom and immortality by giving them a new heart, new understanding, new perspective, and new relationship with God.
In Part II and associated chapters, we’ll learn more about forgiveness of sins and justification, both as an event and a process. In fact, while the “events” discussed in this chapter can be compared to spiritual conception, Part II will discuss “spiritual gestation” – a process that can continue throughout this life and into the next, and varies in length for different individuals.