Chapter 4

^[*]We are born of whomever and whatever we choose to receive and to give ourselves to. Thanks, praise, honor and glory to God for ever and ever that He has given Jesus power to bring forth after His kind. It would be tragic if all creation were able to beget and grow children in their own likeness, if Jesus did not have a far greater power to beget and grow up chil­dren in His likeness. And praise and gratitude and glory to Jesus that He not only gives a birth from above and rears up the children of the first Adam in his own likeness, but He also sets free the captives of the evil one and brings them home to be received and perfected as Sons.

It was very difficult and tragic for Jesus Christ to be born in our humanity and through submission to the worst we could do unto Him open the way whereby we could be born into His divinity and receive the best He could do for, in and through us.

In His birth into our humanity, He became tied up to the human and to the creation. In our birth in His divinity, we become united with His manifest victory.

He chose to live an atoning life and die an atoning death the He might make possible the redemption of the human and bring the creation to the glorious liberty of the sons of God.

As Henry Drummond has reminded us, everything has to be born and lifted up from above. The mineral kingdom is lifted up by the vegetable and the vege­table by the animal and the animal by the human and the human by the Divine. When man is lifted up into the fullness of the Love of God, the creation will also be lifted up into the realm of the liberty and glory of the Son and sons of God.

In this lifting up of the human by the Divine every­thing below the human is not only lifted up but makes its contribution. It is also true that the Divine planted in the human brings forth the Divine and lifts the human into the Divine. Through the Incar­nation the Divine becomes human and through the Resurrection and Ascension the human becomes wholly Divine. It was beyond human thought to conceive how very loving and merciful and healing God is until He becomes human as Jesus Christ, and how wonderful and heavenly man might become by yielding and responding wholly to the Divine.

On the plane of the natural it is perfectly apparent there can be but one birth; and what the parents are determines what the offspring will be. The offspring of birds are birdlings; and if birdlings grow up they will become birds. This is natural predestination or predetermination. But in the realm of the mental and spiritual there may be many births and will be to all questing souls until they are born of the Highest.

Even those who yield and respond to the spirit of the devil are born of the devil and remain such until set free by Jesus and those in union with Him.

In my own experience I was born of Plato, and of Emerson and of Orthodoxy and of Liberalism and fortunately moved rather fast from one birth to another until dedicated to be led by the Spirit. The highest birth came when Jesus Christ manifested Himself to me as the most lovable, adorable, and glorious Being of all. When the Perfect is revealed that which is less than the Perfect is swallowed up in the Perfect.

There is miracle in everything that is conceived, is born and grows up, but the fact that Jesus Christ who gave Himself in life and in death for the redemption of all, should be raised up from the dead, receive the perfect gift of heaven (the gift of the Holy Spirit) with the power to give this Gift and bring forth children in His own likeness and make them co-partners with Him in the redemption of the creation is the greatest miracle of all.

As Luther saw, if man, separated from God who is Love, had been able to hold that heavenly love in the separation, he would of himself have been a god. But when he was banished from Paradise man lost love except for himself and what seemed to promote his self-interest. Nevertheless in the separation he still had faith which is the power to receive and pass on love as a tube receives and passes on water. If he had not had this power he would have been hopeless. But having this power he can be saved, for in the inflow and outflow of Love he is born of Love and becomes a new center and personality of Love.

Since God is Love, whoever will receive and give His Love becomes Love. “For he that loveth is born of God” and knows God, and abides in God and God abides in him. So as many as receive Jesus Christ and give themselves to giving and living His Love are born of God and are given power to grow up into sonship. As it is put in the epistle of John, “He that believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (1 John 5:1). If you really believe He is the Christ you will receive Him and His Love and go to giving Him and His Love, and you cannot receive and give His Love without becoming Love. It is the deep law of our being that we not only become like what we receive and give, but we become the very thing we choose to receive and to give. As we have seen, Peter yielding to Satan is Satan, and Jesus Christ yielding wholly and only to God is God, manifested in the flesh. Without effort on our part whatever good we give comes back to us, good measure pressed down and running over. Give what you would like to receive, and you are sure of receiving it.

After the heavenly child is born, and the evidence that he is born is that he has the Spirit and Love of Jesus, he requires and is provided with the perfect care that only the Perfect One can give. The heavenly child requires and get far more and better care than the human children who have the very best parents. He who begets the heavenly children is far more intelligently committed to their protection, their education, their highest and total welfare, than are the best human fathers and mothers. The heavenly children are fed upon the perfect milk of pure grace. Everything is done for them that can be done and nothing but receiving and responding is expected of them. He feeds them on milk until they are prepared for heavenly bread, meat and wine. The bread that they feast upon is of course the bread of life, which is Jesus Himself. The meat is the doing of His will; the wine is the Holy Spirit.

The best and wisest of humans may make it too easy for their children and if they do the child tends to lose interest. If the parents make it too difficult the children become paralyzed through discouragement. Jesus is always calling for the very best in His children, and yet in His school what is required matches the child’s ability at every step of the way.

In my own experience it seems that I believed in Jesus before I knew or had the witness of the Spirit that I believed. I went through the crucifixion of seeking Him publicly, going to the altar in the presence of college professors and fellow students. It was the most difficult thing that I ever did, so difficult that it has made everything else on the Way comparatively easy. I have walked with colored boys to the electric chair who found the walk seemingly easy in comparison to my walk to the altar, and I apparently got nowhere at the altar. After seeking Him before my college associates and friends and while reading the Gospel of John in my room when alone, I came to the words of Jesus, “He that believeth hath everlasting life.” I said, “I believe in Jesus.” Then His Spirit witnessed with my spirit that I believed and that I was His child. I found myself at least in the beginning of the Kingdom of Heaven. I was not then ready to let Him choose His best life and work for me, but again and again I was brought back to the wonder of being in the Kingdom of Heaven as a present experience.

I expected much from the water baptism. Jesus received much and I was at best I knew seeking to follow Him. But while Jesus was being baptized by John the Baptist, He was praying and dedicating Himself, while I was seeking to avoid getting strangled and all the while I was conscious of my unsightly appearance. Later I tried it again and again until I found at least something of the reality it symbolizes. But when I found the Reality, the light and guidance was to go on to perfection.

I found precious reality at the first communion service. There was a visible glory over the Bread, the Table and the Wine. Later, while a student at Har­vard, at a communion service where there was no table, no bread, and no wine—just the seeking to commune with the one God who is Love and Light and Goodness—I also found Reality and a measure of the Glory of the Lord was upon me. These and other experiences taught me that you can find Him everywhere and miss Him anywhere. The true worshipper worships Him in Spirit and in Truth, in Spirit and in Life, in Spirit and in Love. The symbols of the rebirth can assist one, but the actual experience is denied to no one who seeks Him in Spirit and in Truth. Through years of experimenting I came to the certainty that the true religion is the religion of the Spirit, the religion of utter sincerity, and the religion of Perfect Love. I found wherever this Spirit is there is Reality, there is Joy and Peace and Health and Healing and the Abundant Life and the Lord Himself. Under His leading which amounted to a free compulsion I left all that it seemed I needed to leave in order to be led by the Spirit and to be baptized by the Spirit if this was His best for me. I asked for His best whether I knew what it was or not. I let go everything and everyone that seemed to bind me so that I would owe no one anything but to love him. Fortunately I left all who were not going my way in love, and in telling them good-bye entered into a deeper fellowship with them, than I had known while consenting to conform to less than the Spirit of Truth and His highest will for me.

1. * [Note, footnote is on the Subtitle word Birth*.] For a fuller treatment of this see Manifest Victory, pp. 57-68 and 243-247. (↩)