What Is The True Christian Religion?/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
GOD REVEALED IN JESUS
The second great objective of the coming of the Lord into human life through the assumption of a human form on the plane of nature was to reveal God to man. God as He is in Himself is invisible. He dwells on a higher plane, indeed the highest plane of being, on the plane of Infinity and Eternity. As Paul said, "who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, not can see." Being Infinite He cannot be understood or conceived of by finite beings; for we can understand and conceive of an Infinite Being only by thinking of Him as being out of our bounds of thinking. We can think of anything only on the plane of finiteness, in defined terms or conditions, which bring a thing to us as an object of thought. The word "finite" means limited or bounded. We cannot conceive of the infinity of space, to our minds it must end somewhere. We cannot conceive of the phrase "from eternity" because we cannot conceive of anything not having had a beginning. Thus we cannot think of God either in His infinity or eternity. He must reveal Himself to us, and the only way in which He can do so is by coming into defined conditions, or into objective form. We may in out blindness deny that such a Being can exist but we cannot rationally deny Him as First Cause and as the Preserver of creation who must have made the laws of the universe and who needs must operate them.
God tried in Old Testament times to reveal Himself through the mediation of angels, who ate good men and women gone out of this life, or through the prophets who are the recipients of the Divine influx, but the time came when man became too gross and materialistic to be able to receive Divine enlightment from within. God had to become objective, an object of thought. God could reveal Himself only in human terms. And it was natural that He should so reveal Himself, for He is Primal Man in whose image and likeness we are made. He therefore assumed humanity through Mary, a virgin, in order that He might be uninfluenced and unaffected by the limitations which come through a human father in order that He might be in a true sense "The Only Begotten Son of God." God thus projected Himself into human life through the assumption of a limited human form on the plane of earth in order not only that He might rescue mankind, but also that He might return into the Infinite later without finite limitations from a human father, and henceforward be the Infinite God. Therefore it was expedient that He should go away from the natural human and ascend to the Father, again become identical with the Father. His disciples could not understand this, but He said to them: "The time cometh when I shall show you plainly of the Father." That time has come in this New Age when he does reveal Himself as the Father, "The Almighty," as "King of kings and Lord of lords," "God over all blessed forever."
The third great objective of the Lord in the incarnation was to provide an eternal means of contact with mankind, to provide, as it were, a great dynamo, a Divine Dynamo, which would forever make the otherwise invisible God accessible to man. Just as the electric dynamo makes the otherwise invisible and unknowable force called electricity available for man's needs, giving man its heat, light and energy for his uses, so Jesus, as God come forth to view, brings to man, who can thus conceive of God in human terms, the Divine Heat, (or Love); the Divine Light, (or Truth); and the Divine Energy, (the Power of God). We can thus approach God in His Divine Human, conceive of Him as an object of thought, secure His Love, Truth and Power. As Jesus said, "Without me ye can do nothing." "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again I leave the world, and go unto the Father." At another time Jesus said. "He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that seeth me, seeth him who sent me." The Lord tells us of this relationship in a living way in the Parable of the Vine and the branches.
The Son of God who is said to have been set down on the right hand of God after His resurrection was the Divine Human, or the Glorified Human, the Human made Divine, which remains forever the medium of understanding and contact through which God works on earth. It was not a separate Personality, but an Aspect of God after He had come forth to view before the sight of humanity. It was the only Aspect of Divinity that enables us to understand God and come into contact with God. "No man cometh unto the Father but by me."
There are in our thought always, and must forever be, two Aspects of God, God as He is in Himself and God in His Coming-Forth-to-View. "God and His Christ." We read in Revelation, "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. and He shall reign forever and ever." "He," not "they." One God in two aspects of the Invisible and the Visible; not unlike man as to soul and body. "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with man," as Jesus, "and He will dwell with them." as Jesus, "and they shall be his people, and God Himself shall be with them, their God.