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'Learn that the expression of even a good thought must be modulated in accordance with the intellectual status and spiritual development of the hearer.'
'Be not dismayed that you fail to grasp the full meaning of the gospel. You are but finite and fallible mortal men--and that which I have taught you is infinite, divine, and eternal.'
Participation in the religion of Jesus is the sure and certain technique whereby spiritually isolated and cosmically lonely individuals can escape personality isolation and all its consequences of fear and helplessness.
Fear, anger, evil, and forgiveness
'In half-civilized man there still lurks an evil brutality that seeks to vent itself upon those who are superior in wisdom and spiritual attainment.'
Having revealed God to man, Jesus was now (at his crucifixion) engaged in making an unprecedented revelation of man to God. He was now revealing to the worlds the final triumph over all fears of creature personality isolation.
As taunts, insults, and blows fell upon Jesus, he was not vanquished, merely uncontending in the material sense.
Jesus was not even angry when, at his trial, ignorant mortals derisively struck him in the face after blindfolding him.
As they nailed Jesus on the cross, his only words were, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." He could not have so mercifully and lovingly interceded for his executioners if such thoughts of affectionate devotion had not been the mainspring of all his life of unselfish service.
Salvation
The gospel of the good news that we mortals may, by faith, become spirit-conscious that we are children of God, is not in any way dependent on the death of Jesus. True, indeed, this gospel of the kingdom has been illuminated by the master's death, but even more so, by his life.
Moses taught the dignity and justice of a creator God; but Jesus portrayed the love and mercy of a heavenly Father.
It is wholly correct to refer to Jesus as our savior. He forever made the way of salvation (survival) more clear and more certain.
The concept of atonement and sacrificial salvation is rooted and grounded in selfishness. The believer's chief concern should not be the selfish desire for personal salvation but rather the unselfish urge to love and serve our fellow beings even as Jesus loved and served mortal man.
The great thing about the death of Jesus, as it is related to the enrichment of human experience and the enlargement of the way of salvation, is not the fact of his death but rather the superb manner and the matchless spirit in which he met that death.
The cross forever shows that the attitude of Jesus toward sinners was neither condemnation nor condonation, but rather eternal and loving salvation.
When thinking men and women look upon Jesus as he offered up his life on the cross, they will hardly again permit themselves to complain at even the severest hardships of life, much less at petty harassments and fictitious grievances.
Jesus is truly a savior in the sense that his life and death do win us over to goodness and righteous survival.
Jesus loved us so much that his love awakens the response of love in the human heart. Love is truly contagious--and eternally creative.
Righteousness
Jesus portrayed a higher quality of righteousness than justice--mere technical right and wrong. Divine love does not merely forgive wrongs; it absorbs and actually destroys them.
Greater love can no one have than this--that they would be willing to lay down their life for their friends. And Jesus had such love that he was willing to lay down his life even for his enemies.
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