Here also it continues to be lamentably misconceived,
nevertheless it is still retained, and only needs to be
recognized in its true light as a universal principle, instead of
an unintelligible dogma, to become the salvation of the world.
Hence, as affording the medium through which this supreme ideal
has been preserved and spread, it is true that "Salvation is of
the Jews."
Their fundamental idea was right but their apprehension of it was
wrong--that is why the Master at the same time sweeps away the
national worship of the temple and preserves the national idea of
the Messiah; and this is equally true of the Christian world at
the present day. If salvation is anything real it must have its
cause in some law, and if there is a law it must be founded upon
some universal principle: therefore it is this principle which we
must seek if we would understand this teaching of the Master's.
Now whether we take the Bible story of the birth of Christ
literally or symbolically, it teaches one great lesson. It
teaches that the All-originating Spirit is the true Parent of the
individual both in soul and body. This is nothing else than
realizing from the stand-point of the individual what we cannot
help realizing in regard to the original creation of the cosmos--
it is the realization that the All-originating Spirit is at once
the Life and the Substance in each individual here and now, just
as it must have been in the origin of all things.
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