September 23rd, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington D.C.
I am here, St. John.
I want to write tonight on a subject that is important, and I hope that you will he able to receive my message, for I have been waiting for some time to deliver it. Well, I desire to discourse on the subject of: "What is the destiny of the mortal who has not experienced the New Birth, but who will progress to that condition which may be called the perfect man?" As you know, there is a future for the mortal who receives the New Birth, and a different one for him who has only the complete and pure development of his natural love.
This latter condition does not depend upon the mortal having in his soul the Divine Love or the Essence of the Father, but merely upon the purification of the natural love, so that all sin and error and inharmony form no part of his state of soul or mental existence. This condition is not the result of a New Birth, or of a change in the constituent elements of his soul, but merely the elimination of those things therefrom, which were the results and the necessary sequences of the defilement that followed the fall.
Now as man lost by this fall the qualities which made him the perfect creature of his Maker, it is only necessary for him to regain what he lost by that fall in order to become the perfect man once more; and in recovering this state of perfection it is not required that he should seek, or actually add to the qualities which he at first possessed, any new or additional qualities or attributes, but only that he regain what he had been deprived of by his disobedience; and when that is accomplished he will come again in harmony with the laws of his creation, and have all the potentialities and excellence that he originally possessed.
And now, what will that future be? And in order to determine this question it is only necessary to understand what his inherent condition or qualities were when he was the perfect man of his Father's creation. At that time he was possessed of those things of which he is now the possessor, except that then they were all so accurately adjusted that every sense and function of his body, as well as every faculty of his soul and mind, were so in harmony with the laws of his creation, that he was capable of doing the will of the Father, and obeying every requirement that was imposed upon him. He was then, not only a perfect being as regarding his physical formation, but also as regarding his mental and moral qualities, which of course included all the emotions and appetites and spiritual aspirations. But, as we have written you before, all these faculties were subject to his will, and in a certain sense his will was controlled by the exercise of these faculties.
His body was in the beginning made of matter, changeable as it now is, but of a more ethereal kind, and not subject to decay and disintegration in such a short time, as it now is, but yet, subject to this decay; and man, as regards his physical being, necessarily was compelled to die, and to have released his spirit body and his soul from this physical vesture, and thereafter exist as pure spirit. This was not the death that he died as a consequence of his disobedience, but the death natural to him, by reason of the very nature of his creation. His soul and spirit body were not subject to death in the sense of annihilation, but were given the qualities of continual existence in a pure and perfect state, and the only difference that the fall made as to these parts of his being, is that the purity and harmony that were men's are now no longer parts of his soul and spirit. Whether immortality was a quality of that existence, we spirits do not know, and therefore cannot assert, but as his created soul and spirit body had a beginning - mere creatures of the Father - it may be that they were intended to have an ending, as individualized soul and spirit.
Of course, they were created from something, and not from nothing, as some of your theologians say, and it is possible, in the order of change, which seems to be the law in the spirit world as well as in the mortal world, that this soul and spirit may be resolved again into that something. But as to this finality we do not have any knowledge, because, so far as the observation of spirits in this world go, no soul or spirit body - and I mean the body as a composite whole, and not as to its constituent elements - has ever been resolved into that something, or been deprived of its individualized existence. Therefore I cannot say, that when man was created, it was intended that, as man, he should not be immortal, or that he should be so.
But you will readily see, that after man shall have accomplished the purification of his soul and become in mind and spirit body, as it was intended he should be at the time of his creation, he will be nothing more nor less than he was at that time, and have no other or greater qualities, or freedom from limitations and changes than he had before his fall. Of course he will have no physical body, and here let me say that there is no fact or experience known to the spirit world that justifies the assertion that man on earth will ever be immune to physical death. I know that some say, that in the far future men may make such progress in the development of their natural love that their condition of inner purity will be so great as to cause the physical bodies to become so etherialized as to render them free from physical death. But that I cannot conceive will ever happen, for men were made to become inhabitants of the spiritual realms, and the short time they were decreed to live the earth life was for the purpose only of giving the soul an individualized existence.
Never was it intended that the physical form should have an eternity of existence, no matter how pure, or, as they say, etherealized it may become, for it was made of matter, of the earth, earthy, while the soul was made of that which had its origin in the spirit realm, and composed of spirit substance, so that it cannot be conceived that in the beginning man was created for an immortal earth existence.
I see that you are tired, and I will finish later. I am glad that I could write tonight, and also that you are in such good condition to receive my message. So with my love and blessings and assurances that you have every reason to keep up your courage and hope, I am
Your brother in Christ,
John.