May 25th, 1917
Received by James Padgett.
Washington D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
I have been with you as you prayed, and joined in your prayer to the Father for the inflowing of His Great Love into your soul in great abundance; and I know that His Holy Spirit is present and that His love is flowing into your soul, and that you are becoming in at-onement with the Father. His love will always come to you when you pray as you have tonight, and His listening ear is always open to the earnest aspirations of His children who come to him with the true longings of the soul. You have the secret of reaching the Father's love, and on all occasions, when you feel that you need that Love or desire a nearness to the Father, use the secret and you will not be disappointed.
You are in better condition tonight in your soul development and perceptions and can receive my message which I have desired for some time to communicate, and to do which I was waiting only for you to be in a complete rapport with me.
Well, you will remember, that in the early stages of our writings, I communicated to you my knowledge and conception of "who and what God is," and that I have recently told you that I desired to rewrite the message, as your condition is now so much better to receive these truths than it was when the message was written; and so, tonight, I will deliver the message, and will take a more complete possession of your brain and control of your hand than I was able to do at the time mentioned.
Then the question is: Who and What is God?
In dealing with this question, you must realize that it is not so easy to describe in language that mortals can comprehend the Essence and Attributes of God, and I feel the limitations that I am under in endeavoring to give you a satisfactory description of the only and true God; not because of the paucity of knowledge and conception on my part, but because of the fact that you have not the required soul development to enable me to form the necessary rapport with you, in order that through your brain, may be expressed the exact truth as to who the Father is.
Well, to begin, God is Soul, and Soul is God. Not the soul that is in the created man, but the Soul that is Deity and self-existent, without beginning or ending, and whose entity is the one great fact in the universe of being.
God is without form, such as has been conceived of by man in nearly all ages, and especially by those who believe in the Bible of the Hebrews as well as in that of the Christians. But nevertheless, He is of form, which only the soul perceptions of the soul of a man which has arrived at a certain degree of development, that is taken on the Divine nature of the Father and thus become a part of the Soul of God, can discern and realize as an entity. There is nothing in all nature with which men are acquainted or have knowledge of, that can be used to make a comparison, even in the spirit perceptions, with this Great Soul; and hence, for men to conceive of God as having a form in any manner resembling that of man, is all erroneous; and those who, in their beliefs and teachings, deny the anthropomorphic God, are correct.
But, nevertheless, God is of form such as to give him an entity and Substance and seat of habitation, in contradistinction to that God which, in the teachings of some men, is said to be everywhere in this Substance and entity - in the trees and rocks, and thunder and lightning, and in men and beasts, and in all created things, and in whom men are said to live and move and have their being. No, this concept of God is not in accord with the truth, and it is vital to the knowledge and salvation of men that such conception of God be not entertained or believed in.
To believe that God is without form is to believe that he is a mere force or principle or nebulous power, and, as some say, the resultant of laws; which laws, as a fact, He has established for the controlling of His universe of creation, and which are expressed to men by these very powers and principles, that to some extent, they can comprehend.
The child has asked: "Who made God?" And because the wise men cannot answer that question, in their wisdom, they conclude and assert that there can be no real God of personality or soul form, and, hence, only force, principle or evolved laws can be God; and in their own conceit think that they have solved the question. But the child may not be satisfied with the answer, and may ask the wise men: "Who made principle and force and laws that must be accepted as the only God?" And then, the wise men cannot answer, unless they answer: "God," which they do not believe, but which let me say, is the true and only answer.
God is back of force and principle and law, which are only expressions of His being, and which without Him could not exist; and they are only existences, changeable, dependent and subject to the will of God, who only, is Being.
God then, is Soul, and that Soul has its form, perceptible only to Itself, or that of man, which, by reason of the sufficient possession of the very Substance of the Great Soul has become like unto God, not in image only, but in very Essence. We spirits of the highest soul progression are enabled by our soul perceptions to see God and His form. But here, I use the words "see" and "form," as being the only words that I can use to give mortals a comparative conception of what I am endeavoring to describe.
When it is remembered that mortals can scarcely conceive of the form of the spirit body of a man, which is composed or formed of the material of the universe, though not usually accepted to be of the material, it will be readily seen that it is hardly possible for me to convey to them a faint idea even of the Soul form of God, which is composed of that which is purely spiritual - that is, not of the material, even though to the highest degree sublimated.
And although I am not able because of the limitations mentioned, to describe to men that form which they may glean a conception of the Soul's form - as such form can be seen only with the soul's eye, which eyes men do not possess - it must not be believed that because men cannot understand or perceive the truth of the Soul's form, therefore, it is not a truth. A truth, though not conceived or perceived by men, spirits or angels, is still a truth, and its existence does not depend upon its being known; and even though all the mortals of earth, and the spirits and angels of heaven, save one, could not perceive the existence of that truth, yet its existence perceived by that one irrefutably proves its reality.
But, as I have said, the truth of God's form - the Soul's form can be testified to by more than one of the celestial spirits of men passed from earth; and the possibility is before mortals of the present life, in the great future, if their souls have become possessed of the Divine Substance of God's Love in sufficient abundance to perceive God as I have attempted to explain.
The created soul of man has its form, it being made in the image of God, yet man cannot see that form, although it is a fact and can be testified to by many in the spirit realms. And here it needs to be said, that when in our message we speak of God as being without form, we mean any such form as men have or think they have conceived of, and our expressions must not be considered as contradictory to what I have tried to explain as the form of God.
Well, in addition to the form, God has a personality, and this is expressed and made known to man by certain attributes, which to the consciousness of man is existent in the universe; and to some philosophers and scientists and wise men these attributes are their impersonal God himself, and to them the only God. They make the created, the Creator, not realizing that behind the expression must be the Cause; and that greater than the attribute must be That from which the expression of the attribute is projected, or, as they better like to say, evolved.
And here, I, who know, desire to say that these manifested attributes or forces and powers and principles and laws and expressions do not, all together, constitute or be that from which they flow or in which they have their source. God is Himself, alone. His Attributes or expressions manifested to mortals or spirits, are only the results or effects of the workings of His Spirit, which Spirit is only the active energy of His Soul - Himself. And hence, the form of God is not distributed over the whole universe of creation where His attributes may be, or because they are everywhere manifested.
No, as was said by Moses of old, and as was said by me when on earth: God is in His Heavens. And although it may be surprising and startling to mortals to hear, God has His habitation, and God the Substance, the Self-existing and Soul form, has His locality, and men do not live and move and have their existence in God; but in His emanations and expressions and spirit they do.
As you are somewhat exhausted, I think this a good place to stop. I am pleased that you are in such good condition. So be prepared for an early resumption of the message.
With my love and blessings, I will say, good night.
Your brother and friend,
Jesus.