December 16th, 1918
Received by:James Padgett.
Washington D.C.
Let me write a few lines tonight as I desire to tell you of a truth that to me seems important for mankind to know in order that they may comprehend the truth of their personal salvation.
I am a spirit of soul development and an inhabitant of the Celestial Heavens, where only those whose souls have been transformed by the Divine Love into the very nature and Essence of the Father can find a habitation. I will not write at any great length and have only one idea or truth to convey, and that is "that no man or spirit can possibly receive the full salvation that Jesus taught and exemplified in his own person, who does not become wholly possessed in his soul of this Divine Love of the Father, and becomes rid of the conditions and attributes that belong to his created soul." This soul was not created with any of the divine attributes or qualities, but simply and merely with those which you may call human and which all men and spirits who have not experienced the transformation possess.
The God-man, as Jesus is sometimes designated by your religious writers and theologians, was not at the time of his creation or appearance in the flesh possessed of these Divine attributes, which are of the nature and Essence of the Father, but only of the human attributes which belonged to the perfect man - that is, the man who was the perfect creature as he existed before the fall of the first parents, when sin had not entered into their souls, and into the world of men's existence. Jesus was from the time of his birth, the perfect man, and, consequently, without sin - all his moral qualities being in complete harmony with the will of God and the laws controlling his creation; yet, he was not greater than were the first parents prior to their act of disobedience.
There was nothing of God, in the sense of the Divine that entered into his nature or constituents, and, if the Divine Love had not come into and transformed his soul, he would have remained only the perfect creature of a quality no higher or greater than was bestowed upon the first man; and Jesus was as regards his possibilities and privileges, like this first man prior to his fall or death of the potentiality of becoming Divine, but differed from him in this: that Jesus embraced and made his own these privileges and hence became Divine, while the first man refused to embrace them and lost them, and remained the mere man though not the perfect man as he was created.
And while Jesus by reason of his possession of the Divine Love became divine, yet he never became the God-man, and never can, for there does not exist and never can be a God-man. God is God, alone, and never has and never can become man; and Jesus is man only and never can become God.
But Jesus is preeminently the Divine man, and may rightly be called the best beloved son of the Father, for he possesses more of the Divine Love and, consequently, more of the Essence and Nature of the Father, than does any other spirit of the Celestial Heavens, and with this possession there comes to him greater power and glory and knowledge. He may be described and understood as possessing and manifesting the Wisdom of the Father; and we spirits of the Celestial Kingdom recognize and acknowledge that superior wisdom of Jesus and are compelled by the very greatness and force of the wisdom, itself, to honor and abide in his authority.
And this transcendent and greatest possessor of the Father's wisdom is the same when he comes to you and reveals the truths of God as he is when in the highest spheres of the Celestial Kingdom clothed in all the glory of his nearness to the Father. As the voice on the Mount said "Hear ye him," I repeat to you and to all who may have the privilege and opportunity of reading or hearing his messages, hear ye him! And when hearing, believe and seek.
Well, my brother, I deemed it proper to write this short message and hope it may help you in the work. I will come again. Good night.
Your brother in Christ,
Saint Matthew,
as called in the Bible.