The Ascent of the SoulBradford, Amory H. (Amory Howe)
Religion
The Ascent of the Soul
Bradford, Amory H. (Amory Howe)
Ascension of the soul; Soul
Jesus in a peculiar way identified himself with the Deity. That does
not mean that all the divine omnipotence and glory were in that Man of
Nazareth, but it does mean that all of the Deity that could be expressed
in terms of humanity were visible in Him, so that those who saw Jesus
saw God as far as He could be manifested in the flesh. Beyond that veil
were abysses and heights of being which could not be expressed in human
terms; but in all the spaces we may dare to believe that there is
nothing essentially different from what was revealed in that unique Man.
A bay makes a curve in the Atlantic seaboard; its shallow waters are all
from the deeps of the sea. Tides that move along all the seas, and
forces which reach to the stars, fill that basin among the hills. The
bay is the ocean, but not all of it; for if we were to sail around the
earth we should find the same body of water reaching out to vaster
spaces.
Even so the person of Jesus included all of God that humanity can
contain, but Bethlehem and Jerusalem, Gethsemane and Calvary were to the
Deity as some land-locked harbor to the immensities of the universe. In
Him love reached to enemies, to the outcast, to those who had been
called refuse and rubbish, to men of all classes in all the ages, to
lepers, beggars, criminals, lunatics, harlots, thieves, little children;
those who appreciated and those who hated alike were all included in the
infinite purpose of blessing.
Those who have seen the love of Jesus, and its ministries, have seen the
Father; but beyond the love of Galilee and Calvary reach depths of love
which even the cross is powerless to express. Divine sympathy and divine
affection bind all men in a universal family; this we know, and this is
all we know.
That teaching is so simple that a child can understand it; so profound
that no philosopher has ever transcended it; and so satisfying that
neither child nor philosopher would have it changed either as to its
simplicity or its fullness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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