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The Goal of Life, by Hiram Butler, [1908], at sacred-texts.com
In bringing before your minds this wonderful ultimate of the purpose of God in the creation of the world and of its inhabitants, man, the most that we can do is to call your attention to certain laws and forces already visible and active among men. This ultimate has had no physical standing in the world—it has existed only in the creative-thought, and therefore no language has yet been formed, capable of portraying its realities.
As we have briefly stated the methods by which man is to come into "The Image of God" and "The Likeness of God," we shall now give a brief synopsis of the manner in which "The Image and the Likeness" are to be brought into form.
Through the regeneration, every member of that Great Body of the first ripe fruit of the earth, the 144,000, becomes exceedingly sensitive. In other words, all the life-currents and mind-powers become intensified, and the sense nature becomes so acute, that each member is conscious of every thought, feeling and emotion of every other member. Even now we find that there are men and
women who through evolutionary processes alone, have become so refined and intensified that they are able to know and to read the thoughts of others. Within the last few years many mind-readers have been before the public and some of them have demonstrated to the satisfaction of investigators that they can read the thoughts of persons.
When men and women have lived the high and holy life taught by the Christ, which includes regeneration (for he lived a celibate life), conserving all the life generated by the body, then every function of their bodies will be increased and intensified, so that we may say that each individual will become twelve times greater in mind-power, and all the powers of the body, than he was before he began to live the regenerate life. They not only become stronger and wiser, but they become exceedingly sensitive and intense in their consciousness, and as they are governed by the spirit of love from God, they see in each other the child of God, and so they love each other as they love God, and as they love themselves. The character of this oneness is best explained by illustration, for example:
Imagine twelve such persons together in one room. Each one of the twelve has so far developed, and is so perfectly in sympathy with the others that he feels every feeling and knows every thought of the others. When these twelve are first brought together, the reciprocal action of the
thoughts and feelings produces a condition very much like that produced when a number of persons are talking at once—a state of confusion. But let one begin to speak and get the interest and attention of the others so as to focalize the thought, and the minds of the whole body would think together as one.
Again, imagine this body of twelve to be a regenerate body, whose whole desire is to be centered in God, and whose members have been begotten from above. Because God's spirit is the life of the body, the body must be one as God is one. Since each person necessarily expresses a function of some part of the Grand Man—as Aries, the head, Taurus, the neck, et cetera—and each seeks to express only the mind of God, he makes no effort to be that which he is not, but supplies his own particular mind quality to the whole body. And whatever particular function is called into action, the body unites in giving power to that function to express itself. Its thought would be the aggregate thought of all the members, in precisely the same way as when one attempts to lift a heavy weight with the right hand, the will and every function of the physical body are called upon to supply their quota of energy for its accomplishment.
Who has not realized while talking to a number of persons that there were certain persons in the audience that gave special inspiration, that supplied
a mind-power so marked that the speaker could not but realize it? So it would be in the bringing together of twelve persons in perfect harmony with the mind, the spirit, of the Father. God's spirit being the life of all, they would run together as so many drops of water, yet every individual would maintain his own consciousness, but his consciousness would be enlarged and his realization would be increased to comprehend the consciousness and realization of the whole body. Each member's capacity and brain-power would be twelve times as strong and capable in every department.
As man lives in his memories and realizes in his consciousness, his realizations constitute his limitations. But when he takes into his consciousness the consciousness of eleven others, his realizations have been augmented eleven-fold. This increase of consciousness on the part of one does not detract from the others but, on the contrary, they each extend their sphere of consciousness in the same ratio.
In the organizing of the Body of the Christ, the bringing into existence, Yahveh Elohim, as king and ruler of this planet, each individual in his preparation must have consecrated his life to God, promised absolute obedience to and acquiescence in the knowledge and wisdom derived from the Spirit. He must have undergone a long course of training, wherein the newly begotten child of God
grows to manhood and takes absolute possession of the physical body and becomes fully conscious of the mind of the Father, of Yahveh Elohim, the Great Body of perfected souls that created the world. Being thus conscious of the mind of the Father, when the Father wills to build the house (see first chapter of Haggai) his Spirit will move within each individual and cause him to be conscious that it is the will of the Father and therefore it is the will of each to come out from the world, to gather together into one place, "the place prepared of God," where the whole body will be led and instructed by the Spirit that each may be his natural, spiritual self. Every individual will be perfectly free to express his own higher, spiritual nature, and then, as the interests of all are as one—that is, the expression of the mind and will of the Father—the whole Body of 144,000 souls (or 288,000 persons) will be as one individual, and the sphere of each individual will be so enlarged as to embrace the whole Body. As the Spirit said through the apostle, "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ."
We shall now consider 144,000 regenerate persons built into one Body, through the expansion of a sphere of consciousness to include the entirety of the Body:
Let 1 represent a person's normal powers; 12 represent a person's powers after living the regenerate
life; 2 × 144,000 = 288,000, or the entire Body (men and women); then the powers of the entire Body will be represented by 288,000 × 12 = 3,456,000, or the powers of the Body will be represented by 3,456,000 times the powers of a normal individual. Can you imagine the power of such a Body?—a Body in which when one member is called into action, the whole Body contributes all its powers to the execution of that action, in the same manner that our own body functions.
In this Great Body, as we have seen, whatever the Body wills, or rather whatever the Spirit of Yahveh, who has become the life of the Body, wills, each member of the Body wills, and whatever the will determines upon and centers the activities of the Body in, the powers of the whole Body, so far as necessary, help to accomplish.
You who know something about the psychic power of a person to control an audience, can have some idea of the power of this Body to control the world. Thus it is made plain that God's methods are purely natural. When the angel showed John in the Revelation that these are to be kings and priests unto God and to reign on the earth, we are not to understand that they are to attain to that calling by some supernatural leap through the direct interposition of God.
When God said, "Let us make man in our image and like us, and let them have dominion," he set in motion laws, which in their ultimate would bring
the condition into existence that we have been trying to present to your mind—a Body of men and women that has become the temple of the living God, the God of the universe. Through the normal working of the mind of that Body (normal because in unity with its Creator) it necessarily takes control, exercises dominion over the entire mind-currents, yea, and over all the laws and creative methods active in the planet earth.
In the organization of this Body and its unity with the Spirit of God we have a picture of the exact "Image and Likeness," for this "Image and Likeness" is the ultimation of the divine purpose, purposed in the Mind that never fails.
The difference between this Body and that of the Elohim is in degree and not in form or function, or methods of organizing. Consequently if you have difficulty to conceive how Elohim the God and Creator of the world can be a Great Body of men, separate individually and yet one, we think what has been said concerning the gathering, preparing and organizing of this Body of 144,000, makes it plain. We think it has been made plain that when Elohim said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness," that this was the ultimate of the race, and that this gathering and organizing of the Body are the fulfilment of that declaration.
In order to help the mind to comprehend so great a thought, let us imagine a man that is both male
and female in his own person, builded of molecules which are individual men and women, a Grand Man possessing far more than 288,000 times the power of any individual that we have heretofore known. Every function and organ of this man is filled with the Spirit of Yahveh, the God of the universe, imbued with his mind and with his will. Standing upon the highest plane of planetary unfoldment, he overlooks his "dominion," the planet earth, with its teeming millions who have developed to a point where they have outgrown their civilization and all their facilities and are trembling upon the brink of a precipice down which they must inevitably fall, to the condition of six thousand years ago, unless there is a savior who is able and willing to create for them a new order of existence.
The organism that we have been picturing, will have abundant capacity to provide for this dying race the new conditions which are an absolute necessity to its perpetuity. From the thought that we have presented, it is evident that, judging by the known capacity of men, we have in such a Body an aggregate mind and will, amply sufficient to lift civilization to a plane of action where it could go on developing. But how much more should we expect of such a Body when filled with the light of the Infinite Mind!
Many of the leading physiologists of this the Twentieth Century are saying that the strenuous
life developed in this cycle has produced and intensified qualities within man that have made him too sensitive and refined for the ordinary duties of life, and that, consequently, diseased conditions are rapidly gaining ground in organs too delicate for the strain put upon them. They conclude, therefore, that the race has reached the climax of its unfoldment and must fall back to unknown depths if not to annihilation. But there comes the voice of God through the prophet ringing down the ages: "And saviors shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be Yahveh'S."
The object of this volume is to bring to you, mature souls of our age, the knowledge of the purpose of God concerning each individual and to suggest methods by which not only you yourselves may be saved, but methods by which you may become members of that Body which is to be the Savior of the world, the anointed Lord of all the earth. The way is so plain that, as the prophet Isaiah said, "wayfaring men, yea fools, shall not err therein."
It is for you, as individuals, to consecrate your lives to God, and to desire above all things to know the truth that you may live in harmony with it. If you do this, honestly and sincerely, then will God send into you "the Spirit of Truth" that will lead you into all truth. Consequently, when you read this work you will be caused to perceive the
truths that it contains, which will put your mind in harmony with your consecration, so that you will no longer resist the leadings of the Spirit. Then will the angel of God take charge of your life and help you in every time of need, and lead you into the unity of the Body of the Christ, the Savior of the world, brought to light in these pages. To that end we consecrate these thoughts and pray that the Spirit of the Highest may attend them and illuminate your intelligence to receive them.
THE MANIFESTATION OF THE BODY
While the gathering of the Body, according to the Revelation, will be the work of a short time, yet we are told that the perfecting of this body, the perfecting of its dominion over the earth, will take a thousand years.
It is hardly reasonable to suppose that there is any one now living, even if placed under the most favorable conditions, who could be perfected in the likeness of God, Yahveh Elohim, in a short period; for all that belongs to attainment, is not only a subjugation and conquest of the body, but it is also a growth of the soul and a growth and a development of the body into perfect harmony with Spirit.
There is, however, a most potent factor that will work in this Body, a factor yet unknown to the race, which is this:
Every member of the Body, before he can become really one with the Body, must have not only
overcome generation, but he must have turned the currents of generation toward the brain and polarized the mind fixedly upon the Spirit.
Man in polarizing the mind on the Spirit at once finds himself the focal point of the planet and of its subtile mind-currents and electric forces. In generation he is the head of the planet, leading creation, but when he has taken control of that creative-power in himself and has brought it under the absolute control of the mind, he begins to possess dominion over the earth. The two forces active in creation, the positive and the negative forces, represented and focalized in the man and the woman, produce in them, because of the unity of the two in "the regeneration," a condition almost identical with that seen in the electric arc lamp; and after they have come into order it will not be long before nature's energies will cause their bodies to become luminous and bright as the body of an angel, "shining as the sun." *
This condition of luminosity could not obtain all at once; if it did, it would burn up and destroy the physical body. It will require years for the body to change from what we now know as material substance into the spiritual substance adapted to the fires of the Divine Life. No wonder that God by the prophet asked, "Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" The condition into which this body enters is a condition that transforms all that belongs to manhood and womanhood into the likeness of God.
We read—and it is true—that "God is a consuming fire," and that "God is love." We must bear in mind that it is not the gross fire that we know as fire, nor the gross passion that the world calls love, but it is a fire like that which Moses saw in the burning bush which did not consume the bush. It is a fire that transmutes, consuming nothing but the grosser elements, transmuting them into the finer elements and to that more like itself.
At the present time we are so far from being like God that if God should speak to us in words, those words would consume us as a living fire. Therefore those composing this Body must abide for centuries in that living fire before they are wholly transformed into spiritual substance. They will not die, but as it was said of the Christ, so it may be said concerning them, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades [the grave], neither wilt thou give thy Holy One to see corruption," for they will have overcome death, as did the Christ.
In place of the body's seeing corruption, the same law that now perpetuates it, will be accelerated. That is, we take nourishment to replace the tissue that is being burned up by thought and action. Thus we are continually eliminating the old and taking on new bodily substance. As this bodily substance taken on is qualitated by the mind active at the time, so the members of this Grand Body, as they burn out and eliminate the old, will take on more and more spiritualized substance. The time will finally come in this process when they will become as invisible to those upon our present plane, as spirit is now invisible to man. The change with this body will be so gradual, however, that there will be no death. The process will be similar to that active in our present physical existence, by which we are constantly eliminating the old and taking on new flesh.
It is necessary that this change should be gradual,
for the members of this Body are to be, as declared by the angel to John, "kings and priests unto God and reign on the earth;" that is, while they will execute kingly dominion, it will not be by force, not by arbitrary word of command, but by the spirit of divine love, for "God is love." That love will cause humanity to love to obey, to desire to obey, to desire to live in harmony with the laws of God manifested through this Body. They will be priests unto God, because they will be instructors and teachers to the world. If this change were too sudden, this Body would soon be placed so far beyond the people who are to carry forward the work of Generation that they would no longer be able to touch the mentality of the people. On the contrary, this process of refining being gradual, this Body will be able to lead the world of humanity up with them. This was revealed to John on Patmos, as seen in Revelation, for, after the 144,000 were sealed, John saw an innumerable company of every nation, tribe and people who came up to the same general relation with God as the 144,000.
The world now under the most potent conditions of spiritual and mental power, could not be redeemed and brought up to this physical and spiritual plane in less than a thousand years, and perhaps not all of them in that time, for we read in Revelation that after the thousand years have
expired, Satan, the adversary, will be loosed for a little season.
This Body being, as we have said, the focal point of the planet, it will be able as was the Christ to command the unclean spirits and to control them absolutely, and in order that the world may be led up to this high plane, the dark influences that now hinder the progress of the race must be bound so that their power over the people will cease. After the race has been redeemed, after the reign of a thousand years of this Body upon the earth, the adverse forces must be again let loose, for there will be those who are unfit for this new order of life, and they must be given the choice between serving the good or the evil; for we read:
"And when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall come forth to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up over the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down out of heaven and devoured them."
This means that they must place themselves in a position to be destroyed before divine justice can destroy them. Every man must become his own judge, and "with what judgment he judges he shall be judged, and with what measure he metes,
it shall be measured to him again." This is divine law.
In conclusion we wish to call the attention of our readers to the imagery presented in the twenty-first chapter of Revelation, wherein John sees the new city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. We read that "the city lieth four-square, and the length thereof is as great as the breadth: . . . the length and the breadth and the height thereof are equal." But as it would take a volume to convey the thought herein embodied, let it suffice to say that when this takes place it will be because the Body has become so highly developed and spiritualized that the Elohim, the matured souls of all the ages, will dwell with men, as the angel said to John in Revelation xxi. 3-5:
"And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his peoples, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God: and he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more: the first things are passed away. And he that sitteth on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he saith, Write: for these words are faithful and true."
Again we read in verses 22 and 23 of this chapter:
"And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof. And the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb."
259:* The mere suggestion of the final unity of man and woman opens the door to temptation and deception. When a man who is trying to live the regenerate life, to conquer the sex passions, comes into the presence of a good woman, it seems to stimulate and to strengthen all his powers. He feels assured that she would be a great help to him in the regenerate life, in obtaining these grand ultimates. But we speak from the experience of thousands during the last ten years of our work, when we say that in every case they find themselves disappointed; they have met the god of generation, face to face, and are enslaved by him, or the two are forced to separate under great difficulty and sorrow. When one realizes the great truth that there are two factors in the world, creation and re-creation, generation and regeneration, and that generation is the p. 260 one factor now dominating the whole world, he may perhaps understand that no man in union with woman can meet and conquer it. He must first absolutely conquer it within himself in all its powers. For in the regeneration man and woman, in their unity, must have absolute control of the god of creation—over every creative-power in the world; and not only so, but they must be so strong that they can even take of the life, the fires of the Spirit and control them absolutely, which is an achievement as many times greater than anything that we have ever known as the day is brighter than the night. Because of this the Lord by the prophet Isaiah said, "Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?"