I AM HERE. Luke, writer of the Third Gospel that was.

I come tonight to tell you of a Truth that is of very great importance to you and to mankind, and I desire that you shall be very careful in receiving what I may say. I am in a condition of love that enables me to know whereof I write and to cause what I may say to be accepted by you as true.

I want to tell you that the Love of which we have been writing is the only Love that can make a spirit or man at-one with the Father. And this is my theme: "The Atonement."

This word, as used in the Bible and interpreted by the churches and the commentators on the Bible, carries with it a meaning of some price being paid by Jesus for the redemption of mankind from their sins, and from the punishment that they would otherwise have to undergo because of having committed sin; also, the idea that God, as an "angry" and "insatiable" God, was waiting for the price to be paid in order for His "wrath" to become "satisfied," and so that man could stand before Him acquitted of sin and the consequences of disobedience.

This price, according to the teachings of the churches and the persons named, had to be paid by one who, in his goodness and purity, was capable of paying this price—that is, one who had in him such inherent qualities, and, by his sacrifice, was of such inherent worth as to satisfy the requirements of the "demands" of this "angry" God Whose Laws had been disobeyed. And they also teach that the only way such price could have been paid was by the death on the cross of Jesus, who was the only person in all creation that possessed these qualities sufficiently to meet these requirements. And, further, that by his death and the shedding of his blood, the sins were atoned for and God was "satisfied." This is the orthodox belief of the "atonement" and the "plan" of salvation.

In short, a perfect human being free from all sin, a death on the cross and a shedding of blood, are both necessary in order that the sins of mortals might be washed away, and their souls made clean and fitted to become a part of the great family of God.

But this conception of the atonement is all wrong, and it is not justified by any teaching of the Master or by any of the true teachings of the disciples to whom he had explained the Plan of salvation and what the True Atonement means.

In various parts of the New Testament, I know it is said that the blood of Jesus washes away all sin, and that his death on the cross "satisfies" the Father's "demand" for justice; and, therein, there are many similar expressions conveying the same idea.

But these sayings of the Bible were never written by the persons to whom they are ascribed, but rather by writers who, in their various translations and alleged reproductions of these writings, added to, and eliminated from, the writings of the original writers until the Bible became filled with these false doctrines and teachings.

The writers of the Bible, as it now stands, were persons who belonged to the church which was nationalized about the time of Constantine. They had imposed upon them the duty of writing such ideas as the rulers or governors of this church conceived should be incorporated in the Bible for the purpose of carrying out their ideas in order to subserve the true interests of the church, and to give it such temporal power as it never could have had under the teachings and guidance of the pure doctrines of the Master.

This false doctrine of the atonement has been believed in for nearly two thousand years, and has been accepted by the so-called Christian churches and promulgated by these churches as the true doctrine of Jesus and the one upon which the salvation of man depends. And the consequences have been that men have believed that the only things necessary to their salvation and reconciliation to God were the death of Jesus and the washing away of their sins by the blood shed on Calvary.

If men only knew how futile his death was, and how inefficacious his blood is to wash away sin and pay the "debt" to the Father, they would not rest in the assurance that all they have to do is to believe in this sacrifice and this blood. Instead, they would learn the true Plan of salvation and make every effort in their power to follow that Plan. And, as a consequence, they would have their souls developed so that they would come into harmony with the Father's Love and Laws.

ATONEMENT, IN ITS TRUE MEANING, NEVER MEANT THE PAYMENT OF A DEBT OR THE APPEASING OF THE "WRATH" OF GOD. IT MEANT SIMPLY THE BECOMING AT-ONE WITH HIM IN THOSE QUALITIES THAT WILL INSURE TO MEN THE POSSESSION OF HIS LOVE AND THE IMMORTALITY THAT JESUS BROUGHT TO LIGHT. THE SACRIFICE OF JESUS COULD HAVE NO POSSIBLE EFFECT UPON THE CONDITION OF MAN'S SOUL QUALITIES, AND NEITHER COULD THE BLOOD-SHEDDING MAKE A VILE AND SINFUL SOUL PURE AND FREE FROM SIN.

God's Universe is governed by laws as immutable as they are perfect in their workings. And the great thing to be accomplished by the Plan which He provided for the redemption of men is to have every man come into harmony with these laws. As soon as that harmony exists, there will be no more discord and sin will not be known to humanity. And, so, only that which will bring man into this harmony can possibly save him from his sins bring about the At-onement that Jesus and his disciples taught.

Man, when created, was endowed with what may be called a natural love and, that love, to the extent of the quality that it possessed, was in perfect harmony with God's Universe. And so long as it was permitted to exist in its pure state, it was a part of the harmony of the universe. But when it became defiled or impregnated with sin, or anything not in accord with God's Laws, it became inharmonious and not at-one with God. The only redemption required thereafter was the removing of those things that caused the inharmony.

Now, the only way in which this inharmony could be removed was by the natural love becoming again pure and free from that which defiled it. The sacrifice on the cross could not furnish this remedy, and neither could the blood atonement accomplish it, because the sacrifice and the blood had no relation to the evil to be remedied. So, I assert, if these things paid the "penalty" and "satisfied" God, and thereby He had no further claim upon man for any debt supposed to be due to Him from man, it necessarily implies that He kept the souls of men in this condition of inharmony and would not permit the same to be removed until His "demands" for "satisfaction" and "blood" had been met. Then, when He became "appeased," He would presumably permit men by His mere arbitrary declaration to again come in harmony with His Laws and the workings of His Universe. In other words, He would be willing to let men remain out of harmony with His Universe and the workings of His Laws until He had His "demands" for "sacrifice" and "blood" satisfied.

This, as is apparent to any reasonable person, would be a thing so foolish that, in matters pertaining to his earthly affairs, even a mere man would not adopt such a plan for the redemption of those sons of his who had been disobedient.

(I see you have a caller, and will continue later.)