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Chapter
1 I Have Not Come To Abolish The Law
The Gospel Explained By the Spiritist Doctrine
"Do
not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I
have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not
the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any
means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."
(Matthew 5:17-18)
Moses
There are two parts to the laws enacted by
Moses; the Law of God, which Moses received on Mount Sinai, and the
civil (or Secular) law, which he devised and mandated himself.
The first Law is unalterable; the second which was designed
to suit the customs and character of people of the people of Moses' era, changes over time.
The Divine law is based on the
ten
commandments.
The Law presented in the Ten Commandments is
for all times and all nations, a universality that gives the
commandments a divine character.
The other laws decreed by Moses were devised to instill, at
times through fear, a sense of order in a people very much agitated
and unorganized, whose behavior and prejudices were still freshly
colored by many years of bondage in Egypt.
To sanction his authority, Moses did claim a divine origin for
his secular laws. In
doing so, he followed a practice common among the leaders and
lawgivers of many early peoples.
In those days authority over people was often exercised
under the guise of a divine power.
Only the notion of a harsh God could impress a relatively
unaware people, whose sense of justice and moral values were still
very limited. Today we
realize that a God Who would include among the the Divine commandments
"you shall not murder, and do no harm to your neighbors"
wouldn't contradict that law by sanctioning any type of bloodshed. This only
highlights the transient nature of Moses' secular laws.
Christ
Jesus
did not come to abolish the Law defined in
the Ten Commandments. He
came to fulfill and amplify it, to clarify its real meaning, and to
interpret it at humanity's level of progress at the time.
Those elements of the Moasaic code that emphasize love of God
and fellow human beings constitute the very basis of Jesus'
teachings.
As for the secular laws, Jesus advocated fundamental reforms
both in form and substance. He
fought constantly to correct the abuses of ritualistic worship and
to right misconceived interpretations.
His call for reform could not have been any more
revolutionary than when He reduced the Law to this one principle:
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your
soul and with all your mind; and Love your neighbor as
yourself." He said
Himself, "All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two
commandments." [Matthew 22:37-39
]
Furthermore, by the words "until heaven
and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke
of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything
is accomplished" Jesus wanted us to realize that the Law must
be respected and lived in all its purity, over the whole Earth, and
with all its amplifications and consequences.
What, otherwise, would have been the purpose of proclaiming
the Law if it was going to benefit one nation or a few people?
All human beings are sons and daughters of God; they are
without distinction in God's eyes and subject to the same care and
attention.
But Jesus wasn't simply a lawgiver who was
offering His word as the one and final authority.
He also came to fulfill the prophecies that had foretold His
coming. He derived His
moral authority from the exceptional nature of His spirit and from
the Divine mission with which He was entrusted.
Jesus came to teach humanity that true life is not the one
lived here on Earth but in the Kingdom of Heaven.
He came to show us the pathway to this Kingdom.
Jesus taught us that the way to reconcile ourselves with God
is by experiencing the events of our lives with an awareness of our
higher purpose as human beings. But He did not reveal everything. On many subjects He limited Himself to offering only
the initial part of the truth, explaining His silence about the rest
by saying that human beings weren't capable yet of understanding the
whole truth.
He did
talk about all things, but often in a veiled manner.
He knew that, in order for people to be able to assimilate
the integral meaning of His words, new ideas and knowledge would
first have to come into being that would provide the key to unlock
the full extent of His doctrine.
These ideas would only come once the human spirit had reached
a certain level of advancement.
Science, especially, still had an important part to play in
the emergence and development of human knowledge, and it needed time
to mature.
The Spirits'
Doctrine
The Spiritist Doctrine is the new body of
principles that reveals, through indisputable evidence, the
existence and nature of the spirit world and its relationship to the
material one. The spirit world is presented not as a supernatural element
but as one of the living and active forces of Nature, the source of
a vast number of phenomena that even today we don't understand and
so relegate to the realm of fantasy or miracles.
Christ hinted at such a development on several occasions, and
it is because He only hinted that many of the tings He said have
remained beyond our grasp or been wrongly interpreted,
The Spiritist Doctrine offers a key that will help explain
all these matters.
The
law of the Old Testament was personified in Moses; that of the New
Testament in Christ. The
third revelation can't be personified, however because it isn't
given by a human being but by spirits.
Having transcended the bondage of matter, spirits now
constitute the heavenly voices which communicate to all parts of the
world and through countless intermediaries. The Spiritist Doctrine is, in this sense, the collective work
of the illuminated intelligences of the spirit world. This work brings us enlightenment and offers the means
of understanding the destiny that awaits each of us on our return to
the spirit realm.
Just
as Christ said, "I have not come to abolish the Law or the
Prophets but to fulfill them," so it is with the Spiritist
Doctrine, which has not come to defy Christian principles but to
help carry them out. The Spiritist Doctrine teaches nothing contrary to Christ's
message. Indeed, it
develops that message, explains it in a way that everyone can
understand, and makes plain that part of which it has been known,
until now, only in an allegorical form.
The Doctrine has come at the predicted time to confirm
Christ's foresight and to prepare the way for the realization of
future things. The Spiritist Doctrine is, then, part of the
Christ's design.
As He said Himself, Christ presides over the spiritual
renewal of humankind, laying the foundation of a more divine order
on Earth.
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