Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 3, sect. 860

860. All human beings without exception were therefore "sinners". And gradually it became more and more obvious that the requirement to be loving could not in fact be fulfilled at all by an ordinary human being. But as this would unavoidably lead to "eternal damnation", these very beings were forced to seek the possibility of a "salvation" or a "miracle" that could "save" them from eternal destruction. It was a foregone conclusion that ultimately this "miracle" would be a kind of "forgiveness" or an "absolution of sins". And the "miracle" came. Ignorant as they were about reincarnation and evolution, their mentality was unreceptive to any other kind of solution to the problem. It was therefore quite natural for them to regard the Passion of Jesus as the great "miracle" through which they could be "saved", without in any way having to fulfil what was for them the totally impossible requirement to be loving; they simply had to "repent" and "pray to God for forgiveness". How could it have been otherwise? Owing to the purity of Jesus' practising of the fulfilment of the law of love, which was completely impossible for them, all they were able to see in him was a being that was so different from themselves in spiritual greatness and capability that he must be God's own "bodily offspring", born of a woman who had moreover become pregnant by God himself. That such a being was able to practise to such a prodigious extent the fulfilment of the "law of love" was just as obvious as it was that they themselves were unable to do so. But if "God's own son" had come to Earth and incarnated in flesh and blood, there must be a meaning behind it. And in the consciousness of these beings this meaning could be interpreted in only one way, namely that the Godhead had been "appeased" and had reduced his requirements regarding the fulfilment of the law of love to such an extent that each and every one of them could be "saved". What did "God's own son" himself say to these beings? Did he not say repeatedly to people who in full faith sought him out: "Thy sins are forgiven thee"? And did he not point out on other occasions: "Whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you"? If a human being prays for "forgiveness of sins", that prayer will, according to Christ, be heard. And when he said, "thy faith hath made thee whole", also here it must be the "forgiveness of sins" that constitutes the central point in the "saving" of the person concerned. To be "saved" can be nothing other than to be "freed" from the punishment for one's "sins". These people received satisfaction through his words and his very being, a satisfaction it would have been completely impossible for them to obtain in any other way. The people concerned were not trained in using their brains, nor had they the enquiring minds of researchers. They had no use for brilliant, logically constructed thought sequences or analyses. To them these were too complicated and incomprehensible. These beings were still largely dependent, child-like souls when it came to real intellectual knowledge. They were still only in the forecourt of intellectuality. Therefore, if this event with "God's son" had not taken place these beings would not have been able to envisage anything other than dark and miserable hopelessness. Through the words of Jesus, world redemption found its way also to these souls.