Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 4, sect. 1365

1365. Terrestrial human beings have a realistic possibility to judge that it is precisely this form of mentality that must be the salvation of the world, for it is an established fact that the world today is ruled to an overwhelming extent by the opposite principle, namely, in accordance with the mentality attributed to the Godhead, which means, the ideals of "The Old Testament", which are concentrated in the Law of Moses, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth". The world is ruled by revenge and punishment or the principle of retribution. Darkness, that is the "evil" in the world, is kept alive by breeding and maintaining it. When an "evil" action has been committed, the source of this action must be punished with something correspondingly "evil". It is true that the "evil" with which one punishes is not regarded as "evil". It is, on the contrary, regarded as completely legitimate and is authorised as "justice". But does this make people happy? Are they not still at war with another, just as nations and states are in conflict with one another? And is not this war still a nightmare for people? Has it ever been removed entirely from the mental sphere of terrestrial human beings? No, "war" is not merely something that exists from a particular date, or for a particular number of years, between one people and another. It is an uninterrupted or prolonged display of energy in favour of all disharmony, which extends all the way from the first traps of the carnivorous plant to the "atom bomb" of the terrestrial human being. In the entire panorama of evolution that extends between these two boundary posts in the living beings' multiplicity of terrestrial lives, "war" has never been brought entirely to an end. And terrestrial human beings are well qualified to look back over bygone days and see what this "war" has cost them during their terrestrial human existence in terms of mutilation, illnesses, murder, killing, sorrow, tears and depression alone, quite apart from the bloody form of existence that they lived during their specifically animal existence in purely animal organisms with teeth and claws as specific tools for attack and defence.
The entire sphere of terrestrial mankind from its first, as yet ape-like human forms right up to the completely perfect Christ being is thus intrinsically a real "theatre of war". It is not a true dwelling place for the light atmosphere of peace. It is not so surprising that the world redeemer said that "his kingdom was not of this world". "This world" is the true sphere of the "day of judgment" or "war". As we know, this sphere, despite its culmination of horror or the darkness of life, is also the outstretched hand of Providence or the Godhead as well as His guidance of the living being; indeed, it is the melting pot in which He transforms the "animal" into the "human being". Without this dark sphere "Adam" would never be able to appear in "God's image after His likeness".