Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 5, sect. 1720

1720. When one teaches that Jesus was "born of a virgin", one is actually teaching that the Virgin Mary conceived in another way than that ordained by Nature. It is claimed that she conceived by the "holy spirit". Is this "holy spirit" not the same as Nature? Is Nature in its innermost being not the same as the Godhead? Nature thus fertilised the Virgin Mary directly, thereby proving that male beings were completely superfluous, proving, indeed, that conceiving in this way actually determined that the offspring would be exceedingly sublime. As will be remembered, it was this conception that was seen as the reason for Jesus being so far above ordinary mortal human beings and for him being Nature's or "God's own" direct "mortal son". But when Nature can fertilise beings in this way, and into the bargain guarantee that the offspring or individuals become divine, why then has Nature introduced the male state at all? Allowing all other beings to be dependent on being fertilised by male beings, when this fertilisation makes the beings become "sinners" and primitive creatures, is of course the same as sabotaging life. So Nature, and thereby the Godhead, acts badly and in bad faith when it does not turn all other living beings into sons of God, but into seedy individuals, criminals, robbers, murderers and lethal monsters by allowing the woman to be fertilised by male beings. The existence of male beings is thereby a scourge on living beings. It is thus these beings that desecrate and promote all ungodliness, sorrow, misfortune, suffering and pain; in brief, it is the male beings that are life's devils and that promote hell. Why has God condemned everyone to having to be "born" to such fathers? Why could not everyone, like Jesus, be "born of a virgin", be "born of God", have him as their father instead of a father in flesh and blood? Thus he allows millions upon millions of beings to be born in sin, misery and ungodliness, and demands that they emulate Christ and be like him. If they fail to do so, they are condemned to eternal damnation in hell. Why does this entire state of crucifixion with punishment, damnation and hell exist, when all this could be avoided merely by God fertilising the woman himself and eliminating all male beings? Have we not now, I wonder, dealt sufficiently with the problem of the "virgin birth"? Has not the intellectual analysis presented here clearly and irrefutably shown us the foolishness, superstition and falsehood that lie hidden in this dogma about Jesus? This dogma or claim thus cannot tolerate intellectual or logical inquiry, for this inquiry, as we have seen, would then reveal itself to be an irrefutable indictment of the Godhead. Indeed, would it not be better to go back to understanding that the act of fertilisation between man and woman is not sinful, and that letting the Virgin Mary be impregnated by a man instead of by the "holy spirit" is more beautiful and more in accordance with the laws and principles of Nature? Why should it be sinful or degrading that she was made pregnant by Joseph, who was, after all, the father of her other children? Are we not to believe that the sexual organs are like the other organs in that, when they are used to create only joy and zest for life and not to sabotage life, they can be only divine? Wherever they create blessing, joy and well-being, they fulfil their mission. There they promote life. But one cannot say that the sexual union of Joseph and Mary was a curse or a misfortune for life; on the contrary, the world redeemer's entire psyche and way of being became a phenomenon that was intrinsically one hundred per cent in favour of the perfect terrestrial human life itself. Could any being be more against the promotion of death, punishment, suffering, injustice or so-called "sin" than Jesus Christ? And has he not done more for the introduction of neighbourly love into mankind's mentality than any other being on Earth? Did he not show that he was not afraid to back up his neighbourly loving way of being with his life? Did he not show through this that he loved his neighbour more than he loved himself? Would it not be sinful to sabotage the entire recognition of his inner fortitude and sacrifice by asserting his "virgin birth" or by explaining that – thanks to this form of birth by virtue of which he was the mortal son of the Godhead himself – he could easily be divine and show great love? And is it not precisely this view that has turned Jesus' mission into a spiritual pretext for the terrestrial human beings to do nothing, instead of a model for their own way of being?