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Shavuoth - Pentecost
THE COMMANDMENT which I gave to my disciples at the Passover Supper, to love one another with the Divine Love with which I loved mankind and my disciples, and whom I love more strongly with the constant inflow of the Father's Love in my soul with the passing centuries, came to the fruition of its fulfillment in the holiday of Shavuoth, or Pentecost.
This gift of the moral teachings to the Hebrews, to help them to righteous living and the keeping of the covenant between God and Abraham, becomes the gift of God's Love and the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy of the New Heart, the New Covenant between God and His people, which, as the Messiah of God, I brought to Israel and to mankind for the first time.
This gift, which the churches of today do not understand, is nevertheless celebrated by Christians as the descent of the Holy Ghost, or Spirit, and is called Pentecost. It takes place on the seventh Sunday after Easter and in English has been called Whitsunday, or White Sunday, a word derived from the white garments worn by candidates for baptism that day. The Church of the New Birth will celebrate Pentecost the Sunday closest to the 50th day after the second Saturday evening in April.
Churches of today believe that the Holy Spirit is the third part of the Trinity, which was given to man on the 50 th day of the Resurrection. It has various names, such as the Spirit of God, Spirit of the Lord, Spirit of Christ, Spirit of Truth, Spirit of Glory, the Paraclete, the Advocate, Comforter or Strengthener. To the Catholic, especially, it is a divine person, effecting the forgiveness of man's sins, and gives him justification and sanctification as well as new spiritual life, so as to become adopted children of God through righteousness. (Romans, Chapter 8, verses 14-17; Galatians, Chapter 4, verse 5; and Ephesians. Chapter 1, verse 5). It was this Holy Spirit that gives Jesus union with God. and also gives transitory and extraordinary powers to individuals, such as we see in Elizabeth. (St. Luke, Chapter 1, verse 41; Zachariah. St. Luke. Chapter 1, verse 67; and Simeon. St. Luke. Chapter 2. verse 26).
According to Christianity, the fruits of the Holy Spirit are love, gladness peace, kindness, goodness, fidelity, mildness, continence, charity, as well as resurrection of the body for its participation in eternal glory. (Galatians, Chapter 6, verse 8; and Romans, Chapter 8, verse 11). Sonship takes place only through redemption of the body. (Romans, Chapter 8, verses 23-24).
From the beginning the New Testament writers had difficulty in understanding what the Holy Spirit was. The second chapter of Acts tells us that during the morning of Pentecost, when the followers of Jesus, many from different lands, were all together to celebrate the solemnities of the day, there suddenly came a sound from heaven like a violent blast of wind, filling the whole house in which they were seated. They saw tongues like flames coming to rest on each one's head and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, beginning to speak, not in Aramaic, but in their own languages, Egyptian, Latin, Greek, Hebraic and many other tongues, and all praising the Lord. Some of the bystanders thought these people were filled with wine, but Peter, according to the account, arose and declared this phenomena to be the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel.
"In the last days, sayith the Lord,
then will I pour out my spirit
upon all flesh-"
Peter was right in that this was a prophecy of Joel, inspired by the New Heart of Jerermiah, but Peter, from the story. seemingly did not know the meaning of the New Heart, for, when the others asked: "Brothers, what are we to do?" instead of telling them to pray for the inflowing of the Father's Love, as I had taught, Peter is supposed to have insisted on Baptism; "Repent and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins, then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."
This, of course was going right back to John he Baptist and the natural love. It is entirely erroneous and shows to what an extent my new teachings as the Christ were eliminated to conform to the old concepts of the natural love, salvation through rite, and the pagan notion of the triune deity, instead of preaching the "Glad Tidings" that the Spirit of God is Divine Love, which had first been poured out upon me, the Messiah, and was now available to ail mankind.
Actually, this story was written many years after the event at Pentecost when the Father's Love was poured out upon those who had sought for that Love not knowing exactly what I had preached and what was to follow, because up to that time the Love was unknown to them as an actuality, and even the individuals who received it at Emmaus did not understand the true meaning of what had come into their souls. The disciples who had remained faithful to me after the crucifixion, and who after my appearances mourned sincerely their loss in my death, and who had loved me wholeheartedly as their Rabbi, were filled with a sorrow and love that made their souls ready to receive the Father's Love when it was poured out upon them. And since it came in with a great inflow and burning of the heart, and being greatly confused and excited by this phenomenon, which they were unable to explain, they related contradictory stories which later writers sought somehow to organize into a coherent account.
When the story, after being written and revised many times, was finally accepted, the fundamental principle of the Divine Love, and the complementary Agappe, or community feast in the churches, had been obscured and the true meaning lost, in favor of the Holy Spirit as the third part of the Triune godhead, which entered the soul and brought certain benefits and advantages of a mystic-moral nature to the believer. Now the Holy Spirit does not enter the soul, but some of the gifts of religious faith and trust in God are, of course, very evident, such as courage. kindness, mildness, patience, peace, charity and purity of love in the natural sense; and indeed, the effects of the indwelling of God's Grace, or Divine Love, in the soul will bring eternal life, but the Christian had and still has many false and peculiar notions regarding the Holy Spirit. It is not, as is thought, a divine person, but simply that attribute of God that brings the Love into the soul of whomsoever seeks it in prayer, so that there is but one God, the Father, and not the triune concept that is a basic doctrine in the Christianity of today.
Furthermore, it never gave any extraordinary powers to such individuals as Elizabeth, Zachariah or Simeon, as described in the Gospel of Luke, for the Divine Love was not given to anyone before or at my birth, and furthermore, it cannot ever cause the resurrection of the body into eternal life, as stated in Galatians. Chapter 6, verse 8, and Romans Chapter 8. verse 11. Further it does not make of those who received it "adopted children of God," as the churches interpret Romans, Chapter 8. verses 14-17. for this is to indicate that while they accept. from Paul, that the body thus became the Temple of God (I Corinthians, Chapter 3. verse 16) and believers become the heirs of the Kingdom and have the privileges of sons, (Romans, Chapter 8. verses 14-17) yet they hold that only I. Jesus, could be the son of God in the real sense, as part of the divine family. and they cannot conceive that those who receive it actually receive the Essence of God in their souls, in the' same way I received it from God to make it available to mankind.
The Divine Love, then, was misunderstood at the time of its coming to mankind at Pentecost. and is still misunderstood at the present time. but we in the Church of the New Birth know with certainty and with the authority of Jesus himself, that it was the Divine Love of the Father that was poured out upon mankind at Pentecost by the work of this Holy Spirit of God, and that the indwelling of this Love in the soul in sufficient portions will transform that soul from a human into a divine soul and at-one with me in soul essence as well, and this was my prayer as recorded in John, Chapter 17, verse 21: "That they may all be one; even as thou, Father, are in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in us." In short, the Pentecost is the most important Holiday of the Church of the New Birth, and we shall observe it with due reverence.
Jesus of the Bible
and
Master of the Celestial Heavens
Received by: D.G.S.
August 1963