Salvation

I believe that it’s only fair that a Spiritualist describe what he may mean by the word “salvation – saved” and reflect on what Christianity means by it.

What is important is the fact that Spiritualists accept and believe in the Fatherhood of God – sometime called Infinite Intelligence, the Source of all creation, etc. We also believe in personal responsibility. We are personally responsible, as individuals, for all the good and evil deed done here in physical life. We believe in Eternal progress Open to every Human Soul.

That being said, we also don’t believe in vicarious atonement. We don’t believe that anyone can atone for our “sins” except us. This puts the responsibility “squarely on our shoulders”, not the man Jesus Christ. Jesus main purpose in his ministry was to teach man that God is a God of love. God is not a God of wrath whereby man is put to death for his sins because he doesn’t believe in a personal Saviour; and will spend eternity in a hell. Do we need to be saved from our sins? In that we need to change our way of thinking and acting towards our fellowman - yes. If we believe that we need a Saviour, then God has provided for us to work out our sins through Him.

It was Paul the apostle who taught that we must accept Christ as our personal Saviour, confess our sins to God and be baptized. Jesus taught that he died on the cross FOR ALL, no exception. “Jesus Christ the righteous…is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2) “…who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time (1 Tim. 2:6)

The early church fathers taught “Universal Salvation which is demonstrative of the true love of God and declares that all of His children shall eventually receive the unimaginable fuller life that God has prepared for them without exception; anything less and God certainly could not truly be considered as being "Love". For to willingly create life with the foreknowledge that the majority of it should be subjected to a hideous eternal torture, violates all notions of decency and common morality, let alone true love”.

We could argue the point all day and still not convince anyone that God is a God of love and as such has provided a way for ALL His children to come to Him.

The question may now come up “what about Spiritualisms belief in continuity of life”? Well, this is a true statement. Spiritualists do believe in continuous life. We, like Christians, believe “absent from the body, present with the Lord”. Or, absent from the body, present in the Spirit World. Where do Christians go when they die? They go to be with the Lord – heaven, which is the Spirit World. Why should we argue over words? Words only have the meaning we put on them. Spirit World – heaven…

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that there is a place called purgatory. A place where church members, have an opportunity to work out their sins before going to be with the Lord. We say that this purgatory is one of the darker areas, dimension, of the Spirit World that provides the same purpose. So, what does “salvation” mean?

Salvation is described as:

· (n.) The redemption of man from the bondage of sin and liability to

o eternal death, and the conferring on him of everlasting happiness.

· (n.) Saving power; that which saves.

· (n.) The act of saving; preservation or deliverance from destruction,

danger, or great calamity.

All three of the definitions above say that salvation is a saving from. “The main meaning as used by Christianity is a saving from sin. In the Old Testament of the Bible, it was a concept, unlike the later Christian ideology, was not spiritual or individual: salvation was deliverance from any circumstance that prevented communal existence. This might be political circumstances (Persian defeat of Babylon was seen by Isaiah as Yahweh’s salvation of Israel), but can exist to such matters as poverty, disease and slander”. (Wikipedia)

Spiritualists say, “We believe that the nature of humankind is to be good, not evil. We do not believe in sin and repentance, only spiritual progression by natural law”. Spiritualists believe that sin is no more than wrong decisions, wrong actions and thoughts. Decisions that have gotten a person into some kind of trouble and they need to do something about them, here or hereafter”. Otherwise, Natural Law tells us that we will make restitution for our wrongs in this life or the next. If a person is practicing personal responsibility and “doing unto other as we would have them do unto us”, we are following the Principles of Spiritualism, Natural Law, and the teaching of Christ.

Sin [An act that is regarded by theologians as a transgression of God's will] a big word used for centuries to control and keep under control an ignorant un-educated people. The priesthood for countless centuries was in total control of society determining who would live and who would die, who would be saved and who would not. Not being saved meant that a person would spend all of eternity in hell, a place of eternal fire and punishment.

“Spiritualists believe that each and every person is responsible for his or her own happiness or unhappiness on Earth. We all create our own experiences. Therefore, if you live by the adage: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you, you can expect either happiness or unhappiness, depending on how you live your life, how you take care of yourself; and how you treat others”.

“The belief that we are all Spirit and that Spirit is God is central to Spiritualism. Spiritualists don’t believe that members must be “saved” and Spiritualists don't go out trying to “save” anyone. The Spiritualist viewpoint is about saving oneself and the belief that we are all responsible for our own salvation, happiness and unhappiness”.

“After physical death the spirit lives on in the Spirit World which is divided into a number of "planes" varying in character from heaven as conventionally understood to hell as conventionally understood”.

“Spiritualism has a basis of salvation by works – the actions in this life determining the relative position or "plane" in the Spirit World attained by the spirit immediately after physical death. But it does not end there as the spirit can progress to "higher" planes within the Spirit World. This progression is based on actions – aided by other denizens of the Spirit World – and thus renders salvation available to all. Believers in reincarnation basically accept this also with the addenda that a combination of the actions of the physical life, and afterwards in the Spirit World, leads to the appropriate station in a new physical life.” [Writings of Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp.]

Salvation is a gift of God to His children through Jesus Christ – a gift for all, not just a few. I would like you to understand that God, Infinite Intelligence, is a God of love, not a God of wrath. God has always made a way for his children to come to Him. God loves us even in our sinful ways and will never depart from us. God is within, not external to us.

In the Appendix to “Our Life After Death” the appendix is written in support of Universal Salvation is which the writer talks about how some words the original Greek New Testament were miss-interpreted to agree with the theological beliefs of the church. Today, the new translations from the Greek have had a number of those words translated correctly so that the true meaning of the Greek is used. The original Greek New Testament never used eternal to say that man would spend an infinite length of time in hell and punishment. The word eternal was never used. The original Greek used words that had a time limit to them even if that time limit was a very, very long time. How long? The Greek writers never indicated, but that it is not an infinite period of time. The original Greek New Testament also talked about ALL God’s children would eventually be saved and return to His presents.

The Bible when the original text is properly translated always represents God as a loving God and He, through Jesus Christ sacrifice, provided a means for ALL to return to Him. This is something that Spiritualists do believe and teach. Even the mediums of the late 1800s when asked, while in trans, about Biblical things, always gave a true interpretation of the Bible text, not that which was given and taught by the church.

So we say, all of humanity whether an individual becomes a “born again Christian, or not, will be save.