THE OFFICE OF THE CHRIST
“The mystery of the ages is involved in the consummating of the purpose of God – to make man in his image and likeness, in the preparing of man to become heir of God and joint-heir with Christ. In order to obtain a clear understanding of this subject, it becomes necessary to consider: (1) What is man; (2) How man is brought into the Divine Likeness.
In the effort to answer the question, WHAT IS MAN, it is necessary to consider the earth as it appears to our physical senses, because it is a reality to all physical existence. We find that man is limited to his planet; he lives from it, and without it he would immediately perish – man cannot live without food, water, and air. We find, too, that if the brain is diseased, the man becomes insane, and the change is as radical as if he were another being. This is evidence to the materialistic mind that man has no life beyond animal life, and this is true in itself and is in accord with the teachings of Christ, for he said to those around him, “Ye are from beneath; I am from above; ye are of this world; I am not of this world.” Thus, he drew the line of distinction very clearly.
Again, he said concerning his life, and the life of men, “My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready”, thus emphatically implying that during the existence of the “carnal man” upon earth, he is subject to accident, disease and death, so that he may pass out of the body at any time.
In order to rise superior to such conditions there must be something super-added, to which Jesus referred in the words: “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves”, and to those who objected, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” He explained this eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood by saying, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” Thus, he did away with the thought that the bread, or wafer, and the wine are the actual flesh and blood of the Lord; and left us to the indubitable conclusion that the eating of the wafer and the drinking of the wine, are simply symbolism, a memorial of the fulness of times when that which is symbolized will be realized.
But the great point under consideration is the emphatic utterance, “Ye have not life in yourselves.” Has man no life in himself? Christ said in another place, “For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the son to have life in himself”, implying that the son did not have life in himself, until it was given to him by the Father. Evidences are abundant all around us that man has no life in himself, that he is dependent for his existence, as we have said, upon the food he eats, the water he drinks, and the air he breathes. And yet this is not all the life that animates men and animals, the spirit of the mundane is the life of all creatures.
We have seen in former chapters that the planet earth was created by a word, that all is spirit, mind; this being so, all there is of man comes from the creative-word active in the earth. Each world is a separate thought of God. A man thinks of his office, then of his farm, and each is separate from the other, and so it is with God’s thoughts in the creation of worlds. In the thought of creating the planet earth and man upon it, was the potentiality to make a world make itself, the potentiality of all creative-law; so that, when we speak of the spirit of the mundane, we refer to this one definite thought of the Creative Mind, which involves the process of bringing man out from the invisible, and passing him through all the experiences of an earthly life – generation, labor, sorrow, and death.
The fact that the Holy Spirit is separate from the earth is set forth in the teachings of the Scriptures. Man is there spoken of as having been separated from God, as being purely of the earth, earthy, of the spirit of the mundane, the creative spirit. It is there shown that he must be redeemed from the power of the mundane – in order to have any life in himself, he must be made partaker of the Holy Spirit – the Spirit that is above all, see John 3:31.”
Hiram Butler
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 