Questions
A. What did Jesus mean when he said, “There will be one only flock and one only shepherd”?
B. Does Jesus literally say that Elijah came back reincarnated as John the Baptist?
C. Does Spiritism fulfill all the conditions of the Comforter promised by Jesus?
Reading Text
1114. The picture of the end of time is obviously allegorical, as were most of those that Jesus composed. By its power and strength, the nature of the images is likely to impress even rude intelligences. To strongly touch those unsubtle imaginations, powerful paintings were needed, with strong colors. Jesus addressed primarily the people, the less enlightened men, incapable of understanding the metaphysical abstractions and the delicacy of forms. In order to reach their hearts, it was necessary to talk to them through their eyes using material signals, and to their ears, through the force of language.
1115. As a natural consequence of that frame of mind, the supreme power, according to the belief at that time could not manifest itself unless through extraordinary, supernatural facts. The more impossible these facts were, the more easily they were accepted. The Son of Man coming out from the clouds with great majesty, surrounded by His angels and trumpets, seemed to them of much greater magnificence, than simply coming from an entity only invested with moral power.
1116. That is why the Jews, who expected that the Messiah would be like an earthly King, more powerful than all the other kings, and who came to put their nation in front of all the others and rebuild the throne of David and Solomon, did not want to recognize Him in the humble son of the carpenter with no material authority. However, that poor proletarian of Judea became the greatest among the great; He won for its sovereignty more kingdoms than the most powerful potentates; exclusively with His word and the contest a few miserable fishermen, He revolutionized the world and the Jews owe Him their rehabilitation. He said, therefore, a fact when answering Pilates’ question: "Are you a King?" and He answered: "Thou sayest".
1117. It should be noted that, among the ancients, the earthquakes and the darkening of the sun were required accessories in all events and all sinister presages. We come across them on the death of Jesus, of Caesar, and on a great number of circumstances in the history of paganism. If such phenomena occurred so often as said, it would be impossible that men would not remember them by means of oral tradition.
1118. However, under these allegories, great truths are hidden. There is, first, the prediction of the calamities of all kinds that will sweep across and decimate Humanity, calamities arising from the supreme struggle between good and evil, between faith and unbelief, between progressive and retrograde ideas. There is, secondly, the dissemination, throughout the Earth, of the Gospel restored in its primitive purity; later, the reign of good, which will be the time of peace and universal brotherhood, derived from the evangelical moral code, put into practice by all peoples.
1119. It will be the true Kingdom of Jesus, for He will preside to its implementation, and men will live under the protection of its law. It will be the reign of happiness, because He says: “after the days of distress, come the days of joy".
1120. When will these things happen? "No one knows, says Jesus, not even the Son." But when the time comes, men will be warned by signs. These indications, however, will not be either in the sun or the stars; they will show themselves in the social state and phenomena more moral than physical and that, in part, can be deduced from their references.
1121. There is no doubt that this mutation could not operate at the time of the Apostles otherwise, Jesus would not ignore the time it would occur. Moreover, such an alteration could not be possible if it occurred only within a few years. However, He tells them about it as if they would witness it. In fact, they could be reincarnated when this mutation happened and even collaborate with it. He now speaks about the near fate of Jerusalem, now He considers this fact as a reference point to what would happen in the future.
1122. When He predicted his second coming, was this the end of the world that Jesus preached, by saying: "When the gospel is preached throughout the Earth, so that is when the end will come"? It is not logical that God will destroy the world precisely when it enters the path of moral progress, through the practice of the evangelical teachings. Indeed, there is nothing in the words of Christ that indicates a universal destruction, which, in such conditions, would not be justified.
1123. The general practice of the Gospel will determine great improvement in the moral state of men, and it will bring the reign of good and lead to the fall of evil. It is therefore the end of the old world, the world ruled by prejudice, pride, selfishness, fanaticism, by unbelief, by greed, by all sinful passions that Christ mentioned when He said: "When the Gospel is preached throughout the Earth, then is when the end will come”. However, for this to happen, it would cause a fight, which would result in the evils foreseen by Jesus.
1124. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy – In the final times, says the Lord, I shall scatter my Spirit over all flesh; your sons and daughters shall prophesy; your young people shall see visions and the old men shall have dreams. In those days, I shall scatter my Spirit over my servers and they shall prophesy. (Acts, Chapter II, verses 17 to 18. - Joel, Chapter II, verses 28 and 29).
1125. If we take into consideration the current state of the physical and moral world; the trends, aspirations and premonitions of the masses; the decay of the old ideas that are struggling in vain for a century against the new ideas, we cannot doubt that a new order of things is being prepared and that the old world is coming to its end. If we consider Jesus’ words and the allegorical form of some images He used, and if we compare the current situation with the times He described as the era of renewal, we must admit that we are living the announced times, and this is confirmed in all parts of the world by the Spirits that manifest.
1126. As we have seen (Chapter I, no. 32), coinciding with other circumstances, the advent of Spiritism holds one of the most important predictions of Jesus, by the influence that He necessarily exercises on the ideas. It is, moreover, announced in the Acts of the Apostles: "In recent times, says the Lord, I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters shall prophesy". It is the unequivocal prediction that mediumship becomes common, which at present is revealed in individuals of all ages, of both sexes and all conditions. It is therefore the prediction of the universal manifestation of Spirits, since without the Spirits, mediums would not exist.
1127. This, as it is said, will take place at the end of times. Now, since we have not arrived to the end of the world, but rather to a time of regeneration, we must understand those words as an indicative of the end of times of the moral world that reaches its term.
1128. Doomsday - Now when the Son of man shall come in His majesty, accompanied by all the angels, He will be sit in the throne of His glory; and gathered in front, all nations, and He shall separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and will place the sheep on His right and the goats on His left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand: Come, ye blessed of my Father, etc. (Matthew, Chapter XXV, vv. 31 to 46).
1129. Since the good are to reign on the Earth, it is necessary to exclude the Spirits hardened in the evil, and which can cause disturbances. God allowed them to stay for the time they needed to improve; however, the moment comes when, due to the moral progress of its inhabitants, the Earth has to move up in the hierarchy of the worlds, and the embodied and disembodied that did not learn what was at the disposal of all to learn will be forbidden to live here. They will be exiled to the lower worlds, as happened before to the Adamic race sent to Earth while better Spirits replaced them. This selection, to which Jesus will preside, is figured in the words of judgment’s day: "The good will to my right and the bad to my left."
1130. The doctrine of a final, single and universal judgment, ending forever Humanity, cannot be accepted by reasoning, because it implies in the inactivity of God during the eternity that preceded the creation of the Earth and the eternity that will follow its destruction. What use would then have the sun, the moon and the stars which, according to Genesis, were made to enlighten the world? Isn’t it astonishing, that so immense work was produced there for such a short time and for the benefit of beings, which were mostly and beforehand designed for eternal suffering?
1131. Materially, the idea of a single trial would be, to some extent, permissible for those who do not seek the reason of things, when it was believed that all Humanity was concentrated on Earth and all that Universe contains was made for these inhabitants. But this is not acceptable since it is known that there are thousands of thousands of similar worlds, that perpetuate the Humanities for eternity and among which the Earth is the least significant, a simple imperceptible point.
1132. Only by this fact can we see that Jesus was right when He told His disciples: "There are many things that I cannot tell you, because you would not understand them”, since the progress of science was essential for a legitimate interpretation of some of His words. Indeed, the Apostles, St. Paul and the first disciples would have established in a very different way some dogmas, if they had had the astronomical, geological, physical, chemical, physiological and psychological knowledge that we possess today. This is the reason why Jesus delayed the completion of His teachings and announced that all things were to be restored.
1133. In a Moral point of view, a final judgment with no appeal is inconsistent with the infinite goodness of the Creator. Jesus shows Him constantly as a good Father that always leaves an open path for repentance and who is always ready to reach out to a prodigal son. If Jesus understood the judgment in that sense, He would then deny His own words. Moreover, if the final judgment had to catch unaware men in the midst of their ordinary work, and pregnant women as well, we would have to ask which would be God’s purpose to do this to children to be born and new souls to arrive at the fatal term of Humanity, if He never does anything useless and unfair. Would it be to subject them to trial as soon as they left the womb, before being aware of themselves, when others were granted thousands of years to become aware of their own individuality?
1134. By the way, would these souls, who are not good, or bad, go to His left or right, considering that all further progress paths would be closed to them, since mankind no longer existed?
1135. Those, who are satisfied with similar beliefs, should maintain them; it is their right to think like this and nobody has the right to interfere, but they must not condemn those who think differently.
Answers to the proposed questions
A. What did Jesus mean when he said, “There will be one only flock and one only shepherd”?
With the words "and there will be one only flock, one only shepherd" Jesus clearly announces that one day men will unite under a single belief. This union will happen in religion, as we already tend to do socially, politically, commercially, by the fall of barriers separating peoples, the assimilation of habits and use of language. People around the world already fraternize, in the same way as the provinces of one same empire. We can feel this union and we all desire it. It therefore will be done by force of circumstances, for it will become a necessity to narrow the bonds of fraternity between nations; it will occur due to the development of human reason that will become able to understand the childishness of all dissent; through the progress of science, demonstrating every day and more the material errors on which such disagreements are based and to gradually extract from its ranks the damaged stones. (Genesis, Chapter XVII, paragraphs 31 and 32).
B. Does Jesus literally say that Elijah came back reincarnated as John the Baptist?
Yes. Faced with the question of His disciples: "Why, then, do the scribes say that it is necessary that Elijah must come before," and Jesus answered, "It is true that Elijah must come and restore all things. But I say unto you that Elijah has already come and they did not recognize him; but they treated him as it pleased them. This is how they will make the Son of Man die. Then His disciples understood that He was talking to them about John the Baptist. "Elijah had returned to the campus scene in the person of John the Baptist. His new arrival is announced clearly. Now, as he could not return without taking a new body, we have here the formal confirmation of the principle of plurality of lives. (Genesis, Chapter XVII, items 33 and 34).
C. Does Spiritism fulfill all the conditions of the Comforter promised by Jesus?
Yes. Spiritism fulfills all the conditions of the Comforter that Jesus promised. It is not a single doctrine, nor of human conception. No man can say that he is the creator of Spiritism. It is the result of a collective teaching of the Spirits, presided by the Spirit of Truth. Nothing replaces the Gospel: but it completes and clarifies it. With the help of the new laws that it reveals, and combining these laws with those that Science had already discovered, allows us to understand what was unintelligible before. Now we can admit the possibility of what unbelief considered inadmissible. (Genesis, Chapter XVII, items 35 to 42.)
