THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SPIRITISM

Allan Kardec

Back to the menu
THE FUTURE LIFE


2. With these words Jesus clearly refers to a future life, which He presents in all circumstances as the goal which humanity must reach and which should constitute Man's greatest preoccupation here on Earth. All of his maxims refer to this great principle. Indeed, without a future life there would be no reason to have the majority of these moral precepts. This is why those who do not believe in a future life cannot understand or think the matter foolish, because they imagine that Jesus was only speaking of the present life.

This doctrine can therefore be considered as the basis of Christ’s teaching. Therefore it has been placed as the first item in this work. It must be the point to be most closely looked at, as it is the only one that justifies the anomalies and irregularities of earthly life and also shows itself to be in accordance with the justice of God.

3. The Jews had only very vague ideas as la the future life. They believed in angels, whom they considered to be privileged beings of the creation; they did not know, however, that men and women could one day become angels and so participate in the same happiness. According to them the observance of God's Law would bring worldly recompense, the supremacy of their nation and victory over their enemies. The public calamities and downfalls were a punishment for disobedience to these laws. Moses could say no more than this to those who were mostly shepherds or ignorant people who needed to be touched, before anything else, by worldly things. Later, Jesus revealed that there existed another world where God's justice follows its course. This is the world He promises to all those who obey the commandments of God and where the good find recompense. This is His kingdom, where He will be found in all His glory and to which He returned when He left Earth.

However, when adapting His teachings to the conditions of humanity at that time, Jesus did not consider it convenient to give them all the truth, for He saw they would only be dazzled by it and unable to understand. So He limited Himself, in a manner of speaking, to the presentation of a future life as a principle, as a natural law whose action no one could escape. Therefore every Christian firm]y believes in a future life. But the idea that many bold is still vague, incomplete, and because of this, quite false on various points. For the majority of people it is nothing more than a belief, void of absolute certainty, so this is why there are doubts and even incredulity.

Spiritism has come to complete this point, as well as many others touched an by the teachings of Christ, now that Man is sufficiently mature as to be able to learn the truth. With Spiritism a future life is no longer an article of faith, a mere hypothesis, but becomes a material reality as facts demonstrate, because those who have described it to us have all been eye witnesses, so that not only is doubt no longer possible, but also anyone of whatever intelligence is able to get an idea of its many varied aspects, in the same way that we can imagine what a country we have never visited is like by reading a detailed description of it. But this description of the future life is circumstantiated to such an extent, the conditions of existence for those who reside there, be they happy or unhappy, are so rational that we are bound to agree that it could not be otherwise, that it represents the true justice of God.

Related articles

Show related items