GENESIS THE MIRACLES AND THE PREDICTIONS ACCORDING TO SPIRITISM

Allan Kardec

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Second Coming of Christ

43. Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Matthew, 16: 24 to 28)

44. Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus: “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again the high priest asked him: “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” The high priest tore his clothes. “Why do we need any more witnesses?” he asked. “You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?” (Mark, 14: 60 to 63)

45. Jesus announces his second coming; but he does not say he will return with a carnal body, neither that the Consoler will be personified in him. He presents himself as coming in spirit, in the glory of his Father, to judge the good and wicked, and render to each one according to his works, when the time shall be accomplished.

This saying, “I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom,” seems a contradiction, since it is certain that he has not come during the life of anyone of those who were present. Jesus could not, however, be deceived in a prophecy of this nature, and above all in a contemporary fact which concerned him personally. At first it is necessary to demand if his words have always been faithfully rendered. One can doubt it when one thinks that he has written nothing himself; that a compilation of his teachings has not been made until after his death. And, when one sees the same discourse nearly always reproduced in different terms by each evangelist, it is an evident proof that they are not the textual expressions of Jesus. It is also probable that the sense has been sometimes altered in passing through successive transitions.

On the other hand, it is certain, that, if Jesus had said all that he could have said, he would have explained all things in a distinct and precise manner which had not given place to any equivocation, as he does it for moral principle; whilst he must have veiled his thoughts upon subjects which he has not judged proper to propose to them. The apostles, persuaded that the present generation must be the witness of that which he announced, must have interpreted the thought of Jesus according to their idea. They have been able, consequently, to draw from it a more absolute sense of the present than he has perhaps intended to convey himself. Whatever it may be, the fact is there, which proves that the circumstances have not happened as they have believed they would.

46. A capital point which Jesus has not been able to develop, because that men of his time were not sufficiently prepared for this order of ideas and its consequences, but of which he has, however, based the principle, as he has done for all things: this is the great and important law of reincarnation. This law, studied and brought to the light of day by Spiritism, is the key of many passages of the Gospel, which without that would appear nonsensical.

It is in this law that one can find the rational explanation of the above words by admitting them as textual. Since they cannot be applied to any one of the apostles, it is evident they refer to the future reign of Christ; that is to say, in the time when his doctrine, better comprehended, will be the universal law. By telling them that anyone of those who were present would see his coming, could not be understood in the sense that he would inhabit the carnal body at this epoch. But the Jews imagined they were to see all that Jesus announced, and took his allegories literally.

Finally, a few of his predictions have been accomplished in their time, – such as the ruin of Jerusalem, the misfortunes which followed it, and the dispersion of the Jews; but he saw farther, and, in speaking of the present, he makes constant allusion to the future.

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