On Reincarnation in the New Testament

Karma, Reincarnation and Christianity

The keystone of Jesus’ teaching on reincarnation in the New Testament is our Lord’s statement that John the Baptist was Elijah come again.

To set the stage:  It was a popular belief among the Jews of Jesus’ day that Elijah would come again as the forerunner of the Messiah, as the Lord had prophesied through the prophet Malachi:

Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me….

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. <*>

Mal. 3

Even Isaiah had foreseen his day:

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

“Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.

“And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”

– Isaiah 40

Was John the Baptist the prophet Elijah come again?  That was a matter of great interest to the Jews, as the Gospel of John makes clear.

John the Beloved records the interchange that took place when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to investigate the baptizer at Bethabara. When they asked him “Who art thou?” he confessed that he was neither the Christ nor the prophet Elijah. When they pressed him to tell them something, anything about himself, that they might give answer to their superiors, John said:  “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as said the prophet Isaiah.” <1>

Despite his denial that he was Elijah, I believe that John was giving them and us a clue. He didn’t say, “I am one crying in the wilderness.”  He said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the LORD,’” <2> quoting Isaiah.

Truly, Isaiah had prophesied the coming of John the Baptist and identified him as “the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness.”  But it was left to Malachi to name “the voice”  as Elijah the prophet. So if John wasn’t the voice of Elijah, whose voice was he?

My hypothesis is that by innuendo–by saying that his voice was the voice of another–John was letting them know that his voice was indeed the voice of Elijah “come again” and that he and Elijah were one and the same soul and one and the same prophet. What was new was that Elijah had a new coat of skins <3> (i.e., a new body) and a new name.

There is another angle to this that is worth mentioning. People who believe in reincarnation and know who they were in a past life do not identify themselves today as who they were yesterday. For instance, if you were to ask me, “Are you Martha, the sister of Mary of Bethany?”  I would say, “No, I’m Elizabeth Clare Prophet but I was Martha in a past life.”  Even so, John the Baptist was John the Baptist. He had been Elijah in a past life and in this life he was “the voice” of Elijah. But he could accurately say that he was not Elijah in the flesh–his was the spirit of Elijah who had re-incarnated, <**> that is to say, who had come again in the flesh. This time around he was John the Baptist.

The Pharisees saw through John’s denial and his veiled confirmation that he was the voice of Elijah. “If you are not that Christ nor Elijah,” they insisted, “then why are you baptizing?”  John sidestepped the inquiry by pointing to the greatness of Jesus Christ, who would baptize them with the Holy Ghost and with fire, whereas he himself was baptizing them with water only. <4>

Had John professed himself to be either “that Christ” or the prophet Elijah, they might have stoned, imprisoned or killed him as they had done to the prophets before him and as they eventually did do to him. He did not answer them directly but indirectly. The truth is that it was not lawful for him, an initiate of the Great White Brotherhood, a so-called “Son of the Solitude,” <5> to reveal who he had been in a past life or what was his attainment today.

Furthermore, it was not lawful for his identity to be made known by anyone until he had “first come,” before Jesus, to prepare the way of the Lord and to “restore all things,” namely the law and the prophets. Once that assignment had been accomplished, Elijah’s coming in the person of John the Baptist could be revealed.

Not once, but twice, did Jesus reveal that John was indeed Elijah come again. The more important of the two revelations came after John’s death, on the occasion of Jesus’ transfiguration. The other took place while John was yet in prison (after he had fulfilled his mission) when Jesus actually delivered a public tribute to John before the multitudes.

I will take up the more important first. The scene is our Lord’s transfiguration on a high mountain, where he had taken Peter, James and John to witness his initiation. This is the heart of the passage as recorded by Mark:

Jesus taketh with him Peter and James and John and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them.

And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them.

And there appeared unto them Elijah with Moses and they were talking with Jesus….

And there was a cloud that overshadowed them and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my beloved Son:  hear him.”

And suddenly, when they had looked round about, they saw no man anymore, save Jesus only with themselves….

And they asked him, saying, “Why say the scribes that Elijah must first come?”
In other words, “If Elijah is appearing to you out of heaven in his celestial body, then why didn’t he first go before you on earth as the prophet who should prepare the way for your coming?  What’s he doing in heaven when we haven’t yet seen him on earth?”

And he answered and told them, “Elijah verily cometh first and restoreth all things; and…it is written of the Son of man that he must suffer many things and be set at nought.

“But I say unto you that Elijah is indeed come and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him.”

Mark 9

Matthew records:

Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

Matthew 17

So when Jesus said, “Elijah is indeed come,” he was saying that Elijah had already reincarnated in the mantle and the calling of the messenger of the LORD who should go before the face of the Son of God to prepare the way before him. <6>  And Herod had done with him what he would. Tragically, he had imprisoned and beheaded John the Baptist for his outspokenness against Herod’s unlawful marriage to his brother’s wife. <7>

Thus we see that there are practical and spiritual imperatives against an initiate of the Great White Brotherhood revealing his true identity until the appointed time. Even Jesus, when he came down the Mount of Transfiguration, charged Peter, James and John that they should tell no man what things they had seen until the Son of man should be risen from the dead. <8>  This was because it was not lawful for the initiation his disciples had just witnessed to be made known to anyone save those whom he had chosen to see it. <9>

The transfiguration served to ratify Jesus’ ministry in the tradition of Moses and the prophets. Were it to have been noised abroad, the timetable of his crucifixion might have been advanced by his enemies; but his time, as in the case of John the Baptist, had not yet come.

All avatars, prophets, Christed ones and messengers of God choose the hour when they shall reveal who they are and what their mission is. They never allow that hour to be dictated by their interrogators or their accusers, even to the point of incurring public humiliation and disgrace. And until that hour they are obliged to fend such questions as they can, remain silent or even deny their true identity when directly confronted.

This is not a prevarication; it is the postponement of the telling of the truth to those who must be told, for they have neither eyes to see nor ears to hear <10> who stands before them speaking to them out of the mouth of God. The truth written in the aura of the avatars, which cannot be denied, goes before them heralding their true identity for all who have developed their inner sight and soul faculties to “see.”  Nevertheless, their verbal silence concerning who they are, where they have come from, and what their mission is, is their keeping of the sacred trust of their sponsorship under the hierarchy of Sanat Kumara.

It is perfectly clear what the powers-that-be did to John the Baptist when their moment came (see Matt. 14:1-12; Mark 6:14-29; Luke 3:19, 20) and it is perfectly clear what they did to Jesus when they finally caught up with him and one of his disciples could be bribed to identify him in the garden. <11>

The reason I digress on this point is that some have argued that because John denied he was Elijah at the beginning of his mission, Jesus would not have affirmed that John was Elijah at the end of his mission. They are mistaken only because they are mistaught. The time had come for the truth to be proclaimed far and wide that Elijah had come again in the person of John the Baptist. And no less than Jesus himself did the honors.

I have reviewed the revelation Jesus gave to the disciples as they came down the Mount of Transfiguration. Now I will take up Jesus’ speech to the multitudes concerning John the Baptist that he delivered when John was yet in prison by order of Herod. We hear Jesus unveil the prophet as his promised messenger–and as the greatest of all on earth who had been born of woman. He also confirms the Old Testament prophecy concerning the coming of his messenger.

Jesus gives a stunning tribute to the prophet and messenger who had gone before him and who had once said of the Son of God, whom he baptized:  “He must increase but I must decrease.” <12>  It is touchingly clear that Jesus thought more of John the Baptist than of any other personage of his time. Their relationship was old, very old, and their love for one another was beyond this world. Matthew records Jesus’ words:

What went ye out into the wilderness to see?  A reed shaken with the wind?

But what went ye out for to see?  A man clothed in soft raiment?  Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses.

But what went ye out for to see?  A prophet?  Yea,I say unto you, and more than a prophet.

For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.

Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist:  notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. <***>

And if ye will receive it, this is Elijah, which was for to come.  He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Matthew 11

The fact that Jesus affirmed publicly to the multitudes and then privately to three of his disciples that the true identity of John the Baptist was Elijah the prophet–and the fact that Matthew and Mark both record Jesus as saying, “This is Elijah come again”–should put to shame those who profess to be Christians yet deny Christ’s own words concerning the reincarnation of Elijah as John the Baptist.

Note that when speaking to the multitudes Jesus qualified his announcement “This is Elijah, which was for to come,” with the words “if ye will receive it” and “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”  Jesus knew that some of the multitudes would believe that Elijah had indeed come again and some would not.

He also knew that some of the Jewish authorities would receive this truth and some would vehemently deny it–not because they did not believe that Elijah would reincarnate, but because they did believe it and they feared the Lord’s judgment which the greatest of all prophets would deliver upon them.

Witness Herod’s superstition, reported by Mark, that Jesus himself was “John whom I beheaded…risen from the dead”! <13>  Note that it was his father, Herod the Great, who had had all the male babies killed “in Bethlehem and in all the coasts thereof” when it was known that the Christ was about to be born. <14>  Truly, the fallen angels among us have feared the coming of the Christed ones since Archangel Michael and his legions cast them out of heaven into the earth <15> and into earthly bodies, which they wear to this day.

And their worst fears did come upon them when they heard the pungent pronouncements upon their heads such as the following from John and a relentless string of others from Jesus: <16>

O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance.

And think not to say within yourselves, “We have Abraham to our father,” for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees:  therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.

Matthew 3

The suggestion that the transfiguration accounts in Matthew and Mark may infer a belief in reincarnation is not something new to this century. The fourth-century Church Father Jerome, for example, specifically argues in his commentary on Matthew that the transfiguration passage should not be interpreted as supporting reincarnation. <17>  That Jerome makes such an argument tells us that some Christians of his day believed that Jesus and the disciples accepted, or were at least aware of, the concept of reincarnation.

Now I will give you the Christian refutation of “Elijah come again.”  In his book Reincarnation and Christianity, Dr. Robert Morey gives a standard orthodox Christian argument for denying that the “Elijah come again” passage speaks of reincarnation. He says, “Elijah, like Enoch, never died but was translated to heaven without ever tasting death.”  But then he says that “Elijah showed himself still alive and in his original body on the Mount of Transfiguration.” <18>  Apparently Morey and others do not understand the meaning of the word translation. <****>  Therefore they believe that Enoch, as well as Elijah, went into heaven in his physical body.

The actual translation of a soul to heaven in the ritual of the ascension involves the soul’s union with the white-fire body of the I AM Presence. In the process of a physical ascension, the physical body is transformed by and superseded by the Ascended-Master Light Body (also called the Deathless Solar Body), in which the soul is permanently clothed during the ascension ritual.

Genesis records, “And Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him.” <19>  In truth, Enoch was translated–and by this I mean he went through the process of the physical ascension, which I have just described.

According to the dictionary definition and the Teachings of the Ascended Masters, the term translation describes the transformation of the physical body and the soul that takes place during the physical ascension and during cremation when the soul ascends but there is not a physical ascension.

II Kings records that Elijah “went up by a whirlwind into heaven.”  This whirlwind was the vortex of the ascension flame. Elijah had told his disciple Elisha, “If you see me when I am taken from you, you will receive a double portion of my Spirit” <20>–that is, you will receive the mantle of my Mighty I AM Presence and the empowerment of my calling and my mission.

What Elisha saw was the translation of Elijah. Before his very eyes the physical body of Elijah was transformed and Elijah was swept up in his Ascended-Master Light Body. Elisha saw the whirlwind and the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof. And then the scriptures say, “He saw him no more.”

The ascension ritual was completed and Elijah was out of sight of mortal eyes. Nevertheless, his mantle and a double portion of his spirit fell upon Elisha. And Elisha rent his clothes, took up the mantle of his Guru and smote the waters of Jordan, saying:  “Where is the LORD God of Elijah?”  And the waters parted and Elisha went over. <21>

The reincarnation of Elijah as John the Baptist was the rare exception to the rule that Ascended Masters do not reincarnate. Today most people whose souls do qualify for the ritual of the ascension ascend from inner levels after the soul has departed the physical body. The soul attains union with the Mighty I AM Presence to become a permanent atom in the Body of God just as she does in a physical ascension.

When there is not a physical ascension, it is customary for the disciples of an initiate or the family and friends of a Keeper of the Flame <#> to consecrate and cremate the remains. Their motto is not “For dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return” <22> but “Out of the sacred fire thou hast descended and into the sacred fire thou shalt ascend.”  As Paul makes clear, earthly bodies are not suitable for the heaven-world. The soul does not retain a physical earth body once she has ascended to heaven.

Although the synoptic Gospels <23> only say that Moses and Elijah “appeared” to the disciples, Morey claims that “Elijah showed himself still alive and in his original body on the Mount of Transfiguration.”  (He doesn’t mention what body Moses came in.)  Has he overlooked Paul’s chastisement to those who say:  “How are the dead raised up?  And with what body do they come?”  Paul’s answer to them is compelling. It is a lesson for us all:

Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die!…

There are…celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial. But the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory.

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption.

It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.

It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.

The first man is of the earth, earthy:  the second man is the Lord from heaven.

As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy. And as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.

And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is thy sting?  O grave, where is thy victory?

I Corinthians 15

The akashic records <24> verify that Elijah was not in a corruptible, mortal body when he appeared to Jesus and the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration some nine hundred years after he had challenged the 450 prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel. <25>  They also verify that Moses did not present himself in a corruptible, mortal body for the occasion. There was no necessity for Elijah or Moses to appear to Jesus in a physical body because they could talk to Jesus perfectly well in their celestial bodies.

In addition to Paul’s teaching on mutable and immutable bodies, another text that refutes Morey is Mark 9 (already quoted). Mark says that Peter, James and John all saw Elijah with Moses talking with Jesus. But “suddenly”–after the voice of God out of the cloud announced, “This is my beloved Son:  hear ye him”–the three “looked round about” and “saw no man anymore, save Jesus only.”  Had Elijah (or Moses) been in his corruptible body, he would not have suddenly disappeared. Have any of you here tonight ever seen a physical person “suddenly” disappear?

The conclusion of the matter is that the Ascended Master John the Baptist appeared to Jesus as Elijah the prophet in his Ascended-Master Light Body, <##> and the Ascended Master Moses also appeared to Jesus in his Ascended-Master Light Body.

Jesus was transfigured, his raiment was shining with a heavenly light, “exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller’s earth can white them.”  Having been accelerated to that level of the white light (the definition of the transfiguration), he could talk to Moses and Elijah face-to-face and they could talk with him.

Jesus temporarily raised his three closest disciples to that exalted height so that they might bear witness of his transfiguration after his resurrection. He made certain that they saw not only his transfiguration but also the figures of Elijah and Moses “in glory,” as Luke has it. <26>  Matthew, Mark and Luke concur that neither of these two prophets were in the vibration or the plane of the earthly body.

According to Morey, when Jesus said that Elijah had “come already” as John the Baptist, “Jesus was simply saying that the ministry of John the Baptist was ‘in the spirit and power’ of Elijah’s ministry.” <27>  (“In the spirit and power” of Elijah comes from Luke’s account of the Archangel Gabriel appearing to Zacharias and prophesying that his son, John, would go before the Messiah “in the spirit and power” of Elijah. <28>)

Some Christians say that Jesus was speaking figuratively and did not literally mean that Elijah was reincarnated as John the Baptist. Professor George Buttrick interprets Jesus’ words as meaning that John had come “in striking likeness of the flesh and in [the] verity of the spirit [of Elijah].”  He writes:  “John, dressed like Elijah, lived in the desert as Elijah had lived, and defied Herod and Herodias as Elijah had defied Ahab and Jezebel.” <29>

So, as far as Buttrick is concerned, what looks like a duck, waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck is still not a duck!

For me Buttrick’s argument, based on the parallels of John and Elijah, only buttresses the fact that not only the spirit and power of Elijah but also his very soul was fully embodied in John the Baptist. Yes, indeed, Elijah had already come; but the carnally minded were either too dense to recognize him or too superstitious to allow themselves to believe it was he.

It is as though they were convinced in their narrow mindedness that even if he wanted to, God couldn’t put Elijah’s soul or your soul or my soul in a new body for a new mission. And because they were so convinced in their own conceit, they set up rules defining what God is allowed to do and what he isn’t allowed to do.

Well, you know what?  God can do anything he wants to anytime he wants to. He can put our souls in new bodies and he already has. He can create a meeting ground between Ascended Masters and unascended masters with their disciples, just as he did on the Mount of Transfiguration. And he can bring that mountain to us, just as he does every time we receive a dictation from one of the Ascended Masters at the altar of the Holy Grail!

God is practical. He’s not a stuntman or a magician. What he does, he does within the framework of the expediency and the practicality of his law. And it was neither expedient nor practical to have Elijah in heaven in his physical body, nor was it expedient or practical for God to create a new soul to fulfill the mission of John the Baptist when the soul of Elijah was already fully trained and empowered for the mission.

First of all, it is much easier to create a new body than a new soul!  Secondly, the soul increases in wisdom and love and adeptship with the cumulative experience of many soul journeys through many lifetimes. And the absolute necessity for that cumulative experience is the reason why God set up the system of reincarnation in the first place!  It was ingenious, expedient and powerfully practical. A single lifetime, whether lived to age 9 or 90 or 900, is just not enough time for the soul to mature to the levels required for her to achieve the crowning victory of individual Christhood.

What was true for the soul of Elijah is true for you and me. We have “come again” to “restore all things”–that is, to make peace with every part of life, to embody God’s law and the teachings of his ageless prophets, to balance our karma, fulfill our mission and ascend.

Such a God who loves us so much as to give us opportunity after opportunity to come to his knowledge and his glory is my kind of God. I can identify with a Father-Mother God who is infinitely merciful. I cannot identify with a one-chance God who would throw us into the fires of eternal damnation if we fail to make it in one lifetime.

My kind of God is smarter than that. And he is scientific. He has put the essence of himself in our hearts, his own divine spark (the threefold flame). It is the seed of a Christ or a Buddha to be. And he knows that this seed is the lodestone of himself that will ultimately woo the soul back to him.

Our Father-Mother God is confident that sooner or later we little lambs who have lost our way will come Home wagging our tails behind us. So there is no need for God to cast us into hell, because he is inside of us and he fully intends to pilot us Home–when we are ready.

Hell is a place reserved for the devil and his angels, who continue to make war against the Woman and her Manchild and the seed of Christ in the earth. <30>  These self-styled gods who mock God while they mimic him have no eternal life because they deny that life, who is God, in their minds and in their bodies. By willfully extinguishing his flame in their hearts, they have chosen to commit spiritual suicide.

Rest assured that our Father-Mother have given to us who have chosen to magnify the Lord in all our members the gift of the abundant life, lifetime after lifetime, that we might return in mercy and in grace to our point of origin in God.

It was evident two thousand years ago and it is evident today that some theologians go to great lengths to deny the doctrine of reincarnation that is plainly written in scripture:

Elijah verily cometh first and restoreth all things; and…it is written of the Son of man that he must suffer many things and be set at nought.
But I say unto you that Elijah is indeed come and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him.

– Mark 9

These are Jesus’ own words, yet some among the clergy will not receive them. In denying Jesus’ words, they deny the Lord himself, who is the ultimate Word incarnate. Peter spoke of this when he referred to Paul’s epistles, saying:

Some things [are] hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, <###> as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness.

But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen.

II Peter 3

The unfortunate fact is that some theologians are simply not willing to come to grips with the doctrines of karma and reincarnation. Why do you think this is so?  Are they fleeing from the wrath of their own karma that is not yet come?  And is it not yet come because, as Jesus said, “If ye were [physically] blind, ye should have no sin [i.e., karma, because your blindness would be the means provided by the Great Law for the expiation of your karma], but now ye say, ‘We see’; therefore your sin remaineth [i.e., your karma has not yet descended]”? <31>

The Pharisees then and now have physical sight but no spiritual understanding, and their unredeemed karma is the cause of their spiritual blindness.

I believe that today’s Pharisees do not accept the twin doctrines of karma and reincarnation because if they did they would have to accept accountability for their own actions in this life and all past lives. A large percentage of the people on earth today do not want to take responsibility for their karma. They’ve lived by the doctrine that says Jesus carries it all:  “Jesus died for my sins. He is going to bear my sins and give me absolution and all I have to do is accept him as my Lord and Saviour and he will do the rest. And I am guaranteed entrée into the kingdom by my profession of faith.”

This is a simplistic notion. Yet it’s what the doctrine of the vicarious atonement, accepted by clergymen and churchgoers alike, is all about. And I tell you from my heart and from the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who has given to me this teaching by the Holy Spirit, that the doctrine that Jesus pays the whole price for our karma and we pay nothing is not the true doctrine of Jesus Christ. It is false doctrine and it is in violation of the laws of God set forth in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

Now, if it is not the doctrine of Jesus Christ, then, pray tell me, whose doctrine is it?  Well, if you don’t know, I’ll tell you. It is the doctrine of the Adversary–Jesus’ Adversary and yours and mine. And this doctrine that Jesus paid it all will deny you your own victory over death and hell if you continue to believe it.

Believing that you can commit any crime, break the laws of God and man, and not pay the price because Jesus already paid it for you is simply not what Jesus taught. Moreover, it is absolutely inconsistent with the law of karma set forth in the Old and New Testaments. And I will leave you to ponder why in the final analysis the doctrine of the vicarious atonement is neither expedient nor practical.

Think about that. And ask yourself:

Who is responsible for my soul?  Is it the false pastors and false teachers who tell me I am saved because I respond to the altar call and confess that Jesus is my Lord?  Or is it I?

Who will give accounting for my soul when I stand before my Lord at the end of this life?  I myself, who with God am the sole proprietor of my soul, or those pastors and teachers who will be long gone when I stand before the judgment seat?

Jesus is doing everything he can to help you. He will even help you carry your karma until you can not only carry it yourself but also transmute it by service to life and your daily decrees to the violet flame. (Just fifteen minutes a day with my tapes will bring you closer to God than you’ve ever been before.)  But he sent his apostle Paul to tell you that it is your responsibility to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” <32> for in the end “every man shall bear his own [karmic] burden.” <33>

Now, if you will, ask yourself this question before you put down this Pearl of Wisdom: “Who will give accounting for my soul when I stand before my Lord?”  And when you answer it, act on it.