The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit by Ralph Waldo Trine online

VIII IF WE SEEK THE ESSENCE OF HIS REVELATION, AND THE PURPOSE OF HIS LIFE

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We must not forget, then, that Jesus said that he did not come to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfil them. We must not forget, however, that before fulfilling them he had to free them. The freedom-giving, God-illumined words spoken by free God-illumined men, had, in the hands of those not God-illumined, later on become institutionalised, made into a system, a code. The people were taught that only the priests had access to God. They were the custodians of God's favour and only through the institution could any man, or any woman, have access to God. This became the sacred thing, and as the years had passed this had become so hedged about by continually added laws and observances that all the spirit of religion had become crushed, stifled, beaten to the ground.

The very scribes and Pharisees themselves, supposed to minister to the spiritual life and the welfare of the people, became enrobed in their fine millinery and arrogance, masters of the people, whose ministers they were supposed to be, as is so apt to be the case when an institution builds itself upon the free, all-embracing message of truth given by any prophet or any inspired teacher. It has occurred time and time again. Christianity knows it well. It is only by constant vigilance that religious freedom is preserved, from which alone comes any high degree of morality, or any degree of free and upward-moving life among the people.

It was on account of this shameful robbing of the people of their Divine birthright that the just soul of Jesus, abhorring both casuistry and oppression under the cloak of religion, gave utterance to that fine invective that he used on several occasions, the only times that he spoke in a condemnatory or accusing manner: "Now do ye, Pharisee, make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.... Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! For ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.... Woe unto you, lawyers! For ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered."

And here is the lesson for us. It is the spirit that must always be kept uppermost in religion. Otherwise even the revelation and the religion of Jesus could be compressed into a code, with its self-appointed instruments of interpretation, the same as the Pharisees did the Law and the Prophets that he so bitterly condemned, with a bravery so intrepid and so fearless that it finally caused his death.

No, if God is not in the human soul waiting to make Himself known to the believing, longing heart, accessible to all alike without money and without price, without any prescribed code, then the words of Jesus have not been correctly handed down to us. And then again, confirming us in the belief that a man's deepest soul relation is a matter between him and his God, are his unmistakable and explicit directions in regard to prayer.

It is so easy to substitute the secondary thing for the fundamental, the by-thing for the essential, the container for the thing itself. You will recall that symbolic act of Jesus at the last meeting, the Last Supper with his disciples, the washing of the disciples' feet by the Master. The point that is intended to be brought out in the story is, of course, the extraordinary condescension of Jesus in doing this menial service for his disciples. "The feet-washing symbolises the attitude of humble service to others. Every follower of Jesus must experience it." One of the disciples is so astonished, even taken aback by this menial service on the part of Jesus, that he says: Thou shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me."

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