Love, Universal Salvation, and Grace

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Grace is the matrix-teaching of all Christianity. It is the clear teaching that we are saved only because God loves us. That should be repeated: We are saved from ignorance and the lower nature, from illusion, only because of the Love of God.

That needs repeating again and again, because we keep falling into the dangerous illusion-- lie or falsehood-- that our salvation arises because we are "good people" or because of our activities, because we are "better" than others, because we "believe" the "right" things, belong to the "right" church, etc.

This lie is known, in Christian history, as the "works" doctrine. It teaches that some are "better" than others, because they "work harder." It is true that some do work harder than others, and that some live better moral and ethical lives.

But that is irrelevant to the issue of salvation. Jesus stated the principle of grace this way, to the proudly religious and respectable Bible-scholars of his day: "Prostitutes, alcoholics, and thieves will go ahead of you into the Kingdom of God."

What could he possibly have meant by such a shocking statement? Salvation does not arise from "perfection," for we are all sinners, light-years from perfection. So, salvation must come from the state of being cleansed or purified of sin. This state comes from forgiveness, which in turn, blossoms from Love. It is Love plus nothing else that lifts the human Soul into purity and salvation.

Some Jewish kabbalists went so far as to say that a person who had sinned and been forgiven was better off than a person who had never sinned! And it is so, for she has had the experience of life and Love that have taught her valuable lessons.

The "problem" that selfrighteous people have with grace is that it must be unlimited, if God's Love is unlimited. (And all must admit that it is.)

This teaching, taken to its only logical conclusion, must imply that most terrifying of great truths-- universal salvation. For no sin can ever be greater than God's bottomless, endless, infinite Love.
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