Lord of Karma, Page 19

This passage commences also with a Jewish setting and continues the deeply esoteric character of the entire letter. That it is speaking of Christ as the Lord of Karma seems very clear. While Paul undoubtedly understood the mandate of Christ to Peter, James and John not to teach reincarnation exoterically until the Second Coming (Mt 17,9; see “Karma and Reincarnation”), he was here speaking, as so often elsewhere, in a manner that revealed the same esoterically. “The first-born who are enrolled in heaven” (vs 23) would seem to indicate those, such as the Buddha, possibly Enoch (Heb 11,5), and those referred to in Lk 20,35-36 and perhaps also by Augustine as having been “Christians before Christ came” (Epis. Retrac., Lib. I, xiii, 3), who, before Christ, had recognized and accepted him and had attained complete control over their astral bodies so as to be beyond the necessity of reincarnation. Then we come to “a judge who is God of all,” seemingly the “Father,” whose karmic law (Mt 5,17; Heb 10,1) was just, though harsh, and virtually impossible by the time of Christ to comply with by virtue of one’s objective karma. Next in line are “the spirits of just men made perfect.” There is a difference between being “justified” and being “just.” The former term is used as a synonym for the “vindication” effected for objective karma by accepting Christ. There is a tendency in traditional Christian thinking to interpret Mt 5,48 (“You must be perfect”) as impossible for the human being within one’s lifetime as all still sin, but accomplished merely through accepting Christ and using one’s best efforts to follow him within that lifetime. If that were true, then Paul’s term “just” in vs 23 is superfluous. It seems clearly to imply not only the traditional thought of perfection through Christ, but also that one is “just” by having made restitution (e.g., Mt 5,26; Lk 12,59). The verse speaks of those who are already “just” as being then made perfect, presumably those who are “perfected” insofar as objective karma is concerned by the acceptance of Christ and who then make restitution so as to be “just.” In any event, the separate status of being “just” and being “perfect” is recognized as a prelude to dwelling in the “heavenly Jerusalem” (vs 22). Finally, and most convincingly, Paul speaks of Jesus, distinguished from God the “judge,” as being “the mediator of a new covenant” (vs 24). If one studies the meaning of that term, it will be obvious that a better term could not have been selected to describe the function of Lord of Karma. If acceptance of, and best effort to follow, Christ within a given life were sufficient, then no “mediator” would be required. But even under the new covenant, subjective karma must still be balanced or canceled out, which can be done only by making restitution in later lives for all the subjective karmic debt (Mt 5,26; Lk 12,59) not satisfied in prior ones.

The conclusion thus reached could hardly be more firmly nailed down than by the last verse in chapter 12, “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.” In “Purifying Fire” we see that the “consuming fire” is the “refiner’s fire” which applies to every “burning bush” (i.e., Christ-enabled human Ego) in the astral world (cf. Purgatory), thereby purifying it in preparation for entry into the spiritual world where the appropriate three bodies are refashioned for another incarnation. Only when one has nothing left to purify is perfection reached.

1 Pet 4,5-6:

(5) But they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. (6) For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead, that though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the spirit like God.

This passage is one of several throughout the spectrum of New Testament authors that supported the doctrine of Christ’s descent into hell. “Descended into hell” was found in the Apostles’ Creed, the earliest of the three generally acknowledged Christian Creeds (Apostles’, Nicene and Athanasian), but as spiritual knowledge darkened with the passage of time it was eliminated, as in the second, the Nicene (see “Apostles’ Creed,” and “Nicene Creed” in Brit). Even in those churches still using it today, there seems to be general discomfort with the idea, and one seldom hears elaboration upon it.

It does not meet with the common acceptance of reality that Christ could have “preached to the dead” who there in “Sheol” or “Hades” could make the necessary decision, or that their simply “hearing” it there without decision could save them, or even that they could “hear” it there. Moreover, absent karma and reincarnation, the problem of treating those who died before Christ without attaining perfection, namely, all those who experienced “Sheol,” on the same basis as those who have lived since Christ, is a very insoluble one to the thinking mind, as is the idea of all the dead saints coming out of their tombs and appearing to many (Mt 27,52-53). Paul knew that such persons, as eternal Individualities, were not thus perfected, for even the Jews’ most illustrious ancestors had not yet received what was promised, though they had “seen . . . and greeted it from afar” (Heb 11,13,39). He also knew that, prior to the “resurrection,” and as a necessary means thereto, “God was able to raise men from the dead,” i.e., to cause their reincarnation (Heb 11,19). But anthroposophy lets us know that those in the discarnate state were able to see much more effectively in the spiritual world what had happened at the Mystery of Golgotha and that they were thenceforth to be accorded the grace of taking in Christ in future incarnation on Earth, even though they were not on Earth when he was.

This understanding gives meaning to vs 6, for they could be “judged in the flesh like men” only when they returned to the flesh with the opportunity to accept Christ “like men” and to thereafter live on Earth reflecting that new life. The exoteric meaning, sufficient for the Church during the first two thousand years, is inadequate now that the esoteric meaning has again been revealed. For humanity has evolved beyond the Intellectual to the Spiritual (Consciousness) Soul state (I-24, I-25 and I-19) and must come to the new understanding made possible thereby. And it is Christ as the Lord of Karma who thus “is ready to judge the living and the dead.” That judgment occurs only upon death, but must apply to what occurs on Earth during life. Hence those to whom he preached at the time of his “descent” had to return, or be “born again.” And just as his “preaching” was perceived by the dead through his “Descent Into Hell” (vs 6), so also is his Second Coming, i.e., his reappearance in the etheric world, perceivable by the dead of the twentieth century who are prepared to do so. To them, be they “living or dead” (vs 5), he can be seen. They can thus “live in the spirit like God” (vs 6), i.e., perceive there as “gods” (Jn 10,34).