7.5

I rejoice in all of you, beloved in the Lord, holy Israelites according to your intellectual substance. First, the rational person ought to know himself; then he should know the things of God and all the gifts of grace that God continually gives him; and next he should know that every sin and everything blameworthy is foreign to the nature of the intellectual substance.

At last our Creator saw that by our own free choice we possessed these things that are outside nature and that in them we were dying here. Moved with compassion for us because of them, in His own goodness He wished to turn us back to that beginning without end. He visited His creatures, not sparing Himself for the salvation of us all. He handed Himself over for our sins; our iniquities humbled Him, but by His wound we have all been healed. By the word of His power He gathered us from every region, from one end of the earth to the other end of the world, leading us to recognize that we are members of one another.

Therefore, if we have truly prepared ourselves to be set free through His coming, let the rational person examine himself and ask what he can give back to God for all the gifts He has given us. And I too, most wretched as I am, who have written this letter, awakened from the sleep of death, regard the greater part of the time I have spent on earth as mourning and weeping, grieving over what I can give back to the Lord for everything He has done for me. For we have been deprived of nothing; there is nothing He has failed to accomplish for us in our humiliation. He made His angels minister to us, commanded His prophets to prophesy, and ordered His apostles to proclaim the Gospel to us. Above all these ordinances stands this: He caused His Only-begotten Son to take the form of a servant for us.

Therefore I beg you, beloved in the Lord, you who are co-heirs with the saints, to awaken your minds in the fear of God. Let this saying be clear to you: John, the Forerunner of Jesus, baptized for the remission of sins for our sake, but we have been sanctified by the Spirit in Christ. Let us now prepare ourselves in all holiness to purify our understanding, so that we may be clean in the baptism of Jesus and may offer ourselves as a sacrifice to God.

This Paraclete Spirit, who comforts us, turns us back again to our beginning so that we may recover our own inheritance and the dominion of that same comforting Spirit. For this reason, “as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ; there is neither male nor female, neither slave nor free.” Every bodily tongue comes to an end for them when they receive the teaching of the Holy Spirit, at the time when they receive the holy inheritance and worship the Father as they ought, in spirit and in truth.

Let this saying also be clear to you: do not wait for a future judgment at that coming of Jesus, for His coming is already judgment for all of us. Know also that all who bear the Spirit within themselves will be looked upon and clothed with that garment of which we were stripped according to our intellectual substance. For a voice often comes from God the Father to all who bear Him within themselves, saying, “Comfort, comfort My people, says the Lord; and you priests, speak to the heart of Jerusalem.” For God continually visits His creatures, revealing His goodness.

Truly, beloved, concerning the details of the word of freedom by which we have been set free, there are many other things to say to you. But “if I give an opportunity to a wise man, he will become wiser.” May the God of peace give you the grace of discernment, so that you may know that what I write to you is the commandment of the Lord. May the God of all grace keep you holy in the Lord until your final breath. I always pray to God for the salvation of all of you, beloved in the Lord. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.