The Nature of Eternity

CHAPTER 30

Yeshua is asked by the father of Martha to speak at the funeral of Yochanan, and he speaks at great length about the nature of Eternity and what can be expected when one passes from mortal life.

 1 As the Sun rose the next morning, the spirit of Yeshua returned to his body. The lion remained nestled against his side as he opened his eyes and arose, saying in his mind and heart as well as his words, “Thank you, faithful friend. May you live long and always be cautious of men who would hurt you.”

 2 The lion looked up into his eyes for a moment, unblinking, then turned and quickly disappeared in silence into the underbrush.

 3 Absorbed in his thoughts, Yeshua descended back to his house and family. As he neared his home, he began to whistle, which was a very uncommon thing for a man to do, but something Yeshua did often.

 4 Hearing his approaching whistle, Miriam stepped out to greet him with a smile on her face, saying, “Yeshua, my love, it is good to hear you whistle, for I know then that you are happy inside. Do you have good news for us of Yochanan?”

 5 Yeshua came and embraced her and held her tightly for a moment in silence, and then the children came out to greet him and he opened his arms to them.

 6 Turning to Miriam, he answered forthrightly, “Though you may be saddened, know that I bring you good tidings. With contempt for a light greater than he could know, Herod thought to behead Yochanan in ignominy, but was left in fear of the power of Elohim when the jailers told him that Yochanan laughed at them and died, robbing Herod of his victory.”

 7 Miriam swallowed deeply and a tear formed in her eye, and she asked, “Yochanan is gone then?”

 8 Yeshua smiled again and said, “He has returned from whence he came, having left a light upon the world that will never be extinguished.”

 9 “I am happy for Yochanan,” Miriam said. “He lives now in light and glory; but what of my sister and their children? I feel their pain already. Let us make haste to go to them.”

 10 And it came to pass that Yeshua and Miriam and their children made a quick journey to Bethany. Though Yochanan’s family had been near the castle of Herod by the Salt Sea, they had returned quickly to the house of the parents of Martha and Miriam in Bethany upon word of Yochanan’s death; and this Yeshua knew.

 11 The body of Yochanan had been given to his disciples by the soldiers of Herod, and at the direction of his wife Martha, they had treated it with herbs and spices after the manner of the Egyptians as Yochanan had taught them and followed behind Martha, bringing the body of Yochanan to the house of her parents for a funeral and burial.

 12 Thus it was that the body of Yochanan arrived on the same day as Yeshua and his family, and with it came many people, for the word of his death had spread quickly and he was much beloved of the common people.

 13 Even many people from Gimron, who seldom left their isolated community, followed after the body of Yochanan.

 14 As Yeshua and Miriam arrived, Lazarus was waiting at the gate for them, and all the family came out to greet and comfort one another with tears and hugs and soft words of love.

 15 And it came to pass on the following day that the body of Yochanan was wrapped in a simple knotted, white linen shroud and buried in a tomb owned by Martha’s father in a hillside northwest of Bethany.

 16 Over one thousand people followed the funeral procession and watched in silence as Yochanan’s body was interred and the tomb was sealed.

 17 Then the father of Martha spoke to the people assembled at the foot of the tomb, saying that Yochanan was a good man who walked with God. And he thanked them for coming to give him their respect.

 18 As he sat down, he asked Yeshua to speak also to the people. And Yeshua rose up, and standing in front of the tomb, he said unto them, “It is good to grieve, to cry, and to acknowledge the empty place in your life when one you love is no longer there to hold you and make you laugh and comfort you just by their physical presence.

 19 But in your grief, know this with certainty: As surely as the Sun rises in the sky, so too rise the souls of all who have died to their reward in an eternity that never ends.

 20 Those you love wait for you still, and the virtuous need not fear separation, for mortality is but a heartbeat, and in eternity, they shall not be parted.

 21 As in Adam, save for a precious few, all will die a physical death. The spirit essence will rise to the realms Elohim created for eternity. And because of the love of Elohim, everyone shall live again in the spirit.

 22 But unto the virtuous and righteous, it is given not only to live again in the spirit, but for your immortal soul to become one with a glorified new physical body, made whole and perfect by Elohim, for your life eternal.

 23 Your future began with your past, for your existence is an eternal walk that never ends.

 24 Before you were born of woman, your spirit was created by Elohim, and before it was born upon the Earth, the spirit of all things lived in a spiritual realm called Koropean.

 25 And to the Koropean, the realm of spirit, all things of spirit born into a physical existence shall someday return, even the birds in the air, the fish in the sea, and every blade of grass beneath your feet.

 26 So vast it is in expanse that the earthly mind of man cannot even begin to comprehend the magnitude and diversity of the Koropean.

 27 Verily, there is nothing that lives or that has lived or that will ever live upon the Earth whose spirit was not first created by the Elohim and then existed in the Koropean. Nor is there anything or anyone that has ever lived that shall not return to that realm.

 28 But everything that has a spirit does not also have a soul, for only the children of men and women, whose spirits were all birthed in a sacred union of love by your Father and Mother in Heaven, have been given a soul; and more precious than all the treasure of Earth, it is.

 29 For a soul, created in the celestial union of love, is given an ember of divinity that ever calls the soul to the a greater light called Celestine, that it might ever be moved to return to the blessed kingdom from which it came, expanded in stature from its humble beginnings.

 30 When the soul comes to Earth and it is born of woman into a body of flesh and bones, it dwells in the body of a man or a woman and is thrust into a physical world of darkness and light.

 31 Mortality is the crucible, the refiner’s fire, and the soul within the body ever beckons to the light, even while the physical man or woman in the body is ever seduced to darkness by the temptations of the world and the pleasures of the body.

 32 Therefore, man has been given the years of his life to feel the warmth of his soul calling him out of darkness and back to the Celestine Light that is his home.

 33 Throughout the days of his mortal life, the warmth of the ember of divinity ever burns quietly within the heart of man: that he may always know good from evil and right from wrong; that on the day of the Judgment of Resonance, he may be weighed in the balance by his own choices and not be able to say, ‘I did not know.’

 34 Therefore, take heed, for you know not which breath upon the Earth shall be your last, whether your life will end when you are young or when you are old.

 35 I say unto you, do not ignore the warm and gentle calling of the divine ember of light burning in your bosom. It is calling you from your mundane life to the glory that you can be.

 36 Think not to say, ‘Today I will eat, drink and be merry, for I still have my old age to become virtuous,’ for though you may be young, these may be the last days of your old age.

 37 When your physical body is laid in the grave, your soul held within your spirit rises immediately to the first Judgment of Resonance, at the place of transition in the Koropean realm.

 38 For a moment, whatever you believed the afterlife to be will seem to be as it is, but then at the direction of Elohim, the angels of Heaven will come and the illusion will vanish like a mirage on the desert, and the reality of eternity will become apparent.

 39 The angels of Elohim shall look with you at the life you have lived in mortality and the virtue you had or had not.

 40 Every iota shall not be reviewed; not the rivulets, only the rivers.

 41 Then you shall be inexorably drawn to the place of your resonance within the Koropean: the virtuous to a place of warmth and light and the unvirtuous to a place of bitter cold and darkness; the greater the virtue, the brighter the light; the less the virtue, the deeper the darkness.

 42 It matters not whether you are of Judah or Samaria or Rome, whether you are a man or a woman, whether you were rich or poor, whether you lived free or as a slave.

 43 Each shall be judged, not by what they believed or who they were, but by what they did and even by what they thought but did not do.

 44 Did you live a life of virtue? Did you uphold the Great Commandment and the commandments of Sinai as the ember of God within you ever beckoned and guided you to do?

 45 Your spirit shall again have a form of a physical man or woman without the substance, and your soul will dwell within it.

 46 Those in the Celestine Light will be among their friends and family who also had virtue, and they shall have joy together and delight in new knowledge and opportunities.

 47 Those that are in darkness shall be among others in the darkness, but none that they know or love or miss or take pleasure to be around.

 48 Misery and loneliness shall be the lot of those in the darkness. Their only hope will not be for new knowledge and opportunity like those in the light, but simply to regain that which was lost by their foolishness.

 49 Though beset by the pain of their own mistakes, those in the darkness will still have a promise. From the lonely place of cold and dreariness where they dwell in misery, far and away, they will see a distant lamp shining from the realm of warmth and happiness, illuminating the path they can still walk to come back into the light, with faith and repentance, and sorrow and confession and restitution and good works.

 50 For each moment, whether one is in the darkness or in the light, every spirit will continue to make choices that can show virtue or vice. As they act upon their choices, they will move either into a greater light or into a deeper darkness.

 51 Then at an hour you know not, nor expect, will come a final Judgment of Resonance upon your soul.

 52 Verily, all men and women who have ever lived shall stand someday before the Elohim to be weighed in the balance and judged, not only of their life in mortality, but also their life before mortality and after it.

 53 And all the angels of Heaven shall stand as witnesses on the day of your final judgment.

 54 So shall every person whose life was ever touched for good or evil, by those being weighed, also stand as witnesses to see the life before them, with nothing hidden.

 55 Nor shall anything that was done, not be seen, for at the final judgment, every iota shall be judged. Of your thoughts and of your actions, both good and bad, from your entire mortal life, nothing shall be hidden.

 56 With every good and virtuous deed you ever thought or did, light will flow to and be added to the essence of your soul.

 57 And with every evil or loathsome thing you ever thought or did, darkness will flow to and be added to the essence of your soul.

 58 When all has been seen, your soul will be weighed in the balance, and those who lived selfishly, without virtue and kindness and gratitude and stewardship, shall be found wanting.

 59 The virtuous will be pulled by resonance of their own light into warmth and greater light, and they shall be given a new and perfected, immortal physical body and live near the presence of Elohim in the Celestine Realm. They shall be given great blessings and new stewardships worthy of their light.

 60 But those lacking virtue shall be pulled by their own dark resonance into a bitter cold and deeper darkness, where there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and an endless torment upon the soul for the warmth and light that could have been.

 61 But remember, even this is not the end, but only the beginning. The love and forgiveness of the Father and Mother is boundless, and even those in outer darkness can still reach the Celestine Light and savor the warmth and the love of paradise among their family and friends and gain new knowledge and be given a greater stewardship.

 62 Even in outer darkness, they will have the choice to do good or do evil, and when the good weighs more than the evil, they will draw light to their soul.

 63 After millennia, if they continue to seek the light and do good, their balance shall be with the light, and they will inherit the just reward they deserve after overcoming the suffering and punishments they inflicted upon themselves.

 64 Knowing this—that for lack of virtue in mortality your soul could be in torment for millennia—may each of you choose the light each day.

 65 There is still another path in the afterlife, one bestowed upon few, and that is to return again to mortality. This was the path that had been given to Yochanan by Elohim.

 66 For Yochanan is a choice soul who has faithfully served Elohim from before the creation of the world. Your ancestors knew him as Elijah the Prophet, and so great was his vision and power to sway the hearts of men that after he had died in the flesh and had risen to his glory, he was asked by Elohim to come again into the flesh, that the world might hear his voice once more; that he might prepare the world for the greater light to come.

 67 Thus was the scripture fulfilled saying, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare the way before you.’

 68 Therefore, when you remember Yochanan, his laugh, his honesty and frankness, his simple words of power, and his example of a life of virtue and righteousness, remember that you had a true prophet of the most high walking among you.

 69 You had a man who had been born twice of woman, walking among you.

 70 My hope for each of you is that you will remember this glorious son of God and live your life as he showed us how to live: full of spirit and love and unwavering virtue and faith.

 71 And for those of his family, know that he waits for you even now and that mortality is but a heartbeat of eternity. I admonish you to live in virtue, doing good upon the Earth, fulfilling your stewardships, and surely, you will be together again and for all eternity to come.”

 72 Then Yeshua slapped his hands together and proclaimed, “Now, let us rejoice! Play glad music, prepare a feast, talk with one another, and remember Yochanan. Celebrate and thank this wonderful man of God who served you all of his days!”