Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/8600

8600 Jesus' act of Salvation was the beginning of a new phase in the work of return....

August 29, 1963: Book 90

When the human being Jesus died on the cross a new phase in the work of My living creations' return began, for until then all people were still living in the spiritual darkness that My adversary had spread across all fallen spirits.... All human beings were still afflicted by the original sin and no one was able to approach Me since My justice did not allow it until the original sin had been redeemed. However, countless people had already walked across earth and amongst them were also a few of good will but without enough strength of their own to release themselves from My adversary, since they all had been unable to establish the right kind of contact with Me due to their lack of love....

They were controlled by selfish love as a sign of their affiliation with My adversary.... And neither did they know the cause for their earthly existence, their apostasy from Me.... they were spiritually utterly ignorant yet in a worldly sense extremely busy, and therefore they forever endeavoured to gain advantages at other people's expense.... They lacked selfless love through which they could have attained a higher state of maturity. Although the few exceptions in fact sensed their spiritual hardship and also acknowledged a God and Creator above themselves they did not recognise Me as a God of love, but only as a God of vengeance and wrath. People would never have been able to progress in their spiritual development; they would always and forever have stayed the same selfish generation which was unable to attain higher awareness as long as the burden of the original sin pushed it down.... My adversary would always have kept people on the ground if a Saviour had not arrived for the sake of the few who felt wretched and in their distress had called for a Saviour.

And a possibility to establish a connection with Me was indeed meant to be created again one day which, however, should now apply to the Father.... People should be able to call like children to the Father, whereas before they had only recognised in their God and Creator a Power they refused to bow down to, because they still harboured this opposition against Me as result of their past original sin.... A relationship of love should become possible again between the living creations and Myself which, however, had to be established by people themselves through their willingness to love. But prior to Jesus' crucifixion a human being was only very rarely willing to love and then he was excessively tortured by My adversary.... so that he almost despaired of My existence. But knowing his will I helped him and took him from earth....

Jesus Christ's act of Salvation brought an era of people's greatest distance from Me to an end.... His crucifixion atoned for the original sin of all fallen beings, and now, in the stage of human beings, they are able to establish the right kind of relationship with Me again if, with the help of Jesus Christ, they live a life of love, if they release themselves from the adversary's shackles through the blood He shed on the cross and thus see in Me the Father and are urged towards Me by love.... towards the relationship they once voluntarily severed and thereby became wretched. Jesus' death on the cross brought humanity's hopeless state to an end.... A new era began where the human being only needed to take the path to Jesus in order to be guided out of My adversary's dark domain.... where the gate into the kingdom of light was opened again too.... It was now for the human being possible again that he could change himself, so that he could shape his nature into love, so that he could become again what he had been before his apostasy from Me....

The first redeemed souls returned to Me, I was able to admit them into My kingdom of light and bliss, which would never have been possible if Jesus had not redeemed the original sin through His death on the cross.... For I Am.... as supremely perfect.... also righteous and therefore could not cancel an unredeemed guilt. Much time had passed when people almost broke down under the burden of sin yet did not recognise their guilt and therefore repeatedly revolted against Me, Whom they could not deny as a 'Power' but to Whom they did not surrender with love. For they once rejected love, and all they had left was mere selfish love.... the wrongly directed love transferred to them by My opponent. Hence, in their nature they still belonged to him entirely.... And this nature first had to change, which was only possible after Jesus' crucifixion, Who acquired for them the will and the strength to rise and relinquish their selfish love.... All these were purely spiritual processes, for in an earthly-human sense they certainly had an enjoyable and good life, yet no one had any consideration for his fellow human being, instead everyone just thought of himself, and the strong person oppressed the weak who was unable to defend himself, because My adversary delighted in seeing the wretched state of the souls he had plunged into the abyss, for he himself was completely without love but full of hatred and animosity.... And his nature also reflected itself in people's nature.... Anyone who was strong likewise oppressed other people and knew no mercy for he had no love, just like his lord.... the lord of darkness.... was without love.

Jesus, however, tried to guide people onto the right path through love. Jesus lived and taught love and demonstrated to them that love was a strength which even defeated the adversary, and that people can only release themselves from him through love. Thus the human being Jesus had exemplified a life of love for the first time for people, and then He accomplished the greatest work of love and mercy by sacrificing Himself on the cross on behalf of humanity's sins, so that they would be set free and through a right kind of life attain strength and light again in order to then travel the last path into their true home, which Jesus had preceded through His death on the cross.... Whom they now only needed to follow in order to enter My kingdom in a liberated state, returning to Me into the Father's house, to the Father from Whose love they had emerged and in Whose love they will now stay forever....

Amen

Translated by Heidi Hanna