The responsibility the human being bears towards his soul in his earthly life must be made known to him, and this happens through instruction in the divine teaching which is offered to the human being as the teaching of Christ and which shows him the clear path he has to take. The knowledge of this must be imparted to him, otherwise he could not be held responsible. He must know that the body is capable of doing everything but that it does much at the expense of the soul; however, only the soul needs to take responsibility for itself and therefore it must muster the strength to deny the body what is beneficial to it but detrimental to the soul. And the soul alone determines what the body does. For the body without the soul is dead, so it is the soul that gives it life, because willing, thinking and feeling emanate from the soul, i.e. it is, as it were, the epitome of the soul. If now the thinking, feeling and willing is only turned towards the body and only its desire is fulfilled, then the soul must live in want, and its meagerness will become apparent when it has to answer for its life on earth. For the body passes away and therefore does not need to bear the consequences of the wrong way of life, while the soul has to suffer according to its earthly life. And this must be presented to man on earth so that he does not act out of ignorance but is rather aware of his responsibility. And this knowledge is imparted to him by the Christian teaching, which prescribes to man exactly what he should and should not do, which clearly and distinctly expresses God's will to him and which presents to him everything that is man's task on earth. If the human being lives in accordance with this Christian teaching, he will turn his attention to the shaping of his soul and pay less attention to his body, and he will never again need to fear future responsibility. He has then, so to speak, fulfilled his earthly task, namely moulding his soul, which requires the body to be set aside. And as soon as the body is valued less, the soul takes the course of higher development, namely it pays more attention to the spirit within itself and is instructed by it in everything that is beneficial for the soul to know and which brings it an increased state of maturity. And then it no longer needs to fear responsibility, it lives earthly life in accordance with God's will because it respects His voice which speaks to it through the spirit in the human being. For as soon as the human being allows the teaching of Christ to have an effect on him, he will do everything that Jesus Christ demanded of humanity. He will work in love and serve God and his neighbour, he will not ignore what God puts to the heart of man through His word. He will make the divine teaching of love the guiding principle for his earthly life and try to mould himself into love, his will and his deeds will be in accordance and always turned towards the good, and he will never fear responsibility, for he lives his earthly life according to Jesus' example, he tries to follow Him and is intimately and faithfully united with God. He has overcome the body and its demands, and the soul has united with the spirit in him....

amen

This proclamation is used in the following themebook:

Themebook	Title	Download
106	The Immortality Of The Soul	ePub   PDF   Kindle