To be near unto God - pagina 120

of this all-dominating thought too closely, the fact that God is Spirit lifts human life above the whole visible world and exalts the spirit within us to the high spheres of the invisible world where God dwells in light unapproachable. For if God is Spirit, he is altogether independent of this visible creation. He was, before the mountains were brought forth. There was an eternity when nothing material was as yet created; so that in dependent relations all visible things occupy a secondary place physical death does not end all existence can be prolonged, though for a while we are only spirit and we can revel now in the supreme riches of the thought that if needs be we can despise the whole world and yet occupy high spiritual vantage ;

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ground and be spiritually rich in God. But however strong and superlatively

rich the confession is that God is Spirit, it, too, has been corrupted by sin. see this most clearly when we think of Satan and the world of demons. Some people who deem themselves civilized and highly cultivated may hold Satan and his demons as mere fabrications of weak minds. They who believe, correctly hold that with respect to this matter also Jesus knew more than they who pretend to be enlightened. In the '"Our Father" he taught us to pray: "Deliver us from the evil One," and he wove the good rule into it when he furthermore made us pray: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in iieaven." 'Tn heaven" must mean: by thy angels. And angels are pure spirits without bodies. If Satan was not evil by creation, which can not be otherwise, if originally he was a good and a brilliant creature of God, who felt himself at home in the world of angels, it must

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