f Paul the aged.

The moment we succeed in disentangling ourselves from all literal and
limiting New Testament statements about the connection between sin and
physical death, the physical resurrection, the distant Judgment Day,
and such-like, we find ourselves in a position to appreciate the
beautiful spiritual experience in which these very terms become symbols
of inner realities of the soul. Till we can do this, New Testament
language is sure to be a hindrance to any true apprehension of the
moral value of the gospel of Christ. The only salvation we need
trouble about is the change from selfishness to love, "We know that we
have passed from death unto life because we love." This change is
equivalent to a resurrection, the uprising of the eternal Christ within
us. It is also an ascension, the uplifting and uniting of the soul to
the eternal Father. But such a resurrection and ascension may be
preceded by a great deal of pain when the soul is shedding the husk of
selfishness. There is no dodging the consequences of sin; that is
absolutely impossible. A saviour may suffer with and for the sinner,
but the sinner must suffer too. The suffering is not a mark of God's
anger, but of his love; so far from salvation being a means of
screening us from it, the pain is a means by which the salvation takes
effect. It is the true self asserting its dominion over the false.
Heaven and hell are states of the soul, and the latter implies the
former. It is life that suffers, not death. When a guilty soul
awakens to the truth, hell begins, but it is because heaven wants to
break through. The aim and object of salvation are not the getting of
a man into heaven, but the getting of heaven into him. There is
nothing horrifying about the law of retribution, although it is
inexorable in its operation. It is an evidence of our divine origin,
our own true being asserting itself against the fetters of evil. But
it is the Christ that saves us, not the retribution; the retribution
only shows that the Christ is there, and that from the Calvary caused
by sin, and from the tomb in which the true self lies buried, He will
rise in glorious majesty in the soul and unite us in the bonds of love
to the eternal divine humanity which is God.

+Physical death of minor importance.+--It follows from what has now
been said that all these familiar terms imply each other, and that
death, judgment, heaven, and hell cannot properly be regarded as the