TOPICS: Looking for a higher understanding or defending pet theories – why do you need to be saved? – why did God allow both salvation and non-salvation? – your free will determines your salvation – free will and consequences – imposing a false image of God upon free will – there must be an ultimate consequence – what happens when a lifestream is dissolved –
Question: I am enjoying your website-teachings. I am involved with a christian-universalist forum who believes that ultimately all souls will be saved thru/in Christ. I have read some messages from Jesus given thru Kim that seem to say that not all souls will be saved even thought its God’s Will for them to be…because he gives them a free will…and that this free will is sovereign enough that it can totally/finally cause a soul to forfeit even its own existence (soul-extinction/annhilation/death).
Am I correct then that Jesus (thru Kim) does not support the idea that God’s Will will ultimately win out and Love will save all souls…because some souls thru their own will can transcend/overpower God’s Will for their salvation?
Thanks for any help. I once believed that souls could actually self-destruct (annhilation)..but have been holding more to universal salvation that assumes all souls will ultimately be saved by the Ultimacy of Love and eventual Triumph of divine Will. Of course the issue of ‘free will’ seems to be the issue in this debate.
I just don’t see how a soul could actually finally choose its own non-existence and just “poof” and become as it never existed. What happens to the energy residues of that soul and its memory? I must admit the Urantia Book has an interesting view of this ….as having souls who choose termination….being absorbed back into the Universal Spirit.
Answer from ascended master Jesus through Kim Michaels:
You are correct is saying that, “Jesus (thru Kim) does not support the idea that God’s Will will ultimately win out and Love will save all souls” However, let me comment on the expression “Jesus (thru Kim).” The existence of the second death whereby a soul is annihilated is a spiritual reality. It is not a matter of what Kim or any other person believes about it. It is a fact that will not be changed by what human beings want to believe, just as the earth was round when everyone believed it to be flat.
The greatest problem for any true spiritual teacher is that too many people prefer to cling to their pet theories rather than open their minds to the reality that is presented by the ascended masters. We see that reality because we have risen above the subjectivity and relativity of the human ego. We are quite willing to help people do the same, but we can do our job only when people are willing to let go of the illusions that give their egos a sense of security and instead face the reality of life.
To give people a greater understanding of the issue, let us use basic logic.
Why do you need to be saved?
The concept of salvation implies that two states are possible, namely salvation and non-salvation. If only salvation is possible, why do you need to be saved? If you believe God created you, you must reason that God must have created this dichotomy, meaning that God created the possibility of non-salvation.
So you need to be saved because non-salvation is a possibility. If it is God’s will that all lifestreams are saved and if God’s will is supreme or unbreakable, then why did God create a situation with two options? Why not simply create lifestreams in a state where non-salvation is impossible?
If non-salvation is possible, then your salvation is not guaranteed. Yet if it is God’s will that all lifestreams be saved – but salvation is not guaranteed – then it cannot be God’s will that determines whether or not you are saved.
God has created a situation where your salvation is not guaranteed. Yet God wants you to be saved. So there must be a mechanism that can override God’s will and make non-salvation a reality.
That mechanism is your free will. The solution to the enigma is that while it is God’s will that you be saved, God wants you to be saved as a result of your own free choices and not as a result of some force from above. In other words, when God gave you free will, God suspended its superior will when it comes to your salvation.
God obviously wants you to be saved, but God allows the outcome to be determined through your choices. We might say that it is God’s will that you make your own choices. It is God’s will that you have free will.
If you are to have free will, then non-salvation must be possible. In order for your will to be free, you must be able to choose any conceivable option, including that your lifestream is not saved but is erased as if it never existed. God does not want you to choose this option, but in giving you free will, it must give you the option.
Free will necessitates that your choices have consequences. If your choices do not have consequences, you do not have a choice. If you will be saved no matter what you do – as fundamentalist Christians believe I will save them if they declare me their Lord and Savior – then where is your choice in the matter?
To have a choice, you must have more than one option, and what sets options apart is their consequences. If you come to a fork in the road but both ways take you to the same place, your choice of one way has no consequence and thus was not a real choice.
God wants you to be saved, but as a result of your own choosing. So if you will be saved no matter what you do, your choices have no ultimate consequence, and thus you do not have ultimate freedom of choice. You would simply be a puppet on a string, who might seem to move but truly has no freedom to move on your own.
The problem with free will is that people impose their image of God upon it. For example, fundamentalists look at it through the filter of black-and-white thinking. Thus, they think God must be almighty and therefore nothing could ever go wrong in God’s creation. God must ultimately have his will fulfilled. As I have explained, God has suspended his superior will when it comes to your personal salvation.
Many New Age people or liberal Christians, including many universalists, look at free will through the filter of gray thinking. Thus, they think everything will ultimately be okay and that God really has no absolutist laws. Consequently, all lifestreams must be saved in the end by Christ performing some kind of miracle. Yet if I were to save all lifestreams, I would have to force some of them to be saved, and that would be an obvious violation of the Law of Free Will as I have just explained it. Thus, there is such a thing as an ultimate consequence.
Let us now take this to a higher level. In the end, God’s will is guaranteed to be fulfilled in the sense that the goal of the universe will be met. The material universe will be raised up in vibration until it becomes a part of the spiritual realm. However, it is still an open question how many co-creators will become part of this ascending process and how many will chose to step outside of it and thus ultimately face dissolution.
What happens when a lifestream is dissolved? If you read the teaching on your true identity, you will see that there are three main aspects to your lower being:
- The Conscious You is an individualization of God’s Being that can become an immortal spiritual being. Thus, when a lifestream is dissolved, this Conscious You simply blends back into the whole of your I AM Presence as if it had never been apart. It is like a wave that sinks back into the ocean when a storm is calmed.
- The sense of identity is what you build as you journey through the material universe. Yet a being will only be dissolved if it has built an identity that is based on the mind of anti-christ. Nothing created from this dualistic mind has ultimate reality, and thus it will be dissolved in the process called the second death. This is comparable to turning on the light in a room, whereby the darkness instantly disappears—because it has no substance.
- The beliefs and energy out of which your lower being – what most people call the soul – is formed. This is what we call the Ma-ter light, and when you create an identity based on the duality of anti-christ, the Ma-ter light takes on an imperfect form. Yet when this identity is dissolved, the Ma-ter light instantly returns to its pure form and the imperfect forms are erased as if they had never existed. The form that is imposed on the Ma-ter light is comparable to the image on a movie screen. Yet when you remove the film strip from the projector, the image disappears and the movie screen is blank.
As we also explain, your spiritual identity is anchored in your I AM Presence, which is permanently abiding in the spiritual realm. Thus, your imperfect choices will not limit your I AM Presence although the Presence will learn from them. So when your lifestream is dissolved, your I AM Presence will still be there, and it can chose to send another individualization of itself into the material universe. However, this will be a new being with no memory whatsoever of the previous lifestream that did not become immortal.
This does not mean that every lesson learned by the dissolved lifestream will be wasted, for all positive lessons will become part of the causal body that surrounds the I AM Presence, and it remains even when the lifestream is dissolved. Thus, the I AM Presence can draw on this learning process when designing a new lifestream, which makes it less likely – but still possible – that any succeeding lifestream will go to the second death. There are simply no guarantees in the material world.
I think people who are into a universalist form of Christianity should be able to accept that the major purpose of the universe is to give God’s co-creators an opportunity to grow by making choices. In order for them to learn anything, choices must have consequences, and if a lifestream consistently chooses death/separation over a long period of time, that choice must have the ultimate consequence. As I said, he who seeks to save his life – meaning a sense of identity as being separated from God – will lose it, whereas he who is willing to lose his life for my sake – for the sake of coming into oneness with all life through the mind of Christ – will find eternal life.
Copyright © 2006 by Kim Michaels