1st Coming - Understanding Prophecy
by
D. Yamartino
Page 69 of  57

This is not to say that the person with faith is inherently superior to the person without faith, or that any group of people are inherently superior to any others because of their faith. Here our analogy provides further help in our understanding of this. However much their conditions might differ, the one who is awake is not inherently superior to the one who sleeps. Absolutely not. Sleep is not a permanent condition of the body, and the conscious person realizes this. In the same way, lack of faith is not a permanent condition of the soul. One with faith should not feel in the least superior to those who have not yet attained it; neither can one with Faith look down on others because of their lack of it. In the true spirit of Christ's teachings, the Christian is concerned for the spiritual welfare of all people, and does not judge them because of their condition at the time (69:5)

Viewed in this way, it is seen that the world of faith is available to all, at any time. All people possess the capacity for faith. To attain faith, one merely needs to "wake up" spiritually. As we awake from physical sleep, we go from mere illusion to reality. How many times have we dreamed of things, which seemed perfectly normal in the dream state, but which upon waking, we find them to be totally senseless? The same occurs when one attains faith. A Jew, for example, brought up believing the interpretations of his contemporaries regarding the Coming of Christ - interpretations that seemed founded upon reality - would have, after accepting Christ, regarded those same interpretations as mere fantasy. To illustrate, consider that the thinking that the Christ was to be an earthly king, would seem meaningless, compared to the reality of His heavenly, His eternal and everlasting sovereignty. As we awake, we become aware of reality (69:6)

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