- 25 - Third: The u p w a r d e v o l u t i o n i n n a t u r e is indicated by Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians, in which he says: Ephesians 1: 9-10: ‘.... making known unto us God's will, which he planned to carry out in the fullness of time, w h e n t h e d e v e l o p m e n t o r d a i n e d b y h i m had been achieved: to reunite everything in Christ, what is in the heavens and what is upon the earth ...’ There are, however, many things on earth besides human beings, who form only a small fraction of what exists thereon. • If, then, God intends to unite a l l t h i n g s upon earth under Christ’s leadership, it follows that in a l l t h i n g s there are spirits that in the evolution ordained by God progress steadily, until they return as pure spirits into that great community under Christ to which they belonged before their fall. The fact that everything, not mankind alone, but all the rest of creation too, is included in God’s Plan of Salvation is apparent from the following passage in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Romans 11: 25-32: ‘For I would not, brethren, leave you ignorant of this mystery, lest your conceit leads you to false conclusions: Hardness of heart has come over a part of Israel and will last until all of the Gentiles have entered God's kingdom. Afterwards all of Israel will also be saved.... For God has confined all things because of their disobedience, for He plans to have mercy on all’. I have given you this passage as it should be. If the last sentence in the translation before you reads: ‘For God hath let all men fall into disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all’, it is because the translator has made two mistakes. • First, he has written ‘all men’ whereas the Greek text says: ‘everything’. • Second, he has translated as ‘into disobedience’ what should have been: ‘God hath confined all things by reason of their disobedience’, meaning that all things were embodied by Him in matter corresponding to the various stages of progress. God confines no one unto disobedience; on the contrary, He desires the return to obedience of all who were once exiled from His kingdom because of their disobedience. • The Israel of the earlier millenniums consisted of the people to whom the pure faith had been revealed and who were to spread this faith to the other nations of the earth, thus acting as a leaven of truth. Had Israel accomplished this errand faithfully, it would have been the first to reenter God’s kingdom after the Redemption. But the greater part of Israel showed itself unworthy of the high mission with which it had been charged. Consequently, the first to be saved will be the non-Israelites, the very ones who in the past had known nothing of God, and only when all the non-Israelites have returned to God, will those be saved who had once possessed the true faith, but who failed to observe its precepts. ‘The first shall be the last.’ But all, without exception, will be saved.
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