Walter Brown Murray

“ Thus we can love that which is truly and sincerely and permanently good for all men. And we should seek that good at all times and everywhere.
Oneness with all others should be a goal in life, be they white or black, red, brown, or yellow, whether they be of our own nationality or race or creed. We are to think of them as children of God and strive for the eternally good in them as we strive for our own. ”

“ Why read into every passage of Scripture a confirmation of that doctrine which has taken away from men the sense of need to keep the Lord's commandments and by destroying that sense of need, destroyed the effectiveness of Christianity in actually changing men? Let us fancy men saying, "Why change our lives when we have no need, when salvation is a free gift simply by believing a dogma, when all we can do is only evil has no effect in saving us?" ”

“ God appears in Jesus as Mercy Itself, supplicating men to come into heavenly order, Jesus was thus the Mercy Seat, not as the Supplicator to another Divine Being, or as the Expiation for man's sins, but as representing Gods effort to rescue men from their enemies of the underworld, indeed as God pleading with men, a perpetual Saviour of the human race, the supreme expression of the Divine mercy. ”

“ It is perfectly true that we are saved by faith in the Son of God, but that mans that we are saved as we come into the realization or perception of Jesus as God come forth to view, and accept His help to live the Christ-like life, thus are saved by our co-operation,—our free choice of the good and the rejection of the evil.—which mans our coming into the new life of God in the soul. That is the faith in the Son of God. We are not as sticks and stones, unable to choose the good and reject the evil ”

“ Shall we ask in bitterness if the great aim of Christians the world over is—or has been—to feed them, or give them ample opportunity to provide themselves with food, to see that they are clothed and given abundant opportunity for useful self-expression? Myriads of Christians do have such a desire, but profit is the great end of life for most people—even nominal Christians—profit too often at the expense of others. We produce goods for scarcity in order to make prices high. We seek to extend our markets all over the world for the sake of private profit. ”

“ God projected Himself into the world by the assumption of a human nature to face and fight against the enemies of the human race,—became the "mercy-seat" to make God's mercy ever present—but God was not divided into two equal Deities, for God is One being, and indivisible, One God did not accept the death of another God, for God is ONE. His own Arm brought the eternal rescue of mankind and made possible man's salvation. ”

“ The true Christian religion is made up of Three Things,—God, Ourselves and Others, In the past it has been made up chiefly of Two Things, God and Ourselves, Leaving out "Others" it has lost its true objective—left out the Divine objective, the Divine nature and purpose.
God created the universe out of love, out of selfless love. Because of the nature of His love, being incapable of self-centered love, He had to have others outside of Himself to love. Therefore it was that He created the universe to be a theater of action in which He might express His love. ”

“ Each religionist believes that his idea of religion is the only true one and when the suggestion is made that he can possibly be mistaken he feels that the wisdom of God is being attacked. Without the use of spiritual dynamite civilization would have been, hopelessly crystallized ages ago.
The men of this world must learn that the self-centered, self-loving, self-serving life means the life of hell on earth and hell hereafter. And that the life of service to all others from love to God and the neighbor is the only life that brings enduring happiness. ”

“ Salvation is always the life of God—His love and His truth— received by man by his free choice and permeating all his thought and life. This is the Lord's blood, and it obviously can be nothing else, since it cannot be His literal blood shed upon the cross. ”

“ Can we imagine a more complete repudiation of the efficacy of the sacrificial system to save mankind. Even if Jewish symbolists tried to interpret the Christian religion in its terms, does it not show rather their inability to grasp the fact of the changed life as the true religion of Jesus? ”

“ God identified Himself with the human race in His coming forth to view as Jesus. He had to be born of a virgin so as not to have a human father with resulting limitations when He should return to His full Deity. No man with a human father could ever be God. The Son had to be "the Only Begotten," unique in being merely the channel for God to enter the human race. He had to have the human nature and the body of flesh in order to be visible, tangible, directly in touch with humanity. He was absolutely different from all other men in having no limiting inheritance from a human father. ”

“ We live in a world whose motto is, "Each man for himself; let the devil take the hindmost." This is its animating motive. This is the animating motive of millions of people who believe that they are "saved by grace". It is a do-nothing religion so far as dedication to the principle of securing justice to all others concerned.
Jesus taught that every man must be born again in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. ”

“ But He took full possession of the planes of human life on earth and in heaven by becoming incarnate and made them forever His own by His victories over the hells who had invaded them. He thus provided an eternal basis on the planes of human life on earth and in heaven so that He could be fully present in them forever. He is truly now "Immanuel, God-with-us." He is "the tabernacle of God With men." He dwells with us now in His Divine Human, or human made Divine. We are His people, and God Himself is with us now, our God. ”

“ Your hands are full of blood. Wash you; make you clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well." And He tells them that if they will put away the evil of their doings from before the Lord, "though their sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." This result comes, not from expiation, or an atonement, but by at-one-ment arrived at by a changed life where evil is forever put away. To use the word " atonement" is to pervert the meaning of Scripture. ”

“ Jesus was God in the flesh come to earth in a limited humanity in order to share with us our life and overcome our enemies of the underworld and set us free from their ruthless power. He poured out His life for us in that fierce combat against the hells, They had power because the human race had yielded to their suggestions of evil. He died to release humanity from their grasp by overcoming the hells as they tempted Him. ”

“ The trouble is that religion has been made to be a matter of God's forgiveness instead of the changed life whose supreme happiness should be service and sharing. It has lost the Divine spirit.
It is true that religious people strive to share with others their perverted story of God's forgiveness, based on a legalistic fiction instead of a changed life—of being saved by grace, and with nothing else to do except to smile and be happy. They speak of brotherhood, but their brotherhood is largely made up of good feeling towards others who share their religious beliefs. ”

“ The real God of the Bible is a Divine Being whose love followed the sinner down into hell itself and overthrew the hells in order to release mankind from the illusions of wickedness and from spiritual death. God is not at all like the God behind the so-called Plan of Salvation. ”

“ It becomes engrossed with man's own intimate relationship with God, and forgets the Divine objective of service to others. And in that way it has completely failed to change civilization. Man engrossed in his own happy state forgets why he was delivered from bondage,—forgets the supreme purpose of life,—the sharing with all others of the good things of life which God has bestowed on him. And without that his religion becomes self-love. ”

“ Jesus revealed Himself as God: "He that hath seem me hath the Father," and He also said, "No man cometh unto the Father but by me," just as no one can see or approach our soul except through our body. ”

“ The human race was to be saved by the mercy of their Elder Brother, Christ, who would undertake to come no earth after some thousands of years and be murdered, the innocent for the guilty. The idea of the Plan of Salvation was to save mankind by substitution—the innocent Son of God for the wicked human race. It involved the murder of Jesus by the Jewish race. If the Jews had not murdered Jesus, there could have been no penalty paid for Adam's sin. ”

“ Since most people do no clear thinking for themselves, they are open to an emphasis taught them by others of an ardent spirit. They see, or thin they see, from the Bible itself the correctness of the view which has been presented. Every passage which appears to be contrary to their interpretation is made to harmonize as far as possible with the system of belief adopted, or at last is twisted into an appearance of harmony, or else cast aside as unimportant. ”

“ Therefore we see why all of them have failed in saving the world. But, at least, it is evident that we know now how to begin a true interpretation of the Bible. Anything which arises in our further interpretation which is not in harmony with the acknowledgment of God as One, One Being, and in a life of keeping God's commandments, summed up in the Ten Commandments, or the Two Great Commandments—our truest way of showing our love to God and our fellow man—the only way acceptable to God—is to be cast aside. ”

“ The Plan of Salvation demanded the death penalty for all sin, whatever it was that was done in violation of God's law. There was no escape. All who sinned after the sin of Adam came under this penalty, not merely Adam. It meant as well dill all of his progeny forever would perish. This did not mean merely physical death, but eternal death in hell prepared for the devil and his angels. This meant that the entire human race came under this penalty—innocent little children, infants, as well as all older men and women. God simply had to have His justice satisfied. ”

“ No more confusing and misleading idea of the Divine Being can be offered than that of the old teaching that God exists in three separate and distinct individuals "each of whom is by Himself God and Lord." ”

“ A king can forgive his rebellious subjects. Why cannot God do so? Our heavenly Father would not want His children to be destroyed in hell even if they deserved it. Certainly no earthly parent would desire it, nor permit it. The eternal Decrees of God making it necessary to vindicate Divine Justice by the murder of humanity, or else the murder of the Son of God, are an absurdity.
The early Christian Church understood that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was not to appease Divine wrath or Divine justice, as the church later came to believe, but the work of the hells in fighting God. ”

“ There is probably enough truth in a new system so derived to prevent a total destruction of the individual. He is probably taught to be good and to do good and in such a simple way that he feels somehow the presence of God in his life. But we simply cannot go to the Bible or any other book with preconceived theories and hope to arrive at a true interpretation of it. ”