The Third Testament contains no theories. Everything is a matter of experience - personal experience. To the reader it can often remain theories. Many! It takes time until the theories have been digested and become personal experiences. How long time? A day? Some weeks? Some centuries? Five life times on this earth? Who knows?
Eternity
In The Third Testament life is seen from the eternal point of view. Life is not created. We are all immortal. Created matter is subject to birth and death. You and I aren’t created matter. Our tools are. Body and thought are perishable. They change. Happily! Life – the creator – is imperishable. You consist of everything. Everything rests in eternity and imperishableness. Eternity is nameless. It is. When we experience this, we are “one with the Father”, as Christ.
All-love
According to The Third Testament we are masters of time and space. All-love opens the window of the soul towards eternity and infinity. All-love is a source of knowledge. We discover our own inner identity – immortality. The edge of time and space disappears. We create our our own destiny. Are we happy? Not always. But we develop and learn. Through many lives on earth.
Justice
Everywhere love and order rules. Even when it appears to be most chaotic. The laws are eternal, they’re not invented. Like life itself. Everything we do returns to ourselves. Before or later. Good and evil. We have unlimited time at our hand. That is why to love ones neighbour as one self is the highest commandment in life. We reap what we saw. The law of destiny as it is called.
The Symptoms of Ignorance
Not knowing oneself causes problems, in our own mind and towards our fellow human beings. This suffering fulfils the old prophecies of “Judgement day”. The Third Testament states that this suffering, these experiences of ignorance, will lead us all towards the same conclusion - love.
Spiritual science
But this stage, all-love, can’t be reached straight away. This final balance has to develop step by step; even wisdom is an evolutionary process. The aim of this process is the absolute knowledge of the truth. To reach this experience everyone has to investigate life for themselves, but in this process the analysis serves as a helping hand. The step by step logic leads us to the cosmic view of life…
Who is Martinus?
Who is this man, who considers himself qualified to explain the mystery of life?
In the preface to the main work in The Third Testament, “Livets Bog”, Martinus (1890-1981) writes:
“As my own life is of such a nature that I have been enabled to experience for myself the above-mentioned knowledge [ Where do we come from? – where are we going to? – who are we? – and how should we live in order to make ourselves the object of absolute happiness?" This quotation is taken from the above section in Livets Bog ] in such a pure form that in every way it justifies the divine words: “everything is very good”, and can therefore only exist as identical to the absolutely direct answer to the world's ever-present question, “What is truth?” I have felt it my duty to make this experience or knowledge of mine accessible to the general public; and it is precisely my first-hand knowledge of the cosmic realities ruling the universe, in the form of a super-terrestrial Providence or divine being, that I am endeavouring to demonstrate through the expressions “The Book of Life” (“Livets Bog”) or “Eternal Wisdom”.” (Livets Bog I, paragraph 7)
How the Third Testament is of use
“As life … has shown itself to me as a state of radiant light and perfection and revealed the identity of living beings as “sons of God”, and has furthermore shown me that love is the most powerful factor in all manifestation, because “to be a joy and a blessing for all that one comes into contact with” is the only thing that can bring the individual clarity regarding himself, his divine Father and the existing world order and is at the same time the only thing that can liberate or lead him out of everything that comes under the concept of “pain”, and finally, that every being's fate is built up of the effects of which that being is itself the cause, I have felt that to reveal my state of consciousness, in the form of pictures, text, speech and my way of life could be of use, as a helping hand, to all those who are seeking the truth, the Father or the Godhead and to all which the Father has given me in the form of my surroundings.” (Livets Bog I, paragraph 19)
A defence of all living beings
“As the Father has thus allowed what I myself have experienced, as well as the forming of my own accumulation of experience and the state of my consciousness, to be such that the re-telling of it in the form of “Livets Bog” is identical to a revealing of the identity of all living beings as “sons of God”, at the same time as it uncovers the close mutual relationship that the religions bear to each other like clusters of rays from one and the same sea of light, thereby constituting a further defence of all beings in existence, he has thereby, in a wonderful way, made “Livets Bog” into a tool for pointing out and removing the last remnant of that form of ignorance that leads to intolerance and its companion “suffering”. For ignorance is in fact the true cause of everything known to the world as “evil”. Where ignorance has been removed, so-called “evil” ceases to exist.” (Livets Bog I, paragraph 19)
No religion or sect
“As “Livets Bog” constitutes a re-telling of the experience of this all-encompassing “religion of life” and has been manifested with a view to stimulating the development of each individual's ability to understand this religion for himself, so that he is able to see for himself – not based on “Livets Bog¨, but based on life's own direct speech – what he ought to do and ought not to do, what is real and what is unreal, one will then be able to understand that “Livets Bog” in no circumstances whatsoever should act as a force stimulating the formation of any sect, religion or creed, especially as the religion of life, as already mentioned, recognizes all living beings – both those with a faith and those without, both the so-called “holy” and the so-called “ungodly”, both animals and humans – as being already, at birth, members, practitioners and adherents.” (Livets Bog I, paragraph 15)
The meaning of suffering
“I saw that I was an immortal being and that all other beings in existence were eternal realities having, like myself, an endless chain of previously-experienced lives behind them, I also saw that we had all evolved from low, primitive forms of existence to our present stage, and that this was just a temporary link in this series of evolutionary stages, and that we were thus on our way towards gigantic high forms of planes of existence away in the distance. I saw that the universe constituted a single enormous living being in which all other beings, each of them individually, were organs and all of us, humans, animals, plants and minerals made up one family and were, figuratively speaking, of the same flesh and blood. I saw radiant and scintillating worlds with unimaginable kinds of human beings, human races with morals and idealism that expressed such divineness and were so in harmony with the law of existence that they could be likened to an oasis with ordinary terrestrial morality being likened to a desert. But I also saw worlds of a far lower nature, worlds in which barbarism exercised such a decisive power that the living beings there had to kill in order to live, that is to say, worlds where the highest basic condition of life was identical to the highest possible form of infringement of the law of existence, thereby turning these worlds into the most outstanding settings for the display of illness and need, misery, sorrow and suffering, which is a category of globes which the terrestrial globe cannot be completely exempt from belonging to. Furthermore I saw that darkness or so-called “evil” was in reality identical to the individuals' development of those qualifications that are absolutely necessary to enable life in the higher worlds later on to be experienced by the same beings as happiness or bliss, and I thereby realized that “darkness”, understood cosmically, is just as great a blessing as light and that everything, from the divine viewpoint, is very good. But I also felt that this knowledge could never ever be experienced or appear as true reality for any being before that being's faculty of love is so far advanced in its development that it can only be good and loving towards all living beings and can therefore not misuse this knowledge by creating out of it a justification for egoistic or unloving actions. Thus I felt the entire universe to be pervaded by endless love and wisdom. Wherever I directed my sight in the “darkness”, it became lit up – I had become my own source of light. The cosmic baptism of fire that I had undergone, a more in-depth analysis of which I cannot go into here, had left me with the fact that there had been released in me entirely new sensory faculties, faculties that rendered me able – not in glimpses, but, on the contrary, in a permanently awake state of day-consciousness – to survey all the fundamental spiritual forces, unseen causes, eternal world laws, basic energies and basic principles behind the physical world. The mystery of existence was therefore no mystery to me. I had become conscious in the life of the universe and initiated into “the divine creative principle”.” (Livets Bog I, paragraph 21)
Everyone will be perfect
“This my cosmic experience and condition became the releasing factor for my subsequent activities in the world and for the creation of Livets Bog. But as this spiritual process, as mentioned before, will be experienced by every individual when, in his eternal existence, he is passing through that stage of development which is necessary for the said experience, then it will be seen here that, concerning sensory gifts, I do not represent any special privilege or any exception to the rule, and thus in the eternal evolution I could not possibly constitute one single jot more than that which all other living beings before me have been and which all other living beings after me will be.” (Livets Bog I, paragraph 22)
The Bible and the Third Testament
According to Martinus, the Bible contains the greatest religious message in the world. He writes that there are no better directions giving the way to God and a happy fate than those already given to mankind in, for example, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. There is no higher commandment than that “You shall love your God above all things and your neighbour as yourself”.
The Third Testament had definitely not been created in order to lead people away from these eternal truths - quite the opposite - it has been created in order to show that they express scientific realities. Such a reminder seems to be called for considering all the crises and world wars of our time.
The continuation of Christ's mission
Is it possible, from what Christ said, to justify a continuation of the Bible?
St John's gospel, chapter 16, we read: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” (John 16, 12-15.) It appears from this quotation that Christ could not relate everything he knew. Not even the personally chosen disciples could understand it all. According to Christ, the truth about God and the mystery of life would be revealed later.
Martinus' initiation
The spiritual process that made Martinus conscious of immortality and that was a prerequisite for him being able to write the Third Testament is described here in his own words:
“ “The Spirit of God” which according to the Bible “moved upon the face of the waters”, the “fire” that Moses saw burning in the thorn-bush, the “fire” that took Elijah into Heaven, the “fire” through which Jesus was transfigured on the mountain, the “fire” that appeared above the heads of the apostles, and subsequently changed Saulus into Paulus on his way to Damascus, the “fire” that throughout all times has been the “alpha” and “omega” in every form of sublime creation, manifestation, or revelation. It was this very fire blazing in front of my own eyes, vibrating in my own breast, in my own heart, enveloping my whole being. I felt as if bathing in an element of love. I was at the origin, the very source of everything warm in a father’s and mother's sympathy for their offspring, of mutual devotion in the arms of a young couple. I saw the power that made the hand sign the letter of pardon, abolish slavery, protect life's petty ones, whether it be a little animal or a frail human being. I saw the sunshine that can melt the ice and remove the cold from every mind, transform the barren deserts of hopelessness and pessimism into fertile and sunny regions of consciousness, warm the heart, inspire the brain, thus making the individual forgive injustice, love his enemy, and understand the criminal. It was as if I was resting at the bosom of the Almighty Deity. I was dwelling at the fountain-head of love supreme, perceived divine perfection, experienced being one with the Way, the Truth, and the Life, was one with the Father of all.” (From On the Birth of my Mission)
Martinus 1921
"The Comforter, the Holy Spirit” is spiritual science
“What is “the Comforter, the holy Spirit”? It is definitely not a person, a new Christ, who will come to provide a connecting link between the Godhead and human beings. This “spirit of truth” is the revealing of world truth. It is a science about the universe and thereby about God. It has to be a description of the solution to the mystery of the universe. It is therefore a book that people can read, like they can read the Bible. This “Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send” that Christ predicted would come, is therefore a “book of life” or “book of knowledge” that will be made manifest to mankind.
But a book with the real truth concerning the Godhead and the universe can only be the continuation of the cosmic world civilization that Christ initiated two thousand years ago and that we know as “Christianity”. It has to be a book that creates an intellectual, not a dogmatic, school of Christianity. It has to be a book that shows the completed Christian world civilization in a physical as well as spiritual manifestation. It has to be a book that shines a light through the culmination of both darkness and light, and through the life-function in the universe that is made up of these, which is the immortality of living beings.
It has to be a book that shows infinity and eternity and the living life-functions in the form of “space” and “time” that are derived from them, a book whose highest conclusion is “all-inclusive knowledge” and “almightiness” which, when these work perfectly together, bring about all-love and which is consequently the same as the eternal aliveness in living beings. Here we have come to the “fixed point” of the universe, and its origin “the Father of Life”, the absolute one and only all-permeating eternal Godhead.
Such a book cannot fail to contain “that great amount” that Christ had to tell mankind, but which God would give to the future generations at a later date. Such a book cannot fail to be “the Comforter, the Holy Spirit”. Through its fundamental support of Christianity and because of its relationship to the two testaments of the Bible, there is justification in calling it “The Third Testament”.
“The Third Testament” is therefore a book of wisdom or knowledge. It is the revealing of the eternal radiance of “all-embracing love”, which in turn is the revealing of the “image of God”, that all living physical beings through reincarnation or rebirth are in the process of being made into.
In “The Third Testament” all unfinished beings, which is to say “physical beings”, animals as well as humans, are revealed as being on the same path, a path that leads inevitably to cosmic consciousness and thereby to experiencing the golden glory of the universe, the golden light, the eternal aliveness in living beings and thereby to “Christ consciousness” and being “at one with God”. Christ was precisely the model for creating God's consciousness in human beings. Did not Christ say: “All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth”? (Matt. 28:18). How would he be able to be in God's image without this capacity? And how would any other being be able to be created in His image without them having to be led on to this same capacity?
“The Comforter, the Holy Spirit” is thus, in the form of this “Third Testament”, a continuation of Christ's proclamation. It is a continuation of the proclamation of the eternal Light from “the star of Bethlehem”. Here in this eternal light is revealed to the world the solution to greatest principles in the life and thereby the unshakeable foundation of Christianity, the vital foundation of happiness and bliss.” (Quotations from a manuscript by Martinus, written during the last years of his life and as yet unpublished in its entirety. From Introduction to the Third Testament)
The world situation or the heralded “day of judgement”
It is such that one is forced to describe it as the state of Doomsday or Armageddon that, according to Christ, would befall human beings in the “last days”. Does not the biblical account of the future add that “the devil shall rage in all his might”? What have we seen in the form of the two world wars that have raged within terrestrial humanity this century? Have we not seen attempts to wipe out metropolises with their populations and cultural assets? In fact have not people also attempted to wipe out a whole race of human beings? Have we not seen millions of people murdered – not just on the battlefields defending their own country or attacking other people's living space – but also in civilian life being sent to gas chambers where they were murdered on the spot with no judicial or lawful basis whatsoever and naturally without any regard at all for the commandments that are all-important to life: “Thou shalt not kill”, “Thou shalt forgive thy neighbour”, “Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword”. Is not the fulfilment of all the laws precisely the great commandment: “Thou shalt love thy God above all things and thy neighbour as thyself”? Where is the belief in a loving God and practical Christian civilization in this Doomsday existence, where masses of human beings, children as well as adults, old as well as young, have languished and died in the horrific concentration or death camps that cast their dark shadows of devil consciousness over the whole Earth?” (The Eternal Worldpicture I, Introduction, paragraph 2)
Human beings are growing away from religious dogmas
“Why have the religious ideals that have been proclaimed to human beings over the millennia not been able to prevent these demonic manifestations and the consequent deaths, disability, illness, hardship and decline in morality? Is it not apparent that the traditional religious ideals or dogmas, no matter how divine they have been, have not been able to free mankind from this Doomsday epoch of terror? In fact, do we not see that human beings are simply growing out of these ideals almost like children growing out of their clothes or shoes? To loose one's faculty to believe in them is therefore quite natural. Have not millions of people become materialists or atheists? Is it not an equally unshakeable fact that this number is still increasing, that there are more and more empty seats in the churches or houses of God during the services? Does it not hereby become a fact that the very highest life-determining cosmic truths, religious commandments and dogmas have become a mystery, have become something that intelligent human beings actually consider is beneath them to have anything to do with or believe in? Is there something the matter with human beings or is it the religious ideals that are wrong?” (The Eternal Worldpicture I, Introduction, paragraph 3)
Human beings who do not require logical justification to accept the traditional ideals and dogmas
“In the absolute sense it is neither the human beings nor the religious ideals that are wrong. The religious ideals are ingeniously adapted to suit the human beings to whom they have been given, on their particular evolutionary step. And for these human beings the ideals form a vital foundation of their lives. But a large part of mankind has grown on from these evolutionary steps. These beings have to varying degrees grown on to higher evolutionary steps. They are living in a quite different mental sphere from the one for whom the traditional religious answers and dogmas were adapted and which the beings in that sphere could a hundred percent surrender to due to their instinct, which is still to some extent flourishing. They were still not so developed in intelligence that they demanded intellectual confirmation of or justification for these religious ideals or dogmas. For them it was enough that they were given by authorities.” (The Eternal Worldpicture I, Introduction, paragraph 4)
Human beings who do require logical justification
“But this is not how it is today. Today great masses of human beings have lost their faculty to believe because their instinct has to a greater or lesser extent degenerated owing to the development of their intelligence. They have thereby gained the faculty to analyse, research and observe for themselves. As this development takes place it causes them to demand a logical basis or scientific substantiation for every thought construction or idea they have to accept as truth. But it would be quite unreasonable to blame these human beings for their state. It is impossible for them to believe in the dogmas of the religious ideals, precisely because they are manifested as mere conclusions or assumptions without the logical or scientific structure of which they are the conclusions. It is for this reason that this symbol book and the main work, to which it is a supplement, have been created. This book is thus created to help those people for whom it is impossible to believe in bare assertions or assumptions without intellectual or logical substantiation, but who nevertheless with their hearts and minds are seeking the justification for the state of Doomsday that they are beginning to sense must exist behind the primitivity and folly of daily life. A road is opened up before these people's cosmic study that leads on towards life's own all-encompassing justification of darkness in the world as a link in the creation of the eternal maintenance of the keynote of the universe: Love.” (The Eternal Worldpicture I, Introduction, paragraph 5)
To know oneself is to know God
The study of The Third Testament is a journey of discovery into an eternal world of radiant beauty. Under the strong supervision of logic we are guided, step by step, into the inner sanctum of our own I, where we experience our eternal and immortal existence outside of time and space. Here in our innermost centre we are united with and at “one with God”.
On this journey we discover that the eternal and omnipotent Godhead lives in everything that happens, through every single vibration or movement in the created world. The practical aim of The Third Testament's explanation of the world is to teach us to see, hear and understand this divine speech, as something that is personally and lovingly addressed to us and directly released by Providence, and to learn to love one's neighbour – that is to say, absolutely any living being that we meet on our way – as oneself. Once we have beheld with our own eyes the divine world plan and have managed with our own reasoning to see that all living beings in the physical world are under evolution, are in the process of being made perfect in God's own image, we are in agreement once again with our common Creator that “everything is very good”.
Introduction, conclusion and summary by Stiftelsen Tredje Testamentet Sweden
© 1981 Martinus Institut