Christ once said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life". Why did he say this? Do these words mean anything for people today? When he said these words, it was of course in order to emphasise his particular fate and way of being. He was, of course, not like others. He differed in many ways from the generally accepted morality and way of being. This was why he was crucified. His view was not the law of Moses, that is, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth". His view was that one should forgive one's neighbour any unpleasantness that he or she inflicts. One should turn the right cheek when smitten on the left. He did not judge the woman who committed adultery, and he recommended that one render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's. He warned everyone against judging, and explained that "with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again". He warned against "taking thought for the morrow, saying that sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof". And when he was taken by the servants and soldiers of the high priests, he made no resistance and allowed himself quite voluntarily to be taken prisoner and handed over to humiliation and crucifixion. That his pronouncements were not just phrases or outer camouflage or delusion is established as fact through his pronouncement on the cross: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do". Even in his worst mortal suffering he kept himself unswervingly on the course of light. He did not want anyone to take issue with his executioners in order to defend him against them. Did he not say to Peter, "Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword"? He called his way of being the Way, which means the perfect way of being or the meaning of life for all human beings.

What about the people of today who call themselves "Christian"? Do they live in the same way as Christ? If they do not, their way of being cannot, unlike Christ's way of being, be expressed as "the Way", just as of course it cannot rightfully be called "Christian" either. But when it is not the Way, it is a delusion. And a way of being that is delusion cannot be a road to light. Because of the great deviation from Christ's way of being that people allow themselves to manifest through their ordinary and authorised way of being, through their private lives and their authorities, through their laws and judicial system and through their police and religion, they are still to some extent heathen. The people of modern civilisation have called themselves Christian a little too early. In all situations where they deviate from Christ, they can to a corresponding extent be only heathen. The so-called "Christian" world is thus today more or less heathen. It deviates from Christ by not being "the Way", and is thereby not "the Truth" or "the real Life" either. The masses of the Christian world have thus gone more or less astray and are heathen. But no one and nothing can be blamed for this. It just goes to show us that mankind does not suddenly become Christian through the preaching of Jesus, and that people cannot suddenly be converted from one state to another regardless of how pure and divine a human being may be revealed to them, or how much they may be witness to a perfect human being manifested in flesh and blood.

Soon two thousand years will have elapsed since such a perfect human being in flesh and blood wandered among people and revealed his divine way of being and his oneness with the Godhead, but nonetheless only now does heathendom, that is world wars and anti-Christ or materialism, get on people's nerves to a marked extent, and one here and there begins to understand that there is something wrong with the very existence of human beings. It is not in contact with people's natural dreams at all. No one, I am sure, wants to be physically ill and miserable, but the world is nonetheless full of invalids and helpless people. Nor is there anyone who wants to starve to death, but there are nonetheless thousands of people who die every year from this unfortunate state. Nor does the majority want war, but it has nonetheless become a factor that daily weakens people's ability to work, their financial circumstances and their mental balance. Does not the fear of war dominate the entire world at times? Is there not a race between peoples to rearm and create murder weapons through which they can multiply the breaking of the fifth (Translator's note: The sixth in some English Bibles, the fifth (Lutheran numbering) in Danish translations.) commandment: "Thou shalt not kill"? Where does Christ recommend this race? Is this putting the sword in its place? Is it not precisely the way to being killed oneself? It is certainly not Christianity. None of Christ's commands say that killing through war and death sentences is an exception, and that in these situations one is exempted from the usual aftereffects of killing, that is, the loss of one's own life or health. No one or nothing can be blamed for this being the case; it is quite a natural thing that people are standing on such a heathen step. But calling this mental step or such a way of being Christianity is unnatural to the highest degree. Calling the present Christian world's cultural standard Christianity is not entirely fair to the ministry of Jesus. The prevailing Christianity is not Christianity proper. In certain areas it is downright untrue, and has in these areas become a thousand-year-old delusion. We see too that the Christian states have become the greatest and most ingenious warring peoples in the world. Have they not suppressed other, less strong warring peoples for centuries? And is not much of the threat of war and the wars that the world encounters not retribution for the war, the murders and killings inflicted on other people who are not so skilled at the art of war? Is the law that "they that take the sword shall perish with the sword" not revealed here?

The present standard of world culture is thus neither the Way nor the Truth. But when it is neither the Way nor the Truth, it cannot be the Life either, which here means, the real Life. To live with a delusion about all phenomena in daily life can make people act only accordingly. But acting on delusion can bring only sufferings and sorrows, which in turn break down the soul and body, and lead the being towards sufferings, depression and suicide.

So here a person is not one with the Way. Likewise the mental layers in a human being's consciousness that make use of lies or untruths will, in given situations, also bring about damnation, and place the being in real disharmony with the absolute truth of life itself. Such a being is thus not identical with the Truth. But where it is not identical with the truth in its mentality, perception and way of being, it cannot experience the truth about real life, which is peace, harmony, joy and light. There the experience of life is still false or heathen. There it is identical with disappointments, sorrows, need and misery. There the experience of life has become a more or less obviously unhappy fate, darkness or hell. There the experience of life means death to everything that we call culture, health, harmony, cosmic science, neighbourly love and thereby the destruction of everything that we call peace and joy or an absolutely happy fate.

The perfect human being must himself be the Way. But to be the Way oneself must mean being independent of all other people, independent of the flock so as to see the truth about life in nature, in the universe itself, and there see the real world picture and experience the real structure of truth. To make this structure of truth the basis for one's life and an automatic function of the use of one's will, one's way of thinking and acting is the same as making oneself identical with absolute truth. But to manifest truth in this way is the same as being completely at one with real life. Here one sees Providence and speaks to the Godhead as a man speaks to his neighbour. Here one has become cosmically sovereign. "The kingdom of heaven", which means the peace and goodwill of the Christmas gospel, has become a daily manifestation in one's way of being, way of thinking and experience of life. To be "the Way, the Truth and the Life" in this way means the same as having "cosmic consciousness". The Way, the Truth and the Life were not peculiar only to Christ. They are the goal of life for all human beings. But the attainment of this goal consists in fighting the false Christianity in one's own way of being and the superstition or global lie of the flock, that war is Christianity and the way to peace. Without the creation of world peace or total neighbourly love in our own innermost selves we can never become one with the Way and the Truth, and thereby never come to experience real Life either or one's own elevated identity as the master of life in the eternity of the universe or the radiant glory of the Godhead.