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Chapter 26: Divine Justice

8. The Power of Love and Justice United

The Holy Spirit can use for your awakening all that you give to It. But It cannot use what you withhold. For It cannot receive anything from you without your willingness. If It did, you would believe It wrested it from you against your will, and so you would not learn that it is your will to give it. You need not give it to Spirit wholly willingly, for if you could then you would have no need of Spirit’s Help. Spirit only needs that you prefer It receive it from you than that you keep it for yourself alone, and recognize that you do not yet know what brings only gain and no loss to anyone. This much is necessary in order to extend and increase the Idea that no one can lose for you to gain. And nothing more.

Your willingness to give all things to the Holy Spirit, withholding nothing for yourself alone, is the only principle awakening needs. Nor is it necessary that your faith in this principle be strong, unswerving, and without attack from all beliefs opposed to it. You may as yet have no fixed allegiance to the Truth. But remember that awakening is not needed by the awakened. You are not called upon to do what one divided still against themself would find impossible. The Wisdom to do so could not be found in such a split state of mind. Therefore be thankful that only a little faith is asked of you.

What except a little faith remains to those who still believe in separation? What could they know of Heaven and the Justice of the awakened? There is a kind of Justice in awakening of which the world knows nothing. To the world, justice and retribution are believed to be joined, for those who believe themselves guilty look on justice merely as their just punishment, perhaps sustained by someone else, but never escaped. The laws of “sin” or unforgivable error demand a victim. Who it may be makes little difference. But retribution must be the cost and must ultimately be paid. This is not justice, but insanity. Yet how could justice be defined without insanity in a world where love means hate, and death is perceived as victory and triumph over Eternity and Life?

You who have forgotten the Meaning of Justice still can ask what It means, and learn the Answer. Justice sees all in the same way. It is not justice that one should lack for what another has. For that is retribution in whatever form the injustice takes. Justice demands no sacrifice, for any sacrifice made is done so in order that the belief in separation may be preserved. It is a payment offered toward the cost of guilt, but not the total cost. The rest is taken from another, to be laid beside your little payment, to “atone” for all that you would keep and not give up. So is the victim of the cost of guilt perceived as partly you, with someone else paying by far the greater part. And in the total “cost,” the greater someone else’s payment, the less is yours believed to be. And justice, being blind, is satisfied by being paid, it matters not by whom.

Can this mad arrangement be Justice? The Divine knows not of this. But true Justice does It know, and knows It well. For the Divine is wholly fair to everyone. Retribution is alien to Its Mind because It knows Justice. To be just is to be fair, and not to be vengeful. Fairness and retribution are impossible together, for each one contradicts the other, and denies that it is real.

It is impossible for you to share the Holy Spirit’s Justice with a mind that can conceive of specialness at all. Yet how could Spirit be just if It rejected someone temporarily insane for the crimes they did not do, but believes they did? And where would Justice be if It demanded of the ones obsessed with the idea of punishment that they lay this idea aside unaided, and perceive it is not true?

It is extremely hard for those who still believe sin meaningful to understand the Holy Spirit’s Justice. They believe that Spirit shares their own confusion, and thus cannot avoid the retribution that their own belief in sin and justice must entail. And so they fear the Holy Spirit, and perceive the wrath of the Divine in It. In this they are indeed unjust to Spirit. Nor are they able to trust It to not strike them dead with bolts of lightning torn from the fires of heaven by a god’s own angry hand. In their nightmares they do believe that Heaven is hell, and they are afraid of Love. And deep suspicion and the chill of fear come over them when they are told that they have never sinned. Their world depends on the “stability” of their belief in separation and sin. And they perceive the “threat” of what the Divine knows as Justice to be more destructive to themselves and to their world than retribution, which they understand and cherish.

So do they secretly believe the loss of separation would be a curse, and so they flee the Blessing of the Holy Spirit as if It were a messenger from hell, sent from above in treachery and guile to work the Divine’s retribution on them in the guise of a deliverer and friend. What could the Blessing of this Justice be to them except a devil dressed to deceive within an angel’s cloak? And what escape could it offer them except a door to hell that seems to look like Heaven’s Gate?

Yet Justice cannot punish those who ask for punishment but have an Advocate Who knows that they are wholly innocent in Truth. In Justice their Advocate is sure to set them free, and give them all the honor they deserve but have denied themselves because they have not been fair with themselves, and cannot understand that they are innocent.

Love is incomprehensible to those who believe in guilt, because they think that Justice is separate from Love, and stands for something else. And thus is Love perceived as weak and retribution strong. For it is believed that when judgment entered the mind Love became weak, and now has no power to save anyone from punishment. But the idea of justice without Love became retribution by being separate and apart from It. And in minds made weak by lack of Love, what but retribution now can help and save, while Love seems to stand feebly by with helpless hands, bereft of justice and vitality, and powerless to save? What can Love ask of those who think these strange beliefs are true? Could Spirit, in Justice and in Love, believe that in their current state of confusion such minds are able to freely give?

You are not asked to trust Spirit far. No further than what you glimpse in an Instant of Clarity that It offers you, and that you recognize you could not give yourself. In the Divine’s Own Justice does Spirit recognize all that you truly deserve, but understands as well that you are not yet able to accept It for yourself. It is Spirit’s Function to hold out to you and your sisters and brothers the Gifts the Innocent deserve. And every One that you accept brings Joy to It as well as you. It knows that Heaven is enriched by each One you accept. And the Divine rejoices as Its Children receive what loving Justice knows to be their due. For Love and Justice are One. Because they are the same does Mercy stand at the Divine’s Right Hand, and give the Children of the Divine the Power to forgive themselves the wrongs they think they have committed.

How can it be that anything be kept from them who merit and have Everything? For that would be injustice, and unfair indeed to the Holiness that is in them, however unrecognized It may be. The Divine knows of no injustice. It would not allow Its Children to be judged in a strange world by that which seeks their demise, and cannot see their Worth at all. What honest witnesses could this prosecutor call forth to speak on their behalf in such a setting? And who would come to plead for them, and not against their life? No justice would be given them under such circumstances. Yet the Divine ensures that Justice will be done unto the Children It loves and would protect from all unfairness that anyone, including themselves, might seek to offer them, believing in their madness that retribution is their proper due.

As specialness cares not who pays the cost of guilt as long as it is paid, the Holy Spirit heeds not who beholds Innocence at last, provided It is seen and recognized. For just one witness is enough, if they perceive truly. Simple Justice asks no more. Of each one does the Holy Spirit ask if they will be that witness, so Justice may be seen as One with Love, and there be complete. Each unique part It allots to the Divine Children is only for this: that each one learn that Love and Justice are joined. And both are strengthened by Their Union with each other. Without Love is Justice perceived as merciless and therefore skewed. And Love without Justice is impossible, for Love is fair, and cannot intervene where needed without invitation and cause. And what cause could there ever be to warrant an attack upon the Innocent? With Justice, then, does Love correct mistakes, but not with rejection or in retribution. For that would be unjust to Innocence.

You can be perfect witness to the Power of Love and Justice if you understand it is impossible that the Children of the Divine could ever merit rejection or retribution. You need not perceive that this is true in every circumstance. Nor would it be helpful for you to look to your experience within the world for understanding, which is just a shadow of all that is happening within yourself, and which you are still too likely to mis-project rather than clearly perceive. The Understanding that you need comes not of yourself, but from a larger Self so great and holy that It could not doubt Its Innocence, or yours. Your unique part in the Plan of Awakening is a call to It, that It may smile on you whose Innocence It shares. Its Understanding will be yours, and so the Holy Spirit’s Function will be fulfilled. The Divine’s Children have found a Witness unto their Innocence and not their guilt. How little need you give the Holy Spirit, that simple Justice may be given you.

Without impartiality there is no justice, therefore how could specialness be just? So judge not, not because you are unholy and unworthy, but because you cannot judge impartially. How can those who believe in specialness really understand that Justice is the same for everyone? To take from one to give to another must be an injustice to them both, since they are equal in the Holy Spirit’s Sight. Their Creator gave the same Inheritance to both. Whoever would have more or less is not aware that they already have Everything. They can be no judge of what must be another’s due, because they think that they have been deprived of having Everything. And so must they be envious, and try to take away from those they judge against. They are not impartial, and cannot fairly perceive another’s best interest because their own has been obscured to them.

You have the right to all the Universe, to perfect Peace, total Deliverance from all effects of separation, and to Life eternal, joyous and complete in every way, as the Divine appointed for Its holy Children. This is the only Justice Heaven knows, and all that the Holy Spirit brings to Earth. Your unique part shows you that nothing else but perfect Justice can prevail for you. And so you are safe from rejection and retribution in all forms. The world deceives but it cannot replace the Divine’s Justice with a version of its own. For only Love is just, and can see what Justice must accord the Children of the Divine. Let Love decide, and never fear that you, in your unfairness, can deprive yourself of what the Divine’s Justice has allotted you.