10. Bearing this in mind, whatever our condition, whether exiled or at home, we seek with great care and energy to observe the dictates of the Lord and to please him; for this passage from the mortal to the immortal, this complete reversal of our state as living in the Lord rather than in the body, involves as you all know the judgment seat of the Christ, before which everyone who has partaken of this mortal flesh must receive the necessary reward for what he has done in it, either doom if it be of the flesh and worthless, or good if it agree with immortality. All that we are must be manifested in just that way.
11. This process of the manifestation of the true self as it appears in the eyes of God continues apace, but it is not understood by men, so we have to be gentle and persuasive with them; yet I believe that in your mind I am known for what I am in the truth.
12. It is that which is your real boast concerning me, it is that alone which recommends me, nothing else can afford you any grounds for satisfaction in me.
13. For my spiritual self which is not in the body exists for God, whilst in my human relations with you I claim nothing, I make no pretentions — as do some who find material for self-congratulation in the outward man. But that is not so with me; for I can no longer look on man from that standpoint.
14. I behold the love of the Christ, I see in his one death the death of all of us already accomplished after the manner of his death —
15. the death that is to say of all that separates us from God, the death of that personal physical ego, and the release in consequence of that infinite and unselfish life which is the love of the Christ, and the life of the Christ, who died and who rose afterwards that it might be available for all.
16. I no longer then, regard man as physical, but spiritual. The physical is no longer set before my eyes.
17. Christ himself to me is no more a physical being; I see him spiritually, and in that spiritual vision I learn that man is a new creation. All former views of man now perish. He is a new being, all is new and wonderful. This is the work of God to-day, my brethren.
18. For by this death of the physical in us we are being reconciled to God; all things are being reconciled to Him who is Spirit, through the disappearance of their mortal aspect.
19. What was the Christ who appeared to us in the flesh? Was it not God Himself performing the reconciliation of the world to Himself, severing the sinful side of man from the true, and no longer imputing the sins of that physical man to the spiritual being to whom they do not belong, and making us the possessors of the truth about this, giving us the word which itself has the power to reconcile.
20. It is as the minister of this word of reconciliation that I find my office and function, calling you all by means of this word to the reconciliation, acting as its bearer and agent, and on behalf of the Christ inviting you and encouraging you to be reconciled to God.