Manual 14. 1 – 3. Jesus: “How will the world end? Can what has had no real beginning really end?” The world will end as an illusion, just as it began. Yet will its ending be an illusion of mercy. The illusion of forgiveness, complete, excluding no one, limitless in gentleness, will cover it entirely, releasing all appearance of evil, undoing all sin and ending guilt forever. So ends the world the ego made to hide its guilt, for now it has no purpose and is gone.
The father of illusions is the belief that they have a purpose; that they serve a need or gratify a want. Perceived as purposeless, they simply are no longer seen. Their uselessness is recognized, and they are gone. How but in this way are all illusions ended? They have been brought to truth, and the truth in you saw them not. It merely overlooked the meaningless!
Until forgiveness is complete, however, the world does have a purpose. It becomes the home in which forgiveness is born; where where it grows and strengthens, and becomes more all-embracing. Here is it nourished, for here it is needed! Now a gentle Savior resides here, born where sin was made and guilt seemed real. Here is His home, for here, there is need of Him indeed. He brings the ending of the world with Him. It is His Call God’s teachers answer, turning to Him in silence to receive His Word.
The world will end when all things in it have been rightly judged by the Holy Spirit’s judgment. The world will end with the benediction of holiness upon it. When not one thought of sin remains, the world is over. It will not be destroyed nor attacked nor even touched. It will merely cease to seem to be!
Of course, this seems to be a long, long while away. ‘When not one thought of sin remains,’ appears to be a long-range goal indeed. But time stands still, and waits on the goal of God’s teachers. The instant any one of them truly accepts Atonement for himself, not one thought of sin will remain. It is not easier to forgive one sin than to forgive all of them!
The illusion of ‘orders of difficulty’ is an obstacle the teacher of God must learn to pass by and leave behind. One sin perfectly forgiven by one teacher of God can make salvation complete. Can you understand this? No; it is meaningless to anyone here. Yet it is the final lesson in which unity is restored. It goes against all the thinking of the world, but then, so does Heaven!”