Anthroposophia: the human being purified and streamed through by Christ

Rudolf Steiner: An Esoteric Lesson given in Hannover, September 24, 1907. From the notes of a participant.

Christ is a Sun-spirit, a fire-spirit. It's his spirit that reveals itself to us in sunlight. It's his breath of life in the air that sweeps around the Earth and presses into us with every breath. His body is the Earth on which we live. He actually feeds us with his flesh and blood, for all the food we eat is taken from the Earth, from his body. We breathe his breath of life that he streams to us through the Earth's plant-cover. We see in his light, for the sunlight is his spirit-radiation. We live in his love, even physically, for the Sun's warmth that we get is his spiritual force of love, that we perceive as warmth. And our spirit is drawn toward his spirit, as our body is fettered to his body. That's why our body must be consecrated, because we walk on his body. The Earth is his holy body that we touch with our feet. And the Sun is the manifestation of his holy spirit to which we are allowed to look up. And the air is the manifestation of his holy life that we are allowed to take into us.

So that we could become aware of our self, our spirit, so that we could become spirit-beings ourself, this high Sun-spirit sacrificed himself, left his royal abode, descended from the Sun and took on physical raiment in the Earth. Thus he is physically crucified in the Earth. But he spiritually embraces the Earth with his light and his love power, and everything that lives on it belongs to him. He's only waiting for us to want to belong to him. If we give ourselves to him completely then he'll not only give us his physical life, but also his higher spiritual Sun-life. Then he streams through us with his divine light-spirit, with his warming waves of love, and with his creative God's will.

We can only be what he gives us, what he makes out of us. Everything about us that corresponds to the divine plan is his work. What can we do in addition to this? Nothing but to let him work in us. It's only if we resist his love that he can't work in us. But how could we resist this love? resist him who says “I have always loved you and have drawn you to me out of pure goodness”? He has loved us since the Earth's very beginning. We must let his love become a real being in us. Real life, spirit, and bliss are only possible if this life becomes real life for us, becomes Christ's life in us. We can't become pure and holy by ourselves, but only through this Christ-life. All our striving and wrestling is in vain as long as this higher life doesn't fill us. It alone can wash everything out of our nature that's still unpurified, like a clean, pure stream. This is the soul-ground from which this purifying light-life can ascend. There we must seek our dwelling, at his feet and in devotion to him. Then he will transform us himself and stream through us with his divine love-life until we become illumined and pure as he is, become like him. Until he can share his divine consciousness with us. Our soul must become pure and wise through his light — then it can unite with his life. This then is the union of Christ and Sophia, the union of Christ's life with the human soul that has been purified by his light.

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19070924e01.html