266 Ps51:5
267 Rom7:9
268 Rom8:4
269 Cf. Rom8:23
270 Greek: ἐξ οὐρανοῦ 2Cor5:2
44
Yet Jesus affirms that the soul needs to be restored to the purity of that of a little child to enter the Kingdom of God271. Holiness is purity of soul, guarded and preserved by wisdom; not the inviolable perfection which God alone possesses272. He does not expect it or require it as is evident if one carefully analyses Jesus’ dealings with His disciples and JHWE’s earlier interactions with His intimate servants such as Abraham, David, Job, Moses and the prophets who each related to their God as a child to a father. The features of a young child which the Lord would have His disciples emulate are an awareness of one’s need for guidance and provision from Father God and Mother Church, a sweet and intuitive simplicity, credulity, a sense of wonder and a keenness to please. What a young child assuredly does not possess is a sense of self-loathing or conviction of moral impotency. And nor should he, for looking intently into the eyes of an infant one is observing the windows of a soul newly supplied by God and enlightened by Christ; not one “formed after the mind and will of Satan” as Augustine and others have asserted273.