Thousands have heard this expression, without dreaming if its hidden and spiritual meaning, or if they think of any meaning at all, they content themselves by interpreting it as referring to the actual travels of Masons after the completion of the temple, into the surrounding country in search of employment, whose wages were to be gold and silver which they could earn by the exercise of their skill in the operative art. But the true symbolic meaning of the foreign country into which the Master Mason is to travel is far different. The symbolism of this life terminates with the Master's degree. The completion of that degree is a lesson of death and the resurrection to a future life. Heaven, the higher state of existence after death is the Foreign Country, where the true word, or divine truth, not given in this, is to be received, and where the Master Mason is to enter, and there he is to receive his wages in the reception of that truth which can be imparted only in that better land. — (2 Corinthians 5:1)
Biblical References
2 Corinthians 5:1
For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
~~ooOoo~~
This page is adapted from the Glossary at Phoenixmasonry — Used with permission.
