What did HE say? (continued)
BORN AGAIN ? (continued)
The Whole Story?
Many of the more difficult sayings to understand come from the Gospel of John. John’s writing differs from the writing of Matthew, Mark and Luke and is looked at by many as being of a ‘deeper’ meaning. It is certainly different; the others, called the synoptic Gospels, are more of a historic reporting on the life the Jesus and there is little similarity between the synoptics and the Gospel of John. There is much confusion, opinion and theory regarding the four gospels but this does not matter to our subject except to say what we have said of the nature of this gospel; and to make a comment on the wealth of Christian mystery that it contains.
We left off yesterday with Jesus telling Nicodemus about his apparent inability to understand heavenly things because he could not understand the earthly things of being born again and the nature of one born of the spirit. Jesus went on to say: “and no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven“. For this saying we discussed the overall message of the Master concerning heaven, the Kingdom of God, and its being both within us and upon us. In this truth is the key to this saying. Insofar as ascending and descending, these words are translated also as gone into and came from which take away the directional aspect leaving us with just the idea 0f ‘in’ heaven.
Now our dialogue has been for some time on the idea that the Kingdom of God or the Presence of God is the dwelling place of, and in many ways is, the Christ Within although we may not have said it quite this way before. That the Kingdom of God is within us here and now is the message of the Christ. He tells us how it is that we need to live and think to access it and this we have been discussing in good detail over the last few posts. Vincent says on this verse that hath ascended from the Greek is equivalent to hath been in*** and this language gives a bit of help in understanding the whole saying. We as Spirit or Soul, as the Christ Within, have been and are in heaven, in the Kingdom but this is not as man which is in the context of which the Master speaks. Remember that He is talking to Nicodemus of earthly things and not heavenly things so that the man is intended to be the flesh and not the spirit through this entire dialogue. Our picture here should be that we have the Spirit of man which is in heaven and descending from or coming from heaven into life in this world, losing sight of that which he really is through the process of birth and childhood and growing up. We have then man, coming from heaven as Spirit into life in form and then working his way back by ascending or going into heaven through being born again. It takes a conscious effort and an transformation sparked by seeing the Light and seeking for more. This is our story.
It is hard to say what Jesus actually means when He says son of man and again theories abound as to what this phrase really means. We said in an earlier post that this term shows us the essential humanity of Jesus in that He is, from the perspective of man, just like us. It is clear too that it means what it says in that we are all sons of men. Using this verse from John, let us take this idea a bit further to say that in this usage He is showing us that the son of man status is the result of being born anew and that Jesus, referring to Himself by this title, shows us that He is the ultimate presence of the Christ Within in physical form. Jesus then, explaining to Nicodemus the meaning of born again gives him the whole story in this one saying.
And applied to us it is the same. The son of man, as signified by being born anew, is the Presence of God, the Christ Within working consciously through our physical forms. We are in heaven from where we came and to where we go by being born again. This is ever the objective of what we have been discussing in all of these posts that talk about the Kingdom and the Presence of God. This is the end result of putting our attention into and our focus upon the things of the Spirit and living our lives in the Light of the Soul. And we know the way from reading His words….. all we need to do is to do them.
John tells us in his epistles that all the that Jesus is we are as well so there should be no surprise to any that we can link His sayings and what He has done to what we are and what we can do. John’s saying that because as he is , so are we in this world (1 John 4:17) was written many years after the death and the resurrection so there is no bearing on time. We are as He is in this world. He accomplished being fully present as Spirit in form and gave us instructions on how to follow. He brought the full potency of the Love of God to humanity and gave us instructions on how to follow. The only difference that can be readily seen is in His virgin birth as the only begotten Son of God. We come in the normal way. He came in Glory and Honor and with a firm understanding of who and what He was. We come into life and lose sight of the our Spirit nature; we have to discover who and what we are.
We must always remember to look at these things spiritually and not as the man in flesh. We are Spirit, in His likeness, and though this is difficult to understand, this is our essential nature. As Spirit we give the Life principal to this mortal body and personality which takes on a life of its own and which, in due time, may come to recognize the reality of the spiritual Life and draw closer to it. As we said earlier this comes in many ways and in infinite degrees bringing people from all walks of mortal life into all sorts of religious experience. They are attracted by a sense of desire to affiliate with a particular group or to participate with the group into which one has been indoctrinated. Understanding this can we see a reality in the Master’s words? It is really a statement of fact; we come from heaven as Spirit into this world of men and when this conscious mortal personality awakes to the Presence of the the Spirit and of God within, then we are, as mortals, born anew and this conscious personality is then ascended into heaven, into the Kingdom of God. This sentence shows the earthliness of the precept of born again and gives a glimpse of what we can know of heavenly things.
The tone of this chapter changes in the next verse and we will leave this for the next post. The next two verses are said by some to close the dialogue with Nicodemus. These are: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up : That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:14-15) and covering these may end our discussion on born again. These verses too seem to have little to do with the subject but they are generally attributed to the Masters dialogue. The remainder, from verses 16 through 21, are thought by some to be John’s words and not Jesus’ although they are in red print in many bible versions. Vincent sets forth several reasons for the view that they are John’s based on tense and the selection of words used***. We will decide tomorrow whether to treat them as part or to go on to something new.
Note on the Quote of the Day
This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.
O Thou Who givest sustenance to the universe,
From Whom all things proceed,
To Whom all things return,
Unveil to us the face of the true Spiritual Sun
Hidden by a disc of golden Light
That we may know the Truth And do our whole duty
As we journey to Thy sacred feet.
The Gayatri is one of the oldest prayers known to man. It is a wonderful invocation and meditation. For more information please see the Prayers and Meditations section to the right of this post.
**** Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
