It is my view that the most toxic of all aspects of
Christian dogma, especially evangelical dogma, is the doctrine of scripture.
Orthodoxy completely hijacked the message that Jesus was trying to deliver. So,
to begin with, what was Jesus intended message? Jesus had a two-part message.
One part was to tell people what it means to love one another and the
importance of loving. The other was that humanity is indeed divine, indwelt by
the consciousness of God. In this, he taught that his message was the sole
purpose of their scripture, the Torah and Tanakh. He was the key to unlock the
mystical message of the Law and the Prophets. In fact, he stated that the Law
and Prophets were the accuser of the brothers and sisters.
When Jesus claimed that God was his father, and that he was
the son of God, the Jews called him a blasphemer and wanted to stone him. This
is recorded in the fifth chapter of John’s gospel. I want to examine a small
portion of that chapter here to make the point. "You search the scriptures because you think
that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.
Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. I do not accept glory from human
beings. But I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in
my Father's name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name,
you will accept him. How can you believe when you accept glory from one another
and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God? Do not
think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on
whom you have set your hope.” (Joh 5:39-45) They were putting their hope in the Law and the
Prophets and in reality it was their accuser. Isn’t it interesting that in the
book of revelation the accuser of the brethren was Satan? In the synoptic
gospels, Jesus called the Pharisees and the Sadducees a brood of vipers, or the
seed of snakes. This is a direct reference to the serpent in the Garden and
Genesis 3:15. The seed of the serpent would bruise the heel of the seed of
humanity, but, the seed of humanity would crush the head of the serpent. Sadly
however, when Christianity began to gain control of people, orthodoxy adopted
the exact same view of scripture that the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees
had.
The above passage from John chapter five demonstrates that
not all scripture is of equal value. It is only valuable when it points to
Jesus and his two-fold mission that I mentioned in the beginning. It is only
beneficial when it explains what it means to love and when it explains that all
humanity participates in the divine nature. All humanity are the children of
God who is the Father of many sons and daughters. At least three thousand years
before Abraham, mystical revelation had come to Hermes Trismegistus, that
explained that God was a father and that his word, his consciousness was his
son. We, being created in God’s image, that is, being created with
consciousness were the offspring of God. This is the message that the scripture
has to offer, and it was Jesus most important message. He said that we had the
anointing (the Christ) in us that would teach all truth. He said that he and
the father were one, that he was in the father and the father was in him, and
subsequently we too were in the father and the father is in us.
The fact is that if one allows the indwelling logos to
inform one’s discernment, one can easily determine what in the scripture
follows this message and mission and what in scripture is simply chronicling
the history of the development of humanity during the time it was written. It
was written within a culture, to that culture. Certainly not all the messages
and stories are infallible, inerrant truth from the creative source. However,
there is inerrant infallible truth within the scripture. We are children of
God. God is love. We each possess the divine nature. We are one with the
father. One of the most encouraging revelations is that as Jesus was in the
world, so are we.
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