THE ULTIMATE SENSE
In the Book of Nehemiah we are told that: “They read from the book, from the law of God with interpretation and gave the sense so that the people understood the reading.” I wish that were true of today’s preachers, but unfortunately they have mistakenly taken personifications for persons and the gross first sense for the ultimate sense intended. In today’s paper I read where 325 graduate students of fifteen Catholic colleges were asked to name their ten heroes, in order, with no restrictions as to time. The late president Kennedy came in first, his brother Robert second, Martin Luther King third, with Jesus coming in fifth. Here are graduates of fifteen Catholic colleges who – seeing the Bible as secular history – place its primary character fifth in their heroic order when if read as literature (as many college students do) they would discover it is not secular history at all. In Biblical thought a name is not a mere label of identification but an expression of the essential nature of its bearer.
To know the name of God is to know God as he reveals himself to the individual. As the Psalmist said: “Those who know the name put their trust in thee.” His name is revealed in a progression of revelations. It is first revealed as God Almighty in the name El Shaddai. This name is personified as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In the state of Moses the second revelation comes as “I AM.” Then, in the third and final state of Jesus Christ, the full disclosure of his name is revealed as Father, in a Father/Son relationship. Bearing the name of Jesus, you will say with Paul: “I have made manifest the name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world. They were thine and thou gavest them to me. I have made known unto them thy name and I will make it known that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them.” But now, when you read scripture always remember that the names Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Jesus are personifications of eternal parts of God’s play. Having faith in yourself and the play you created, you entered the part called Abraham, at which time you were shown the entire play in detail. And when the play is completed you move into the part called Jesus Christ to discover you are its author.
To say Jesus is your hero and see him as a person is to completely misunderstand the story of scripture. As Blake said: “It ought always to be understood that the persons, Moses and Abraham, are not here meant, but the states signified by those names, the individuals being representatives of visions of those eternal states as they were revealed to mortal man in a series of divine revelations as they are written in the Bible. I have seen these states in my Imagination. When seen at a distance, they appear as one man. As you approach, they appear as multitudes of nations.” I know the truth of that statement for although Blake was born in 1757 and died in 1827, we are closely woven in the tapestry of thought. One particular night we met, and after discussing the mystery of God, Blake said to me: “Fall backwards with a complete abandonment of self. Do not restrain yourself, just relax and fall.” Following his instructions I felt as though I was falling off the earth, as I hurled through space like some interstellar body. And when the motion ceased I looked up to see a single man aglow in the distance. His heart was like a flaming ruby, but when I approached I realized that all of the people in eternity were in that one body. I saw the body we will all be gathered back into when God’s play is over. The play begins when “The scriptures, foreseeing that God would save and justify the heathen, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham.” Now, if you take the story of Abraham as secular history you would realize that he would have been shown God’s plan of salvation two thousand years before it occurred. But, agreeing to play the part of Abraham, you entered death’s door, the human skull. It is there that you sleep in visions of eternity as the Christ seed, being one with your Father. The word translated “seed” in Galatians is “sperma” meaning the sperm of man and identifying man with God.
This is not the physical sperm, for it is only a shadow producing bodies of death. I am speaking of the spiritual sperm called Christ, whose seed is capable of extending itself. Dreaming your life into being, you appear to be two, but you are not. One day this barrier will be removed and you, individualized, will emerge as the Lord Jesus Christ – which, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is a sign, witnessed by God. When you read scripture try to remember that these characteristics are only personifications and try to find out what they represent. Until you understand the significance of the name, you are going to miss its message. Quite often you will find a classic telling a far greater story than you will ever hear from the pulpit on a Sunday morning. One of my favorites was written by a mathematician. You know his story as Alice Through the Looking Glass. “Come and look at him!” the brother cried, and they each took one of Alice’s hands, and led her up to where the King was sleeping. “He’s dreaming now,” said Tweedle-dee: “and what do you think he’s dreaming about?” Alice said, “Nobody can guess that.” “Why, about you!” Tweedle-dee exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly. “And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you’d be?” The dreamer in you is God, who must dream in the sequence he set up in the beginning. No part can be omitted. As our forefathers played it so will we, for there is only one actor in this drama called life and that actor is God.In you God is dreaming the various parts he wrote in the beginning and you saw while in the state of Abraham. You are the Son of God now, an “I”, which he is extending. We are all the “I”, only now we are enhanced by reason of the predetermined dream.
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