1 Introduction to Hebrews
I have always wanted to take a closer look at the book of Hebrews, and now that I have finally taken the plunge, I find that I am intuitively continuing to pursue a common thread that I have been already been following for a long time—ancient Gnosticism. As we know, for the past couple of years, I have been investigating the so-called "Gnostic Gospels". Many of these are texts have been known since ancient times, but were rejected by the medieval church fathers, at the first Council of Nicea.
On the Council of Nicaea we read:
“In tracing the origin of the Bible, one is led to AD 325, when Constantine the Great called the First Council of Nicaea, composed of 300 religious leaders. Three centuries after Jesus lived, this council was given the task of separating divinely inspired writings from those of questionable origin.
The actual compilation of the Bible was an incredibly complicated project that involved churchmen of many varying beliefs, in an atmosphere of dissension, jealousy, intolerance, persecution and bigotry.
At this time, the question of the divinity of Jesus had split the church into two factions. Constantine offered to make the little-known Christian sect the official state religion if the Christians would settle their differences. Apparently, he didn't particularly care what they believed in as long as they agreed upon a belief. By compiling a book of sacred writings, Constantine thought that the book would give authority to the new church.”
Thus, we can see how the accepted books of the Bible were chosen by a conclave of authoritarians who were as concerned with political ends as they were with spiritual ends.
Many Gnostic writings have been know since ancient days, and were under discussion at the Nicaean Councils, but many other Gnostic gospels have only recently been discovered in ancient hiding places, in the deserts of the Near East—some a hundred years ago, some a mere sixty years ago.
Now, the absence, of any iron-clad certainty of authorship of the Gnostic texts, is a constant complaint of those who would reject and ignore the wisdom contained in these ancient teachings. It is too bad that some people care more about the authority of the messenger than the truth of the message; they want to know WHO they are listening to before they hear WHAT they are listening to. The question: “Whom shall we believe?” is the cry of those who have no inner experience of the truth within themselves—they need to be told what to think by somebody else. “WHAT do we believe?” is the question for me—and I claim for myself the legitimacy of my own personal experience, over the authority of the established thinking. Therefore, with a heart yearning for fresh insight, I embrace the "Unaccepted" gospels by virtue of the fresh perspectives on age-old themes which they offer.
In the past two years, we have gone through most of the Gospel of Thomas, and all of the Infancy Gospel of James, in addition to snippets from other Gnostic scriptures; and in the process of absorbing the flavor of ancient Gnosticism, we have discovered that elements of the very same Gnosticism that dominates the unaccepted scriptures, comprise significant portions of some of the accepted scriptures as well, including John, certainly Revelation and now, we discover, Hebrews.
Not many Gnostic scriptures made it into the final cut in 325, and it is easy to understand why the Medieval church fathers rejected so much of the fringe theology of Gnosticism: it is because much of the Gnostic material leans heavily toward pan-theism, (a concept which was thought to encourage superstitious behavior in an already ignorant population), and it clearly rejects dogmatic belief in favor of charismatic experience. Indeed, it is easy to understand how subjective experience would carry little weight, in the formation of doctrinal catechisms, at a council determined to create an airtight system of dogmatic belief; subjectivity would rob the church of its primary medium of authority—dogma. The Council of Nicaea took place at a time when Man was moving away from the vagaries of pagan superstition, a largely intuitive sense of identity and reality, into a philosophical age of Objective reality—the age of Intellect—the age of Science. It is a miracle the church retained any of its identity as a spiritual entity at all, when faced with the rigorous, literal precision of constitutionality. Another disqualifier is that, to the Gnostic writers, the identification of Jesus, with His Judaic Old Testament roots, is not always apparent; especially when it comes to creation myths and cosmology, many of which myths sound more like Gilgamesh than Moses. Indeed, much of the pretentious-sounding new age jargon that is so off-putting and exclusionist-sounding, (called by my father-in-law “new age gobbledy-gook”), originates with the language in which the Gnostic Gospels idiomatically express themselves.
However, after all is said and done, the wonderful thing about Hebrews is that, unlike many of the Gnostic scriptures, it begins with Jesus as its centerpiece, and only later branches out to involve more cosmic principles. This is precisely the kind of Christianity I profess: Jesus first, all other concepts afterward. To be sure, in terms of dogmatic belief, I would be considered a heretic by most American Fundamentalist Christians, because, although I enjoy a personal, charismatic, ACTIVE, psychic relationship with Jesus, (rule number one, praise the Lord!), I also accept the possible veracity of such new age concepts as astral bodies, reincarnation, astrology, and the like. I do not positively affirm the existence of any these Halloween artifacts, because my direct experience of them is vague and unsubstantiated. But I do not find any saying of Jesus that flat-out contradicts the existence of these things, and, although I do not unconditionally affirm the truth ANY of them, the mere fact, that I entertain the POSSIBILITY, makes me a sinner damned to Hell in any Baptist church in the country. Hallelujah!
There is a mistaken idea, among people who are not intimately familiar with New Age material, that subjects like Astrology, Tarot Cards, and Crystal Balls, are totally lacking in Christian components. These people may be surprised to hear that Jesus is not absent in Asian and New Age religions. Jesus is at the center of Yogananda's Self-Realization Fellowship doctrine, Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy doctrine, Edgar Cayce's Christian doctrine, Elizabeth Clare Prophet's Science of the Spoken Word doctrine, etc, etc. All this makes it easier to admit the authority of ancient authors, because their authority comes from the potency of eternal, static truth, unchanged through the centuries—it does not come from the endorsement of a man in a funny hat.
We begin our presentation with an introductory reading from Wikipedia:
“Epistle to the Hebrews, or Letter to the Hebrews, or in the Greek manuscripts, simply To the Hebrews ( Πρὸς Έβραίους) is a text of the New Testament. Its author refers to it as a "word of exhortation", using the same term used in Acts 13:15 to describe a sermon. Since the earliest days of the Church, its authorship and canonicity have been debated. The text is traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle, but doubt on Pauline authorship is reported already by Eusebius, and modern biblical scholarship considers its authorship unknown, perhaps written in deliberate imitation of the style of Paul."
The next sentence we read from Wikipedia contradicts the idea that Hebrews is written “in deliberate imitation of the style of Paul,”: indeed, Paul’s letters are always into the cruder, more down-home style of direct address, rather than using the distant voice, characteristic of more elevated material, material more intellectual and abstract in nature, such as appears in John, and in some other Gnostic gospels, including Hebrews.
"Scholars of Greek consider its writing to be more polished and eloquent than any other book of the New Testament. The book has earned the reputation of being a masterpiece. It also has been described as an intricate New Testament book. Scholars believe it was written for Jewish Christians who lived in Jerusalem. Its purpose was to exhort Christians to persevere in the face of persecution. The theme of the epistle is the doctrine of the person of Christ and his role as mediator between God and humanity.
Authorship
By the end of the first century there was not a consensus over the author’s identity. Clement of Rome, Barnabas, the Apostle Paul, and other names were proposed. Others later suggested Luke the Evangelist, Apollos and Priscilla as possible authors.
Though no author is named, the original King James Version of the Bible titled the work The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews. However, the KJV's attribution to Paul was only a guess, and not a very good one according to the majority of recent scholarship. Its vastly different style, different theological focus, different spiritual experience—all are believed to make Paul's authorship of Hebrews increasingly indefensible. At present, neither modern scholarship nor church teaching ascribes Hebrews to Paul.
Because of its anonymity, it had some trouble being accepted as part of the Christian canon, being classed with the Antilegomena (texts whose authorship, or value is disputed). Eventually it was accepted as scripture because of its sound theology, eloquent presentation, and other intrinsic factors. In antiquity, certain circles began to ascribe it to Paul in an attempt to provide the anonymous work an explicit apostolic pedigree.
In the 4th century, Jerome and Augustine of Hippo supported Paul's authorship: the Church largely agreed to include Hebrews as the fourteenth letter of Paul, and affirmed this authorship until the Reformation. Scholars argued that in the 13th Chapter of Hebrews, Timothy is referred to as a companion. Timothy was Paul's missionary companion in the same way Jesus sent disciples out in pairs of two. Also, the writer states that he wrote the letter from "Italy", which also at the time fits Paul.The difference in style is explained as simply an adjustment to a distinct audience, to the Jewish Christians who were being persecuted and pressured to go back to traditional Judaism. Many scholars now believe that the author was one of Paul's pupils or associates, citing stylistic differences between Hebrews and the other Pauline epistles. Recent scholarship has favored the idea that the author was probably a leader of a predominantly Jewish congregation to whom he or she was writing.”
The name Priscilla is often suggested as the author of Hebrews, and since Priscilla plays such a significant role in the discussion of Hebrews I looked up some information about her on the net:
"Priscilla (/prɨˈsɪlə/) and Aquila (/ˈækwɨlə/) were a first century Christian missionary married couple described in the New Testament and traditionally listed among the Seventy Disciples. They lived, worked, and traveled with the Apostle Paul, who described them as his "fellow workers in Christ Jesus" (Romans 16:3 NASB).
Priscilla and Aquila are described in the New Testament as providing a presence that strengthened the early Christian churches. Paul was generous in his recognition and acknowledgment of his indebtedness to them (Rom. 16:3-4). Together, they are credited with instructing Apollos, a major evangelist of the first century, and "explaining to him the way of God more accurately" (Acts 18:26).
Priscilla was a woman of Jewish heritage and one of the earliest known Christian converts who lived in Rome. Her name is a Roman diminutive for Prisca which was her formal name. She is often thought to have been the first example of a female preacher or teacher in early church history. Coupled with her husband, she was a celebrated missionary, and a friend and co-worker of Paul.
While the view is not widely held among scholars, some scholars have suggested that Priscilla was the author of the Book of Hebrews. Although acclaimed for its artistry, originality, and literary excellence, it is the only book in the New Testament with author anonymity. Hoppin and others suggest that Priscilla was the author, but that her name was omitted either to suppress its female authorship, or to protect the letter itself from suppression.”
[Sidebar: So it is generally agreed that Hebrews is written in a style more elegant than Paul's--furthermore, the content is not much like the dogmatic message of Paul to the churches--its focus is toward acquiring direct knowledge of God, not strict obedience to a moral code. Paul was trying for organization and social unity, while Hebrews encourages personal experience. I’m sure that Paul must have had a personal, subjective experience of Jesus, but perhaps this was not necessarily a subject about which he found it possible (as a transcendent mystic) to write about. A man of action is not often a man of words. Leave it to the women.
Perhaps the hot issue is not the language of the scripture; perhaps the different quality of the content of Hebrews is a function of the spirit of Paul expressed from a different perspective, with a different voice. Perhaps the book expresses a side of Paul that he chose not to make public in his own writings, but permitted to be made public in the work of a student--and in a more literary form? Perhaps he simply could not attempt to express the inexpressible. Leave it to the women.
"The use of tabernacle terminology in Hebrews has been used to date the epistle before the destruction of the temple, the idea being that knowing about the destruction of both Jerusalem and the temple would have influenced the development of the author's overall argument. Therefore, the most probable date for its composition is the second half of the year 63 or the beginning of 64, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia.
Those, to whom the author of Hebrews is writing, seem to have begun to doubt whether Jesus could really be the Messiah for whom they were waiting, because they believed the Messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Scriptures was to come as a militant king and destroy the enemies of his people.”
[Sidebar: Remember that this was one of the main issues under debate at the Council of Nicaea.
Back to Wikipedia:]
“Jesus, however, came as a mere man who was arrested by the Jewish leaders and who suffered and even died under Roman crucifixion. And although he was seen resurrected, he still left the earth and his people, who now face persecution rather than victory. The book of Hebrews solves this problem by arguing that the Hebrew Scriptures also foretold that the Messiah would be a priest (although of a different sort than the traditional Levitical priests) and Jesus came to fulfill this role, as a sacrificial offering to God, to atone for sins. His role of a king is yet to come, and so those who follow him should be patient and not be surprised that they suffer for now.
The book could be argued to affirm special creation. It affirms that God by His Son, Jesus Christ, made the worlds. "God...hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son...by whom also he made the worlds". The epistle also states that the worlds themselves do not provide the evidence of how God formed them. "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear".
[Sidebar: "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear". Notice that the SOURCE of creation is ever a preoccupation of the Gnostic writers. The difference between apparent reality and essential or underlying reality will always occupy much of the true mystic’s attention.
Remember, as stated above, “Those, to whom the author of Hebrews is writing, seem to have begun to doubt whether Jesus could really be the Messiah for whom they were waiting, because they believed the Messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Scriptures was to come as a militant king and destroy the enemies of his people.” It will be no surprise that the divinity of Jesus is the very first subject expounded in the first chapter of Hebrews.]
From The Interpreter's Bible 1955
Christology
“We may sum up our author’s Christology negatively by saying that he has nothing to do with the older Hebrew messianic hopes of a coming Son of David, who would be a divinely empowered human leader to bring in the kingdom of God on earth; and that while he still employs the figure of a militant, apocalyptic king ... who will come again..., this is not of the essence of his thought about Christ.
“Positively, our author presents Christ as divine in nature, and solves any possible objection to a divine being who participates in human experience, especially in the experience of death, by the priestly analogy. He seems quite unconscious of the logical difficulties of his position proceeding from the assumption that Christ is both divine and human, at least human in experience although hardly in nature. ”
“Positively, our author presents Christ as divine in nature, and solves any possible objection to a divine being who participates in human experience, especially in the experience of death, by the priestly analogy. He seems quite unconscious of the logical difficulties of his position proceeding from the assumption that Christ is both divine and human, at least human in experience although hardly in nature. ”
Indeed, if there is one clear-cut connection between Paul and Hebrews it is the dwelling on “the evidence of things unseen”.
So, to begin at the beginning, here is the King James Version of Hebrews Verses 1–3:
"The Son Superior to Angels
1 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways,
2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.
3 The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven."
[Sidebar: Two points cry out for amplification in these first three verses:
1. “in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son”. This sentence proclaims a new age of humanity—the old days versus these last (or “new, most recent” days); in the old days spirituality was driven by the law, but now spirituality is driven by the charismatic connection between God and Man through the Mediator, Jesus the Christ, given to us through Grace.
Now, any pantheist can broadly point to the innate connection between God and Man, but no one argues with the fact that, with the career of Jesus, something tremendously (and specifically) significant happened to the consciousness of Man. The transformation of Man’s consciousness was achieved through the power of language—new ideas diverting human thought into new pathways.
2. “The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” Man made in God’s image is a principle upon which many other doctrinal principles are based. Jesus is represented as a model we may imitate to achieve consciousness of the God within. Imitating the model is another way of saying mediator—Jesus mediates for us by offering us an articulated path to follow—the path of His way. Jesus holds the visible universe together with the power of His being defined in the WORD.]
From Matthew Henry's Commentary –on Hebrews Verses 1–3:
"It is a revelation which God has made by his Son, the most excellent messenger that was ever sent into the world, far superior to all the ancient patriarchs and prophets, by whom God communicated his will to his people in former times. And here we have an excellent account of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
(1.) The glory of his office, and that in three respects:—
[1.] God hath appointed him to be heir of all things. As God, he was equal to the Father; but, as God-man and Mediator, he was appointed by the Father to be the heir of all things, the sovereign Lord of all, the absolute disposer, director, and governor of all persons and of all things, Ps. 2:6, 7. All power in heaven and earth is given to him; all judgment is committed to him, Matt. 28:18; John 5:22.
[2.] By him God made the worlds, both visible and invisible, the heavens and the earth; not as an instrumental cause, but as his essential word and wisdom. By him he made the old creation, by him he makes the new creature, and by him he rules and governs both.
[3.] He upholds all things by the word of his power: he keeps the world from dissolving. By him all things consist. The weight of the whole creation is laid upon Christ: he supports the whole and all the parts. When, upon the apostasy, the world was breaking to pieces under the wrath and curse of God, the Son of God, undertaking the work of redemption, bound it up again, and established it by his almighty power and goodness. None of the ancient prophets sustained such an office as this, none was sufficient for it.
[Sidebar: We agree—this was something new.
Back to Henry’s Commentary:]
“(2.) Hence the apostle passes to the glory of the person of Christ, who was able to execute such an office: He was the brightness of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his person, Heb. 1:3. This is a high and lofty description of the glorious Redeemer, this is an account of his personal excellency.
[1.] He is, in person, the Son of God, the only-begotten Son of God, and as such he must have the same nature. This personal distinction always supposes one and the same nature. Every son of man is man; were not the nature the same, the generation would be monstrous.
[2.] The person of the Son is the glory of the Father, shining forth with a truly divine splendour. As the beams are effulgent emanations of the sun, the father and fountain of light, Jesus Christ in his person is God manifest in the flesh, he is light of light, the true Shechinah.
[3.] The person of the Son is the true image and character of the person of the Father; being of the same nature, he must bear the same image and likeness. In beholding the power, wisdom, and goodness, of the Lord Jesus Christ, we behold the power, wisdom, and goodness, of the Father; for he hath the nature and perfections of God in him. He that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father; that is, he hath seen the same Being. He that hath known the Son hath known the Father, John 14:7-9. For the Son is in the Father, and the Father in the Son; the personal distinction is no other than will consist with essential union. This is the glory of the person of Christ; the fulness of the Godhead dwells, not typically, but really, in him.
(3.) From the glory of the person of Christ he proceeds to mention the glory of his grace; his condescension itself was truly glorious. The sufferings of Christ had this great honour in them, to be a full satisfaction for the sins of his people: By himself he purged away our sins, that is, by the proper innate merit of his death and bloodshed, by their infinite intrinsic value; as they were the sufferings of himself, he has made atonement for sin. Himself, the glory of his person and nature, gave to his sufferings such merit as was a sufficient reparation of honour to God, who had suffered an infinite injury and affront by the sins of men.
(4.) From the glory of his sufferings we are at length led to consider the glory of his exaltation: When by himself he had purged away our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, at his Father’s right hand. As Mediator and Redeemer, he is invested with the highest honour, authority, and activity, for the good of his people; the Father now does all things by him, and receives all the services of his people from him. Having assumed our nature, and suffered in it on earth, he has taken it up with him to heaven, and there it has the high honour to be next to God, and this was the reward of his humiliation.
Now it was by no less a person than this that God in these last days spoke to men; and, since the dignity of the messenger gives authority and excellency to the message, the dispensations of the gospel must therefore exceed, very far exceed, the dispensation of the law.”
Thus, in a few words, the authority of the Christ is affirmed. In the next section this authority is amplified, exploring and emphasizing the relationship and ultimate superiority of the Christ to the angels.
Back to Hebrews 1:4-12:
“4 So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.
5 For to which of the angels did God ever say, "You are my Son; today I have become your Father"? Or again, "I will be his Father, and he will be my Son"?
6 And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, "Let all God's angels worship him."
[Sidebar: This little passage is almost humorous in its quasi-Platonic argumentation. The Medieval writers really liked this sort of thing; logic was not unknown to them, and by logic a certain truth was revealed. The passage says, “It only makes good sense to believe in Jesus as the son of God.”
Back to Hebrews: This next passage is one of the elegantly written ones. Note the closeness of style and imagery between this and many a passage in Revelation.]
“7 In speaking of the angels he says, "He makes his angels winds, his servants flames of fire."
8 But about the Son he says, "Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.
9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy."
10 He also says, "In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
11 They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment.
12 You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end."
[Sidebar: One of the qualities we tend to overlook, or de-emphasize, in Jesus's persona, is His biblical scholarship—He was a great scholar, a Talmudic genius—even in His last moments on the cross, He was quoting scripture. It is therefore within a established Christian idiom that the author of Hebrews quotes Psalm 102:25-27:
"25 In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
26 They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment.
Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded.
27 But you remain the same, and your years will never end."
26 They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment.
Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded.
27 But you remain the same, and your years will never end."
Back to Hebrews 1:13-14:
"13 To which of the angels did God ever say, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet"?
14 Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?"
Matthew Henry's Commentary – Verses 3–14
I. The superior nature of Christ is proved from his superior name. The scripture does not give high and glorious titles without a real foundation and reason in nature; nor would such great things have been said of our Lord Jesus Christ if he had not been as great and excellent as those words import. When it is said that Christ was made so much better than the angels, we are not to imagine that he was a mere creature, as the angels are; the word genomenos, when joined with an adjective, is nowhere to be rendered created, and here may very well be read, being more excellent, as the Syriac version hath it. We read ginesthe ho Theos alethes—let God be true, not made so, but acknowledged to be so.
II. He was pro panton—before all things, and by him all things consist, Col. 1:17:
“And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”
“He was not only above all things in condition, but before all things in existence; and therefore must be God, and self-existent. He laid the foundations of the earth, did not only introduce new forms into pre-existent matter, but made out of nothing the foundations of the earth, the primordia rerum—the first principles of things; he not only founded the earth, but the heavens too are the work of his hands, both the habitation and the inhabitants, the hosts of heaven, the angels themselves; and therefore he must needs be infinitely superior to them.”
[Sidebar: This type of meditation on cosmic beginnings is characteristic of the Gnostic perspective, and is very much in the same vein as John, and Revelation.
Back to Henry’s Commentary:
III. In changing the world that he has made; and here the mutability of this world is brought in to illustrate the immutability of Christ. Observe, 1. This world is mutable, all created nature is so; this world has passed through many changes, and shall pass through more; all these changes are by the permission and under the direction of Christ, who made the world (Heb. 1:11, 12): They shall perish, they shall all wax old as doth a garment; as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed. This our visible world (both the earth and visible heavens) is growing old. Not only men and beasts and trees grow old, but this world itself grows old, and is hastening to its dissolution; it changes like a garment, has lost much of its beauty and strength; it grew old betimes on the first apostasy, and it has been waxing older and growing weaker ever since; it bears the symptoms of a dying world. But then its dissolution will not be its utter destruction, but its change. Christ will fold up this world as a garment not to be abused any longer, not to be any longer so used as it has been. Let us not then set our hearts upon that which is not what we take it to be, and will not be what it now is. Sin has made a great change in the world for the worse, and Christ will make a great change in it for the better. We look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Let the consideration of this wean us from the present world, and make us watchful, diligent, and desirous of that better world, and let us wait on Christ to change us into a meetness for that new world that is approaching; we cannot enter into it till we be new creatures.:”
Again, Hebrews 1:13-14:
"13 To which of the angels did God ever say, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet"?
14 Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?"
For me there is a lot of hope contained in the phrase, “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?" We have spoken of angels many times, here, and I do not think the term “ministering spirits” is used accidentally—I think the first hint of real gnosticism is right here because here we are invited to draw from the spirit world intelligence and aid for our mundane lives.
We must admit that “drawing on the power of ministering angels” is not common practice table talk in our society, or in our churches—all that black magic stuff—talking to angels—bah humbug! And yet the scriptures all are filled with reports of angels and their active relationships with special men. Are we to think that angels (AND DEMONS) just stopped operating on the mundane sphere around 69 A.D., and these spiritual resources are no longer available?
We return, one more time, to the issue of the WORD. It is to the abstract spirit realm that I wend my way, and the more I lose myself in the finer dimensions, the more I become my true and permanent self. With this in mind I would like to close with John 1:1-5. Always, with these words, I hear the cosmic wind whooshing in the background, and GodMan glinting darkly in a mirror.
“1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”
Let us pray. Jesus we cannot but bow down before your magnificence. We are children before you, and we cry for your protection through the power of your Father the One God. Amen.
