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Experiential criterion of divinity

Friday, March 23 at 12:01 AM

This Speakout has not been edited

By Henry A. Hurst III, Aurora

I would like to put Doug Leek's challenge "Find Out About Jesus For Yourself" (Letters 3/12/07) into a somewhat timeless perspective that I have discovered in my research of this subject.

Like Doug, many Christians feel the assualt on some longstanding tenets of faith such as in the recent James Cameron film, "The Last Tomb of Jesus". I do not think that Jesus' divinity is in question with this or His possible marriage to Mary Magdalene. Despite Christianity's reliance on the Resurrection and Ascension as proof positive that Jesus was and is The Lord, there is another criterion far more impactful in its presence that He was host to and giver of.

Remember whose experience and observations identified the authority by which Jesus of Nazareth did His work as The Christ, an authority man cannot comprehend on his or her own. The Apostles.

Matthew 13:11; Mark 4:11, Luke 17:21 cite an irrefutable criterion The Apostles witnessed literally within themselves. Jesus contended that The Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven, exists within everyone, and showed IT to each one of The Apostles. The only condition on anyone wanting IT -this Knowing, was that they sincerely want IT and that they come as a child with the same openness and acceptance, in order to be shown The Glory within.

This experience was not mysterious to them, nor was it the afterlife imagery many now mortgage their lives upon. This revelation is further described in a number of parables as well, in the Bible.

Elaine Pagels, perhaps the leading authority on the Gnostic Gospels, has speculated that this experience (expressed more freely in these works) was what, in fact angered the religious and political establishment, not so much the assertions of Jesus' identity, "King of the Jews".

The notion that individuals could intimately know within themselves that which has no beginning or end, threatened the control of the leadership. Access to the Divine was theirs to give, not His.

The early church's tact of enforced sovereignty and personal accountability ensured "The Kingdom's" invisibility. Knowing would neither be needed nor possible for everyone accepting "The Mystery of Faith".

History reminds us of the fate of heretics, of those not accepting.

Presently, we all could enjoy a little Heaven. The threat to knowing is gone, but do we each continue to remain the blockage to our greatest asset in our seemingly rational, patient vigilance? Or can we step aside to feel the sincere thirst to know?

The possibility is worth considering.

Suffice it to say that knowing in this specific sense is not conjecture. Giver and Gift are essential. The Apostles knew both. The authority through which they came to know, was not in question after they immersed themselves in the experience. Make no bones about it.

READER COMMENTS

There is a reason that the Gnostic “Gospels” express “more freely” the model of the kingdom of God that you express here. That reason is that the traditional cannon of Gospels (Mathew, Mark, Luke and John) do not support that view. Of course, the Gnostic position is that the early church schemed to defraud early Christians, “editing” the original Gospels and choosing a cannon that would support their power base. This is an unlikely progression of events, though.

The word, “Gnostic,” comes from the Greek “gnosis” or “knowledge.” The Gnostics originally held that they were privy to a “special knowledge” that was not generally available to others, and that knowledge skewed their patterns of belief away from the central teachings of the early church. The question at hand is, who does one choose to believe; the church fathers who selected the cannon, or the Gnostics who prefer the teachings of the books discarded as unreliable when the cannon was chosen? Does it seem reasonable that an omnipotent God would go to the trouble of sending His son to die for us all, and then fail keep His hand on the church, guiding it and guarding it?

Since you have cited Mathew, Mark and Luke to support your position, it seems fair to use those as the basis to test the viewpoint you espouse. The account in each book is similar, so let us take Mark 4:1-13 as the example, but with a more complete context:
Jesus had been teaching a crowd, and used a metaphor, or “parable,” to make his point. This was the parable of seeds sown by a farmer, some of which flourished and went on to produce grain, and others of which fell in unfortunate places and for a variety of reasons failed to produce. Afterwards, the Apostles asked Jesus, “Why do you teach in parables?” It is Jesus' answer that you cite as evidence that He has shown the Apostles some great inner event of ecstatic or mystic experience- the “kingdom of God” within each of them, because Jesus says, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you.” However, if you continue to read from there, you soon find two things. First, you find Jesus saying that He taught in parables so that to some the truth would be revealed, and to others, the truth would remain obscured. This would appear to argue against the presence of the kingdom of God in all people. Second, Jesus immediately asks the Apostles, “Do you not understand the parable? How then will you understand any parable?” Apparently the Apostles did not, since Jesus went on to explain it to them. If, indeed, the Apostles had already been shown this inner kingdom of God, how could they not understand what Jesus spoke about? This is the event you said is more powerful and irrefutable than Jesus actually rising from the dead, but the Apostles did not recognize it, even after “they immersed themselves in it,” as you put it.

Another persuasive argument against your understanding of the kingdom of God comes from a statement Jesus made which we see earlier in Mathew 12:26, 28. Here, Jesus has been accused of serving Satan, since he is casting out demons and shows authority over the servants of Satan. He replies, “If Satan drives out Satan, then he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand?... But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come among you.” In this example, as in the previous example from Mark, the word translated as “kingdom” comes from a Greek root that conveys the idea of “rule” or “reign.” The word could as easily be translated to say “reign of Satan” and “reign of God” as “kingdom of Satan” and “kingdom of God.” Therefore, what Jesus is saying is that Satan rules in some people, and God rules in others. They are not compatible, and where one is, the other is not. Therefore, all people cannot have the kingdom of God within them, since Jesus makes clear that Satan rules some, and that the Spirit of God, in the progression of the kingdom of God, drives out Satan from where he is and replaces him in some instances.

The “Gnostic Gospels” say some things that traditional Christians find strange. Here are some examples (taken from The "Scholars' Translation" of the Gospel of Thomas, by Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer):

14 Jesus said to them, "If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves, and if you pray, you will be condemned, and if you give to charity, you will harm your spirits.... After all, what goes into your mouth will not defile you; rather, it's what comes out of your mouth that will defile you."
The first part of this verse appears to contradict Jesus instructions in the accepted cannon regarding fasting, prayer and charity. The second part, though, is consistent with Jesus own words in Mathew 15:11. In that passage, Jesus is confronting the Pharisees after they complain that the Apostles, all of them Jews, did not follow the Jewish law regarding washing their hands before eating. Jesus' rebuke here shows that He found the Pharisees hypocritical, because they observed the law, but did not observe real love for God. Thus it is made clear that the old law is no longer the standard, but God judges the heart. Likewise in Mathew 12, when Jesus' disciples picked grain from the fields to eat, “breaking” the Sabbath by harvesting, and when Jesus healed the lame and sick on the Sabbath, also found in Mark 2:23-27, where Jesus says, “... the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” However, the Gnostic “Gospel of Thomas," quotes Jesus as saying, in v. 27, "If you do not fast from the world, you will not find the kingdom. If you do not observe the sabbath as a sabbath you will not see the Father."

In another, somewhat related example, Jesus' disciples ask when they will see Jesus again after he leaves them:
15 Jesus said, "When you see one who was not born of woman, fall on your faces and worship. That one is your Father."
Jesus, of course, was “born of woman,” his mother being Mary. Therefore, anyone “not born of woman” has an even more supernatural origin then Jesus' own birth to a virgin. However, this Gnostic verse is in contrast to Jesus' words in John 14:9: “... anyone who has seen me has seen the father. How can you say 'show us the father'?”

One would think that, after nearly 2000 years, there would be general agreement regarding the kingdom of God, at least among traditional Christians. That is not the case, because the concept of the kingdom of God is, in reality, a metaphor for the ongoing approach of the return of Jesus, and the rule of God in the hearts of people as that event draws nearer. Metaphors, by their nature, are often hard to reconcile with all aspects of the reality they represent. Further, it seems clear that some aspects of the kingdom of God were introduced and present when Jesus walked the earth as a physical man, and remain in effect today. Other aspects have yet to be enacted, and will be in God's own time. In examining the concept of the kingdom of God, though, as a core theme (if not THE core theme) of Jesus' teaching, conclusions drawn from Biblical sources must, of necessity, be consistent with the whole of the Bible. Conclusions not consistent with the whole of the Bible cannot be reliable. Among those things that must be consistent is the emphasis placed on the eternal nature of humankind (the "eternal life," which is happening now AND after this life), and the final judgment by God that will separate those who know Him from those who do not (Mathew 25:46, John 12:25). And that is why the Gnostic Gospels are not in the accepted cannon of Scripture; they are not consistant with the rest of the books which were selected for the cannon.

Posted by Michael Trimble on March 24, 2007 06:28 PM