The Osis Packet

7/29/2019 The Osis Packet

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Born of God Really?

By John Gavazzoni

John Gavazzoni is a non-denominational theologian, evangelist, writer and speaker,and former pastor. He served on the CUA Board of Directors in 2007. This article is

published online at http://www.christianuniversalist.org/articles/bornofgod.html

For many, many years, during the period when I was quite conventionally-oriented in my

theology, I fully, without question -- and to be honest, unwilling to entertain anything to

the contrary -- thought that the substance of humanity came forth out of nothing.

I believed, of course, that we originated by the creative act of God, but certainly did notbelieve that our substance was eternal in nature, that God had shared with us His verysubstance in bringing us into being, or that, by us, in/with Christ, Deity had increased

Itself as Family. Now, by the grace of God which is mightily able to effect the deepest

change of mind in any of us, and that, when He chooses, I now stand firmly in the

conviction which I once deemed, a most deviant heresy.

I have always been a committed preacher of the new birth, of spiritual rebirth from

above, but I previously thought that being born from above was identical to being born ofGod. That the two are very essentially related, of course, there can be no doubt. But I see

now that being born of God is the larger context in which being born again, or born from

above must be understood. It would certainly seem that there is some distinction betweenborn and being reborn.

It was my former conviction that I, by inclusion in Adam, had my origination as a personby the creative act of God whereby He brought all creation into existence out of nothing

(Theo.: the doctrine of creation ex nihilo), and, having received the Lord Jesus as my

personal Lord and Savior, been born of the Spirit by the act of God by which He, by the

Holy Spirit, gave me His life in Christ. There was certainly a wonderful vein of truthwithin that understanding, but nevertheless also, substantial and significant elements of

ignorance and misunderstanding.

The conviction that we possess eternal being and personhood in God is usually referred toas belief in pre-existence. It does not really require too much thought to realize that the

term pre-existence, used in this way, is a misnomer, for eternity does not have to do withpre-existence, or for that matter, a bye-and-bye-someday existence, because eternity is

not a dimension that was before time and will once again be after time is over, but rather

eternity is now, the NOW which is God Himself, the NOW that encompasses,

circumscribes and permeates space-time as He immanently plays hide and seek with Hiscreation yet, all the while, transcending it.


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We are all, at this very moment, living in time within eternity---

time being a temporal dimension WITHIN eternity, not interrupting eternity---

somewhat accurately, yet crudely illustrated by Plato's idea that our present

existence is like that of a man living in the darkness of a cave with a little light

filtering in from the outside world, while he is largely ignorant of that world thatgives larger meaning to his cave-existence.

But when we are enlightened to affirm that "I AM" is the ultimate Ground ofall Being, our own included,

our cave-dwelling days shall have come to an end in the brightness of theeternal Day,

which is Christ, Himself. Our being and personhood is a matter of eternal birthing---

Creaturehood, in time, proceeds out from Being,

the Being in whom we have our being---

and God is the One who does the birthing.

I'm really talking about God giving birth.

I'm really talking about really being "born of God."

The conventional evangelical idea of being born of God falls short of the truth that God

giving birth to us is, wouldn't you know, first and foremost God's experience. Do we

realize that the experience of being born of God is first God's experience within Him/HerSelf before it becomes our experience? (when I say, "before," I do not mean as on a time-

line, but "before," as in the Ground from which all things proceed.)

Honestly, really, we've all been conceived in and birthed out of God. Rebirth, or being

born again, or born from above in our creaturely, time-oriented existence and experience,

is about being reconnected to, remembering, being awakened to, and realizing in time thetruth that we have been, in and from eternity, born of God.

We re-member, that is, we return in creaturely experience to being members of Christ's

eternal Body, that Body born of the conjugal uniting of the complementary gender-completeness of the reproductive love attraction within God. Christ, and we, in Him,

have been conceived and born by God's Self-knowing from which proceeded the Son of

His love. You, with your elder brother, THE Son of God, are God's love-child.

Do you realize that you were born by a passionate attraction that occurred, and is still

occurring in God? What triggered your divine birth was when the twinkle in Deity's eye

met It's own come-hither look.

You are a love-child, a passion-fire-child. You had to experience creaturely separation

from that Love-family, so that in re-membering, in the gathering together, the re-collection of all things in Christ, you might fully know the glory of your Being.

"Beloved, now are we the children of God..." (1 John 3:2)


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The Destiny of the Race of Man: AnOrthodox Christian Understanding

By Dr. George Zgourides

Dr. George Zgourides is an Eastern Orthodox Christian author, clinicalpsychologist, family physician, volunteer hospital chaplain, and former priest. He

has served on the CUA Board of Directors since July 2007. This article is publishedonline at http://www.christianuniversalist.org/articles/destinyofman.html

According to Meyendorff'sByzantine Theology, at the heart of the Byzantine

understanding of humanity's destiny is the doctrine of participation in God, termeddeification, or theosis (163). Along these lines, Meyendorff quotes Maximus theConfessor as follows:

In the same way in which the soul and the body are united, God should become

accessible for participation by the soul and, through the soul's intermediary, bythe body, in order that the soul might receive an unchangeable character, and the

body, immortality; and finally that the whole man should become God, deified by

the grace of God become man, becoming whole man, soul and body, by nature,and becoming whole God, soul and body, by grace. (164)

In other words, man is called to participate and share in the deified humanity of Christ,not merely in imitation of Jesus' moral and virtuous acts, but to actual life in Christ,

particularly through the sacraments (164). The whole person, then, participates fully in

the divine nature of the whole God (164). Ware, in his The Orthodox Church, adds thathumans, created in the image of God, fully acquire God's likeness and in the process

become deified (219). Because God became human that we might be made god (21,

quoting St. Athanasius), humans become a created god, a god by grace or by status (232;

c.f. John 10: 34-35). And as the three members of the Trinity dwell one in another, so arehumans called to dwell in the God-head (231). Hence, theosis enables Christians to

become by grace what God is by nature (21). For the Orthodox faithful, then, to be saved

and redeemed is to be deified (231).

The doctrinal foundation of deification rests in the hypostatic union between the human

and divine natures of Christ (Meyendorff 164). This human-divine hypostasis belongs toChrist alone (164), while the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are said to be three persons

[hypostasis] in one essence [ousia] (Ware 23). There is, however, communication

between the energies of Christ's hypostatic natures, and those who are in Christ also share

in this communication (Meyendorff 164).


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Union with God is union with His divine energy (actions, operations, power) but not His

divine essence (nature, inner being). In The Orthodox Way, Ware quotes St. Basil as

affirming, No one has ever seen the essence of God, but we believe in the essence

because we experience the energy (22). The human finite mind cannot comprehend theinfinite mind of God, which remains a mystery to man. To experience such

comprehension would be to know God as He knows Himself, which is impossible forcreated beings (22). However, man is able to experience directly God's energies in theform of grace, love, and life, to mention only a few (22). And, of course, man is never

deified through his own works or efforts; the human energy must become obedient to the

divine energy. Nor are human and divine natures ever confused or fused: The created cannever be the same as the Creator (23).

In The Orthodox Way, Ware notes that through theosis humans do not lose their personal

identity, integrity, or sense of self (23). Instead, they remain distinct (but not separated)from God, and they always maintain an I-Thou relationship with God (23). In the end,

humans become more fully who they were meant to be. By freely conforming to God's

will, they achieve the supreme goal for which they were created (Meyendorff 165).

The notion of man's eventual deification leads to certain conclusions regarding humanity

and creation. The Christian concepts of fall (sin and separation) and restoration (salvationand deification) are based on the idea that man is created in both the image of God

(iconos, with the ability to exercise reason and free will) and the likeness of God (the

ability to choose and live morally). The first humans were created as perfect beings in apotential sense, and they were called to use their image to acquire the likeness of God --

with God's help (Ware, The Orthodox Church 220-221). Through rebellion, however,

man did fall, and his sinfulness placed a wall between God and humanity that man could

never tear down on his own (225). In turn, God came to man because man could nolonger come to Him (225).

The constant theme in the deification of man is that of redemption through theIncarnation of the Word -- the Logos (Meyendorff 159). Indeed, the redemptive death of

Christ restores humanity's fallen and broken state to one of participation in the divine

nature (c.f., II Peter 1:4). Humankind is destined for union with God. So when men freelychoose to respond to God's love and call, they are deified by being assimilated to God

through virtue (219, quoting John Damascene). And not only will the human body be

deified. At the appointed hour, the entirety of creation will be saved, glorified, and

transformed from corruption into a new heaven and a new earth (234; Revelation 21:1).

On the topic of freely choosing God's will, the term synergia refers to humanity's

cooperation with God in attaining full fellowship with Him (221). On the one hand, fullcommunion with the Creator cannot occur without God's grace and assistance. On the

other hand, man must do his part, too (221). The two work together, although God's part

in the process is always incalculably greater than man's part (221). Still, while God maycall sinners to repentance, He never interferes with man's free will-his ability to choose

between good and evil (222). God always respects man's decisions, even if the result is

disobedience and sin. As God works in man, and humanity's will is conformed to God's


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Will, union with Him becomes more complete as man develops into His likeness. The

Orthodox hold that the Mother of God -- the Theotokos who perfectly cooperated with

God-is humanity's best example of synergia in action (222). Ware, in The Orthodox

Church, summarizes the key concepts of deification and theosis in the following severalpoints:

Theosis is the ultimate goal of all Christians, and the process begins in the present

life (236).

Theosis prompts continued repentance (236).

Theosis requires following God's commandments and walking daily with Him by

praying, fasting, receiving the sacraments, reading the Scriptures and ChurchFathers, and so forth (236).

Theosis is a social process that embraces the commandment to love neighbor as

self, for example, by feeding the hungry and visiting the sick (237).

Theosis is a practical process that encourages both prayer and love in action

(237).

Theosis presupposes a common life in the Church and sacraments (237-238).

To conclude, theosis is the process whereby man becomes what God originally meant

him to be. Man and God must work synergistically to bring about man's redemptionthrough the Incarnation and subsequent death of our Lord and Savior. And, in the end,

deified man will fully commune with God, and participate in His divine energies.

Works Cited: Meyendorff, John.Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes.

New York: Fordharn University Press, 1979.

Ware, Timothy. The Orthodox Church. New Edition. London: Penguin, 1997.

Ware, Timothy. The Orthodox Way. Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's SeminaryPress.


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Theosis: The Fusion of Man/Woman andGod?

By ngel F. Snchez Escobar

ngel F. Snchez Escobar is a member of the Roman Catholic clergy.This article is published online at

http://www.christianuniversalist.org/connection/theosis-fusion.html

According to Orthodoxy and the Eastern Fathers of the Church, there are two main ideasto the complex concept of theosis or deification as the salvation of man/woman: on the

one hand, that God, as a deed of His Infinite, ecstatic love, comes out of Himself,bestows Himself on man/woman, inhabits man/woman, and seeks to unite with him/her;on the other hand, that man/woman is given the command to be perfect in the Fathers

likeness, literally to become god. Deification, the restoration of man/woman as a true son

of God, occurs by means of Gods grace or uncreated energies through His Spirit and in

Christ. In contrast with the Western Church, God is not only essence, He is also energy.If God were only essence man/woman could not unite or commune with Him. In the

deification process, both our soul residing in the mind according to Macarius the Great

(Homily 15,20) and the abode of the indwelling Spirit and our body experience atransformation (Irenaeus, Book V, Chapter 6, 1). It is the whole man/woman who

glorifies in Christ as he acquires the grace of the Holy Spirit.

For the Church Fathers, Jesus incarnation is the key to salvation and deification. The

Logos of God having taken a human body makes mankind partakers of the divine nature.

Palamas says that in the process of deification there is a hypostatic union of human naturewith the incarnate Logos of God. But is there an ontological transformation of the soul of

man/woman, and, thus, of the whole person as he/she is deified? Is there a real

participation of man/woman in intra-divine relationship, a real fusion with the Spirit,

granting the body even on earth incorruptibility and glorification or just a moraldevelopment, a communication of the divine attributes to the perfecting human being, a

vision of God when the person approaches the knowledge of the Truth?

What is true is that it must be a personal or pre-personal union, not an impersonal one.The uncreated energies, coming directly from God, are of personal origin as He is a

Divine Person as well as God the Son and God the Spirit and the center and source ofall personalities. It is through these uncreated energies that man/woman is able to divinize

as he/she acquires a new, transformed soul-personality at his unification with the Spirit of

God. For Palamas the union between man and the Divine Energies is enhypostatic, that

is, personal: it cannot exist apart from the divine hypostases.


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One wonders if the Spirit of God, the Divine Presence, as Florovsky calls it, indwelling

man/woman, is the infinite God the Spirit (also called the Holy Spirit and the Infinite

Third Person of the Trinity). Most Church Fathers must have had difficulties

contemplating a union of the soul with this Third Person as this divine Person is absoluteand in essence similar to the Father. A union with this Infinite Being would be close to

pantheism and a woman/man could lose his/her personal identity, instead of becomingindividuated. Perhaps the great problem of the Fathers was considering the Spirit of Godthe Third Person of the Trinity instead of just as a part of God, but still not a personal

one. Being so, man/woman could be embraced in the personality circuit of energy

(uncreated energies) coming from and going to the Father through the action of the Spiritof God inhabiting man/woman. This part would personalize as the soul of the man/

woman deifies and fuses with it, thus becoming a new, transformed being without losing

its personal identity, without being absorbed into the essence of God. The Bible refers

many times to the Spirit of God, without reference to the Third Person of the Trinity, thelatter idea being a later theological development. This Spirit, according to Paul, is the

same that raised Christ from the dead (Romans 8:11).

But when does this process of transformation begin and when does it end? When does the

pre-personal part of God become personal as man/woman fuses with it? I believe that

deification is an eternal ongoing process that may start in this world and, veryexceptionally, can be accelerated in this world, as in the case of Jesus or John the Baptist,

who according to Palamas would not have died if he did not die by martyrdom (Homily

40).

For Hieromonk Damascene, the theme of transformation points to the purpose of our

life. That purpose is unending union with God deification, theosis. But deification is not

a static condition: it is a never-ending growth, a process, an ascent toward God. We donot reach the end in this life, nor even in the life to come (The Way of Spiritual

Transformation). Damascene also quotes the words of St. Symeon the New Theologian,

who he believes attained what might be called the highest possible degree of union withGod in this life: Over the ages the progress will be endless, for a cessation of this

growing toward the end without ending would be nothing but a grasping at the

ungraspable. Thus our union with God is a continual transformation into the likeness ofGod, which is the likeness of Christ. We should also remember Enoch and Elijah whose

dedication to God caused them not to taste death in life, as the Scriptures say and the

Orthodox tradition confirms:

By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found,

because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony,

that he pleased God. (Hebrews 11:5)

And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared

a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah

went up by a whirlwind into heaven. (II Kings 2:12)


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It is plausible to think that both prophets might have attained deification on earth.

Moreover, we see that the fire mentioned in the Book of Kings about Elijah is reflected in

Symeons work, in which he compares our soul with a lamp kindled by divine fire: God

is fire and He is so called by all the inspired Scripture (cf. Heb. 12:29). The soul of eachof us is a lamp. Now a lamp is wholly in darkness, even though it be filled with oil or tow

or other combustible matter, until it receives fire and is kindled (Ethical Discourses339).

Perhaps light is the image we can retain in our still earthly eyes to grasp this mystery of

the Grace of God being bestowed upon us and our eternal deification and ascent to theFather. Symeon, this great teacher on the human experience of theosis, describes this

mystical light as follows:

By grace I have received grace (cf. John 1:16), by doing well I have received

[His] kindness, by fire I have been requited with fire, by flame with flame. As I

ascended I was given other ascents, at the end of the ascent I was given light, and

by the light an even clearer light. In the midst thereof a sun shone brightly andfrom it a ray shone forth that filled all things. The object of my thought remained

beyond understanding, and in this state I remained while I wept most sweetly and

marvelled at the ineffable. (Ethical Discourses 205)

He also says: That human being who is inwardly illumined by the light of the Holy

Spirit cannot endure the vision of it, but falls face down on the ground and cries out ingreat fear and wonder, because he has seen and experienced something that is beyond

nature, thought, or conception. How can we experience something beyond nature and

not be wholly transformed by it?

The Russian holy staretz (or elder) of the eighteenth century, St. Seraphim of Sarov

also addresses this light: The grace of the Holy Spirit is the light which enlightens man.

The whole of Sacred Scripture speaks about this (Conversation with Nicholas MotovilovIII). We also hear him saying:

Then Father Seraphim took me very firmly by the shoulders and said: My son,

we are both at this moment in the Spirit of God. Why dont you look at me? I

cannot look, Father, I replied, because your eyes are flashing like lightning.

Your face has become brighter than the sun, and it hurts my eyes to look at you.

Dont be afraid, he said. At this very moment you yourself have become as

bright as I am. You yourself are now in the fullness of the Spirit of God;

otherwise you would not be able to see me as you do.

This saint also points to a cosmic salvation of humanity: Learn to be peaceful, and

thousands around you will find salvation. He also says, Prayer, fasting, works of mercy

all this is very good, but it represents only the means, not the end of the Christian life.The true end is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, the deification process, in

which Spirit of God indwells mans soul and mysteriously unites with him leads man to


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unceasing prayer, to hesychasm (conscious resting in God). This is what Isaac the Syrian,

Bishop of Nineveh, in the seventh century, writes:

When the Spirit establishes his indwelling in man, the latter can no longer stop

praying, for the Spirit never ceases praying in him. Whether he sleeps or stays

awake, prayer is not separated from his soul. While he eats, while he drinks,while he lies in bed or in working, while he is plunged into sleep, the perfume of

prayer spontaneously exhales from his soul. Henceforth he masters prayers not

during determined periods of time, but at all times. (Treatises)

Unceasing, perfumed prayer naturally flows from our soul as it breathes its union with

the Spirit of God and worships the Father in heaven. Deification should be the aim of all

personalities in a spiritualizing cosmos. In this process, I dare say, the non-spiritualized

soul would be as though it would have never existed, would be no reality as the onlyreality would be a spiritual one; perhaps it might enter a pantheistic state.


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The Divine Incarnation

By Jabez T. Sunderland

Jabez T. Sunderland (1842-1936) was an American minister and missionary whoopposed the drift of the Unitarian Church from its Christian roots into secular

humanism. This essay appeared as a pamphlet in 1901 as the first in the TwentiethCentury Sermon Series, put out by the Unitarian Club in Toronto. It is published

online at http://www.americanunitarian.org/sunderlandincarnation.htm

"God was in Christ" (2 Cor. 5:19).

"If we love one another, God dwelleth in us" (1 John 4:12).

The doctrine of the Divine Incarnation is of great importance in religious thought,whatever form of faith we may hold.

There are in the Christian world today two widely and in some respects radically different

forms of this doctrine. Let us inquire what they are, study them as candidly and carefullyas we can, compare them with each other, and try earnestly to find out where lies the

truth.

In inquiring what the two forms are, we quickly get an answer from the two texts which I

have cited.

The Apostle Paul says: "God was in Christ." One view of the incarnation bases itself

upon this text and stops here, saying, This is the doctrine, the whole doctrine"God was

in Christ"only in Christthe incarnation of God is confined to one person,supernaturally born, who lived and died in Palestine, some nineteen hundred years ago.

The other view does not deny this one, except as to its limitation. It says with Paul, ''Yes,

God was in Christ." But it goes on from this and adds, with John, the very importantdeclaration, "If we love one another, God dwelleth also in us." In other words, it affirms

the divine incarnation not only in Christ but also in all humanity.

Nor does this latter and larger view of the Incarnation really array John against Paul. For,when we look further, we find that the larger thought is just what Paul also teaches, if we

take his teaching as a whole. Turning over to Ephesians 4:6, we read the followingdeclaration, as strong and unequivocal as words can make it: "There is one God and

Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all."Paul's real teaching, then,

as well as that of John, is, that God was not in Christ alone, but that he is also "inyou

all."


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In thus teaching, both Paul and John agree with Jesus, who taught, it is true, his own

unity with God, but also just as strongly the unity of all men with God. If he said, "I and

my Father are one" [John 10:30], he did not stop there, as so many teachers of

Christianity today so strangely do, but, going on, he added the other half of the truth:"That they may be one, even as we are one" [John 17:21].1

One of our poet preachers has well expressed, in the form of a prayer, this union of allwith God which Jesus taught.

"O Thou Infinite One!Let me Know myself as one with Thee;

Let me feel in my soul the vibrations of Thy Life.

Fill me, O God, with Thyself;

Let the Law that is in TheeCome as truth into my soul.

Let the order that shapes Universes

Become the conscious Law within me.Let my deeds and words

Take form from Thee as the stars do.

Let my actions be of Thy LawAs are the motions of the planets.

O God, fill, permeate, inform me,

That I may be one with TheeEven as was Christ of old."

We have now the two views of the Divine Incarnation before us.

One view limits the incarnation; the other does not.

One view sees God incarnate in Christ alone. This is the teaching of the so-called"orthodox" creeds, and of all the churches founded on those creeds.

The other sees God incarnate not only in Christ, but also in all Christ's brethrenin allthe rest of the children of the common Father. This is the view, not only of the Liberal

Christian churches, but of a steadily growing number of the broader and freer minds in all

the creedal churches, in spite of their creeds.

1 Jesus draws no line separating himself from humanity. Instead, he most unequivocally classes himself

with humanity, making his relation to God the same as that of other men. He calls his disciples his

"brethren" (Matt. 28:10, John 20:17). Paul calls him "the firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). In 2Peter (1:4) we, as well as Christ, are declared to be "partakers of the divine nature." If he is called the "son

of God," so again and again, both in the Old Testament and the New, are we also called "sons of God" and

"children of God;" and God is declared to be "our Father" as well as the Father of Jesus. On this point Jesus

himself uses the strongest possible language, speaking of God to his followers as "my Father and your

Father, my God and your God" (John 20:17). Thus we are taught most explicitly that in whatever sense

God was in him, in the same sense God is in us. "Beloved now are we the sons of God" (1 John 3:2).

"Every one that loveth is begotten of God" (1 John 4:7); "He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and

God dwelleth in him" (1 John 4:16); "Even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in

us" (John 17:21).


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Nor is it strange that this larger view finds increasing favor, for biblical scholarship is

making it more and more clear that this was the teaching of Jesus and his immediate

disciples, and historic study that this was the doctrine of the early Christian churches. Ibelieve also that philosophic and scientific study is making it increasingly clear that this

view has its foundation in fact and reason as the narrower view does not.

Let us examine the commonly received doctrine of a limited incarnation in Christ alone,

and see to what extent it stands the text of investigation.

The first thing to be observed concerning it is that it was born latelong after Christ

and in a very dark age, when a majority of men believed that God was to be seen only in

the unusual, the limited, the exceptional, the irregular, the supposed miraculousbefore

it was understood that all things are governed according to law.

Since we have learned that we live in a law-ordered universe, we are fast attaining to a

larger view of God and of his ways of manifesting himself. We are learning to see him inthe steady on-going of nature. We are discovering that the regulardisplays him far better

than the irregular, the normal far more clearly than the abnormal, the orderly far more

surely than the erratic, the universal better than the limited. Indeed we are learning thatorder and law are themselves the clearest of all possible illustrations, the most irrefutable

of all possible proofs of him. For what are law and order in the universe except the

Universe-Power working intelligently, and therefore beneficently? And that is just whatwe must mean by Godthe Infinite Power at the heart of the universe, operating in all,

and through all, and forever intelligently and to worthy ends. Order therefore is simply

his symbol; law is simply his sign his path of light as he pursues his majestic way. This is

the manner in which men are learning to think of God in our age of growing knowledgeand reason.

What then is to be presumed as antecedentlyprobable regarding an incarnation? If God isto incarnate himself, will it be likely to take place in manner different from anything else

in naturein a corner, in some one special age, in some single special land, in a little

special town in that land, in some one human being born in an unusual and exceptionalway? Is that according to the manner of God's great works and ways? I think we must say

that at least the presumption is against an incarnation in such a special, limited, and

unnatural manner.

The case may be illustrated, I think, in some such way as this: Suppose some person

should go away to some great mountain valley in Asia or Africa or Australia, and there

find a single treeperhaps the largest tree in the worldbut one single tree amongmillions, hidden away in that one remote valleyand should say to you, "There, in that

tree, and in that tree alone, God manifests himself, so far as trees are concerned." Would

you believe him? He might urge that the tree was the largest and finest known. Thatwould make no difference to you. He might even bring you reports, believed by

multitudes, that the tree had been planted by an angel from heaven, or by inhabitants of

another planet, or by God himself in a manner different from that of any other tree that


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ever grew; but all the same you would say, "No, I cannot accept your claim. Not any onetree can monopolize the manifestation of God. Do you say God planted this tree? The

God that I believe in and worship planted all treesand not by the poor expedient of

special miracle either, but by his great, wise, perpetually operative and unfailing nature-methods. So far from this tree being the only manifestation of God, I believe that God is

the creator and the very life of all the trees in all the lands of earth, and that every one ofall their millions is busy day and night, in every leaf and bud and blossom and rootlet andfiber, in showing his handiwork, and manifesting his power and wisdom." I think this is

essentially the reply you would make to one who should attempt to convince you that

God's sole manifestation in the trees of earth is in some one single, special miracle-tree.

Turn now to the Divine IncarnationGod's manifestation of himself in humanityand

must we not say essentially the same thing? When men come to us attempting to confine

God's incarnation to a single generation of humanity's long history, and to a single landand province and village in the midst of earth's vast continents, and to a single life in that

little village do we not see at once that they are thinking not according to twentieth

century methods, but methods of a darker past, and that the conception of God involvedis the conception of the centuries before law in nature was known, and when the whole

universe was limited in men's thought not only to this earth but to a few countries around

the Mediterranean Sea?

How are we to account for this strange idea that God's incarnation or manifestation of

himself in humanity is confined to one man?

I suppose we may say that this astonishing limitation is based upon the story of the

miraculous birth of Jesus. We are told that Jesus was born of a virgin. He had no human

father. God was his Father. This is cited as proof that he was a special incarnation of Goddifferent from anybody else.

Well, let us briefly examine this story of the miraculous birth and see whether it reallybelongs in the Biblewhether it is any part of the real gospel, or is only a later addition

a legendary after-growthand therefore whether it affords any basis for the belief that

God's incarnation was different in kind in Jesus from what it is in humanity as a whole.

It should be noted that two of the four gospels, or biographical accounts which we have

of Jesus, say nothing about any miraculous birth. These two are Mark and John; and

Mark is pretty generally conceded now by the best critics to be the earliest of all theGospels. But now here is something very strange. If Jesus was really born differently

from anybody else, and if this was the primary proof that he was God, it seems

unaccountable that two of his biographers, and one of them the earliest of all, andtherefore the one nearest to Jesus in time, should have omitted this crucial fact, this fact

upon which everything else depended. Yet neither one gives any hint of a supernatural

birth.

Nor is this all. Turn to the Acts of the Apostlesthe book giving an account of the things

which the "early disciples preached, as they went forth to lay the foundations of


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Christianity. What do we find here? Any account of the great teacher, whose word they

proclaimed, having been miraculously born?born differently from others, and therefore

not really a man? Not a word. Peter begins his great sermon on the day of Pentecost: "Ye

men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you."No hint is given here or elsewhere in the whole book that Jesus was born otherwise than

as all men are.

Turn over still further, to the Epistles of Paul. If Paul knows of Jesus being born

miraculously, with God as his father, and himself God, we shall of course find his epistles

all aglow and ablaze with the great the unparalleled fact. What do we find? In all of Paul'swritings not one word of anything of the kind. It is plain that Paul does not know any

such fact concerning Jesus.

Turn back now to the Gospels, and let us examine a little more carefully what we can findthere. Matthew and Luke give the story of the miraculous birth. But there is reason to

believe that it is a late legendary accretionsomething which formed no part of the

earlier and more reliable biography. That it is a late addition is indicated by the fact that itis contrary to so many things in the Gospel narratives. For example, we read in Matthew

that the friends and acquaintances of Jesus said of him, "Is not this the carpenter's son?"

Evidently they had never heard but that he was the son ofJoseph. Luke represents themas saying, "Is not this the son ofJoseph?" John makes their question still more explicit,

"Is not this Jesus, Joseph's son, whose father and mother we know?" Several times we

read, in different places, of Jesus' "father" and "parents." His disciple Philip calls him"the son of Joseph."

Mary, his own mother, declares that Joseph is his father, saying to him, of Joseph and

herself, when he was a boy, "thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing." Surely thisshould settle the matter.

But even these things are not all. We have two separate genealogical tables given us inthe Gospels both tracing the ancestry of Jesus through Josephsomething not only in the

highest degree absurd, but positively misleading and dishonest, if Joseph was not his

father.

True, the different New Testament writers greatly exalt Jesus in many ways, but never,

with the exception of the two passages already referred to in Matthew and Luke, in a way

to teach or to imply that he was miraculously bornmuch less that he was God. TheGospels represent him as working miracles, but the working of miracles was believed to

be common; not only men, but even bad men, are represented as workers of miracles. The

Gospels call Jesus lord, but that was an appellation given to many besides him, as inEngland today men are called lords. The Gospels speak of him as the Jewish messiah.

But to the Jews the messiah was not to be God, but simply a man having exalted power

given him of God. The Gospels represent Jesus as dying and then rising from the dead.But others too are declared to have risen from the dead. If Jesus ascended into heaven, so

had Elijah; and if his disciples expected him to return again, so had Elijah long been

expected to return again. And Elijah was not God, but a man like other men. If Jesus is


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called "son of God" and "begotten of God," so are others spoken of as "sons of God,"

"children of God," "begotten of God," as we have already seen.

None of these declarations or representations imply an unnatural or supernatual birth, orthat he was God. Nowhere save in the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke does the

New Testament anywhere hint at such a birth. And even this is contradicted and correctedagain and again, by the genealogies and by the utterances of those who knew him best.

Everything indicates that Jesus himself claimed no supernatural birth, and that nobody

claimed it for him while he lived, or for more than a generation after his death. Even fortyyears or so after his decease, when Mark, the earliest of the Gospels was written, the

story of such a birth seems not yet to have been in existence, or else was not credited. For

if it had been known and generally believed, surely it would have found a place in Mark.

How then did it arise? Let us see.

A full generation of time had gone since the crucifixion. Those who knew Jesuspersonally were fast passing away. He had left nothing behind him in writing. The

recollections of those who remained were growing a little dimmed with the lapse of

years. It was natural and inevitable that legends about him should begin to spring up. In alittle while there was a multitude of such. Indeed a whole volume of them, called the

"Apocryphal Gospels," has come down to us. What could be more natural than that some

of these numerous legends which time and distance wove about him, and especially abouthis birth and childhood, should make their way into the Gospels which we have in our

New Testament? What was there to keep them out? We do not know certainly the writer

of a single one of these Gospels, or its editor in the form in which it comes to us. It is

well nigh certain that each Gospel passed through several re-adaptations before it reachedthe form in which we now have it. By the time Matthew and Luke received their final

revisions, twenty years or more after the writing of Mark, the legend of the miraculous

birth had come into existence; and as such a story seemed to add to the luster of Jesus'sfame and name, it became in some way incorporated into these two Gospels. Once in,

there was not in that age the careful scholarly criticism to cast it out. And so we have it

today as a part of the New Testament.

This seems to be the explanation of the fact that we find at the beginning of Matthew and

Luke the story of the birth of Jesus without a human father,a story similar you know to

what we have in connection with the birth of Buddha, and a number of other orientalcharacters.

Thus do all lines of testimony seem to unite to make it clear that the story of thesupernatural birth of Jesus was a late and legendary accretion, and no part of the original

and real history of the life of the great Teacher of Nazareth.

What, then, follows from all this? Does it follow that God was not in Christ? By no

means. Does it follow that Christ was not divine? Far from that. What follows is that

Christ's divineness of nature was not different in kind, but only in degree, from yours and


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mine. God was in him, but also God is in all humanity. Jesus was simply the tallest soul

among his brethren, one in whom the divine spirit rose to an unwonted fullness and

power of manifestation, a man of rare genius, nobleness and strength, but whose

crowning spiritual quality lay in his seemingly perfect union in mind and will with themind and will of God, so that he was able to say with a deeper and loftier meaning than

had ever been given to the words before, "I and my Father are one."

If Jesus was "Son of God," in this he was not exceptional. His sonship lay not in any such

questionable claim as that of being born of a virgin, and therefore differently from his

brethren, but in the deep and essential divineness of the nature of man. It lay not in hisbeing less a man than others, but more a man than others. He called himself "Son of God"

and "Son of Man"shall we not say he was preeminent as Son of God because he was

preeminent as Son of Man?

What is incarnation? As the word signifies, it is God manifesting himself in the flesh, that

is, in the highest form of his creation. But is there any part of his creation in which he

does not manifest himself? Surely not; for creation is just Godthe Infinite Power andLife and Goodness that is behind all natureobjectifying himself, coming forth into

manifestation. Thus the sun shines by his light, Saturn and Uranus pull by his strength,

the flower smiles by his beauty. Ifwe "live and move and have our being in him" [Acts17:28], so do the birds, so do the planets, so do the constellations.

Emerson puts it well in his Wood Notes:

"Ever fresh the broad creation,

A divine improvisation,

From the heart of God proceeds,A single will, a million deeds.

Once slept the world an egg of stone,And pulse, and sound, and light was none;

And God said "Throb," and there was motion,

And the vast mass became vast ocean.

Maker and original,

The world is the ring of his spells,

And the play of his miracles.

As he giveth to all to drink,

Thus or thus they are and think.With one drop sheds form and feature;

With the next a special nature;

The third adds heat's indulgent spark;The fourth gives light which eats the dark;

Into the fifth himself he flings,

And conscious Law is King of kings.


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Thou seek'st in globe and galaxy,

He hides in pure transparency;

Thou askest in fountains and in firesHe is the essence that inquires.

He is the axis of the star,He is the sparkle of the spar,

He is the heart of every creature,

He is the meaning of each feature;And his mind is the sky,

Than all it holds more deep, more high."

Do you ask, How is God in all things? I think we must answer: In the lowest objects, thatis, in the whole inorganic world, he is present as simply Force orEnergy. In objects

higher, that is, in the organic world, he is present as Force or Energy and Life. In man his

manifestation is still more complete and on still higher planes. That is to say, in man Godis present as Energy, as Life, and also as Self-Consciousness, Will, Moral Nature, and

highest of all,Love. Thus while God is no more truly in a human being than in a stone,

his manifestation in the human being is far more full and in far higher ways than it can bein a stone. A man does not manifest God any more really than does a flower. But a man

manifests God on a higher plane than the most beautiful and perfect flower can do. A

flower is only a thing. It cannot think, it cannot know, it cannot will, it cannot love. Butman can do all these things. Hence man partakes of the moral and spiritual nature of God,

as the flower does not. As we rise from the lower to the higher objects of nature we rise

from lower to higher manifestations of Godthe highest of all being man.

But in man himself there is also gradation. In the man who is groveling and selfish, and

who lives in material things, God's manifestation is down on a plane only a few steps

higher than that in which he manifests himself in the brute animal; whereas in the moraland spiritual man it is up almost on the plane of the angel. In other words, as we rise in

intelligence, in virtue, in love and moral attainment, the incarnation of God in us becomes

more full and complete.

It follows that God's incarnation in the world is perpetual and growing. This is what

Evolution means. God did not come into the world once and then retire. He did not create

the world in six days and then retreat back into some far away heaven to rest. His creationis eternal. It was going on further back than our thought can reach. It is going on still. Not

only are new worlds being created in the skies, but this world on which we live is being

all the while created anewrecreated to higher and higher ends. Especially is God'screation on the earth going on in the realm of the intellectual, the moral, and the spiritual.

Here its progress is more rapid than ever before, as seen in the constant rise of man.

There never was a time when God was not in his world, the very life of all its life. But his

manifestation grows in splendorespecially it grows in splendor with the progress of the

human race. So that God's incarnation was never so glorious as now. And as the ages go


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on, and the race advances, and man rises to still greater heights of moral and spiritual

attainment, what will that be except the fuller and more perfect manifestation or

incarnation of God in humanity?

How much higher and more full of meaning does this view of the incarnation make

everything! In the light of it, all nature and all human nature become manifestations ofthe divine, each in its degree. The sunshine which wraps the world in its warm embrace,is a manifestation of God's loving and gracious presence. All exhibitions of power are his

power. All life is his life. All beauty is his beauty. All right and goodness on earth are

finite manifestations of Eternal realities, whose fountain and whose fullness are in God.

Especially what glory does this view of the Divine Incarnation shed upon human nature,

and how does it fill all man's future with hope! Christ was not a strange, solitary,

abnormal manifestation of God in human form, once in all the ages, with nothing in anyway like it before or after. He was a type of our humanity. He was a foretaste of what

waits for the race. The sleeping possibilities which are in your soul and mine came to full

blossom in him. He is a prophecy of what God holds in store for all humanity, sometime,somewhere.

This, friends, is the new, the larger, doctrine of the Divine Incarnation which is coming toour modern age.

Am I not right in claiming that this doctrine is in harmony with science, in harmony withphilosophy, in harmony with the thought of evolution and a law-governed universe, in

harmony with the real teaching of Jesus and his disciples? May we not justly claim that it

is the teaching of the New Testament restored to the world?

And does it not meet the needs of the human soul as the old doctrine does not? It removes

the distance between us and God. It lifts the human up to the divine. It makes our very

life the life of God in us. And thus it teaches us to say with Jesus, "I and my Father areone."

And how much nearer it brings Jesus to us! Now, with this view, he is no longer thestrange, the far off being that we have been taughtincomprehensible, foreign to all our

experience, half man, half God! Now he is our brothertrue, real, human, with nature

like ours, with joys and sorrows like ours, with battles to fight like oursour strong

brother, clear-headed, great hearted, noble, brave, gentle, waiting to take our weak handsin his strong hand, and lead us up to hope, to trust, to peace, to the loving heart of his

Father and our Father, his God and our God.

Yes, "God was in Christ." That is a great and precious truth. We cannot prize it too

highly. But there is another even better that crowns it, that completes it, that gives it full

significance and glory, and especially that brings it into practical touch with our lives.That other truth is, "Every one that loveth is begotten of God" [1 John 4:7]; "If we love,

God dwelleth in us" [1 John 4:12]. Thus our limitations, finiteness and poverty become

reinforced from the Infinite and Eternal Fountain of all Power, Wisdom and Love.


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It is much to recognize God in nature; it is more to recognize him in human nature. It is

much to see him in Christ; but it is most to see him in ourselves.

Said Channing: "All minds are of one family."

Wrote Emerson: "If a man is at heart just, then in so far he is God: the safety of God, theimmortality of God, the majesty of God, do enter into that man with justice."

William Blake, England's mystical and strangely gifted artist-poet of the eighteenthcentury, wrote a poem entitled "The Divine Image," which contains these profoundly

suggestive lines:

"Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,Is God our Father dear;

And Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love

Is man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart;

Pity the human face;And Love, the human form divine;

And Peace the human dress."

Two great illuminating and inspiring thoughts are rising like morning stars in the sky of

Christianity in our time. One is the Humanness of God, the other the Divineness of

Humanity.

Said the dying Baron Bunsen as he looked up in the face of his wife bending in love over

him: "In thy face have I seen the Eternal."

In the First Epistle of John [3:2] we read: "Beloved, now are we children of God, and it

hath not yet been manifested what we shall be. But we know that when it shall be

manifested, we shall be like Him."

Thus we see the barriers fall away which have seemed to separate the human from the

divine; more and more clearly the vision draws that all is divine.

In the book of Revelation [3:20] it is written: "Behold I stand at the door and knock; and

if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him,

and he with me."

Oh friends, let us know, that whenever truth or duty, or pity or tenderness, or justice or

aspiration, or any high thought or pure desire, knocks at the door of our heartsbutespecially when love stands knocking thereit is God asking to be let in. And if we open

the door he will enter, and become more and more fully incarnate in us. Thus our

darkness will pass away; a rainbow of hope will illuminate every storm, our tears will be


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dried, our weakness will turn to strength, the peace of the Eternal will be ours, and we

shall know what it means to dwell in heaven while yet we are pilgrims of earth, even as

Jesus did, because God, whose Presence is Heaven, has taken up his abode within us, the

Life of all our life.


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The Body of Christ: A UniversalistPerspective on Divine Manifestation and

Human DestinyBy Eric Stetson

Eric Stetson is a non-denominational Christian author, evangelist, and churchplanter from Northern Virginia. He has a background in the Bahai Faith and the

Assemblies of God. He is the founding Executive Director of the CUA. This article ispublished online at http://www.christianuniversalist.org/articles/bodyofchrist.html

Introduction

Who or what is God? What is the relationship between God and the universe? Is there a

special relationship between God and intelligent beings such as humans, which is

different from the relationship between God and other beings or things that exist? IsJesus Christ ontologically different from other human beings, or are the evident

differences between him and us simply differences of degree or developmental stage in

time rather than of kind?

These are profound questions that have sparked discussion and debate among Christians

as well as non-Christians for many centuries. Various answers have been advanced, andthey can generally be classified into five categories: (1) God is a singular entity and

ontologically separate from the universe and human beings; (2) God is a plural entity and

ontologically separate from the universe and human beings except in one specific case,the man Jesus Christ; (3) God is singular and ontologically separate from the universe

and human beings except as revealed in a special category of human beings, including

Jesus Christ and some other prophets or avatars; (4) God is plural and ontologically

includes all human beings but is ontologically separate from the universe in general; (5)God is plural and ontologically includes everything that exists.

View 1 is taught by orthodox forms of Islam, most forms of Rabbinical Judaism, and

classical Unitarian Christians. View 2 is taught by orthodox Trinitarian forms ofChristianity which became dominant after the takeover of the church by Rome. View 3 is

taught by Bahaism, an offshoot of Shiite and Sufi Islam that originated in Iran in the1800s, and may also find expression in some forms of Hinduism. View 4 was taught by

many early Christians, especially the Alexandrian school of Christianity. View 5 has

been taught by many Hindus, theistic Buddhists, Pagans, and mystics from various

religious traditions including some Christians.


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Delving deeper into specifically Christian views, we find various ideas ranging from

orthodox and traditional to heterodox and radical. Christianity has traditionally been

based on a Trinitarian view of God, in which the Deity is envisioned as a plural entity

(three persons) consisting of a Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that together act as one. Inthis view, God the Father is the Creator of the universe; God the Son is the preexistent

human being who was born into this world as Jesus of Nazareth, and no one else; and theHoly Spirit is seen as a distinct person of the Trinity who reveals God to human beings,rather than simply an aspect or mode of Gods manifestation. Though this is seen as the

orthodox Christian view of God in most churches, it is doubtful that the majority of

Christians today hold strictly to this perspective.

Three other views, which have been minority positions within Christian theological

history but which seem to have the implicit support of a large number of Christians of the

modern era, are Modalism, Unitarianism, and Panentheism. Modalism asserts that God isa singular entity manifesting Itself in multiple modes or forms, typically identified as the

same as the three persons of the Trinity (but in theory could include other forms as well).

Many Christians today seem to view the concept of Trinity in a way that is closer toModalism than to traditional Trinitarianism this may in fact be the predominant

perspective that is currently referred to by the name Trinitarianism. Modalism cannot

be easily classified into any of the five general categories mentioned above, and mayinclude aspects of any or all of them, depending on how it is precisely interpreted.

Unitarianism (in its classical Christian form, not the non-theistic Unitarianism that isshorthand for the Unitarian Universalist Association) asserts that God is a singular entity

beyond this world, and that attributes of God but not Gods own Self may be present

in creation, including in human beings such as Jesus. This seems to be a popular view

among a significant number of contemporary liberal Christians.

Another view of God, which has always tended to find support among mystics both

within and outside the Christian church, is Panentheism, the idea that God is present insome way in all things. Christians today who have been influenced by the New Age

movement are often sympathetic to this idea. Panentheism is distinct from Pantheism,

which is the idea that God is identical to the physical universe and does not transcend it.

One more view that must be mentioned is the belief of many Christians during the first

few centuries of church history a view that was especially common among those who

followed St. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and other theologians associated with theEgyptian branch of Christianity. This was the idea called Theosis (divinization or

deification), that all human beings were created in divine perfection like Christ, have

fallen into a state of rebellion, and may be restored to perfection and conformed to theimage of Christ in the fullness of time. This view was revived by the Church of Jesus

Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) in the 1800s. The Theosis teaching has been

revived again by some Pentecostal/Charismatic Christians in the latter half of the 20thcentury through the present day, going by the term Sonship or Manifested Sons of

God. According to this perspective, Jesus is the divine Son of God, but so are all other

humans. What makes Jesus unique is that he is the firstborn Son, the Elder Brother or


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example for all humanity to follow, the one who enables others to rise into our station of

sons and heirs of God but Jesus is not the only son as traditional orthodoxy claims.

Therefore, the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God or God the Son, is a

body of humans, the body of Christ. Depending on the specific interpretation of theTheosis/Sonship view, this body may include all human beings (Universal Sonship) or

may only include those who have been fully conformed to the image of Christ.

All of these views of Gods ontological nature and the relationship between God and

creation are attempts at envisioning a Being who, as the ultimate Source of All Being,

transcends the powers of the limited human intellect to fully conceive or explain.However, I believe that the teaching of Universal Sonship and Theosis and the teaching

of Panentheism together with a Modalistic and nontraditional modification of the concept

of Trinity can form a synthesis that would be a highly accurate way of understanding

important aspects of Gods nature and relationship with the universe and with humanbeings especially. In this essay I will discuss several key points as I present an overall

perspective on Gods being in Itself, Gods being in relation to the universe, the meaning

of Christ, and the divine origin and destiny of human beings.

Divine Oneness and Plurality

To construct a theory of God and Gods relationship with creation that is both Christian

and Universalist, I believe we need to explain the implications of Gods own nature on

the nature of Jesus Christ, human beings in general, and Gods plan for humanity and therole of Christ in this plan. First of all, we need to explore the concepts of singularity and

plurality and what these concepts could mean in regard to God and how God creates and

manifests.

If God is strictly singular, then all creation is by definition separate from God, since God

could not create by extending Godself into other forms. On the other hand, if God is in

some sense plural, then creation could in fact be manifestation or even reproduction ofGodself.

Is it possible that God could be both one and many at the same time? This would enableGod to be distinct from creation and transcending it, while also in some ways to be

manifested in it. This is the essence of both Trinitarian and Modalist forms of divine

ontology. The Trinitarian view asserts that God consists of multiple beings which

together form a oneness. The Modalist view asserts that God is a oneness whichmanifests Itself into multiple forms. In a sense, these views are mirror images of each

other. Is God one out of many, or many out of one? Perhaps God is One who becomes

many and the many return back into One. The Panentheistic and Theosis/Sonship viewscould together portray a God who expands Godself outward by creation and regathers Its

manifestations in creation back into the Divine Oneness.

We cannot plumb the depths of Gods innermost essence. But at the root level, totally

inaccessible to human perception, I believe God is One. Once God becomes perceived,

that by definition means that God is plural, because there is both Gods own Self as well


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as the perception of God from an external perspective. The very fact of there being an

inside and outside of God means that God has become divided by the creation of

perspective and is no longer strictly one. It would seem that the first act of creation is the

manifestation or projection of God into duality, a state of mutual Self-reflection and thenatural analogue for this in human experience is the existence of two genders, male and

female. This is the Taoist view of the Divine Reality as duality:yin (female, dark, cold,internal/inward drawing) andyang (male, light, heat, external/outward projecting).

The Bible confirms this basic idea by naming God with both a male and a female name.

According to the Hebrew scriptures, God is both Yahweh (male) andEl Shaddai (female).Yahweh is described as a Lord with masculine characteristics. In contrast, the term El

Shaddai means breasted one or many breasted Goddess. So there are at least two

persons or aspects of the Divine Being: God and Goddess. Further confirmation of this

idea comes from the story of the creation of Man, in which both male and female humanbeings are created in Gods own image and likeness (Gen. 1:26-27). This means that

God must be a dual being, both male and female.

In the Book of Proverbs, the female aspect of God is described as the personified Spirit of

Wisdom who emerged from Yahweh much as Eve is said to have been formed from

Adams rib and together They created the world. Yahweh and the female Spirit aredescribed as eternal lovers and co-workers in the plan of creation:

The LORD [Yahweh] brought Me forth as the first of His works,before His deeds of old;

I was appointed from eternity,

from the beginning, before the world began.

When there were no oceans, I was given birth,when there were no springs abounding with water;

before the mountains were settled in place,

before the hills, I was given birth,before He made the earth or its fields

or any of the dust of the world.

I was there when He set the heavens in place,when He marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,

when He established the clouds above

and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,

when He gave the sea its boundaryso the waters would not overstep His command,

and when He marked out the foundations of the earth.

Then I was the craftsman at His side.I was filled with delight day after day,

rejoicing always in His presence,

rejoicing in His whole worldand delighting in mankind. (Prov. 8:22-31).


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It is worth noting that in Hebrew, the term for Holy Spirit is Ruach HaKodesh, which is

grammatically female. Also of note is that the Spirit speaks of mankind as Her delight,

much as a mother might speak of her children. She continues, directly addressing

humanity as My sons and speaking to them in a gentle but authoritative motherly voicein Prov. 8:32-35:

Now then, My sons, listen to Me;blessed are those who keep My ways.

Listen to My instruction and be wise;

do not ignore it.Blessed is the man who listens to Me,

watching daily at My doors,

waiting at My doorway.

For whoever finds Me finds lifeand receives favor from the LORD.

With the introduction of the concept of human beings as the sons or children of God, wehave a third aspect of divinity. Not only is God male and female, but God is a Father and

a Mother who have Children. Children are just as much part of a family unit as the

husband and wife, and thus the Divine Being may be regarded as a plural entitycontaining within Itself all three normative parts of family structure. The Christian idea

of Trinity should be envisioned as a natural triad formed by a Father, a Mother (the Holy

Spirit), and a Child (God the Son). Traditional forms of Christianity have notconsidered the Holy Spirit to be a feminine-gendered being, probably because of the

patriarchal nature of the church throughout most of Christian history, but in fact the Bible

teaches that She is the female aspect of the Deity an aspect which God must logically

have in order to be a God who produces a spiritual child.

The Collective Son of God

Traditionally, Christianity has taught that Jesus Christ was the Son of God because he

was begotten by the Heavenly Father, but that his mother was the earthly woman Mary.

However, this could only be the case for Jesus physical body which was born from thewomb of Mary, not his preexistent spirit which was an aspect of the Deity from before

the creation of the world. The preexistent spirit of Christ must have been begotten by

God the Father and birthed by God the Mother long before the body of Jesus ever came

into being in the womb of a physical human woman.

Likewise, the same can be said for all human beings. Our spirits, the part of us that

transcends the physical world, are the children of God. Our bodies are children of thedust. Inasmuch as our physical bodies come from the dust of the ground and are destined

to return to the dust (Gen. 3:19), the spiritual essence of each one of us came out from

Gods own being and shall one day return back into God (Rom. 11:36). God is theFather of our spirits (Heb. 12:9). For in Him we live and move and have our being.

We are His offspring. (Acts 17:28).


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As these verses of the Bible show, humanity collectively is the Son aspect of the

Trinity, because all people are the children of God. This includes all people, both males

and females, and sinners and saints. Jesus may be the archetypal example of the Child or

Son of God, but he is not the only human being who is a son of God. Jesus taught peopleto pray to our Father in heaven (Mat. 6:9) and did not claim exclusive sonship for

himself alone, instead defending his claim to be the Son of God by referring to theHebrew scriptures, which describe human beings in general as gods who are all sonsof the Most High (Ps. 82:6, quoted by Jesus in John 10:34).

Indeed, God is plural according to the Hebrew scriptures. One of the names used for Godin many passages of the Old Testament isElohim, which literally means the gods.

Angels, who were part of a divine council or assembly in heaven and were believed to be

able to manifest themselves in human form on earth, are referred to as sons of God

(e.g. Gen. 6:4). Judaism developed gradually from the primordial polytheism which wasfound among ancient peoples throughout the world into the strictly monotheistic faith it is

today. Jesus made it clear that he opposed the rigidly Unitarian view of God held by

many rabbis of his time which became the dominant view in Rabbinical Judaism.Instead, he affirmed the concept of a plural or corporate Deity who is in some way

manifested in intelligent beings within the created universe such as humans.

The idea that God reproduces Him/Herself by creating children whether humans on

earth or angels in heaven who are literally divine beings and are in a sense

manifestations of God, may seem like a very radical idea to many Christians today.However, this idea is Biblical and is also logical, if we believe that God is both male and

female as the Bible also teaches. After all, reproduction is what naturally happens when

male and female energies interact and combine with one another!

The implications of this view of God are profound. If God is a being who reproduces,

then this means that God is not static and monolithic but complex and growing. Through

the Son of God or Child aspect of the triune divine family-nature, God is continuallymanifesting and expanding divinity into a potentially infinite number of unique

expressions as various intelligent spiritual beings in the universe. All of these beings,

whether human or extraterrestrial or in non-physical dimensions of reality, are each intheir own individual way like holographic copies of the essential attributes of Deity. In

this way, God enriches Godself and lives through innumerable forms. The teleological

aspect of the creation of Man comes into clear focus according to such a view, for if all

souls emanate outward from the Divine Source in a reproductive act taking place withinGods own Being, then our existence has its origin in love and is part of a glorious plan

of divine multiplication.

Adam Returned in Christ

How does Jesus Christ fit into the divine plan? Is he a man who has attained theperfection of godhood before others and shows us the way? If so, why did he need to

attain it in fact, why arent all human beings already perfectly divine? If all people are

the children of God, why should an exemplar like Jesus even be necessary?


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To answer these questions, we must explore the deeper significance of the story of Christ

and how it relates to the human condition in general. First of all, if the human condition

is that of a child in relationship to God, our Parents, then this means that human beings both individually and collectively are in a process of growing up from infancy to

maturity. Christ, as the firstborn son of God, would be the one who sets the example forhis younger spiritual siblings to follow and assists in their training and development,much like the eldest brother in a traditional family. Also like the oldest child of a family,

Christ would be the first one to make mistakes and to go through the process of facing the

consequences and learning from those mistakes.

The Bible tells us that long before the man Jesus walked the earth, there was another man

who was also called the son of God (Luke 3:38), was perfect and sinless, was given

authority and glory over all things in the earth, and enjoyed intimate fellowship with hisheavenly Father/Mother. This man was Adam, described in the Bible as the first human

being ever created! Could it be that Adam and Christ are the same person?

I believe this is the clear implication of the story of Christ when juxtaposed with the story

of Adam. Adam represents the fallen human soul and was the father of a fallen race of

men. Christ is the transformed Adam, the firstborn son of God who comes back to defeatthe sin he originally introduced into this world. All human beings were fallen in Adam

but will overcome in Christ, because Christ is the new pattern or archetype for all

humanity.

Consider the details of the stories: Adam fell from perfection into sin, and Christ

overcame sin and ascended into perfection. Adam faced the consequences of sin in the

form of decay and death of the physical body; and Christ suffered death without decay, todefeat the power of sin and death through the crucifixion of the physical body and

resurrection of the spiritual body. Most importantly, Adams fall into sin, rebellion, and

separation from God became the pattern for all humans, a fallen race of spiritual beingsencased in flesh upon the earth; and Christs suffering on the cross, death to the things of

flesh and new life and glorification in the spirit is prophesied to be the pattern for all

humans to become a restored race of spiritual beings made perfect, again in harmony andreunited with God in heaven.

The Apostle Paul speaks of Christ as the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45) and the second

man (vs. 47). He is the last Adam in the sense that he represents the end of the Adamicstate of being, the corrupted or fallen state. Jesus was fully human and was subject to all

the things of the flesh, including temptations, sicknesses, pain, and even death.

Nevertheless, he is also the second man in the sense that he is the second archetype forhumanity to follow. Even as all humanity followed Adam into the sinful nature of earthly

life, all humanity shall eventually follow Christ into reconciliation with God in the

spiritual realm. Each individual is destined to be transformed from Adam to Christ, evenas Jesus already was. As Paul said, just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man

[Adam], so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven [Christ]. (vs. 49).


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Indeed, Adam and Christ are universal human archetypes and are two sides of the same

coin. Adam is the archetype of the spiritually immature and corruptible man, who fell

from divinity into sin and separation in the realm of flesh. The return of Adam, Christ, is

the archetype of the spiritually mature and victorious man who overcomes sin, ascendsinto glory and returns to God. In the transformation from the old man (Adam) to the new

man (Christ), we see the evidence of spiritual evolution as a basic principle of Gods planfor humanity. The Son of God progresses from the cradle of Eden (pristine state ofinfancy) through the learning process of childhood and adolescence with its laws and

rules, rebellion, discipline and punishments (as illustrated by the Jews collectively and in

the person of King David, who like Jesus was referred to as the begotten son of God[Ps. 2:7]) and finally into the maturity of spiritual adulthood with its powers and

privileges (the fully Christed state). Eve and Mary are female analogues of Adam and

Christ: Mary, the saintly mother of Jesus, can be regarded as the return of the sinful Eve,

much as Jesus is the return of Adam.

According to the Biblical creation story, Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden which

can be considered Gods nursery and went out into the world of earth. This was thebeginning of Mans difficult process of learning how to face temptation, overcome

corruption, and return to harmony in the divine spirit, often by experiencing suffering in

the process as a consequence of sinful behavior. The fallen Adamic human conditionwas summed up, expressed, and carried by Christ as the archetypal representative of all

humankind the one who, though inwardly perfect, nevertheless was a man of sorrows,

and familiar with suffering (Isa. 53:3) when he hung on the cross and cried out, MyGod, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mat. 27:46). The sinful, Adamic man feels

forsaken by God and condemned to punishment because of his karmic burden. It is

highly significant that Christ said it is finished as his last words before physical death

(John 19:30). This can be interpreted in a cosmic sense as a proclamation of the ultimateending of the fallen condition. Truly, Christ is the last Adam, the end of the Adamic state

of sin, suffering, and separation from God.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is evidence showing that Man returns to the Garden of

Paradise after sin has been overcome and all karmic debt paid for. Similarly, the

miraculous assumption of Mary into heaven (a belief of the Eastern Orthodox and RomanCatholic traditions) could be considered as a symbolic demonstration of the redemption

of the archetypal Eve, the divinized and ascended female. Mary bore the second man,

the perfect ascended master Jesus, in her womb, much as Eve was first the mother of the

fallen human race. For both the male and the female of humankind, the sinful state isovercome by the ascension into deified glory. We come full circle, originating in

perfection, falling, and then rising back into harmony with God.

But Man does not return to the nursery of Eden; we enter the paradise of reunion with

God, our Origin, in a new and far more glorious way as mature, fully divinized beings

conformed to the perfect image of our heavenly Father/Mother. Stepping off the spinninghamster-wheel of this earthly world of birth, decay, and rebirth of the flesh, we are finally

reborn into our true and enduring spiritual identity in Christ. In the resurrection of the

spirit, we attain Christhood as Jesus of Nazareth showed us is possible even for a


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suffering and rejected human being, demonstrating that Gods plan is not one of

exclusion but an all-inclusive salvation of the sons and daughters of Adam. For we are

not only the children of Adam but the children of God! The spiritual journey of humanity

is a journey from the condition of sin, separation, suffering, and death towards perfection,reunion, paradise, and eternal life. This is the journey of humankind collectively and of

each individual human spirit.

Christ as the Body of Saints

The word Christ is often used interchangeably with the name Jesus, because Jesus isChrist. But this equation of Jesus with Christ can be used by traditional Christians to

imply that only Jesus is Christ. In one sense, that is true: The word Christ comes from the

GreekChristos, which is a translation of the Hebrew word Meshiach, meaning Messiah.

Only Jesus was the Messiah of the Jewish people, at least according to Christianity. Butthe word Christ also has a broader meaning for humanity as a whole, as we have been

discussing. Christ means the Perfected Human. In this sense of the word, all human

beings not just the historical man Jesus of Nazareth are destined to become Christ aswell. Lets explore this theme in greater detail.

First of all, it is worth noting there are analogues of the name Jesus Christ as it is usedby Christians. For example, Mohandas Gandhi is often called Mahatma Gandhi.

Mahatma is a title meaning Great Soul. Gandhi is generally considered to be a saintly,

Christlike figure. Therefore, in Christian parlance, Gandhi could perhaps be calledGandhi Christ.

Sound shocking? The fact that this may shock the sensibilities of many Christians only

goes to show how far Christianity has drifted from the true Biblical understanding of theconcept of Christ. In purveying the narrow view that only Jesus is Christ and no other

human being may ever be described in this way, traditional Christians are ignoring the

idea expressed by Jesus himself in the Bible that saints are one with Christ. They arealso ignoring Pauls teaching that Christ is a corporate body of the faithful with Jesus as

its head, not its only member.

Consider this prayer of Jesus for those who believe in him: [T]hat all of them may be

one, Father, just as You are in me and I am in You. May they also be in Us so that the

world may believe that You have sent me. I have given them the glory that You gave me,

that they may be one as We are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought tocomplete unity to let the world know that You sent me and have loved them even as You

have loved me. (John 17:21-23). In this moving prayer, Jesus asks God, our Father, to

make the believers one in Christ glorified like Christ and filled with divine Christ-ness.He asks this for the purpose of bringing the whole world into the knowledge of Gods

Fatherly love for all souls.

Like Jesus who said that he has given his disciples the glory that God gave him, Paul

taught that all people will grow up into the full spiritual stature of Christ, beginning with

those who believe in him. He says that the disciples of Christ must prepare Gods


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people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach

unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to

the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants Instead,

speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is,Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting

ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Eph. 4:12-16).In other words, the purpose of becoming glorified in Christ being a true Christian is to

do the workof sharing the truth with others, to bring the whole body of the Son of God,

all humanity, into divine oneness as the Body of Christ.

This truth we are commissioned to share is not some phony truth of dogmatic

traditional Christianity, but simply the all-embracing, all-transforming truth of Gods

universal love, forgiveness, and the reconciliation of all. As Paul puts it, if anyone is in

Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God,who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:

that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting mens sins against

them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are thereforeChrists ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us (2 Cor.

5:17-20).

So it is clear that to be a Christian, to be part of the Body of Christ, means to be a worker

in this world to bring aboutthe salvation of all. God accomplishes the plan of universal

reconciliation and transformation of humankind from the Adamic to the Christed state ofbeing through the work of divine ambassadorship and discipleship. Jesus Christ served

as Gods ambassador in the earth and made disciples to raise other humans up into the

glorified state of mature Sonship and Christhood. We as his disciples are called to do the

same things, until eventually the whole world will become one spiritual body, onecorporate Christ, one mature Son of God or God the Son. Truly, we are to be the

ambassadors of Christ here on earth a light in the darkness for lost souls, a healing balm

for the sick, a helping hand for the weary. This is true discipleship and sainthood. Thisis the manifestation of oneness with Christ. While we are here on earth, we are called to

be the manifestations of God on earth!

If we are becoming transformed from being part of the body of Adam to the body of

Christ, rediscovering our true inner nature and destiny as divine spiritual beings, then we

must live accordingly, or else we are still in Adam. If we live according to the earthly

spirit of separation from God, then we are not living as a member of the body of Christbecause we are cutting ourselves off from this exalted purpose and condition. To be part

of the body of Christ means to be a disciple of Christ, a follower in the path that Jesus

showed the world; and this means we must be willing to deny the selfish ego, take upour cross daily and actuallyfollow the path of the spirit (see Mat. 16:24-25, Luke 9:23-

24), not just talk about theological beliefs and doctrines. Discipleship is what leads to

sainthood and Christhood. Excessive focus on doctrine and rhetorical Christianity the religion of churchy-sounding words without actions often leads to egotism and

separation from other human beings and from the true purpose of God.


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Each individual must find his or her own place in the collective, organic body of the Son

of God. The concept of church can be a useful way of understanding the need for

disciples of Christ to come together and work together for the salvation of all humanity

as long as we are willing to admit that there are many, many people who do not belong tophysical churches who are nevertheless important members in the invisible church, the

mystical body of Christ or body of the saints.

Paul suggests several types of roles that Christians can play in this exalted body: Some

people are to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be

pastors and teachers. (Eph. 4:11). There are workers of miracles, also those havinggifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those

speaking in different kinds of tongues categories which in modern terminology would

include doctors

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