The Flesh and The Spirit

 Beginning with Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus in John 3, you see the difference between what is of the flesh and what is of the Spirit being pointed out throughout the New Testament, and with Paul's and John's writings in particular; what is born of flesh and what is born of the Spirit, or in John's first letter, what is born of God.

     In John 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again from above in order to even see the kingdom of God, and that what is born of flesh is flesh, and what is born of Spirit is Spirit, emphasizing that one cannot produce the other. In John 15, Jesus tells His disciples to stay put in or make their home within Him, and if they don't they can't do anything at all. In John's first letter he says both that the person who does this doesn't "sin," and that what is born of God does not "sin." In Paul's writings he becomes adamant about walking in the Spirit and not living according to the flesh, and states that these things are opposed to each other, so that you don't do what you want to do. He says that those living by the flesh cannot please God because the thinking of the flesh is hostile to God, and says that there isn't a condemnation for those in Christ Jesus who don't walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

     This understanding of the inability of those functioning from, living according to, or walking in the flesh to do anything other than "sin," and the total inability to do what God wants by them is the foundational understanding that runs throughout the New Testament. In the same way is this understanding that those who are born again from above, walking in or living according to the Spirit, inheriting the Kingdom of God can do nothing else but please God while they are so doing because it is God doing it through them.

     That both Jesus, Paul, and John were almost begging the disciples to do this and not to live according to their flesh says that it was a completely voluntary, and not a once and done thing. It was possible to make mistakes if you stopped walking in the Spirit, if you stopped making your home in Him, and it was possible to return to dong so if you did find that you stopped.

     The genuine teaching of discipleship, of even the Gospel itself, got muddied, shoved to the side, and even outright thrown away in some cases in favor of the teaching that it was all about who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. And this latter thing has been used to beat and control people with fear for hundreds of years, something which Jesus never did. Neither did Paul.

     The Gospel which the New Testament preaches isn't about who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. It's about what source our behavior comes from in the here and now. It's about manifesting the God who is Love through us instead of living in the existential hell which our own flesh forces us into. That Gospel about who goes to heaven and who goes to hell is a human construct based on human misunderstanding, guilt, and fear and transforms our perception of God into a cruel, vengeful, abusive bloodthirsty pagan deity, nothing like what Jesus showed us the Father is.

     "Walk in the Spirit, and you won't bring the desires of the flesh to completion." This is the practice of being a disciple of Jesus Christ, the sum total really, in a nutshell. The rest is commentary.

An Overview of the "Sin Nature" and Its Solution

 What Evangelicals call the "sin nature," Paul called "hamartia," and the ancient Hebrew authors called "khata'," is actually the improper growth of certain small parts of the human brain to a larger size than was intended, in particular the human amygdala, also affecting the hypothalamus as the amygdala controls how the hypothalamus is activated. This is a result of our ancient ancestors consuming a piece of fruit containing a toxin which altered our genetics involving this part of the brain, causing it to grow larger than theirs originally had been.

     The enlargement of the human amygdala caused the human brain to enter into an overactive or nearly constant survival response, treating everything as either a survival threat or a survival necessity whether it was a physical survival threat or not, something which is unknown among other animals. The constant sub-conscious survival or panic response drowned out the immaterial consciousness' natural connection to God, the Source, so that the "necessities" or "threats" were instead constantly being reinforced in the human mind and the human mind then latched on to them, forming a pseudo self-identity based on what it "liked," those things it believed were necessities, and what it "didn't like," those things it believed were threats. Those things it liked, the survival necessities, were deemed beneficial or "good," and those things it didn't like, the survival threats, were deemed malevolent or "bad." These effects can be seen in very young children from nearly the time they have learned to talk. From two years old or earlier, a young child has determined that those things it likes are "good" and it must have more of them, and those things it doesn't like are "bad," and it must eliminate them or be removed from them immediately. This is the foundation of human moral development as it moves from self-centric morality to black and white rules based morality, those rules the child agrees with, to a more nuanced, philosophically based morality. But the foundation of all of them is whether or not the person agrees with, likes, or disagrees with, doesn't like, the thing or rule in question.

     This is also the reason why animals do not appear to have a concept of morality. Compassion and empathy, yes, but not a sense of arbitrary "good" or "bad." Their survival response mechanisms are still working as intended and are applied only to actual perceived physical threats.

     Because of this relatively minor alteration from the human brain's original configuration, an enlargement of the amygdala, human beings are nearly constantly ruled by fear, aggression, and bodily cravings which are only kept in check by human society with a somewhat functional empathy, the ability to feel what the other person is feeling and its accompanying compassion, and whatever rules and punishments are agreed upon in order to constrain harmful human behavior. But those rules and punishments, because they operate from the same survival response system's psychology which is the problem, cannot actually solve the malfunctioning behavior, and at times can actually make it worse.

     This is the reason why this whole system must be bypassed as a source of human behavior, and the original connection by the consciousness to its Source must be allowed to operate freely. This is the reason for Jesus Christ, His birth as a virgin born human being, His life and teachings, and His death, burial, and resurrection. The re-connection afforded by our union with Him in His death, burial, and resurrection allows for the malfunctioning parts of our brain to be bypassed so that His Consciousness may then return to its appropriate function within the human psyche, thus producing non-harmful and beneficial behaviors in synchronization with the character and Person of the Source, that is, God.

Fully God and Fully Human

      What does it mean that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully Human, the orthodox doctrine handed down by Ecumenical Church Councils since the fourth century, and upon which so much modern Christian theology rests?

     I wrote something the other day, and a friend posited a query about it in relation to Jesus being, as the orthodox teaching goes, fully God and fully Human. His line of thinking followed that, logically, Jesus could be one or the other, but not both, and if Jesus was any different from any other human being, He could not be fully human.

      What does it mean to be "fully human"? This is a question that has serious ramifications for how we see other people. Does fully human mean representative of the average or "normal" human being? If this was the case, one might exclude those with Down's Syndrome from being fully human, or anyone born with a deviation from normality. In truth, this is a question many people have tried to answer repeatedly over the centuries and millennia, and failed with damaging and disastrous results. It might actually be a question that goes back to when there were other species of hominid in addition to homo sapiens. Our ancestors didn't answer that question well then either, at least in my opinion, as we are the only remaining species of hominid left.

     If one were to define "fully human" as having human DNA which matches the DNA of other human beings within the same tolerance which we would use for the rest of us regardless of physiological abnormalities, if we consider His being born without the malfunctioning survival response system an abnormality, then there's a good bet that Jesus Christ was in fact fully human. It's clear from observations written about Him that He was in fact born from a woman, He grew up, had a childhood, ate, drank, needed to sleep, could be physically touched, and had His own, independent free will, intellect, and emotions like every other human being does. When injured He bled. He appears to have had a heart condition possibly related to the circumstances of His parthenogenesis. I think it can be presumed that if He ate and drank, He would need to eliminate those waste products as well. So, clearly, from all observable evidence, any reasonable definition, and within the tolerance we would show for anyone who might have been born different from the average, Jesus Christ was fully human.

     And fully God? How was He fully God? this is where we get truly hung up, because this is human beings trying to explain or define what we simply don't have the language tools or experience to explain or define. In John's Gospel, he describes Jesus as being the Logos, both existing right next to God and being itself God, having taken on human flesh. The Logos in the ancient Roman world was similar in concept to the Tao or even the Hindu Om. It was divine in nature with a relationship to the God, as the ancient Greeks and Romans used the term, which at times seemed distinct and at times overlapped. A standard definition might be the "divine principle which was used to create everything, and which also resides in every human being in some form." According to John and the other New Testament authors, this divine principle was born as a human being, was either identified as "I Am" Himself or "I Am" spoke through Him so frequently as to be indistinguishable from His own personality, was before everything else, the "firstborn of all creation," and was responsible for creating everything.

     It occurs to me that without the inherited malfunction, when Jesus Christ was born, His brain would not have been born in the same "panic mode" which the rest of us are born with. His brain would not have jury rigged an "emergency OS" so to speak. It wouldn't have needed to. He would have been born with His own name, His own free will and intellect, His own set of experiences, preferences, biology, and so on, but without the malfunctioning EMI which plagues the rest of us. He would have been born with full connection to, submission to, and cooperation with that Consciousness of I Am which is also the Foundation, the base upon which all of creation is coded or shaped. He would have been born enveloped in His Father's presence and love from the start without any kind of resistance to it. His personality, aside from the clearly human experiential and biological component, would have been otherwise entirely shaped by this unbroken connection with the Father, the Source. And these two non-competing components of His individual personality, Human and Source, if you will, can be observed from the Gospel writings.

      Jesus Christ represents a human being the way a human being was meant to function, with full connection and cooperation with the Source Consciousness, if you will, the Father from the start. According to the Scriptures, He was meant to be the "Firstborn among many brothers," that is, He was meant to set the rest of us right so that we could be like He is, free from the malfunction which causes all of our problems and separation. He was and remains fully Human as well as fully God, and invites the rest of us to become as He is through union with Him.

On the Error of Misunderstanding God's "I Am" with One's Own "I am"

 I've been reading and taking in a fair amount of what would be considered "New Age" material lately. This kind of material would likely have scared me off twenty years ago or more, but not any more. Like with everything else, it's not a matter of being afraid of it, it's a matter of dealing with the ideas and information, testing them, and either accepting or rejecting them based on best possible current and previous evidence.

      I have written before that God the Father is the "Foundation" of all of creation, including human beings. That is, everything which was created was coded using His very Being or substance to build it. In this way, all of creation is essentially information using Him as the "building blocks" to give it form and substance. After all, when God was all there was, what else was He going to use to create from? Void when void didn't exist?

     The New Age materials seem to understand this concept very well, except it is my opinion that they make a serious error in failing to grasp a significant nuance.

      Everything which exists, including human beings, is made from God, and it requires God in order to "physically" exist as anything more than just information. This being said, the nuance that isn't grapsed is that while all human beings are coded from God's own Being, and all human consciousnesses are coded from God's own Consciousness as independent free wills, this does not mean that all human beings can lay claim to being "I Am." Coded or built from "I Am," but not the singular personality that is "I Am." The pot which is made from clay requires the clay for its existence, but the shape, hardness, and characteristics of a pot are "programmed" into the clay so that it thus becomes a "pot," a "cup," or a "plate." It is made from clay, but the clay has been so altered so that the "pot" or other dish is the vessel's "persona" if you will.

     It's clear in nearly every Scripture from virtually any ancient religion that the persona of God, the person of "I Am," is a separate mind, will, and emotions from the individual personas of creation, and reacts and responds to human beings as a distinct persona from them.

      It is my opinion that this error in thinking in human beings is generated by the malfunctioning EMI which takes the truth of the concept of being coded or made from God's own being and then, because of the inability of human language to convey the important distinctions and nuances involved, assumes that it is one and the same as "I Am," when in fact the EMI itself is an artificial construct, the physical brain's attempt to jury rig an OS if you will because of the interruption of its connection to that original Consciousness due to the overactive survival responses and the underlying panic mode in which it finds itself. Thus the Ego caused by the malfunction misunderstands and calls itself "I Am" after learning the truth of the origin of the human consciousness, and creation as a whole.

     I am made or coded from I Am's own Being, but "I" am a distinct free will and independent intelligence from I Am Himself. I cannot and do not exist without Him, but He can clearly exist without me. That distinction is one which He Himself makes and respects, refusing to involuntarily erase the free will and independent intelligence of any of us, choosing instead to elicit our cooperation in relationship with Him. This is of absolute importance to Him in a way which the malfunctioning EMI of a human being simply cannot comprehend, and it is ironclad, adamantine, and immoveable either within time or outside of it. Even in the reports from NDEs when a person experiences the love and Being of God and union with Him in its fullness, there still remains a distinct free will and intelligence even as the person's consciousness experiences oneness with everything and everyone.

     It is an important distinction, and important nuance to understand this difference as one progresses in relationship and union with God, regardless of the religious tradition one might approach it from.

God is Love

 God is love, agape. Why is this so hard for people to understand? Because the human brain, and the self-identity it creates, doesn't actually operate from a position of love or agape. It operates because of its malfunction from a position of panic, aggression, and bodily cravings. It doesn't really comprehend or apprehend agape.

     God is love. If the human mind truly understood the depth of that statement...

     God is love. This, more than anything else, should inform those who profess to act and speak in His name on what their own behavior should look like. Lovingkindness, mercy, and compassion should be the primary and overwhelming drive of everyone who professes to know and follow Him.

     God is love. Anyone who hates anyone else doesn't know Him, doesn't follow Him, and has no understanding of Him at all. There's a reason the most important commands in the Scriptures are to love God and to love the person next to you. There is simply no leeway, no exception, and no room for anything else. 

     God is love. God is not complicated. He's not as mysterious as human beings think He is. He is actually about as simple as it gets. He is love. We believe Him mysterious because we can't wrap our malfunctioning heads around the simplicity of Him being love, wholly and totally.

     God is love. This is why He is holy. This is the foundation of His justice, a justice so very different from ours because He doesn't seek to punish, but to make right without destroying the person's free will. The greatest justice is the restoration of the offender to a state of right being through love, not his destruction.

     God is love. How many different ways does it have to be said? How many times does He have to command it, say it, explain it, and draw pictures to get His point across?

     God is love, and He wants us to be love too. That's all. That's what we as a species were initially created to be. Love incarnate. Then we screwed up and for all intents and purposes became fear incarnate and doomed ourselves and our planet. His justice is to restore us, renew us, and bring each and every one of us back to this state of right being, this state of love, no matter how long it takes.

     God is love. From unending to unending, He is love. There is no bottom, no ceiling, and no boundaries to it. God is love.