08 May Neville Goddard Lectures: “Old Testament is Prophetic Blueprint of Life of Jesus Christ”
6/14/68
The Old Testament is a prophetic blueprint of the life of Jesus Christ. You may not know it but you are Jesus Christ, and everything said in scripture you will fulfill. God became as we are that we may be as he is, and everything in scripture you are going to fulfill.
It does not matter about the outer world. When they said to him, “Do you believe in taxes?” he said, “Give me the coin.” When he saw it, he said, “Whose inscription is this?” and they said, “Caesar’s.” Well, he said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” So he does not change anything in this world, nothing. There is no attempt to change the tyrant, to change anything. He’s simply telling us that you and I are God, and we came into a world that was predetermined, pre-made, a horrible world. And while immersed in the world, we would have an experience, the most fantastic experience in the world, which is the story as told in the New Testament of Jesus Christ. So here, everything in the world is like a play for the fulfillment of this wonderful plan that you and I will experience.
Now tonight, let me share with you not only what I have experienced but what others who are here tonight have shared with me. It’s perfectly marvelous. Now, you who are thinking in terms of the world of Caesar don’t be discouraged, everything is possible in the world of Caesar, but everything. You want money? You can have it. You want fame? You can have it. You want…I don’t care what it is…you can have it. And don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t or that you should not. If that’s what you want, you can have it.
But I am speaking this night of an entirely different picture where you will awaken as the being who completely conceived it all, created it all, became it all, and came out of it all. That is the being of whom I speak. The entire Old Testament is the prophetic blueprint of the life of Jesus Christ. He said, “I came only to fulfill scripture. Scripture must be fulfilled in me. And beginning with Moses and the law and the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures everything concerning himself” (Luke 22:37; 24:27). That’s all that he did. He didn’t try to change anything in the world of Caesar, not one thing. He wasn’t interested in those who stole, those who went forward to do all kinds of things. He was only concerned with one thing: To fulfill what the prophets have told; for everything concerning him the prophets foretold.
Now what did they tell? They said he had to be born from above, that’s what they told. “You must be born from above, for unless you are born from above you cannot in anywise enter the kingdom of heaven” (John 3:3). Something entirely different, it’s entirely different. You can’t take anything in this world of Caesar and relate it to the kingdom of heaven. It’s altogether different. I can’t explain it to anyone, because I can’t find any image on earth to describe it when I try to tell you what I know from experience of the kingdom of heaven, I can’t. There’s not an image on earth I can use.
But while we are here we can use all these images, and he allows it, to have everything we want in this world. He said, “I’ve come only to fulfill scripture.” Then when the scripture was fulfilled, he said, “Father, I have finished the work thou gavest me to do. Now return unto me the glory that was mine, the glory that I had with thee before that the world was” (Jn.17:4). Here, he tells you he came out from God. He was God himself who denuded himself of an infinite power, infinite wisdom, infinite glory and came into the world of death. Now he’s finished what he came in to do; now return unto me the glory that was mine, the glory that I had with thee before that the world was. Now he’s returning to that state, bringing back what he accomplished in this world. And what did he accomplish?—he fulfilled scripture. He prophesied all the things that man would do. And what man does is not in this world of Caesar, it’s what man does within himself. It’s completely supernatural. A supernatural birth, a supernatural resurrection, a supernatural discovery of who he really is, before he even started out. Because he was the Father before he started out. So he discovers the fatherhood of God. Then he discovers everything in this world. But by the discovery he brings back a fantastic measure of power, of wisdom, of glory that he did not possess before he started.
So I’m telling you what I know from experience. It seems strange tonight to tell you this, but he spoke to a select audience as he’s about to depart and tell them what he knew they would continue and carry on after his departure. And this is what he told them as you will read it in the 17th chapter of the gospel of John. But he’s praying not for others but for those who will carry on, who will take it and go forward and tell the story. Because it doesn’t really matter what the whole vast world is doing tonight, it doesn’t really matter. It’s only that select crowd that will really carry on and perpetuate the eternal story that has to be unfolded in everyone in this world. So he said: “I pray not for others, I pray for them, those that thou gavest to me, for they are mine, and I gave myself to them. I told them every word that thou gavest to me. I did not add to it, I did not take from it, I simply told it, just as you told it to me.” Well, the “word told to me” is what I experience. It’s not something I have heard; it’s what I experience that was the word. So you tell it and then there are those who are brought out who hear it and then they will continue after you depart this world and make your, well, exit as it were. For the call is on, believe me!
Now here tonight, let me tell you, you’re only here to fulfill scripture. You may have a desire to be the biggest person in this world, and may I tell you, you can realize it. You may have the desire to be…I don’t care what it is…you can realize it. Yet the purpose behind the entire drama is to fulfill scripture. There is no other purpose than to fulfill scripture. So one should set his hope fully upon that grace, which is the fulfillment of scripture. “Set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the unveiling of Christ Jesus” (1Pet.1:3), who is the fulfillment of scripture; for all the promises of God find their yes in him, their fulfillment in him. So set my hope fully upon the unveiling of this being in me. When he unveils himself in me, I am under compulsion to share it with everyone in my world, and tell it to every being who will listen to me. Some will accept it, some will reject it. But my purpose is to simply tell it to every being in the world who will hear me.
Now, scripture has a strange symbolism. The Bible symbolizes God. Unfortunately, our very, very wise, able scholars have not quite understood that the Bible is symbolism and they’ve tried to give it sense. So they’ve taken the individual words intended for us not to take it literally in one sense and they’ve changed it to give sense to it. Now tonight, let us turn to a few of these things. In scripture, the eye is omniscience, “the eye of God that sees everything”; it is also “God’s favor, that his eye be upon me.” The ear is obedience. The nose is anger—not as the world would understand anger. He said, “The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his mind; in the latter days you will understand it perfectly” (Jer. 23:20). Well, the word anger, which is called “the nostril, the nose”—it means that the face will not turn. It’s a heavy breathing, the breath of the Lord, and he breathes and breathes, and he will not turn until he has executed the intents of his mind.
Then we find the word kidneys and they mean the emotions. And you’ll find all the different translations changing it completely, putting it into some other word altogether. Then we’ll find the word liver. The King James Version keeps it as liver; the Revised Standard Version turns it into “the heart.” It’s not the heart. The liver is the center of life, as told us in the 7th chapter of Proverbs. The father is telling his son how to avoid the loose woman, the harlot, how the harlot will set herself up and attract this youth, and when she brings him into her house, all perfumed, and she’s all ready to receive him, she will tell him that my husband has gone away, and he will not return until the full moon, so we can have all night with love. And he will be persuaded by her words, not knowing that he is like the ox that is led to the slaughter; that he is like the stag that is snared, ’til the arrow pierces his liver, which is the end of his life. So it associates the piercing of that liver with his life. Now, our scholars change it and call it by some other name. But I’ll tell you in my own experience what it means: He pierced the right side of his body on the cross, which is the liver.
The 42nd Psalm: “And I remember when I went,” said the psalmist, “and led them in gay procession to the house of God.” I remember, said he, when they all said to me, “Where is your God?” “My soul was distraught,” said he. Now, this night in my own experience I remember when I went and led them in gay procession to the house of God. I can’t tell you how vast the crowd, an enormous crowd—for I am only here to fulfill scripture-—and this enormous crowd, and I am leading them in procession to the house of God. And a voice rings out: “And God walks with them.” One at my side, a woman, and she said, “If God walks with us, where is he?” and the voice answered, “At your side.” She turned to her left and saw me and became hysterical, it struck her so funnily. She said, “Is Neville God?” and the voice answered, “Yes, in the act of waking.” Then the voice spoke within me, no one else heard it, this enormous crowd, and the voice said, “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed…” and then I knew exactly what he was dreaming: He was dreaming that he’s I and when he wakes, he is I and I am he.
That happened many, many years ago, that 42nd Psalm. It’s a memory…the whole thing…these things I remember, when we were completely crucified with Christ. Now this is what I remember. For at that moment when I heard it, before the end of the sentence took place, my body was completely crucified. But what ecstasy! It wasn’t sadness. My hands, my head, my feet, my side were pierced by vortices. So when we are told that he pierced your liver, I know it to be true. Liver is comparative with “live.” And here, you pour out your entire being when you’re pierced by the sixth state into your side. So here is a symbolism of scripture and everyone fulfills it. You have had it. Every one of you has had it. You will remember it, and when you remember it, it all comes back: That I was actually crucified. But the crucifixion was not sad; it was the most glorious, ecstatic state in the world when I was nailed upon this cross, willingly, deliberately. And my hands, my feet, my head and my liver were completely pierced by vortices.
So I tell you, I know from experience this whole thing is a blueprint of the life of Jesus Christ, and you are Jesus Christ. You may not know it, but there is nothing but Jesus Christ. There is only Jesus Christ in the world who nailed himself deliberately upon this shadow. And while he walks this world as this shadow the drama unfolds within him, and then he returns taking back the additional power and wisdom and luminosity that he got from this experience.
So everyone here will take it back, but everyone. In the meanwhile, while we’re in the world of Caesar, may I tell you, use it wisely and do anything you want in this world. You want to be rich? You can be rich. You want to be known? You can be known. You want to be this, that or the other? Whatever you do, you can be it. But in the end it will all vanish as though it were not. For the only thing is I have come to fulfill scripture. I predicted what I would do, I told it, and then come into the world to fulfill it.
Now here, this perfectly lovely story…she’s here tonight…it’s all scripture. She said—and this is just on an aside, this is not scripture—this is an aside, but this is part of scripture based upon repentance, which means “a change of attitude.” She said, “After Kennedy was assassinated, I found myself riding in a car with Kennedy and we were riding on water. Someone said, ‘We’re on water, and I cannot walk on water’ and then I said to this one, ‘Oh, I can walk on water. I always walk on water.’ And then I woke, returned to sleep, and in my second dream here is Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and my hand is in his head molding his brain. I said to him, ‘I am simply changing the day. I am changing the order of the day.’ And as we went on I said to him, as my hand is still in his brain molding this change of the day, ‘I will take you to the potter’s house.’” She’s taking him to the potter’s house. And then she said, “I wonder what I should call you?” “Bobby?” She said, “No, that’s too childish. Bob? No, I’ll call you Robert,” said she to Kennedy. “You see it’s only a rearrangement.” She so learned her lesson that she could take this one and rearrange the day of his exit from this world, and put her hand into his brain and rearrange it, change the entire thing, and call him not Bobby but Robert. Bobby is diminutive, like Jackie, Johnny…it’s a littleness. She couldn’t even call him Bob which would not be diminutive, but she called him Robert and changed the entire picture in his mind’s eye.
Now she said, “I went back to sleep and this is my dream. I looked through seemingly this eye, it was the right eye. But, may I tell you, I was not looking through my right eye, I was looking at my right eye. I wasn’t looking through it, I was looking at it. Looking through it in a sense; I was not looking with it. I was looking through it but not with it. And the right eye opened, just a little bit…a little light beyond. I am from the dark side and I am looking through it but not with my right eye. The left eye collapsed, had no muscular reaction. And beyond this I’m looking through, I saw a little figure, a quarter of an inch, and it was Jesus Christ in a white robe.” Now she said, “I know, in this world of mine, I do not believe in any Jesus Christ in a white robe, but here I saw this little, tiny quarter of an inch figure in a white robe, and I knew it was Jesus Christ. Then it closed and opened up further, and then there were three figures. Then it closed, opened further, and then there was a woman in the center and these three figures around her. One figure had a child, a babe, in his arms, these three men, and presented it to the woman. I figured that’s Mary receiving the Christ child. The entire thing unfolded within me and I am looking not with the eye, I am looking through the eye, and seeing all this within me. It seemed as though my whole head was a luminous thing and I’m looking into my head.”
May I tell her, and she’s here tonight, read the last vision of Blake, he calls it The Vision of the Last Judgment. And the very last words in the entire Vision of the Last Judgment are “I do not consult my corporeal or vegetable eye any more than I would a window through which I look. I look through it, not with it.” May I tell you, you looked through your eye…and the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy and the 7th chapter of Amos will tell you what you saw. The 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy, you looked and you saw the “apple of his eye.” The word apple in scripture—“And I saw the apple of my eye”—he’s looking at Jacob. And “Jacob I loved and Esau I hated.” Well, Jacob the apple of his eye means “the little man in the eye,” in the pupil of the eye. Did you ever look into anyone’s eye? Know who you see? You see yourself. You never see the one that you think you’re looking at. If you look into the eye of anyone in this world, right into the pupil of his eye, you see your own reflection. God is in love with himself.
So you look right into the pupil of the eye and you see the apple of his eye, the one he loves most…and that one is himself. May I tell you, the being that you really are, the God that you are, is in love with himself, and it is you. He looks right in and he sees only you, and you are the reflection of himself. Look tomorrow into anyone’s eye or look into the mirror, look right into the pupil of the eye, and see if you see anyone other than yourself. You will never see anyone other than yourself. It’s called “the little man in the eye” as defined in scripture. He is the little man in the eye. So how, said she, this little tiny thing a quarter of an inch high—“How can Jacob stand, he is so little?” And you read that in the 2nd and the 5th verses of the 7th chapter of Amos: “How can Jacob stand, he is so little”…this little tiny thing in the eye. So you look right into the eye and you see the one that you are bringing forward into this world. You are in love with that being, for he reflects you. So everyone reflects himself when he looks into the pupil of the eye. It’s called the apple of the eye in scripture
Now, she said that when she saw these men, each one after the other said, “I am a man.” She knew she was all these men and each one said, “I am a man.” And it struck her so funnily that she could be a man. She’s very feminine, may I tell you, very, very feminine. And yet, everyone announced, “I am a man.” As I’ve told you time and again, in the end we are all brothers. There’s nothing but God, and God is humanity, and it’s all man. Everyone is man. There is nothing but man.
Now tonight it may not seem practical; may I tell you, it’s the most practical thing in the world. If I can take your mind away for a moment from the seeming “I must have tomorrow’s job, I must have tomorrow’s thousand dollars” and take you into this light and let you rest upon it for awhile, you will get tomorrow’s thousands, I promise you. You go right back into an entirely different world from what you knew before.
Now, you read the last of Blake’s: “And I do not consider the window through which I look. I do not question that window. I look through it, not with it.” Well, she looked through the right eye, not with the right eye, and it went right in, and she saw what anyone who opens up that right eye will see. I tell you she saw correctly. She saw the little figure Jesus Christ, and she knew it was Jesus Christ. He is in your eye. When you look that’s what you see, that’s Jesus Christ. And the day will come you’ll have the same experience when the eye will open. She felt herself moving inward. She was not asleep, she was half asleep, and suddenly the right eye, she’s not looking with it, she’s looking through it. As she looked through the right eye, she sees this little figure and she knew it was Jesus, draped in robes. And then it split, like a cloud parting, and something bigger came, and three men took the place. Then it split again, and then a woman took the place; and the three surrounded her; and one with a child giving it to one, this woman, and she knew it was Mary receiving the child. And may I tell you, that story is true. I know it from my own experience, the drama is completely within us, and everything concerning the story is true. But how can you tell it and persuade anyone who cannot see through that eye? We’re all looking with the eye, and you don’t, you look through the eye. I look right through the right eye, and that’s the drama that I see.
Now here, in scripture we’re told: “Who would believe our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” You read that and you wonder, “What on earth does it matter? What are these stupid words?” May I tell you, they are all true. The day will come that you will know that the arm of God is power, and the right hand of God is victory, vindication. How can I tell it? The right hand is victory, the arm is power. One day you will find yourself in a room just like this, and you’re talking to twelve and telling them of the Word of God, when suddenly one of the twelve will leave the room. And you know instantly what he’s doing. He’s revealing what you’ve said, that you’ve just told the great secret of God. And he’s going now to Caesar to tell Caesar, or Caesar’s lieutenant. Instantly, someone comes in, handsome, wonderful, beautifully gowned, and he walks to the end of the room, walks around, comes over and faces you. You all stand, because he is a very important person in the world of Caesar. You are all seated and you’re talking quite casually, as I am to you, when this thing happens. He comes in and he faces you, and he takes a sharp instrument, a knife, and he makes one circular motion, and cuts off your sleeve, and exposes your right arm. Pulls it off, this little thing, and discards it, and your complete right arm is exposed. And then he nails into your shoulder a peg, completely bangs it into your shoulder. Then he stretches his arms out, he embraces you, he kisses you on the right side of your neck, you kiss him on the right side of his neck, and then the whole thing vanishes. Then you know the 53rd of Isaiah: “Scripture must be fulfilled in me” if I am he.
And so, the right arm is revealed. So your victory has been accomplished. Your vindication has been accomplished. You have fulfilled scripture. And everyone will, everyone in this world will discover that he is Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ… “Sit at the right hand ’til I make your enemies your footstool.” And the right hand is simply victory and vindication, while the arm itself is sheer power. But this time, he takes off the robe, takes it off completely, and you see the bare arm. That’s exactly what the word means in Hebrew, “the bare arm.” He unveils it and the bare arm is revealed. Then, if that is the story of Jesus Christ and it happens to you, then you know who you are. How else would I know that I am he unless everything said of him happens to me?
So this is scripture. I tell you, it will happen to every one of you. And I can’t tell you my thrill when tonight I look in this audience and I know so many of you who’ve been born from above, and who have had all of these wonderful experiences of scripture. Because I will depart and you’ll carry on, and you’ll carry on the story and tell it. Tell it and read the 17th chapter of John to know what I’m talking about. You’ll carry on and you will tell it, because the time is up for the passage from this world. And here, I’m here only to fulfill scripture. I have fulfilled scripture, and must, like Paul, remain for a moment until it’s organized, and then they carry on.
But, for those who want Caesar’s world and Caesar’s things, may I tell you, you can have it. You can have everything you want in this world. For that is part of scripture: “Believe that you have received it” (persist in that assumption) “and you will” (Mk.11:24). I don’t care what the world will tell you, believe that you have what you want, persist in that assumption and you will have it…every one in this world. But after you have everything in the world it will be as though you made foot-prints on the seashore before the floodtide. Doesn’t matter what you accomplish in this world, for the only purpose in this world is to fulfill scripture. “I have come to fulfill scripture. Scripture must be fulfilled in me. And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” And then they said, “Did not our hearts burn within us when he interpreted to us the scriptures.” So that’s the story. Everyone will eventually experience scripture, and fulfill it to its fullness; because, in the end, we are all the same one Jesus Christ.
Now let us go into the Silence.
* * *
Now are there any questions, please?
Q: Neville, I didn’t ___(??) about the ear.
A: The ear is obedience. Listen, all through the scripture, and obey; to hear. So the eye is omniscience plus favor; and the ear, obedience; the nostril, anger. But the anger in the sense not as the world understands anger, but, I mean “a determination,” that it will not waver one moment. It will simply continue until what is contained within the mind of God is executed and accomplished. And then you have, well, there are so many strange things. The King James Version gives the most literal translation; the Revised Standard Version has changed it. For instance, in the 5th chapter of the Songs of Solomon, she is telling that her lover is coming and she knows…she has already bathed herself, and she has already taken off her gown, and she cannot now put on her gown because she’s taken off the gown. She cannot now soil her feet because she’s washed her feet, and she hears the lover at the door. His hand is upon the knob, that is, upon the door. And then, she uses an expression that “she moved her bowels.” Well now, in the modern use of words, you would think of a strange thing…it isn’t that. It hasn’t a thing to do…the word translated bowels in the Kg. Jas. Ver. and in the Rev. Std. Ver. is heart. “My heart leaped within me.” The word means “uterus.” Or it means, if it’s a male, “the genitals,” his masculine organs…that these jumped within him. Something is taking place: It’s a creative act. So it doesn’t mean that she moved her bowels as we would say today, but they use the word bowels. And yet the word in Hebrew simply means the “uterus” if it’s female or the “genitals” of a man if it’s male. So you’ve got to go back into the Concordance and find the actual definition of the word. Kidneys, well, that’s emotions. And here, you find all these different, well…life, the center of life, that’s the liver. The principle of life, that’s the blood, for life is in the blood. So you find all these things, but don’t take anything for granted. Go into your Concordance, look it up and see what it means, for it’s all symbolism. “God is man…you are a man, God is no more. Your own humanity learn to adore” (Blake)…for it’s all man.
So they take every organ in the body and they catalog it in scripture. But they do it in such a way and when it doesn’t make sense to our scholars they change it, and it doesn’t mean that. It means the symbol…just use the symbol. He’s not speaking of liver, he’s not speaking of kidneys, he’s not speaking of the ___(??). He’s not speaking of the bowel, he’s not speaking of the heart. He is using that as a symbol. But if they do not know it’s a symbol…and so they simply change the symbol to give it what they consider a better meaning today. So if I said I heard my lover at the door and as his hand was upon the knob of the door, I moved my bowels, well, that in the present connotation would be a horrible thing. It doesn’t mean that. The word translated in the King James Version “bowels,” and in the other “entrails,” hasn’t a thing to do with it. The word is uterus. That female organ began to completely quiver, because something is coming through the door which means love tonight. That’s what it means. In the 5th chapter, read it in the 4th verse of the Songs of Solomon. And you see this entire picture unfolding. The whole thing is a drama, it’s a love drama, it’s a sex drama, but not as the world sees it. It’s something entirely different.
So every little thing…God is defined and described in symbolism in the Bible, his every organ of the body. When we read in the 32nd chapter of Genesis that Jacob wrestled through the night with the Lord, he didn’t know it was the Lord. And then the Lord when he did not prevail against Jacob and Jacob insisted that he would tell him his name, and the Lord—he didn’t know it was the Lord, he thought it was some demon, but it was the Lord with whom he wrestled; and the Lord touched him on his thigh and then he shrank, and thereafter he limped. Well now, you read that and you wonder, “What is all this about?” Well, look up the word thigh, look up the word limp, look up the word shrank and you will see what happened. He changed his name from Jacob to Israel. Israel means “one who rules as God”; Jacob means “a supplanter.” Well, the word thigh is that soft part on which the creative organ hangs. So he touched his creative organ and reversed the course of generation. And so, he turned him from Jacob into Israel…an entirely different picture.
But if you read it, who will think that it means that a man suddenly—this is a forecasting of what’s going to happen to every man in the world—he goes forward in a generative act and suddenly he is turned around, and his creative energies move from generation into regeneration: He’s Israel…he turns into Israel from Jacob. But when you read it on the surface, what would you get? He touched him on the thigh, and as he touched him on the thigh, it shrank, and so he limped, so from then on Jacob limped. Doesn’t mean a thing about a man limping; it means that he became impotent in this world but most potent in the divine world: He turned him around. And that is in the 32nd chapter of Genesis. But if you don’t read the words and just pursue them, you’ll be stymied and say, “What does this all mean? It means it’s nonsense.” But everything in scripture is literally true.
When my arm was unveiled, it was literally unveiled. When this man came in and took off my sleeve and unveiled my arm, it was the right arm, which means victory, vindication. Then he embraced me and kissed me…after one of those that I spoke to left to tell what I had said. I was telling the story of creation and he left and betrayed me, or revealed what I said, then the authority came in and took off my sleeve. It’s lterally true as it unfolds in man. Everyone’s going to have it because everyone is Christ; there’s nothing but Christ. There’s no one in this world but Jesus Christ. Everyone is Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is Jacob. Jacob, Isaac, all these are prototypes and they come forward and forward and forward until they fulfill themselves as Jesus Christ. The entire Old Testament is the prophecy of Jesus Christ. So you start with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and you come right through, and all these are moving forward until they completely unfold in one who has all the experiences. When he has all the experiences, he is Jesus Christ.
And he walks this earth just like any normal person, unknown, unwanted, loved by a few, loved by his circle of friends, but completely unknown in a vast world of three billion-odd people. And then, he departs this world and he is in heaven, a power of God. He is the right hand of God, and looks upon the world and it’s all dead, and he is really in control. He’s finished what was given him to do. So he said, “I have accomplished the work thou gavest me to do. Return unto me the glory that was mine before that the world was” (John 17:5). In other words, he had that glory; he emptied himself of his Godhead to take upon himself this (Phil. 2:7). Now he’s finished it; now return the glory that was mine. I’ve brought back something greater than I had when I emptied myself to come down here.
I tell you that you are infinitely greater than you even dream of.
Good night.