12/7/65

Tonight’s subject is “Paul.” When we speak of these characters of the Bible we invariably think of men—it’s a person as you are, as I am—but the Bible is not secular history, not the smallest part of it is history as you and I understand it. It is sacred history. It is God’s plan of salvation beginning with the call of Abraham and culminating in the career of Jesus Christ. When I use the word Abraham I’m speaking of the eternal state of faith. With these characters, as we call them, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and so on, bear in mind they simply represent these eternal states through which the immortal man passes in this journey towards complete awakening as God the Father. So when I say culminates in Jesus Christ, I also take Jesus Christ as the eternal state.

I speak of Paul, and you think, well, Paul certainly was a man, as you are a man, as I am a man. No, it’s a state that you and I enter. That’s the last state before the crown of glory which is Christ Jesus. Paul’s name is not mentioned in any ancient non-biblical source. You can’t find his name in anything outside of these early manuscripts. Naturally, after that the churches got together and wrote unnumbered volumes on the personality called Paul. But Paul is a state of consciousness as Abraham is, as Jesus Christ is.

So here, we turn to Paul tonight. It is said the word means “small.” His first name was Saul, which means “to enquire, to ask, to desire.” But the word Paul means “to desist, to stop, to come to an end.” It’s the end of the journey. Paul was intense, in fulfillment of Revelation: “Would that you were either hot or cold, but because you are neither hot nor cold and are lukewarm, I spew you out” (Rev.3:16). There was nothing lukewarm about the state called Paul. When he persecuted, he went to the extreme. And when he was converted not from one religion to another, when he was transformed, he called it revelation, and then no one was more merciful, no one kinder. No one pursued the telling of the story more than that state. Everyone enters that state. When he enters that state, he enters it from Saul, the state where he’s so furious, looking and looking.

His name first appears in the Book of Acts (7:60); he is consenting unto Stephen’s death. They are stoning Stephen, and when he heard the cry of Stephen “O Lord, do not hold this sin against them” he could hardly believe that man could reach the state where he is being stoned to death and holds nothing against those who are killing him. Unlike the blood of Abel that cried out for revenge, the blood of Stephen cries out for forgiveness. Like the last cry on the cross “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Then you see that state, when man could forgive every being in the world for what he’s done. Now the word Stephen means “crown.” If you take any passage of the Bible…in the New Testament where the word crown is used—as Paul said: “The time of my departure is come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness” (2 Tim.4:7)—that word crown is the word Stephen. When we are told, one appeared like a son of man and on his head was a golden crown, the word translated crown is Stephen (Rev.14:14).

So when you are in the state of Paul, you see the entire book differently. So Abraham, Isaac, Jacob are no longer persons to you, they are simply states, eternal states. The individuals are but representatives or visions of those eternal states which were revealed to mortal man in the series of divine revelations as they are written in the Bible. They are simply signifying by their names the states of consciousness that man must pass through. So when you are in the state of Paul you see the entire book differently. You don’t see persons, but you see them as these eternal spiritual states of the soul through which the immortal man passes. So he said, “From now on I regard no one from a human point of view. Even though I once regarded Christ from the human point of view, I regard him thus no longer” (2Cor.5:16).

So until you reach the state of Paul, Christ Jesus is going to be to the man not yet in the state of Paul a little icon; and he’ll worship it as a man external to himself, and make some little image of him and hang him on the wall, or a painting, and speak of his Lord Jesus Christ as something other than himself…not the eternal state toward which he’s moved. So Paul is the state toward which everyone here is being moved. When he hits that state, the visions begin to unfold. And so, he makes the claim, and I say he advisedly…I’m speaking now of a man because it’s easier to just call it now a man, because it takes a man to externalize and express the state. The state of love needs a man as its agent; the state of error, the state of honor, the state of truth all these states need man to externalize them and to express them. So in this state called the state of Paul I will now speak of him as a man, because it’s easier than to stop every moment and remind you I’m speaking only of a state. So we call Paul “the man.”

In his letter to the Galatians: “Paul an apostle, not by men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the father who raised him from the dead” (Gal.1:1). Now I know from experience the drama at the very end when he’s finished the race and he’s kept the faith and the crown is waiting for him, the laurel crown of gold—it’s not a crown you see on the king’s head, it’s a halo of golden, liquid, pulsing, living light. It’s all over your head. It’s a pulsing, living golden light, as a result of having finished the race, that’s the crown, when you come to that state and the crown is waiting for you. Paul makes the statement, he didn’t get this from a man, no man gave it to him, it came from a revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal.1:11,12). The gospel that I preach is not man’s gospel. For I did not get it from a man, nor was I taught it by man, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ: He saw the mystery of Jesus Christ, the way of salvation.

Now here is one that you would have thought because he stressed it so much, the importance of being resurrected; for resurrection begins the unfolding of the end and the descent of the dove consummates it, and there are four mighty acts. Paul in his letter to the Philippians makes the statement, All that I may know of him and the power of his resurrection…that if possible I may attain to the resurrection from the dead…not that I have attained this or am perfect, but I press on to make it mine, because Christ Jesus has made me his own (Phil.3:10-15). Now you would have thought that Paul, having been revealed the son of God, when he said, “When it pleased God to reveal his Son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood” (Gal.1:16). For no man wearing the garment of flesh and blood not having the experience of who Jesus Christ really is could tell him anything… he couldn’t throw any light upon it. So he said, I will not discuss it with flesh and blood. Yet here is the man who confesses that the Son was revealed to him.

He describes the Son as the power and the wisdom of God (1 Cor.1:24). In the Old Testament the power and the wisdom is personified as a little child in the 8th chapter of the Book of Proverbs (verse 22). In this chapter the little boy speaks and he makes the statement, “God created me at the beginning of his way, the first of his acts of old.” How could you create without the creative power? So the creative power comes first, the wisdom and the power of God. He said, Before he brought forth any, the heavens, the earth…when he stretched out the foundations of the earth, “I was beside him like a little child, daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world” (verse 30 RVS). Then he goes on and he warns us, “Listen to me…he who finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord; he who misses me injures himself; all who hate me love death” (verses 32-36). Here is the little child speaking…always the little child that is the personification of the wisdom and the power of God.

Now he said this was revealed to him. But he would have thought if the whole drama as it unfolds at the end begins with the resurrection, he must have had the experience of resurrection. But he confesses to the Philippians he did not: “Not that I’ve obtained the resurrection, or am perfect, but I’ll press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” Well, that throws a great deal of light on two things that have happened in my life to two of my friends. One is here tonight, one I haven’t seen. He’s a lad now twenty-one, haven’t seen him since he told me the story three years ago. I pass this on not as a vision I share it with you as an opinion. This state called Paul tells us in the 7th chapter of 1st Corinthians, “This is not from man, it’s not a revelation, but it is my opinion”…and he gives it as his opinion because it suited him. Well, I’ve been trying to find out why the experience of the resurrection did not precede the birth in the case of the lad in San Francisco, in Sausalito, and my friend here. But other light has been thrown upon it from what they have told me.

Both have had the experience of the birth from above, both held the child in their arms, both had witnesses to the event. The one in Sausalito heard the voices coming from behind and they said, “He is born” and he walked off into space holding the Christ child in his arms. The one here, it came out of the same way from the forehead as it did my friend in Sausalito, right through the forehead; and he caught it, and held it in his arms as he walked up the stairs of his home. He heard the laughter behind him from the workmen getting ready to work. They were witnesses to the birth. My friend up north said nothing of the resurrection and it comes first. My friend here has said he has not experienced the resurrection, but he has gone into that tomb of his skull time and time again and it’s completely empty. It’s empty…there is nothing more empty…”It’s the emptiest thing you could ever see, when I go in and explore.” So I have concluded from this experience—and Paul’s letter to the Philippians when he confesses that he hadn’t see it—that his last time on the stage he made his exit the night of the resurrection and could not tell it.

When we return here, we return here minus memory. The memory of that past is completely shut out. So he starts here not with the repetition—you can’t be resurrected twice—he starts here with an entirely different…what comes after the resurrection is the birth of the child. And then they go through, as one of them has gone through now the three of them [visions], waiting now for the descent of the dove. The lad up north unfortunately…he was an adopted son, wanted more than children who are normally brought into this world by married parents are wanted. He really was wanted and his adoptive parents put in their bid for him before he was born. If he came in blind, they would take him. If he came in crippled, they would take him. Deformed, they would take him. They just wanted that child regardless of how he came into this world. But, they didn’t tell him he was adopted. And the year that he was getting ready to go east to Phillips Exeter, a prep school for boys, one of the finest prep schools possibly in the world—he was a straight A student here in Sausalito—some neighbor in the neighborhood had reasons which were not merciful reasons to ___(??) the boy against his parents and he told him they were sending him east to get rid of him…not for his education, just to get him out of the house and get rid of him. That’s as far removed as anything could be. So, he went for two years, straight A right through, refused to go back the third year…said they couldn’t teach him anything. Said that no matter what they said they couldn’t teach him. English…he was a master in English. Blake to him was like reading just the ABCs, and how he loved his Blake. When he came home, he refused to live at home, ran away, and they’ve never heard from him since. So I haven’t seen him or heard from him to question him concerning the unfolding of the pictures. I only saw him right after the birth of the child. So in his case I can only offer it as my opinion. When the state of Paul is asking and hoping that he will know him and know the power of his resurrection, that if possible he too will attain this power of the resurrection, I say he has had it or he would not be born from above. I say my friend here tonight has had it. That’s why he goes into the empty tomb, finds himself at intervals exploring his skull and it’s so empty.

So that’s the state of Paul. When anyone reaches that state, he’s on the verge of complete awakening, awakening as Christ Jesus—Jesus Christ the power and wisdom of God returning to God. The whole thing is but the redemption of Jesus Christ. The whole vast world is only the theater for the redemption of Jesus Christ.: Jesus Christ in you is the hope of glory (Col.1:27). Were he not in you, he couldn’t emerge from you. Were he not in you, you couldn’t breathe, you couldn’t live. Well, that’s the power of God, the wisdom of God. There is nothing but Jesus Christ. But it takes that long, long journey from the call of Abraham, the call of faith when the story is told, the most incredible story in the world, that in spite of the fact that you will appear to die and are buried with your fathers, that in spite of the seeming exit from this world and the decay of the body: “I will raise up after you a son that will come forth from your body; I will be his father and he shall be my son” (2Sam.7:12). Well, that’s the most incredible promise in the world. But Abraham, the state called Abraham, could believe—he thought nothing too difficult for God. So he was willing to go into a foreign land and become enslaved and not own one square inch of it; but when he comes out he receives an inheritance that would dwarf all the things of earth. He would come out the blessed one that he saw afar off.

So Paul is not a man. You are a person, I am a person, and we pass through these states. When you reach this state of Paul you may be a very difficult person to live with because you’re so intense. You’re either hot or your cold. And the things that today you would condemn, your friends will wonder what’s happened to you because tomorrow you praise it, as though you’ve never condemned it. Today you go because you think it’s the way towards awakening and you assume the prohibitions of not smoking, not drinking, not eating meat, fish, fowl, assuming the vows of celibacy, and you will take a platform and swear by it, believing it. Then, without knowing you do all these things and you’re equally intense in promoting the opposite. That is Paul, the state of Paul. Then comes the revelation, and the revelation is the revelation of Jesus Christ. He doesn’t see him now as a man. Before that he thought that Jesus Christ was a man, a unique man, a different man. Now he sees that’s not so at all: Jesus Christ is the way of salvation…and he discovers the way by revelation. Now he knows the truth concerning God’s plan of redemption.

So Paul, like all the characters are simply states of consciousness through which every individual must pass. I cannot tell what state you’re in at the moment; let no one try to judge it. If you know scripture, you can sense the state and see really where you are in the unfolding journey. But the characters of the New Testament are just as much states of consciousness as the characters of the Old Testament. But our churches got them together and they personified all and made them persons. So we have pictures of Paul, we have pictures of Peter, we have pictures of all these on the wall. We even go so far as to have a piece of bone and we say this is the bone of Peter…come and kiss it. It’s 2,000 years old, but come and kiss it and acquire merit if you kiss the bone. If you haven’t the courage to kiss it, well, then look at it…just to see it…and all this nonsense is given in the name of religion.

Hasn’t a thing to do with religion. There is no such thing as Peter of flesh and blood, or Andrew, or John, or Thomas, or any of these characters; they are eternal states through which we pass. We pass through them all and come to that final one, where now you desist, where you stop, where you come to the end. And your name is changed from Saul to Paul. No longer are you inquiring, no longer are you delving into the things of man. So he makes the statement, “Among the mature I teach wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of man or the rulers of this age. For it is a secret and a hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification” (1Cor.2:6-7). It’s entirely different. All the wisdom of man and the rulers of men is doomed to pass away. Don’t we see every day when a new periodical comes out, the Science magazine, that every month it changes or modifies last month’s predictions? What we thought concerning the atom at the turn of the century no one today who is a great physicist would conceive of that concept of the atom, and yet his will pass, too, at the end of the century. All that we think about the heavens, all that will pass, all theories, nothing based upon revelation.

So Paul said, I have a mystery, a secret and hidden mystery of God, which I preach and I teach. It was decreed by God before the ages for our glorification. So he’s speaking now only of his vision, and therefore he’s not disturbed. He said, “Henceforth, let no one bother me; for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (Gal.6:17). What are the marks of Jesus? Well, they are ways of salvation, and these marks are on the body of one who has experienced them. The first mark is resurrection. It’s indelibly impressed upon you what the experience was …to find himself waking in his own skull…and to know this is the tomb where I was placed, when I don’t know. Someone thought me dead or they would not have placed me here. So here I was placed in the skull, a tomb that was hewn out of this rock, and it was completely sealed when I woke or was awakened. I never thought myself dead prior to this, but now the surroundings confirm the story of the Bible: I must have been dead, for this is a tomb and only the dead are placed in a tomb. And yet, that power that possessed you, the power of resurrection, and the whole thing awakened you. It’s an entirely different kind of a power, a different kind of an awakening than you’ve ever experienced before. Then you come out, you break the seal.

There’s no witness to your exit from that tomb. There is no mention of witnesses in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to the resurrection. Only one person declares “he is risen,” but not any description of the nature of the resurrection, therefore, there’s no witness to it. You and you alone find yourself in this tomb; then you come out. When you come out, you come out in the form of being born. You feel yourself the same matured being that you are, only the symbol of your birth is that of the little child. And here is a new birth in a new world, a new age, and here the symbol signifying your birth is right at the lowest point on the floor. Now there are witnesses to that. They do not see you, for you cannot be seen by their eyes, they belong to this world. But they see the symbol of your birth and they raise the symbol, the little infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and they announce the fact that it is your child. Then you do exactly what you’re told in scripture, you take the child in your arms. Now you must depart: “For now let thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for I have seen thy salvation” (Luke 2:28).

So here was the measure of the birth; then come the second, the third, and finally the fourth. But because we are all witnesses to God’s word and the truth of God’s word, we linger for awhile until we’ve told it to the best of our ability. If you only find a remnant who will believe it, that’s all that matters. If in this audience tonight just ten percent would give ear to it and listen with attention and toy with the idea in the hope of understanding it, in the hope of accepting it, then my work is done. It doesn’t really matter…you don’t speak to the billions, to the millions…that means nothing: I send you to teach the remnant and tell them the truth of God’s word.

So this story is not as the whole vast world believes it to be. It never took place on earth in flesh and blood. It takes place in the depths of the soul of man. Hasn’t a thing to do with any man being born in a strange way, without a woman knowing a man. Hasn’t a thing to do with that. You are begotten of God, but it’s not in flesh and blood. You are Spirit, for God is Spirit. So he brings forth himself, his creative power, and it’s you. No loss of identity, none whatsoever, it’s all you. And then we are gathered by these words “one by one” to form into a single being who is God. So in the end there is only God, and you coming to the very end, the fullness of it all, you are Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is simply the wisdom and the power and the Spirit of God brought into fullness…and you are it. No loss of individuality, no loss of identity.

But through Paul you will pass, everyone will pass. You can always tell the one who is not in him by his indifference (that it doesn’t matter), and if that is the attitude toward everything in this world, well then, he is not yet born. Because Paul was intense, consenting unto Stephen’s death, consenting unto violence. So he went to catch the people of the Way, for the earliest name given to the earliest Christians was “the people of the Way.” So he went with his arms—his arms were credentials from the Sanhedrin—that if he found anyone belonging to the Way, male or female, he would bring them bound into Jerusalem and persecute them. And while he started, in this 9th chapter of Acts, he was blinded by the truth of the mystery of Jesus Christ (verse 8), and now Jesus Christ becomes a person in the telling.

You and I take the phenomena called death and we personify it, don’t we? We speak of the cold hands of death, jaws of death, the king of terrors. Well, here is a true story. Seven years ago when we lived on El Comino, I rose early one morning as I always did, got breakfast for my daughter and saw her off to school. Then went to my little library and started reading the Bible. Well, just about 10:30 or eleven my wife came out and we would have brunch then. Well, she said, “I had the most interesting experience this morning. I woke, sat up in bed, and you were on the bed and your arms were around me, and I said to you, ‘Oh, I’m so glad it’s you, not someone else who is holding me, because in my dream someone held me tightly, and how I dislike being held, but now that I see it was you, well now, I’m relieved.’” So I said, “Do you think I would let someone else hold you this way?” and a little smile. With this she looks up and as she looks up a hand comes out and takes her hand. I looked towards what would be the face bearing that hand if a hand held her hand. So I looked and I remarked, “Oh, my friend Death.” She then said to me, “I don’t want to die!” I said, “Are you afraid to die?” She said, “No, I’m not afraid to die, that’s all right.” At that statement the hands disengaged.

Then, she found herself waking. She was not sitting up, I was not in the room on the bed, I was in the far room. She is coming to and she is under the sheets, flat on her back. Then she woke up to discover she was dreaming within a dream. In the depths of her being she was having this experience, where death became personified—at least in her case to the extent of a hand, the human hand. So when we speak of the hand of death she’s had the actual experience of seeing the symbol of death. And may I tell you, several years ago she went through a state where she entertained not any violent exit but did entertain among her feelings from a feeling of weakness that she hadn’t long here and she seriously entertained the feeling of death. In fact, she made preparations with her effects, to whom they would go, this, that and the other, she was so serious about the exit from this world. So she held the hand of death. We personify it. So why not personify these states? Death is a state. It seems a terminal state; it seems the end but it isn’t the end really. You die here to find yourself restored to life, everyone. The only one who is not restored to life is the one who by resurrection is “life himself.”

So you’re told in the 20th chapter of the Book of Luke, discussing the resurrection—for the wise men of the day were called Sadducees and they did not believe in the resurrection. So they asked him, to trip him up, and they told the story of Moses, that he said that if a man marries a woman and he dies leaving no offspring, his brother should marry her to raise up offspring for him. Well, there were seven brothers. The first married, left no offspring. Then the second took her and he died leaving no offspring. Then the third, he died…and finally the seventh married her, and the seventh died and left no offspring; eventually she died. So the question is whose wife is she in the resurrection? He said to them, “You do not know the scripture. The children of this age marry and they are given in marriage. But those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age, and to the resurrection from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, because they cannot die anymore” (Luke 20:27-36). Well, that would imply unless they are resurrected they continue to die, because they cannot die anymore, for now they are sons of God and sons of the resurrection. So here he answers the proverb.

You and I, if I’m Paul here now, I know from my experiences it’s my last in this age. Had I not had these experiences with the knowledge of scripture, I would know I would be restored to life. Long before you could take the garment and put it in the morgue I would be restored to life, inserted into a section of time of this same wonderful play; that section best suited for the work that is being done in me and that work is to transform me into the likeness and image of God. When that image is complete, then I will pass through the story called Jesus Christ. That’s my last state, and the last state comes with these four majestic events, beginning with the resurrection and ending with the descent of the dove which is the seal of approval of the work that is done. That work is simply to form man into the image of God. For he said, I will not give my image, I will not give my glory to another—“I tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake I did it, for my own sake, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another” (Is.48:10). So he has to make it the perfect image of himself to give you himself; for he actually gives you himself…that’s grace. So because it is a gift, he has to bring you to that state that you can receive the gift. We pass through all these furnaces of affliction until the image is perfect. When it’s perfect, then God becomes man that man may become God.

So this story of Paul…when you read him his name appears first in the 6th, no, the 7th chapter of Acts. Then you come into the 9th, and the last thirteen chapters are devoted exclusively to the story of Paul. Now bear in mind the Book of Acts in the early days formed a part of the Book of Luke. It was only one book Luke-Acts. But the early fathers separated them and ended the gospel of Luke, and then brought the gospel of John, and divided Luke from its own book called Acts. If you read the very opening statement in the Book of Acts, it carries on the ending of the Book of Luke…so it’s one book. Well, if the story in Luke is not historically true…for these evangelists, call them by any name, they were not describing events of the past as historians; rather, they desired to pass on the message of salvation as they themselves experienced salvation. But no one knows these anonymous writers—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are not names of people. They are, well, simply anonymous names. So the writer of Luke wrote Acts. And if all the characters of Luke are states of consciousness, then we’re not going to stop it abruptly because the fathers divided the books, and put one and called it the Acts of the Apostles, and called the Apostles men— they are states.

You may be the wisest man in the world. A friend of mine sent Your Faith is Your Fortune, my book, to this professor of physics in Australia. He wrote back immediately he wouldn’t read the book. First of all, the title offended him. Your faith is your fortune, for without faith you would never have a fortune…it is your fortune. He said it was a play on the statement, your face is your fortune. Then again, what offended him was my chapter on the disciples, to treat them as psychological states rather than persons. That offended him because he is in the state of consciousness where scripture if secularly true, it is all secular history. And it’s not! It’s sacred history. For when I meet a person like David and David is supposed to have lived 3,000 years before I was born…I come into the presence of David and I am his senior, I am his father. I always have been his father, but I forgot it in the interval. And here, David calls me Father. How could he then if I am here in this Century and he lived a thousand B.C.? All of these characters come after us; they don’t precede us. Nothing comes before Jesus Christ.

Nothing comes before Jesus Christ, for Jesus Christ is the power and the wisdom of God. It is in man, buried in man, doing a noble work of transforming man into the image of God. When that work is complete, as we’re told in Philippians, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion”—when?—“at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil.1:6). And the day of Jesus Christ is when suddenly you resurrect. It begins on that day of your resurrection, which is his resurrection, because you see no one else. You resurrect. Now you know who you are—you are the power, the wisdom of God, but you thought until that moment it was another, a unique being who lived 2,000 years ago, and it wasn’t so at all. It’s all in us.

Now, you can’t force it. I can simply expose you to this story as told in scripture. Maybe it’s too much of a shock this night if you hear it for the first time. It may be a shock…you may be more comforted if you believe that a man, a unique man but a man, who formerly was God and emptied himself of his Godhood and took upon himself the form of man, and became a slave, even obedient unto death, the death on the cross (Phil.2:7). Where he is buried is here…that’s his tomb. When he awakens, it’s you, not another, just you. You will come out, and then you will know the true story of the birth of Christ. You will see the same little infant—it is the symbol of your birth from above. You will find David, as told you in the 89th Psalm, and he will call you “my Father.” Then you are the Son of man, for only the Son of man ascends: “No one ascends into heaven but he who descended, the Son of man” (Eph.4:10). When he ascends he ascends like a serpent. And so, it’s you who ascends and you do it just like a serpent. Now you know who the Son of man is. Then you’re told that the dove came out of the nowhere and descended on the Son of man and smothered him with kisses. The dove will come and descend upon you and smother you with kisses, giving the approval of the Holy Spirit. The dove is simply the symbol of the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t fly away…while you are holding him in your hand and he is kissing you, the whole thing dissolves.

So Paul…though you may find it easier, those who are not initiated into the mysteries, to simply talk about him as a man, when you read the Bible try to bear in mind it’s the state you must enter; that intense state where you will destroy everything, and then turn around and protect the thing that you would destroy. And that is the cry from Stephen (the crown), “Do not hold this sin against them.” It could only be paralleled by the cry on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” The day will come everyone will have the experience. The one who has had it so far is not better, not selected above others; it is simply he was called in God’s own good time. We are told in scripture, we are called according to his purpose. He is building this new world, and we are the living, living stones in the new world. So we are called; as he needs you he calls you.

So we are told in Romans, “Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified” (8:29). For glorification can only be when he gives himself to you. As you’re told in the 17th chapter of John, “And now Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory I had with thee before that the world was (verse 5). But he sent forth Jesus Christ, his own creative power here; and therefore that which was one with him had to empty itself of that Godhood to take on the limitations of man. Now the work is finished, and he’s brought forth the flower, the pulsing, living, golden wreath that’s called “the crown,” called “Stephen.” Then, at that moment, he glorifies you with his own self, and you are one with God.

Now let us go into the Silence.

* * *

…my two weeks will really be a vacation. So bear in mind the dates, January the 4th, a Tuesday. I’ll put an ad in the Los Angeles Times. Outside of that I’m not notifying anyone of this date when we reopen. Now are there any questions?

Q: ___(??) Stephen, the crown…and death as a state…expand on it, please.

A: This world does every conceivable thing to man in his journey, but every conceivable thing. God in his infinite mercy has hidden the horrors through which you’ve passed…in his infinite mercy. If you could remember the things through which you passed, you would not be qualified to face life and continue doing the things that you must do to arrive at the point called Jesus Christ. Now, Tom, in your own case, and in the other Tom back in New York City, Tom C., I have your letter at home, I have Tom C.’s letter at home, and in the vision of both of you, you were quoting Paul, the 13th chapter of Corinthians. He quoted not Paul’s Corinthians, he quoted Galatians : “I have been crucified with Christ; it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (2:20). That creative power became me to make me alive. You quoted I think it was the 11th verse of 13th Corinthians, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child.” There are only thirteen verses. The last one I quoted when I stood in the presence of the risen Christ, “Faith, hope and love, these three abide; but the greatest of these is love” (1Cor.13:13).

So I find that in the unfolding man when he begins to awaken he is quoting Paul, the works of the ___(??). He is fulfilling the gospel, but as he moves through, he is using the words of that last state as poured out in the form of letters. For we’re told in scripture that no prophecy of scripture ever came by the impulse of man when men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God; therefore, if this is scripture then it cannot be of human composition. He didn’t sit down to compose that hymn of love, which is the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians. You quoted it…I recall that vividly. Tom back East quoted Galatians, not the works of Paul. In my own case, I quoted the last verse of 13th Corinthians when I stood in the presence of the risen Christ. I know that Christ is risen, I know that Jesus Christ, the risen Christ, is God himself—not less than God, it’s God himself. It’s God who became man; but in becoming man, it’s his creative power, his wisdom, and it’s called in scripture Jesus Christ. So he’s buried in man; he will rise from man. When he rises from man he’s incorporated into the one body that is the risen Christ. So Paul could make the statement, I want to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. So he must have had the experience of the incorporation…that glorious ecstasy when he embraces you and you fuse with him, and you wear the body of Christ. But then you’ve got to have the marks of Jesus on your body.

Q: Neville, in the Book of John where Philip questions “Show us the Father” (14:8) what is meant when the remark is directed back to Philip? What are we to learn from that state of Philip?

A: Well, the word Philip is “lover of horses” if you take it in its Greek meaning. The horse has always been the symbol of the mind. We speak of the Greeks as the mental giants of the world, the ancient Greek was the ascending mental state. We spoke of the Jew of the day as one who had to attack something and see something before he could accept it. So the message was to the Greeks foolishness; and to the Jew a stumbling block, a complete stumbling block because they couldn’t see it., they couldn’t touch it, they couldn’t think abstractly. But to the Greek it was foolishness. So Philip said to him, “We do not know where you are going; how could we know the way?” He answered, “I am the way, the truth, the life” (14:6). Now he turns and Peter says, “But show us the Father and we will be satisfied.” They’re talking about the Father. He said, “No one comes to the Father but by me.” It’s impossible to come to the Father but by me, for I am the way…there’s only one way. The way is not through diet, not through your social background, your intellectual accomplishments, that’s not the way. It’s a definite way of salvation that was in the beginning of time, and it’s called “the way is Jesus Christ.” That leads you where? It leads you to the Father.

Now, who would have thought that Jesus Christ said I am the Father? Well, no one who I have talked with so far can see in the Bible that Jesus Christ truly is the Father. I’ve had it with rabbis, I had it with priests, I had it with ministers, with all kinds of people of the cloth, and they have never seen it. They read the same book that I read. My Bible is the book I buy in the store, the King James Version or the Revised Standard Version. So if you’ll follow my argument, he is now asking a question—there’s no reason for this question because he’s answered what was asked him before, and he brings up the question—he said, “What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?” (Matt.22:42). Well, tradition has it that when Messiah comes to the world, he will have descended from David. That’s what they believed and they taught that as a physical thing, so they answered “The son of David.” Now he comes forward, he said, “Why then did David in the Spirit call him Lord? If David thus calls him Lord, how could he be David’s son?” Well, the word translated lord, which is Adonay, was used by every child of his father. The son spoke of his father as “my lord,” so he’s really saying “my father.” The slave spoke of her master as Adonay, my lord. The subject spoke of his emperor as Adonay, my lord. So he tells you that David called him “my father.” He doesn’t deny it, that he is the Father. If David calls him Father, how could he be David’s son?

Now, David supposedly lived chronologically a thousand years B.C., but here is one who had the experience of encountering David and knowing without any doubt that he is his son. David is the personification of all the generations of men and all of their experiences fused into a single whole; that whole personified is eternity and eternity is personified as a youth, and it’s David. Not a David, the David. You have no doubt in your mind this is the David of biblical fame, and he calls you Father. Well, if he calls Jesus Christ Father…and Jesus Christ brings up the argument in scripture to pinpoint this great mystery, no one questioned him after that, because David called him “my Father.” Then one day you have a mystical experience and suddenly standing before you is David of biblical fame, this eternity, this wonderful youth, and he calls you Father, then who is Jesus Christ?

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