Jesus saw some little ones nursing. He said to his disciples, "These little ones who are nursing resemble is those who enter the kingdom." They said to him, "So shall we enter the kingdom by being little ones?" Jesus said to them, "When you (plur.) make the two one and make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside and the above like the below, and that you might make the male and the female be one and the same, so that the male might not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye and a hand in place of a hand and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image - then you will enter [the kingdom].
Saying 22
This Saying is generally seen by scholars as an allusion to baptism and early Christian concern with the need for rebirth in order to enter God's Kingdom.
In this Saying adults are compared to little children who are able to enter the kingdom, and little children are examples of persons who have put on the new man that is put on the Christ-self are able to enter the kingdom. Thus the kingdom is to be received as a little child. We must humble ourselves as little children. This saying does not mean that we enter the kingdom as children but it means to be converted and become as little children a man without humility cannot be saved. We are brought up with pagan beliefs, and naturally catch their views and spirit. It may be a hard lesson, but we must discard these if we are to come into harmony with the mind of Christ. He requires us to humble ourselves as little children. It is the requirement of the Spirit of God. The current pride and arrogance of society have their source in the mere propensities of nature, which, while having a useful place in subjection to wisdom, become as inconvenient and destructive and ugly as the unregulated predatory instincts of the savage. “To be carnally minded is death: to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” The humility of a little child is not inconsistent with the highest wisdom and executive resource. Jesus illustrates the combination in its highest form; and He could exercise reserve, fulminate angry condemnation, and proceed to high-handed extremity, as in the expulsion of the traders from the temple, while filling the place of a servant in meekness and gentleness. He himself sums up the character, in the words: “Be ye wise as serpents, harmless as doves,”.
To become a child is to become like Christ Jesus who in the days of his flesh was child-like. So what does it take to be like Christ ? Humility and servitude and the ability to identify oneself with Jesus through receiving the knowledge of the truth from the word of God both the spirit-word and Christ Jesus our knowledge of him and our faith in him.
To become an infant means to cleave unto God, as though sucking at your mothers breast in such away that you and the divine are one and the same and there is no division between you and the beloved. You are the beloved and the beloved is you.
This is done when you make the two one. The two are the flesh and the divine nature or the Deity, which must be brought into harmony and united. Making the two into one is a common theme in the bible about marriage, here Jesus is taking about the heavenly marriage when the head and the body become one the second Adam and Eve, the Lamb and his wife. Now the marriage does not begin until after the judgment of the house of God. but are relationship with Christ begins when we are baptised into Christ, when we put on Christ this is the beginning of our spiritual relationship with him or a moral marriage that is done by putting on the mind of Christ. But when he returns the true believers will be conformed to the image of Christ that is to be consubstantial with the Lamb and the Deity this is the true marriage the first is only a type of the second.
“The outside like the inside.” this part of the saying is about washing (Saying 89). We should wash ourselves by the water of the word. First we need to believe the exceeding great and precious promes by the faith of which they can alone become the partakers of the divine nature. Without faith in these things there is no true washing no purification, from moral defilement. The washing of water by the word is to be born of the water a moral resurrection from the dead by washing the inside and the outside thus making them both clean.
Circumcision was an outward symbol, but the external and the outward rite of the law, is not in itself of value. It is the inward disposition that matters. Here the Lord Jesus is telling the outward Jews to become inwardly ones, a real Jew for true circumcision is of the heart, in the cutting away of the sins of the flesh. Thus after cutting away the passions of the flesh from our consciousness we will also see a change in our life and actions. For The outer actions must be shaped upon the pattern of the inner man, so that the outer actions and the inner man are integrated and harmonious, completely reflecting each other. Your thoughts, feelings and emotions, words and deeds must follow the way of the inner self or Christ-self, so that, indeed you are the Holy One. This is the meaning of righteousness being rightly ordered according to the image of the Lord or the Christ-self.
When you make the above like the below. Here this should ready when you make the below like the above. Perhaps a mistake was made in copying of the text, nevertheless, there is a profound truth in these words, for when Jesus comes again and raise the true believers from the dead they with Jesus will bring heaven upon the earth, thus making the above like the below. Thus, the multitudinous Son of Man or the Man of the One will join the upper thing with the low things; the earth will be glorified, receiving heavenly glory. What was above will be below as Jesus says your Kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, when Jesus first came he give teaching from above if he had not come the lower things could not have been joined with the upper. Jesus comes the second time to give Abraham the truth, which Yahweh had previously told him that through your seed all the earth and those living on it in the last things of the years of completion shall be blessed. And this is what Jesus means when he says your Kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven thus making the things below into the things above. Also the one sat on the throne in the book of rev is both Yahweh and the lord Jesus Christ, Yahweh is sat on the throne in heaven above and the lord Jesus is sat on the throne of Yahweh below on earth and Yahweh being manifested in Jesus Christ and the holy ones he is ruling in both the heavens and the earth thus making the below like the above when the kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven.
“When you make the male and the female one and the same.” In Christ Jesus, you are neither male nor female but a new man, which is androgynous for all true believers are being transformed into the divine mind and nature being sons of the living Father.
Male and female means to develop the desire to receive for the sake of imparting, so that one is perfectly transparent to the spirit-word. Receiving so that you might impart is a complete self-transcendence. Female means receptivity and receiving and male means sharing, imparting or giving. Alternatively, Man is for strength, judgment, and achievement. Woman is for grace, sympathy, and ministration. Between them, they form a beautiful unit -- "heirs together of the grace of life" Obviously, the two are interdependent and interconnected to the extent that one cannot exist without the other, like the body and the soul. In fact, the male and female represent two distinct operations of the same capacity like the body and the soul.
But in Christ Jesus you are neither male nor female so that the male be not male nor the female, female, being shaped into the image of the Lord above (1Cor 15:47-49) an image that contains within itself all opposites in perfect union including the male and female. Not only do you become like the Holy One, but also the Holy One comes to manifest as you. In this instant, you become the flow of divine grace the divine presence and power living and moving in the world
Therefore, Christ came to correct the separation that was from the beginning. There was both unity and equality in Eden before sin made its ugly appearance. The man and the woman were as one rejoicing together before God, which was brought to an end by the seductive suggestion of the serpent, and its terrible fruit of sin. The unity in Eden was broken, and because the woman was first in the transgression, she was brought into subjection to her husband (1Tim 2:12-14). After God told the serpent, He would provide a Redeemer who would bruise its head and release man from its power (sin). sentence was than pronounced upon the woman: Gen 3:16 And to the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy pains and thy groanings; in pain thou shall bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Your desire... to Your husband: Woman's desire to man, Christ: Song 2:16; 6:3. Man's pre-eminence over his wife: Eph 5:22-24. "Desire" is "teshuwqah", found in the OT only here and in Gen 3:16; 4:7; Song 7:10. Eve’s desire was for what she had lost, but hoped to regain it through him. This expresses a desire to return, a desire for oneness, a desire that the individual will (even HIS will!) should be subordinated to the needs of the unit which is the couple: "And the two will become one flesh" (Eph 5:31; cp Jn 17:21; Act 4:32; 27:23; 1Co 6:19,20). Instead "teshuwqah" some read "teshuwbah" return. Thus the Concordant translation renders: “By your husband is your restoration and he shall rule over you”. the LXX and the Syriac also render it as “return.” all these meanings are most significant. Eve was reminded that her restoration, return, was subject to her husband, and that he must exercise the rule over her. Eve, however, was typical of the bride of Christ, and these words spoken to her have an added significance when related to the bride. The restoration of the bride is subject to her husband (Christ), and he must bear rule over her, if she would attain unto it.
What is the restoration?
That unity for which Christ prayed the Father when he declared: John: 17:20,21 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
This expresses the complete union of marriage; that oneness that shall only be experienced when the marriage of the lamb hath come. For the moment, the bride is espoused as a “chaste virgin” to Christ, and in this relationship, there is partial restoration. Thus, Paul wrote: Galatians: 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. Paul taught that in Christ there is a restoration of oneness. We experience that initially at baptism, for no matter of which sex we might be, we are than made personally responsible to Christ. But the “oneness” there indicated, is but a token of the complete restoration in the future, when Christ’s prayer will be fulfilled, and when, taking her to himself in the bridal chamber, he will acknowledge that they are “one flesh” (Eph 5:31). Meanwhile, the second Eve remains in subjection to her husband (1Tim 2:11-12 Eph 5:22 Col 3:18)
To make your “eyes in place of an eye and a hand in place of a hand and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image” Thomas demands obscurely that people should not have the eyes, hand, foot that they have but those things in some other from and this refers to the putting off the old man. Therefore, this refers to the entire man having new eyes in place of the old, ears replacing ears hands for hands feet to feet all who have put off the old and earthly man and from whom Jesus has removed the clothing of the kingdom of men have put on the new and heavenly man, Jesus Christ. so that once again the eyes are joined to new eyes, ears to ears, hand to hand, to be completely pure and being the heavenly image both moral and corporeally.
“Wherefore, if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee; it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.” This is connected with the exhortation to “Despise not one of these little ones,” and must therefore refer to matters of attitude or relation to them. What can it mean but that we must be ready to part with anything rather than remain in a position that involves hostility to the undoubted friends of Christ? Jesus even gives it an application to brethren in the wrong. We are not to give them up without effort at reclamation in the particular way prescribed.
The “cut it off” in Mark means to “fashion eyes in the place of an eye” for no one would really cut off their hand or foot Mark and Thomas are taking about the same thing the thinking of the flesh our sinful desires.
Eye in place of the eye indicates the enlightened view of a high level of awareness associated with the centre in the head and is associated with a conscious union with God through Christ and by putting on the Christ-consciousness. A hand in place of a hand indicates action found upon this enlightened view. A foot in place of a foot indicates directing one’s whole life according to the will of God. An image in place of an image is to development of the body or body of light (body of the resurrection) that is both moral and corporeal. Morally when you let the word of the kingdom enter into you when you live according to the spirit of truth and so embody the holy kingdom. As Jesus says in Saying 3, the kingdom is within you.
22) ##Jesus saw infants [the Elect] being suckled [by their true spiritual mother]. He said to His disciples, "These infants being suckled are like those who enter the Kingdom." They said to Him, "Shall we then, as children, enter the Kingdom?" Jesus said to them, "When you make the two [the higher/inward (spiritual) substance and the lower/outward (fleshly) form)] one, and when you make the inside [where the Kingdom of God actually is] like the outside [where they allege it to be - you make it this way by your fruit] and the outside like the inside [replacing their image with the Fathers which is spread out over the earth - see v-113], and the above [heavenly] like the below [earthly], and when you make the male [spirit] and the female [soul] one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female [you become One in spirit]; and ##when you fashion eyes [two levels of seeing] in the place of an eye [one level], and a [right] hand [which knows what Jesus is doing (in His Power)] in place of a [left] hand [which doesn't (in your own power], and a [right] foot [which walks in the Way, the Truth and the Life] in place of a [left] foot [which doesn't], and a likeness [image of God] in place of a likeness [image of man]; then will you enter [the Kingdom]."
Saying 22
This Saying is generally seen by scholars as an allusion to baptism and early Christian concern with the need for rebirth in order to enter God's Kingdom.
In this Saying adults are compared to little children who are able to enter the kingdom, and little children are examples of persons who have put on the new man that is put on the Christ-self are able to enter the kingdom. Thus the kingdom is to be received as a little child. We must humble ourselves as little children. This saying does not mean that we enter the kingdom as children but it means to be converted and become as little children a man without humility cannot be saved. We are brought up with pagan beliefs, and naturally catch their views and spirit. It may be a hard lesson, but we must discard these if we are to come into harmony with the mind of Christ. He requires us to humble ourselves as little children. It is the requirement of the Spirit of God. The current pride and arrogance of society have their source in the mere propensities of nature, which, while having a useful place in subjection to wisdom, become as inconvenient and destructive and ugly as the unregulated predatory instincts of the savage. “To be carnally minded is death: to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” The humility of a little child is not inconsistent with the highest wisdom and executive resource. Jesus illustrates the combination in its highest form; and He could exercise reserve, fulminate angry condemnation, and proceed to high-handed extremity, as in the expulsion of the traders from the temple, while filling the place of a servant in meekness and gentleness. He himself sums up the character, in the words: “Be ye wise as serpents, harmless as doves,”.
To become a child is to become like Christ Jesus who in the days of his flesh was child-like. So what does it take to be like Christ ? Humility and servitude and the ability to identify oneself with Jesus through receiving the knowledge of the truth from the word of God both the spirit-word and Christ Jesus our knowledge of him and our faith in him.
To become an infant means to cleave unto God, as though sucking at your mothers breast in such away that you and the divine are one and the same and there is no division between you and the beloved. You are the beloved and the beloved is you.
This is done when you make the two one. The two are the flesh and the divine nature or the Deity, which must be brought into harmony and united. Making the two into one is a common theme in the bible about marriage, here Jesus is taking about the heavenly marriage when the head and the body become one the second Adam and Eve, the Lamb and his wife. Now the marriage does not begin until after the judgment of the house of God. but are relationship with Christ begins when we are baptised into Christ, when we put on Christ this is the beginning of our spiritual relationship with him or a moral marriage that is done by putting on the mind of Christ. But when he returns the true believers will be conformed to the image of Christ that is to be consubstantial with the Lamb and the Deity this is the true marriage the first is only a type of the second.
“The outside like the inside.” this part of the saying is about washing (Saying 89). We should wash ourselves by the water of the word. First we need to believe the exceeding great and precious promes by the faith of which they can alone become the partakers of the divine nature. Without faith in these things there is no true washing no purification, from moral defilement. The washing of water by the word is to be born of the water a moral resurrection from the dead by washing the inside and the outside thus making them both clean.
Circumcision was an outward symbol, but the external and the outward rite of the law, is not in itself of value. It is the inward disposition that matters. Here the Lord Jesus is telling the outward Jews to become inwardly ones, a real Jew for true circumcision is of the heart, in the cutting away of the sins of the flesh. Thus after cutting away the passions of the flesh from our consciousness we will also see a change in our life and actions. For The outer actions must be shaped upon the pattern of the inner man, so that the outer actions and the inner man are integrated and harmonious, completely reflecting each other. Your thoughts, feelings and emotions, words and deeds must follow the way of the inner self or Christ-self, so that, indeed you are the Holy One. This is the meaning of righteousness being rightly ordered according to the image of the Lord or the Christ-self.
When you make the above like the below. Here this should ready when you make the below like the above. Perhaps a mistake was made in copying of the text, nevertheless, there is a profound truth in these words, for when Jesus comes again and raise the true believers from the dead they with Jesus will bring heaven upon the earth, thus making the above like the below. Thus, the multitudinous Son of Man or the Man of the One will join the upper thing with the low things; the earth will be glorified, receiving heavenly glory. What was above will be below as Jesus says your Kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, when Jesus first came he give teaching from above if he had not come the lower things could not have been joined with the upper. Jesus comes the second time to give Abraham the truth, which Yahweh had previously told him that through your seed all the earth and those living on it in the last things of the years of completion shall be blessed. And this is what Jesus means when he says your Kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven thus making the things below into the things above. Also the one sat on the throne in the book of rev is both Yahweh and the lord Jesus Christ, Yahweh is sat on the throne in heaven above and the lord Jesus is sat on the throne of Yahweh below on earth and Yahweh being manifested in Jesus Christ and the holy ones he is ruling in both the heavens and the earth thus making the below like the above when the kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven.
“When you make the male and the female one and the same.” In Christ Jesus, you are neither male nor female but a new man, which is androgynous for all true believers are being transformed into the divine mind and nature being sons of the living Father.
Male and female means to develop the desire to receive for the sake of imparting, so that one is perfectly transparent to the spirit-word. Receiving so that you might impart is a complete self-transcendence. Female means receptivity and receiving and male means sharing, imparting or giving. Alternatively, Man is for strength, judgment, and achievement. Woman is for grace, sympathy, and ministration. Between them, they form a beautiful unit -- "heirs together of the grace of life" Obviously, the two are interdependent and interconnected to the extent that one cannot exist without the other, like the body and the soul. In fact, the male and female represent two distinct operations of the same capacity like the body and the soul.
But in Christ Jesus you are neither male nor female so that the male be not male nor the female, female, being shaped into the image of the Lord above (1Cor 15:47-49) an image that contains within itself all opposites in perfect union including the male and female. Not only do you become like the Holy One, but also the Holy One comes to manifest as you. In this instant, you become the flow of divine grace the divine presence and power living and moving in the world
Therefore, Christ came to correct the separation that was from the beginning. There was both unity and equality in Eden before sin made its ugly appearance. The man and the woman were as one rejoicing together before God, which was brought to an end by the seductive suggestion of the serpent, and its terrible fruit of sin. The unity in Eden was broken, and because the woman was first in the transgression, she was brought into subjection to her husband (1Tim 2:12-14). After God told the serpent, He would provide a Redeemer who would bruise its head and release man from its power (sin). sentence was than pronounced upon the woman: Gen 3:16 And to the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy pains and thy groanings; in pain thou shall bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Your desire... to Your husband: Woman's desire to man, Christ: Song 2:16; 6:3. Man's pre-eminence over his wife: Eph 5:22-24. "Desire" is "teshuwqah", found in the OT only here and in Gen 3:16; 4:7; Song 7:10. Eve’s desire was for what she had lost, but hoped to regain it through him. This expresses a desire to return, a desire for oneness, a desire that the individual will (even HIS will!) should be subordinated to the needs of the unit which is the couple: "And the two will become one flesh" (Eph 5:31; cp Jn 17:21; Act 4:32; 27:23; 1Co 6:19,20). Instead "teshuwqah" some read "teshuwbah" return. Thus the Concordant translation renders: “By your husband is your restoration and he shall rule over you”. the LXX and the Syriac also render it as “return.” all these meanings are most significant. Eve was reminded that her restoration, return, was subject to her husband, and that he must exercise the rule over her. Eve, however, was typical of the bride of Christ, and these words spoken to her have an added significance when related to the bride. The restoration of the bride is subject to her husband (Christ), and he must bear rule over her, if she would attain unto it.
What is the restoration?
That unity for which Christ prayed the Father when he declared: John: 17:20,21 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
This expresses the complete union of marriage; that oneness that shall only be experienced when the marriage of the lamb hath come. For the moment, the bride is espoused as a “chaste virgin” to Christ, and in this relationship, there is partial restoration. Thus, Paul wrote: Galatians: 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. Paul taught that in Christ there is a restoration of oneness. We experience that initially at baptism, for no matter of which sex we might be, we are than made personally responsible to Christ. But the “oneness” there indicated, is but a token of the complete restoration in the future, when Christ’s prayer will be fulfilled, and when, taking her to himself in the bridal chamber, he will acknowledge that they are “one flesh” (Eph 5:31). Meanwhile, the second Eve remains in subjection to her husband (1Tim 2:11-12 Eph 5:22 Col 3:18)
To make your “eyes in place of an eye and a hand in place of a hand and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image” Thomas demands obscurely that people should not have the eyes, hand, foot that they have but those things in some other from and this refers to the putting off the old man. Therefore, this refers to the entire man having new eyes in place of the old, ears replacing ears hands for hands feet to feet all who have put off the old and earthly man and from whom Jesus has removed the clothing of the kingdom of men have put on the new and heavenly man, Jesus Christ. so that once again the eyes are joined to new eyes, ears to ears, hand to hand, to be completely pure and being the heavenly image both moral and corporeally.
“Wherefore, if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee; it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.” This is connected with the exhortation to “Despise not one of these little ones,” and must therefore refer to matters of attitude or relation to them. What can it mean but that we must be ready to part with anything rather than remain in a position that involves hostility to the undoubted friends of Christ? Jesus even gives it an application to brethren in the wrong. We are not to give them up without effort at reclamation in the particular way prescribed.
The “cut it off” in Mark means to “fashion eyes in the place of an eye” for no one would really cut off their hand or foot Mark and Thomas are taking about the same thing the thinking of the flesh our sinful desires.
Eye in place of the eye indicates the enlightened view of a high level of awareness associated with the centre in the head and is associated with a conscious union with God through Christ and by putting on the Christ-consciousness. A hand in place of a hand indicates action found upon this enlightened view. A foot in place of a foot indicates directing one’s whole life according to the will of God. An image in place of an image is to development of the body or body of light (body of the resurrection) that is both moral and corporeal. Morally when you let the word of the kingdom enter into you when you live according to the spirit of truth and so embody the holy kingdom. As Jesus says in Saying 3, the kingdom is within you.
22) ##Jesus saw infants [the Elect] being suckled [by their true spiritual mother]. He said to His disciples, "These infants being suckled are like those who enter the Kingdom." They said to Him, "Shall we then, as children, enter the Kingdom?" Jesus said to them, "When you make the two [the higher/inward (spiritual) substance and the lower/outward (fleshly) form)] one, and when you make the inside [where the Kingdom of God actually is] like the outside [where they allege it to be - you make it this way by your fruit] and the outside like the inside [replacing their image with the Fathers which is spread out over the earth - see v-113], and the above [heavenly] like the below [earthly], and when you make the male [spirit] and the female [soul] one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female [you become One in spirit]; and ##when you fashion eyes [two levels of seeing] in the place of an eye [one level], and a [right] hand [which knows what Jesus is doing (in His Power)] in place of a [left] hand [which doesn't (in your own power], and a [right] foot [which walks in the Way, the Truth and the Life] in place of a [left] foot [which doesn't], and a likeness [image of God] in place of a likeness [image of man]; then will you enter [the Kingdom]."
