Gnostic Doctrine serves as a comprehensive research platform dedicated to exploring the intricate tapestry of Gnostic theology. Our focus revolves around the convergence of Christian mysticism and apocalyptic Judaism. Delving into texts like the Old and New Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, and the Nag Hammadi Library, we provide insights for those seeking self-discovery through the profound teachings that Christ imparted to his disciples in intimate setting
Sunday, 14 April 2024
The Mystical Union: Entering the Bridal Chamber with Jesus
75) Jesus said: There are many standing at the door, but it is the solitary who will enter the bridal chamber.
The Mystical Union: Entering the Bridal Chamber with Jesus
In the sacred teachings attributed to Jesus, there lies a profound metaphorical narrative about entering the bridal chamber. Within this metaphor lies a profound spiritual truth, symbolizing the intimate union between the believer and the divine. Let us delve deeper into this allegory, exploring its significance and implications for the faithful.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus speaks of the concept of the bridal chamber, imparting wisdom that transcends mere earthly understanding. He says, "There are many standing at the door, but it is the solitary who will enter the bridal chamber" (Matthew 25:1-13). This enigmatic statement carries layers of meaning, inviting contemplation on the nature of spiritual union and the path to enlightenment.
At its core, the bridal chamber symbolizes the ultimate union between the believer and Jesus, the divine bridegroom. Just as a bride joins her groom in marriage, so too does the faithful soul unite with Jesus in a mystical bond of love and devotion. This union is not merely symbolic but transformative, imbuing the believer with the qualities of the divine.
The journey to the bridal chamber begins with a solitary commitment to Jesus. In Matthew 7:7, Jesus encourages us to "ask, seek, and knock" at the door of our own spiritual understanding, rather than relying blindly on external authorities. This inner quest for truth and enlightenment distinguishes the solitary seeker from the multitude who remain spiritually deaf, entrusting their faith to religious leaders instead of forging a personal relationship with Jesus.
Baptism emerges as a pivotal rite in the journey toward the bridal chamber. Through baptism, believers symbolically enter into union with Jesus, experiencing a spiritual rebirth and purification of the soul. In John 3:5, Jesus declares, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." Baptism thus becomes a sacred initiation into the mystical union with the divine, preparing the believer to enter the bridal chamber.
The bridal chamber signifies more than just a union between two individuals; it represents the merging of the believer's essence with that of the Savior. This concept of consubstantiality echoes Jesus' prayer for unity in John 17:21, where he petitions, "that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us." Through this profound unity, the believer becomes conformed to the likeness of Jesus, embodying his moral and spiritual attributes.
The imagery of the bridal chamber also evokes the notion of being "born from above," as articulated by Jesus in John 3:3. This spiritual rebirth transcends earthly limitations, elevating the believer to a higher plane of existence where divine communion is realized. Just as a newborn enters the world with a fresh perspective, so too does the believer emerge from the bridal chamber with renewed spiritual insight and understanding.
In essence, the journey to the bridal chamber is a solitary quest for spiritual enlightenment and union with Jesus. It requires courage to step away from the crowd and seek truth independently, as well as humility to submit to the transformative power of baptism. Yet, the rewards of entering the bridal chamber are immeasurable, as it offers the believer an intimate union with the divine and a profound sense of purpose and fulfillment.
As we reflect on Jesus' teachings regarding the bridal chamber, may we be inspired to embark on our own spiritual journey, seeking union with the divine and embracing the transformative power of baptism. For it is in the solitary quest for truth and enlightenment that we find our truest union with Jesus, the divine bridegroom, and enter into the mystical realm of the bridal chamber.
The many who stood before the door are probably the foolish virgins of Matthew 25:1-13; only the 'solitary' or 'single one’ those who have committed themselves to Jesus can enter the bridal chamber. True marriage is the union with Jesus, the true husband and it is his bridal chamber that the believer is supposed to enter. We must enter the bridal chamber by baptism in this age or life and become married to Jesus to be like him morally and spiritually than in the age; to come we can enter into the true bridal chamber.
The male and female are united in the bridal chamber now the bridal chamber is a uniting with the divine when one is united with the Father and the Son the mystical union between the bridegroom and Anointed bride. The bridal chamber is to be made consubstantial with the Saviour that is the elect shares body and essence with the Saviour because of its oneness and union with Saviour that is why it is called the bridal chamber and this is why the saviour came to make the two one in the bridal chamber that is to be made consubstantial baptism is also called the bridal chamber because of the agreement and the inseparability of the one whom he has pot on. The bridal chamber is also to be born from above.
75)# Jesus said, "Many [are called and] are standing at the door [of the Word but cannot hear with a carnal ear thanks to putting their trust in religious leaders instead of Him], but it is the solitary [those who know that we should ask, seek and knock at our own cistern and not be led astray by false teachers ("One is your Teacher" Mat 28:8) who will enter the bridal chamber [these are set-apart from the world]."
Saturday, 13 April 2024
THE DIVINE SIDE OF CHRIST
THE DIVINE SIDE OF CHRIST
THE “WORD” BEFORE THE BIRTH OF CHRIST
How did the Lord proclaim things while he existed in flesh and after he had revealed himself as Son of God? He lived in this place where you remain, speaking about the Law of Nature - but I call it 'Death'. Now the Son of God, Rheginos, was Son of Man. He embraced them both, possessing the humanity and the divinity, so that on the one hand he might vanquish death through his being Son of God, and that on the other through the Son of Man the restoration to the Pleroma might occur; because he was originally from above, a seed of Truth, before this structure had come into being. In this many dominions and divinities came into existence. (The Treatise on the Resurrection)
E.H.H.—
the “Word” existed before the birth of Jesus Christ; but what was the Word? John answers, “The Word was God.” Jesus was “God manifest in the flesh.”
The orthodox view is that he was the Son of God incarnate.
This is the difference between orthodox and biblical belief on the point. Jesus was not the Son incarnate, but the Father manifested by the Spirit, the result being a Son, the first-born of many brethren, (Rom. 8:29) who become sons of God by adoption through Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:26; 4:5.) The “Word” is the Spirit used as the medium of the Father’s purpose. This is shown by the angel’s description of the process by which the Word became flesh (Luke 1:35.)
Christ is the work of God in a sense in which man is not, that the glory of the triumph wrought out in him may be to God, and that human nature may have no room for the self-satisfied, self-approving which is so common with man.
To see the full force of this idea we must realise the divine side of Christ. In all the discourses of Christ, the Father is brought forward as the great initiator and operator in the case. This is his style of language: "I came down from Heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me" (Jn. 6:38). "I am not come of myself (Jn. 6:28). 'The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works" (Jn. 14:10). "I am come in my Father's name" (Jn. 5:43). "I can of mine own self do nothing" (Jn. 5:30). "He that sent me is with me" (Jn. 8:29). "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. How sayest thou, then, shew us the Father" (Jn. 14:9). So with the apostles: Paul speaks (Eph. 1:5) of the Father, "having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ το HIMSELF according to the good pleasure of His will. "
Again he says (Rom. 3:23), "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified FREELY BY HIS GRACE through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." And again, in the 1lth chapter of the same letter, at the 32nd verse: "God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all." Again, in his second letter to the Corinthians (vv. 18-19), he tells us that God hath reconciled us unto HIMSELF by Jesus Christ; and that God was in Christ, reconciling the world UNTO HIMSELF. And again, in his letter to Titus (3:4): "The kindness and love of GOD our SAVIOUR toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His MERCY, He saved us." And in chap. 2:11: "For the GRACE OF GOD that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men."
It is the grace of God, then — the act of God — that we see in the introduction of Christ upon the scene to open a way for mercy with wisdom and justice. This required that he should appear in the nature of Abraham and David,which was sinful nature.
How then, some say, was he, with sinful flesh, to be sinless? God's relation to the matter is the answer. God did it. The weak flesh could not do it. Jesus was God manifest in the flesh, that the glory might be to God. The light in his face is the light of the Father's glory. As to how the Father could be manifest in a man with an independent mind, we need not trouble ourselves. We are ignorant as to how the Father performs any of the many wonders of His power —
We know a thousand things as facts, but we are utterly ignorant of the mode of invisible working by which these facts have their existence. We receive them, though we do not understand them. If it be so with things in nature, our inability to define or conceive the process need be no difficulty in the way of receiving a heavenly fact.
For who can contemplate the superhuman personage shown in the gospel account without seeing that the Father is manifest in him? When did ever man behave, act, perform, miricals like this man?
When spoke the most gifted of men like this? Is he not manifestly revealed the moral and intellectual image of the invisible God? Is he not — last Adam though he be — is he not "the Lord from heaven"?
But what are we to say to the plain declaration emanant from the mouth of the Lord himself, that the beholder looking on him, saw the Father, and that the Father within him by the Spirit — (for as he said on the subject of eating his flesh, it is the Spirit that maketh alive: the flesh profiteth nothing) — was the doer and the speaker?
By nature God cannot die, be tempted etc. It is evident that Christ was not of God's nature during his life. He was therefore totally of human nature. From our definition of the word 'nature' it should be evident that Christ could not have had two natures simultaneously. It was vital that Christ was tempted like us (Heb. 4:15), so that through his perfect overcoming of temptation he could gain forgiveness for us.
the flesh of Christ as a mixture of human with "divine substance."
God was manifest in Jesus, and that Jesus was of our nature, and "touched with the feeling of our infirmities," as Paul declares, and "tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin."
The Deity of Christ
The Deity of Christ
The Deity of Christ
How did the Lord proclaim things while he existed in flesh and after he had revealed himself as Son of God? He lived in this place where you remain, speaking about the Law of Nature - but I call it 'Death'. Now the Son of God, Rheginos, was Son of Man. He embraced them both, possessing the humanity and the divinity, so that on the one hand he might vanquish death through his being Son of God, and that on the other through the Son of Man the restoration to the Pleroma might occur; because he was originally from above, a seed of Truth, before this structure had come into being. In this many dominions and divinities came into existence. (The Treatise on the Resurrection)
the “Word” existed before the birth of Jesus Christ; but what was the Word? John answers, “The Word was God.” Jesus was “God manifest in the flesh.”
The orthodox view is that he was the Son of God manifest.
This is the difference between orthodox and biblical belief on the point. Jesus was not the Son incarnate, but the Father manifested by the Spirit, the result being a Son, the first-born of many brethren, (Rom. 8:29) who become sons of God by adoption through Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:26; 4:5.)
The “Word” is the Spirit used as the medium of the Father’s purpose. This is shown by the angel’s description of the process by which the Word became flesh (Luke 1:35.)
The Deity of Christ is not to be considered as consisting always "in an incarnation of the Father." but the Father manifested by the Spirit. The Deity of Christ is more complete now when there is no incarnation at all than it was in the days of his flesh Luke 13:32. In him dwells all the fullness of the Deity bodily Col 2:9
In what does this Deity consist? In the spirit physically corporealised. He is the Lord the spirit. God is spirit and he is the same. In what did his Deity consist in the Days of his flesh? In the same spirit resting cherub-like in measureless flowing out of spirit on the body prepared by and for itself of the seed of David according to the flesh for the doing of the will of the Father for the sanctification and redemption of the children heb 10:5-10
But this spirit and the father cannot be separated for they are one as a flame and the light of it are one. the Father dwelling in heaven in light unapproachable and the spirit radiating from him filling heaven and earth are one Father who says Do not I fill heaven and earth Jer 23:24
How the Father tabernacling in the body prepared could say "destroy this temple (a symbol of the body) and in 3 days I will rise it up John 2:19 Surely the lifeless body taken down from the cross was not Deity! Can Deity die? The Deity departed from him in death and returned at the resurrection.
The word was God. this existed before the man Christ Jesus and before everything created. Jesus was the personal embodiment of the word and therefore God manifested in the flesh." we hear not of the Son before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but of the word we hear
article take from the Christadelphian Magazine 1873
Saturday, 16 March 2024
Jesus Is a Hidden Name The Gospel of Philip
So Jesus is not a word in any tongue but a name they call him.
for him: Jesus, the Nazorean, messiah,
that is, Jesus, the Nazorean, the Christ.
The last name is Christ,
the first is Jesus,
the middle name is the Nazarene.
Messiah has two meanings, both “Christ” and “measured.”
Jesus in Hebrew is “redemption.”
Nazara is “truth.”
Christ has been measured.
Most think of 'Christ' as Jesus' last name. Christ, however, is the Greek term for Messiah. Jesus, the Christ, is Jesus, the Messiah.
The word "Christ" signifies anointed. Anointing means designation to official position in God's arrangement. The Christ is the instrument or channel for the blessing of mankind. The Christ is composed of Jesus, the great and mighty head, and 144,000 members. (Revelation 7:4) Christ Jesus is the head and the church his body. We ofttimes hear the expression, a body of men with a general at their head. Of the Christ the apostle says: "And he [Christ Jesus] is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell." — Colossians 1:17-19.
The Apostle Paul uses a human body to illustrate the Christ, the great mystery class; the head representing Jesus, and the other members of the body those who are of his church. "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." — 1 Corinthians 12:12, 27.
Because we are members of his body and we are of his flesh and of his bones. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church
For as many as have been baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ ... ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and HEIRS according to the promise" (Gal. 3:26-29). A community of such individuals as these constitutes the mystical body of Christ
the term Christ refers to the anointed message that Jesus of Nazareth taught; i.e. Jesus' teachings. When Paul called the "Christ, the 'wisdom of God' in 1Co 1:24, he assumes that the Corinthians know that the divine Sophia [wisdom] has been reinterpreted as Christ,
In 1Th 5:18, Paul said, "the saving will [logic] of God is in Christ Jesus…this use of the phrase emphasizes…the cooperation of the Father as initiator and prime cause with the Son as agent/instrument."
What can be assumed here is that Jesus brings the will (logic) of God to man in his anointed teachings. (See Jn, Chapter 1)
"To be in Christ is to be a new creation [person] (2Co 5:17)…God has reconciled man with himself through Christ [i.e., through Jesus' anointed teachings]…. Christ is not an external principle of law or doctrine, but a life and a state in which and only in which the fullness of Christian grace and virtue and the love of God is possible. Hence this phrase 'in Christ' appears to designate the element or atmosphere in which the Christian lives and acts;
In Col 1:16f 'in Christ' designates Christ the wisdom/will of God in man
In short, We think of Christ not as Jesus, but rather as Jesus' wisdom, logos, Sophia, or simply, anointed teachings.
In himself Christ has everything, be it human or angel or mystery and the father. The Gospel of Philip
Christ is the divine-idea. Jesus is the name that represents an individual expression of the Christ idea.
Christ is the one complete idea of perfection in the Divine Mind. He is the embodiment of all divine ideas, such as wisdom, life, love, substance, and strength. In the architect's mind there may be one masterpiece, but that masterpiece is the sum of all the beautiful ideas that have come to his mind. This Christ, or perfect idea existing eternally in the Divine mind is the true, spiritual, higher self of every believer. or the Christ Consciousness. Each of the true believers has been Anointed with the spirit of Christ thus each of the true believers has within them the Christ, just as Jesus had.
Some do not realize the nearness of this Christ Consciousness , because they have not found their real selves. which is Christ in you the hope of glory
The birth of the Christ Consciousness in the life of a believer is the bringing to consciousness of the spiritual idea of the Christ of God--through the quickening power of the word of Truth
we are renewed by knowledge” (Col. iii. 10). In this, however, he does not contradict himself, but rather makes the one phrase explanatory of the other; as if he had said, “we are renewed by the Holy Spirit through knowledge.” The Holy Spirit renews or regenerates man intellectually and morally by the truth believed. “Sanctify them by thy truth,” says Jesus; “thy word, O Father, is truth” (John xvii. 17). “Ye are clean,” said he to his apostles, “through the word which I have spoken to you” (John xv. 3). God’s power is manifested through means. His Spirit is His power by which He effects intellectual, moral, and physical results. When He wills to produce intellectual and moral effects, it is by knowledge revealed by His Spirit through the prophets and apostles. This knowledge becomes power when received into “good and honest hearts”; and because God is the author of it, it is styled “the Knowledge of God” (2 Pet. i. 2), or “the word of truth” (James i. 18), by which He begets sinners to Himself as His sons and daughters. “The word of the truth of the gospel,”” the gospel of the kingdom.” “the incorruptible seed,” “the word,” “the truth as it is in Jesus,”” the word of the kingdom,”” the word of reconciliation,” “the law and the testimony,” “the word of faith,” “the sword of the spirit which is the word of God,” “the word of Christ,” “the perfection of liberty,” etc.-are all phrases richly expressive of” the power of God” by which He saves His people from their sins, and translates them into the Hope of the kingdom and glory to which He invites them. The truth is the power that makes men free indeed (John viii. 32, 36). Hence Jesus says, “My words are spirit, and they are life.” The prophets, Jesus, and the apostles were the channels through which it was transmitted to mankind; and the spirit the agent by which the knowledge was conveyed to them. Hence, the knowledge or the truth being suggested to the prophets by the spirit is sometimes styled “the spirit” (Rom. ii. 20). The spirit is to the truth as cause and effect; and by a very common figure of speech, the one is put for the other in speaking of them relatively to the mind and heart of man. So that the phrase “renewed by the holy spirit” is equivalent to renewed by the belief of the truth testified by the Holy Spirit (John xv. 26: xiv. 13-14)