Bruce Charlton's Notions

It is interesting to try and understand the essence of 'Christianity' - the single main thing that Jesus did, if you like - and when you do, it seems that there are actually quite a wide range of answers. 

My own (Fourth Gospel derived) idea is that Jesus brought the new possibility of eternal resurrected life in Heaven to those who followed him. 

Others regard the coming of Christ in terms of setting up a new religion - and then participating in the prescribed activities of that religion. Or a changed relationship between Man and God. Or provision of a source of guidance for (this mortal) life. Others focus on a change in 'reality' in the totality of the universe - an 'evolutionary' view. Others take a morality-focused view; which see immorality/ 'sin' as The Problem, and Jesus offering a solution. There are also other ideas - a surprisingly large number!

But if my own understanding of Christianity as "following Jesus to Heaven" is accepted (as a thought experiment, if nothing more) then it is interesting to consider what happened during the years of Jesus's ministry when a Jew or a Roman Pagan decided to 'convert', to become a spiritual follower of Jesus - to consider what this meant in terms of their pre-existing religion. 

My understanding is that - initially - a belief in Jesus was understood in terms of an addition to what was already believed. The Jew added a belief in Jesus to his pre-existing religion, and the Roman likewise. 

In other words, the new thing about becoming a follower of Jesus was the expectation ('hope') of eternal resurrected life in Heaven - to come after this mortal life and after death; and that this resurrection was to be attained by following Jesus. 

'Following' involved having faith in Jesus (in his being the Son of God, thus divine - therefore able to do what he claimed) - and 'faith' meant something like loving and trusting him. 

I think this - specifically about the Jews - is what Jesus meant in those passages of the Gospels where he implied that no aspect of 'being a Jew' needed to be changed in order to become one of his followers. 

It also fits with the miracles of faith; where the miracle happens in someone who 'believes-on' Jesus - specifically, personally; without regard to the nature of his specific religious life - which might be Jewish, Samaritan, or any type of Pagan. 

This idea of 'Christianity' as pre-existing religion-plus, fits with the observation of people who seemed to be (to to believe themselves to be) Christians and Jews, or (presumably) Christians and Samaritans, or Christians and Roman or Greek Pagans. 

It happens because the original Christianity was actually composed of "pre-existing religion"... and then 'adding Jesus'. 

This idea of Jesus as 'an addition' to religion is quite different from - almost the opposite of - 'syncretic' ideas of a religion formed from combining aspects of "Christianity" (as it later became) and "some other religion". 

The idea is instead that Christianity has an essence - which is the following of Jesus to resurrection - and this essence can be added to almost any other "religion". 

But of course, adding Jesus does not leave the pre-existing religion untouched, unchanged! Far from it! In the first place, the Christian idea of death as followed by resurrection (for those who believe-on Jesus) must displace whatever description of death was given by the pre-existent religion. 

So the expectation of Heaven needs to replace Sheol, Hades, paradise, reincarnation, annihilation or whatever was previously expected. 

Furthermore, adding-Jesus inevitably works-back on the pre-existing religion. 

In other words, the expectation of immortal life in Heaven affects the understanding of mortal life on earth - affects it in innumerable ways. 

I suppose that this was the basis for the development of the various Christian churches - these are the various consequences of the expectation of Heaven, on Man's understanding of life on earth. 

And the churches vary because the order and priority of these changes strikes people differently. Since the changes in mortal life are secondary consequences of the primary reality of resurrection; there will often be disagreement as to which ought to come first, which ought to be most enforced. 

But our situation here-and-now, in 2022, is that of no pre-existing religion. "Following-Jesus" cannot easily or obviously be added to Zero - not in the way Jesus could be added to Judaism or Paganism. 

Atheism is the - increasingly mandatory - basis of all serious social life and discourse. Religion is everywhere subordinated to ideology - and that ideology is top-down, imposed, and evil. 

Our rituals and rules are secular (i.e. Satanic in nature and by intent) - not divinely-attributed. 

Jesus is not believed in his promises because he 'cannot be' divine, because 'the divine' is seen as untrue, mistaken, a lie - and indeed impossible. 

Resurrection and eternal life are seen as sheerly incoherent in a materialist world where spirit and the soul are seen as merely mythical, pathological or manipulative.  

 

Such is our situation. Men of 2000 years ago (and much more recently) were able to understand what Jesus meant easily and quickly. They could become 'Christians' (followers of Christ) almost instantaneously; simply by understanding that Jesus offered something more than their existing religion, and by experiencing the spiritual conviction (faith) that this offer of resurrection was real and possible. 

The offer still stands, and can still (in principle) instantaneously be accepted - and then the expectation of Heaven can still begin its inevitable (but unpredictable, because so wide-ranging) working-back to transform a Man's pre-existing convictions... 

Yet the Good News of Jesus Christ cannot nowadays simply add-onto and re-shape existing religious convictions because there are none, and even the basis for religion is destroyed and replaced by a secular, materialist, leftist ideology*.

(An ideology which is in-actuality a mostly-covert Satanism - not neutral but evil.)

The potential follower-of-Jesus ("convert") must also choose to reject many foundational modern metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of reality; and choose instead to adopt beliefs within-which Christianity makes sense, and can do its work. 

And against the background of evil materialistic nihilism - this must indeed be a conscious choice; and (because the world of institutions and rules opposes it) this conscious choice must be personal - that is, individually-motivated. 

The essence of Christianity remains the same as ever - what makes a huge and adverse difference is that Modern Man is deeply damaged by this-worldly materialism, a nihilism that is deep and habitual, and by a tacit-and-denied allegiance to the evil agenda of Satan. 

*Note: This is why I regard it as a misleading error to call the global, mainstream modern ideology of 'leftism' (or political correctness, or 'woke') "a religion" as so many of those who oppose it do. Despite some superficial resemblances, the leftist ideology is not a religion, it is instead anti-religion - the negation of religion. This is proved by the fact that it cannot (like Judaism, Greek or Roman Paganism etc) be added-to by Jesus, to make someone a real Christian. Precisely because leftist-ideology is Not a religion; if you "add Jesus" to leftist ideology you merely get a fake-Christianity. You get that Christianized-leftism of the kind propagated by the leaders of the major Christian churches and denominations. 

Ever since I began to consider the matter seriously; I have found the ways that sin and forgiveness are discussed to be incoherent. They just don't seem to add up, or hold together. 

What I think I was sensing, was a clash between the temporary and the eternal, the individual and the social -- resulting from changes in human consciousness and the concept of 'Christianity' since the time of Jesus. 

I think it likely that, when Christianity was developed as an institutional, then a state, religion; it became bound-up with the prescription and enforcement of good, pro-social, 'Christian behaviour' - and this became regarded as the pre-requisite to salvation. 

So we get the idea of 'sin' as transgression of laws, and 'forgiveness' as some mixture of punishments, penances, and wiping the slate clean of past transgressions. In practice, 'sin' was externally, socially, defined. 

Thus laws and other rules of conduct were societally developed, validated and imposed; the individual was the sinner (law-breaker); and some representative of society decided what ought to be done about it.

This pragmatic system relating to social behaviour (primarily) was then harnessed to the 'cosmic' aspects of Christianity; i.e. the fact of Jesus Christ having change created reality - made possible a new Heaven of eternal resurrected life etc. 

This was the - to me - peculiar picture from Christianity; of a reality made up of moral laws/ legal codes and the system for developing and enforcing them; which was strangely linked with a narrative of the history of everything. 

It seemed hard to grasp how - in creating - God had built-in objective morality of this social kind... I just couldn't picture how this might work. 

When I spent a year or so, reading and re-reading the Fourth Gospel ("John") - I gradually became aware of a very different way in which sin was being conceptualized. 

The IV Gospel (overall) saw sin as ultimately death; and milder sins as including sickness and others kinds of dysfunction, corruption (away from proper purpose and function), wrong attitudes towards God, expounding of false realities, and so forth. 

I gathered that Jesus's work in taking-away sin, was to take-away death; in other words to offer Men the possibility of resurrection into life everlasting. 

Miracles of healing were perhaps Jesus taking-away lesser 'sins' of disease and disability. 

'Forgiveness' is not mentioned as such in the Fourth Gospel; but in some parables and miracles, Jesus seems to be declaring something about a change of mind or heart, or a reorientation, on the part of the one who is healed - this (here-and-now) commitment to Jesus is the 'faith' that has made the miracle possible. 

But this is not necessarily an eternal transformation of behaviour. I don't think we are meant to assume that one who has had faith, and received a miracle, would 'never sin again' in the sense of never again breaking any of the Laws of morality. 

The transformation of those who encountered Jesus was not a permanent change of their behaviour; but a here-and-now change of heart, of desire, of attitude. 

It seems possible that Jesus was talking about repentance or forgiveness in terms of a person turning to Jesus as Saviour, as Good Shepherd - as recognizing that only by 'loving' and following Jesus can we have eternal resurrected life. 

This can only be guaranteed as a temporary state of affairs in this mortal life - because somebody might at first decide to follow Jesus, and then later change his mind. As a sheep might begin following the Shepherd to safety; but change his mind, stray, and fall off a precipice to his death (i.e. to choose damnation). 

Thus, concepts such as 'repentance' and more generally 'faith' may best be understood as referring to the here-and-now; to the current situation in mortal life. 

These concepts are also, at root, personal and not institutional - at least to us modern men. 

Personal and institutional were, indeed, de facto inseparable in earlier stages of Man's development of consciousness, including the time of Christ and the centuries that followed. 

It was only from the late medieval era that Western Men began mentally to distinguish the individual group his group, more and more fully, and then to experience as a fact of reality. 

So, my confusion about 'sin' (and the confusion of Christian teaching, from which my confusion derived) was - in part - a consequence of trying to combine concepts from different stages of Man's consciousness.  

My conclusion is that we have now arrived at a very different point from where Christianity arrived at after the ascension of Jesus and the rapid development of first the Church, and then the Christian State. We are, indeed, now returned to a situation much closer to that described in the Fourth Gospel, during the life of Jesus. 

'Faith' is now something-like a here-and-now determination to follow Jesus to eternal life; and 'sin' is... anything else, i.e. any other commitment or purpose than that of following Jesus to resurrection-specifically. 

'Repentance' (the word itself isn't used in the Fourth Gospel) is (perhaps) simply the renewed commitment to following Jesus; whereas 'apostasy' is, like Judas Iscariot, referring to one who once had faith, later changing his mind and deciding Not to believe or follow Jesus. 

(And then, of course, apostasy may be repented.) 

So 'sin' is ultimately choosing death - meaning not-resurrection; but choosing instead some other fate for our post-mortal soul.

Thus 'damnation' may entail something like loss of personhood, loss of agency, loss of consciousness... Or refusing to leave this mortal world, and remaining bound to the domination of entropy and death. Damnation may be many or several possibilities, because it is anything-but resurrection. 

And, from this, 'sin' is used more generally to refer to mortal life and its innate nature - this world, dominated by entropic change: corruption, disease, decay, degeneration... 

In other words: 'sin' is all of that from-which we are rescued by resurrection into eternal life. 

In the early Chapters of the Fourth Gospel, Jesus repeatedly tries to explain the nature of his 'mission' - what he brings - using a contrast between water on the one hand, and that which water becomes through following Jesus after death: spirit or some other. 

More exactly; Jesus uses "water" to mean this life, this temporary life in this mortal world - and contrasts it with what he offers - which is "not of this world". 

Indeed, throughout the Fourth Gospel, involving everybody from the disciples through to Pilate, we can see Jesus struggling (over and again) to make people understand that what he offers is not of this world; that he is not a would-be "king" who claims to offers a better life in this realm of "water" in which everything is temporary... 

Instead of that; Jesus describes the Kingdom of life-everlasting coming after death, and only after death: to reach it we must first die, and then be 'reborn', born-again - that is resurrected.  

In Chapter 1, John says that he himself baptizes with water - but Jesus's is a baptism of the spirit - which refers to the distinction between this and the next world, the spirit being from Heaven:

And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.

In Chapter 2, the contrast is given in the nature of the water-to-wine miracle of Cana; where water is perhaps understandable as this-worldly life, and "wine" may be taken to stand for the transformed life after death. 

In Chapter 3; Jesus talks to Nicodemus about being "born again" - which means first to die and then to be resurrected - i.e. a kind of rebirth, but into an everlasting condition: 

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Here we see "water" of this life, again contrasted with the "Spirit" of the next. And again that the Spirit must be preceded by the water. Man must first be born into this mortal world (of "water") if he wishes ultimately to enter the eternal kingdom of God. 

Jesus also introduces a further "analogy" for this mortal life as "the flesh" - to explain that there is no possibility of achieving the Kingdom of God on earth and in this mortal life; but only by passing-through death and re-birth ("Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God). 

A man that is born into this mortal world of the flesh can only be mortal ("the flesh is flesh"); but he that is re-born (i.e. resurrected) into the world of Spirit, beyond death, will himself partake of the immortality of that life-after-life ("the Spirit is spirit"). 

In sum; for a man to become eternal he must be born (that is, re-born; which entails mortally-dying first) in the eternal world.  

Chapter 4 describes Jesus at Jacob's well, talking with a Samaritan woman who is drawing water. 

Again Jesus contrasts the water of this mortal and temporary life which the woman draws from the well, with what He Himself brings to the world: which is everlasting water ("living" water - i.e. by analogy life that is eternally-self-renewing) - for those who desire it, and ask for it. 

Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?

Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

In Chapter 5, Jesus goes to the pool at Bethesda, where the "impotent" seek to enter the water and be healed. The "impotent" implies all men in this mortal life and world. 

In this world, therefore temporarily. Jesus heals the man ("Take up thy bed, and walk") but Jesus explains that what he has come to do is not about temporary healing in this temporary world; but is about "sin" (by which, in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus mostly means death without resurrection).

Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more...

I think that Jesus's admonitions - here, and sometimes elsewhere - to sin no more, or not to sin, make no sense if understood as ordering people to cease from moral transgression - which Jesus knew (as we know) to be an impossibility in this mortal life. 

"Sin no more" - in the Fourth Gospel - means (more or less) that people should die no more; that is, that they should instead understand, believe, and accept Jesus's gift of eternal resurrected life. 

The instruction to sin no more is therefore roughly equivalent to Jesus urging people to accept the gift of resurrected life eternal, through believing and following Him.

"Sin no more" actually means therefore - as we might say it - "convert to Christianity". 

In Chapter 6 Jesus varies the symbol, somewhat: 

[The people said:] Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.... 

[Jesus replied:] Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. 

Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.

And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

Again the contrast is between the only temporarily-satisfying "bread" of this world, and the eternally-satisfying bread from heaven after-which we will never hunger (and also the drink which permanently abolishes thirst, presumably "living water") - that shall be given - after death - to those who "come to" Jesus. 

Chapter 7: In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

Here there is again implicit the earlier idea (from Jacob's well) the idea of ordinary water versus "living" water - to mean resurrected life everlasting. The man who thirsts is one who desires eternal life in the Kingdom of God. 

And the path to that life leads through death via "believing-on" Jesus - implying "belief" entails trusting and following the person of Jesus, at, and after, our death. 

Other similar passages can be cited, where contrast is drawn between, on the one hand, this-worldly and temporary ameliorations (such as Moses's provision of manna); and, on the other hand, the eternal and transformative life-beyond-life that Jesus brings and offers. 

It seems to me that there is a pattern through the Fourth Gospel of Jesus repeatedly denying that His business is to offer what we might term secular improvements - e.g psychological and sociopolitical benefits; and instead many attempts to explain (with various 'analogies', or symbols) that his message is not about this, but about the next, world. 

Now, of course, belief-in and desire-to-accept, Jesus's offer of eternal resurrected life in the Kingdom of God is almost certain to have effects on this mortal life... But any such effects on this-life are secondary to expectation of the-life-to-come. 

This is worth emphasizing, because I think many or most Christian get it the wrong way around - and thereby fall into the error Jesus strove so often to correct. They assume that Christianity is about doing particular stuff in this world in order to get to the next world. 

Indeed, some Christians put so much emphasis on the particular stuff that must be done in this world; that they hardly ever even think-about the next world. 

Some even ignore the primary promise of Heaven; and instead focus almost-exclusively on the quadruple-negative life purpose; of not-doing stuff that must be eschewed, in order to avoid-Hell!  

But Christianity is primarily about resurrected life after and beyond this mortal life; therefore, the effects of Christian belief on this mortal life are secondary to, contingent upon, the anticipated fact of resurrection in a mortal life.

Effects of Christian belief on this mortal life are thus a secondary consequence of the expectation of eternal life.

Any changed behaviours ought-to derive from the different perspective on this-life that results from belief in the life-to-come.  

***

Note: Then there is a long-running disputation about whether we can, or should, be confident about the life-to-come - i.e. "salvation". 

Many Christians have believed that salvation is difficult, complex, rare, only possible via a church and its requirements...

But that is not what comes across in the Fourth Gospel. In the Fourth Gospel; it seems that salvation is something like a decision and a commitment; and that those who have chosen salvation (by means of following Jesus) ought to be confident of salvation (so long as they continue to remain committed to it); and then... live their lives on the basis of this confident expectation. 

I have been re-reading the Fourth Gospel (in the Authorized or King James version) with intensity of engagement, and the large sweep of narrative - the miracles and the teaching - that runs from the third through the sixteenth Chapters: from meeting Nicodemus at night to just before Jesus's arrest. 

 

I am struck afresh and with great force what Jesus does and does-not speak of. Again and again Jesus explains who and what he is; and that he is asking to be believed, loved and "followed". 

(What "following" means is explained in the Good Shepherd section.)

Once his hearers know who Jesus is; they are asked repeatedly to love and follow him - and that is very much the focus and the core of the Gospel.  

Jesus apparently has great difficulty in communicating the simplicity of his message to the disciples; and only just before his arrest (at the end of Chpater 16) does Jesus seem satisfied that the disciples have at last grasped what Jesus has told them so many times.

 

Jesus does not talk about rules for living, does not talk of morality. Does not tell people how to behave in the details (or indeed the sweep) of everyday life. 

Indeed, this trait is very marked indeed. Jesus is hardly-at-all a moral teacher. When he refers to sin, he nearly always means death, and suchlike realities of this mortal life.  

And when Jesus speaks of "commandments" he essentially means to "love one another" (as he goes on to explain) and Himself - clearly a qualitatively different matter from the commandments of Moses. 

All this is very different from how Jesus is usually described. 

 

The shaping emphasis is on the life and world to come; not this mortal life and world - it is the post-resurrection reality that ought to shape our current goals and behaviours.

In other words; Jesus is usually talking about having brought a change in ultimate, "cosmic" reality; a change in the set-up of divine creation: new realities and new possibilities. 

 

Throughout, Jesus talks of his Father as a distinct person from himself: clearly with complete harmony between the two of them, but his Father absolutely as a real and separate person from Jesus himself; a person with whom Jesus has a relationship of the same kind as with the disciples, but vastly greater and perfected. 

Thus Jesus's message is cosmic; but the cosmic is personal - indeed a matter of many persons; because Jesus links God to himself, and to the disciples (broadly considered - not meaning some particular number of men); all those with whom Jesus shares mutual love.

Love is mentioned many, many times; and seems like the core term - a new and all-transcending principle of life - the new reality that Jesus made-happen. Reading this, one is immediately compelled to ponder this astonishing reality that Jesus has placed at the heart of creation  

The Holy Ghost, the Comforter, is described Jesus himself (not a separate person) after he will have ascended to Heaven - and who will be present to all who love and follow Jesus. The Holy Ghost is stated to provide - in a personal way - all that is required of guidance and knowledge.  

This is emphasized: everything the disciples need to know after Jesus has ascended to Heaven, will be provided by the Holy Ghost. 

 

Something that is very evident is that Jesus asserts the exclusivity of his message. That only by Jesus, via Jesus, can we attain resurrected everlasting life. There is no other way. 

This is asserted as a fact; although what that fact means is apparently very different from the usual way it has been taught in the centuries since - because the Fourth Gospel is utterly indifferent to any form of church. 

The gospel is all about relationships, and these relationships are personal - indeed Jesus declares (at some length, in detail) that they need to be the relationships of friends, rather than hierarchical or formal.  

 

But Jesus's insistence on the exclusivity of his role in salvation is absolutely hard-line. If resurrection is what people want, there is simply no alternative (when the time comes) to knowing and following Jesus.

The reason why is also explained; which is that those who reject Jesus do not want what Jesus offers. The monotheists (such as the Pharisees) want something altogether different from what Jesus offers: they are rejecting the new cosmic possibilities that Jesus brings. 

What this partial summary fails to do is to describe the power of this reading when I am able to give the engagement full and intense attention; the authority and conviction with which the words and actions of Jesus reach across the centuries; in which these words over-leap the vast complexity of "Christianity" that grew in the generations in-between Jesus and myself. 

Of course, yesterday and today is not the first time I have felt this (as I wrote previously) - but this was a fresh amazement - and evoked a fear that it might not be so!

...Leading-on to a new affirmation of faith and another experience of conviction; of direct validation. 

 

What Jesus is saying and offering in the Fourth Gospel is astonishing to me, breathtaking in its originality and radicalism.

For me it is something that I want deeply, something I therefore really want to be true! And the whole thing therefore hinges on whether I personally believe what Jesus is saying - whether I believe He was who he said, and whether I regard as true what he claimed. 

After which, according to the Fourth Gospel; I am told to turn to the Holy Ghost (that is; to Jesus himself, in person, as available to us here-and-now) to provide exactly that knowledge, and the comfort that derives from conviction of its truth.  

 

Note added: I see that I failed to complete the circuit of the above description; because no matter how overwhelming a spiritual experience may be at the time of experiencing it - such conviction does not last. Almost immediately, the experience is subjected to doubts, and indeed is readily explained-away by all kinds of familiar materialistic/ scientistic arguments (just a dream, a delusion, wishful thinking etc.). That is the situation of modern man - and not by accident. As men who have become conscious of much that was once spontaneous and implicit; modern Men must consciously choose. We must decide whether or not to believe our spiritual experiences; whether or not to regard them as an intuition of ultimate reality. This is a free choice, and one for which we ought to take personal responsibility. Specifcially; we ought not to desire to be permanently overwhelmed by a conviction so powerful and lasting that we never get out from under it. Nor should we regard such inescapable experiences as the most valid. Because that would be to desire to be un-free and to evade personal responsibility. Therefore - to complete the circuit - I freely choose to believe as real that religious experience of conviction: I choose to make its validity a bottom line assumption for me. 

I'm assuming here (as explained here) that the essence of what Jesus did was to make possible resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

One way I think about resurrection is that Jesus described himself as the Good Shepherd, and developed the explanation that we were like sheep who could follow him - implicitly from biological death of the body, to eternal resurrected life. 

I take this parable rather 'literally' as describing a 'process' or transformation - happening through time - which we may choose to go-through after death. 

It seems, from the Fourth Gospel, that the process is one in which it is necessary, in some sense, to follow Jesus; and that this following happens (broadly) because we love Jesus and have faith in his promises. 

This raises the question of why is it necessary to follow Jesus; why cannot at least some Men find their own way? 

One answer is that Jesus's own death and resurrection 'blazed the trail' which Men coming after were then able to follow - metaphorically, Jesus created or 'cleared' a path from mortal to immortal life; and afterwards this path was enough for Men to follow. 

However, I am convinced that Lazarus was resurrected by Jesus before Jesus himself had undergone the transformation. If correct; this means that Jesus made possible resurrection for those who loved and believed him even before he himself died. 

When did resurrection become possible? At the time of Jesus's baptism by John- when he began his ministry and became fully divine and capable of primary creation, as demonstrated by the miracles and direct interaction with God The Father. 

In other words, Jesus's death and resurrection was 'only' a matter of providing him with an immortal body; because he had already - even while still mortal - made the eternal spiritual commitment to live in total harmony with God's creative motivations. 

Putting these together; it suggests that resurrection was made possible by Jesus, a Man, attaining fully divine creative ability; and this itself is an aspect of Jesus (from his baptism) living (yet still a mortal Man) in permanent and complete harmony with the will of God the primary creator. 

When other Men than Jesus (e.g. but not exclusively saints) have done miracles; these happened because the miracle worker was - at that moment, but temporarily - in harmony with God's will. 

The difference between Jesus after baptism and other Men was that Jesus (while still mortal) had made a permanent and irreversible commitment to live in total harmony with God's creation; and we men are not able to make this permanent commitment during mortal life - but only afterwards, after biological death, and by means of following Jesus. 

 

I have not really answered the question of what it is that Jesus uniquely does to enable us to choose resurrection; but perhaps the analysis provides some extra focus and specificity. 

What happens to enable resurrection is this choice to allow ourselves to be made wholly harmonious with God's divine creative will. 

This is mostly a positive desire to be resurrected, to dwell eternally in Heaven; but also vitally, 'double-negatively', it entails a willingness to discard our sins. That is, desiring to be cleansed of all our motivations that are Not aligned-with God's creative will.

Thus, to enter Heaven we must want to enter Heaven, and as party of this, we must want to be transformed such as to remove all aspects of ourselves that are hostile to Heaven. And we must want these permanently. 

Until Jesus; no Man had ever been in the position of loving God so fully that he was able (or willing) to make this total and permanent commitment.  

But after Jesus had made this commitment; reality was changed forever for those who loved Jesus and wished to follow him. 

The crucial difference between Jesus and us, is that we cannot (as he did) make eternal commitments while still mortal; we can only make such commitments after biological-death. The 'entropic' nature of our-selves (including our minds and wills), and of this world, seem to render all permanence impossible to us.

There may perhaps be some exceptions, as with some (not all) of the true saints: so, perhaps some mortal Men can (since Jesus) love him perfectly enough to make an eternal commitment? 

But for most of us, we are too labile and corruptible; and we are provided-for by having the final choice made post-mortal, at a time when we have become discarnate spirits.

All we have to do in mortal life is decide whether we want resurrected life in Heaven; and know that this is possible for any who choose to follow Jesus Christ's guidance on this path; and we can do this with the help of the Holy Ghost - who is the spirit of Jesus active in this world. 

By this account - the deep meaning of Grace, is that this was done for us by Jesus Christ; and we need merely to assent; rather than having to find the path to resurrection by-ourselves.  

Modern people assume that death is the end of everything personal, the destruction of the self; they assume that when the body dies then nothing is left.

The ancients, before Jesus, also believed that death was the end of everything personal, and that there was destruction of the self - but the difference was that after the body has died, they believed that something was left: that the soul remained.

The soul minus the body wasn't any use, it lacked self-consciousness, it could not help-itself... but the soul remained alive, like a witless 'ghost'. (The Underworld/ Hades/ Sheol was populated by such ghosts; left-over after death of the body.)

Before Jesus only a perfectly divine-aligned Man could become fully-divine; because being divine means to join with God in the creative work of the universe. To join in the work of creation, one must wholly embrace that work and its aims; to have something distinctive to contribute to creation, one must have free will, must have agency.

Therefore one must have 'a body' because the body is what enables us to have divine free will: it is incarnation that separates our will from that of God.

So resurrection - with an immortal, indestructible body - is necessary for us to become divine agents. 

In sum, before Jesus divinity was not possible to a Man unless one was already fully divine-aligned. However, Jesus was a perfectly divine-aligned man, and therefore Jesus could and did become fully divine (at his baptism by John).  

And that event changed everything.

After Jesus, who began as a Man, had become fully divine; then it was possible for any other Man to become fully divine, simply by following the path that Jesus had made. In other words, one needed to love Jesus, to have faith in who Jesus was and what he could do; and then anyone could follow Jesus to full divinity - but only after death, only via death.

Why only after death? Because we are not perfectly-aligned to God during our mortal lives (that is, because we are all sinners) our body must first die, before our soul can be resurrected. Our personal self must be ended before it can be remade (from the remnant soul)

This process began before Jesus himself died, with the resurrection of Lazarus. What we know of Lazarus is the mutual love between him and Jesus. Lazarus was the first Man to die who had faith in Jesus, and Lazarus was therefore the first Man to be resurrected by Jesus - but uniquely Lazarus was resurrected back into earthly life, as a miraculous sign of the new dispensation.

Lazarus then went on to write the Fourth Gospel as the 'beloved disciple', being the best possible witness to the reality of this new dispensation; and the Man who best knew the nature of Jesus and what gift he brought. 

So, now, after Jesus - the Good News is that we can each and all have life everlasting and the resurrection that entails; no matter what our state of sin or how far from being God-aligned we may be. We may have resurrected life everlasting after we have died; 'simply' by loving and trusting Jesus to lead us, and by following the same path to full divinity that Jesus first took, and which (by taking) he made for us.

In the Fourth Gospel, I have found it is helpful to regard the word "light" as usually meaning "life" - in particular resurrected eternal life. Light means more than this, because words in Greek 2000 years ago has multiple and simultaneous meanings - but thinking of light as life as a first approximation, can be helpful. 

This helps understand what Jesus is saying towards the end of the 12th Chapter. You can read the whole thing here; but I am going to select what I believe are the important and original passages on a particular theme of light and life.

Selected, because some parts of the 12th Chapter strike me a probable later additions by another hand; of an interpretative and commentary nature; thereby interpolating sometimes alien theological assumptions or church-justifying practices.

I have included my own interpretative notes in italics. These notes are abbreviated, and made themselves be unclear - but maybe they will provide helpful hints on what Jesus is getting at - and what he is not getting at

 

[24] Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. 

We all (including Jesus himself) need to die in order to attain resurrected, eternal Heavenly life. 

[25] He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. 

Those who make this mortal life their priority, will not achieve resurrection; only those who recognize that our ultimate destination and gratification lies on the other side of death, will attain everlasting life. 

"Hateth" is intended in a non literal, not absolute, and relative sense - Jesus means that all the value of life in this world is given by the reality of life after resurrection. 

[26] If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour. 

Jesus is saying he will die and be resurrected (where I am), and those who love him may follow this same path to be in the same place and state - and that this following is the path to eternal life in Heaven - anyone who does, in this sense of "follow" Jesus, will follow the same path to Heaven. 

In other word; Jesus is Not asking men to serve him as servants as a pre-requisite and price necessary to being allowed eternal life. From context this would be utterly alien to teachings of the Gospel and Chapter. He is saying that nature of the "service" Jesus requires is to "follow" him.   

[31] Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. 

Jesus is announcing that Men may henceforth escape from the devil, may live only by good and free from all evil - as made clear before, this is escape on the other side of death. In other words; the escape from evil is via resurrection. 

[32] And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. 

Jesus, in being "lifted up" from the earth, will attain resurrected Heavenly life in "Heaven" - which word includes the meaning of sky; and by love of Jesus all men may choose to follow where he has gone "up" into Heaven. I think that "drawing" us to Heaven is meant as a variation on the path being by following Jesus: Jesus makes the path, and all we need to do is follow that path. 

(Contra the omitted following verses; this verse is not about Jesus being raised from the ground by the execution process of killing somebody on a cross! That is not the subject of this discourse.) 

[35] Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. [36] While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. 

Probably controversially (!); I think this is not primarily Jesus talking about himself as "the light" and that he will soon die; but instead Jesus talking about mortal life, and how mortal life should be conducted (i.e. our proper attitude to living) while yet we still live - i.e. before we die. 

I think Jesus is saying that we need to attend to our mortal lives (walk while ye have the light), while we live. The alternative is that darkness will come upon you - that you will die - and Not be resurrected. "He that walketh in darkness" is one who denies the reality or possibility of eternal life; and therefore knows not what will happen, where he will go, after death. 

While we are alive - while we have light - we ought to believe in the light: that is, we ought to acknowledge the significance of this mortal life. 

"While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light." I think Jesus is implying that, on the one hand our ultimate priority must be eternal resurrected life. But on the other hand - while we live now, although this mortal life is temporary, we have important work to do. We ought not to wish our mortal lives away. 

Profoundly; to be children of eternal life entails that we be children of this mortal life. It is neither atheistic materialism and its exclusive focus on this mortal incarnate life; nor the life-denying philosophies that regard embodied mortal life as profoundly negative and yearn for eternal life (typically as spirits). 

Even more strongly, if we do Not give this mortal life its due importance, we are also becoming children of darkness and not children of life: we are embracing death and not resurrection.   

[46] I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. [47] And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.

Roughly speaking; Jesus is reaffirming that his "job" is to bring "light" to the world, that is - resurrected eternal Heavenly life. 

Darkness is the death which is ghost-like severance of spirit from body (the Sheol of the Ancient Hebrews, the Hades of the Ancient Greeks), in which men abode until Jesus made possible resurrection. 

Not as a judge, implies that Jesus is offering this as a gift, as a possibility, available to all men by their own choice, and not in terms of some judgment of Jesus about our suitability. 

Overall; Jesus is talking about the new possibility of resurrection, and how attaining this gift is made possible. 

There is a tendency to regard the injunction that Christians should Love One Another as something like a Law, imposed upon Man - with the main significance being that if you break the Law, then you will be 'sent' to Hell*.

Certainly that seems to be the way that this is used against Christians: non-Christians and anti-Christians are forever accusing Christians of insufficient love towards all-other-people.

Yet the appearance of the phrase Love One Another within the Fourth Gospel shows that that meaning can't be the one intended as primary.

Here is the context:

John 13:31 Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32 If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him. 33 Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you. 34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. 36 Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards.

Jesus is talking with his disciples about his own glorification - his ascension to Heaven. The new commandment to love one another is about what they need to do to follow Jesus to Heaven.

Love between Men seems to be a part of the 'process' by which Men can follow Jesus through death to life everlasting; presumably mutual love between the disciples it is a part of life everlasting.

To my mind, from its context; 'love one another' seems to be primarily (not exclusively) about life beyond death. The way I see it is that it is love for Jesus that enables Men to follow him through death; and love of 'one another' that makes this more than a solitary glorification. It is about the loving family of glorified men, following Jesus together.

It is not an injunction for everybody to love everybody, but a specific injunction for the disciples to love each other. We assume that 'love one another' applies to all followers of Jesus: that is to all disciples - but there seems nothing to suggest it goes beyond that circle.

And its importance is rooted in the life to come: which means that 'love one another is not about 'getting to Heaven' so much as what happens when we get there. Following Jesus is not a matter of escaping something we fear as it is a matter of joining something we want.

Love one another is therefore not really a passport to heaven (even less a get-out-of-Hell card); but a fundamental insight into the nature of life everlasting, which is being offered by Jesus. Because love is the basis and matrix of the New Life - it is what hold-together God's creation.

Love is analogous to the 'unified field' that supposedly makes the universe cohere and develop; but love is about relationships between persons: that is the ultimate metaphysical reality.


*Note: The Fourth Gospel doesn't use the word Hell, nor say much about the horrors of the life after death without Christ; nor a place of torment - even to his accusers whom Jesus characterises as children of Satan; but focuses almost-wholly on the 'benefits' of Life Everlasting, or 'Heaven'. The overall message is of a New Possibility, a possibility that must be chosen.

Christianity is about motivation; and motivation is about what we want, and why. 

Motivation is an inner state; and what matters to Christian salvation is our motivation at the time of choice: at the time when we decide whether to follow Jesus to resurrected eternal life. 

So long as he wants to follow Jesus, and so long as his reasons for following Jesus are good - then anybody can follow Jesus. It is essentially a matter of personal choice; and if that choice is for salvation, there will be no difficulty about doing what is necessary to make this choice possible. 

Therefore Christianity Just Is a very personal and inward matter and directed to ends "not of this world". So; while inferences can and must be made for practical purposes about the motivation of other people; such inferences do Not map-onto spiritual realities. 

Historic Christianity was often (usually) contaminated by the demand to make it the basis of social organization: the demand to make supposedly "Christian" institutions and laws as the framework for a "better world": as, indeed, the framework for personal salvation. 

Yet, the Fourth Gospel especially, but also the Synoptic Gospels, seem to be pretty clear overall that following Jesus to resurrected eternal life was about a personal relationship and personal choice in relation to Jesus himself. 

Therefore, being a Christian is Not primarily a matter of obeying a religious institution, nor of requiring adherence to the dictates of a particular supposedly-Christian social structure (neither of which existed during Jesus's life). 

Indeed (as the IV Gospel informs us) Jesus's main arrangement for the guidance of his disciples post-mortally was the Holy Ghost; which Jesus said was directly available to each individual and sufficient to provide all necessary knowledge and direction for those who wanted to follow Him. 

In other words; Christianity is not about making a better world. At best, a better world might be an unplanned consequence of personal commitments to follow Jesus. 

Instead; Christianity ought primarily to be orientated towards life beyond death.

And Christianity's implications for this mortal life should follow (secondarily) from our motivation and expectation personally (as Sons of God) to participate in the creative life of the post-mortal resurrected heavenly world. 

What does it mean to 'follow' Jesus? In essence it means to follow Jesus through death and to the divine, resurrected life eternal.

But what does 'following' mean?

The explanation of what it means is covered in the Fourth Gospel, particularly in the section on the Good Shepherd. Because (naturally enough) this 'process' has to be 'explained' in a symbolic/ metaphorical kind of way.

In brief 'following' is done by Loving Jesus; other words having faith, trusting, knowing that he is Good, wanting-this for your-self.

The kind of thing is much like the young child's love, faith trust in his mother and father (in an ideal family) - the knowledge that Jesus has our best interests at heart, the confidence that whatever he does is for our ultimate benefit (whatever the short-term, surface appearance of things may be).

The point is that following Jesus is a personal relationship - not a prescription, not a set of abstractions. It cannot be listed as 'what to do' any more that you can make a comprehensive checklist of 'being married' or 'being a son'. The primary reality is the quality of the relationship - which is loving, and the nature of 'love' intended is of the same quality as the ideal of within-family love.

The journey from mortal to immortal life is one that can only be done with a Guide - no map, no set of instructions, will suffice - only a Guide, in whom we have absolute confidence - and for this journey there is only One Guide who Knows the Way.

So the path from this mortal life to eternal, resurrected, divine life is one that we can only follow by following Jesus, we cannot find our own way, we must have him (and nobody else) as our Guide - he goes ahead, he shows the way; and because we Love him we have the confidence and trust to walk behind (in his footsteps) until we arrive.

I set aside the first two Chapters of Matthew as being unreliable, probably legendary accretions and/or adopted to butress the argument of the Gospel as a whole. So Chapter 3 is the first part of Matthew's Gospel that is consistent with the Fourth Gospel - and it is an account of the teachings of John the Baptist.

This is interesting, as the author of the Fourth Gospel was a disciple of John's before he became a disciple of Jesus - so when there is subtanative disagreement, the Fourth Gospel is clearly to be preferred.

Let's see whether there is anything about Matthew 3 that adds to or deepens our understanding of John.

Matthew 3: [1] In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, [2] And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. [3] For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. [4] And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey. 

So far this is much the same as the Fourth. Except for: Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Here Matthew seems to be reporting John stating that there is not much time for those living 'now' to repent. He will later have Jesus say the same. 

[5] Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan, [6] And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. [7] But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? [8] Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:

Matthew introduces here a favourite 'repent or else' theme (not a part of the Fourth Gospel) that there is a wrath to come, an apocalypse, the second coming of Jesus; which will specifically affect the Pharisees and Sadducees to whom John is talking. In other words the wrath is coming soon. The implication seems to be that John's baptism was a matter of people confessing and repenting their sins and being absolved; and that this procedure was to safeguard these people from the wrath to come.

The attack on Pharisees and Sadducees who are coming to John for Baptism seems wrong. Surely they are doing precisely what Matthew wants everybody to do - which is, from terror of the burning to come for those who are not baptised, they will accept baptist at the cost of repentance.

Matthew's basic method in his Gospel is to induce fear of 'Hell' which will be inflicted soon; and describe what to do to escape this fate. What to do entails following a set of rules that is even more numerous and rigorous than those of the Pharisees - Jesus adds to The Law. But this was presumably regarded as a genuine possibility precisely because the apocalyptic second coming was not far away...


[9] And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. [10] And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 

This is the 'or else' part of of the 'repent, or else'. In other words, if people do not confess, repent and be baptized - they will be 'cast into the fire'. I suppose that the attack of the Ps and Ss is actually a criticism of their lack of rigour, their hypocritical failure to live by the laws they profess to follow. Whereas in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus preaches an extremely simple message of loving and following Jesus to life everlasting; nothing about following laws or living a prescribed life.

[11] I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: [12] Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. [13] 

Here is the idea of 'Hell' as an eternal punishment, of unquenchable fire; which will be implemented soon - within the lives of the people to whom John is talking. And also the idea that Hell is the default state - which everyone will go to excepting those who are saved. Jesus will divide people into those he gathers, and those he casts into fire. 

Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. [14] But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? [15] And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him. [16] And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: [17] And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

This is descriptively similar to the account in the Fourth Gospel - but whereas in the Fourth this event is a divinization of Jesus, leading directly on to his miracles; no such link is made by Matthew.

In sum, what we get from Matthew Chapter 3 (compared with the Fourth Gospel) is the completely different, alien and contradicting idea that the main thing about Jesus was that he was shortly to return, and divide Men into his own whom he gathers, and those who shall burn forever.

This teaching is also attributed to John the Baptist, and the only difference is that John was an agent describing how to be saved from the burning; while Jesus is the judge who will himslef make the division of men. John gave the theory; Jesus will implement the practice.  So this is the implied sense in which John 'prepares the way of the Lord'.

By contrast the Fourth Gospel has nothing about this scheme; no imminent second coming, no burning punishment; and John the Baptist's role seems to be to enable Jesus to become divine by baptism.

In Matthew, however, Jesus is already (in Chapters 1 and 2) marked-out as divine by his miraculous, prophecy-fulfilling childhood and youth; so John's baptism is merely done in order to 'fulfil all righteousness' and to enable the signs of the descent of the dove and the voice from heaven.

So, do I get anything valuable from Matthew 3? Just one thing - which is that what John was doing with his baptising was probably a temporary 'cleansing' of the individual from sin; active only in this mortal life and with no implications for eternal life.

What about "he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire" - this suggests that Jesus will himself be doing a better kind of baptism. But the Fourth Gospel states that Jesus himself never baptised anyone. So this is either an error, or else refers to baptism in a symbolic way.

Since Jesus is assumed to be returning imminently to dive the heavenly wheat from the hell-bound chaff, it looks as if this means the judgment itself: baptism of the Holy Ghost is for the wheat; and baptism of fire is for the chaff, baptism of fire being an indirect way of referring to the unquenchable fires of damnation. 

This corresponds with John's report in the Fourth Gospel that the 'normal' thing that happened when he baptised, was that individuals were 'touched' by the divine spirit; that they were momentarily divinized and thereby (presumably) cleansed of their sins up to that moment. John did not change the prospect for the individuals he baptised, he did not change their fate - but, nonetheless, what John was doing (as described in the Fourth Gospel) was new, different, and contrary to the usual laws and rules and sacrifices of the Jews of that era. John was, in this sense, the first to practise the new dispensation; albeit in a partial, and this-worldly, form.

But when Jesus was baptised by John, uniquely the spirit stayed upon him, meaning (I suppose) that Jesus became permanently divine by the agency of John: John had this absolutely vital role (as the Fourth Gospel implies) in making Jesus fully divine.


Note: I found the above detailed analysis to be a depressing exercise; and probably will not continue with it through the rest of the Matthew Gospel. It is the kind of thing that becomes necessary when the Fourth Gospel is really believed - but it is probably better to make such decisions in a broad brush way than to engage in this kind of miserable dissection... 

A few days ago I discussed why mainstream modern (mostly secular) people do not want the resurrected eternal Heavenly life that Jesus offered - especially in the Fourth ("John") Gospel.

But what applies to modern people also applies to Christians in the sense that eternal life features as such a low priority or interest for modern Christians, that it often gets left-out altogether!

(Whereas modern secular people don't want resurrection at all; modern Christians don't want resurrection all that much...)

I don't suppose any Christian would go so far as to deny resurrection after death; but it has been pushed a long way down the scale of importance (except, perhaps, for Mormons - at least in theory) - because it has been displaced by this-worldly concerns. 

Part of this relates to the word and concept of sin. If asked "what is Christianity?" most Christians will probably focus upon sin; and by sin they will mean (almost exclusively) moral transgressions. 

Therefore, the explanation of what Jesus Christ did for Men is focused upon how he negated the negation that is moral transgression. Behind this is typically an idea that moral transgressions will send us to hell by default - except that Jesus Christ has negated these through his work and The Church.  

Yet, if - like me - you regard the Fourth Gospel as the primary source; then it is evident that sin meant mostly death. When Jesus took away sin, he took away the necessity of death. And provided "everlasting" or "eternal" life. Jesus took away death by replacing it with resurrection into Heaven.   

However, in contrast, the actual everyday, and detailed theology and doctrines, of Christianity have apparently - for many, many centuries - concentrated upon moral behaviour in this mortal life. And, consequently, Christianity has neglected or relatively downplayed the purpose and endpoint of all this - which is resurrected eternal Heavenly life. 

For example, I recently attended a Christmas Carol concert at an evangelical church - in which many things were mentioned - Old Testament prophecies, the nativity story; virgin birth; angels, shepherds and wise men, Jesus as King, Jesus whose death saved us from sin etc. etc. - but never any explicit explanation that Christianity was directed-at and ultimately-about resurrected eternal Heavenly life.

Perhaps this was partly because such a focus does not "play well" with a modern secular audience; but I believe that it cuts much deeper than this - and that when a modern Christian tries to explain Christianity Made Simple, he does not recognize the promise of eternal life as the single key fact that absolutely must be put-across as the core and essence of the faith. 

There are, of course, also spiritual risks entailed by a strong and central emphasis on eternal life as the 'reward' of following Jesus. 

But there are always risks to any course - there is no "safe" way to be-a-Christian - certainly not in 2023 and in The West; and indeed we see all around us the appalling consequences of the Churches putting morality in this mortal life at the centre and as the main concern of Christianity. 

And expediency should not be the bottom-line: truth must be our ultimate guide. We each must decide for our-selves whether it is true that resurrected eternal life by following Jesus Christ really is the essence of Christianity; and that depends upon our assumptions as to where Christian truth lies, and how we as individuals may best get access to it, and know it once found. 

What of us survives death? The same 'self' that survives through all the transformations of our mortal life; and that same self which came originally from before that embodied life when we were first formed on earth. 

As I look back on my life the memory seems like a dreamy vision which was inhabited by the same self. In my earliest childhood memories, through the development of growing -up and adolescence, and the now-strange events of my early adult life... Everything seems fuzzy, indistinct, dreamy (maybe nightmarish) - but the self continues. 

I can imagine my-self as a four year old, as nine, as thirteen, when I was twenty-one and so on - it is the same self but the situations are as different as can be, and mostly have the quality of a day-dream: fluid, imprecise, fuzzy... 

Was that really me in those situations, in those behaviours? Yet the self that observes these strange occurrences was the same. 

That inner self seem independent of the body - that body which changed so much. Independent of circumstance - which changed so much. 

I think "Was that really me?" about what I did, where I went - but I do not think that about the self that remembers. That was really me. 

It is that self, which was maintained through so many 'bodies' and situation which will be maintained through the transformation of biological death - and will remain.

But what then? What happens to the self when the body has not just changed, but died? It continues in some way, but how?

The tendency is for the self to lose its consecutiveness; its memory and its continuity; to break up into mere awareness of the moment. We have an inkling of this from some dreams, from recollection of descending into delirium... of losing grip on the situation, or our sense-of-being falling-apart; that perplexity, slippery-confusion-angst as we cannot recall how things became as they are, or what we are supposed to do. 

(We may see exactly this in demented people - as reality, purpose, their situation is always slipping away from them.)

This situation seems to be the 'natural', spontaneous fate of the self - called by the ancients names including Sheol and Hades. The self survives biological death to become a witless, demented ghost who does not remember who he is; merely reactive; incapable of purpose and choice. 

(The process of dying is the dwindling of the self towards this state.) 

Death is the state of mere-being, without memory, aware only of the instant now.

This state of Sheol/ Hades is what Jesus called death; it is what he came to save-us-from. Jesus is our saviour from the death that is mere-being of the self. 

We are saved from death by following Jesus. How can this 'following' be imagined? 

All will encounter Jesus after death, and before the dissolution of the self into a witless ghost. 

What is preventing immediate dissolution of the self? God does that  - God the creator - by divine creative power. If we love God; then we allow God to stop the dwindling to nothing, allow God to sustain our-self in a state in which we retain our memory, purpose etc. 

So we remain able to choose. 

We could imagine this choosing as meeting Jesus in a dream; and, as in a dream, we will know that it is Jesus. We realise that Jesus is present with us. And then we decide. 

So, instead of dwindling to mere-being; we will recognise Jesus, and will remember and know what he is offering us: resurrected life eternal in Heaven. And we decide whether to follow him to this everlasting life; or not. 

If we choose to follow Jesus - what then? It is the continual presence of Jesus that will guide us through the transformation of resurrection. It is the continual presence of Jesus that enables resurrection - and for this to happen we must actively wish for this transformation - which transformation is permanent and entails rebuilding from the remnant self wholly in the basis of love. 

If we cannot love, if we reject love, or if we want something else - then we will choose Not to follow Jesus. Indeed we cannot follow Jesus unless we are prepared to make a permanent and irreversible commitment to live only by love; to become forever incapable of not loving. 

As I implied earlier; if someone loves God, but does not want to follow Jesus (e.g. perhaps a theist but not a Christian) - he will Not be transformed. Instead he will remain in the state of consecutiveness of consciousness; being maintained thus by ongoing divine creation. He will be sustained in awareness wholly by God - thus aware only of himself and of God. 

This is the state sometimes called Nirvana; a blissful state of current awareness of God's love and of being in the state of loving God - an eternal now; without memory and without purpose. A passive state. 

Not mere being; but a state of being 'in' love. 

What of Hell? The demons themselves do not die, since they are never incarnated spirits. But what of the ex-Men in Hell: those selves who were once Men but have been through biological death?  

I suppose Hell to be the choice to prevent the dissolution of the self by continual infusion of life energy. So, instead of becoming a witless, demented ghost in the state of Sheol/ Hades; the self is maintained in this world, 'animated', energized by demonic actions. 

Divine creation is primary - it is (as we see it) something from nothing. It is originative and primary - adds to reality. Creation is the opposite of entropy. But creation entails love (in a crude sense, creation requires love). 

So, those who cannot love, or reject love, cannot creation.  

Since demons cannot create, they are bound by entropy. 

That life-energy that sustains continuity, memory and purpose is continually being used-up, needs continual replacement - like fuel in a car. 

Replacement life-energy to sustain a dead-self functionally-above the level of Sheol must therefore be taken from living beings, for example from living Men. 

The process is not creative but parasitic, vampiric. The sustaining life-energy is extracted from one being and redirected into another; just as we consume the energy of coal to warm ourselves when otherwise we would freeze. 

Crudely, one lives because another dies; one dies that another may live - but (because of entropy) only temporarily. 

The Hellish economy is therefore based upon destruction of energy. While Heaven grows as love grows; Hell is always shrinking. 

Hell's intent is to retain functional life without love of God. Hell maintains control of its denizens by the threat of death - if life-energy is not infused (by demonic action), the damned soul will to revert to the insensibility of Sheol. 

Thus the economy of Hell is one of mutual exploitation, of 'dog-eat-dog' - one ex-Man survives only at the price of another Man being consumed (either consumed partially, or - eventually - consumed wholly). 

...Until only one remains - and he will then inevitably die. 

In the end, all will die; so life in Hell is a deferral of ultimate death - the ever more frantic desire to live a little longer, to be the last to die.

In conclusion. When we die biologically, our self will survive; but the state of that self is a matter of choice. And the choices seem to be fourfold: Heaven eternally, Nirvana, Hell - en route to Sheol, or Sheol and the extinction of self awareness. 

In a deep sense, after death we get what we want. And what is that?  

From what most people are saying nowadays, it seems that Heaven is currently the least popular of these destinations - Sheol-direct (i.e. perceived death, annihilation, cessation of all awareness of the self) perhaps the most sought-after. 

And the other two possibilities of Nirvana and Hell, maybe ranking somewhere in between?  

Just a guess... 

The beginning of the Fourth Gospel tells us that it was Jesus, The Word, who made this world; and it is this work of creation which enabled Jesus (and only Jesus) to be our saviour.

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Having made this world; Jesus was then incarnated-into the world he had created; that is, he was incarnated from his creation, using the stuff of his own creation. This world has that primal and fundamental unity - of being created by Jesus - everything is inter-related and mutually-affecting, by kinship of shared origin.

So we too are all incarnated from this world, from the creation of Jesus. 

When Jesus died and was resurrected; this was the death and resurrection of the creator of this world, Jesus's mortal body and his resurrected body were both of this world (which Jesus himself had made).

We are incarnate from this world, Jesus became incarnate from this world (which he had made); we and Jesus are both Men; and therefore Jesus's death and resurrection had universal significance for Men. 

This it was, that made it possible for other Men to follow Jesus into resurrected life everlasting; and why only Jesus is our saviour.

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Why then do we need to have faith in Jesus? Why doesn't salvation just-happen?

Because there are two things Jesus gave us; the first is 'physical' resurrection to eternal life, the second is 'dwelling' in Heaven (life 'everlasting', and life qualitatively greater - not merely unending existence...).

Resurrection just-happens, and it happens to all men. Instead of remaining as a severed soul - as was the case for all Men before Jesus; since the resurrection of Jesus, all Men (including those from before the time of Jesus) are resurrected.

Resurrection is not a choice - it 'just happens' - it is something like a change in physical reality; a change in what happens to the soul after death.

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But Heaven is a choice, a decision, an act, an opt-in - and salvation therefore happens only through faith - that is love, trust of Jesus.

To understand this requires recalling the fate of the soul after the death of the body, and before the resurrection of Jesus - the soul was a witless, demented thing of little intelligence, little memory, little judgement, no free will... incapable of helping itself...

(This, at least, is how both the ancient Hebrews (with Sheol) and ancient Greeks (with Hades) regarded life after death - and other variants may be understood similarly. The soul after death was a damaged, incomplete, incapable thing - eternal life was merely eternal existence.)

I regard the Good Shepherd parable as providing the key to understanding salvation - which is that while the soul is always resurrected, resurrected Man cannot find his own way to Heaven.

The resurrected soul must be led to Heaven; that is, Man must choose to follow the guidance of the Good Shepherd. This following is not imposed, it is chosen.  

This was made newly possible by Jesus because the resurrected soul has greater capability than the discarnate souls destined for Sheol/ Hades; the resurrected soul has sufficient capability to recognise Jesus, to know him; it has the capacity and necessity to choose whether to follow the Good Shepherd, or not.

Why would the resurrected soul follow the Good Shepherd to Heaven, except that the soul loved and trusted the Good Shepherd?

That is the need for faith.

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Thus Jesus was necessary to our salvation, only Jesus could give us salvation, only faith in Jesus can lead us to salvation.

 

What did Jesus do? The Fourth Gospel tells us that he came to bring Life Everlasting, Eternal Life if we are Born Again, so this lies beyond death.

Also that Jesus enabled Men to become Sons of God.

Also that Jesus ´baptised´with the Holy Ghost, in contrast to John who baptised with water.

What does all this mean?


If we understand repentance to mean a change of thinking, a new way of thinking, then we could see John´s baptism as a ritual transformation (an initiation) by which Men received correct knowledge and understanding - but (signified by water) knowledge subject to mortal life, and only knowledge but not a change in possibility.

The ´baptism´of Jesus was the change he brought-about in Men´s condition - a permanent, objective change in Men´s thinking, because it was a permanent, objective change in Man´s state.

In other words, Jesus enabled Men to become divine, to become gods - this being the meaning of Sons of God´ - these are lowercase-g gods, like Jesus himself - Men who have become divine.


Therefore to receive Life Eternal or Everlasting means to become divine, because only the divine is ever-lasting, only the divine is eternal. Life Eternal or Everlasting is thus a poetic term, a kenning or trope, meaning divine, the term for being a god.

It is the change from being a mortal Man to a Son of God.

The Baptist could not offer this, but only knowledge of it (of water), but Jesus brought the reality for those who chose to believe-on him (baptism of the Holy Ghost, of the ascended Jesus). 

So the message of the Fourth Gospel is that Men can become Gods by following Jesus. Jesus was a Man who became a god, and we can do the same by following him (as sheep follow the Good Shepherd) - from mortal life, through death, to divinity as gods.

To do this, we must love (have faith in, trust) Jesus, then he will show us the way.

What was the purpose of it all? What did He come to do? Well, to teach, of course; but as soon as you look into the New Testament or any other Christian writing you will find they are constantly talking about something different—about His death and His coming to life again. It is obvious that Christians think the chief point of the story lies here. They think the main thing He came to earth to do was to suffer and be killed.Note added - The way I think about it (as here) is to ask if Jesus's suffering and death by crucifixion was necessary to the success of his mission? To ask: If Jesus had lived a happy life and died of old age - would his mission have failed?