Gospel of Thomas

[Hemera]

Originally Posted by Amilius777

Morpheus
Gospel of Thomas doesn't negate Christ's atonement. It just emphasizes another aspect of his teachings. You have the three that talk extensively about it. Why would all of them have to? John's Gospel on Christ's crucifixion is not nearly as important as his Resurrection and how physical his body was after it was resurrected.

The writer of John probably inspired by John himself wanted to make sure the teachings and life of Jesus wouldn't be dulled down to philopshical abstract contemplation like many of the Gnostics were becoming. To them Jesus didn't even have to be real.

Thomas was a true and original Gnostic. Someone who could understand and KNEW Jesus was a real person, his teacher and Master and savior but also someone like us we could emulate and follow but going within and finding that same Christ consciousness inside.


John was more about the Word made flesh, whereas Thomas was about the Word itself, the Christ Being. This being is a cosmic Son (SUN), an Universal consciousness of our One Father. We are all made of that, which is the Light. Even the darkest places in the universe have some ounce of light. Light and Love. But not all of us are as evolved as the person next to us. Jesus was a very highly exalted, evolved Entity whose personal identity and consciousness was tied and one with that Second aspect of the Trinity, the Christ consciousness, Divine within.


Matthew and Luke's Gospels praised and preached the coming of Christ in his incarnation through the Virgin Mary. The birth of this profound, history changing, avatar of the Source. Jesus was an avatar of the Christ Consciousness. Much higher than a saint or spiritual master. An ascended master who is given the role of representing God Himself in a visible Form,( in this case the physical form of Man), and imparting a direct highway back to the Father God for a specific Soul group, nation, or tribe because their spiritual evolution earned it.
The Divine and Human made one. This event is rare. Christianity should realize that not every Ascended Master or Prophet who founded a religion was an Avatar. But they took this "specialness" and used it to conquer and destroy other people of faiths during the Middle-Ages.

Only the purest, and highly evolved chosen by God can be made as such.


Thomas was trying to show his community that this cosmic Christ Consciousness is nestled within your very soul. You don't have to wait for him to come again in a helpless Babe, nor look to the night Sky to perceive his majestic beauty in all the Stars, but you can realize Him within you because all our higher Selves are made of that same essence. We are all on the deepest level; Love.
A Catholic Saint once said, "My deepest Self is God"

Paramhansa Yogananda says the sin of the New Age movement is saying "I am God", but what is more correct is this- "God has become Me", but only the truly self-realized, perfected, and spiritually advanced understand this state of consciousness, that's why they NEVER say it. Jesus could never say openly "I am God" , nor 'God is Me", instead he would say, "I Am". His humility and self-emptying nature was so God-like, that this is the nature of God. This is why Jesus was God's favorite or most favored agent sent to Earth. He was a being after his own heart. The wisest never explain it, and the ones who don't know it always speak it. Right now I don't understand it nor it's entirety and yet I am on here trying to explain it. It is futile.

Jesus' atonement is covered in Mark and Matthew. They were the more Jewish writers. Probably because of the community they wrote to. Not all the Apostles understood Jesus' message nor his actual Personhood. Only a few knew him to be the Second Person of the Trinity. They knew when he spoke of himself as "Christ", he meant the universal Savior, who came in the form of a personal messiah for this specific tribe of people.

Jesus' atonement was to cover for all the imbalance of violence and abuse from the last few millenium that gripped mankind. There are ancient spiritual teachings from other cultures in ancient times, Hindu, Egyptian, Native American. Their teachings as found in the Gita point to how sometimes one must destroy darkness with darkness as Krishna does. But man began to kill, murder, and destroy whenever he felt wronged, or morally superior, and it created an Ages of justified violence, animal sacrifice (even human), captial punishment for crimes that didn't match, etc. Jesus had to bring a gentle, all loving, all Forgiving, Selfless, sacrifical, (Piscean if you will with the Age that came), image of God that was forgotten. The Law of Karma was trumping our ancestors, and we forgot the Law of Grace, the HigherLaw of Love. Which is the oldest law because it is the one from our Eternal Oneness with the Father and each Other. When we, and all of us were One and the Same with God. That had to be channeled from the highest heavens into our Earth school through a all loving, pure and perfectly forgiving human Male, since males were the ones who dominated each other and continue to. We haven't fully brushed off this negative Thoughtform from our ancestors when the world delved into Scapegoating, Sacrificial Religion, and Distributive Justice.
We are now starting to slowly evolve out of it because it will no longer serve us.
Moses' Law was temporary. A great Master yes, but not a divine Incarnation of God like Jesus. His mission was to find a way to keep everyone in check under Karma and use the consciousness of the Time since so much of our world fell into this violent tribal mind, that his Laws reflected that period. But Jesus came to fulfill that Law and raise it up to a Higher Vibration


That is why he had to die. He had to take all of the effects of that law and the karma of all his people before and during his time and wash away it all so we could start with a New Beginning.


But the more you obsess over his sacrifice the more you get stuck in that mindset he was trying to dig us out of. "The scapegoating, paying your debts, God is angry with you, the Law needs Blood!!" Mentality.

It's a bit late for the Pope to make the Death Penalty completely unnecessary. It should have been so after Christ died. But human history is always so imbalanced. Because we are, inside. Very soon, he's gonna have to make it necessary again LOL. There are too many Lower-energy malovolent Souls who find a way to reincarnate into our world. That is why we have so many sociopaths, sickos, psychopaths on Earth doing horrible things and they refuse to change because they never knew what Love is nor have given it a chance and their only Hope is if the Angels were to find a way into their lives to expose them to the Light or love and transform them. God's Love is powerful enough to turn any dark force back into light because the feeling is too overwhelming powerful. It is who we are.

Sorry that was a bit of a tangent. But I havent responded on Spiritual Forums in so long LOL

Very informative post, I read every word with interest, thank you.

[Still_Waters]

Originally Posted by sky123

" Has God not always been everything "

You already understand if you believe your words above You don't need to complicate it Anthony.

If I may ask, how did you come to the realization that God is everything?

[SimpleMan]

Originally Posted by Still_Waters

If I may ask, how did you come to the realization that God is everything?

Well, because we talk about christianity, the bible clearly states that we have our being in God, He is the sustainer, He created everything and He sustains the creation, He alone.Anyway, in many times that bible states that everything belongs to God.Even Jesus said that when you are doing good to the least of His brothers, you are doing it to Him.You see, He said "the least", He was talking about the sinner, He could say that when you are doing good to His brothers you are doing it to Him, it was clearly and cleverly intended to show that He is found even in the one who deserves the least to be part of God's Kingdom.My personal opinion is that you can't separate creation from God, without Him, there's no creation.

[sky]

Originally Posted by Still_Waters

If I may ask, how did you come to the realization that God is everything?

It realized me

[sky]

Originally Posted by SimpleMan

Well, because we talk about christianity, the bible clearly states that we have our being in God, He is the sustainer, He created everything and He sustains the creation, He alone.Anyway, in many times that bible states that everything belongs to God.Even Jesus said that when you are doing good to the least of His brothers, you are doing it to Him.You see, He said "the least", He was talking about the sinner, He could say that when you are doing good to His brothers you are doing it to Him, it was clearly and cleverly intended to show that He is found even in the one who deserves the least to be part of God's Kingdom.My personal opinion is that you can't separate creation from God, without Him, there's no creation.

" My personal opinion is that you can't separate creation from God, without Him, there's no creation."


Without you there is no God....

[Still_Waters]

Originally Posted by Still_Waters

If I may ask, how did you come to the realization that God is everything?

Originally Posted by SimpleMan

Well, because we talk about christianity, the bible clearly states that we have our being in God, He is the sustainer, He created everything and He sustains the creation, He alone.Anyway, in many times that bible states that everything belongs to God.Even Jesus said that when you are doing good to the least of His brothers, you are doing it to Him.You see, He said "the least", He was talking about the sinner, He could say that when you are doing good to His brothers you are doing it to Him, it was clearly and cleverly intended to show that He is found even in the one who deserves the least to be part of God's Kingdom.My personal opinion is that you can't separate creation from God, without Him, there's no creation.

So your "realization" is really faith in your interpretation of the Bible and not on a direct experience. That's fine. I was just curious.

[Still_Waters]

Originally Posted by SimpleMan

My personal opinion is that you can't separate creation from God, without Him, there's no creation.

Originally Posted by sky123

Without you there is no God....

You're becoming more and more Zen-like in your responses.

[davidmartin]

The trouble isn't with the Gospel of Thomas, its with the very idea of Jesus having teachings!
Because according to standard Christian theology it is belief in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus that saves and this is not through 'works'. And works encompasses comprehension of truth as well as trying to live a good life
So any teachings that Jesus had, are really heretical to this concept
But the gospels themselves refute such a dogmatic view when they say that the words of Jesus are life!
This is a fundamental contradiction, especially when Paul quotes not one of Jesus's teachings, or anything about his life
And when Jesus encountered the woman at the well, he spoke about the Holy Spirit not himself as what salvation is
One obvious resolution is to bring together his teaching with the meaning of his sacrifice and see them as part of a greater outpouring of salvation that is in everything he said and did
I think that is how the early Christians saw it
Only later when religion crept in and Paul's ideas were embellished into fixed doctrine and stale religion took over would Jesus's own words, be considered as embarrassing
Oh he had a teaching, better downplay that in case people think it can save them! It can't sorry Jesus, but your words of life, can't save because we said so. Only if you accept the statement of faith we came up with, only then are you saved!

Originally Posted by Morpheus

The Gospel of Thomas was not included with the other gospel accounts for a reason. It is interesting musing without any researchable or trackable origin.

Has no value with respect to salvation and redemption, through the atoning blood of Lamb of God.
Which was long prophesied.

What do these tell you about the doctrine of substitutionary punishment?

Ezekiel 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

Deuteronomy 24:16 (ESV) "Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.

Regards
DL

Originally Posted by Shivani Devi

There is only one thing I know about this...The only thing I personally needed to know:

"If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you shall save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you shall destroy you."

I did not require to read any more than that.

Save you from what?

And conversely, what could possibly be inside that could destroy you?

Regards
DL