Dear Friend:
Jesus didn't just teach that we are all equally loved by God regardless of our socio-economic status, race, or gender.
He went further, stating that humans are all divine beings and one with God, just like he was.
In John 10: 22-42-"Life Center Message," Jesus is confronted by his haters.
"They were celebrating Hanukkah just then in Jerusalem. It was winter. Jesus was strolling in the Temple across Solomon’s Porch. The Jews, circling him, said, 'How long are you going to keep us guessing? If you’re the Messiah, tell us straight out.'
Jesus answered, 'I told you, but you don’t believe.
God has authorized everything I have done, actions that speak louder than words. You don’t believe it because you’re not my sheep. My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them real and eternal life. They are protected from the Destroyer for good. No one can steal them from out of my hand. God, who put them under my care, is so much greater than the Destroyer and Thief. No one could ever get them away from him. I and Divinity are one heart and mind."
Again, the Jews picked up rocks to throw at him.
Jesus said, "I have manifested to you a great many good actions from Divinity. For which of these acts do you stone me?"
The Jews said, "We’re not stoning you for anything good you did, but for what you said—this blasphemy of calling yourself God."
Jesus said, "I’m only quoting your inspired Scriptures, where God said, 'I tell you—you are gods.' (Meaning humans like Jesus, as quoted in Psalm 82)
In other words if God called your ancestors ‘gods’—and Scripture doesn’t lie—why do you yell, ‘Blasphemer! Blasphemer!’ at the unique One God consecrated and sent into the world, just because I said, 'I am God in human body'?
If I don’t do the things God does, well and good, don’t believe me. But if I am doing them, put aside for a moment what you hear me say about myself and just take the evidence of the actions that are right before your eyes.
Then perhaps things will come together for you, and you’ll see that not only are we doing the same thing, but we are the same—God and human me as you see me. God is in me; I am in him."
They tried yet again to arrest him, but he slipped through their fingers.
He went back across the Jordan to the place where John first baptized people and stayed there. Many people followed him.
They said, "John did no miracles, but everything he said about this man has come true." Many believed in him then and there."
Jesus quotes Psalm 82 to make his point clear.
Psalm 82:6-7 NIV is mistranslated in "The Message," though it is correctly quoted in John 10.
Psalm 82 is one of the most ignored passages of the Biblical narrative.
"I said, ‘You are 'gods; you are all sons of God.'"
Jesus said, "Look, I’m not just saying I’m divine and one with God; I’m saying you are too. I’m not just God in a human body; you are, too. Your scriptures tell you this."
You don't hear this too often from the pulpits in churches. It rings as blasphemous in Christian theology today as it did in Jewish theology 2,000 years ago.
Psalm 82:6 clearly states that "humans" are divine beings. The Hebrew אֱלֹהִ֣ים is "Elohim" used in it. Elohim is a plural word that can be used with a singular meaning. It often refers to the God of Israel, Yahweh, or the monotheistic Creator God. In Psalm 82:6, Elohim is used to refer to mortal men, as if God is about to "judge" human "judges" who have failed to protect the weak and needy. The parallel use of Elohim refers to God and humans in the context of God as a Judge and the human judges.
This, of course, was not well received by the guardians of Jewish orthodoxy, though it was in their sacred texts. They eventually had him arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for this blasphemy.
Not much has changed in this regard.
Those who depend upon religion to create and sustain certain social hierarchies always have a problem with this teaching.
Suppose all people everywhere are divine and one with God simply for being human. In that case, we don’t need priests, pastors, temples, churches, holy books, or the various machinations of religion to encounter God or be one with God.
Let me clarify my point. It’s not that our religious traditions and institutions serve no good purpose—I obviously don’t believe that—but they are not the brokers or third-party intermediaries that one must go through in order to encounter or be one with God.
Church should serve the purpose of community and fellowship, not religious hierarchical structures between God and humanity.
The church's identity as "the body of Christ" simply means that God and humanity are forever bonded! There is no such a reality as God above and humans below.
There is only the mystery of the Incarnation, where "God-humanity" has been one since eternity and throughout eternity. It goes deeper. There is no ex-nihilo creation by logic. God was human before God created humanity. There is something profoundly divine about being human that escapes logic and religious constructs. Humans reflect the very essence of God’s nature.
Jesus' deepest truth was the reason why he was executed. His own Jewish religious construct held by leaders couldn't fathom what Jesus said about himself. Their "god" was different! They couldn’t even connect their own “Bibles” with the words of Jesus.
The problematic truth ca. 3,000 years ago when David composed Psalm 82, then quoted by Jesus 2,000 years ago, is as problematic today to Christians and Seventh-day Adventist Christians in my own community. Most Christians in the West do not affirm this insight! The "dualistic" view of God and humanity is embedded in the Christian theological construct. (Dualism as: God and humans. Sacred and secular. Matter and spirit. Physical and metaphysical instead of evolutionary wholeness)
Interestingly, several versions of Psalm 8:5 translations change the meaning of "You have made him (human) a little lower than Elohim (God)" into "You have made him (human) a little lower than angels." Translators of the Christian Bible have struggled with the idea of humans being as divine as Jesus. It goes counterintuitive to the hierarchical levels of Christian theology. Both passages, Psalm 82:6 and Psalm 8:5, use the Hebrew אֱלֹהִ֣ים as "Elohim," and Jesus quotes it in John 10 to speak of himself.
Do you believe God and you are one in love by choice as much as Jesus and God were one? The divine-human essence of Jesus and every human eliminates dualism and transactional equations.
The same choice available to Jesus 2,000 years ago is available to you right now. Jesus was never meant to be the idol of the Christian religion but a pattern that reveals who we are in God's eyes!
Do you choose to be God's human-divine presence in the here and now as much as Jesus was 2,000 years ago?
With you on your journey,
Pastor Harold
