Gnostic interpretations of familiar Bible verses
Welcome back to Gnostic Insights. I’m so glad to have you here with me. I thought this week we’d go ahead and do some more of those Gnostic interpretations of Christian memes so that you can see the differences and similarities between our Gnostic message and the traditional Christian way of interpreting these same Bible verses. I simply went out on the internet and looked for popular Bible verses, and these were the first ones that came up on this particular search. So here we go.
From 1 Corinthians 3:16. “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?”
Even conventional Christians realize that we are God’s temple, but they generally think of the temple that we are as somewhat separate from God Himself and God’s actual temple. However, when we Gnostic Christians speak of inhabiting God’s temple, we take it in a much more literal sense—that when we invite the Third Order of Powers to come in and take over our souls, we’re moving our own Second Order Powers off the throne of our souls and inviting the Christ to occupy the throne of our souls. This brings God into our temple.
It makes our body a literal temple of God, a temple of the Christ, because there is Christ dwelling within our midst, God dwelling within the temple. You see, our body is as much a temple to the Third Order of Powers as the temple in Jerusalem was to Jehovah. Now that’s another discussion—the relationship between the Hebrew God Jehovah and the God Above All Gods. But what we’re talking about here is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the temple of our bodies. Our body is a replication of the Fullness of God, and we are Second Order representations of that Fullness of God whereas the Third Order of Powers are the actual living images of the Fullness of God, and there’s a Third Order Power for every one of our Second Order Powers inside of our body, inside of this meat mountain that we live in. So, of course, God’s Spirit dwells in our midst once we invite God’s Spirit to do so. God’s Spirit cannot dwell in the midst of our temple until we invite it in, until we get off the throne and invite it to take its place.
The next meme is from 1 John 4:8, and it says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
We talk a lot about love and the importance of love, and I think a lot of people come to Gnostic Insights here because I’m talking about love.
God is love. That is the most basic definition of God. Yes, in our modern parlance, we like to say that God is consciousness, and indeed God is consciousness. However, God is perceived by us as love, as the quality of love. Love is not an imaginary thing. Love isn’t something people make up or when you feel attracted to another person that you love them. That isn’t what love is. Love is an actual standalone quality that is one of the virtues of God. It’s the primary virtue of the God Above All Gods.
And by the way, speaking of the difference between the God Above All Gods and the Hebrew God Jehovah, that Old Testament God did not demonstrate love. That Old Testament God, whom we Gnostics call the Demiurge, yes, he was the creator of this physical material cosmos that we live in, but the God Above All Gods is the creator of heaven and all consciousness and all emanations of consciousness.
All spirits and powers above come from the God Above All Gods through the Son and then on through the Fullness of the Son, which is called the Fullness of God. We come from the Fullness of God. We are emanations. We are children of the Fullness of God, fruited down here into the material cosmos with all of the qualities of the Fullness of God. The Fullness of God is the First Order of Powers. We are the Second Order of Powers representing the Fullness of God here on Earth, including the character of love. But we tend to forget all of that once we get down here and become embroiled in this material existence, fighting a losing battle with death and destruction here. Sin comes from down here. Sadness, death, corruption, delusion, all of those negative characteristics, all of the things that are not love, arise from the Demiurge. They don’t come from heaven. They don’t come from the God Above All Gods. So when we say that God is love, we’re talking about the God Above All Gods as represented by the Christ here on Earth, as represented by our first human emissary that embodied the Third Order of Powers, and that was Jesus.
Moving on to the next meme. This one is from 2 Chronicles 16:7. “But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded.”
This meme brings up the subject of works. Chronicles is an Old Testament book. So when it speaks of God, it’s speaking of Jehovah, which we are believing is the Demiurge, or the ego of the fallen Aeon, named Logos. And this one talks about works. And by the way, works is very big in Demiurgic law. The Demiurge is all about laws, punishments, and rewards. It’s a carrot and stick kind of God.
Whereas the God Above All Gods is consciousness and love, having nothing to do with rewards for works. You can’t earn your way to heaven. When we do good, it’s not to pile up brownie points. It’s not to minimize negative karma. It is not a process to reach a goal. The reason we do good work is because we love God, and because God’s love is in us. And when you are full of love, you want to do good work. You want to be loving. You want to be helpful. You want to participate in the Simple Golden Rule of reaching out to others, holding hands with them, giving them assistance, giving them instruction and knowledge, and giving them love in order for you to work together to build something bigger than anyone can do on their own. That’s what good work is. It’s putting into practice the Simple Golden Rule.
Some people do good works in order to earn a place in heaven or to earn a better position in heaven. I would like to be standing next to your throne in heaven, oh Lord, what need I do? That was a mistaken question that one of the disciples actually asked Jesus. And Jesus said, Boy, you just don’t get it, do you? And that’s what we’re talking about right now.
So our work will be rewarded. We will be recognized. We are building up good karma. But that isn’t the point of it. And it’s not to earn our way, because you cannot earn your way to heaven. And do you know why?
Think of heaven as a pure white space. Usually in my illustrations, I depict the God Above All Gods as pure inky blackness, because nothing is there. But I’d like you to, in this illustration, picture it as pure, blinding white light, the light of consciousness, the light of love, pure, unsullied. There aren’t little bits of sin here and there. There’s no dirt. There’s no death. There’s no destruction. There’s no delusion. It’s all pure, all good, as good as something can be imagined. That’s the nature of the God Above All Gods.
The reason we can’t earn our way into that heavenly realm is because it’s pure. And we can’t bring our dirt up with us. We need to be cleansed. We need to be pure. But whatever we do to earn good karma is never enough to offset the bad that we do, unthinkingly, or because we don’t seem to have a choice. Example: I have ants coming in the kitchen. I don’t want to kill those ants. They’re Second Order Powers. I really don’t want to kill those ants. It grieves me to have to do so. Another example: I eat food. I don’t want to kill the food that I eat. Those are all Second Order Powers. And not only the animals are Second Order Powers, but the vegetables and fruit are also Second Order Powers. Everything that’s alive is a Second Order fruit from the Fullness of God. But we do need to eat. We are in that position. Here we are in this material world. It is not good.
In heaven there is no death or destruction. In heaven we will not kill anything and eat it to stay alive. So everything that is a food animal down here, or a vegetable or a fruit that we have to eat to stay alive, it just stays alive up there. It’s just beautiful gardens and orchards and forests. The lion laying down with the lamb and all of that. There’s no death or destruction in heaven.
And above that manifestation level where the Fullness of God lives, the God Above All Gods is that pure, clean, white bliss state of pure consciousness, pure love. So none of that angst about killing the ants or eating the cows or eating the carrots will ever have to go up with us. It has to stop at this material boundary of our cosmos. And the only way that can happen is to be cleansed by the Third Order Powers. They are the purity of God. We need to repent and say, I’m sorry I’m killing those ants. I’m sorry I’m eating that cow. I’m so sorry I’m eating that carrot. We have to repent of all of the things that we do here on Earth in order to be clean enough to go above.
So knocking on people’s doors and handing out religious tracts to them and asking them if they know the word of God isn’t going to earn your place in heaven. Even that’s not good enough. It doesn’t erase the bad. We earn too much negative karma to wipe it all out by good deeds. So what we need to do is repent and be redeemed.
But back to this meme, “but as for you, be strong and do not give up.” So that is an encouragement message. Don’t give up. We don’t know God’s timing. I always knew I was going to eventually get a PhD, but I was 50 years old by the time I got my PhD. Had I thought that I had to go straight through college and get my degrees all in order so that I could graduate and have a career by the time I was 25 or 30, well then I would have been disappointed. Maybe I would have given up, but I didn’t. I knew it would happen in God’s time.
On to the next meme. This one is from 2 Timothy 4:17 and it says, “But the Lord stood with me and gave me strength.”
We often feel powerless, huh? The forces in the world are just too big. What can I do about it? But when you invite the Christ in and you look for God’s will in your life and Christ’s will and you begin to employ love and the Simple Golden Rule in your activities, the Lord gives you all of the strength you need.
The Third Order of Powers are the most powerful force in the cosmos. We Second Order of Powers are the second most powerful force in the cosmos. The archons are much, much weaker than we are. So if you’re battling evil outright, if you feel as though you’re under archonic attack constantly, the only way you can win that fight is to ask the Christ to take hold of your spirit. And in Christ, you can do all things.
It may not be instantaneous. It’s not a magic incantation. You may indeed be granted a miracle, but that’s in God’s control. That’s God’s power. People often try to employ what is called magic against archons. That’s all demiurgic. You’re in the wrong arena if that’s the way you’re approaching power and archons. The way to beat the archons is to move fully into the love of the God Above All Gods, is to invite the Christ and the Third Order of Powers into your body, into your soul, into every one of your cells. And that’s what gives you the strong power.
And you know when you’re in God’s will, when you feel the power of God, when you feel invigorated, when you feel energized, enthused. The word enthusiastic means to be filled with God. That is how to be strong. And if it’s God leading you to do something, as I believe I’ve been led to share the Gnostic Gospel with you, you don’t give up because it’s not your job to give up. It’s your job to do. There is no try, only do.
And it’s not a slog. It’s not a, Oh I’ve got to do God’s will today. No, it’s, Oh what joy! How can I help you? What can I do for you? How can I show love to you?
Which brings us to the next meme. Hebrews 13:16 says, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”
Now I don’t particularly like that word sacrifice here because it makes it sound as though you’re earning karma again. And that isn’t quite right. I have pets, right? I have cats and dogs. And I sometimes say to people who don’t have a dog, Get another dog when you’re ready and you’ll have that love again. And they say, Oh no, I want to travel. There’s too much responsibility with a dog. I don’t want to sacrifice time to be with a dog. Well, that is sacrifice when you’re thinking of it like that. But I don’t think of it as sacrifice. I love my dog. There’s nothing I’d rather do than spend time with my dog. There’s nothing I’d rather do than be out walking in the with my dog. There’s nothing I’d rather do than sit with a cat while it purrs. That isn’t a sacrifice. I may be delayed in doing something else, but I’d rather sit with that cat. Or I may have thought I was going to do something else, but the dog wants to go for a walk. I’m going for a walk.
It’s not a sacrifice if you love what you do. People are not having children now because they don’t want to sacrifice their single lifestyle and the money. I can get anything I want. I can take care of myself. I can be who I want to be. Well, that’s a very egoistic approach to life. And we aren’t meant here to fluff our egos. We’re meant to be here to love others and to demonstrate our love so that the Demiurge can see that we love each other. The reason we share what we have isn’t because we’re earning those brownie points and erasing bad karma. It’s because we see a need and we automatically want to plug it. We automatically want to fill it. You know how my job here on this podcast is throwing out these Gnostic insights, right? I’m sharing Gnostic insights with you because I want to help you, because I love you. Not because I’m erasing karma. I don’t have a blackboard here in the office with good karma, bad karma on it.
I do the same in my daily walking-around life. Even people I don’t know, like if someone’s in the supermarket and they’re puzzled, they’re in the vegetable section and they’re wondering what this is, or what do I do with this, or is this a good melon or not, or how do you tell? I’m that person that’ll walk right up to a stranger and go, Hey, I see that you’re wondering if that melon is ripe. Well, let me show you how you tell. See, you press on this here. See, I always am giving advice, whether it’s asked for or not, whether I know the person or not, because I am moved to do that. It’s an automatic reflex. It’s not something I’ve got to work myself up into, and it’s hard to not give advice.
So, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”
I think we have time for one more meme here. John 16:33 says,” I’ve said these things to you so that you will have peace in me. In the world you will have distress, but be encouraged. I have conquered the world.” That’s a quote from Jesus directly.
So Jesus said he was sharing the words that have come down to us, mainly in the form of the red printed letters in the New Testament. If you go and pick up a Bible and you turn to the back part of the Bible, that’s called the New Testament, right? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the four books that tell the story of Jesus. And there are quotes from Jesus in there. And if you have what’s called a red letter edition of the Bible, they’re in red. So you can actually read through the first four Gospels, read only the red letters, and that’s things Jesus said directly. And so this is one of these things that Jesus said.
He said, “I’ve said these things to you so that you will have peace in me. In the world you have distress, but be encouraged. I have conquered the world.” Jesus said this while he was still walking around alive. Jesus claimed that he had conquered the world before his crucifixion and before his resurrection. It was merely the coming into this world, being born as a human, yet fully God. See, the Third Order Powers came into this world in the body of Jesus. He was born in a physical body. He came as a Second Order Power, and that was his genetic inheritance from Mary, his mother. But he also came in as a Third Order Power, and that was his spiritual inheritance from the God Above All Gods. He said he taught us these things so that we would have peace in him, peace in Christ.
So we are to have peace no matter the circumstances in which we find ourselves. You know–it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you react to what happens to you. It’s not what you witness, it’s what you feel, what your emotions are as you witness something. The Demiurge is always trying to rile us up. The job of the archons is to bedevil us and to make us feel horrible, to knock us off our game, to take the love and light out of our lives. The Demiurge wants to bring us down to its level, down to the level of the archons, which is ego, negative emotions, vice, addictions, anger, hatred. That’s all demonic. That’s all demiurgic. Christ said, I want you to have peace in this world, so be encouraged. I have brought you the peace.
I have conquered this world. All we need to do is invite the Christ into ourselves.
Each of us is made up of the physical molecular body, the molecules and atoms that make up our flesh. That’s the demiurgic level. When we are conceived, the physical level is melded onto our Second Order Powers. Our perfect representation of the Fullness of God is our big S self, and we all have that. We all carry an identical copy of the Fullness of God, but yet we also all have an ego, and that’s related to this physical body we’re born to. It’s also part of our aeonic inheritance. Even the Aeons have egos—every Aeon has a name, which means it’s got a identification. It’s different than its neighbors. It has a place, so it’s in a different place. It’s got a different point of view. It’s a monad. It has a position and a job. It has a function within the Fullness of God.
We all have functions within this material cosmos in which we find ourselves, so our job is to fulfill our destiny, is to fulfill our aeonic inheritance, and our Second Order Powers that we were born with become discouraged and distracted and forgetful and deluded because of the Demiurge and the archons. This is why Jesus came and said the things he said. Jesus came and brought the Holy Spirit into the cosmos in order to infuse us with new strength, new power. We’re powering up when we invite the Christ in. We power up to the Third Order of Powers.
Okay, let me know what you thought of this episode. I still only hear from two or three of you. Don’t be shy. You can share, especially if you’re struggling. This isn’t a place for perfect people. Christ Jesus was the only perfect human at this point in time. Come and share. Come and tell us what you’re working on, what you’re thinking about, where you’ve been, either publicly under comments or you can send me a private comment through the comments form at gnosticinsights.com.
Okay, amen to all of this. I look forward to your comments. God bless us all and onward and upward.
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