Matthew 11:12 and Luke 16:16, in about six lectures (1033, 1041, 1531, 1543, 1904, 2108), and it is the one place where Neville's reading is more literal than the churches'. The kingdom of heaven is taken by violence, and the violent take it by force; from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has been coming violently. At 1033 he reports that the scholars have given it up - hundreds of them in discussion confessing it does not make sense and only adds confusion to confusion - and answers that it is simply true, and that he cannot tell you how violent you are when you enter. Not angry: sheer, sheer energy, a power beyond blowing up a city or a country with one bomb. The description is consistent wherever it appears and is always physical. You are whipped up in the form of a spiral into your own skull; it takes that energy to ram you into the eternal structure God has predetermined; the whole thing radiates and shakes like an earthquake, the skull reverberates like thunder and you think the whole thing is coming apart; then you are riveted in, it subsides, and you return to the world of Caesar. What the force is for is stated too: you move into one niche prepared for you since the beginning of time, and you fill it forever. 1531 adds the direction - like a fiery serpent, up you go, the energies that went down into generation now reversed up into regeneration.
Kind
Formula
Interpretive layers
Biblical typology
Experiential narrative
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Lectures
Bible wordings
Luke 16:16 / Matthew 11:12 | Everyone enters it violently
Own wordings
it takes an enormous power to drive you into that part prepared for you
Occurrences
LectureThe One Greater Than John
I can’t tell you how violent you are when you enter—not angry but sheer, sheer energy. You use a power that you have never heard of on earth.
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LectureThe One Greater Than John
and these great scholars, and there were hundreds of them in discussion, and they confessed it doesn’t make sense. It only adds confusion to confusion
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