Christ Is the Reality of Man

This is the season of the year when the entire Christian world’s concentration, for the next week beginning on Sunday, our churches will be crowded to overflowing, and I wanted to watch degree they will understand the great mystery — beginning on Sunday, on Sunday, and culminating the following Sunday, in Easter, or Resurrection. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians he said, “Christ died for our sins according to the scripture.” Oh, they’ll tell that story for Good Friday. When you heard the word Christ, did you think of another guy for you, and therefore vicariously he suffered? Because that’s what it would be — having the function of a substitute would be the vicarious state for our sins, bearing his suffering and his shameful death, world by carelessness. So that’s what the word would mean: one who takes the place of, one who represents or takes the place of something that is primary or original. There is another meaning to the word vicarious, and that is: an occurrence in an unexpected or abnormal part of the body, instead of the usual one — for instance, the bleeding of the gums, which replaces the discharge of the uterus, in vicarious menstruation. That’s what you’ll find. As reported in the Third International Dictionary: “the bleeding of the gums, which sometimes displaces or replaces that which would be the normal discharge of the uterus, menstruation.” In this sense, birth from above — the skull — replaces the normal birth from below, of the womb, as the normal, natural portion of the body where one should be born.216 ¶1

Here is one now being born from the abnormal portion of the body, which is the skull. Now, if he died — as we are told, Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, which you will read in Paul’s fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians, I think it’s the third verse — now let me turn to the scripture, for it used to be taught in ancient Israel that the fathers’ sins were actually visited upon the children, to the third and fourth generation. Now comes the new revelation — that voice which you will find in the thirty-first chapter of the Book of Jeremiah, the twenty-ninth and thirtieth verses. In those days, in the day of the Lord, when man begins to awake, in those days it shall no longer be said that the fathers ate sour grapes and the children’s teeth were set on edge; everyone shall die for his own sin, each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.216 ¶2

No longer the substitute. Therefore, who is this Christ? I say, if the word Christ in any way conveys to you the sense of an existent something or someone outside of you, it is delusion — you have a false Christ. For here, every man — but everyone — shall die for his own sin. Now, this is the mystery, as we are told, hidden for ages and generations, but now made manifest to his saints, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. For who are his saints? The saints are simply the redeemed. It has nothing to do with anything that our so-called holy men say in this world. There is no holy group on earth that could take an individual, male or female, and declare that that one is a saint. That’s the height of nonsense. The saint is the elect, the called, the chosen, the redeemed, called by God.216 ¶3

And only the one called knows that he is called; he can tell it to another, but it is a law of human behavior that the man called — calling him a conscious man, for all the others are not really conscious, even though they seem to be conscious — a conscious man shall not appear as the one he profoundly sees; if he does, he will definitely become a caricature of himself.216 ¶4

For Christ is not of this world. This is what Paul did when he said in his third chapter of Galatians that you should not know Christ after the flesh; or in his second letter to the Corinthians, when he says: “From now on, no man, from the human point of view — even though I once regarded Christ from the human point of view, I regard him thus no longer.” So no longer does that man who has been called, who has been awakened, ever regard Christ aright from the human point of view, from the world of flesh. And yet it is in this world of flesh, and only here in the world of flesh, that he is awakened. No one can consummate the bliss without being generated on earth. It is right here on earth. But earth does not end when a man seems to die, for I come to the end and my senses cannot follow him, and he seems to go, and I see him cremated, the ashes gathered, but he has not died to himself. So that the world does not terminate at that point where my senses cease to register it — he is still in a world just like this, and he continues his journey until that moment in time when he is called, when he is awakened, when he is elected.216 ¶5

That being, whether he be here, there, or elsewhere, does not ever appear as the one that he knows that he is. If he ever dares to play that part, and seek to be something important in the eyes of those he’s talking to, he becomes a caricature of himself. But from that moment on, he is one with the glorified body of the risen Lord, and that living glorified body is made up of the redeemed, of the elect, of those who are chosen, those who are called. Ultimately everyone will be called.216 ¶6

So it is happening — but it is happening — that’s the strangest thing. Here the drama that will be unfolding for us next week — and all the pulpits will be talking about it, and they will tell us that he is risen. And I will not deny that. He’s not only risen, he is rising. This is something to be done absolutely and continuously. It’s something that is not set up that it is related to somebody, to say the happenings now — it is an eternal drama, without reference to position in time, without reference to duration or repetition. Sometimes with reference to past times, so you can say “he is risen,” or that he wrote — but you have to act, and he is rising, because he’s actually buried in humanity.216 ¶7

This is the Christ of whom I speak, not a little man that lived two thousand years ago, that different from you. I am speaking of that Christ in you that is the hope of glory. That Christ is crucified on humanity — this body is the only cross that he’s ever worn, this skull is the only tomb in which he was ever buried, this skull is the only womb from which he will be born. It will first rise within it, and then he will come out of it — he’s coming out of it, it will be his birth from above. That is the unnatural birth — that is the vicarious state of which I speak, an occurrence in the unexpected or abnormal part of the body, instead of that which is the natural. What the womb is, the natural organ of birth, the skull is not. So we speak of this as the vicarious one, who took upon himself the sin — it is simply telling us it is an entirely different birth, an entirely different being, in this world it has to be. We can use the physical analogy — I never knew, for one moment, that sometimes the bleeding of the gums is simply a replacement of the discharge that would normally come from the uterus, and therefore it is called vicarious menstruation. You can find that in Webster’s Third International — look it up and see the definition given to it.216 ¶8

I tell you, it’s my own experience — it’s the most exciting, the most thrilling, the most unexpected thing in the world. Who would ever think, for one moment, there is another portion of the body from which man could be born, and that that man is a supernatural man? He is not the man that was born from the womb. That which was born from the womb is flesh and blood, and flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. That which is born from the skull is Spirit, as God himself is — from the unexpected, the unnatural portion of the body, instead of that which is the natural portion of it. And that is the Christ in man that will be talked about, for the next week, from every pulpit in Christendom. But I am telling you who you really are — you are Christ. If you have not yet become aware of it, through this wonderful series of experiences you will become aware of it.216 ¶9

But until you become aware of it, and act on personal experience, you will continue the journey, even though you go through the gate called death. But death does not end your journey — you cannot end it, for the being in you is immortal, it cannot die. That being is your own wonderful human imagination. That is the Divine body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Your own wonderful human imagination is the immortal you, and cannot die, for it has to be born — born here in this world of flesh and blood. You cannot consummate the bliss which is heaven until you actually, in this world below, which is the world of flesh, live it — as this series of experiences called Christendom, in scripture. A series of experiences, in this manner, Christianity is based upon the affirmation that a series of events happened in which God expressed himself in action for the salvation of man. That series of events I have gone through; I am telling you what I know from experience.216 ¶10

It begins with your own awakening. You awake in that unexpected, abnormal portion of the body, and as you awake within the skull, you don’t expect to be awakened there, if you’re going to be born — we think of birth from the womb. I came out of my mother’s womb — even if it was cesarean, it is still from the womb, though it is simply a section from the side of her body; they are still taking me from that womb. You’re not taken from the womb when you’re born from above — you’re coming actually, literally, from above, and it is out of your own skull. But first you are awakened, and when you are awakened, then you come out, and it’s an actual birth from above.216 ¶11

Now, you may tell it to those who are drawn to you, because “no man comes unto me,” says the Father, unless he calls him. You’re in search of the Father, and soon after the birth you’re going to find the Father, and you’re going to find him as yourself. Then you tell it to those whom the Father draws — but you are the Father, you are drawing your own. Now they’re all coming to you that can come. Many fall by the wayside — they can’t take it, so they go back. They can’t conceive for one moment that Christ means what you’re talking about — you haven’t had the experience — you know what you’re talking about. They have a fixed idea concerning what Christ is — I mean, they use the word, they have something on the outside. You use the word, and you mean only one thing: your own wonderful human imagination. There is no other Christ, there is no other God, there is no other Father. That is the Divine body of the Lord Jesus Christ, your own wonderful human imagination.216 ¶12

But it has to be born again, grow to above, and it comes in the unexpected, abnormal part of the body, right out of the skull. And when it comes out, and you tell the world — you cannot ever think, ever appear as the one — you only know that you are. If you do, and you try to put on all the nonsense about it, you’re simply going to make a target of yourself. Many years ago — maybe twelve years ago — I went to my friend’s office on Sunset, and this very good-looking man, a handsome man about six feet, all dressed in his ankle-length white robe, with a little girdle around his belly — no shoes, on a hot summer’s day — with a black beard beautifully trimmed here to his shoulder. Someone once told him he looked like Christ, and so he’s going to play his part; so he came in asking for money. And my friend and his wife — they work together, she is the secretary and he is the agent — and they said, “No, we give to charity, we’ll give to organizations like the Red Cross and so on; we do not give this way.” He was insulting, in the most unmerciful manner — he was now playing the part of Christ. He asked me, said, “Brother, would you give me something?” I said yes, so I gave him a dollar. He thanked me, he pronounced a blessing on me — a curse upon them, he is Christ.216 ¶13

So my friend said to me after he left, “Why did you give him a dollar?” I said, “I go to a picture and I spend three dollars, three-fifty for a show — this is funnier, this is far more amusing.” Here is just — what’s a dollar? Let him go out and have himself a sandwich for his dollar, or whatever he wants. But here’s someone, someday misled him. There is no physical description of Jesus in the Bible, none whatsoever, but someone, based upon the pictures that others have painted over the years, told him he looks like Christ, and so he began to take on more and more the outward apparel of Christ. But you see, I was born with that sense of humor — the amusement, gave him a buck for him.216 ¶14

But I was a little boy in Barbados, and we had these pictures twice a week, but on the reel it would run for a little while, and all of a sudden it came to the end — you heard the tape over and over and over, up went the lights, then you would have to rewind it, put on another reel, and then you run another one. So they ran five or six reels of these things, whatever they were, twice a week. I paid a boy of my father’s his six cents — the going rate to the pit — the pit was what we call the orchestra, and we sat up in what would be, say, the balcony; that was thirty-six cents, and the pit was six cents. And I would pay him six cents to laugh at the wrong time — when everybody was about to cry, he had to laugh; if he didn’t laugh he wouldn’t get my six cents. But he never failed. But every time he did it, that would come to the manager, it was a little light, they’d take him out, and he never saw a whole picture, not in his life.216 ¶15

But twice a week, we had fun. All of a sudden the girl is tied to the tracks and the train is coming through, and they’re all screaming, and all of a sudden — his name was Mashama, he had feet like that, no shoe could fit it, so we called him National, meaning he could match things. And National would sit there, then, exactly where he was. Sometimes he would get lost in the thing himself, so he couldn’t laugh too early. But sometimes he was carried away — he laughed early, when it was a serious scene — that night he missed it completely. But I was given that way, to just make fun of this entire thing that seemed so serious to the whole vast world. And week after week, well, I had my fun. He had his, and he always enjoyed my six cents, because they too were shocked as he was pulled out and taken out. It’s good to be shocked.216 ¶16

And someone is so confident, and he is so hopeful, and he thinks that he is this — turn away. Any man who thinks he is holy, and puts on that act for you, just turn away, for no man who has had the experience is going to put on any appearance concerning what he knows he is, because you can’t describe it in flesh and blood. You could not in any way dress up to look like the being that you know that you are, for no mortal eye could see it. It takes the inner eye — it takes the eye of the spirit, whether it be a little girl of eight months, or eight years, or a lady of thirty — it takes the inner eye to see the being, and you don’t care who sees it. To know what one has to say, one has to bear witness to what you know from your own experience, but you aren’t going to go and talk about it, because your mortal eye can see it. So I say it is a law of human — I would say — understanding, that the man who actually has experienced it, I call him a conscious man; all the others are sleeping. But the conscious man shall not appear as the one that he actually knows, in the depth of his being, that he is, because if he does, and he attempts to appear that way, he’s only fooling himself, and he simply makes a target of himself.216 ¶17

And this is what Paul told us, when he said not to know Christ after the flesh, for he’s not of the flesh — he’s a completely different being, he’s supernatural. So somebody, they’re going to see him on a donkey — in their minds they picture him physically. Are they going to see him on Friday on a wooden cross? They’ll see him taken down and put into a little grave, and they’re still digging for it in the Near East. And then they believe that someplace in the Near East he came out of a little tomb made with mortal hands, a little tomb, too. And they say, although scripture doesn’t call it where they’re buried, they still think about the area as resembling a skull, and that’s why they called it Golgotha. It doesn’t resemble the skull — it is the skull. That’s very real.216 ¶18

And this is where — one man is crucified on humanity, and he is buried in man; he rose in one man, and then in men, and continues to rise in individual men and women. Eventually he will rise in all, and there’s only one cry. So in the end, one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God, unfoldable — and not one is going to be greater than the other. When you know it, you don’t want to be, because it’s one — to be greater than your spirit, they’re going to be others. It’s one body, one Spirit, one love, one God, unfoldable. That’s the Christ that I’m talking about, that’s the one.216 ¶19

The word, how to read it — but Paul is not confusing when he tells you Christ has died for our sins according to the scripture. He is not quoting — not quoting, but he’s implying the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah: just like a little lamb before her shearer, and the sheep before her shearers is dumb, he opened not his mouth, but he saw the fruit of his travail, and he was satisfied. Yet he waits upon man here, just as quickly, as innocently, as willingly when the willingness is evil as when it is good, because we know that we are asleep, and we can dream. You don’t blame a man for a dream. If tomorrow morning your wife woke and tells you, “You know, last night I had the most fantastic experiences with a man, and it wasn’t you” — and she’s talking to her husband at breakfast — you think he’s going to strike her for a dream? He came home and said, these are the realities, I had them on the outside — he’s going to actually ostracize her for a dream? He’s not going to ostracize the person — and yet that dream is telling something.216 ¶20

Now, this is the premise, because we’re not going to awaken. When he calls us, and we are awake, something happens in the one in whom he awakes, and the whole vast world changes; a complete change takes place within it, but nothing — everything is different in this world. He sees everyone as Christ, asleep. Until that one awakes, he still sees Christ — he sees Christ in his wife, in his child, in his friend, in his neighbor, in everyone. And there’s no other way, after he awakes, that he could ever see anyone — you can’t see anyone but Christ, because Christ is the reality of man. That essential being is your own wonderful human imagination.216 ¶21

And he’s not going to condemn anyone who is dreaming, or who is dreaming Christ this evening. He took upon himself the limitations of this body, and he dreams it well. I’m going to tell you, you can dream anything between now and tonight, and he doesn’t limit you to what you can dream — you can dream anything. He is the Creator, and will help you externalize the dream. You want to feel that you’re successful — what’s wrong with that, if you know what you mean by success? What would it be like if it were true? Do you dare to assume that it is true? If you dare to assume that it is true, then live as though it were true, and it will become a fact. You’re actually going to find yourself externalizing your assumption that, when you began to assume it, it had no basis in fact. That’s how it works. Then you know who you are.216 ¶22

It doesn’t mean, because you project it under the screen of assumption, that tomorrow night you’re going to have the experiences of which I speak, because no one can tell you when you’re going to have them — it could happen tonight. I only hope that everyone here will have it in the immediate present. I do hope. But I have no assurance that you have it now, but I do know you’re going to have it, that no one will fail in eternity to have it, because God would fail, and God cannot fail, and God is in you, and God is your own wonderful human imagination. That is God — the eternal body of man is the human imagination, and that body is the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other Jesus Christ, no.216 ¶23

And he is the one who, suffering so great, could say so beautifully: “Thou sufferest also with me, although I behold thee not.” You can’t tell me — do you actually see your imagination? You feel it, you exercise it, and it’s you exercising yourself, but you don’t see it as you see objects. And you see the results of the exercise of imagination, you see the fruits, but you don’t actually see that invisible God, because God is to be seen only by his son. No one knows him but the son, and he knows who the son is. Outside of that, you aren’t going to see imagination, but you see imagination in operation, because imagination is God, and God is invisible to all, save his son. His son sees him, and he sees the son. So I tell you, your own wonderful human imagination is the Lord Jesus Christ.216 ¶24

Don’t look for him in any other place — he’s seated right here, just where you are, that’s where he is. He is buried in you, but not so deep that, in his dream, he can’t hear my words. I’m sure, because truth is talking to truth — deep is speaking to the deep, and he hears my words. That I’m talking to myself in you is the being that is speaking, it is one, it is Christ. One day, suddenly, it is going to happen, and just as you’re told in that definition I read you earlier tonight — yes, it will come in an unexpected, abnormal part of the body, instead of the usual one. And that abnormal, unexpected part of the body where he is born is your own skull. That’s where he comes out.216 ¶25

And when he comes out, it’s not another, it’s yourself. Who rose? I do. Who was present? No one — I was alone. And who pushed away the stone? It is said the stone was rolled away — I did. Well then, how did you come out — a midwife? No, no midwife came. I got up by myself, I pushed myself out and pulled myself out of that tomb, to find that the tomb was breathing, a womb, because the minute I came out, the symbolism of the birth was surrounding me — the child wrapped in swaddling clothes, and the spirit is the wind, and it was the wind that disturbed — and disturbed the witnesses that came to witness the event. And they heard the wind and knew the truth — everything happens just as described in the Book of Luke and the Book of Matthew.216 ¶26

I think Luke described it more beautifully, more vividly; John does it perfectly. But, at the end, in symbolism — unless you know the language of symbolism, you don’t see it, because he speaks of the empty tomb, but the little cloth, the little napkin, was aside from the body — here was the cloth, the linen clothes were there — but the little napkin was not part of it. But it was part of it in the beginning; it covered his head. That’s where he came out. And then the napkin was removed, and all by itself was the napkin. In the ancient world, it means simply the afterbirth, the placenta — that was the meaning of the word. It is telling you a birth took place, because that wrapping — if you wrap the head, then it came out of the head, that’s where it was — and the napkin is all by itself, all rolled up. So if you understand the language of symbolism, you’ll know what took place in that empty tomb. And the tomb was — he was born, he came out of that tomb, and left behind him, as if to present, the afterbirth, implying that a birth took place here.216 ¶27

But where is it? I see the evidence — the body, I see the linen clothes. But now, what actually came out of those linen clothes, you can’t see, because it’s spirit. Only the heavenly eyes can see it. Only those who are already awake within the body of the living God, those who are now the living stone in that temple, and they rejoice — one more has joined the living body. But others can’t see it. But those who know the symbolism, they know something took place.216 ¶28

But John tells it beautifully — what he tells, he tells it symbolically, by Matthew and Luke they tell it — or they tell it that mortal mind can understand — and they tell it as though it happened to the womb of a woman, and it never happened to the womb of any woman — it happened to the skull. But I’m speaking of generic man, male or female — so it comes out about, describing male or female, because what is coming out is above the organization of sex.216 ¶29

So man in the resurrection is above the organization of sex. You’re told that in him there is neither male nor female, no, not even Greek or Jew, bond or free, just one. So something comes out — you don’t depend upon any other being to create — you create all, yourself, for the body is one, and you are that one. But you make no display of it to anyone in this world — you still are the devoted father, devoted husband, devoted friend, a friendly neighbor, and you play the same part in the eyes of those who know you. And you walk the earth until the very end, and no one would ever know.216 ¶30

Say, though, if you took someone into your confidence, and you tell them what happened to you — some believe you, and some disbelieve it. But it doesn’t really matter; their response to what happened to you is their judgment of themselves. If they do not believe, we’ll let them go on until one day they will actually understand it from experience. See, I have no feeling for organized Christianity — say that with the individual, as experience; organized Christianity means nothing to me.216 ¶31

Last year they threw out a hundred saints — but you can’t throw anything out of the body of God. If they were saved in the beginning, they will still have to be saints today. So the organization gets together and says, “I’m going to make a saint,” and then they bring this woman in, or that man in, and these people in, and pronounce them as Saint so-and-so. Saint Christopher has been dethroned, Saint Barbara dethroned, and all the other saints — a hundred of them — last year. No man can make a saint.216 ¶32

The Lord suddenly calls one, unexpected. And when you are called, and incorporated into the body of love, which is God, and then a saint — you’re saying, as the word is, to fulfill scripture. And when you fulfill it, you are a living stone in the one body that is God, and you are one with that glorious body. That is one — not a little portion of it, with only one body — and you are that body.216 ¶33

Anyone seeing you after that, in the eyes of the spirit world, they see God, and they know they are looking at God. There’s no doubt as to who you’re — still looking at God, looking at love — they’re looking at the only being that there really is. But all the others sleep until they are called, and when they are called, then they are awakened, and as they awake they have these experiences, and when these experiences are completed within them, it doesn’t matter when the little end comes, because they do not return to life anymore — they are thought of the heaven world, they are already a citizen of Heaven, already sharing in that one body — it is the glorified body.216 ¶34

So when you hear the story on Sunday — if you go to church on Sunday, it’s nice, you won’t find me there — but if you go on Sunday, it will be Palm Sunday, that triumphant entrance into Jerusalem. Then comes the grand disillusion, the trial, that one man must die for the nation. As we told you last week, what it meant was only one being caring with us all, so the one is the original, and the very you is the Son of God, and when he wakes in you, you are the Son of God. But beyond that, just a matter of moments — to the exact — one hundred thirty-nine days later, he brings forth the son, and the son calls you Father, and then you know who you are: you’re God, the Father. And then the other events unfold, normally, within the span of twelve hundred and sixty days, that is in store for every being in this world.216 ¶35

Then you tell it — some believe it, some do not believe it, it doesn’t really matter — they will pray and pray and prayed, because everyone will be friends. But God, in his infinite mercy, hides from you the pain of the past, until you’ve gone through hell. No one tells you that you have not gone through the furnace — everyone goes through the furnace before he comes to this point in the drama.216 ¶36

So all the things were placed upon your shoulder, and you are beaten, as you are told in that word — Face. And they put the word before Jesus, they call it Son; they put it before David, they call it Seven — they should not do that, translated, but nevertheless that’s what they do. I tell you, you are the son, raised to the Father, and when you’re raised to the Father, the son’s name goes to David — and I’ve told you this in scripture. But scholars, with all their studies, cannot arrive at that conclusion, because they start from false premises. If I start from a false premise, my conclusion will be false, and all the scholarship in the world cannot undo it, if my premise is false. But revelation undoes it, and you can’t deny revelation. And revealed truth cannot be logically proven — it is simply revealed.216 ¶37

Then you go back in the scripture, and you try to find where on earth this was foretold in scripture, and there you find it. But you didn’t find it before it was revealed. So revealed truth cannot be logically proven to anyone in the world without this revelation. Don’t go any further in the Bible — go back into the Old Testament, and there you find it. It was always there, but not for the scholarly mind to detect, not until it actually happened. So, after two thousand years of teaching a false premise, the conclusions must be wrong, because premises must move forward to the normal conclusion. Or, a being from its own origin brings forth after its kind — and so that is my origin, my premise; then the aim is going to be justified, not going to be false. And I am telling you, the day will come, you will meet him, and when you meet him, you are God the Father, and he is exactly what scripture tells you: he is your son, and his name is David the Beloved.216 ¶38

So on Sunday, when you see the palm, bear in mind — the palm is in the genealogy of Jesus. You’ll find it: she was the mother of the twins, her name was Tamar; the word Tamar means palm. She’s one of the few women mentioned in the great drama of Christ.216 ¶39

And Jacob had Judah — he was the father of Judah, and his brother — they didn’t mention the first three, they couldn’t mention Reuben, and Dan, and so on, but they jumped to the fourth one, and mentioned Judah — the one who holds the scepter, and it never passes from his hand. And then, by Tamar, he was the father of the twins, the division between Perez and his brother. And Tamar is the palm tree, the stately one, as the psalmist writes of Israel, that king of Israel is just like the palm — that stately, majestic being. So you’ll find the reason for this palm, which will be used, but they will not understand it. Why? Because we are going to hand out our little palms, made in the form of a cross, and give them out to those who come to service — but nevertheless, it is only a part of the unfolding drama, all within scriptures.216 ¶40