Christmas, the Birth of Christ in Man

Well, I need not remind you that this is the season of the year where everyone plots and plans to distribute gifts. But the real day marks an event that sets man free; that when this birth takes place in man, man is set free from this world of sin and death. And “Though Christ a thousand times be born in Bethlehem, if he is not born in us, our soul is still forlorn. And the cross on Golgotha we will look to in vain unless within ourselves it be set up again.” If there be any other Christ than he who was crucified within us and who rose and continues to rise in us, he is a false Christ. Anyone who teaches of a Christ on the outside is a false teacher…I do not care how they label it. If you have all the robes in the world and you’re acclaimed as a very wise, wise person, if you teach some external Christ, external to yourself, it’s a false Christ.398 ¶1

When you know the story, you’ll see it in scripture. Here in the 16th of Matthew, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” . Now when you read it you think a man standing on the outside is asking another on the outside, that Jesus is asking Peter, and they are two different men. It is not so. The drama is taking place within, for were he on the outside he is flesh and blood. I can tell you from now ’til the ends of time that you are Christ and Christ is God the Father, but I can’t persuade you. I can’t reach that level of conviction until you have experienced it.398 ¶2

So here he is saying, “Who do you say I am?” It’s from within me, the I AM in man. Well, maybe he hasn’t experienced it, and if he hasn’t, he will say John Brown, Paul Smith, Neville Goddard, whatever the name is. But that’s not it. The day will come I will have the experience. I will know from experience. And he tells me it came from my Father who is in heaven. For he said, “Go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and to your Father”—same Father—“to my God and to your God”…same God . So when the experience takes place in man, it’s the same Father; and the kingdom of heaven is within, so it is from within that the revelation comes . It cannot come from flesh and blood. No matter how wise a man is in this world, he cannot persuade you and he can’t persuade himself until it happens within himself.398 ¶3

Well, I’m telling you from my own experience it’s going to happen in every one of us. When it happens, you will know who Christ is. When you find Christ, you have found yourself. When you have found yourself, you will find God. When you find God, you’ll find God the Father. And it’s all within yourself. No flesh and blood can ever convince you. They can tell you what they have experienced, if they have experienced it, but there are no words to convince a man the thing is so profound. It’s so altogether marvelous. It’s such a mystery!398 ¶4

When I read scripture, I find the doctrine of the hidden-ness of Christ clearly stated. The hidden-ness of Christ is there as beautifully unfolded in all the gospels. Take these three passages from John—we go first to the 6th chapter of John. He is telling them that he came down from heaven and he is the bread, the living bread, and they said, “Is this not Jesus, Joseph’s son? And his father and his mother, do we not know them? How is it then he tells us he comes down from heaven?” . Then in the 8th chapter of John, they said to him, “Where is your Father?” He answered, “You know neither me, nor my Father, if you knew me, you would know my Father also” . Anyone knowing me, a man, if they knew me a way back in my early days in Barbados, they would know my father, my mother, my brothers. But when I tell them I am not of this world, they will deny it for they know my record is there, my birth certificate is there. My father’s name is Joseph, my mother’s name is Wilhelmina, and they have that record. Well, flesh and blood yes…they have the record of the flesh and blood, but they do not have the record in this world of what took place in me. The drama that is recorded in scripture took place in me.398 ¶5

What was that drama? He said, “My word shall not return unto me empty, but it must accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it” . What is the “word”? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” . Then what is his purpose?—to unfold himself in man. For if his word cannot return empty, but must accomplish that which he purposes, well then, it is not going to return empty. But what is his word? The Word is God himself: “And his name shall be called the Word of God” .398 ¶6

So the only objective form you will ever see concerning Jesus Christ would really be the gospel. If you read the gospel, you are seeing the only objective form, with human eye, of Jesus Christ. Now eat it you’re told: “Eat my body.” In other words, assimilate it…try to grasp its meaning. For the word translated “word” which is the Greek word logos, simply means “that which is behind the thing.” In other words, its sense, its meaning, what is the meaning behind the story as you read it? If you read it and don’t get behind to its sense, you’re going to see a man on the outside. And yet there is no description of a physical Jesus in the Bible. No description whatsoever of what he looked like, how tall he was, how short he was, anything about him. All that is said, “When he was about thirty years of age, he began his ministry.” But anyone could be at thirty years of age…but there is no description whatsoever of a man, because he is The Word and The Word is in man. Man, as he walks this earth, finally finds himself unfolding the Word within himself. He has assimilated it; he has eaten the flesh and drunk the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ which is the Word.398 ¶7

He heard the story. At first he thought it was on the outside and he worshipped an external Christ. That was a false Christ. He kept on through the years worshipping and looking to some external Christ to whom he prayed; he would cross himself and pray to something on the outside. Then one day, this thing erupts within him. It’s The Word—suddenly it erupts within him and he is born from above. He goes back into scripture to find everything said of Jesus the Christ he himself experienced. The whole thing unfolded in him. The sign of his birth, which was the child wrapped in swaddling clothes; the men who bore witness to the fact that the child was there. But they couldn’t see him. Why? Because it was God who was born and no mortal eye can see God. But God saw them and understood everything they entertained as thought, everything that they thought of while they were present, and he heard the wind…just as foretold in scripture.398 ¶8

Then came the moment in time where God the Father is about to reveal himself further as God the Father in the one in whom he was born. So I can tell you, you are God the Father, but I can’t persuade you because you cannot be persuaded by flesh and blood. So the thing talking to you now is flesh and blood, and this will not long be here. It will die like all men…all men die, this will die, too. But this is not the being of whom I speak. This thing called Neville will die in the not distant future. But what is within that I experience while walking this earth I cannot share it with you save in words. Everything said of the character called Jesus Christ in scripture I have experienced, all within me. So I know that the Word spoken of in the 1st of John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” and God’s Word cannot return unto him empty, but it must accomplish that which he purposes, and it must succeed in that which he sent it to do in this world.398 ¶9

Well, what did he send it to do?—he’s only begetting himself. He is unfolding himself in every man in whom the Word is deposited. So you hear the Word and you either reject it or you accept it. You accept it with faith, and then you go through all the trials of the world, and then it begins to unfold. It stirs and you feel it stirring. Long before it erupts into the first grand event, you feel it…the whole thing is stirring within you. It’s a hunger that only an experience of God can satisfy. You may search for it and seek it in alcohol. You may seek it in some dope. You may seek it in all kinds of things. It isn’t there. Suddenly it erupts within you and you find him within you, and you are he.398 ¶10

On the surface plane you do not look any different and you will age and get older and older before the eyes of others. You can’t prove to anyone that this thing has happened in you; you only prove to yourself. And all you can do, either write about it or talk about it and tell it to the world if they will listen, to encourage everyone to persist in the faith. But I tell you, if there is any Christ whatsoever other than he who was crucified within us and who rose and continues to rise in us, that Christ is a false Christ; and anyone who teaches that outside Christ is a false teacher of a false doctrine. For this is the hidden Christ buried in the heart of every person in the world. So you will stir it by acceptance and by belief.398 ¶11

So here is the Christ. When this little thing is taken off, it’s off for the last time…no more death for this one. Everyone else who has not had he birth, they are instantly restored to life, new, unaccountably new. New—no loss of faculties, no loss of anything, but in a world terrestrial just like this one—solidly real. And may this be your experience in the immediate present, for you can see these that the world called dead…they’re not dead at all. When you meet them they’re all so young, about twenty. Drop off here when they’re ninety and suddenly they’re twenty. Many of them don’t even realize the change, totally unaware of the change. They see themselves this young, wholesome, healthy being filled with all the passions of the world and the ambitions of the world, and the desire to succeed; and they don’t realize that they were once, only a moment before, an old, decrepit person. They take it for granted. Many of them I had to persuade that they went through the experience that the world here calls death…they don’t believe it. When I talk to them, they can’t believe they went through the gate called death, because they’re not dead. They take for granted the newness of that body that they’re wearing. They do all the things you do here. No transforming power in this transition called death. You go through it, and you die again and find yourself instantly restored to a healthy, wonderful, new body in a same terrestrial world until the birth called Christmas takes place within you.398 ¶12

So this is the great event. When Christmas takes place in man, he departs from this terrestrial world and enters an entirely different age, spoken of in scripture as “that age.” An entirely different age…you can’t describe it…because you have life in you. There’s something entirely different. You’re not just something that is simply marking time and getting older. You’re not getting older and you’re not getting older and you’re one body. That body is the risen body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everyone who is born form above enters that body, they’re incorporated into it, and that body is their body. It’s not another body; you actually are one with the risen Christ, and you wear that body. What a glorious body it is! It’s all love, it’s nothing but love. When you enter it, you can’t think of anything but love. And you are that being, it’s the Ancient of Days, and you are one with this body: “One Spirit, one body, one Lord, one God and Father of all” . For you are that Father. God succeeded in actually giving himself to you; not as another, you become God, you become the Father. That is the purpose. For the Word that was in the beginning was God. So it’s not something he’s speaking out into space, like my words now. He actually is the Word and God becomes man that man may become God.398 ¶13

So the Word is buried in man, and then at one moment in time it erupts and the whole drama unfolds within man. Here comes the birth and the sign of the birth; here comes his only begotten Son calling you Father. Everything unfolds within you. Finally the curtain will come down and that’s the last time you will walk this terrestrial sphere where you are born, mature, die finding yourself restored; maturing, dying finding yourself again; maturing, dying…and it goes on and on until Christmas takes place in man. So this marks this great dividing line between “this age” and “that age.”398 ¶14

So anytime anyone teaches you of an external Christ, I tell you he is a false teacher. When they paint all these pictures of Christ—and there are forty-odd in the museum in New York City, all supposed to be authentic—they are lying. You can’t paint that picture. How are you going to paint and capture it? How are you going to paint it? You can’t even paint it in words. That memory has not faded, I feel it all the time, but no mortal eye can see it. Yet, though I feel it and sleep in it and walk in it, I can’t describe it. So how are you going to describe it to anyone? Can’t describe it any more than you can describe David when you see him. Oh, I can tell you what he looks like, in a way, and in that 16th chapter of 1st Samuel, they tried to show it, too. They tried to describe him, but you can’t describe him. They simply refer to him as “ruddy, with beautiful eyes” . Well, how are you going to go beyond it? He’s a youth, and how are you going to go beyond that?398 ¶15

Well here, in that 7th chapter of 2nd Samuel, the Lord speaks to Nathan his prophet, he said, “Go to your servant David and you say to David that I, the Lord of hosts, I brought you from the pasture from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. And say to David that the Lord declares to him that the Lord will make a house for you, and that the Lord…“When your time is fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers”—it’s plural, fathers—“I will raise up your seed after you who shall come forth from your body. I will be his father, and he shall be my son” . The word translated house means “not only a dwelling place but a dynasty.” It is not a house made with human hands but one consisting of human lives, for everyone that is raised is incorporated into this house. It’s a living house, consisting of human lives. And it’s a dynasty in the sense that it contains the entire family of David and all of his generations.398 ¶16

Now, David lies down with the fathers…not Davids plural, David. But the fathers, that’s plural. You are the father, I am the father, we are the fathers…yet in the end it takes all the fathers to form the Father. And you will be the Father of the only Son. It will not be another Son; you’ll be the father of the same boy that I am the father of; therefore, you and I are the same father, without loss of identity. That’s the mystery. How is this thing possible? How can I be the father of a son and then suddenly it erupts within you and you have the same son and he calls you Father? You have no doubts in your mind as to the relationship. He is your son and he is my son. Well, can you and I then be two? And we understand the Book of John, “I dwell in them and they dwell in me and we are one, Father, as you and I are one” . It’s a peculiar mystery…and you can’t explain it on the level of flesh and blood.398 ¶17

So this event that is being celebrated is an eternal event taking place within man in that unseen Christ, no seen Christ, nothing on the outside. So when they make statues of him and paintings of him, and the priesthoods of the world teach of an external Christ, they are misleading the people. They are simply blind leaders of the blind. They are false teachers teaching a false doctrine. And they say in scripture they will circumnavigate the world to make a convert, they will kill you and believe they actually serve God, and they do it because they know not the Father nor me. If they only knew the Father, they could not preach any external Christ, none whatsoever.398 ¶18

So here, we are on the very verge of a day…it’s not that day, the 25th of December…it’s any moment in time it could happen. It could happen right now in this audience, it could. It could happen this night to anyone or many in this audience, because it’s going to happen, may I tell you, in the not distant future.398 ¶19

A friend of mine wrote me, I got the letter today, she said, “Last week I found myself attending a lecture of yours held in the outdoors by a river, and among the audience were priests, Catholic priests, there were ministers, there were rabbis. And someone went up to a rabbi and said, ‘What are you doing here?’ and he replied, ‘Because Neville teaches the truth.’ They were all present, all denominations, all faiths.” Then she said, “I had a jar and in it was a bug, and that bug seemed to be sound asleep, it was still. It could have been dead, but it was sound asleep. Then I turn it over. As I turned it over and it fell, then I woke.” Beautiful symbolism! A complete reversal of all thoughts and then one wakes. A complete reversal…as you’re told in scripture, first last, last first…a complete turn around. You turn it over and reverse it and then she wakes…only symbolizing her own waking-ness.398 ¶20

And so, we all were trained in this external worship. The mind is held on the outside first. We speak…and may I tell you, forget those who claim that they’re so very wise in the world. They think because they have some position of some importance in the eyes of the intellectual world that they really know. You can’t analyze it, you can’t rationalize it, so don’t aspire to it. This whole drama unfolds within us. It is not secular history; the whole thing is supernatural…Christ is wholly supernatural. He is the Word of God…and “No one has ever seen God, but the Son in the bosom of the Father, he makes him known” . Yet you’re told in John that he did see God, and those who are of God see him; they see the Father but others do not. In other words, you can’t see him on this level, so let no one paint any word picture or any other picture for you concerning an external Christ.398 ¶21

But you will see him, may I tell you, and when you see him you are incorporated into his body and you are one with him—you wear that body. That is the one baptism. When he embraces you, you completely fuse…you melt into his body without loss of identity. From then on you’re so aware of wearing that garment. Though this little thing hurts, this hurts and it tires, and you get sleepy, and you put it down, and many a night you feel, oh well, why do I wake tomorrow? You get so hungry to depart, and yet you’re told you’ve got to finish it. But as far as I personally am concerned, I feel I’ve finished it…yet I cannot depart before my time. Yet having worn it and still wearing it, you long…as you read the words of Paul, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ” . Yet they told him he has to wait for a while, not too long, for a while, and continue the work that he was doing. But having once worn it even though you are shut out and insulated with this little garment, you still feel it and you still sink into it, and the joy is so great.398 ¶22

May I tell you, when you come back here and once more pick this thing up in the morning, it’s like actually wearing some tight little garment. You come back into something that is so completely constricted, as though you’re wearing some, well, the kind of thing you put the insane in. You feel yourself actually crystallize into this garment, and it’s such a tiny, little thing you feel so bound in it. Then you depart once more to wear it and to return to this. After a while it does get a little bit, I would say, distressing.398 ¶23

But don’t be concerned. You will not always wear these garments, because the Word has gone forward. You’ve accepted the Word, and one day when you least expect it, it’s going to erupt in you. As it erupts within you, from then on the whole drama unfolds, and no one can stop it. It doesn’t matter what job you are now doing. You could be now for a living washing floors, you could be running the country, you could be doing anything in this world. It hasn’t a thing to do with any external appearance. Did you hear it with faith? That’s all that he’s asking. And may I tell you, you get to the point you feel nothing is impossible and you don’t raise one finger to make it so, not a finger.398 ¶24

Saturday morning I was shaving and my wife said, “David is on the wire and he asked me to tell you he needs a little help right now.” David’s show was going on at U.C.L.A. last Saturday night, and there’s a part where the soprano must wear this perfectly long head of hair…it’s part of the drama, the Magi. Well, it disappeared and they couldn’t find it no matter where they looked. The looked all over and they couldn’t find it. Well, you had to have it; it’s part of the equipment.398 ¶25

I stopped shaving, I heard David’s voice. Now he’s not talking to me, but I heard his voice and all I would allow him to tell me is “I found it!” That’s all…then I went on shaving. My wife had to go out that afternoon. And just before my friend Benny came—Benny didn’t come until about 6:30 or even later—but some time between 5:30 and six the phone rang. It was David and he said, “I’ve found it.” He looked all over that area for it and he couldn’t find it, and no one could find it.398 ¶26

Well, I didn’t bother and I never thought of David after that moment. I wished him good fortune with the show. I saw it the previous week and loved it. I thought it was perfectly marvelous…the music, the whole treatment of everything, I loved it. I just said to him, “Well, I do hope tonight you have a full house and that everything will be perfect.” Well, he tells me tonight they turned away about 250 to 300 people, and the theater seats about 540. So it was crowded and they turned away 250 people. But he found it!398 ¶27

All that I did, I listened as though I heard his voice. I can hear his voice…well then, I look upon that as a promise of God. I heard him tell me that I have found it. Well, who heard it? I did. Well, what is his name? I AM, that’s his name. Well, who is hearing it? I am hearing it. Then that becomes God’s promise. Now the little thing called Neville, of flesh and blood, what could he do to find it? I’d be lost in that university it’s so big. If you told me tonight go and find a certain hall, I wouldn’t know where to go. So how would I go looking for that piece of hair? I couldn’t find it, but I knew that that word would have to fulfill itself. And it had to fulfill itself not on Sunday, that’s too late; it had to fulfill itself on Saturday. So you hear it and then you drop it, and do nothing but simply look upon that as a promise of God. All of his promises are fulfilled in me. I heard it, and so I go about my Father’s business, and he and I are one.398 ¶28

I confess I did not do one thing in the interval, neither was I concerned. When he called, I was busy. My wife was out and she’d left the stove on. I had to watch it to see that certain things were in order. She and my daughter went out shopping or doing some little errand. So in that interval I was busy with household duties…but then he calls and confirms it.398 ¶29

So I tell you tonight, this is going to happen to you. Christmas will happen, no question about it. But in the interval, listen as though you heard what you want to hear. You want to bless someone, you can bless. Listen to their voice and then allow them to tell you what you would like them to tell you, and then believe it. Believe in the reality of what you heard and do nothing to make it so…just believe it! That’s a word. A word went forth from your mouth and it cannot return empty, it cannot return void. It must accomplish that which you purposed. So you try it. But don’t burst a blood vessel to make it so. It’s a simple, simple technique and you simply believe. Can you believe it?398 ¶30

Well, this wonderful day that is approaching the outer world is a day that takes place in man. It’s a moment in time. In my own case it was not December the 25th, it was the 20th day of July of 1959. That was my Christmas. And my discovery of the fatherhood of God was on the 6th day of December of ’59. My splitting of the curtain of the temple of my own body was on the 8th day of April, 1960. And the descent of the dove upon me, smothering me with love, was on the 1st day of January in 1963. So these days are indelibly impressed upon me. But I do not use them as anniversaries, I simply wrote them down when they happened. These events are stationed in this manner, in this chronological order, and I put them down for a purpose.398 ¶31

When my friend Bob had the first experience, I was hopeful, but I did not write it down and he did not date his letter to me. But it did, it came in the same chronological order. If it’s a day or two one way or the other, it makes no difference. But the same difference in time between the birth and discovery of the fatherhood of God through his Son who calls you Father; then comes the splitting of the temple, completing a nine-month-period. Then comes the interval of another two years and nine months to complete that three-and-a-half year period with the dove descending. And so two of us paralleled chronologically. And so I am now waiting for Benny to bring out his around, say, the 6th of March of next year…and he better not disappoint me!398 ¶32

So here, believe it. Not a thing in this world could happen to you comparable to this birth. Nothing could thrill you more! For if you can be thrilled thinking of an external Christ, just imagine the thrill when you find he is not external to you…that he is you. That when you find Christ, you’ve found yourself! And when you find the Father, you’ve found yourself! When you’ve found his Son, what a thrill! That no one ever told you before that it was David, save scripture. Scripture tells you, but man has been educated out of it. And he went in search of another son and it wasn’t that son at all—that one, Jesus Christ, was the Father, who David in the Spirit called Father. “So what think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he? And they answered, ‘The son of David.’” Then he replied, “Why then did David in the Spirit call him Lord? If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be David’s son?” . The word Lord, Adonai, is what was used by every son of his father. He always referred to his father as Adonai, my Lord.398 ¶33

Who would have thought that someone walking this generation in the year 1959 would be the father of one who the world believes to have existed 1,000 B.C.? Then you know the words, “Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and he was glad” . “You saw our father Abraham? Why you’re not yet fifty years of age, how can you see Abraham or Abraham see you? He replied, ‘Before Abraham was, I am’” . And they took up the s tones—meaning the facts of life—to stone him. They’re going to stone him with the facts—you’re only fifty years of age, therefore, it’s impossible for you to have seen him or he to have seen you. Well, he rejoiced that he was going to see my day and he saw it. He had a preview of this great event and he was glad, because “He chose me in him before the foundation of the world” . So the whole thing is not something that happened by accident; this is a plan, a play.398 ¶34

Then I come out from the Father…and yet before I came out from the Father I was one with the Father. Then I came out, and “he who sees me”—if he ever sees me—“sees him who sent me” . So I’m not left alone…he who sees me sees him who sent me. Well, who sent you?—the Father. If you saw me, you would see him, but you can’t see me with mortal eye. For if you saw me, you would see him, for he and I are one . Then I will leave the world and return, where?—to the Father. “I came out from the Father, and I came into the world; now I am leaving the world, returning to the Father” …but enhanced by reason of the journey. So the power that was ours prior to the journey is increased, the creative power and the translucence that was ours prior to the journey has increased, and we’re expanded beyond what we were prior to the contraction as we came out and limited ourselves to these garments of flesh and blood.398 ¶35

Now here we only have one left and we’re closing for a short interval of three weeks, so we’re closing on Friday, and then re-opening here, same place, same time on Monday the 8th of January. I’m not sending notices; it’s too short an interval. So I will take just a small ad in the L.A. Times the Saturday before I open to remind anyone who may forget the day. But I’ll be open on the 8th of January, here, at 8 PM.398 ¶36

The subject will be the same: God becoming man that man may become God; that man’s Imagination is the creative power of the universe; and that you can imagine, therefore, all things are possible to you because you can imagine…if you could only imagine and accept as true what you’ve imagined. That is my story, and I’ll tell it over and over and over until it gets over. Now let us go into the Silence.398 ¶37