The Top Stone

The name of God is the key to the understanding of the biblical doctrine of God. His real person is concentrated in his name; his name is that which you and I must discover, if you really understand this great mystery contained in the Bible. It is not secular history; it is sacred history. It has nothing to do with anyone that ever walked the face of this earth. The whole drama takes place within us, within our own wonderful human imagination. It is there that we will find God. When the promise is made, and these characters are mentioned in scripture — whether or not persons as we are — they are states of consciousness. So when the promise is made that a guardian angel will lead the people of Israel, this promise was given precisely, by the assurance of Jehovah, that “my name is in him,” for God is concentrated in his name, which simply means that God himself goes with them — not as some guide on the outside, but within.1129 ¶1

It is your own wonderful human imagination that is God. But the name is revealed in stages; man could not take it all — he could not give the final stage in the beginning. So here we find the statement made to so-called Moses; this is the 23rd chapter of the book of Exodus. Now, Moses is not a person; the word Moses is the old Egyptian perspective, the Egyptian verb “to be born” — something you should be born in, man; well, it takes time; it should be born. And the Lord said to Moses, “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, unto Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name, the Lord, I did not make myself known unto them.” Well, the word “know” — you simply — “I AM.” I did not reveal my identity to these states of awareness; he now reveals it to this — that is, to Moses.1129 ¶2

So first he is all-powerful, El Shaddai, God Almighty; man sees the symbols of it in the storm, in the lightning, in the convulsions of nature, in the violence of nature, and he worships that on the outside. Then comes the second revelation, and it is revealed to Moses, in this passage, as a name, which is I AM. When they ask you who sent you, and they ask me, say, “I AM has sent me unto them.” Just say, “I AM has sent me unto them, for this is my name forever” — I AM THAT I AM.1129 ¶3

Then comes the final revelation, and that revelation is given to us in his nature: that he is a Father — that it is God the Father. “I have made manifest thy name, and I will manifest it” — the manifest name of the Father — God is a Father. Well, if God is a Father, then he has a child; he can’t be a father and not be a father of a child. It is revealed in scripture quite plainly, if one wanted only scriptures, but it’s difficult for man to accept it, for the final revelation of the name of God is Father, Holy Father.1129 ¶4

Now, when we read in scripture of Jesus Christ — if you were trained as I was: I was born in the environment of a Christian home, and my parents taught me the story of Christ, and they died believing the story as they told it to me. Then I discovered it wasn’t so at all; it wasn’t strictly history. This is a great mystery, not something to be kept secret — these are not matters to be kept secret, but these are present truths that are mysterious in character.1129 ¶5

So, do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Well, if Jesus Christ is in me, I must find out who he is, where he is in me — yet, well, in what sense is he in me? But then I made the discovery, through vision, not through reason — reason cannot reveal it to me; it all came through vision. And I go back into the Bible, and I read the Bible to find that my vision parallels the story of scripture.1129 ¶6

I’ve come to the conclusion that Jesus in me is God the Father, and that Christ in me is David, his son. And there was no other way that I would ever know that I am God the Father unless his son revealed it to me, for no man knows who the son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the son, and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him. This is the most incredible story in the world, and the story is this: that God the Father is going to give himself to every child born of woman. No one will be left out — every child born of woman, regardless of what he may become in the world, the most horrible monster — it is still God’s plan to give himself to man, as though there were no other in the world — just God and you, just God and I. Believing this most incredible gospel will become possible to you, and the only way you will know it’s true is when Christ reveals you to yourself as God the Father, and the Christ who reveals you as God the Father is the Father’s son, and that son is David.1129 ¶7

In searching the scripture through the rational mind, I could never have discovered it — this happened as it revealed itself to me through vision; I know it’s a difficult thing for man trained as I was, and taught in doubt, as many of you were. You accept it, or you don’t. I was raised that way by my mother, and by my teachers in school, and when I read the Bible with the background of a fixed idea that my mother stuck into my mind — my teachers confirmed that, and then the ministers confirmed it — I had a fixed idea of Jesus Christ as a man of history, who lived two thousand years ago, as something external to us. I could read forever with that fixed idea; that “Jesus Christ in you is the hope of glory,” I wouldn’t see it. But I hear the question asked in the book of Corinthians: “Do you not realize that Christ is in you, that Jesus Christ is in you? Test yourselves and see.” Well, it would mean nothing, because it has to come through — a fixed idea would drop it, so reason could not get it; it has to be revealed.1129 ¶8

And so the day came in my life when it was revealed, and the block was removed, and his son stood before me, and it’s David, of biblical faith. And there is no uncertainty as to who he is; I’m looking at it, and that knowing, firstly, as to our relationship: I am his father, he calls me father, and I know I am a father; he knows that he is my son. And that’s the final revelation of the name of God. You will not, in eternity, know that you are God until that final revelation, when his son tells you “Father.” Then your journey is over. You simply live to tell it to anyone who will listen, and some will not.1129 ¶9

Let me share with you a vision of a friend of mine who is here tonight; it’s biblical. On the surface you will think, “No, that’s only a dream, meaning nothing,” but let me give it to you as best as I can recall it — it’s not a wrong one, you shall see. This is on a week ago last Sunday. I woke in the morning, Monday morning, and I knew I had had a most significant dream; I knew it was tremendously important, but I could not recall it. Try as I did, I couldn’t recall it. But I had to be about my business, because my son had to be up; I had to prepare his lunch, get breakfast, and get him into the orthodontist before eight in the morning, you see.1129 ¶10

I got the lunch, got our breakfast, and after that, I’m sitting in the car waiting for his return from the dentist, and I looked out through my window in the car, and across the street I saw a sign. It wasn’t the complete sign, only a partial part of it — it read, “Complete Vision.” And it triggered my memory; as I saw “Complete Vision,” the dream began to return, and the whole thing became so vivid I relived it as though I were actually repeating the whole thing once more. And this was the dream:1129 ¶11

I found myself — in me — looking out upon a sea of humanity. There were hundreds of thousands of people, swelling from an apex into an enormous base — like a pyramid, perfect — and I knew this as I looked at them: they all seemed independent of each other; they could move as themselves, like moving; no one was completely tied down by another, and although they seemed completely independent of my perception of them, and of the perception of each other, I noticed they were tied — each one — by a black chain, each attached from the breast, attached to me too, and everyone was attached to the other, and although they seemed independent of each other, they were all attached to each other.1129 ¶12

Then I turned around, and now I faced the opposite; my back was to this enormous sea of humanity. As I turned around, I’m looking at you, and — never — you are radiantly beautiful. You said nothing; you simply stood there, at the very top of the pyramid, and you looked at me. And then it dawned upon me, the significance, the meaning, of this dream: I noticed on your breast you too were attached, the same chain that bound me to this whole vast host, but I knew, without asking anyone, I knew — you were the top stone. You were the leader; you were the one — you were the head of it all.1129 ¶13

And then, as I knew, and you knew that I understood the vision, you smiled, and then the chain began to become invisible; yet I knew, in spite of the chain becoming invisible, it is still tying us all together, all linked together as one league. It becomes invisible, as it is invisible here now — you don’t see yourself tied to anyone, and you are convinced that you are completely independent of the perception of anyone in this world; you see no link. Yet come to the teaching: “I dwell in them, and thou in me — I have made manifest unto them thy name, and I will make it manifest, that they may be one, even as we are one — I dwell in them, and thou in me, that they may be one, as we are one.”1129 ¶14

So you could say, “I and my Father are one.” Not one can be lost in this world, for we’re all linked together; everyone will be redeemed, because God himself is in everyone, and there is nothing in this world but this relationship between God and his son. God and his son is buried in every child that is born in this world, and when that child grows into maturity — I don’t mean physical maturity, I mean spiritual majority — and he awakens from the dream of life, he is God’s own; and because God is a Father, he, being God the Father, he has the Son of God as his son, and that son is David.1129 ¶15

He has told us in scripture: “I will declare the decree of the Lord,” saith David: “Thou saidst unto me, Thou art my son; today have I begotten thee.” These are the words of David in the second Psalm. Then said he, “Rise, and anoint him; this is my chosen one.” To whom is it said? It is said to David — to whom the day would speak. And we call him Jesus, Father, if you read it carefully in the gospel. And David came in the spirit, and he called him “my Lord.” Well, “my Lord” is a term used by every son of his father, so he spoke of Jesus as “my Lord,” that is, “my Father.”1129 ¶16

No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit; so he was inspired, in spirit, by his father. That is the search of everyone in this world: to find the Father, the cause of the phenomena of the world. What is the cause of my misfortune? What is the cause of my fortune? What is the cause of everything that is happening in my world? Suppository — putting it through all the furnaces in the world, that I may actually inherit God, actually, actually become one with God — divine — and there’s no power in the world that can convince me that this is so unless his son reveals it to him. I can stand here from now to the ends of time; I can persuade you to the point of convincing you that it’s true, until the son appears and calls his father. And I can tell you, I am not speculating; I am not theorizing; I am telling you what I have actually experienced.1129 ¶17

And I do know the vision of this lady who is here tonight, from Zechariah — the word “Zechariah” means “Jehovah remembers.” You remembered.1129 ¶18

Now, this is our wonderful sign, but I’ve told you time and again, everything in this world contains within itself the capacity of symbolic significance. A little bird flying by could trigger a memory that is gone and bring it back. The little sign — the sign at the end, when the car drove off — the sign was “Complete Vision,” an aid selling eyeglasses. You wouldn’t think a place selling eyeglasses could trigger so profound a vision, but everything contains within itself the capacity of symbolic significance; that little sign triggered it, and the whole thing came back — that she could not, with all the efforts she made in the morning, bring back and recall the vision of the night, yet she knew when she woke she had had a profound experience; she knew it was of tremendous significance, and that she couldn’t bring it back with a simple little sign, “Complete Vision” — but she didn’t see the word “Vision” until the car drove off.1129 ¶19

Now, here in Zechariah: “and he brings forth the top, the top stone, amidst shouts of grace, grace unto it.” Well, who brought grace into the world? We are told in the book of John: “the law came through Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”1129 ¶20

Now, in the tenth chapter of the same book I just quoted — the fourth chapter, the tenth chapter — announces this: there will come the cornerstone, and out of them will come the nail, and out of them will come everything, and to this — the whole of that sea of humanity — we are called; over that still humanity, one by one by one, and every one will be the Lord Jesus, and his son David, has told us, in Revelation, “and the kingdoms of the world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ” — the eleventh chapter of Revelation. Yes, the kingdoms of the world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of Jesus Christ. They don’t tie it together as we find it in the gospel and the letters of Paul; they’re separated, in the last vision, to assure you that your thought of these as one surname — like Jesus being the surname of Christ — no, they are entirely different: the Father-son relationship.1129 ¶21

That’s when you are pronounced righteous, or the man who fulfills the conditions imposed — the foundation of a relationship is the Father-son relationship. See, in biblical terms, this is called righteousness, and that’s the crown of righteousness that is set up for a man who reaches the end, the top step, as Paul said: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith; henceforth is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.” When you come to the end, you receive the crown; everyone will receive that crown, because everyone will be, in the end, the Lord Jesus.1129 ¶22

Jesus and Humanity together are symbolized in the boy called David — if you took the whole of your humanity, and all that experience, and they were infused into a single being and personified, he will come out as David. So David is nothing more than humanity personified as a single youth. So humanity is the son of God, and God, believe it or not, is personified in scripture as Jesus, and you are that God, but you do not know it yet. But you will know; one day you will actually have the experience, and you will know that this — what we call history in scripture — is not history as we understand history; it is not secular history, it is salvation history, it’s sacred history, and the whole thing unfolds within the individual.1129 ¶23

And the day will come when you will know that, from beginning to end, is all vision, from Genesis to Revelation. But man has confused the entire thing by making a little god out of this little thing called Jesus, or Christ, called Peter, called whatever — these are all states of awareness. The whole thing is unfolded within man; the whole drama is contained within them, in there, and one day it will unfold within man, and he is the God of the universe.1129 ¶24

Now let me show you the story of the pin. All these things happened to me without any contemplation; I never heard them, I never read them in a book. And here, one night — I was here at the Northland — I found myself, perfectly clear to me, and we were all sitting on the ground, and we were dressed in an ancient way, as depicted in pictures of the first century — just plain robes, that’s all, simple robes. The room was square, like this — not as big as this, but a square room like this, say maybe thirty square. One door was the entrance into this room, and to my left, as I sat on the ground, with one door. As I’m talking to them, and telling them — as I’m talking to you now — giving them the story of the Bible, just teaching the word of God and explaining what I know from my own experience, reinterpreting scripture in the light of my own experience and making the words become alive.1129 ¶25

And we all sat on the ground, and one of the twelve gets up and leaves the room, and I knew exactly what he was going to do — he was going to reveal the fact that I am talking about an entirely different king, the king that is housed in everyone, a different Lord altogether, not a Caesar, but the Lord housing everyone — that everyone is King, everyone is the Lord, everyone is God, and there’s nothing but God. And I’m telling these stories based upon my experience; one jumps up and he starts out, and the minute he goes out, I know exactly what he’s going to do — he’s going to tell them that I am teaching just this.1129 ¶26

In a matter of seconds, in comes a man — tall, handsome, high-looking man, about forty years of age, beautifully done, the most expensive style — and he walks like a great soldier, and he walks as straight as you could walk, up the aisle, turns at right angles to it, across that side, at right angles, comes to the middle, then he turns at right angles and comes straight in front of me and stands before me.1129 ¶27

And an attendant of his passes him a mallet and a pin, and then he takes that mallet, and then he takes the pin, and he hammers it into my shoulder. It made the blood flow out — it didn’t hurt, but I heard every blow as he nailed it right into me. Then he took a sharp instrument, and with the attendant that gave it to him, in one circular motion, like you would with a knife, cut the sleeve of my tunic, and then he took his hand this way and pulled the thing off and revealed my exposed arm, from my shoulder to my fingertips.1129 ¶28

Now I stood before him, completely unveiled — and that thing driven into my shoulder. Then he stretched his hands out like this, like a cross, then he embraced me, and he kissed me on my right — the neck-like side of my neck — and I kissed him on the right side of his neck. And then the whole thing began to fade.1129 ¶29

And now, this painting I am looking at — the discarded sleeve — he was wearing the most beautiful shade of blue, light, a baby-blue beauty, and I knew it was fine; I love these things as much. Cast away that way, but the hand was completely exposed.1129 ¶30

Now listen to the word: the 53rd chapter of Isaiah: “Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Then, in the 22nd chapter, the same Isaiah: “he nails it into the shoulder of the one that he has chosen” — a great nail, and on it he hangs all the vessels of his father’s house. Only for a season we will rule, for a season; then he will break, and all these will fall — his viceroy-ship will be at an end — and then he joins those who have attained, to listen.1129 ¶31

Each will play that part, each will have that experience.1129 ¶32

I am not alone in her vision — he saw me as the one at the top. She saw a different scene altogether; it’s not the world of seasons, it’s an entirely different scene. And I will not deny that you saw correctly; I know she saw correctly, for I am fully aware of what you thought — that I cannot be boastful about it, because everyone is going to be called; not one will be left, not one is lost, in all my holiness.1129 ¶33

And the one who precedes is not better than the one who follows, because you can’t perceive God and be better than God — it’s all gone; there’s nothing but God in this world. The whole vast world is God made visible, and he is concentrated in his name, and his name is in us, and that name is I AM. That is it; there is no other God. But do not turn to the outside to find any other God; your looking is in vain — this is the only God.1129 ¶34

God, and his whole, is concentrated in the individual, so if that individual goes berserk, perfectly all right, he still is linked to the one who thinks himself good. And the one who is so good — who may be called tonight — is not better than the one that he condemns in this world; the whole world is linked together, every one of us — as she thought so clearly, from breast to breast, and then, when the thing became invisible, she still knew — so invisible, we are tied together. Even the one who is now the top, the one who is the ruler, the one who is the head, he is not divorced from that vast crowd — they are numbered people; the base was enormous, and it narrowed and thinned as it formed the pyramid to the top.1129 ¶35

And when you bring forth the topstone, it is by grace — which means it’s a gift; you do not earn it; no man can earn it. Grace means an unmerited, unearned gift of God, and that gift is God’s gift of himself to man, and no man is good enough to earn it, so let no one tell you that he earned it through hard labor and devotion to so-and-so — forget it.1129 ¶36

We all go through the furnace; everything in this world that seems so horrible, the whole has passed through it, or you’re going to go through it. Don’t think you’re going to escape by anything that you’ve done — not a thing — you will pass through it. So do not judge by a person, and say this man is very marvelous because he’s rich, and that one — because he’s not wealthy — as something that God has ignored; forget that, it has nothing to do with these little tags that hang upon man.1129 ¶37

Everyone will be redeemed, and the redemption is — the gift is complete, and the gift is God’s gift of himself to man, and God’s name, forever and forever, is I AM. But remember, he is not only Almighty, he’s not only all-aware, he is a loving father, and humanity is his son, and humanity, gathered together and fused into a single being, comes out as David.1129 ¶38

He stands before him, and I can’t describe to anyone the thrill when you find the son who brings back your lost memory, because it’s not enough — the minute you see him, you know — you’re always the same. You can suffer from total amnesia, and then comes your son before you, and here you know exactly who you are. Do we not know him? And what does he mean, saying that “I came down from heaven”? What does he mean by saying, “I and my Father are one,” and “my Father is he whom you call God”? Because when I listen to him, they say “he’s insane, and he has a devil” — read these words, in the book of John, the tenth chapter of John: “He has a devil, he’s insane, he is mad; why listen to him?” — because we know his spirit; we’ve always loved it; we know his ways, and he dares to say, “I came down from heaven.”1129 ¶39

But may I tell you, you did; no one has ascended into heaven but he who descended. And therefore, it is said to us, saying, you first have to be slain, and you lose all memory in your contact with man; this is completely the nature of our mission — the minutes touch man and penetrate these bodies and annex these brains. You started thinking, and think that you are John Brown, because your mother’s name is Mrs. Brown, your father’s name was Mr. Brown, and the name — you, John something — you think you were John Brown, and you’re completely forgotten who you are; you are never John Brown.1129 ¶40

Say, for the moment, that you’re playing the role, as you annex the brain of the little body that is named John Brown; it became a person, but only a temporary portion of your soul, and through that you inhabit these bodies as you arrive, wearing a garment. Take good care of it, but don’t think for one moment it is you; you are the immortal one, your God expanding — and this is how the spirit becomes contracted and assumes a limit of contraction, O man. And then he bursts the shell and begins to expand, and there is no limit to that expansion; it is forever and forever. He’s only set a limit to the contraction, and not to the expansion, for this drama, I tell you, is true.1129 ¶41

But the Bible, the greatest book in the world, is completely misunderstood; they don’t understand it, they teach it as history, and they’re looking for all kinds of things — the archaeologists, looking all over the world, trying to find the evidence for the story — the story in the Bible. You’re not going to find it; the Bible you’re looking for in some little sepulchre — who said Jesus is supposed to have been buried in — he’s not buried in any tomb outside of this world; the only burial ground of God is the sepulchre of man — that’s where he’s buried. So they go to the Near East to find the so-called Holy Sepulchre, and they carry all these things into that little place — I think it’s unholy ground. Take off your shoes where you stand — oh, where you stand is holy ground — if you’re leaning up against a bar, that’s probably where you’re unaware, but that’s where God is standing.1129 ¶42

But his son is asleep. Amen. And he’s dreaming the dream of life; one day he will awake in man, and he will awake in the grave — and the grave is the sepulchre of man — and he will come out of that, and all the drama of scripture will unfold itself before him in a series of the most fantastic mystical experiences, and then he’ll know who he is.1129 ¶43

Then he tells us, to the best of his ability — not all are equally gifted; I would say that “gifted” is not a good word, but equally qualified, through lack of training, to tell it. I would like to tell it in writing, but I am not trained as a writer; I write, but I do not consider myself a writer — the making of words and thoughts on the printed page — I have not really applied myself towards it, so I have not told it as clearly as I would like to tell it, but some day this will come, and I’ll pick it up and tell it daily.1129 ¶44

But it doesn’t matter; I’m telling it from the platform to the best of my ability, and I’m telling you what I know, and I am not speculating; I am not engaged in any speculation, trying to set up some little workable philosophy of life. I go back to scripture and find that — I find there confirmation of what is happening in me; it was always there, but I didn’t have the ability to see it, not until it happened in me.1129 ¶45

So when people confront you with Jesus, and you think of something on the outside — or we use the word “God,” or use the word “Lord,” and your mind jumps outside of yourself — is that something on the outside? You have a false God and a false Lord. And of course, Jesus — if the name Jesus causes you to think of something other than yourself, you’ve got the false Jesus, for he is concentrated in his name, and his name is enough — that’s what you’re told in scripture, and that name, forever and forever, is I AM — that’s the name; that’s your own marvelous, wonderful human imagination, that’s God.1129 ¶46

That you misuse it, no one can deny; but the day will come when you fully understand it — I’m fully convinced — you will not misuse it any longer; you’ll be completely in control of your imagination and what you’re doing with it. So his name is actually concentrated in you, and that is his real presence, and therefore he’s not on the outside. Don’t think for one second you’ll find him better in the cathedrals of the world, or the synagogues of the world, when they have all these things in hidden veils, and all these — it’s all nonsense.1129 ¶47

Hold on — you step into a cathedral or a synagogue, and you think you’re in holy ground now? Wherever you are is holy, in the presence of one you love — that is the holiest of holy, that’s the Holy Bible. You love one, and really love one — your love of the universe.1129 ¶48

That statement is true: I stood in the presence of the Ancient of Days, seeing nothing within myself, for he dwells within — yet he seemed, at the moment, to be another, because he questioned me as though I were another, and asked me to name the greatest thing in the world. When I answered “nothing,” he embraced me, and our bodies fused, and we became one body, one spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all — yet I did not lose my identity. Then he sent me into the world.1129 ¶49

So, that I know, being few, I cannot reveal you, therefore they would misunderstand it all wrong. So, in the capacity of a servant — a player, and I, less than myself — a defender only, in the office of the son — but in my essential being, I am infused with this one; “I AM” is the one who sent me, I was told. I chose — so, the center, in the center of one — but I am limited while I am in the office of the son, and one day I will take off this little garment which I have put on, and then I’ll return to myself, the spirit who is God’s own, having chosen this story as I was sent to play it.1129 ¶50

But I am self-centered — one day you, of yourself, will draw yourself into the depths of your own self and stand before the Ancient of Days — it’s yourself — and you will answer as I did. But make no mistake about it: he’ll ask you the very simple question, “what is the greatest thing in the world?” and you’ll answer automatically, “faith, hope, and love — but the greatest of these is love,” and you’ll embrace yourself and go on.1129 ¶51

Then, at that moment, you’re safe, and it’s the same words that ring out in your ear that rang out in mine: these are the words, “done with the blue bloods” — which does not mean to destroy society; it has nothing to do with the social structure of the world. It means done with all external ritual, all church protocol, so it’s an empty, empty gesture, meaning nothing.1129 ¶52

So when you see all the rituals, as people turn into thinking this is something sacred, forget it — it’s all within you. I am done with all church protocols, all ceremony, all ritual, and you can go to the Christian church or the Jewish synagogue, and they all have the same external ritual. Have you ever gone to a synagogue on the day of a bar mitzvah?1129 ¶53

It was my great pleasure to go to a bar mitzvah, and they are divided based on whether we are Orthodox or not — well, I was neither one or the other, but I was invited, so they put me on one side, because it was the boy’s father who invited me, so I went there.1129 ¶54

I went in, and I noticed, when they came to the name of God, he took his wonderful robe and he covered the name, that you may not look upon the sacred name — but I mean, a man wrote that; the scroll was first of all made by the human hand, and it was written by a human hand, as it was written, and yet man then worshiped the works of his own hand — as we do in the Christian churches; every little thing up there was made by man’s hand — the candlesticks, the candles, the little icon, the little thing called Jesus on the walls, across on the wall — who made them? Man’s hand made it, and he turned around and worships his own hands, the works of his own hands.1129 ¶55

But I told you the words that rang out in my ears when I was sent out: “that wonderful spell within me is done with the blue bloods,” and then it was revealed to me, after I came out, that it means church protocol, every external form of worship, all written — everything of that nature — you’re not going to find him there.1129 ¶56

Well, I’ll tell you, you’re going to find him, and when you find him, the Bible will become alive to you, for the whole thing is now a written word, and the words become alive, because you have experienced it, and so then you reinterpret scripture in the light of your own experience, and you realize you are the God who actually acts, for these are the words of God through his messenger, the prophet.1129 ¶57