God told the Devil: “Now that humans know how to return to their original state before creation began, the Kingdom of Heaven—Physical Immortality—will be recreated.” The Devil replied: “No Problem. I’ll just help humans organize the Truth Jesus Revealed!”
Indeed, when we study the original message of Jesus as shared in The Gospel of Thomas we cannot find any of the major church doctrines. Two examples of changes:
1. Changing God’s Holy Day from the 7th day to the First Day.
In this sermon, a moment is taken to look at Paul’s atonement doctrine which he exported from Greek myths (“gods dying to save humanity” myth) and introduced it to a loosely connected group of ragtag followers of Jesus, led by his brother, James. Paul, the founder of Christianity, organized this original group into churches by linking Jewish doctrines such as the Passover to the newly created Christian ones; e.g., the lambs sacrificed in Egypt as the “Passover” would now be spiritualized as a Christian doctrine in which Jesus is the Lamb of the world. The invented doctrine is called “atonement.”
Once the church fathers were able to write the Canon by using a sayings book (a sayings book is just a collection of Jesus’ sayings without the invented narratives of the Canon Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) similar to Thomas which New Testament scholars call “Q,” they were set: Now Jesus’ teachings had no importance since they destroyed all sayings books (including Thomas which was rediscovered in 1945) and then made up Gospels which combined true sayings of Jesus, with invented sayings, along with both true and invented stories. Obviously, it’s impossible to decipher from this procedure what the original message was since they were literally buried!
In addition, the church fathers canonized the books written by Paul (and texts which were likely written by Paul’s associates such as the book of Hebrews) so they could take control over humanity. Thus, they rejected everything Jesus taught and claimed salvation could only occur through going to them. The only way to heaven (a mythical place after death) was by attending the Christian Mass on Sunday and eating a cracker and drinking a glass of wine! What utter nonsense! Anyone who is even slightly rational would know eating a cracker on Sunday will not save you—but ALL Christians believe this by accepting Paul’s atonement doctrine.
The restored Truth as revealed in Jesus’ Immortal words are: Physical Immortality—Victory over Death—is now available! My Resurrection on the third day is the start of the Beginning—Paradise Restored—God’s Kingdom on earth is now being established! I came so that you can have life and have it more abundantly as the Kingdom of Heaven is in your midst!
The “wise of the world” and all the scholars know that when Jesus promises: “Have you discovered the beginning, then, so that you are seeking the end? For where the beginning is, the end will be. Fortunate is one who stands at the beginning: That one will know the end and not taste death” (Gospel of Thomas, sayings 18) that the “death” here refers to a spiritual death. And they are all wrong!
In fact, the message which runs all through Thomas is salvation is NOW! It is here and NOW the transformation into eternal life begins! In parallels to Zen Buddhism, Jesus again and again directs his followers to return to the present. A typical exchange is recorded in Sayings 52: His followers said to him, “Twenty-four prophets have spoken in Israel, and they all spoke of you.” He said to them, “You have disregarded the living one who is in your presence and have spoken of the dead.” The Good News Jesus shares is we can all be like he is—Immortals—NOW! Paradise Lost is NOW restored!
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