The Jewish Zohar Shekhinah and the Christian, & Mormon Holy Spirit

ScholarlySeeker said:
It is such a fascinating concept when one stops to ponder eh? Just what is this "Christ within"? What does that asctually mean? Please notice, I am not arguing against it, I agree, yet probably more in ignorance of what it actually means... It appears to me that if it is the Christ within that was in Jesus, and that is what made him or at least gave him some divinity, it would mean the same for mankind to have the "Christ within" ourselves. A somewhat parallel thing would be pointing to the Gnostic concept of each human having a spark of the divine within them, truly meaning each human has the divine as part and parcel of their makeup. Certainly not in a full sense, no, but then like a seed can grow into something full and grand as an entire tree, just what would be the end of a divine aspect of ourselves? There is a lot to this that perhaps our eyes and minds don't take time enough to realize. Thanks for the highlight, it is...... truly........exquisite and worth seeing again.
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For me it is the main point of the NT. As far as I can see, Paul is stating that he is Jesus Christ, and he is teaching that Jesus Christ is who we are called by God to be.

And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Galatians 4:14

And they glorified God in me. Galatians 1:24

But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace,
To reveal his Son in me, that I might...... Galatians 1:15-16

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 1 Corinthians 3:16

But he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 1 Corinthians 6:17 & 19

God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 2 Corinthians 6:16

To whom God world make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. Colossians 1:27-28

one more and I will shut up.....

Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?
2 Corinthians 13:5

For me, the only way that I can abide in Christ, in the vine, to speak in his name, is to put on him. To dwell in the Holy Spirit of God.
 
Thomas said:
As a second thought, something I wanted to express ...

In the world, there is always the dichotomy of the spiritual v the physical. The two are quite distinct, and sometimes in opposition. Although it is of course present in the Hebrew Scriptures, as I understand it, a Hebrew anthropology was always more holistic when compared to the dualism evident in Hellenic thought. Sadly the Hellenic has subverted the Hebrew in Western thought.

The Incarnation, it seems to me, is the archetype of the union of the two. In it, every spiritual principle is realised in the world, in its very physicality. In this, it did not follow a path, it is the path actualised in its fulness, body and soul – "I am the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6).

The intuition of St John who saw the miracles of Jesus as 'signs' and not merely displays of divine power and authority; who saw the Son of God as exactly that, not analogically, not metaphorically, but actually that. As Logos, Jesus is not an example of, nor even the exemplar of, the Principle of Union between God and the World; Spirit and Matter. He is It.

Christ is the ultimate symbol because He is its principle. He is every spiritual symbol made real, every abstract spiritual teaching actualised.

The West (as our Eastern brethren tell us) is too focussed on the physical, the material, the mangled body on the cross, the wafer on the altar (I could write about this, a paradigm shift in Western theology around the turn of the first millennium). We accuse them of being too ethereal, too abstract, too cosmic ...

We look to the cross, but if we turn, and look towards the city, to the temple, and see there, at that moment, the 'veil of the temple' ripped apart from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51, Mark 15:38, Luke 23:45), a curtain on which was worked the pattern of the cosmos, there, too, is something to contemplate.

To me, the narrow path, the Middle Way, is spirit on one side, body on the other, you in the middle, keeping both in balance. We simplify the idea of the brain into left-brain and right-brain, and try to compartmentalise it accordingly, which we can do and there is some evidence for, but the fact is, when we think, and when we do, the whole brain thinks.

Same with the path, when we walk the way, it's not with the spirit, nor with the body, it's the whole person engaged.
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Just an excellent read all the way around, thanks for sharing your deep felt thoughts. I enjoyed this very much.
 
I have finished some research, and now writing up a paper on Christ's atonement. Can't wait to finish so I can get it peer reviewed here. You are all, of very course, more than welcome to comment after you read it. I am putting a decent effort into it, not in order to make it longer, but shorter! LOL! Our society has so ridiculously allowed ourselves to lose the ability to focus for more than a mere minute, and wishing to get all answers in a mere paragraph instead of 10 pages, but some things need......NEED to be demonstrated with evidence and linguistic analysis, which is what I will do with the Greek, (I can't help it, the more I read in the Greek, the more I love it) and that takes time. Stay tuned.....
 
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muhammad_isa said:
Interesting..
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I see him as personifying the consciousness of the individual who has fully realized Christ within himself.

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20
 
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But none of the Apostles, including Paul, ever dared to compare themselves equal to Christ? They always looked upward to and venerated Christ? I think it is here that some of the 'I too am Christ' non-dualists run away with the plot?
 
RJM Corbet said:
But none of the Apostles, including Paul, ever dared to compare themselves equal to Christ? They always looked upward to and venerated Christ? I think it is here that some of the 'I too am Christ' non-dualists run away with the plot?
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Fair comment.

In terms of us Catlicks, I once did a long essay on the Triforme Corpus Christi a mystical doctrine in the early Middle Ages – Paschasius Radbertus (785–865AD) and Honorius of Autun (1080–1154) – that remains unsung and undeveloped until recent times. It's an inclusive theology that, I think, would not be unacceptable to the likes of @PricelessPearl.
 
Thomas said:
Fair comment.

In terms of us Catlicks, I once did a long essay on the Triforme Corpus Christi a mystical doctrine in the early Middle Ages – Paschasius Radbertus (785–865AD) and Honorius of Autun (1080–1154) – that remains unsung and undeveloped until recent times. It's an inclusive theology that, I think, would not be unacceptable to the likes of @PricelessPearl.
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Honorarius of Autun was right at the beginning of the great Jewish Talmudic scholar Rashi's era and the beginning of the Tosafists. Just been reading about that era from the Jewish side. The Crusades for them was positively horrible. at least in Germany. That first crusade with Peter the Hermit was difficult to read. Very emotional. Where at was Honorius of Autun? I'm unfamiliar with where Autun is.
 
RJM Corbet said:
But none of the Apostles, including Paul, ever dared to compare themselves equal to Christ? They always looked upward to and venerated Christ? I think it is here that some of the 'I too am Christ' non-dualists run away with the plot?
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Well, to me the gospels are allegory. I don’t believe that the disciples are actual beings but rather eternal attributes of our mind or features of consciousness that we discipline. And we train these attributes of mind to look to the divine truth within, Christ, to follow him, and not the ever changing sensations of the physical world and direction and wisdom of the world (look up Peter). We don’t eat from the tree of the pair of opposites, instead we are fed by him. They are all aspects of ourselves.

Undisciplined, these attributes of mind of the 12 sons of Jacob.
 
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RJM Corbet said:
But none of the Apostles, including Paul, ever dared to compare themselves equal to Christ? They always looked upward to and venerated Christ? I think it is here that some of the 'I too am Christ' non-dualists run away with the plot?
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And, Paul continually tells us that we have the mind of Christ, to put on Christ, to die to the old man and put on the new man, we are a new creature in Christ, to wait for the appearing of Christ, to be blameless holy righteous pure sinless perfect- because we are already in Jesus Christ, our true Self. We are cleansed, redeemed because he is our identity. We are all the body of the One Being. We are seated in high places in Jesus Christ but we are experiencing the consciousness of incarnated life.

He is to me, is the One Being and only being in the world.
 
Thomas said:
Fair comment.

In terms of us Catlicks, I once did a long essay on the Triforme Corpus Christi a mystical doctrine in the early Middle Ages – Paschasius Radbertus (785–865AD) and Honorius of Autun (1080–1154) – that remains unsung and undeveloped until recent times. It's an inclusive theology that, I think, would not be unacceptable to the likes of @PricelessPearl.
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I don’t think much of what I say is necessarily approved by others so no worries.

And I read and reread your stuff, pull out the dictionary then try to remember what was said in the last paragraph.

You have a very academic mind.

It’s really lovely how knowledgeable people are in the forum.
 
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PricelessPearl said:
Well, to me the gospels are allegory.
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To me they are the allegory actualised. The great 20th century theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar called it a TheoDrama.

He wrote about people named in Scripture as representing archetypes.

A personal favourite is, after the Resurrection, when the Magdalene (a 'Mary') tells the disciples He's risen, Peter (the will) and John (the heart-intellect) race to the empty tomb. John arrives first, but cannot enter. Peter races up, and he goes in first, then John follows.

It's a psychodrama right there. The intellect 'sees' by its own light, but cannot enter where it cannot shine its light. The will, on the other hand (as fallible as the Peter-type is) enables us to step into the darkness. Once we have the Light of Christ, of course, then that's something else altogether.

(Thanks for the compliment, btw, :))
 
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Thomas said:
To me they are the allegory actualised. The great 20th century theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar called it a TheoDrama.

He wrote about people named in Scripture as representing archetypes.

A personal favourite is, after the Resurrection, when the Magdalene (a 'Mary') tells the disciples He's risen, Peter (the will) and John (the heart-intellect) race to the empty tomb. John arrives first, but cannot enter. Peter races up, and he goes in first, then John follows.

It's a psychodrama right there. The intellect 'sees' by its own light, but cannot enter where it cannot shine its light. The will, on the other hand (as fallible as the Peter-type is) enables us to step into the darkness. Once we have the Light of Christ, of course, then that's something else altogether.
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Nice. I would say Peter represents the quality of mind, stability- or is the foundation. (The other disciples follow after typically.)

But who do you say I am?

You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Blessed are you Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

So this for me, is not two people talking but a conversation one is having with himself regarding the truth of the divine reality of Christ within. This knowing is the foundation of the Church of Christ to which the gates of hell shall not prevail. We being the temple or church of Christ.
 
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PricelessPearl said:
this for me, is not two people talking but a conversation one is having with himself regarding the truth of the divine reality of Christ within.
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For me it is both, and a thousand other things too, down through centuries and milennia.

The all encompassing revelation of the Incarnation: from king to beggar and from scholar to child; from blunt soldier to mystic hermit, and from 1st Century fisherman to 21st Century nuclear physicist.
 
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