2 Corinthians 5
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ACIM, Workbook Lessons 181-200 review; Lessons (201-220)
I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me. (ACIM, W-201)
Ecc. 3.14 Everything God has done will last forever; nothing he does can ever be changed. God has done all this, so that we will worship him. [CEV]
15.Whatever was, is.
Whatever will be, is.
That’s how it always is with God. [MSG. Just verse 15]
Can what God created in His/Her image every be changed? Is God’s image corruptible? Is Gods Image a Temple built with the hands of flesh (i.e. mud) or the hands of the eternal incorruptible Spirit? Who and What are we, corruptible flesh and blood or Eternal Spirit hidden with God in heaven? Who is asking these questions? Humans seem to be the only breathing creatures who do not know who they are. Who we are is one of the central messages of all Holy Scriptures in every faith tradition.
“Can you be separated from your identification and be at peace?” (ACIM, T-8.V.1:1) At the Great Deception we died to who we really are, this dissociation has left us wandering and looking for the promised land which we have never actually left because how can we forget who and what we really are except by denial. Denial is dissociation. The Holy Scriptures of the world keep calling ALL of mankind to remember our true selves created in God’s image and likeness.
“Self-love is not the answer; rather, it is Christ-love. “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died [i.e., all believers united to Him by faith died with Him as He suffered for them on the cross]; and He died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves [as all self-lovers do], but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf” (2 Cor. 5:14-15,NASB).” New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties
Copyright © 1982 by Zondervan. From: biblegateway.com
Why did I include this excerpt? Because I’m constantly amazed by the theological gloss put on many scriptures. This was intended to clear up a supposed Bible Difficulty but in my view only hides the beautiful message Paul was attempting to give to us thereby muddying the waters.
Is it only one group of people who died namely: “…all believers united to Him by faith died…”? As inserted above which Paul clearly does NOT teach in this verse or any other. Paul pointed out in his first letter that the death experienced by the human race happened at what I call the Great Deception: 1 Cor. 15.22 “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (MEV)
It appears the only Bible Difficulty is not with the Bible at all but with some commentators refusal to accept the universal nature of humankind’s dilemma—to know who we really are. The symbolism used for this “death” or unknowing portrays a cover up—i.e. died—with “…this earthly house…(mud of the earth)” then plant materiel and finally animal skins, then it is to accept the most important universal healing of the “death” of mankind via Jesus’ death.
Paul takes us back to the original deception of Genesis 3 and Gods statement that if we eat of the tree of good and evil we would die. Good and evil require each other to survive. God only requires the GOOD which He/She is.
5.1 We know that if our earthly house, this tent, were to be destroyed, we have an eternal building of God in the heavens, a house not made with hands.
Who is credited with making the first house of mud? was it not Jehovah God? Yet Paul says differently our original house eternal in the heavens was made by El or Elohim the universal name for God at that time. Just an aside to ponder.
This earthly house is not who we really are. We really are, right now, just as God created us, this can never change, ever. This earthly house is the child of the Great Deception an effect without the power to cause anything and yet the human race believes this house of clay is in control.
How did we die or can we even die. It is only this earthly tent that can be destroyed not the one God originally created eternal in the heavens. The one made in the image and likeness of God, and like God is incorruptible in every way as is God—his/her image. If we have an eternal house we have always had an eternal house because eternity has nothing to do with time.
This earthly house was given to us as the first shame, the embarrassment of being stripped of the light we were created in and covered over by an earthly house created out of mud then a leaf and later an animal skin. We became buried in the unholy trinity of mud, plants and animal skin all of which are all so very corruptible as we well know. This wall of flesh that separates us from God and hides us from our original Self—the Self God created incorruptible in the heavens. We, all of us, ALL the human race from the first man/woman to the last as seen in time, is the Body of Christ, the One Son/Daughter of which Christ is the head. Christs Body is the ecclesia, the holy gathering.
Christ: is the relationship of everything to everything, our eternal depend-dance on everyone and everything. It is a swirling, undulating vibration of quarks and atoms empty space and density constantly, eternally, swirling, weaving, jumping vibrating shimmer of light. Don’t you know you are the Light of the world? Says the Light of the world. An eternal communion in the heavens. Can you see it?
The windows of this earthly tabernacle are covered in mud blinding us, so we think this house of clay is all there is, till we let the water of Christs spittle mix with the mud and wash the windows of our dead coverings away.
I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.
God is Good 