Are You Saved?

Q: How do I become saved?
A: Don't worry about it. You already are saved. What the Hell; you were never lost to begin with.
jc

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Up till now, I have been forceful but tactful. But sometimes you must call a spade a spade. jc's answer shows that he has bought into the greatest lie of all time.

H.

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From the Orthodox/Fundamentalist Christian worldview, the concept that we are already a part of the divine body of God, that we are in reality not separated from God, that God/Christ is already IN us, and that in fact GOD/Christ is the core OF us, is anathema. Thus I agree with H. that we are on opposite poles. What H. calls the Greatest Lie, I recognize as the Greatest Truth.

Thus we do have a choice to make.

Either:

We ARE in fact separate from Christ/God, in which case you would choose to affiliate with an Orthodox type of Religion in which one seeks to appease an external God/Christ.

OR

The apparent separation from Christ/God is a necessary illusion, in which case you must seek God/Christ within your own being AND within ALL OTHER BEINGS as well.

jc

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The Bible is CLEAR. We are born into sin and only thru the shed blood of Jesus can we be saved (Heb 9"22). All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). The wages of sin (what we deserve) is death (Rom 6:23).

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Well, either the Bible is clear literally, or the Bible is clear when understood on a deeper level, or the Bible is wrong.

Let me offer an alternative interpretation:

(From my PC study Bible)

Heb 9:22-28
22 In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
23 It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
24 For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence.
25 Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own.
26 Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.
27 Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 
28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
(NIV)

So the above passage would seem to indicate that Jesus (the fully realized incarnate vehicle for Christ) in accordance with tradition performed a critical historic act by sacrificing his own body and blood in order to make it easier/possible for others to be saved.

Now assuming that this is what actually occurred, then we have to look at the meaning of the term saved/salvation.

To be saved is to be found. In my system this indicates that the indwelling essence (Christ) has brought its vehicle (you, your body, and your personality) to the point of purification and realization so that Christ is capable of full and complete expression through HIS purified and transparent vehicle (you). In other words to be saved indicates that your SELF (Christ) has FOUND you. 

So an act of love in which a fully realized vehicle for Christ willingly sacrificed his physical vehicle (body) was an act that now makes it easier (more possible) for Christ to become fully realized in other vehicles. All the other vehicles (people) have to do is to identify with and look to guidance from the purified vehicle (Jesus) in order to accelerate their spiritual awareness.

This is analogous to looking up to a hero who embodies the ideal as a means of inculcating that ideal within yourself. Where Orthodox Christianity got it wrong is when they turned the Hero (Jesus) into an Idol and thus fell once more under the sway of "appearances".

Of course the question arises, why did Jesus have to die on the cross? This is a mystery, to be sure, but I'll take a "stab" at it :-). It seems to me that death and resurrection is the final link in the complete purification of the vehicle. It demonstrates that the vehicle is such a pure transducer for Christ's Will that it has the necessary control to even dissolve and reconstitute is physical vehicle. So if Jesus (vehicle for
Christ) had reached the point of perfection where he "could" do it (die and rise again), it still does not answer the question of "why" he did it (sacrificed his body and rose from the dead).

This is where his love for us comes in. His deed of loving service to humanity came in because he wanted to help others. Like a parent loves and desires to help its child.

In order to help us, Jesus had to pierce the veil of darkness that held (and to some extent still holds) humanity in its spell. This is the problem of the appearances of things (The Devil). Thus by demonstrating that the Devil (bondage to appearances), and Death (dissolution of physical form) had no sway over the reality of Christ, Jesus forever pierced the
mass mind consciousness of humanity, and thus created both an opening and a path through that opening.

Thus the deed of Christ becomes more clear.

In his act of loving sacrifice Jesus became Christ's shining beacon, allowing those who stumbled in darkness to find the path to Christ. (K, see the symbolism of Key 9).

Or put another way, since in reality it's not we who find Christ, but Christ in us who "finds us" by developing its vehicle into ever greater levels of awareness and purification, the deed of Christ (Jesus' sacrifice) enabled Christ to more effectively evolve and grow all his other vehicles for expression. By piercing the mass-mind consciousness of humanity (which all vehicles partake of) Christ so modified all of his (both human and below) vehicles that from then on, they would be more receptive to Christ's Will.

That is what Jesus did for us. He accelerated the overall spiritual evolution of humanity by piercing the mass-mind of humanity and thus enabling Christ's Will to be felt in ever greater numbers of vehicles than ever before.

Thus, since we are all vehicles for Christ which have been made more receptive than they would of been with out Jesus' sacrifice, we are ALL "saved" by the deed of Christ. Here the term "saved" implies that we are brought and will be brought to "Christ awareness" much sooner than had
Jesus not made the loving sacrifice that he did.

So (from our self-conscious perspective), Jesus (Christ acting through his purified vehicle - Jesus) blazed a trail for others to come to Christ - both in the arena of giving teachings, and in the arena of actually modifying the souls of all people (Christ's vehicles) so that they would be more receptive to Christ.

This is my understanding.

jc
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