The New Humanity – Part 5

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

We concluded Part 4 with:

 

" It is of great significance that Jesus left his disciples with the

understanding that he would return again at any time and bring the world to an

end. In a real sense it can be said that the resurrection itself brings the

world to an end. It is the passage of human nature beyond time and space, and

reveals the whole of this spatial temporal world as a passing phenomenon. We see

the one Reality reflected through the changing forms of space and time, but we

know that these forms are conditioned by our present mode of consciousness. When

we pass beyond this limited mode of time-space consciousness, we shall see the

eternal Reality as it is. As St. Paul says, " now we see in a glass darkly but

then face to face " (1 Corinthians 13:12). The whole of human history is a

passage from our present mode of existence and consciousness into the eternal

world where all the diversities of this world are seen in their essential unity.

Our present mode of consciousness is dualistic, but as the mystics of all

religions have discerned, the ultimate reality is non-dual. This new mode of

being and consciousness is the 'nirvana' of the Buddha, the 'brahman-atman' of

the Upanishads, the 'al haqq' of the Muslim mystics and the kingdom of heaven of

the Christian Gospel. It is here and here alone that we can find the meeting

place of all religion. "

 

Here now is Part 5.

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

The New Humanity - Part 5

 

(107) As we saw earlier, the sin of humanity had been their separation from the

Spirit, their falling back into the separate self, and thereby coming into

conflict with nature, with their fellows, and with God. Jesus comes as the man

who offers himself in sacrifice in total surrender, to God, to the Supreme, and

in doing this he reverses the sin of Adam. Adam, the primal Man, had fallen by

disobedience, by following his own mind and will rather than surrendering to the

Spirit. Jesus, the new Adam, the Son of Man, the representative Man, makes a

total surrender to the Spirit, to God, to the Father, and by that he overcomes

humanity's separation from the Father, from God, reuniting humanity as one body

in himself. He breaks down all the barriers that have been set up and finally he

reconciles creation with himself, as a new creation.

 

This then is the birth of a new humanity and it can be regarded as a new stage

in evolution. Humanity had developed through various levels of complexity,

through the hunting, the pastoral and the agricultural stages to the great

civilisations. Now with Christ a new stage is taking place and a new humanity is

being born. The new humanity is born " not of blood, nor of the flesh, nor of the

will of man, but of God " , Jesus is the new Man who is born of God, who is the

Son of God.

 

At Pentecost the Spirit returns to man. Whereas in the Fall of man the Spirit

had departed and humanity had centred on itself, now the Spirit returns. Adam,

the first man, as St. Paul says, was a living soul whereas Jesus, the second

Adam, is a life-giving spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45). Jesus has transformed the

disobedience of Adam into this new man who is now the 'anthropos pneumatikos',

the man of the Spirit, and he continues to communicate the Spirit to mankind.

(P.108) At Pentecost, it is said, there were people present from all nations on

the earth. This is an exaggeration of course, but it means that people

representing the entire Roman Empire, which were all the nations Israel knew,

were gathered together in Jerusalem for this festival. It was symbolic of the

fact that the Spirit was to be given to all nations.

 

Through the receiving of the Spirit this new humanity became what St. Paul calls

the dwelling-place of God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:22). In other words, we are

made into the temple of God in which the Spirit can dwell. St. Paul describes

this in writing to the Ephesians where he speaks of the " immeasurable greatness

of his power in us who believe, according to the working of his great might

which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead " (Ephesians

1:19,20). It was God who raised Christ from the dead. Christ made that sacrifice

of himself, the total sacrifice, and thereby he overcame death which was the

consequence of sin. The disintegration of man was healed by this surrender on

the cross which is also the reintegration of man. St. Paul continues, " And made

him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and

authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this

world but also in that which is to come " (Ephesians 1:20,21). This is a

reference to the cosmic powers of which we have spoken. Jesus, through the

resurrection, is raised above humanity and also above the whole cosmic order,

above all the cosmic powers, and, as St. Paul puts it, he is made " to sit at

God's right hand in the heavenly places " . That refers to the transcendent order

of consciousness. It is appropriate to translate these biblical images into the

framework we have been using so far. We have spoken of the three worlds where

the earth is the physical order, the air is the psychic or psychological order,

and the sky, or heaven, the spiritual order. God dwells in heaven, in the

spiritual order, whereas, significantly, the spirits are said to dwell in the

air. (P.109) St. Paul speaks of the " prince of the power of the air " (Ephesians

2:2). The spirits of the air, along with angels and other beings, represent an

intermediate state, the psychic or psychological realm. Man, of course, dwells

on the earth. So Jesus goes beyond the physical and beyond the psychic world,

beyond the angels and the gods, to the transcendent world, the transcendent

reality itself. " He has put all things in subjection under his feet, " which

means, as we have seen, that the whole material creation becomes subordinate to

him.

 

A New Vision of Reality (Western Science, Eastern Mysticism and

Christian Faith)

Bede Griffiths

Templegate Publishers - Springfield, Illinois

ISBN 0-87243-180-0

Pgs. 107-109