At the end of my last post I mentioned that what Christ offers to those who follow him is a new Creation - worth capitalising I think. I would like to pursue this thought here. It's hardly a new thought but it has relevance in the context of a general spirituality v. Christianity debate which is pertinent in our time. I have written on several occasions about how the teachings and person (because the two are linked) of Christ go further than any other form of spirituality, including those of the Buddha. This idea of a new Creation gets to the heart of it. The Buddha saw the reality of suffering and showed a way to escape that. The way involved leaving a fallen creation behind. Basically, it entailed rejecting the goods of creation for entry into the non-created or pre-creation state. We tend to overlook the fact that original Buddhism was a monastic religion. This is a valid response to the evils of this world and/or the demands of the spiritual quest but it is not the only one or even the best one. The best is that offered by Christ in which matter and spirit or creation and uncreated divine being are joined together to make something new. Here matter is sanctified rather than rejected. Latter forms of Buddhism approach this idea but they never fully embrace it. Other spiritual traditions incorporate elements of this approach but they all have a fundamental drawback. They lack Christ, and it would be my contention that it is only through Christ that one can fully enter the new Creation. I firmly believe he is present in other religions to the extent that they are open to his spirit but he can never be as fully present as he is in Christianity where he stands revealed as himself.
This difference has never been more important than it is today in the context of the world as it is now. That is because we are in the middle of a battle between good and evil. A general spirituality which seeks to rise above the world will either be neutral in the face of this battle, beyond good and evil as those aiming at spiritual transcendence might put it, or else it will be sucked into evil. In fact, as genuine neutrality is no longer possible, if it ever was, they will inevitably be drawn onto the side of evil. Now, if you don't stand against evil, you stand with it, and if you would stand against evil you can only really do that by standing with Christ. Why can't you be good without Christ? Because he is goodness. It resides in him as the face and form of God. Other forms might approach or echo that but he is the living template. If you understand what the Good is you must see it is centred in him and the more it is separated from him the less good it is.
The new Creation came into being when Christ defeated the Prince of this World which is what he did with his life and death. This is why there was no path to it before his time. It didn't exist. This means that any form of spirituality which originated before Christ does not offer a path to it unless, as I say above, that form has opened itself to the spirit of Christ. This is a controversial position to take in the modern world because the egalitarian dogma has spread into every area of life including religion. Also, because we in the West reacted to human misinterpretations and distortions of Christianity either by turning to atheism or by seeking spiritual nourishment elsewhere. But go back to Christ himself and the Gospels, particularly that of St John, and you will discover a spiritual truth that goes beyond all others, one that does not just offer a way out of the material world but purifies that world so rendering it capable of being lifted up into spirit and becoming something new, a new Adam, a new Jerusalem, a new world.
When Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven it was this new Creation he spoke of. Heaven is not just the oneness of spiritual consciousness. It is that but it goes beyond that because it brings to that oneness the qualities and colours of creation. And it brings relationship to oneness which means it brings love. Love existed before Christ but it did not exist in the same way as it did after him because he made it possible for the self, hitherto a centre of egotism which could only be escaped from, to be holy. No self means no love. Christ made the individual spiritually beautiful and potentially godlike instead of being a disturbance in the placid waters of divine oneness. Heaven is full of individuals because it is the abode of love and this was the new Creation brought by Christ.
4 comments:
Beautiful thoughts William.
The Greeks admit to the saying that 'beautiful things are difficult.' So much can go wrong, and easily, but one person only increases the difficulty and is in control of that difficulty.
It is now possible, through the life and teaching (sometimes called the work) of Christ, as you say, for humanity to ask 'whence consciousness.'
The answer is certainly a mixture of outside humanity and within, and all one needs to answer truthfully what is right.
Great post. Coincidentally enough, New Creation has been at the forefront of my mind recently.
I often find that similar thoughts occur to people trying to open things up at the same time which makes me think that they are being drip fed to us as it were.
The spoken truth may only be sufficient to testify of Christ until whatever it is that holds our tongue is released.
To testify of oneself must be a practice of this life until the release of death.
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