Deepak Chopra: "Jesus belongs to the world. The promise of resurrection is also universal."
Deepak Chopra "This country was founded in the Age of Enlightenment, when a new, more rational religion — the kind typified by Thomas Jefferson — was supposed to replace archaic superstition and church dogma. Spiritually, throwing out the bishops was as American as throwing out the King politically. The revolution took hold, and now as children of the Enlightenment, our society is overwhelmingly secular and scientific. But this didn't heal an aching wound, the longing for redemption that the Resurrection symbolizes. For the Resurrection to be real, it must be the key to salvation." - Deepak
Resurrection Times Three
Posted by Deepak Chopra on March 22, 2008 9:29 AM
"The Resurrection is a second-hand miracle, and for that reason a bit
disappointing. Spirituality is about first-hand experience, while
organized religion is forced to begin with the second-hand. How
strange that the literal fact of the Resurrection remains
controversial. This country was founded in the Age of Enlightenment,
when a new, more rational religion — the kind typified by Thomas
Jefferson — was supposed to replace archaic superstition and church
dogma. Spiritually, throwing out the bishops was as American as
throwing out the King politically. The revolution took hold, and now
as children of the Enlightenment, our society is overwhelmingly
secular and scientific. But this didn't heal an aching wound, the
longing for redemption that the Resurrection symbolizes. For the
Resurrection to be real, it must be the key to salvation.
I think there are three ways to interpret the Resurrection and remain
Christian in every sense of the word.
1. Jesus of Nazareth literally arose from the dead.
2. The divine Resurrection as the core of Christian theology.
3. The resurrection of the spirit whenever a person attains higher
consciousness.
The first two versions are easier to accept because you aren't
responsible for the miracle. Faith and acceptance are good enough. It
goes without saying that fundamentalists demand allegiance to the
first version and devout Catholics to the second. But at its root
Christianity is about personal salvation, which is a first-hand
miracle. It begins by following Jesus's teachings inwardly, finding
the Kingdom of God within. This leads to a radical shift in
consciousness, and when your allegiance shifts to allow divine truth
a place in daily life, personal resurrection occurs. The "death" from
which you are saved is symbolic but very real: it's the inert,
selfish, lonely ego isolated from God.
I am speaking as someone outside the Christian faith, but it's my
belief that Jesus belongs to the world. The promise of resurrection
is also universal. If Jesus was in God-consciousness, he must have
opened the same path to his followers. He told them that through God
they would accomplish things as great as he did and even greater --
isn't that what we should take literally? If we don't, the awe of
Christ's victory over death will remain, but the possibility of a
first-hand miracle becomes far more remote."
www.newsweek.washingtonpost.com/
Deepak Chopra
Primary function of the Comforter is to make men holy
"Jesus solemnly assures the disciples that they will, in the future, perform even greater miracles than He. By this He means to say that through the power of the Holy Spirit, they will bring about the greatest miracle of all – the salvation of lost souls. He promises them that whatever they ask for, in connection with their ministry of bringing the miracle of salvation to lost men, will be granted them.
The theme of this section is reassurance and encouragement. Jesus gives the disciples three basic reasons they should cease being troubled in their spirits. First, He tells them that, although He is going away, He will return for them so that they may ultimately join Him where He is going (vv. 1-3). Second, He tells them that, though He is going away, He will be the only means by which men may come to God and go to Heaven (vv. 4-11). Third, He tells them that, though He is going away, their ministries are not finished. In fact, the best is still ahead. They are going, by the Holy Spirit’s power, to be part of the greatest miracle of all, bringing men to salvation (vv. 12-14)."...
25 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.
26. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have told unto you.
Jesus now summarizes all that He has been saying in this section. Referring to the many things which He has taught them while He has been present with them in the flesh, He tell the disciples that the Comforter not only is going to remind them of these things, but also will go to teach them all things necessary to their understanding and happiness. The Comforter will recall to their minds Jesus' teachings, will enable them to understand truly and completely, and will develop and expand them into new and wonderful truths.
Jesus has referred to the coming Comforter as the Spirit of Truth (v. 17)...[whose] primary function is the work of making men holy. This is the work we call sanctification.
In v. 16 Jesus has said that the Comforter is going to be provided to the disciples by the Father on the basis of His (Jesus') prayer that He should do so. Now He says that the Father is going to send the Comforter in His (Christ's) name. These statements are essentially identical and imply a joint action involving both Father and Son."
Jack Wilson Stallings and Robert E. Picirilli,
The Randall House Bible Commentary: The Gospel of John,
Randall House Publications, 1989, page 205
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THE APOCALYPSE OF THE SPIRIT-PARACLETE
Fulfillment of the promised divine eschatological instruction
"It's better to tell you after Realization that I am the Holy Ghost – no doubt. I am the one about which Christ has talked."The Paraclete Shri Mataji
"Jesus therefore predicts that God will later send a human being to Earth to take up the role defined by John .i.e. to be a prophet who hears God’s words and repeats his message to man."
M. Bucaille, The Bible, the Qur'an, and Science
"And when Jesus foreannounced another Comforter, He must have intended a Person as distinct and helpful as He had been."
F. B. Meyer, Love to the Utmost
"The Paraclete has a twofold function: to communicate Christ to believers and, to put the world on trial"
Robert Kysar, John The Meverick Gospel
"But She—the Spirit, the Paraclete...—will teach you everything."
Danny Mahar, Aramaic Made EZ)
"Grammatical nonsense but evidence of the theological desire to defeminize the Divine."
Lucy Reid, She Changes Everything
"The functions of the Paraclete spelled out in verses 13-15... are all acts of open and bold speaking in the highest degree."
David Fleer, Preaching John's Gospel: The World It Imagines
"The reaction of the world to the Paraclete will be much the same as the world’s reaction was to Jesus."
Berard L. Marthaler, The Creed: The Apostolic Faith in Contemporary Theology
Bultmann calls the "coming of the Redeemer an 'eschatological event,' 'the turning-point of the ages."
G. Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament
"The Paraclete equated with the Holy Spirit, is the only mediator of the word of the exalted Christ."
(M.E. Boring) Benny Thettayil, In Spirit and Truth
"The divine Paraclete, and no lessor agency, must show the world how wrong it was about him who was in the right."
Daniel B. Stevick , Jesus and His Own: A Commentary on John 13-17
Stephen Smalley asserts that "the Spirit-Paraclete ... in John’s Gospel is understood as personal, indeed, as a person."
Marianne Meye Thompson, The God of the Gospel of John
"The Messiah will come and the great age of salvation will dawn (for the pious)"
Eric Eve, The Jewish context of Jesus' Miracles
"The remembrance is to relive and re-enact the Christ event, to bring about new eschatological decision in time and space."
Daniel Rathnakara Sadananda, The Johannine Exegesis of God
"The Spirit acts in such an international situation as the revealer of 'judgment' on the powers that rule the world."
Michael Welker, God the Spirit
The Paraclete's "appearance means that sin, righteousness, and judgment will be revealed."
Georg Strecker, Theology of the New Testament
"While the Spirit-Paraclete is the true broker, the brokers they rely on are impostors."
T. G. Brown, Spirit in the writings of John
"The pneumatological activity ... of the Paraclete ... may most helpfully be considered in terms of the salvific working of the hidden Spirit."
Michael Welker, The work of the Spirit
"The pneuma is the peculiar power by which the word becomes the words of eternal life."
Robert Kysar, Voyages with John: Charting the Fourth Gospel
"The gift of peace, therefore, is intimately associated with the gift of the Spirit-Paraclete"
Francis J. Moloney, The Gospel of John
"This utopian hope, even when modestly expressed, links Jesus and the prophets to a much wider history of human longing."
Harvey Cox, The Future of Faith
"Because of the presence of the Paraclete in the life of the believer, the blessings of the end-times—the eschaton—are already present"
Robert Kysar, John
"They are going, by the Holy Spirit’s power, to be part of the greatest miracle of all, bringing men to salvation."
Robert E. Picirilli, The Randall House Bible Commentary
"The Kingdom of God stands as a comprehensive term for all that the messianic salvation included... is something to be sought here and now (Mt. 6:33) and to be received as children receive a gift (Mk. 10:15 = Lk. 18:16-17)."
G. Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament
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