Is Christ Your Imagination

Neville Goddard 03-22-1963

Tonight’s subject is in the form of a question: “Is Christ your Imagination?” When we ask the question we expect the answer in terms of our current background of thought, and quite often that is not adequate to frame the answer. Now, I am asking the question, and in order to answer myself I should really clarify the terms, “imagination” and “Christ” I think there will be no problem tonight if I define – say – “imagination.” I think you will agree with me when I define “Christ.” If I say to that, that imagination is the power of performing mental images, you wouldn’t quarrel with that. Sitting here tonight, you can think of anything and see it mentally. You may not see it as graphically as you see it in its present form in the room at the moment, but you could see it vividly in the mind’s eye and discriminate. Think of a tree, a horse, and you know the difference between one and the other, and they are two separate objects in your mind’s eye. Well, that is the power of imagination.

When it comes to Christ – and there are hundreds of millions in the world that call themselves Christians – the very use of the word instantly conjures in the mind’s eye a person. They think of Christ as a person, and no two have the same mental picture of this person. I know, many, many years ago in New York City this French artist went to the library on 42nd street and brought up 46 different pictures of Christ and screened them with his little lantern. No two were alike, and each artist claimed that this was an inspired picture as it was presented to him, and he painted the picture. There were blond and blue-eyed pictures, dark swarthy skin; there were those with a very black skin – all 46 pictures were projected as so-called originals. So, man has been conditioned to believe that Christ is a person. So I ask the question: “Is Christ your imagination?” Can I personify the imagination? I will.

Let us go back to the Bible. What does the Bible say of Christ? In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (I will just give you the highlights) he defines Christ as: “The power and the wisdom of God.” (1:23, 24) In John 1 (which brings Christology to its height, as far as the Bible goes – there is no single book that takes the secret of Christ and brings it to this height as you will find in the Gospel of John) – in the Gospel of John, speaking now of this presence that was with God, his meaning, his power: “By Him all things were made and without Him was not anything made that was made.” It is the power and yet it is wisdom. So here is a creative power. If I take that now and analyze myself in another world, the sign goes to the end of the second letter to the Corinthians. He calls upon all of us who would read that letter: “Test yourself. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in thee?” Here we are told: “All things were made by Him.” He is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Every attribute of God is personified. So his power is personified, and may I confess I have seen that power – and it is a man. I have seen that wisdom – and it is a man. And when you stand in the presence of that personified aspect of infinite being, you know you are standing in the presence of infinite might. It is not just power, it is almighty-ness, and you stand in the presence – and yet it is a man. So here he calls it the power and the wisdom.

Now he asks me, and you who read his letter, to test ourselves: “Test yourself, do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in thee.” (2 Corinthians 13:5) And he made all these things – well then, let us put him to the test in us.