Neville Goddard Lectures: “Christmas: Birth That Gives Eternal Life”

30 Nov Neville Goddard Lectures: “Christmas: Birth That Gives Eternal Life”

12/1/67

…. something that we call Christmas, which, as you all know, is the birth of Christ, a birth that gives eternal life to man. And we are about to celebrate it as a day in a certain month of the year. May I tell you, the Bible makes no reference whatsoever to any person that ever walked the face of this earth, no event that ever happened here; it happens in the remote regions of the Imagination of man who walks this earth. Hasn’t a thing to do with any little event that took place in this world. But all with ___(??) takes place in man, in us, as we are seated here, as I’m standing here. It takes place in us in some remote region of the reality of man, the soul of man, which is all Imagination. But man has unfortunately mistaken the personifications for persons, and the gross first sense for the ultimate sense intended, and the vehicle that conveys the instruction for the instruction itself.

Now let us take just the first four verses of Luke for a moment then we’ll go into other parts of scripture tonight. Here we are told in the first four verses that [….], “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us.” Now, the word translated “among” is the Greek preposition “in”…“in us.” Many had it. The time of fulfillment came and many began to experience what we in this small audience are experiencing. So “among” is “within” us. Then he goes on to say, “As it was delivered to us by those who were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word”—they heard it from those who experienced it and they began to tell it. Then he goes further, he said, “It seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus”—he’s writing it for you, for Theophilus means “one who loves God”—“That you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed” (Luke 1:1).

Now, he makes no claim that what he’s about to write is a greater and more exact chronological exactitude, but he does feel he’s better equipped to use the source material. He heard it all from everyone and he also experienced it. Who Luke is, who knows? These are all anonymous names: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are anonymous. No one knows the true identity of these characters. But here, one is making a statement that all the things that we have heard concerning this fantastic thing that has happened, now he’s about to write a narrative, because “Truth embodied in a tale shall enter in at lowly doors.” Man knows that if I tell you a story…if I tell it as though it were true on this level…it has a far better chance of getting over to your mind than if I tell it as though it were a dream. If I tell you it’s a vision, oh, well, then you discount it altogether. So I tell it in the form of a tale. So, “Truth embodied in a tale shall enter in at lowly doors.” On this level we hear it as a story, a story that happened in this world, where a woman bore a child; she didn’t know a man, and that child was the Son of God, who was one with God, and therefore God. That’s the story as told on this level. Man accepts and then worships this thing on the outside. This whole drama takes place in man as he walks this earthly level. The entire story is true, but not as it is presented to the world.

Now, we’re told in the Book of Galatians, Paul is writing, because Paul tells you, “I am a child of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin” (Rom. 11:1). Now here he’s giving you the background, that he knows the entire Hebraic law, all of its promises, everything concerning what God promised Israel. When he heard the story, believing it to be on this level he fought it. Then it happened in him: “And when it pleased God to reveal his Son in me, I did not discuss it with any flesh and blood” (Gal.1:16). Because, what man on this level could explain it to me? It happened to me. I heard it, thinking it to be on this level, then I discovered it was not on this level but in some remote region of my own being, which is all Imagination. Then he went all out to tell it to the entire world.