Neville Goddard Lectures: “Did a Man Called Jesus Christ Walk the Earth?”

22 Dec Neville Goddard Lectures: “Did a Man Called Jesus Christ Walk the Earth?”

2/23/68

Few are teaching this wonderful principle, many others will join, so I thought tonight a certain point should be clarified, because you’re going to get this question over and over again. “Do you not believe that a man called Jesus Christ walked the earth?” You’re going to get it and you’ll be up against it if you do not know how to answer such a question; for the whole vast Christian world believes in a man, a man, and they will pin you down and try to get an answer, yes or no. Just like saying, “Have you stopped beating your wife?” if you try to answer yes or no to such a question.

So here, we’ll turn to scripture, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). “Thy word is truth, and his name shall be called The Word of God.” How do I reconcile it? Here, “his name”…that’s a person…but I’m speaking of a word that will set a man free. We are told in scripture in the 6th of John, “And this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life” (verse 40). As you read it you think it’s a man and you say he sees the Son…instantly you think of a man. Well, why? There is not an error but it has a man for its agent, that is, it is a man. There is not a truth but it has also a man for its agent. It takes man to express either a lie or a truth, because God is man…and there is only God. So when we come to this story in scripture concerning Jesus Christ that is called the truth, well then, they say, “Don’t you believe a man, one man, a unique man, was born say four B.C. or say one B.C.?” And then you’re called upon to answer that question.

Well, first of all, you cannot answer it yes or no. But you answer it in this way: it is not a man—Jesus Christ is God’s plan of salvation. It’s a plan. Here we turn back now to one of the saddest and yet poignant statements in the entire Bible. You read it in the Book of Samuel. Samuel loses his son, Absalom. And here, when they bring news, the battle is on, he always inquires about his son. Now the son revolted against him, tried to take over the kingdom. Then finally he said, “Tell me, how is it with the lad Absalom?” When he gets the news, he puts on a coat, covers his head, takes off his sandals, and sits in the gates of Jerusalem and weeps, and they can’t console him. Then that cry of his: “O Absalom, Absalom my son, my son! Would that I had died instead of thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!” (2Sam. 18:33). Well, here is a forecasting of a great story. It’s a foreshadowing in a not altogether conclusive or immediately evident way, which we find in the New Testament.

Now, there’s only God, nothing but God. Here now we find in the New, God the Father does that which David longed to do: He longed to give his life to restore his son. David couldn’t do it; only God could do it. So then in the words of Blake, put into the mouth of Jesus, “Fear not!”—speaking now to humanity—“Unless I die thou canst not live; but if I die I shall arise again and thou with me. Wouldst thou love one who had never died for thee or ever die for one who had not died for thee? And if God dieth not for man and giveth not himself eternally for man, man could not exist” (Jer., Plt.96). So God dies; he empties himself completely of his divinity, and doesn’t pretend, he actually becomes man. He becomes man, every one born of woman. But, while he walks in this forgetfulness as man he has a plan. He has prepared a plan for himself to return, bringing with him the redeemed…every one redeemed.