Neville Goddard Lectures: “Forming Of Christ In Us”

24 Jun Neville Goddard Lectures: “Forming Of Christ In Us”

6/23/69

I have always felt that what is most profoundly spiritual is in reality most directly practical. I will tell you a story tonight from scripture. It’s so little understood. I’ve never read about it in any book, but I know the inner meaning of it. And I’ll show you how altogether practical it is in this world of Caesar. In all the revelations which await us there is nothing so fundamental as Christ in us…the forming of Christ in us.

Now how is it formed and by whom is it formed and where? I say in us…where is the sphere of the forming? To come to it, we’ll go to a story. Paul takes an old story. If we take the scholars concept of time, their chronological time as we give it in the Bible, it is placed at 1856 years B.C…the story. He ties it with another story, which our scholars give in the year 400 B.C.; and then he gives the interpretation without much explanation in the 1st Century A.D. So here is a stretch of 2,000 years. Let us see who he is talking about.

He tells us the story of the twins in the womb of Rebecca. She prayed for a child and the Lord heard her prayers and answered her. Well, then there was a conflict within her. As the children began to form within her there was a struggle and she asked the Lord why should she live? And the Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples, born of you, shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other; the younger shall be served by the elder…the elder shall serve the younger” (Gen.25:22). Then came the birth of the twins and the first one out was covered with hair, his name was Esau. The second one out was smooth, he had not a hair on him, and they called him Jacob. Then, afterwards, Jacob was renamed by the Lord and Jacob became Israel.

Now Paul in telling the story tells it this way to show you a certain measure of predestination…but it’s not understood. He’s not telling us that you the outer man is predestined in the way that man believes it. Listen to his words—it’s taken from the 9th chapter of Romans: “Though they were not yet born and had done nothing that was either good or bad, but in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call” (9:11). He made one the one he loved and the other the one that he hated. He said, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” (9:13). Now here is an elective love. They were not yet born and had done nothing that was either good or bad, but in order that God’s purpose, his purpose was election, and that that election should continue not because of works but because of his call. He calls and he loves one and he hates the other.

Well, who are these two sons and why did he love one and not the other? Who is this Israel? Israel is not, as the world has been taught and still is, Jews who are descended from Abraham. Israel is not the descendants of Abraham from some physical state. Israel is the inward man…the feminine part of us. There is an inward man that is the feminine part of us. I call that inner man my own wonderful human Imagination and that’s the inward man that God loves, that is Israel, “the man who will rule as God.” That’s the one that is wedded to God: “Your Maker is you husband, the Lord of hosts is his name. The Holy One of Israel is your redeemer” (Is.54:5). It is this one in you, your own wonderful human Imagination that is the Israel of scripture. No descendant of some man called Abraham, but in you is that being I call your Imagination. That’s the inward man, the feminine part of your nature. It is that that God has wedded himself to; it is that that he cleaves to and leaves everything until the two become one flesh. It is in this sphere that Christ is formed and Christ is his son, and that son is David. You actually by this union become God, your own wonderful human Imagination and the Creator of the universe. He is in love with his emanation, yet his wife ‘til the sleep of death is past. But how will he know that this union is productive? Only as his son is formed in you and that son is called “Christ in you the hope of glory” (Col.1:27).