Neville Goddard Lectures: “God’s Mystery Of Christ”

20 Mar Neville Goddard Lectures: “God’s Mystery Of Christ”

6/13/69

Paul in his letter to the Colossians said, “I strive for you to have all the riches of an assured understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery…of Christ” (2:1,2). Now, you wouldn’t think there’s any mystery to it. You ask any Christian if they know who Christ is and they instantly reply, yes, Jesus the Son of God. Paul doesn’t state that. He is striving with man to change these fixed ideas of the past, that they may have this assured understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery of Christ. I find most of us are very careless when we read it, so we come to it with fabricated misconceptions, and these fixed ideas that we bring to what we read will color what we receive from the written Word.

Now here, in scripture we find the expression “Christ” used of the human race viewed ideally, and the one man of that race who attained to that ideal. So here, we find the human race referred to as Christ, ‘Christ our life,’” we are told in the same Colossians (3:4). Then we find “the Lord Jesus Christ.” But Christ is our life and that is of humanity. If you took all humanity, all the generations of men, and their experiences, and condensed them into a single being and personified it, you’ll find David. David is the personification of humanity, the eternal youth. All men in whom this ideal flowers is represented by the being called Jesus. We’re told that David contains within himself the Christ-seed and he was anointed by the Lord. We’re told, he will bring forth a son, and the son will be the Lord’s son; and the Lord’s son and the Lord are one. Therefore, he’s going to bring forth a being that instead of being his son, he’s going to be his father.

Now that’s a mystery, how can I give birth to my father? So in David is the Christ-seed. The Christ-seed is the Son of God that is Christ. When man brings forth the Christ-seed so that it buds and flowers and it comes into fruitage, that one is Jesus. Now every being in this world will flower and every being in this world because they’re bringing it into fulfillment will be Jesus the Lord. “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1Cor.12:3). We can all say that Christ is this, that or the other, but we cannot say that Jesus is the Lord save by the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit is one who brings to one’s remembrance all that was told him in the beginning.

Now to understand this we go back to a parable. For the story of Jesus Christ is really an acted parable, that’s what it is. So we go back now to a parable, the parable of the prodigal son. If you’re familiar with it and I think you are, the one who was left at home complained when the one who went into the prodigal state returned and they killed the fatted calf and they brought the robe and the ring and put shoes on his feet, and made much over the one who wasted all things. He complained, and then was told, “Son, all that is mine is yours. It is right that we should make merry and be glad, for this your bother was dead and he’s alive; he was lost and he’s found. So now that he’s returned, remember he came back from death and he was lost” (Luke 15:31). Well, we enter into this world of tribulation and death. Before we entered this world of death we were, but we did not know that we were. We were dead to what we had; for all that the Father has is mine, and mine is his, but I didn’t know it. I had to come into this experience of tribulation and death to know it is all mine, and the only way it can be all mine is if I become the Father, for it is all the Father’s. So I did not know it was all mine, and I could have this whole earth today and die of starvation not knowing it is mine for the taking. I may not have a dollar on me and I may think I must have a dollar to buy the loaf of bread, not knowing it is mine.