Neville Goddard Lectures: “John the Crown of Scripture”

08 Apr Neville Goddard Lectures: “John the Crown of Scripture”

March 6, 1972

Truth which man knows from experience, he knows more clearly than he knows anything else in this world. For then he can know that same truth in any other way. If what I tell you is true and you believe it, a benediction is pronounced upon you, as we’re told in the very end of the book of John.

But the day will come, if it is true, that you yourself will know it from experience, and then you really know it. Then you can be called as a witness. So, we are told the truth, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Is that true? And what is this mystery called, Jesus Christ?

Well, tonight, let me share with you what I know from experience. The gospel of John, is in many ways, the crown of the Scriptures. It is the simplest and yet the most profound book in the New Testament. It starts off with these stories and the stories never come to an end. They pass off into conversations and the conversations fade from into a dialogue to a monologue. We find subtle use of words with double meaning. And in each case, those who hear it take the obvious meaning in its context, which is not the meaning intended. There is another meaning, a meaning that is related to the history of redemption. We find this especially in the conversation between Nicodemus and the Lord. Nicodemus came by night. He was a ruler of the Jews, a member of the Sanhedrin, a Pharisee, a brilliant mind, the interpreter of the law. But he recognized in this teaching that which, well, all were expecting; they couldn’t quite understand how it could come embodied in a man for the man was simply a man, like all other men, how could it possibly be embodied in a man?

So, he came by night, and as a teacher, “I know that you are sent from God. For no one could do these signs,” and in John, they’re not called miracles, they’re all called signs, there are seven signs. And these signs are not done out of compassion, but simply to reveal the divine power. So, “I’ve seen these signs and only one sent by God could manifest such signs”—and then starts the conversation and it breaks completely from this. And he turns to Nicodemus and he says, “Unless you be born anew”—or the word could be again; another meaning is from above—the word is anothen.* Nicodemus takes it in its first and obvious form: “Unless you are born again, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” He replied, “Can a man that is old once again enter his mother’s womb and be born?” And the Lord said to him, “You, a teacher of Israel, and you do not know? Unless you are born”—and he uses the word anothen, which again, Nicodemus takes to be again—“you cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” But as you read it, you can see that the word from above is intended. Not again, as the world teaches reincarnation, it hasn’t a thing to do with that. There are two modes, one is from below and one is from above. We are all born in this world from below. From the mother’s womb in these garments of flesh and blood. But there is another birth and it comes from above. And that birth is out of the skull of the individual, which no one heard of such a birth before. And when that one comes out, it’s the same being who is now clothed in this garment of flesh and blood, but it’s an entirely different being that’s coming out. It is God himself that is being born.