Neville Goddard Lectures: “Manner of Jesus’ Birth is a Sign”

23 Feb Neville Goddard Lectures: “Manner of Jesus’ Birth is a Sign”

5/13/68

Now tonight you’ll find it a combination of the spiritual world and Caesar’s world. You and I who were raised in the Christian faith or the Jewish faith were taught to believe that that whole book was history. The Old Testament was history, secular history, and the New Testament was secular history. May I tell you, the manner of Jesus’ birth is to those who understand who he is a sign of the divine initiative in our redemption. The whole story of Jesus, from his conception by the Holy Spirit to his ascension into heaven, is a sign granted by God to those who will receive it. When Paul saw the vision, this eternal story…for the story of the Old and New Testament is eternal; these are the eternal realities, unchangeable. One day you will come upon and you will encounter what appears on paper to be characters, to be persons. And when you encounter them, they, too, will seem to be persons but they are states personified.

So Paul said, “From now on we regard no one from the human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer” (2Cor. 5:16). When you and I heard of Jesus Christ, we thought in terms of a person. After Paul had the revelation he saw that Jesus Christ was “the creative power of God and the wisdom of God” (1Cor. 1:24). But God is man, so every attribute of God is personified. And so it is personified whether it be faith, called Abraham, whether it be the power and wisdom of God, called Jesus Christ…every quality of God is personified. So he said, “From now on we regard no one from the human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from the human point of view, we regard him thus no longer.”

Now he’s not speaking of you, a person, he’s not speaking of me. He’s addressing these words to the Corinthians; and he certainly is not speaking to these Corinthians as persons. He is speaking of these characters in scripture. From now on he can’t conceive of Abraham as a person as you are a person. So he tells this story, “It is written”—written where?—in scripture. “It is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman. The one born of a slave was born according to the flesh.” Well, you were born according to the flesh. He’s telling you right now you by your physical birth are that one born according to the flesh. “And one born according to the promise.” They have dropped the definite article in translation, but it is the promise. There’s only the promise, not a promise.

And so, two children, two sons—one according to the flesh (this is according to the flesh), and one according to the promise. And then he explains it concerning the two women. One was Hagar, who was a servant of Sarah, who was given over to Abraham and Abraham sired this child, and the child was born Ishmael…his hand is against every man and every man’s hand is against him. That is this world…you and I struggling to make a living, to pay rent, to pay taxes, to keep ourselves above the flood, the flood of illusion. And so, the whole thing is a struggle and that is simply the offspring of the slave Hagar. But there is another birth that you recognize after the vision has taken place in us, and that comes from Sarah, and that is the birth from above, called “the promise.”

Now, it hasn’t a thing to do with a little child. All this is symbolism when you, not a child, when you are born. Oh, the child will appear wrapped in its swaddling clothes only to symbolize your birth…that you are born from above. And so, there are two distinct births from two distinct women. One birth is the womb of woman, and the other is the skull of man. By man I mean generic man. These are the two women in scripture. So when Paul saw the vision, he said, “From now on I will regard no one from the human”…and he’s speaking now only of scripture. He will not see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob or any character of scripture, including Jesus Christ, from the human point of view. Even though I formerly saw them that way and heard the secular scripture, secular history, no longer will I see it from the human point of view.