Neville Goddard Lectures: “My Word Shall Accomplish My Purpose”

23 Feb Neville Goddard Lectures: “My Word Shall Accomplish My Purpose”

4/22/68

We are told in Isaiah, the 55th chapter, that “My word goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return unto me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (verse 11). This is the same Word spoken of in the beginning of John, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (1:1) and “The Word became flesh and dwelt in us” (1:14). It’s translated “among us,” but that is a mistranslation and leads man astray. If I said tonight that there is one among us who will speak to us, you look around and you think of another. But the preposition is in, not among.

And so, the Word became flesh and dwells in us. John uses the plural “us.” He did not assume a man, a person, but man’s nature. It is not this or that person that was assumed but our nature; and by putting on our nature he became the type on which it is molded. The whole thing is God, for the Word is God: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” The word translated “word,” the word logos, means “a pattern, it’s meaning, it’s a plan.” So here is a plan…there’s a purpose behind the whole vast creation, and that is the forming of Christ in man. For it’s called in the scripture, “And his name shall be called The Word of God” (Rev. 19:13) and they’re speaking of Christ Jesus. So forget Christ Jesus as a man that you call a being on the outside that you worship, and think of him as this Word, this plan, this pattern man, that took upon itself our nature. Having put upon itself our nature, it now becomes that type on which our nature is being fashioned, is being formed, and when it’s completely formed, well then, it unveils itself, and we are it. So he didn’t become John or Peter or Neville or Grace, he simply took human nature and then unveiled himself, and we are he. So that is the story as I see it in scripture and as I have experienced it in my own personal life here.

Now, here is the story of indentured labor. Indentured labor is labor that is simply a contract binding one to work for another for a given period time, like an apprentice. An apprentice worked for the master craftsman for a given period of time, then was free to even compete with his master. I know in the West Indies in Trinidad and British Guiana, a couple of hundred years ago we had indentured labor from India. These Indians were sent out as really slaves for fourteen years only. They were not permanent slaves; they were simply slaves for a definite period of time. Having served fourteen years they were set free and given a certain acreage and a home in which they lived and they were free to compete with the one who had them working for him, or them, for that given period of time. So in scripture we read, “And the Lord God said unto Abram, ‘Your descendants will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and they will be slaves, and they will be oppressed for four hundred years”—that means indentured labor; there’s a definite term attached to this labor—“After that they will come out with great possessions” (Gen.15:13). After they have served their slavery and frightful oppression, but it will not go beyond that time. Well, 400 is simply the numerical value of the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the letter Tau. It has a symbol and the symbol is a cross. So we bear and wear the cross, and this [body] is the cross. When we take off this cross at the very end, when that Word unfolds itself within us then we are set free, we are redeemed.

Now, redemption in scripture meant what today people do not realize…in fact, it has almost wholly lost its primary sense. It originally meant “the regaining of an article which was put in pledge by repayment of the loan for which it was given in pledge.” So, we were sent in, not willingly we are told in the 8th of Romans: “And the creature was made subject unto futility, not willingly but by the will of him who subjected him in hope…that he would be set free, that he would obtain the glorious liberty of the sons of God” (Rom.8:20).