Neville Goddard Lectures: “Name of God is Key to Understanding the Bible”

23 Dec Neville Goddard Lectures: “Name of God is Key to Understanding the Bible”

2/15/66

The name of God is the key to the understanding of the biblical doctrine of God. In biblical terms, the religious question is not “Does God exist?” but “Who is God?” What is his name? What is his Son’s name? And with this riddle you and I wrestle from the beginning of the journey to the end. I will tell you tonight. I am hopeful that you will believe me, but it comes from self-revelation. When it’s revealed to you, then there is no argument; you know. Until it’s revealed, you search the scriptures and there it is. It is in scripture, but man conditioned as he is hardly ever sees it. When he sees it it’s such a surprise he won’t believe it…so he goes on, because of his conditioned mind. But, here it’s in scripture.

Now we turn to my pal—I call him my pal, for we are separated in time in Caesar’s world, but we are closely and very closely woven in the tapestry of life—and that is Blake. Blake had this argument with his friend—I call him a friend—the Rev. Dr. Trussler. Trussler didn’t like Blake’s interpretation of scripture; and made it very obvious that he didn’t care for Blake’s work, any of it, and said to Blake that you need someone to elucidate your ideas. Blake answered it…Blake said, “You say that I must have someone to elucidate my ideas? You ought to know that what is grand is necessarily obscure to weak men.” He hoped that would put him in his place. Then he said, “What can be made explicit to the idiot isn’t worth my care. The ancients considered that what was not too explicit was fittest for instruction because it rouses the faculties to act.” Then he asked the question, he said, “Why is the Bible more entertaining and instructive than any other book? Is it not because it is addressed to the Imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and only immediately to the understanding or reason?” To Blake man was all Imagination. He saw the parable…but revealing this revelation of his: That all things existed in the human Imagination. So to him the Bible was the most instructive and the most entertaining book in the world. There was nothing comparable to it.

So tonight, we’ll take that book, only sections of it, because how could we cover sixty-six books? The Bible is constructed in three layers. We’re told in Ecclesiastes, “A threefold cord is not quickly broken” (4:12). We’re told the ark must be constructed with a lower, a second and a third deck (Gen.6:16). The whole Bible is written in that manner. Anyone who can read can read the lower level, the literal level. It’s symbolized in scripture as a stone or a rock. Anyone who will dwell upon it, who may be blessed with a vision or some mystical experience, may see that rock (like a Moses) giving water, actually see the inner meaning behind the story. Then one who sees the meaning behind the story, who has the courage to test it, will then find the third symbol and that is wine…so it is stone, water, wine.