Neville Goddard Lectures: “They Related Their Own Experiences”

11 Feb Neville Goddard Lectures: “They Related Their Own Experiences”

3/1/68

In the first chapter of the Book of Luke, it is stated that the disciples on their way back…the whole drama is over…and they encountered the risen Christ. And in one little segment they told what had happened. Moffatt translates this phrase, “they related their own experience.” The whole secret of the Bible from cover to cover is wrapped up in these five words if you know what they told. For here, they spoke in a different tongue. It’s recorded in Luke in Greek, but do we have the proper translation? There are many translations, and do we have the accurate one?

Well, let us go first to the opening of Luke, its preface the first four verses: “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, as they were delivered by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things accurately for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed” (verses 1-4). Now, it seems a simple statement, this preface to the story he’s about to tell. He’s compiling a narrative of the things that have been accomplished. For, Christianity rests upon the affirmation that a series of events happened in which God revealed himself in action for the salvation of man. So he’s taken the events as they happened and he’s simply treating them as a narrative. That’s what he’s thinking.

Well, let us take just a few of the thoughts in this preface: “Things which have been accomplished among us.” Now you would think, well, in a way yes, in this room these things have been accomplished among a few in this room. That I do know. But the word translated “among” is the preposition “within”—things which have been accomplished within us…and yet among us because he uses the plural “us”…things which have been accomplished within us. Now you tell me what happened to you, and someone else will tell me, and I will tell you, and then we get together and see how they relate. We find they all are really related, these things. They differ somewhat based upon one’s temperament, but they are identical really. Although as you would express it, like playing a piece, no two would interpret it in the same manner but it’s the same piece. So these things have been accomplished within us.

Now, he tells us that “…as they were delivered by those who from the beginning.” Now here is the phrase “from the beginning” which simply translates two Greek words meaning “from the birth of God.” The drama starts from that birth, from the birth of God, that’s all he’s going to talk about. What happens to the individual from his physical birth to the end when he dies in this world means nothing…that has not a thing to do with it. What happens from the birth of God.

Then another phrase: “it seemed good to me also, having observed all things accurately for some time past.” Now, that phrase translates another Greek word, and you wouldn’t think it, to use that phrase “for some time past,” it translates the Greek word “anothin,” which means “from above.” He is telling you he did not get it from another. He didn’t get it from anyone in this world, from a book, from a man or anything; he got it from above. This word “anothin” is translated in the end of Matthew and Mark as “top.” When we are told “And the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom,” that word “top” is “anothin.” And these are two opposites, top and bottom. When John tells Nicodemus, or rather, in the Gospel of John, and Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, “You must be born from above,” that word is “anothin”—translated in all Bibles as “born again.” But the word literally means “from above, from the top.” It’s entirely different, the opposite birth from the bottom, that which is beneath, that which is inferior. All bodies in this world born of woman are born from beneath. They are born from the inferior part of man. Here, one must be born from the superior part, the opposite, from the top. So he said, “Having observed all things accurately for some time past,” well, that phrase “some time past” is simply a translation of the Greek word “anothin.”