The Mystery Called Christ

Neville Goddard 06-07-1971

In the letters of Blake, there is one where he wrote to the Reverend Trusler – the Reverend Dr. Trusler, who had criticized him for his works, and said to Blake, “You need someone to elucidate your works.”

So, Blake wrote him and said, “You ought to know that what can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care. And the wisest of the Ancients considered what was not too explicit the fittest for instruction, “because it rouses the faculties to act.” Then he went on to say to this Reverend, “Why is the Bible more instructive and entertaining than any book in the world? Is it not because it is addressed to the Imagination, which is Spiritual Sensation, and only but mediately to the Understanding or Reason?”

Well, of course, the Reverend did not understand that. Like all the teachers of the world – the religious teachers, they treat it as secular history, and Blake knew from his own experience it was not. It was God’s plan of Salvation. Man must experience Scripture for himself before he can begin to understand how altogether wonderful it is. It’s altogether true, but not on this level. Eternity is actually within your Immortal Head; and that’s where the entire drama unfolds.

Now, let us turn to this Book that Blake called “the greatest book in the world” – and I will endorse that. I haven’t read all the books, but I do not know of anything that could come near the Bible in revelation. It hasn’t a thing to do with science. It’s not teaching us anything about the stars, about anything in politics; it is all about God’s plan of Salvation.

Here we turn, now, to the very first book of the New Testament, Matthew. “This is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.” Here it establishes the three important characters of Scripture.

Now, we go back to Genesis, and start with the first one now, Abraham. “And the Lord tempted Abraham.” One translates it tested, which may be a better way – “And the Lord tested Abraham and said to him, Take your son – your only son – Isaac and offer him as a burnt offering.” And Abraham took his son the very next day, with the fire and the wood and the knife, and two young men, and went up to Mt. Moriah. If you are familiar with the story, we need not tell you the entire thing, but that is the story.

The Lord intervened, Abraham having met the test. He said to him, “Do not lay your hand upon the lad, for you obeyed the voice of the Lord.” And then he made him the “father of the multitudes,” for the name Abraham means “father of the multitudes” – and said to him, “They will be more numerous than the stars, more numerous than the sands of the beach.” Well, just estimate that number – beyond the wildest dream of man. That will be his offspring, yet he only had one son.

Now we know that’s a lie right away, if you take it historically, because twelve years before the birth of Isaac the Lord gave him a son whose name was Ishmael, born of a slave in the household of his wife Sarah, for she was barren and it was beyond – well, bearing. “It had ceased to be with her after the affairs of women,” after the nature of woman. So, finding herself barren and wanting a son and an heir, she sent her servant Hagar in to her husband Abraham, that he may know her, which, as the story is told, he did, and she bore him a son, and the Lord said, “Call him Ishmael,” which means “God hears” or “God has heard.” That’s twelve years prior to the birth of Isaac. Yet we are told Isaac – and these are the words of the Lord – “Take your son, your only son, and offer him as a burnt offering.”

How can the one who gave him a son called Ishmael now call this one his only son? The word translated “son and only son” appears only twelve times in the Bible, for the word one is yaw-khad. This is translated and defined as “one, the only one, the unique one, my darling, my chosen one” – any term of endearment. These are the definitions given to the word that is now translated “your son, your only son.”