The Ultimate Sense

Neville Goddard 06-20-1969

In the Book of Nehemiah we are told that: “They read from the book, from the law of God with interpretation and gave the sense so that the people understood the reading.” I wish that were true of today’s preachers, but unfortunately they have mistakenly taken personifications for persons and the gross first sense for the ultimate sense intended.

In today’s paper I read where 325 graduate students of fifteen Catholic colleges were asked to name their ten heroes, in order, with no restrictions as to time. The late president Kennedy came in first, his brother Robert second, Martin Luther King third, with Jesus coming in fifth. Here are graduates of fifteen Catholic colleges who – seeing the Bible as secular history – place its primary character fifth in their heroic order when if read as literature (as many college students do) they would discover it is not secular history at all.

In Biblical thought a name is not a mere label of identification but an expression of the essential nature of its bearer. To know the name of God is to know God as he reveals himself to the individual. As the Psalmist said: “Those who know the name put their trust in thee.” His name is revealed in a progression of revelations. It is first revealed as God Almighty in the name El Shaddai. This name is personified as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In the state of Moses the second revelation comes as “I AM.” Then, in the third and final state of Jesus Christ, the full disclosure of his name is revealed as Father, in a Father/Son relationship. Bearing the name of Jesus, you will say with Paul: “I have made manifest the name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world. They were thine and thou gavest them to me. I have made known unto them thy name and I will make it known that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them.”

But now, when you read scripture always remember that the names Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Jesus are personifications of eternal parts of God’s play. Having faith in yourself and the play you created, you entered the part called Abraham, at which time you were shown the entire play in detail. And when the play is completed you move into the part called Jesus Christ to discover you are its author. To say Jesus is your hero and see him as a person is to completely misunderstand the story of scripture. As Blake said: “It ought always to be understood that the persons, Moses and Abraham, are not here meant, but the states signified by those names, the individuals being representatives of visions of those eternal states as they were revealed to mortal man in a series of divine revelations as they are written in the Bible. I have seen these states in my Imagination. When seen at a distance, they appear as one man. As you approach, they appear as multitudes of nations.”

I know the truth of that statement for although Blake was born in 1757 and died in 1827, we are closely woven in the tapestry of thought. One particular night we met, and after discussing the mystery of God, Blake said to me: “Fall backwards with a complete abandonment of self. Do not restrain yourself, just relax and fall.” Following his instructions I felt as though I was falling off the earth, as I hurled through space like some interstellar body. And when the motion ceased I looked up to see a single man aglow in the distance. His heart was like a flaming ruby, but when I approached I realized that all of the people in eternity were in that one body. I saw the body we will all be gathered back into when God’s play is over.

The play begins when “The scriptures, foreseeing that God would save and justify the heathen, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham.” Now, if you take the story of Abraham as secular history you would realize that he would have been shown God’s plan of salvation two thousand years before it occurred. But, agreeing to play the part of Abraham, you entered death’s door, the human skull. It is there that you sleep in visions of eternity as the Christ seed, being one with your Father.