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All this is, of course, quite depressing to those raised in the hope of eternal
life. If the previous two parts were the whole of my sermon, I'd expect the
reader to come away from it rather depressed and disappointed. Yet there is
hope.
Elohim is a plural term, as I proved previously. There are others in the
Godhead who reveal themselves to man, even in the canonical Bible. The first
of these to be revealed in the canonical Bible is Sophia, the consort of YHWH.
Sophia is not an easy deity to grasp in the modern Christian mindset.
Christianity has spent the past 1500 years making God to be a single Person.
While Christians acknowledge a Trinity of divine Persons, this Trinity is
generally held to be three parts of the same masculine deity: God the Father,
Jesus the Christ, and the Holy Spirit, who is generally regarded in what I
like to call "the fallacy of the Holy It"- neither male nor female, nor really
with much will of "its" own except what is given to "it" by either the former
two Persons of the Godhead or the collective desires of the Church. This
conceptualization is, in my opinion, highly limiting and a bit offensive both
to the feminine condition and almighty power of Elohim; not to mention the
inherent misogyny in that conception which holds woman to not be a force
worthy of the Divine.
Sophia was known to the early Greek Christians; ergo the name which I use for
Her today. She was also known, and revealed, to Solomon. That revelation
appears in the book of Proverbs, and remains today in the canonical Bible.
There, to most English speakers, she is called Wisdom.
"Doth not Wisdom cry? and understanding put forth Her voice?" [Proverbs 8:1]
This begins what I consider to be two of the most important chapters of the
Bible: Proverbs 8 and 9. "Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons
of man." [8:4] This may seem like poetic redundancy, but it makes clear whom
She is addressing: Not just man, but the descendants of Adam and Eve. Remember
the "daughters of man" from Genesis 6? The "sons of man" are the same-
descendants, all, from the counterfeit of YHWH.
"For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or
perverse in them." [8:7-8] Sophia makes clear that She is not the Deceiver of
Jewish tradition. She, like the serpent in the Garden, speaks truth. "The fear
of the Lord is to hate evil, pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the
froward mouth, do I hate." [8:13] I've seen it written elsewhere that "the
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom". This explains it further: Those
that fear YHWH do so because they hate evil, pride, and arrogancy. So it is
with Sophia: She hates all these as well. To fear YHWH, then, is to begin to
understand Her.
"I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment"
[8:20] While it appears to many Jews and Christians that the paths of judgment,
or holiness by the Law, are the way of righteousness, this isn't quite correct.
Sophia leads in the way of righteousness. It, the way, is in the midst of the
paths of judgment. It may or may not be a path of judgment itself. I believe
it is not.
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"The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old."
[8:22] Here, and in the next 9 verses, Sophia establishes Herself as among the
Elohim. In the canonical Bible, Christ is the only other person to make such
claims. For this reason, I cannot dismiss Sophia as a mere "characteristic"
of YHWH. She and YHWH are two separate entities.
"For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord. But
he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love
death." [8:35-36] Other translations say "shall obtain salvation from the
Lord"; the original Hebrew uses the preposition "m'yhwh"- literally, "from
YHWH". I believe King James mistranslates here. The original words are
"salvation from the Lord"; to say that such person "obtains favour" misses
the mark. Indeed, given the original scripture, it could be said that such
person is saved FROM YHWH!
But no matter: The point is, in all versions of the canonical Bible, he who
follows Sophia has life eternal. This is a revelation, indeed! It represents
the first time that something other than the Covenant of YHWH was offered to
mankind. Life eternal, the fruit of the Tree of Life denied to Adam and Eve,
is now offered through Sophia. Read on: Proverbs 9:1-7. If this sounds familiar
to those of you raised with the sacrement of Holy Communion, it should. This
is the very same sacrement.
Does this mean that one must take communion to be saved? No. Sophia offers the
metaphysical sacrement irrespective of any formal rite. One can fulfill the
sacrement simply by gathering together in the spirit. Which spirit? Love,
charity, goodness, humility, wisdom, knowledge... all the things we consider
and know in our hearts to be good and Divine.
To partake of the Feast of Sophia, then, is to eat the fruit of the Tree of
Life. Christ embodied this fruit at the Last Supper when He said, "Take, eat;
this is my body." [Matthew 26:26] Christ is the victim slain. Remember, God
said that all the fruit of every tree shall be as meat to us. Christ's flesh,
then, is as fruit, and vice versa. Christ IS the fruit of the Tree of Life,
and by gathering together in the spirit we partake of that fruit and that
flesh.
Some final thoughts: The people who killed Christ were people acting by the
Law. This both fulfilled Sophia's command that She has slain Her victim, and
demonstrated YHWH's desire to kill that which makes him jealous. The Law works
to both ends, in ways I do not and cannot understand: I struggle with that
daily. Also, lest there be any doubt in whose name Christ comes, consider the
words of Christ in Matthew 11:19: "The Son of man came eating and drinking,
and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebiber, a friend of publicans
and sinners. But Wisdom is justified of Her children."
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