What exactly was Yeshua referring to when he said the following?
"Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not." - John 8:42-45
The Secret Book of John, also known as The Apocryphon of John, is one of most mystical, fascinating texts that I have ever studied, which can be difficult to wrap your mind around.
This gnostic text comes from the Nag Hammadi library, which was discovered in Egypt in 1945.
So, why the secret?
This text is unlike anything that you have ever read anywhere in The Holy Bible. It explains the diminished nature of our physical world unlike anything most Christians have ever been exposed to, however the concepts revealed within parallel some of the highest levels of Kabbalistic understanding.
I feel that it is important that we at least read these ancient texts, as they were held sacred by the earliest Christians and they help to give us new insight on some verses from the New Testament that can be difficult to understand, such as the one from John, quoted above. By its own declaration, the Secret Book of John is a sacred text intended to be shared only with individuals properly prepared to receive its revelation. In second-century Christian communions circulation of the text probably remained restricted. Amazingly, despite limited circulation and the effective later efforts by evolving Christian orthodoxy to destroy all such “heretical” scriptures, four separate manuscripts of this text survived, so it was obviously very popular with the earliest Christians. Keep in mind that it was never the church's intention that any common man should even be able to read the Bible on his own, let alone dive into the mysteries, so the suppression of information by the early church is unfortunately common. Whether people today want to admit it or not, the evidence abundantly shows that the early church was a highly political establishment that had just as much interest in controlling society at large as it did for saving souls. In antiquity, readers studied the Secret Revelation of John in order to perfect the divine image of their souls; it was composed, translated, and distributed largely to further salvation; or to refute its claims to aid in salvation and this is exactly why it is still valid today.
**AS WITH ALL GNOSTIC TEXTS - THIS IS SOMETHING TO BE TAKEN WITH A LARGE GRAIN OF SALT - THIS IS NOT SCRIPTURE FOR A REASON**
This is not a text that I recommend to anyone who is new to The Bible, as it could lead to confusion and misunderstanding. When we read this text, there is one thing that we must keep in mind, this text was written for serious disciples in order to gain the hidden wisdom of creation; solely for the purpose of becoming closer to our Creator. As we already know, the nature of our Creator is often not easily understandable and this particular text attempts to clarify some of the multiple layers of mystery, found in much of The Old Testament. The ancient readers of this text understood that everything G*d does is necessary and that everything is one, so we must also understand that when we read this today.
I do know that it was tucked away for generations and we are very fortunate that it was deemed important enough to have been preserved by the gnostic Christians of antiquity, who risked their lives to keep this text from being destroyed by the church.
This extremely informative video, presented by Esoterica, explains this mysterious gnostic text unlike anything that I have ever seen before. I recommend starting here before diving into the text, as will help you to process all of this better.
Much Love!
You can read this mysterious text here:
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