I often find myself getting lost in speculations about this and that.
I believe that we get away from what’s important when we put too much emphasis on factual claims in the bible. Not that the factual claims are unimportant. If you take away certain beliefs, other things fall apart. And some things maybe need to fall apart, while others need to be preserved. I’m not going to go into detail about this here, but it could be worth considering.
The more I think of who Jesus was and what he taught, the more it strikes me how complete and timeless his teachings were. I’m not saying that the miraculous events in the Bible didn’t occur. As a matter of fact, I believe that some of them most likely did. I can even say this with some ease, as I know that the world is much more than what we can perceive with our five senses. But I don’t think that you need miracles or to believe in the whole narrative literally, to see Jesus as miraculous. We have become so accustomed to the many of the things that Jesus stood for, that we don’t even stop to reflect on how counter-intuitive they are to our animal natures. And they work. Not only do they work. They make our lives infinitely better. Because when we live according to our animal natures our lives will most likely suck. And the lives of those around us will suck too, if we have a significant impact on them.
What I believe is that Jesus gave us an example of the ultimate potential that lies dormant within each and everyone of us. And I’m not alone in this belief. Thinkers such as C.S Lewis, Dallas Willard, Jordan Peterson and John Ortberg have said basically the same thing, with small variations.
According to the Bible, we were all made in the image of God. But we are somehow fallen. I don’t believe that the fall from the Garden of Eden should be taken literally. I’m not ruling it out. But I don’t think that it’s what’s important. If you look at it a little closer it’s full of symbolism. What does, for example, nakedness symbolize? And no, I’m not talking about sex or shame around sexuality. I’m talking about vulnerability. When we’re naked, we’re exposed and vulnerable.
Or take the idea that Adam walked with God before the fall. This means that we have the potential of living in- and feeling God’s presence. But as the Bible progresses, God becomes more and more distant. Less corporeal.
And what does it mean that the knowledge of good and evil is what causes the fall to begin with? You can ponder that for a yourself, because I could go on like this forever and this is not really what this post is about.
Coming back to the person Jesus, I believe that, together with everything else that he is, he is the perfect ideal. I would even go so far as to say that he is a perfect ideal that would be very difficult, if not impossible, for the human imagination to conjure up on its own. And as I said a few paragraphs ago, we have the potential within us to live like Jesus. There are no real physical or even psychological limitations. I even believe that what Jesus said about humans being able to perform miracles is accurate, because I know that lots of strange things happen inside us, that are not recognized by mainstream science.
But even if nothing limits us for real, each and everyone of us fall short of the ideal that Jesus represented. And yet, paradoxically, I believe that when all of the nonsense that we have turned into an identity over the years is removed, living like Jesus is really our natural state. When we completely stop functioning from the ego.
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