The Gospel of John and the Religious Quest. Johannes Nissen
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aloft. I and the Father are one! These are important words which one should experience, then will one feel the forward bound made by mankind, a bound which advanced human evolution further in consequence of that impulse given by the advent of Christ. Christ was the mighty quickener of the ‘I AM’.”78
According to Steiner, the incarnation of the Christ-Impulse in the human person of Jesus did not take place at one event only. Rather it was a process that began at Jesus’ baptism and after three years ended at the cross. The baptism is of particular importance: “All four Gospels stress this moment when the Christ was incorporated in a personality of this earth. However much they may differ in other respects, they all point to this event of Christ slipping into the great initiate, as it were: by baptism by John. In that moment, so clearly defined by the author of the John Gospel when he says that the Spirit descended in the form of a dove and united with Jesus of Nazareth, in that moment occurred the birth of Christ; as a new and higher Ego the Christ is born in the soul of Jesus of Nazareth. Until then, another ego, that of a great initiate had developed to the lofty plane on which it was ripe for the event.”79 The one who descended and incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth was the Logos.
Essentially, Steiner represents a modern gnostic worldview. He operates with two Jesus’es who were simultaneously born in Bethlehem as reincarnations of Zarathustra and Buddha. The two were united into one twelve-year old person and because the abode of Christ, the sun-spirit, at the baptism in Jordan, which was an initiation in the Essene community. Christ, the macrocosmic sun-spirit, dwelt in this special man named Jesus for the three years between his baptism and his crucifixion. This Christ-Impulse is unique, and turned the development of humankind from a devolution after the fall to an evolution towards godhood. Jesus prototypically realized the divinity of all human beings.80
The Christ-Impulse describes the path that every human being has to tread. The goal is for our ego to control our bodies: the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body. Regarding the astral body this means that our ego and our will have to be masters in the house of our own consciousness and our feelings, passions, and desires. Regarding the etheric body it means that we control our forces of life, our capacities, and our temperament. Regarding our physical body it means that we control all the organic processes from within. Steiner asserts that Christ had reached all this within three years, and he supports his assertion primarily on the Gospel of John.81 “Jesus increased in wisdom (in his astral body), in maturity of disposition (in his etheric body), and in gracious beauty (in his physical body) in a way manifest to God and man.”82
There are at least two objections to this interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. The idea of a macrocosmic “I” (The Christ Principle) living ever more deeply in the body of Jesus of Nazareth is speculative. The Gospel itself does not support such an idea. The decisive feature of the Prologue is the movement from pre-existence to incarnation, from the impersonal to the personal. In this passage the principle of life (Logos) is identified with the name “Jesus Christ.” In the Fourth Gospel the center of life has a clear and unambiguous name. He is understood as a concrete, historical person and not as a spiritual principle. Another objection is that the Gospel clearly differentiates between the person of Jesus and the believers. This point is illustrated by the I-am sayings. It is not about the emanation of a Force-Impulse.
From the Impersonal to the Personal Image of God
Images of God are crucial in the encounter between Christianity and religious seekers. In a publication from 2008 entitled Tro i tiden three representatives from the organisations, Folkekirke og religionsmøde (The Danish Lutheran Church and the Meeting of Religions) and Areopagos presented a report on their conversations with Danish representatives of those who are inspired by Eastern religiosity and spirituality. According to the report there are many different ideas about God and the divine. Some people use pantheistic terms to indicate that the divine is something immanent: a consciousness, a divine aspect within us, the innermost part of the human being. Others speak of the divine as a reality transcending that which can be found in ourselves: as a power of life, as intelligence, or just as “something” which we nevertheless are closely related to, or perhaps are a part of. At the risk of simplification we may speak of three understandings of the divine here: as insight, as energy, and as relation.83 1) As insight, we may speak of a divine reality in humankind rather than of a personal God. 2) As energy, the divine is seen as an impersonal force or a spirit. 3) As relation, the word ‘God’ is used of something that is both within and outside humankind. The ultimate goal is the merging of the human soul into God.
It is characteristic that the different names for the divine do not include the idea of God as creature, master, or judge,84 so the concept of God is impersonal. Modern Christians are facing the same challenge as the author of John’s Prologue: how to move from an impersonal to a personal conception of God; in other words how can we demonstrate that the cosmic Christ has been incarnated in the person of Jesus?
Tro i tiden was followed by another report that year, Tro i lære, which contains conversations with 10 persons who as Christians are engaged in the religious encounter. These persons (clergy and laity) may have various motivations for their engagement, but they all seem to think that “to be in Christ makes it possible to be open-minded (and spacious).”85 The report underlines how Christology is developed in the concrete encounter with people from the new spiritual milieu. One of the respondents says that “we should not demonize others; instead we should see Christ in our neighbor.” Another states that “Christ as Logos also has an effect outside Church and Christianity and goes on to refer to the concept of ‘logoi spermatikoi’—which might be taken as a point of contact for the proclamation of Christ.”86
One of the interviewees is Ole Skjerbæk Madsen, founder of a number of Christian communities called “I Mesterens Lys” (In the Master’s Light).87 He has explained the theological idea behind this movement in a number of publications, including an article from 2003 focusing on John’s Prologue. Madsen insists that the whole understanding of the order of the universe was personalized in the creative Word of God who was made flesh. The Logos of the world was not an abstract law or principle, but a self-communication of God calling his creatures into a relationship of love with Godself.88
Furthermore, it is pointed out that speaking of the Logos/logos is especially relevant in communicating with theosophy, which, however, operates with a much more complex understanding of the term. Theosophy thus speaks of the Solar Logos, the God of the Sun System, the planetary Logos, the God of the planet Earth, a Logos-being on each different plane of consciousness, in a hierarchy of beings. Against this, the Christian understanding has as its focus on the incarnate Logos of God in Jesus Christ and recognizes through the work of Christ how God created the universe through Logos and how creative love orders creation according to the Logos.
The concept of Logos as known, manifested, and revealed in the logos of the created world may be combined with a Christianized use of the concept of Tao. This is relevant to the neo-spiritual movements, perhaps even more than using the logos terminology, since the concept of Tao pervades much New Age thinking and practice. Tao signifies the eternal order or the foundation and basic principle of life. Tao is the cause of all foundation, but in this sense is incomprehensible, unspeakable, and transcendent. Nevertheless, the term “Tao” is used because the unspeakable Tao is also immanent in the created world. In this second meaning, Tao is the mother of creation, power and norm of existence. Skjerbæk Madsen points to the fact