3. Who is God? - Part II
Chapter One
The Word of God
The Word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.1
Language is not adequate to describe an encounter with the ineffable God. Yet, because the gift of my vision was not given for my sake alone, I knew that I must communicate what I saw in a manner that others could comprehend. After months of uncertainty, I elected to borrow the words of another: John, the beloved disciple of Jesus.2
In his Gospel and Epistles, John wrote with a language that was simple and straightforward, absent of abstractions. To read John is to look through an open window into the throne room of God. When I examined this saintly man with my spiritual eyes, I saw that his soul was brighter and larger than any known star. I decided that a man who shines like God must possess wisdom worth emulation.
In his Gospel prologue, John described what appears to be his own direct observations of the Creation:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.3
I immediately sensed a similarity between John’s description of the beginning and what I had seen in my vision, but only when I understood the historical context of the “Word”4 did the connection become clear.
John was not the first to write about the Word. The spoken Word of God stood as a central tenet of ancient Judaism, for it was how Jewish writers described the manifestation of God.5 But this expression of the Divine constituted more than mere verbal articulation: God speaking the Word was considered to be an act of great power that could both create6 and heal.7
The most significant way in which God spoke the Word to the Jewish people was in the form of the Mosaic Law.8 According to Jewish tradition, the Law was “written with the finger of God” upon tablets of stone and given on Mount Sinai to Moses.9 To the ancient Jew, the Law and the Word were synonymous.10
According to the historical narrative, God explained to Moses that if the Jewish men and women were to obey the Law (or the “voice” of God), they would be transformed into “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”11 The ancient psalmist gave a hint as to how this transformation could occur:12
How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to Thy Word. With my whole heart I seek Thee; let me not wander from Thy commandments! I have laid up Thy Word in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee.
God’s Word was “laid up” within the hearts of those who faithfully kept the religious and sacrificial requirements of the Law. Through the Word abiding within them, the Jewish people became God’s people.
As the centuries passed, the Word also became associated with the teachings of the Prophets.13 The defining characteristic of a Jewish Prophet was his or her ability to be a living bridge between God and the people, communicating God’s Word through speech.14 In the times before Jesus, then, the Word of God was laid up in the hearts of the Jewish people both by obedience to the Law and by submission to the teachings of the Prophets.
Though John knew the Jewish interpretation of the Law and Prophets, I am convinced that he did not write the Gospel prologue in order to reiterate what he had been taught regarding that tradition. Rather, his aim was to describe the history of God’s Word, which he had observed through spiritual perception. I believe that John beheld the act of Creation, the Mosaic Law, and the Prophets through the eyes of his radiant soul, and that he recognized the same living Presence abiding the hearts of those who obeyed the Law, moving in the words of the Prophets, and spoken by God in the beginning. In each of these instances, John saw the Word. When John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” he offered firsthand testimony.
Once I realized that John had already given utterance to the phenomenon I had observed in my vision, I was filled with relief. I had seen the Word—the knowable expression of the unknowable God—revealed in the form of a luminous mist, a golden light, and a cloud of glistening white.
The Word is Life
In [the Word] was life, and the life was the light of men.15
And yet, I wondered, if all three of the Divine lights are the singular Word of God, why do they appear and act differently? I realized that I needed to look further. I began by examining the luminous mist more closely, and as I did so, I discovered something remarkable. I realized that the mist was composed of what appeared to be very small, lucent drops of water. In the same way that a physical mist is made of an incalculable number of water droplets, so also did I perceive the mist that came forth from God as a gathering of tiny particles. I concluded that these were the “seeds” of God that John16 (and others17) had described centuries ago.
The seeds that formed the mist displayed a distinct appearance and movement. Their color was similar to water: sometimes soft white and sometimes translucent, depending on the angle from which I saw them. Moving in unison, the seeds constantly shifted and swirled in harmony with the seeds surrounding them. At times, the assemblage of seeds expanded and spread out, and at other times drew closer together, but never once did a single seed stray from the rhythm of the whole.
After I was able to make out these luminous seeds, I realized that they were everywhere around me. I saw the seeds within plants and trees, birds and beasts, and within the soil itself. In everything alive and growing, I observed these seeds in abundance. Conversely, I witnessed the seeds gradually shift away from any dying thing. Everywhere I looked in the natural world, the mist’s seeds were present and active.
As I observed this wonder, I pondered to myself, What do I call these seeds of the Word, which laid the foundation for Creation and which permeate all things on Earth? I looked to John for the answer. In the opening of his Gospel, “life” is the first name he used to describe the Word.18
To John, life is something that can “abide” or dwell within us,19 offering us the nourishment, refreshment, and sustenance needed to walk the spiritual path.20 And this life that dwells within us has the potential to become “eternal,” having no observable end.21
Comparing my observations to the writings of John, I concluded that the luminous mist I saw in my vision of Creation was that which John called “life.” Life is the expression of God that lays the foundation for all Creation. Without the seeds of Life, nothing can be made that has been made.
John 14:24
Based on what I have seen using spiritual perception, I believe that John wrote the Gospel of John, all three of the Johannine epistles, and the Book of Revelation.
John 1:1–3
“logos” in Greek
Amos 3:8
Psalm 33:6
Psalm 107:19–20
Exodus 34:28
Exodus 31:18
See also John 10:34–35, where John seemed to equate the Mosaic Law and the Word.
Exodus 19:5–6
Psalm 119:9–11
John referred to this fact in John 12:38 when he wrote, “it was that the Word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled […]” Here John explained that Isaiah did not speak words (“rhema”) only; rather, Isaiah spoke the Word (“logos”).
Hosea 1:1–2
John 1:4
1 John 3:9, “Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God’s seed abides in them.”
In Luke 8:11 Jesus stated, “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.” In 1 Peter 1:23 Peter wrote, “You have been born anew, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding Word of God.”
“zoe” in Greek; John 1:4
1 John 3:15
John 6:35; Revelation 21:6
John 3:16