In traditional Christianity, Jesus’ uniqueness is often used
to place him on a pedestal—unreachable, untouchable, different in kind. He is
portrayed as a divine being who entered a depraved world to die for our sins,
thus saving those who believe in him. In this model, the gulf between Jesus and
humanity remains unbridgeable except through belief and legal transaction. But
this interpretation contradicts the very message Jesus lived and taught: that
the kingdom of God is within us, that we are children of the same Father, and
that what he has done, we too can do—and more.
To call Jesus the “firstborn” is to imply that others
follow. This is exactly what the apostle Paul writes in Romans 8:29: *“For
those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son,
that he might be the *firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” Paul
does not say Jesus is the only child of God, but the first. In Colossians 1:18,
Paul again refers to Christ as the “firstborn from the dead,” the
beginning of something new—a resurrection life available to all.
This new humanity is not based on bloodline or religion. It
is based on awakening. Jesus is the first fully awakened human being—the first
to fully embody divine consciousness, to live from the awareness that he and
the Father are one. But the liberating truth of the gospel is that what was
true for Jesus is true for us. He is not our stand-in, he is our
forerunner. He is not just Savior—he is Prototype.
Jesus came not to rescue us from divine wrath, but to reveal
our divine origin and potential. He awakens us to the truth we have
forgotten: that we are made in the image and likeness of God, that the Logos
dwells within us, and that we are not fallen wretches but divine beings in need
of remembrance.
This is why the early Christian mystics and Gnostic thinkers
referred to salvation not as transaction but as gnosis—knowledge,
awareness, illumination. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says, “Whoever
drinks from my mouth will become as I am; I myself shall become that person,
and the hidden things will be revealed to them.” This is not idolatry; it
is intimacy—but not with the person of Jesus as a singular figure to be deified
in isolation. It is intimacy with the indwelling Logos—the divine
intelligence, the eternal Word, the Christ-consciousness that filled Jesus and
fills us.
Our relationship to Jesus as a person, then, is best
understood as familial intimacy. He is the elder brother, the firstborn
among many siblings. He is the one who has gone before us and now walks beside
us—not as a remote deity demanding allegiance, but as a loving brother who
invites us into the same knowing he embodied. He does not ask for worship at a
distance but for recognition of the same Spirit that is within us.
When Jesus says, “I am the light of the world,” he
also says, “You are the light of the world.” This is not
contradiction—it is invitation. To be born again, in this reimagined vision, is
not to recite a formula or join a religion. It is to awaken to one’s true
identity in the Logos. Jesus is the firstborn of that awakening, the first
to remember fully what we have collectively forgotten: that we are not separate
from God.
The resurrection, then, is not merely a miracle to be
marveled at, but a pattern to be followed. Jesus passes through
death—not just physical death, but the death of ego, the death of illusion, the
death of fear—and emerges into life unbound by those chains. And he does not do
this to impress or to stand above us. He does this to show us what is
possible.
In this light, the crucifixion becomes the moment when Jesus
bears the full weight of humanity’s blindness—not because God demands a
sacrifice, but because love cannot help but enter into the suffering of others.
On the cross, Jesus absorbs the projections of our fear, our violence, and our
guilt—and transforms them. The resurrection is the divine answer: nothing, not
even death, can separate us from our source. The grave holds no ultimate power.
The ego has no final say. Love endures.
This is why Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15: “As in Adam
all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” Adam is the archetype of
forgetfulness, of separation consciousness. Jesus is the archetype of
awakening, of union. The first Adam closes the heart in shame; the second Adam
opens it in love. Jesus is the firstborn of a new humanity, one no
longer bound by sin, fear, and death.
But this humanity is not something we become by effort—it is
something we remember by grace. Grace is not a reward for belief; it is the
revelation of our essence. It is the divine spark within, waiting to be fanned
into flame. n breathes on his disciples and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
He does not reserve the Spirit for the worthy; he offers it to all. Pentecost
is not the beginning of a new religion—it is the unveiling of what has always
been true: the Spirit has been poured out on all flesh.
In being the firstborn, Jesus opens the door for the rest of
humanity to walk through. The veil is torn. The separation is dissolved. What
remains is the invitation to awaken, to remember, to embody. The new
humanity is not defined by race, creed, or tradition—it is defined by
consciousness. It is the community of those who know they are one with the
Father, who love not out of duty but out of overflow, who live not in fear of
hell but in the joy of divine union.
In this reimagined vision of Christianity, Jesus is no
longer the exception. He is the example. His birth, life, death, and
resurrection are not the end of the story but the beginning. We are not saved
from something as much as we are saved into something—into life, into
light, into the cosmic family of those who have awakened to the truth: that we
are divine, that we are beloved, that we are one.
So let us no longer speak of salvation as escape. Let us
speak of it as emergence. Let us no longer view Jesus as a distant deity
but as a fellow traveler, brother, and guide. Let us embrace the truth that the
same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead now lives in us. And let us walk
boldly in the footsteps of the firstborn—not as worshippers of his uniqueness,
but as participants in his new humanity.
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