This is the radical shift at the heart of a reimagined
Christianity: Jesus is not the appeaser of wrath, but the awakener of
consciousness. He is not the sacrificial substitute, but the luminous
revealer of the truth that sets us free. The truth is not that we are sinners
in the hands of an angry God, but that we are divine beings who have fallen
asleep to who we are.
Throughout the canonical Gospels—and especially within the
texts of the Nag Hammadi library like the Gospel of Thomas and Gospel
of Truth—Jesus is portrayed not as one demanding belief in his blood, but
as one inviting people to remember. Over and over again, Jesus speaks in
parables, riddles, and metaphors—not to obscure the truth, but to draw it out
of those willing to seek. He is the rabbi who does not lecture, but questions.
He does not issue creeds, but sparks inner revolutions.
The Gospel of Thomas preserves one of the clearest
expressions of this awakening path. In saying 3, Jesus declares: “If your
leaders say to you, ‘Look, the Kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the
sky will get there first. If they say, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will
get there first. Rather, the Kingdom is within you and it is outside of you.
When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize
you are children of the Living Father.”
This is not penal theology. This is gnosis—not secret
knowledge for the elite, but direct, inner knowing. Jesus does not point people
to a temple sacrifice or a future judgment. He points inward, to the Kingdom
within. He does not say, “I have come to make you acceptable to God.” He says,
in essence, “I have come to remind you that you already belong to God—you
always have.”
Atonement theology, especially in its penal substitution
form, tells us that God’s justice demands satisfaction. Sin must be punished,
and Jesus steps in as the sacrificial Lamb. But this theory, developed
centuries after Jesus, borrows more from Roman legal systems and pagan
appeasement rituals than from anything Jesus taught. It assumes a God whose
love is conditioned by payment, a Father who cannot forgive until blood has
been shed. This is not the Abba that Jesus revealed.
Jesus’ entire life contradicts the logic of atonement. He
forgives sins without sacrifice. He touches the unclean without hesitation. He
breaks Sabbath laws to heal. He tells stories of prodigal sons welcomed home
with open arms and debtors forgiven without payment. His ministry is built not
on transaction, but transformation—not on guilt, but on grace.
So why, then, did Jesus die? If not to satisfy divine wrath,
what is the cross about?
The cross is the collision of love with the machinery of
fear. It is the place where the world's violence meets the divine refusal to
retaliate. Jesus dies because the systems of power—both religious and
political—cannot tolerate awakened people. He dies not to appease God, but
because he threatened the illusion of control. The cross is not a payment—it is
a mirror. It shows us what our delusion and fear can do to love, and it shows
us that love endures even through death.
The resurrection, then, is not God's reward for Jesus’
sacrifice, but the cosmic declaration that love cannot die. That the Logos—the
divine Word within—transcends even the grave. Jesus’ resurrection is not a
singular miracle; it is the firstfruit of a new consciousness, a new humanity.
It proclaims that the image of God within us, though buried under layers of
fear and forgetfulness, will rise again.
In this reimagined vision, salvation is not being saved from
God, but being saved into the truth of God. It is not about avoiding
punishment, but about awakening to presence. Jesus is not a legal solution to a
cosmic problem; he is the way-shower, the embodied Logos, the one
who says, “Follow me”—not to a place, but to a state of being.
This is why early mystical Christians placed such emphasis
on the Logos—the divine principle of order, reason, and intelligence
that flows through all creation. Jesus is the Logos made flesh, not to
monopolize divinity, but to demonstrate it. He is the image of the invisible
God so that we might remember the image of God in ourselves.
The Gospel of Truth, attributed to Valentinian
circles, says this beautifully: “Ignorance of the Father brought about
anguish and terror. And the anguish grew dense like a fog, so that no one could
see. Because of this, error grew strong. But the Logos entered into the midst
of the error. It went into the fog and dispersed it, revealing the truth.”
This is Jesus the Awakener—the one who dispels the fog of error, not the one
who satisfies divine vengeance.
When Jesus says, “You shall know the truth, and the truth
shall make you free,” he is not speaking of theological propositions. He is
speaking of a direct awakening—a realization of what has always been
true. The bondage we experience is not due to a wrathful God, but due to a
world built on illusion: separation, shame, and fear. Jesus comes to unveil the
truth: we are already one with the Source.
In this light, the Holy Spirit is not the reward for correct
belief, but the continuation of Christ’s awakening within us. Pentecost is not
the granting of special favor, but the universal outpouring of divine presence.
The Spirit leads us not to fear, but to fullness. Not to doctrine, but to
direct knowing.
To say Jesus is the Awakener is to say that salvation is not
somewhere in the future. It is here. Now. It is the lifting of the veil. It is
the remembering of what was known before the foundation of the world. It is the
return not to Eden, but to awareness—to the Kingdom that has always been
both within and all around us.
This is not the gospel of condemnation. It is the gospel of
revelation. Jesus is not the rescuer from God’s wrath, but the revealer of
God’s face. And that face is love.
Let us, then, release the need for blood-soaked atonement.
Let us no longer see the cross as the price God demanded, but as the extent to
which divine love will go to awaken us. Let us embrace Jesus as the Awakener,
the mirror, the guide—and let us follow not in fear, but in joy. For the
Kingdom is here. And it begins with remembering who we are.
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