Before Jesus, the Hebrew tradition revered God as Creator,
King, and Judge. Though God was sometimes called “Father,” it was primarily in
the collective sense, referring to Israel as a nation. The personal, intimate,
and relational aspect was largely missing. Jesus changed this. He spoke of God
not with fearful reverence or theological abstraction, but with loving
familiarity. His consistent use of the word “Abba”—an Aramaic term meaning
“Dad” or “Papa”—was revolutionary. It unveiled a Divine Parent who longs not
for sacrifice but for connection, not for legal compliance but for heartfelt
trust.
In calling God “Father,” Jesus invited his followers into a
familial relationship with the Divine. He urged them to pray, “Our Father,
who art in heaven…” not “My Father,” but our—signifying that
we all share the same Divine source. This was a spiritual democratization of
the highest order. It implied that no priest, prophet, or ruler held exclusive
access to God. Rather, every human being stood as a child of the same Divine
Parent, and therefore, as brothers and sisters.
Jesus took this idea further. When told that his mother and
brothers were looking for him, he gestured to the crowd and declared, “Whoever
does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother”
(Matthew 12:50). In this redefinition, Jesus moved beyond biology and
established a new kind of kinship—one based on spiritual awakening and
alignment with divine love.
This familial framework finds a profound echo in the
writings of Paul, particularly in Romans 8:29, where he describes Jesus as “the
firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” For Paul, Jesus was not only
the uniquely anointed one but also the prototype, the forerunner of a great
awakening. Jesus embodied the Christ—the divine Logos, the light that was in
the beginning with God and that illuminates every person. But Paul dared to say
that what was in Jesus could be in all. “Christ in you, the hope of glory,”
he wrote in Colossians 1:27. This was no distant salvation plan—it was an
invitation to recognize the indwelling Christ in ourselves.
Jesus, therefore, was the first to consciously acknowledge
the Christ within himself. He lived out of this realization, not merely as a
messenger but as a manifestation of Divine Love in human form. His awareness of
being the Son of God was not an egoic claim but a deep spiritual knowing of his
origin and essence. In recognizing the Christ within himself, he opened the
door for all humanity to discover that same light within. As John’s Gospel
begins, “In him was life, and that life was the light of all humanity”
(John 1:4).
Yet, this light was not always recognized. Jesus’ ministry
took place within a very specific context—first-century Judaism under Roman
occupation. His people were burdened by centuries of religious law and the
crushing weight of sin-consciousness. The Law of Moses, while once liberating,
had become a source of spiritual oppression for many. Guilt and fear had taken
root, and the joy of intimacy with God had been buried under rule-keeping and
ritual purity.
The angel’s announcement that “He will save his people
from their sins” (Matthew 1:21) must be read in this historical context.
The sins were not simply moral failings, but the entire system of guilt,
shame, and alienation perpetuated by the Law and the temple economy. Jesus came
to bring freedom from sin-consciousness, not by ignoring sin, but by
transcending it through grace, forgiveness, and divine embrace.
In this sense, Jesus' mission was not merely juridical
(paying a penalty), but restorative and awakening. He came to reveal the truth
of who we are: not broken, condemned beings, but children of God who had
forgotten our origin. This theme finds its deepest resonance in the Gospel of
Truth, a second-century text associated with the Valentinian Christian
tradition. It states that people suffer not because they are sinful by nature,
but because they live in “forgetfulness”—they have forgotten who they
are and where they come from. Jesus, in this gospel, is the one who comes to “reveal
the Father” and to awaken humanity from ignorance into remembrance and joy.
In this light, Jesus is Savior because he restores awareness,
not because he satisfies wrath. He is the light that shows us our own inner
light. He is the Son who reveals that we too are sons and daughters. He is the
elder brother who returns from awakening to guide his siblings home.
It is also worth noting how Jesus' references to hell
(Gehenna) fit within this context. Many of Jesus' strongest warnings—often
framed with dramatic language about fire and worms—were not threats of eternal
punishment, but hyperbolic critiques of the Pharisaic teaching that some people
would be consigned to Gehenna, a metaphor derived from the Valley of Hinnom,
for a year of post-death purification. This bears some resemblance to later
Catholic ideas of purgatory. Jesus turned this imagery on its head, using it to
forewarn of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the temple—a cataclysm that
would occur within a generation, as he predicted. His reference to "where
the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:48) draws
directly from Isaiah 66, which describes the aftermath of divine judgment upon
the nation. These were not abstract descriptions of eternal torment, but urgent
calls to repent and awaken before societal collapse.
The implications are staggering. If the Christ—the divine
nature—dwells in all people, then salvation is not exclusionary but universal.
It’s not about being chosen or unchosen, but about becoming aware of what has
always been true: that we are one with God and with one another. This doesn't
negate Jesus' uniqueness—it amplifies it. He becomes the first to fully live
what is potentially true of all humanity.
To walk the path of Jesus, then, is not to worship him, but
to follow him into that same awakening. It is to say, as he did, “I and the
Father are one”—not in arrogance, but in awe. It is to recognize the Christ
not only in ourselves but in each other. It is to live as siblings, with God as
our shared source, and love as our common bond.
This is the spiritual family Jesus initiated. This is the
good news that transcends religion and time. The Christ is not an external
figure to be appeased but an inner reality to be realized. Jesus, our elder
brother, awakened to it—and showed us how to awaken too.
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