The Kingdom Is Within You and Outside of You
Ask a seven-day-old child about the place of life
This article is going to be a lot like my last one which you can read here. I’ve written these articles to demonstrate how the Gospel of Thomas¹ seems to operate.
Let’s take a look at a fairly complex saying:
Saying 11: Those Who Are Living Won’t Die
Jesus said, “This heaven will disappear, and the one above it will disappear too. Those who are dead aren’t alive, and those who are living won’t die. In the days when you ate what was dead, you made it alive. When you’re in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one, you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?”
The opening line, with another heaven above this heaven, might remind one of Paul’s third heaven:
2 I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. (2Co 12:2 KJV)
That doesn’t really tell us anything, though. Then the bit about the dead not being alive, maybe that is meant to tell us something about this heaven above heaven, together with the living who won’t die. Okay, wait. Maybe this is in the future, where those who are living have immortality, but those who are dead are out of luck.
Then the bit about eating what is dead and making it alive. And asking what I will do in the light. I guess, in the future, my skin will have been modified so that I can draw nourishment directly from the sun. Then it seems that I clone myself. After that, I guess, once there are two of me, I clone myself again, making four.
Okay, so that is my interpretation if I am just working with the saying itself. Still, it seems a bit much to read this text as indicating a far future where people have developed the ability to feed off of sunlight and clone themselves.
But what is the correct lens through which to view this saying?
As I have mentioned in my previous article, the key is to merge two consecutive sayings. Let us examine the next saying in the Gospel of Thomas:
Saying 12: James the Just
The disciples said to Jesus, “We know you’re going to leave us. Who will lead us then?” Jesus said to them, “Wherever you are, you’ll go to James the Just, for whom heaven and earth came into being.”
This saying is clearly about Jesus declaring that his brother James the Just is to be His successor. I usually take this as an indicator that the Secret Book of James is a text of some importance. Still, it doesn’t help to explain the previous saying.
The description given to James is interesting: “for whom heaven and earth came into being.”
Heaven and earth came into being at the beginning of the Bible. What if that bizarre description from Saying 11 is actually describing a winding back of time to the very beginning?
“This heaven will disappear, and the one above it will disappear too.”
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. (Gen 1:6–8 KJV)
If we play the events described above backward, we see God identifying the firmament between the waters above and the waters below as Heaven. Then God unmakes the firmament as well as the region above the firmament when it all returns to being an undifferentiated area of water. So he unmade Heaven and the area above Heaven.
Those who are dead aren’t alive, and those who are living won’t die. In the days when you ate what was dead, you made it alive.
This far back in time anyone dead that we are concerned with hasn’t even been born yet. And the things alive, back in those times, are still alive and with us today.
Then it talks about how we eat dead flesh and make it alive because it becomes part of our organism.
The text is reversing time to the point before the division of water into an upper and lower state, back to when God said, “Let there be light.”
When you’re in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one, you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?
What kind of lifeform is Thomas describing? Well, Genesis doesn’t mention it existing, but it seems likely that the early form of life being indicated is a single-celled photosynthetic organism known as cyanobacteria, which used to be called blue-green algae.
This organism reproduces by asexual division. Each time it divides, it is impossible to say which resulting cell is the original. This means, in a practical sense, that cyanobacteria are functionally immortal and that the cells we find today date from around three and a half billion years ago.
So anyway, after enjoying the sunlight, a cell divides and becomes two.
The question becomes, what happens then? Does it continue to double in number with each generation? Is there another option?
Let me try another pair of sayings, as this first pair ended up being much too short and way too deep.
Saying 3: Seek Within
Jesus said, “If your leaders tell you, ‘Look, the kingdom is in heaven,’ then the birds of heaven will precede you. If they tell you, ‘It’s in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and outside of you. “When you know yourselves, then you’ll be known, and you’ll realize that you’re the children of the living Father. But if you don’t know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty.”
Here, with saying three, the meaning is apparently right there on its surface. If the kingdom is in heaven the birds will get there first. If the kingdom is in the sea, then the fish will get there first. Wake up guys, the kingdom is both inside and outside of you.
When we know who we are, we realize our father is God, I guess. But if we don’t know that, then we are poor and we live in poverty.
What an enlightening concept. This saying clearly doesn’t need to be interpreted. What more could it possibly mean?
As I always say, we need to first check out the next saying.
Saying 4: First and Last
Jesus said, “The older person won’t hesitate to ask a little seven-day-old child about the place of life, and they’ll live, because many who are first will be last, and they’ll become one.”
Here is another liberating concept. We should ask an innocent child. The Judaean tradition was that a baby boy would be circumcised on his eighth day. So a seven-day-old hasn’t been traumatized yet, I guess.
This saying also mentions many who are first being last and becoming one. I realized just now that the text might be saying that many of the first will be last and will become a seven-day-old child, which makes slightly more sense than they will become one, meaning a single undifferentiated blob. Better, I suppose, to think that they will become their innocent, pre-circumcised selves.
However, when I merge sayings four and five together, I can’t help but notice how one mentions a seven-day-old child, while the other refers to birds and fish, which God created on the fifth day of creation. Five out of a total of seven days.
20 And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living souls, and let fowl fly above the earth in the expanse of the heavens. 21 And God created the great sea monsters, and every living soul that moves with which the waters swarm, after their kind, and every winged fowl after its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply on the earth. 23 And there was evening, and there was morning — a fifth day. (Gen 1:20–23 DBY)
It seems that the seven-day-old child represents the earth during the seven days of creation.
There is more than that here, however. Each day of creation was ruled by a different member of the Elohim. The Eloah of the fifth day is known as Jupiter in other systems. Astrologically, Jupiter rules the zodiac signs of Pisces and Sagittarius. Pisces literally means fish while Sagittarius is a centaur archer. The archer's arrow is the symbolic link to the sign's connection back to birds.
Jesus said, “If your leaders tell you, ‘Look, the kingdom is in heaven,’ then the birds of heaven will precede you. If they tell you, ‘It’s in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and outside of you. “When you know yourselves, then you’ll be known, and you’ll realize that you’re the children of the living Father. But if you don’t know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty.”
Another level of meaning is concealed in the fact that Jupiter is the god of good luck and abundance. The description of this day from Genesis stresses the huge masses of fish swarming in the waters and all those birds flying around in the skies above.
Notice also, that, if you know yourself, others will know you, and you will come to realize that you are a child of a living father. Then Thomas explains that if you don’t know yourself that indicates that you are poor. But the unstated point is that those who don’t know themselves are those who aren’t known, and who don’t realize that they are the children of a living father. Probably because they aren’t the children of a living father. Because their father is either dead or gone. That’s why they are poor and live in poverty and why no one knows who they are.
The sign of Pisces is associated with qualities of compassion, empathy, and artistic abilities.
The sign of Sagittarius signifies those who focus on achieving their goal regardless of the cost.
Loving your neighbor versus exercising your will to power.
The fish are poor on the outside but wealthy within, while the birds are wealthy on the outside but poor in spirit.
Then the message becomes, those who know their fathers, are known by others, and they understand how to achieve their goals.
Those who don’t know their fathers aren’t well known and are likely to be poor and live in poverty. However, through adversity, they may learn compassion for others and some might even develop the ability to create works of great beauty.
If a lucky fish does manage to develop a marketable skill, some well-connected bird will always be around to exploit that poor fish’s talent. The bird will make itself richer while seeing to it that the fish has just enough of whatever it is it needs to survive.