Yeshua bar Josef healed the sick, restored sight to the blind, and performed other miracles. He also taught that people should develop their own relationship with God, independent of religious leaders. His name’s pronunciation changed over time until it evolved into the pronunciation we use today, Yeshua. People are revisiting Yeshua’s teachings with the realization that he was not a god who insisted that people worship him. Instead, he revealed messages that will make a difference for humanity if we hear and learn from them. In this series of videos, Dr. R. Craig Hogan presents his teachings, as written in the Gospel of Thomas, which have been borne out by what we are learning today from communication with people in the afterlife about the nature of this life and the next.
Support this effort to give people the truth about the reality of the afterlife by contributing $6 for a membership.
The Gospel of Thomas, found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt and likely written in the late first or early second century, is considered the most significant ancient text from the site. It presents a collection of 114 sayings spoken by Yeshua. It contains no miracles, no Christmas story, and most notably, not a word about his being a god who was crucified and resurrected.
Instead, Yeshua reveals the profound truth that within each of us is the divine “light” that is our true nature when all the Earth-realm facades are stripped away. As long as we do not realize this divine nature, we remain trapped in the material world that seduces us into ignorant beliefs about life and the afterlife. In this series of videos, I explain the meanings of the sayings with a 21st century understanding of the nature of reality, the life after this life, and our spiritual nature.
Explanations of sayings 41 through 50 from the Gospel of Thomas are in this video. Links to the videos with the other 104 teachings are in the descriptions below. This is saying 41.
(41) Yeshua said, “Whoever has something in his hand will receive more, and whoever has nothing will be deprived of even the little he has.”
This saying refers to a central teaching of Gnostics: that awakening to the truth, or gnosis, about this life and the next will lead to a life filled with love, peace, and joy. When we have this knowledge of who we are in eternity and how we can live together in a brotherhood of humankind, we will receive even more every day as we live in comfort and joy, even in the face of tragedies and the death of the body. On the other hand, those who do not have this knowledge are deluded by the falsehoods promoted by materialists who suggest we are accidents in time destined to disappear from existence at the death of the body. That delusional perspective, whether held by highly educated, respected scientists or by everyday people, is invalid. The person believing these primitive misconceptions about life has nothing of value in their belief system. The little comfort they might derive from their beliefs about their purpose in life will be taken away from them as they realize it will not save them from the death of the body.
(42) Yeshua said, “Become passers-by.”
Yeshua is saying that while this Earth period of our eternal lives is full of engaging experiences, we will be happiest and feel most fulfilled when we enjoy this life without letting it stop our progress by becoming distressed by its events. There will be tragedies and drawbacks as well as wonderful, exciting experiences. We should experience the events deeply, but not be fixated on them. A similar saying by an ancient seer is that this life is a bridge we cross, but we must not stop on it to make a home.
(43) His disciples said to him, “Who are you, that you should say these things to us?” Yeshua said to them, “You do not realize who I am from what I say to you, but you have become like the Jews, for they either love the tree and hate its fruit or love the fruit and hate the tree.”
Yeshua is full of wonder that the disciples still do not realize who he is. He says they should know based on what he has been saying to them. He then tells them that many of the Jews who hear him speak have come to believe Yeshua, the tree, is divinely inspired because of his wisdom, but they hate the fruit, his assertions about himself, Jewish religious practices, and the behavior of the priests. On the other hand, some people who hear Yeshua love much of what he is teaching about Jewish religious practices and the behavior of priests, but hate the stature he has attained, which seems to them to be too lofty for a humble Jewish rabbi.
(44) Yeshua said, “Whoever blasphemes against the father will be forgiven, and whoever blasphemes against the son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the holy spirit will not be forgiven either on earth or in heaven.”
The Jews at the time Yeshua was teaching believed the Holy Spirit was distinct from God, often manifesting as a wind, breath, noise, or light. The Holy Spirit was seen as a source of divine wisdom. Joel 2 contains a brief description of the Holy Spirit’s activities:
“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.”
This saying elevates the wisdom that the disciples and all of humanity will receive above reverence for God and belief in Yeshua’s wisdom. People today attend worship services of all varieties to worship God and Yeshua, but if they are not hearing the voice of wisdom within themselves, they are failing, regardless of their level of religiosity. For the Gnostics, this spark of our immortal essence is the inspiration that enables us to rise above the mundane physical realm and realize our true nature as eternal beings. This saying echoes what Yeshua has said as reported in Luke:
“The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”
We enter the kingdom of God or Heaven through our lives lived in love, peace, wisdom, and joy during our brief time on Earth. Our inspiration for our lives comes from the divine spark within.
(45) Yeshua said, “Grapes are not harvested from thorns, nor are figs gathered from thistles, for they do not produce fruit. A good man brings forth good from his storehouse; an evil man brings forth evil things from his evil storehouse, which is in his heart, and says evil things. For out of the abundance of the heart he brings forth evil things.”
Yeshua’s teaching has nothing to do with worship of him or God. It is entirely a call for us to transform ourselves so we live in love, peace, and joy together. Whether we experience the Heaven on Earth that is freely available to us depends on our attitudes and our actions that spring from the attitudes. Actions we call “good” and “evil” arise naturally from the hearts and minds of the actors, as surely as a plant bears good fruit, bitter fruit, or no fruit because of the plant’s nature. People who show love and compassion for others have loving, compassionate hearts. People who harbor malicious, hateful, self-absorbed thoughts display their nature in evil actions. The Greek word for a change of heart and mind toward being loving and compassionate is “metanoia.” In the synoptic gospels, the word “metanoia” occurs 22 times as a condition and 34 times as an action. It is a very important concept in Yeshua’s teaching. Yeshua assures us repeatedly that we can enter the kingdom of Heaven now so we live together in love, peace, and joy if we have a metanoia, a change of heart and mind.
(46) Yeshua said, “Among those born of women, from Adam until John the Baptist, there is no one so superior to John the Baptist that his eyes should not be lowered (before him). Yet I have said, whichever one of you comes to be a child will be acquainted with the kingdom and will become superior to John.”
Yeshua has a high regard for John the Baptist. John was possibly Yeshua’s second cousin through their mothers, Mary and Elizabeth. The early Christians believed John was the forerunner of Yeshua, as prophesied in Isaiah and Malachi. In this saying, Yeshua describes John as someone to be revered for his stature before God. He goes on to say that when the disciples awaken to the truth Yeshua is speaking, they will have a change of heart and mind that will result in their being filled with love and compassion for all others, so they become like innocent, naïve children who have abandoned the self-centeredness of the Earth realm that keeps people apart from one another. With this change of their hearts and minds, they will become superior even to John the Baptist, such is the life-changing impact of this change in their being.
(47) Yeshua said, “It is impossible for a man to mount two horses or to stretch two bows. And it is impossible for a servant to serve two masters; otherwise, he will honor the one and treat the other contemptuously. No man drinks old wine and immediately desires to drink new wine. And new wine is not put into old wineskins, lest they burst; nor is old wine put into a new wineskin, lest it spoil it. An old patch is not sewn onto a new garment, because a tear would result.”
In a wonderful example of Yeshua’s repetition of a concept using different examples, called a tautology, Yeshua tells the disciples they must thoroughly abandon the physical realm dispositions and become wholly transformed by their new nature that is loving and compassionate. Yeshua is reported in the Gospel of John to have added that they must become so thoroughly and completely loving and compassionate that they even love their enemies —a seemingly impossible sentiment. If they try to display the new nature without first experiencing a deep-seated change of heart and mind, it will be like trying to put new wine into an old wineskin or a patch on a new garment. The old wineskins will burst under the pressure and the new garment will tear when stretched through normal use, meaning their old, self-centered nature will break through the new, other-centered disposition that they have not thoroughly adopted. The disciples must become thoroughly new, loving, compassionate people, with no recidivism into self-centered thinking and actions.
(48) Yeshua said, “If two make peace with each other in this one house, they will say to the mountain, ‘Move Away,’ and it will move away.”
Yeshua uses an extreme example to emphasize his teaching that living in love, peace, and joy with others will change the nature of those involved. But more emphatically, it will change the world they live in. Studies conducted by various researchers have shown that when people focus healing thoughts on the contents of a space, the healing is successful, but more remarkably, the space itself takes on a healing nature. With each successive trial, the healing effects in the space become stronger. It becomes a place of healing. Yeshua is saying that when two live in peace in one house, they and that house become so potent in their healing nature that the people could move mountains by simply commanding the mountains to move. Such is the powerful effect of living in love, peace, and joy with each other. It changes the world so that the very space we live in becomes loving and healing.
(49) Yeshua said, “Blessed are the solitary and elect, for you will find the kingdom. For you are from it, and to it you will return.”
Yeshua’s reference to “solitary” doesn’t mean “alone.” It refers to the person as an individual. Blessed are the individuals whose natures are transformed into being loving, peaceful, and joyful, even though people in the world around them are self-centered and selfish. He adds that this sublime state of being is our true nature when all the self-absorbed tendencies inculcated by the physical realm are swept away. We were that loving being when we were infants, before we developed our self-centeredness in the crucible of the physical realm. We can return to that state of unconditional love now by having a metanoia —a change of heart and mind —that will radically transform our nature into that of a naturally loving infant not yet jaded by the physical realm. This saying could also refer to the Gnostic teaching that we all have a divine spark within us, a fragment of the realm we came from, which has none of the self-centered tendencies of the physical realm. They believed we would return to that state of being now and to that realm after leaving the Earth.
(50) Yeshua said, “If they say to you, ‘Where did you come from?’, say to them, ‘We came from the light, the place where the light came into being on its own accord and established itself and became manifest through their image.’ If they say to you, ‘Is it you?’, say, ‘We are its children, we are the elect of the living father.’ If they ask you, ‘What is the sign of your father in you?’, say to them, ‘It is movement and repose.'”
Sayings about where we come from and our destiny after leaving this realm are from the Gnostic teaching that people incarnated on Earth from the Pleroma, a concept akin to Heaven, the source of all true spiritual essence and truth. The Pleroma is the realm of spiritual light, described as a fullness that a person living on Earth can enter through the Gnosis, or knowledge, that we are spiritual beings temporarily in the physical realm. The disciples are children of this light that is their living father manifesting in their inherent spiritual nature. The sign of the father in the disciples is the movement of their spiritual development toward a state of repose or rest, as the individual with this Gnosis attains spiritual maturity that inspires them to live comfortably in love, peace, and joy with all others. The individual then re-enters the Pleroma at the death of the body.
These teachings by Yeshua bar Yosef have been lost in today’s Christian church, which bases its doctrines on narrow interpretations of the four canonical gospels. The Nag Hammadi Gnostic documents teach clearly that Christians may communicate directly with the divine without the intervening control of a church. Yeshua’s mission was to show humanity the way that would lead to enjoying lives filled with love, peace, and joy. We are just now realizing this wonderful message in the Gnostic writings that was lost for 2,000 years.
