John the Crown of Scripture

Truth which man knows from experience, he knows more clearly than he knows anything else in this world. For then he can know that same truth in any other way. If what I tell you is true and you believe it, a benediction is pronounced upon you, as we’re told in the very end of the book of John.

But the day will come, if it is true, that you yourself will know it from experience, and then you really know it. Then you can be called as a witness. So, we are told the truth, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Is that true? And what is this mystery called, Jesus Christ?

Well, tonight, let me share with you what I know from experience. The gospel of John, is in many ways, the crown of the Scriptures. It is the simplest and yet the most profound book in the New Testament. It starts off with these stories and the stories never come to an end. They pass off into conversations and the conversations fade from into a dialogue to a monologue. We find subtle use of words with double meaning. And in each case, those who hear it take the obvious meaning in its context, which is not the meaning intended. There is another meaning, a meaning that is related to the history of redemption. We find this especially in the conversation between Nicodemus and the Lord. Nicodemus came by night. He was a ruler of the Jews, a member of the Sanhedrin, a Pharisee, a brilliant mind, the interpreter of the law. But he recognized in this teaching that which, well, all were expecting; they couldn’t quite understand how it could come embodied in a man for the man was simply a man, like all other men, how could it possibly be embodied in a man?

So, he came by night, and as a teacher, “I know that you are sent from God. For no one could do these signs,” and in John, they’re not called miracles, they’re all called signs, there are seven signs. And these signs are not done out of compassion, but simply to reveal the divine power. So, “I’ve seen these signs and only one sent by God could manifest such signs”—and then starts the conversation and it breaks completely from this. And he turns to Nicodemus and he says, “Unless you be born anew”—or the word could be again; another meaning is from above—the word is anothen.* Nicodemus takes it in its first and obvious form: “Unless you are born again, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” He replied, “Can a man that is old once again enter his mother’s womb and be born?” And the Lord said to him, “You, a teacher of Israel, and you do not know? Unless you are born”—and he uses the word anothen, which again, Nicodemus takes to be again—“you cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” But as you read it, you can see that the word from above is intended. Not again, as the world teaches reincarnation, it hasn’t a thing to do with that. There are two modes, one is from below and one is from above. We are all born in this world from below. From the mother’s womb in these garments of flesh and blood. But there is another birth and it comes from above. And that birth is out of the skull of the individual, which no one heard of such a birth before. And when that one comes out, it’s the same being who is now clothed in this garment of flesh and blood, but it’s an entirely different being that’s coming out. It is God himself that is being born.

It was God who entered death’s door, the human skull. It is God who laid down in that grave to share with the individual these visions called the dream of life. It is that God, in the end, who will actually bring together the one who is called John, called Stan, called by any name. And so even within himself, he will actually be that being and that being will be God. That is the being that is being born from above. Nicodemus could not understand it. There is another word with a subtle double meaning. And the word is translated wind or it could be spirit. He said, “As the wind blows where it will, and you hear the sound of it, but you cannot tell whence it comes or whither it goes, and so it is with everyone who is born of the spirit.” Nicodemus cannot understand that. And yet it is from actual experience a wind and it is the spirit. When it happens to you, you hear the wind. It is an unearthly wind, fantastic wind, you’ll think it is a storm, a frightful hurricane, if you’ve ever gone through one. I’ve gone through many at sea and maybe one or two on the earth, on the land, but I’ve gone through quite a few hurricanes at sea and they are disturbing, but you can’t compare it to this sort of wind. It’s a wind that takes place within you and yet at the same time, it is taking place seemingly coming from without. You hear it and your whole head is vibrating. And yet, you feel that the source of it is in the corner. The wind awakens you. That’s when you’ll be born. When this peculiar wind takes place. He sends his spirit and the spirit awakens you and the spirit is the wind. And when you awake, you awake within your own skull and you know it is a grave, it is a sepulcher. That’s where someone, at some moment in time, placed you. And they place only the dead there. Therefore, you must have been dead or they thought you dead. And so here, death is turned into sleep, and the dreamer of this sleep is God, who entered death’s door with you.

Now, he tells you that this is a gift. What gift? The gift of God is Christ. The gift of Christ is the return of memory, for Christ gives the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will come upon you and when he comes upon you, he will bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. So, the gift of God is his Son, Christ is the Son of God. The gift of the Son is to bring to your remembrance. What remembrance? That you are God, that you are the Father. That’s the gift of the Son. It takes the Son to bring to your remembrance who you really are. It takes the gift of the Father to give you his Son. For if he doesn’t give you his Son, you’ll never know that you are God the Father.

So, the conversation goes on and these are subtle double meanings between the uses of words, the obvious meanings, because we always take that first, and that’s not what it intended. Now he tells us, the Son of man—and here every scholar misinterprets it—he said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up.” And they said that he’s foreshadowing the nature of his death on the cross. There’s no statement in the five books of Moses that there was a cross on which the serpent was nailed. He was lifted up, a fiery serpent lifted up on a rod, a single rod. The obvious meaning is, all right, that’s how he’s going to die, on a cross. I tell you from experience that’s not what it means. It’s actually being lifted up, a fiery serpent and you are that fiery serpent, lifted up on the cross of your own spine. And lifted up where? Listen to the words. “As Moses, lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up.” On a cross? No. On the rod. Well, lifted up where? Lifted up into Heaven. For no one will ascend into Heaven but he who first descends from Heaven, the Son of man. So, the Son of man descended from Heaven, and only the Son of man can ascend into Heaven. But who is the Son of man? The question is asked, who is the Son of man? They mentioned all kinds of names, John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, some other prophet, but who do you say that I am? He equates the Son of man with I am.

And when you are lifted up, who is lifted up? I am. And you go up like some fiery serpent into your own wonderful skull and it vibrates like thunder. So, all these truths are so subtly stated that man completely misunderstands it and takes the outer or first meaning and it isn’t the first meaning at all. That’s the book of John written by the most profound teacher that we have in Scripture. If you mention another one, yes, you could mention Paul and the unnamed one who wrote the epistle to the Hebrews. These are the three giants in the New Testament. They’re the ones who experienced it and then told it in their own wonderful way. But John so poetically told. Every verse is like poetry when you read it. And having had the experience, you stand amazed that someone could tell it so beautifully as the unknown author called John wrote it. That grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Grace is love in action. And John said, “God is love.” So, it’s God in action. And grace is an unmerited, unearned gift. If you had earned it, it would be your wages, it could not then be a gift, it’s a gift, an unearned gift. And what is the gift? He gave his only Son. He gave me his only Son to bring to my remembrance the being who I am, for I am God, your God, everyone is God, but not until the gift comes.

Now, in Scripture you read, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” This is all in John. The word to see and to know are the same word in Greek. So, he who has seen me knows the Father. If you do not see me, you do not know the Father. But if you encounter me, you cannot help but know the Father. “So, you have been with me so long, Philip, and you do not know the Father?” He who has seen me has seen the Father. If you see me, you instantly know the Father, for you’re going to see your own Son. And he is the Son of God the Father. And the minute you see him, you know, he’s your Son. And that was God’s gift to you. He gave himself to you. That is the purpose of Scripture to reveal to man God’s infinite gift, which is himself. But he can’t persuade you that he actually has become you unless his Son appears whose Son is your Son. So, he gave his only begotten Son that you may know his gift to you. For he gave you his Son but in giving you his son, not as a companion, but as your Son, then you are God the Father. There is no other way in eternity that you’ll ever know that you are God unless his Son appears. And that Son, is David. Yes, the sweet Psalmist.

The great David of Scripture that is the Son of God. He is the Christ. And so, God gives you his Son that you may know you are God. So, the gift is only to reveal to you who you really are. That’s why I say it’s the crown of the Scriptures. It is the most profound book in the Scriptures, and yet so simply told. But the subtle use of a word, with double meaning, and it’s always misunderstood. The wisest of men, the Sanhedrin, they were considered the wisest men of Israel. They were the rulers of Israel. There were the great Pharisees, they knew the law backwards. They were the brilliant minds. “He sensed in this one, what he was not expecting.” What no one of the members of the Sanhedrin could grasp. “He came to the defense of Christ,” as you read it in the 7th chapter of John. He said, “Does our law judge a man before he is heard?” And then they say to him, his own members of the Sanhedrin, “Are you too a Galilean? Is there any prophecy in Scripture that he comes out of Galilee or a prophet comes out of Galilee?” Yes, there is, but they didn’t know it. Jonah came out of Galilee. And you’re told as Jonah spoke and then they believed him and Jonah’s prophecy came true; by the word Jonah in Scripture, again, a double meaning, it’s called by a name of a man, yet the word Jonah means dove. So here again a subtle use of the word, all through the book of John.

So, I tell you from my own personal experience this is what is going to happen to you. It’s going to come suddenly, without warning. You’ll go to bed, maybe this night, as you did last night, and suddenly without any warning, you would feel a vibration that you will interpret as the end of your earthly days because you’ll feel, how can I really endure this? How can I possibly remain in this world? This means death, it’s like, I have never had any stroke that I know of, but having seen people who are crippled because of a stroke, and there was a cerebral hemorrhage, you think, well this must be a hemorrhage, and how can I survive this vibration? But instead of dying, as you think you are going to die, you don’t die. You awake and you awake as you have never awakened before. There’s a clarity of mind that you’ve never known before, only to find yourself in a grave, in a sepulcher, and the sepulcher is your own skull and you are all alone. Not only all alone, you’re sealed. The skull is completely sealed. No, there aren’t any two eyes, so you can look through; no ears, no nostrils, no mouth. It’s a completely sealed tomb, yet you know it is your skull, and you have an innate wisdom what to do, and so you act upon that impulse and push the base of your skull. After you awake, you stand up in your skull, the same being fully grown, you matured, and you know who you are and you push the base of the skull and something gives, as has been told you in John, “And the stone was rolled away and he was on the inside now comes out.” Now in John, not in the synoptic gospel, in John alone, the birth again is told in a symbolic form. Matthew and Luke tell of a birth of a child. John doesn’t mention the birth, but he tells it for those who have eyes to see or who have experienced it.

So, when they came into the tomb and found it empty, they found the linen clothes, then they found the napkin removed from the linen clothes. The napkin that had covered his head. And here it was removed from the linen clothes. The linen symbolizes the body. This is the linen clothes. Removed from the body, but it was covering his head, is a napkin. Well, the ancient word napkin, which we translate napkin, meant more than simply what you and I use today, where you speak of a napkin, a dinner napkin, a cocktail napkin, or a cemetery napkin. That seems the limit of a napkin in this twentieth century or when our Bible was translated. But in the ancient days, it meant more than that. The napkin was simply that which is the afterbirth. An afterbirth, if you see the afterbirth, then something was born. So, he tells you something was born by removing the napkin from the linen clothes. As in birth, you always remove the afterbirth. And that was what they found.

That’s all symbolism proving that something was born—and what was born? God was born. For unless you are born from above, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God. Only God can enter. And so here is the symbol of birth, as told in John, and not told in any gospel and not told in any of the letters of Paul or any other part of the New Testament. So, I say, it is the most profound and yet so simple, as you read it. But always double meanings throughout the entire 21 chapters. So, when you come out, the tomb is empty. You look at the body, yes, out of which you emerged and you see exactly what it was. It was your body, you came out of that ghastly veil, turning its head from side to side, just as though someone was suffering. Someone in recovery; then comes the wind. As you’re told in the book of Acts, that Pentecostal choir that came when they all heard the wind like a mighty storm wind. And that’s when the spirit descended upon them and the word spirit and the word wind are the same in Scripture.

Here comes now the spirit, but you interpret it as wind. And then comes the evidence of a birth, which is only a sign, for the child is not a little child that you formed within you and gave birth to—the child is a sign of your birth. You are the only one spoken of in Scripture. And you are born and here comes the infant that symbolizes your birth. Then comes the next gift, and that’s when now he gives that graceful gift of his Son. “And God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son.” That’s what will happen to you 139 days after this first experience. Well, the first thing that happens is you’re awake. Awakening in Scripture is the same as rising, the same as resurrection, the same word. To awake is to rise, to resurrect.

You awake within your own skull and you stand up, you are resurrected. Therefore, you must have been dead or you are in a tomb. Then comes the evidence of a birth, following that. So, there are two sides of the same coin. Resurrection begins the drama and the same night is the birth of you out of your own skull. Then 139 days later comes your wonderful discovery of who you are. So, John puts it in the most marvelous way, in the 18th verse of the very first chapter. The first 18 verses are the prologue, then comes the narrative, and then comes the epilogue. But here in the 18th, the very last verse of the prologue, for it is stating the entire picture. No one has ever seen God but the only begotten son who is dearest to his heart, he has made him known. That’s the gift of his Son when David appears. He makes the Father known and the minute you look at him, you know exactly who you are. Till that moment you didn’t know who you are. Hadn’t the slightest idea that you are God the Father, until his Son appeared and you know he is your Son and he knows you are his Father. Now all in that concentrated third chapter, 126 days later, there comes or 123 days later, you can check me on it; here you are split in two from top to bottom. And then like a fiery serpent you go up like one twist and that twist is simply a spiral and you enter your head and it vibrates like thunder. So as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up. Do you think he’s lifted up on a cross? No. The whole drama is taking place in you. It has nothing to do with anything on the outside. And you are lifted up—that fiery being that you are.

And I’ll tell you, your face is human, your hands are human, your voice is human, but ask no more. You are a fiery being. A being that you cannot use any images here outside of the human face, the human voice, and the human hand, but you are transcendently beautiful beyond your wildest dreams, and a power that no one on earth who has not experienced it, can be deemed to imagine it, they can’t imagine it. It is something entirely different, the power that you will exercise. You’ll exercise it only because of the gift of love. Not until love touches you, because with this power, without the guidance of love, you could wreck the world. You will not wreck the world. You will exercise it only in love.

It’s a fantastic power that you will possess. It’s all there now, all completely wrapped within you awaiting the appointed hour when you will awaken you. And then comes the seal of approval, as recorded again, and the dove descends upon you. The dove is the seal of approval. The holding is perfect. You are as perfect now as your Father is perfect because you become your Father. A man matures when he becomes his own Father. And so, you actually become God the Father and the seal of approval is the descent of the dove upon you and to smother you with love. And then the drama, as far as that section goes, that section is over. So, when you read the book of John, you find all these double meanings. Unless you eat my body, my flesh, and drink my blood, you have no life in you. He tells you, you search the Scriptures because you think in them, you have life. And yet they’re all about me. They bear witness to me, yet you will not come to me that you will have life. Now in the fourth verse of the first chapter, it is simply stated, “In him was life.” What is his mission in the world? To give life. You do not have life until it is given; you’re an animated soul but not a life-giving spirit, not as yet. So, “In him was life.” And the purpose of his mission is to give life, so, he said, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you.”

You absorb, you assimilate his body which is Scripture, for you search the Scriptures as something external to yourself. And I tell you, absorb them because you’re going to experience Scripture. Everything in that entire book you are going to fulfill. And the whole thing is going to unfold within you, casting you in the central star character. And when the whole thing unfolds within you, you’ve assimilated it. And this is the truth of which I speak. The truth that a man knows from experience, he knows more thoroughly than he knows any other thing in this world, or than can know that same truth in any other way. I can tell you in the hope that you believe it but the day you experience it, you’ll have confirmation of it, and you are a witness in your own right. Although a benediction is pronounced upon you if you can hear it without experiencing it and still believe it, but the majority will not believe it. Only one of the Sanhedrin believes it: Nicodemus, which means, victor of the people. He was victorious, he believed it without having experienced it. The others condemned, because they were looking for it in the letter and here comes one who brought life. He made the letter become alive. The entire Scripture became a living thing within him because he experienced Scripture. And then he talked about it. I am told that no one put him on any cross. You are wearing the cross right now, the body that you wear is the cross, the only cross that the Lord was nailed upon. And may I tell you, the nailing is not, I would say, painful. In fact, it’s ecstatic. These hands, my feet, my head and my right side are nailed with vortices. Each has a vortex, a six-pointed star. And when I experienced it, I’m telling you it was a sheer ecstasy. And then you feel yourself cramped once more in this little garment into which you’ve been placed. You gave up the beauty and the glory of your being to take this cross upon yourself. After having fulfilled Scripture, you will take off this garment and take it off for the last time.

But you will ascend before you take it off. You’ll be born before you take it off. You’ll discover the power of your own being before you take it off. You’ll have the dove descend upon you before you take it off. But when you close your eyes, whether it be this or the next night, you will do it in joy because you’re exactly where you are headed. You’re headed into heaven and bear in mind, heaven is within you.

So, when I go, I am not going into some square, I am going within. And if you seek me, seek me within. That’s where you’re going to find me. Heaven is not a realm. Heaven is a character. It’s a body, a body that has been made perfect as the Father is perfect. And wherever you are clothed in that body, everything is perfect. So, seek him, seek him within. Don’t seek him without, you will not find him without. So, this is the truth that I would share with you. I’ve experienced Scripture. I’ve experienced it from beginning to end. And I know the entire Old Testament is the prophetic blueprint. It’s all there. It took one who knew his Old Testament backwards to experience it, for he was of the Jewish faith, in whom it happened. And the whole story unfolded within him and they knew his background and it wasn’t what they were looking for, any more than they are for you as something that could actually, you don’t save anyone. He’s not a savior. You are the Savior. There’s no intermediary between yourself and God. The whole drama is unfolding within you. There’s only God and his Son. That’s the whole story. You need no priest, no rabbi, no teacher between yourself and self. The depth of your own being is God, the Father, and before the world was, he had a son, which is the resulting state of the experiences of being a man. That was all done. Then you and I were chosen in him before that the world was, we were the brothers, we are the Elohim. We are the Gods that together are called the God, the Lord. And we were chosen in him before that the world was. And then one man containing his choice, fell deliberately, for the experience of man, which is death. To become man, and man is death, and then to actually redeem man, individualized completely, and then raise man as God.

So, God became as we are that we may be as he is. And before he became as I am, he was the Father. And in becoming what I am, he is subjected to all that I must experience. But he experiences it with me in the end, because he was before the beginning, a Father, when he actually gives himself to me, in his fullness, I am that Father, not a father, that Father. There’s only one Son and that Son is David. And so, I look upon David and here is this glorious radiant being, the eternal youth, the image of his Father.

And so, I know from experience that God is love. Therefore, his gift of grace, is love in action, which is God in action. I stood in the presence of infinite love and it is man. And when I was embraced and infused with him, I felt myself to be that body, to be that spirit without loss of identity. When I met David and memory returned as the fatherhood, he was the image of the being that embraced me. And I felt myself that being that embraced me. So, there’s only one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, through all, and in all. So, in the end, not one will be lost, not one will be discarded, all will be redeemed. So that’s what the story of John is about. You hear it, no matter how wise you are, as Nicodemus was, he was very wise, and he heard it and took the obvious meaning, which was not the meaning intended. Born again, an old man, and I enter once more into my mother’s womb and be born with the whole vast world of, most of them, believe in reincarnation, as he implied by his question to enter again, a mother’s womb and be born. And he said, you, a master, a teacher of Israel, and you do not know that unless you are born from above, that’s what he intended to say, he used the word anothen, which means if you read the context properly, it means from above, you cannot then enter the Kingdom of God. He took it as born again. Born, as the world teaches reincarnation. It hasn’t a thing to do with reincarnation, you’re simply born from above.

Well, if I die tonight, they will say to me, and I haven’t had these experiences, well, am I not going to be again? No, you are restored to life. Instantly restored in a body just like the one you’re wearing, only it’s young, nothing missing, and it’s perfect. About twenty, not as a baby, just about twenty years of age, male, or female. And there you marry too, just as you marry here; there you grow old too, and there you die. And you’re just as afraid of dying there as you’re afraid of dying here, and you are instantly restored. But there is a vast difference between restoration to life and resurrection. Resurrection is the beginning of the new age, an entirely different world, when you awake within the skull.So, restoration is simply the continuance of the dream. This is a dream. You’re dreaming what you are. You dream yourself into your present situation and you dream yourself out of it. So, you begin with a dream. What? A daydream. What’s the daydream? A wish, “Oh I wish it were true.” Isn’t that a daydream? What would it be like if I were now the man that I would like to be? That’s a daydream, but then dare to assume that you are it—that’s the beginning of the dream of getting out the present dream into that dream, but it’s still a dream. And the day will come, you’ll have this experience that I’m speaking about, where you awaken from the dream. It is the most peculiar thing. When it happened to me, here I am, in a strange room, in a hotel in San Francisco. Room 725. Here I am a normal person sleeping, living a normal life, went to bed in the same normal manner that I’ve done year after year, night after night, to find myself waking. Well, I thought I’m going to awake, if I do awake, as I’ve always done. And I didn’t. It was an entirely different waking. To awake within a sepulcher and to know that I’m sealed within my own skull. But what an alertness, you’ve never known such awakeness. So, to awaken is to resurrect. That is what resurrection means. Not some little cemetery. You are now buried in the only tomb that you will ever be buried in.

Put you in so-called holy ground? No, forget all that nonsense. Cremating the body is only simply quickening the pace that’s going to take place if you put yourself into the ground, for there you slowly decay, while the furnace will make it a quick process, but it’s the same dust. Only you awake in this world, just like this. And you are restored to life confronted with all the problems that you have there, and you fall in love and fall out of love, and you marry and you go through all the battles that you do here. There is no change whatsoever. There is no transforming power in what the world calls death. And you continue the dream as you have here, and then you awake in your own skull. And that is the resurrection. That’s when you begin to enter the new age called the Kingdom of God. It takes an entirely new body, and that body is the body that you gave up, as told you in Philippians. He gave it up completely when he took upon himself the form of a slave and became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross. And finding himself in human form, he surrendered completely to the form in which he found himself. But he gave up all that was his. And what was his? He was God, you were God. And you still are God, but now you are fulfilling what you pledged yourself to do, to complete the dream and not to awaken before the end.

So, no one’s going to awaken you before the end, because you are in control and no power in the world can awaken you before the end, because then your purpose would be void. And you are going to fulfill your purpose, go right through to the very end, and then return to the being from whom you came. And who is that being? Yourself. You are the sender and the sent. So, he who sees me, sees him who sent me. In the office of the sent, I am restricted; in the office of the sender, I am the Father. Unlimited power, unlimited wisdom. So, he who sees me, said he, sees the Father and because the same meaning of seeing and knowing is the same word, if you see me, really see me, then you know the Father, that’s what he’s telling you. The day you really see the Son, you know who you are and you’ll see that you are God the Father,

This is the story of Scripture. The whole thing is completely given to us in the Old Testament. It’s adumbrated. It’s a foreshadowing in a not altogether conclusive or immediately evident way. But it’s there. It’s a blueprint, a prophetic blueprint. And when it comes into fulfillment in a living way, that’s not what man expected. So, they rejected it. “He came unto his own and his own rejected him, they received him not.” And the world has taken the story and made a peculiar story out of it. They said one little being called Jesus, 2,000 years ago. That’s not it. Jesus Christ is the Father of the Son. And Jesus Christ is in you. The Father of the Son is in you or you couldn’t even breathe for that breath is spirit. So, the Father is in man and by entering man, man became a living soul, but not yet a lifegiving spirit. When he awakens, he is now a lifegiving spirit. So, in him was life. And the purpose of the mission of the Son is that they have life and have it abundantly. So, the being in man will one day awaken as the man in whom now he is buried and he is that being.