The Becoming God

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Bible Correction: The Lord's Prayer-- God's "Standing Orders"



The traditional Lord's Prayer we commonly recite is notwhat Jesus Christ said. Not even close. In fact, what we think Matthew wrote is almost the exact opposite of what he actually did.  

Bummer. We read it like this passage from the King James:  

"Our Father Which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." 

What Jesus taught was: 

"Our Father in the Heavens;
Your name must be being hallowed;
Your kingdom must be being restored;
Your will must be being done, both in Heaven and upon the Earth.
Give us to-day our to-morrow's bread;
and forgive us our faults, as we forgive those offending us,
for you would not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from its evil." 

This is the opposite of the traditional prayer in a number of ways. We could have read it correctly, but we choose not to bother parsing the Greek. Our loss for our lack of industriousness. 

God allows us to be fools. He doesn't whack the unjust. He is ready to deliver us the moment we are willing to hear his voice. He wants us to learn, says, "Pick up and read." Then he goes with us. (THIS is Adam and Eve at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It wasn't that Adam shouldn't eat the fruit, he just wouldn't eat. It was God, the Shining One, who drew him and thereafter went with him. The Shining One was always there, but now openly as conscience. We call him Jesus Christ.) 

I have to assume that those who translated Matthew from Aramaic into Greek knew exactly what he meant and what his intention was. The first part of Jesus' teaching in the Lord's Prayer is an affirmation, a positive statement of belief--a mind of faith. The translators used the aorist imperative passive tense, underlined below: 

Our Father in the heavens (the Source, which in the brain is the imagination),
your name (nature) must be being hallowed,
your kingdom (rule/power) must be being restored,
your will (desire) must be being done. 

"Must be being--I know this is true!" The aorist imperative passive of this affirmation did not exist in Latin. If they understood the concept that existed in the Greek, they chose not to translate it. I doubt very much they understood the importance of it. 

As far as I can tell, Ferrar Fenton was the first modern scholar to realize that the ancient and true meaning of the Lord's Prayer had been lost in translation. (All this, by the way, is from Neville Goddard's lecture "A Standing Order," which draws from Fenton's emphatic translation of the Greek Bible, The Complete Bible in Modern English.) 

An aorist is an action completed in one, continuous motion. Fenton noted: "The force of the imperative first Aorist seems to me to be that of what is called a standing order, a thing to be done absolutely, and continuously" (emphasis mine). And in this case, passively to boot! 

Standing order? What standing order? Where did that come from? Who issued it? What action was completed in one, continuous motion, and yet is "to be done absolutely and continuously?" When was this standing order given? By Jesus two thousand years ago? 

No. I think it goes back to "Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon earth" (Genesis 1: 26). God gave that order in one fell swoop. Once. He never rescinded it. We just never listened. 
Jesus said to believe it. Believe it. If you believe that "Your Father knows your necessities before you ask Him (Genesis 1: 1-25, and "All things have been given unto me"), consequently, you must pray in this way (beginning with this affirmation) . . ."  

". . . Our Father in the Heavens (Source behind our minds); 
Your name (nature!) must be being hallowed
Your kingdom (Lordship!) must be being restored
Your will (desire!) must be being done
Both in Heaven and upon the Earth!
Give us to-day our to-morrow's bread; . . ."
 

Okay, I have to stop for the Greek word translated "to-morrow's" bread. It means "coming, descending," that is, manna, God's Word or Manifestation. I think we are supposed to ask for inspiration, a mission--tomorrow's job assignment to plan by imagining it "today." My impression is that this is a constant openness, a volunteering: "Here am I, Lord, send me." (My model for this is Frank C. Laubach, who put himself at God's disposal in a Philippine backwater and wound up heading the world-wide literacy movement. Read "Letters by a Modern Mystic," available online as PDF [be sure to use a good anti-virus]. Fuller versions of some these letters are available in the first chapter of any of his autobiographies.)

". . . and forgive us our faults, as we forgive those offending us,
for you would not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from its evil."
 

"Those offending us" is not anybody outside of ourselves. Our own faults offend us. Worse, our own faults proceed into the future to confront us--to "tempt" us--again. 

God will deliver us from the evil of our faults if they are "forgiven." To forgive means to correct, to make right. If what bad things we have thought or done each day proceed into the future to confront us afresh, we need to correct them. How can we correct our immature thoughts and actions? We can re-create them by revising our imagination, by rethinking them as right and mature UNTIL THEY ARE.  

As we lie on our beds before falling asleep, we can recount the day and, if something we thought or did was not good, we imagine what it would have been like if that thing had been lovely and mature. We replay the scene and feel exactly what it would have felt like if it were right over and over until THAT is what proceeds into our future. Then God has delivered us from the evil of those offending us. 

No, no Devil bothering us. How could the epitome of doubt bother us if we know and believe God's standing orders? 

In all this we are "passive." The outside is compelled to conform to God who is within us by the rest of YHWH, God who is without us. God in us, YHWH--our true inner nature of being--must be being hallowed, his kingdom must be being restored, and his will must be being done, because God became us so that we might become him. 

"Uh, Dan, if what you say is true, then we already are." 

Exactly. That, my friend, is the Lost Goddess of Christianity*--the Oneness of God. There just isn't anything else. 

*See books by Freke and Gandy.

2 Comments:

  • Nicely done; sharing is caring, in this way. If you haven't already; you may wish to read "Neville Goddard" and if you like poetry, "William Blake".

    By Blogger Dan R. Dwinell, at 12:45 PM  

  • I and The Father are ONE
    I AM Forgiveness
    I and The Father are ONE
    I AM Forgiveness
    I and The Father are ONE
    I AM Forgiveness
    " " "
    " " "
    " " "

    By Blogger kramarpie, at 7:57 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home