A Little Correction To Neville Goddard, John 8:21-29 Alexander, Annotated

Neville was not wrong, but his Bible was. Not much, but I think Victor Alexander has better translated the ancient Aramaic than the translators did the Greek. The traditional interpretation of John 8:21-29 is WAYYYYY different from what Jesus said and from what I believe He meant. Jesus is the Light who shows us the oneness of God, that the whole kit-and-caboodle is one whole. To not accept this is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, which don't work...FOREVER! As long as a person holds to a separate from God view, he or she dies in their sin--the biggie--and cannot reconcile with God.

21. Jesus told them again, "I am going, and you will search for me, [but] you shall die in your sins. And where I go, you cannot go there."
22. The Jews said, "Why, is he going to kill himself, that he says where I go, you cannot come?"
23. He told them, "You are from below, and I am from above. You are from this world* (universe); I am not born of this world* (universe).

That is, Jesus is the Light who shows us that WE are the ONE. Neville catches that Jesus is not saying that He is God, the Great I AM. Neville quotes verse 24: "Unless ye (i.e., you personally, the one who hears Jesus) believe that I (YOU!, not Jesus) am He (God, whom we are one with), you die in your sins," (parentheses mine) for there is no forgiveness for our failure to see the unity.

In the Aramaic language Jesus would have spoken, it is even more extreme. Jesus does not allow a third-person reference to God, but forces a FIRST PERSON reference: that "I" am "I" -- Eil the Almighty. Not Him, YOU!!!!

24. "I told you that you will die in your sins. [Unless] you believe that I am I, you shall die in your sins." (By the way, I read mostly without the shalls and wills, as the ancient Hebrew had no future tense. -- See intro to Young's Literal Translation of the Bible.)

That "I" (me) am "I" (the "I AM"--FIRST PERSON)! Did they get it? Niet. 25. The Jews said, "Who [do you think] you are?!" Jesus told them, "Even though from the beginning I have been telling you [this]. I have to allow that Jesus could be saying that He had been telling them of the oneness from the beginning of His time at the end of the Season of Grace, but I see Him saying it from His being the Beginning in Genesis 1:1, "AS the Beginning, the Son of God creates the heavens and the earth" (Alexander). Since before the beginning of time, the idea of separation between God and Creation has been blaspheme. And then we did it. Stop it.

26. "I [still] have a great [deal] to tell you [in] condemning you; except who sent me is True, and these [things] I have heard from Him, these are the things I speak among the people* (universe)."
27. And they did not know that he was telling them about the Father.

That we are HIM, as "I."

28. Jesus told them again, "When you honor* (raise up) the Son of Man, then you shall observe that I am I, and nothing of my own self I do, except that which was taught me [by] my Father, only of that I speak.

When we "raise up" the Son of Man, it is not on a pole of crucifixion. Nor is it recognition or honor of Jesus as the Son of God. I believe John is making reference to what he says Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3: 14,

13. "No human [being] goes up to heaven, except the one who comes down from heaven, the Son of Man who was in heaven.*
14. "And just as Moses lifted the darkness by the light of life, this is how you should glorify* (lift up) the Son of Man.
15. "So that every human [being] who believes in him does not [go to] oblivion, except that they may have life everlasting* (to [the end of] the universe).

We are to lift OURSELVES up from the darkness by listening to and believing the Light of Life, Jesus Christ, who gives us Sons of Man the power to become Sons of God. That is the program here, isn't it?

29. "And who sent me is [always] with me, and my Father, since I always* (in every season) do the thing that glorifies* (adorns) him."

Here is the circle back again, the oneness of it all: the Father sends me and is in Me; I do His actions ("Christ"), and as I do them, I am the Father. In this He is pleased. He does NOT share His glory with another...if we are HIM.