Christ Illuminates The Bible: Volume I

By C. Know Be-Create

Christ Illuminates the Bible: Volume I contains 83 Bible references found in A Course in Miracles
Citations from the King James Bible and A Course in Miracles are further clarified with paraphrases
All citations are accompanied by Gustave Dore illustrations found in La Gran Bible du Tours
Illuminate your mind with Christ's chosen references of the most popular book of the common era
Understand and integrate the deepest teachings Christ offers the world

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. Know Be-Create
• Release date: Dec 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781684542116

C. Know Be-Create

The details of our lives are quite inconsequential. All that need be known is that a tranquil mind has been achieved.

Book preview

THE FALL

The Fall is a technical term in Christian theology that refers to the sin of Adam and Eve that marks the transition in humanity between the idyllic age portrayed in Genesis 1-3 of communion, fellowship, and relationship between humanity and God, and the subsequent age, which encompasses all of recorded human history, where humanity is separated from God.

Until the separation, which is a better term than the fall, nothing was lacking. This meant that man had no needs at all. If he had not deprived himself, he would never have experienced them. After the separation, needs became the most powerful source of motivation for human action. All behavior is essentially motivated by needs, but behavior itself is not a divine attribute. The body is the mechanism for behavior. The belief that he could be better off is the reason why man has this mechanism at his disposal. T-1.I.90.1:7

The Love of God is eternally present in all of Creation. This is the paradox: our one and only need, the need for God’s Love, is already met.

The ego came into existence during a misperception concerning the original purpose of form. Instead of seeing Itself mirrored externally, the Self fell into a state of amnesia in which the outer world appeared fragmented. Though the Love of God was forever conjoined with all, the self did not recognize it. A sentiment of emptiness arose within the self and its insatiable needs reflect its longing for the love that is, in fact, ever-present.

Since then, man has attempted to appease this sensation by using the body to accumulate physical objects and engage in meaningless endeavors and loveless deeds. Seek and do not find T-11.V.36.4 is the unconscious directive of everyone who believes they are incomplete or separate.

Miracles are the means by which God’s Children return to right-mindedness and experience completion, within which the body will be free to manifest its True Expression.

IN HIS OWN IMAGE AND LIKENESS

"And God said, Let us make man in our image,

after our likeness."

Genesis 1:26

God created man in His own image and likeness is correct in meaning, but the words are open to considerable misinterpretation. This is avoided, however, if image is understood to mean thought and likeness is taken as of a like quality. God did create the Soul in His own Thought and of a quality like to His own. There is nothing else. Perception, on the other hand, is impossible without a belief in more and less. Perception at every level involves selectivity and is incapable of organization without it. In all types of perception, there is a continual process of accepting and rejecting or organizing and reorganizing, of shifting and changing focus. Evaluation is an essential part of perception, because judgments must be made for selection. T-3.VII.57.1:8

The ability to direct our thinking is proof of our mind’s power. Images (thoughts) differ in likeness (quality) depending on whether the ego or Spirit is the thinker. For this reason, Christ reinterprets images as thoughts because this emphasizes the importance of their source, which can be egoic or Divine.

When God’s Thoughts extend, the Divine Attributes of thought also extend, even unto form. Because our egoic thoughts judge constantly, and because they hold a strong belief in lack, they block Divine Thought. So, the forms they project will—in one way or another—manifest scarcity. By relinquishing judgment, we can remove this obstacle, and thereby welcome God’s Thoughts (which are inherently changeless, limitless, and pure) back into our awareness.

LET THERE BE LIGHT

"And God said, Let there be light:

and there was light."

Genesis 1:3

Because his ego is involved, it always attempts to gain some support from the situation. Seeking to get something for himself, the unhealed healer does not know how to give and consequently cannot share. He cannot correct because he is not working correctively. He believes that it is up to him to teach the patient what is real, but he does not know it himself. What, then, should happen? When God said, Let there be light, there was light. Can you find light by analyzing darkness as the psychotherapist does or like the theologian, by acknowledging darkness in yourself and looking for a distant light to remove it while emphasizing the distance? T-9.IV.25.1:7

Although healing takes place of its own accord, miracle-mindedness first provides the space for healing to occur.

Analyzing a problem succeeds only in distorting perception, which results in confusion. This mental activity perpetuates the very darkness that brought about the problem to begin with.

When you shift your focus from the outer world and turn within, you allow the conditions which eliminate illusions to unfold. Light, which is God’s means for salvation, enters. By allowing and not interfering with the healing process, your problem is eradicated, immediately and effortlessly.

AND PRONOUNCED IT GOOD

"And God saw every thing that he had made,

and, behold, it was very good."

Genesis 1:31

God is said to have looked on all He created and pronounced it good. No, He declared it perfect, and so it was. And since His creations do not change and last forever, so it is now. Yet neither a perfect therapist nor a perfect patient can possibly exist. Both must have denied their perfection, for their very need for each other implies a sense of lack. A one-to-one relationship is not one Relationship. Yet it is the means of return; the way God chose for the return of His Son. In that strange dream a strange correction must enter, for only that is the call to awake. And what else should therapy be? Awake and be glad, for all your sins have been forgiven you. This is the only message that any two should ever give each other. P-3.III.5.1:12

In Reality, all of Creation is perfect. This truth includes those with divided minds who temporarily believe themselves to be autonomous. God pronounced Her Creations perfect and this is Her final, unalterable judgment. Because in truth only perfection exists, restoring perfection is not necessary, per se. If imperfection is only illusion, why does the impossible seem to be happening? In short, it is because we have free will. The Children of God are able to miscreate if they so choose but the effects of their miscreations are nullified—they do not resonate in Eternity.

If we believe ourselves to be physical beings, there is a greater truth we need to embrace: we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Even the concepts of space and time are meaningless in Heaven because distance and duration directly oppose the boundless nature of oneness. This physical plane is a training ground in which those with divided minds make mistakes and come to the conclusion, of their own accord, that obedience to God’s Laws is in their own best interest. The curriculum of the Great Plan is simple and will expand our limited awareness. Until Unity dawns upon our minds, we are called to forgive all of our relations as well as to fully appreciate everyone and everything that enters our experience.

The idea that sins are mistakes and mistakes are meaningless is justified on the premise that what happens on this training ground doesn’t happen in Reality. A lifetime in the world becomes a means to practice love and forgiveness, and in doing so, we will rejoice as we witness God’s Perfection in all things.

THE GARDEN OF EDEN

And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

Genesis 2:15

The Garden of Eden, which is described as a literal garden in the Bible, was not an actual garden at all. It was merely a mental state of complete need-lack. Even in the literal account, it is noteworthy that the pre-separation state was essentially one in which man needed nothing. T-2.I.4.1:3

The Garden of Eden is a place of fullness, wholeness, and wonder which God created by extending Her Thoughts into form. The Thoughts of God reflect only completion, but in this dream of incarnation, we have not yet experienced this complete garden. Our garden is instead incomplete, filled with needs. However, every enlightened Self can recreate the Garden of Completion here and now. When we are willing to forgive ourselves for having strayed from God’s Love, we receive Her Gift of a tranquil and loving mind.

As the mind thinks, so shall it manifest. Our realities are an extension of our thoughts. Thus, we must accept the truth: what we see around us—a world of lack and need rather than a garden of need-lack—is a product of our own minds.

THE FORBIDDEN TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

"And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof

thou shalt surely die."

Genesis 2:16-17

The tree of knowledge is also an overly literal figure. These concepts need to be clarified before the real meaning of the separation, or the detour into fear, can be fully understood. T-2.I.4.4:5

Symbols must stand for something other than themselves. Their meaning cannot lie in them but must be sought in what they represent. T-19.V.88.2:3 It is important to remember that all the symbols of the world are neutral, and possess only the meaning we ascribe to them.

The fruit of only one tree was forbidden to man in his symbolic garden. But God could not have forbidden it or it could not have been eaten. If God knows His Children, and I assure you that He does, would He have put them in a position where their own destruction was possible? The tree which was forbidden was named the tree of knowledge. Yet God created knowledge and gave it freely to His creations. The symbolism here