The Ultimate Authority
Who would you say is the ultimate authority on the central message of Jesus of Nazareth? There are many contemporary Christians who might like to be seen as having that kind of authority. Christian leaders might point to the apostles, especially Peter and Paul. Catholics might identify the Pope as the Vicar of Christ and the earthly representative of Jesus Christ.
I’ve spoken to so many people who say some version of this. I have felt an affinity with Jesus all my life. But I’m not interested in the Christian church. Some of those people have had sad experiences with a church somewhere that was unkind, disempowering, or worse. Others just feel repelled by the dogma and ritual that they encountered. For all those people and many more, the ultimate authority on Jesus’ primary message is Jesus himself. They are interested in what Jesus taught, and not so much in the interpretation of his core message by people who came after him.
And doesn’t that seem reasonable? Who should know better than Jesus what his message was, expressed in his own words?
Where Can You Find What Jesus Preached?
People who are looking for an authentic representation of what Jesus taught, seek it in many places. They might read the gnostic gospels, the Dead Sea Scrolls, or an Aramaic version of the Bible. For many, Christianity, and the messages it espouses, have turned them off from the more traditional translations of the Bible, and especially the New Testament. And often, when they read the gospels, they can hardly hear the intended meaning of Jesus’ message. All they can hear is the interpretation of that message from the Christian faith as it is promoted in today’s world.
For many of those people, it might be shocking to realize that the central message of Jesus of Nazareth is hidden in plain sight in the red-letter words—words attributed to Jesus—in the New Testament of the Bible. The early church preserved and spread this representation of Jesus’ message, along with the teachings of those who came after him. And there it is, as radical today as it was when those words were first spoken—as life-changing and world-changing now as it was then.
Who Was He?
It can be difficult for someone from our Western culture two thousand years after Jesus walked the earth to see him as anything other than a figurehead of a religion from today’s culture. It is hard to see him as an inspired teacher who was simply bringing his gospel to the whole world, not creating a religious institution. He wasn’t just a character in the stories of people who came after him. He was an inspired teacher with a vital message.
Whatever the Catholic Church, conservative evangelicals, Martin Luther, or anyone else has said about who Jesus Christ was, we have to consider that none of their opinions or beliefs were present when he lived on earth. He wasn’t fulfilling anyone else’s vision of who he was or why he was living the life he did. And they don’t own him. Nobody does.
He wasn’t a religious figurehead. Remembering this, perhaps we can see who he was as a spiritual teacher, who was no doubt wishing for those who followed him what any teacher would want—that they would learn and change when they heard his core message.
What Was He Saying?
When you add it all up, what was he actually saying? If you can scrape off the patina that has formed around his words, and how they have been interpreted, what was Jesus’ message?
So much of Jesus’ gospel message has been seen through the beliefs imposed upon him by Christianity, making it challenging—but not impossible—to understand its original meaning. In this article, I attempt to scrape off some of the patina of belief imposed by the Christian church to expose, as best as we can access it, the original meaning of Jesus’ message.
The Kingdom of Heaven
To penetrate any beliefs formed by the Christian faith that are contrary to Jesus’ message, and remove them, it helps to go to depth regarding individual components of Jesus’ message. If that work is not done, there might be limited ability to access the message of Jesus, seeing only the patina.
Before the initiation of Jesus’ ministry, he encountered his cousin, John the Baptist, who baptized him.
John was in the wilderness of Judaea, bringing a message that is translated in the King James Version of the Bible as this:
Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Matthew 3:2
Soon, Jesus himself spread this same message. What did it originally mean?
The central idea revolves around the word heaven.
Bart D. Ehrman is a leading authority on the New Testament and the history of early Christianity, and the author or editor of more than thirty books, including Heaven and Hell. He reported that 72% of the American population believes in a literal heaven, and 58% in a literal hell. He went on to say the following regarding the belief of Americans today in an afterlife in his article on May 8, 2020, in Time Magazine:
The vast majority of these people naturally assume this is what Jesus himself taught. But that is not true. Neither Jesus, nor the Hebrew Bible he interpreted, endorsed the view that departed souls go to paradise or everlasting pain.
Considering this, and considering the plain meaning of Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom of heaven, it is clear that he was not referring to an experience after death. It spoke to a reality in the present moment. That reality was and is at hand. Our hand does not exist in tomorrow. It is not in the next country or even the next room. It is here with us now.
The kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of God. And it is here now, and always.
The Kingdom has Arrived
Jesus taught that the kingdom is not just a future event, but a present reality that can be experienced by anyone. The kingdom is not just a place, but a way of life, a way of living in relationship with the reality of God and with others. It is a kingdom of love, justice, and compassion, where the values of the world are turned upside down. In the kingdom, the last are first, the poor are rich, and the weak are strong.
A kingdom is a realm. It is first an invisible realm that establishes the potential for the manifest world in which we live. When a person spiritually awakens and returns to an awareness of this invisible realm, then the nature and pattern of heaven begins to stream through them into the visible world. The kingdom of God begins to manifest in and through them, and in the world they inhabit.
Regime Change
The kingdom of God is a regime change, a new way of living and being in the world. It is a change from the old way of living, which is based on power, wealth, and status, to a new way of living, which is based on the realities of divine love and intelligence, and the pervasive presence of God in all things. The kingdom is a revolution, turning upside down the values and systems of the world. The kingdom is a new way of being and a new way of living in the world that embraces the values established in the kingdom of heaven.
Where Did the Word Repent Come From?
Biblical scholars generally agree that Jesus’ gospel in the New Testament was first written down in Greek, though they generally think that his words were originally spoken in Aramaic, the common language of the Jewish people in Israel during the first century A.D. The Greek word that was later translated as repent was a form of the ancient Greek word metanoia, which referred to a change of heart and mind.
In 380 A.D., the Roman Empire adopted Christianity as the official state religion. Two years later, the Roman Pope Damasus I commissioned Jerome to translate the gospels of the New Testament into Latin. The translation became known as the Latin Vulgate. And the Latin word for metanoia that Jerome used related to punishment. It was later translated into English as repent. The Latin origin of the word repent is poenalis, which is the origin of such words as penitentiary, penal colony, and penance. As the word was originally used in the Latin Vulgate Bible, it implied self-punishment. And down through the ages are Christians, including popes, who have even engaged in self-flagellation, literally whipping themselves.
Consider the stark difference between calling people to experience a change in heart and mind and a call to people to self-punish.
Teshuva—The Hebrew Vision of Returning
Jesus was born into Jewish culture and he taught primarily Jewish people. The word teshuva appears in some form in the Hebrew Bible over 1,000 times. It means return. Undoubtedly Jesus, and most of the people he taught, were familiar with the word and the idea it represents.
Some Aramaic translations of the gospels use the word thubu whereas the word repent is often used in English translations. Thubu also means to return.
Unfortunately, we don’t know the exact words that John the Baptist and Jesus after him used to preach their gospel message. We can be sure they weren’t referencing a meaning invented over 300 years later by the Romans. It seems far more likely that they were referencing this familiar Jewish idea of returning.
How different we might understand Jesus’ gospel if we understand it this way:
Return: for the kingdom of heaven is here.
What a simple yet profoundly loving way to invite people to a new experience.
We can easily imagine that this kingdom of heaven was a reality Jesus was experiencing at the moment he spoke the message. We can imagine the excitement in his voice and the light of his countenance as he called to people with such words.
The reality of the kingdom of heaven was vividly available to his followers because of him. And it is also an eternal reality, available to us now.
Jesus Preached Self-Help Remedies
Most Christians don’t think of Jesus as someone who preached self-help remedies. But he did.
Less than twenty years after Jesus was crucified, the Apostle Paul wrote these words in his epistle to the Galatians.
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law.
Galatians 2:16
In saying this, he introduced a fundamental tenet of the Christian faith—the idea that a human life is made right by belief and faith, not by what a person does. That is not a self-help remedy.
Even though Jesus encouraged his followers to believe, the idea that people’s attitudes and actions are irrelevant is nowhere in what Jesus taught. In fact, he taught self-help remedies—actions that people could take on their own initiative—to make things right in their lives. Those actions open the door for divine providence.
God's Mercy
Here is the message of Jesus on mercy in the Beatitudes.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Matthew 5:7
Here is another self-help spiritual remedy. Be merciful.
As in so many other of the messages Jesus brought, this saying emphasizes that the way a person treats others determines what they themselves receive. This principle is the basis for Jesus’ teaching of the golden rule.
And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.
Luke 6:31
Forgiveness
Christianity often teaches that Jesus’ death on the cross paid the price for our sins, allowing God to fully forgive us. That’s not what Jesus taught. He had a self-help remedy for people who want to know forgiveness.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
Matthew 6:12
For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
Matthew 6:14
Sin
Christianity has developed beliefs regarding sin that are central to many churches. In the 3rd century, the Catholic Church introduced a belief in original sin for the first time. It was a belief that didn’t exist in Jesus’ day, nor did he teach it. And Christianity often teaches that Jesus Christ died on the cross to save us from our sins, another belief that Jesus never taught.
The word sin is a translation of a Greek word from the world of archery. It simply meant missing the mark. Jesus’ teaching on sin was simple and straightforward. He offered a self-help remedy to it. Sin no more. Essentially, Stop doing it.
Letting Your Light Shine
Here is his admonition to people to let the holy spirit work through them to bring light to the world. In the process of delivering this message, he is explicit that the law deserves to be fulfilled, not ignored as irrelevant as the Apostle Paul appeared to say.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
Matthew 5:16, 17
These are some of the self-remedies offered through Jesus’ gospel message. The human choice sometimes made by Christians to ignore these teachings—thinking we just have to believe and Jesus will take care of it all—is the reason things can go so terribly wrong for good, faithful people.
The Central Message
When you add it all up, what was Jesus saying? What was his central message? For people today, what is the most important thing he taught?
Jesus taught a love that brought a human being, and certainly brought himself, into an experience of closeness, spiritual intimacy, union, and ultimately oneness. This is from what people refer to as his prayer of intercession:
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.
John 17:21
Yes, he taught people to love. But more than that, he led people on a path to the fulfillment of their love for God—oneness. He taught oneness with God and oneness with humanity.
Think about what happens when you truly love somebody. I’m not talking about loving a rockstar or a movie star from afar. That’s an unfulfilled love. When you really love someone, and they love you, you draw close together. You join.
A Love That Is Fulfilled in Life
It works like that for any kind of love with another person. When you really love somebody, that love has the opportunity to be fulfilled. And how is it fulfilled? It’s fulfilled when we draw close to them and join with them.
Depending on the nature of the relationship, so is the nature of the joining. Sometimes it is a joining together to start a business or some other creative project. And sometimes it is a union that starts a family. Whatever the relationship, where there is a fulfillment of love, there is some kind of spiritual intimacy and a joining.
In this process, we come to know another person. You probably don’t know all of them. But you know that part of them with which you have joined. You don’t just have opinions about them. You don’t just believe things about them. You know that part of them with which you have joined.
A Love That Flows Both Ways
And that is exactly what Jesus taught related to the Creator. He taught a love that goes both ways. We don’t just love God and hope he has mercy on us. As Savannah Guthrie says, mostly what God does is love you. When a person knows that, it ends superstition about God. It brings a person into a deep relationship with the Divine.
The knowledge that comes when love for the Creator is fulfilled in a person informs a person about themselves. Knowing they are loved in that way, a person can come to love and know themselves. They come to know themselves as Creator-consciousness in human form.
Then something else happens. Jesus puts it this way, quoting from the Hebrew Bible.
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Matthew 19:19
As that love is present and fulfilled, we know our neighbor. There is no longer a need for superstition or suspicion about them.
Perhaps we don’t usually think of Jesus as fighting battles, but he was confronting the ignorance and superstition that surrounded him. The ultimate remedy for that ignorance and superstition is love fulfilled.
If the Christian Religion Works for You
There are millions of people who have found a place for themselves in a Christian Church. Millions of Christians have found a religious path to follow that is creative for them. I am happy for such people, with nothing but good wishes for them on their path.
But if anyone—whether or not they consider themselves a Christian, a Buddhist, a Hindu, or anything else—desires to know more deeply the Spirit of the Living Christ, a would strongly urge them to consider deeply the words of Jesus of Nazareth’s own message.
Primal Christianity
This is primal Christianity. The word primal simply means first. So Primal Christianity is the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, the original Christian.
In December 2023, I became powerfully motivated to chip away any erroneous ideas I had about his original message so I could see the magnificent truth he brought to humankind. I researched everything I could get ahold of to help me on my path of discovery. A book began to write itself in my head and the result is Primal Christianity: Uncovering the Original Teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
I am on a journey to explore primal Christianity myself and share it with others. I invite you on this journey with me. And if you are already on the journey, let’s go together. Let’s bring primal Christianity to the world.
If you want to read my book, you can find it here. Or on any Amazon site around the world.
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