To Light a Thousand Lamps - The Theosophical Society

The Christian Message / 87
those who reviled him: ‘‘Is it not written in your law, I said,
Ye are gods?’’ — a theme Paul enlarged upon in writing to
the people of Corinth: ‘‘what communion hath light with
darkness? ...ye are the temple of the living God’’ (2 Cor.
6:14, 16) and ‘‘the Spirit of God dwelleth in you’’ (1 Cor.
3:16). In view of these verses, often quoted from pulpit and
in literature, how is it that for centuries we have erroneously
been taught we were ‘‘born in sin’’?
The allegory of Adam and Eve’s fall from grace and their
dismissal from the Garden of Eden, instead of representing
a transgression, has an exhilarating e¤ect when interpreted
as the awakening of mind in early humanity. In order for
the early humans (ourselves) to become as gods, we had to
‘‘die’’ from our Eden state of unconscious bliss and take on
the challenge of self-awareness of our divine potential. In
the process we were obliged to put on ‘‘coats of skin’’ as we
imbodied in worlds of matter. Now we are earning our way
out of the ‘‘sin’’ of our material condition by the sweat of
our brow, spiritually and intellectually, and eventually we
shall assume the dignity of our heritage and become fully
evolved divinities.
What, then, of Jesus and the story of his life as told in
the New Testament? Many Christians no longer regard the
Gospel narratives as factual accounts of a historic figure.
Some prefer to read in them a symbolic record of the initiatory
experience of a savior — of every savior who comes
according to cyclic need. Some deny any special divinity to
Jesus, seeing him rather as a noble exemplar of humanhood,
worthy of emulation. Others, possibly millions, devoutly
hold Jesus to be the only Son of God and that solely through