Jesus Christ

For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. (Romans 3 23-25)... 

In chapter three, I backtrack to the Pauline corpus, which I present as a significant source for Christian cosmic pessimism, if one can indeed be found. Specifically, I contend that Gnostics borrowed the concept of heimarmene from contemporary debates in Middle Platonism, but they read these debates through the interpretive lens of Pauline exegesis. Paul himself did not use the term heimarmene, but in his undisputed letters he does indeed refer to enslavement to the cosmos —a metaphysical state of bondage that, Paul beheved, Christ Jesus came to rectify. This potent image... 

Qo ], nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Paul s evocative depiction of human existence did not remain relentlessly bleak. He limited his nihilism—in proper Greek philosophical form—to contempt for the body and for the law which acts upon it. Throughout his letters, Paul offered one consistent, unequivocal statement on the law it no longer applied to the individual who hved in Christ In order to escape the forces which act upon the body, one had to die symbolically to the body and to the law. In Paul s understanding, there were two forms of this death. First, Christ s death redeemed the Christians from the curse of the law (Gal 3 13). He had made all Christians free (Gal 5 1). In Rom 7 4, Paul reminds the community that they had become dead to the law through the body of Christ. Paul states further that the law which governs the flesh has been abrogated by the law of the Spirit for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death (Rom 8 2). 

I Timothy 1 14-15 the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant. .. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the chief Hebrews 11 13 These all died in faith. .. and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. ... 

When anyone chooses this with sober discernment he is sensible. When hardships do not deter him he is brave when pleasures do not, he is moderate when self-esteem does not, he is just. We are divinely endowed with such virtues through the grace of the mediator, Christ Jesus, who is God with the Father, and human with us. Through him, we are reconciled with God in the spirit of love, after the enmity that wickedness created. Divinely endowed, then, with these virtues, we can lead a good life now and afterwards our reward will be paid, a blessed life, which can only be everlasting. 

For the same reason the apostle Paul puts up with false brethren. When he says, They all seek what belongs to them rather than to Christ Jesus [Phil 2.21], he is not talking about individuals unknown to him. He makes it clear that they had been in his company. But surely the sort of people who preferred to burn incense or hand over the sacred books to idols rather than die must be counted among those who seek what belongs to them, rather than to Christ Jesus. 

Holy Bible, Leviticus, King James Version, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1979, p. 147, Chapt. 2, ver. 13. 

See ReucMn on the Tetragrammaton and the name of Jesus in De Verbo Mirifico (1964 facs. of 1494 ed.), 95-103 and on the Messiah as Metatron and Christ in De Arte Kabbalistica (1964 facs. of 1517 ed.), 133, 143-55. GuiUaume Postel also makes the same identification in his commentary on the Sefer Jezirah in the 1552 edition, see GuiUaume Postel (ed. and comm.), Sefer Jezirah (Paris, 1552) (Stuttgart Bad Cannstatt, 1994). Edited hy Wolf Peter Klein, 143-75. 

To these ancient identities was added in due course the historical Jesus.It was the apostle Paul who established the dehnitive Christian dogma concerning the nature of Christ. His account recalls the role of the ancient Iranian and Jewish Saviour figure (although the exact relationship to the pagan elements is the subject of serious contention on the part of Christian theology). 

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. .. if so be that we suffer with him, that we be also glorified together. 

In the Medicina Catholica (1629—31) Fludd explained that the way to conserve or restore health was through a righteous, prayerful life. The highest level of spiritual health was attainable through penitence and humility, virtues that were sacramental and granted supercelestial health. The apostles had cured the sick and had even raised the dead in the Name of Christ because the Name contained in itself all other kabbalistic names of God Ehieh, lah, Elohim, El, Sadai, Adonai. Jesus is a personal name, but Christ is invoked... 

When Reason considers how Jesus Christ can be present in the sacraments then it thinks in an Image-like manner. When the mind knows the miracle of the Real Presence is not enacted in an image-... 

In an investigation of caffeine-containing products in 1993, Slattery et al.75 reported on alcohol, coffee, tea, caffeine, and theobromine intake and the risk of prostate cancer in a Utah study. Data were gathered from a population-based sample of 362 newly diagnosed cases of prostate cancer and 685 age-matched controls. The Utah population was comprised predominantly of members of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints. The researchers found that pack-years of cigarettes smoked and consumption of alcohol, coffee, tea, and caffeine were not associated with prostate cancer risk, but found some possible correlation with increased theobro-... 

Cramer, Daniel. The Rosicrucian emblems of Daniel Cramer the True Society of Jesus and the Rosy Cross here are forty sacred emblems from Holy Scripture concerning the most precious name and cross of Jesus Christ / by Daniel Cramer translated from the Latin by Fiona Tait introduction and commentary by Adam McLean. Edited by Adam McLean. Translated by Fiona Tait. Edinburgh Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks, 1980. 77p. 

The Process in the Philosophical Work considered as thoroughly analogical with that in Man s Redemption through Jesus Christ and represented by positions given thereof, as to its principal points in Behmen s Signatura Rerum, chapters, vii, x, xi, xii. 

Freher, Dionysius Andreas. "Of the analogy in the process of the Philosophic Work, to the redemption of Man, through Jesus Christ, according to the writings of Jacob Boehme." In Lives of the alchemystical philosophers, ed. Francis Barrett, 121-131.,... 

Paracelsus. The book concerning the tincture of the philosophers written against those sophists born since the deluge, in the age of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God by Ph. Theophrastus Bombast, of Hohenheim. rhttp //www, sacred-... 

Fideler, David R. Jesus Christ, Sun of God ancient cosmology and early Christian symbolism. Wheaton (IL), London Quest, 2003. xviii,430p. 

Boehme, Jacob. The incarnation of Jesus Christ. Constable, 1934. 

Boehme, Jacob.Of the incarnation of Jesus Christ translated from the German by J. R. Earle. Translated by J.R. Earle. London Constable, 1934. 284p. 

Fisher, Samuel. The testimony of truth exalted, by the collected labours of that worthy man, good scribe and faithful minister of Jesus Christ,... who died a prisoner for the testimony of Jesus, and Word of God, anno 1665. .. London Printed in the year,... 

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