True Love Never Fails

The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of 114 sayings attributed to Christ. Coptic and Greek fragments were found in Nag Hammadi Egypt in 1945, along with the Gospel of Philip. Scholars date the Gospel of Thomas to 130 A.D., and it is believed to have been widely read in the first centuries because of the fact that both Greek and Coptic fragments of the gospel were recovered. 

The Gospel of Thomas begins with this simple statement; “These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke.” And many of these sayings, for many of us, reveal a Christ we’ve never heard from before. For example: 

“Jesus said, ‘I have cast fire upon the world, and look, I am guarding it until it blazes.’” 

This fire of course is not visible. This is the kind of fire that turns the world on its head, or that restructures our world so that we begin to see the light that’s within every one of us. “Every nature, every modeled form, every creature, exists in and with each other,” as the Gospel of Mary reminds us. This is the kind of fire that French theologian, Teilhard de Chardin, says will come to life when we can harness the unseen power of love. 

The emphasis of Thomas’s gospel, as is the case with the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, is ultimately about union–bringing together what we have seen as opposites, like life and death. Male and female. Body and soul. 

For example, “Jesus said, ‘When you make the two into one, you will become children of humanity, and when you say, ‘Mountain, move from here!’ it will move.”

Christ describes himself in the Gospel of Thomas with this powerful statement of union: “I am the one who comes from what is undivided.’”

What does it mean to be undivided? I understand this to mean both an ego and a soul, both an animal and an angel, both a human being and a divine being. Undivided. Both. 

Undivided to me is another way to describe the Anthropos, the fully realized human being, or referred to in the Gospel of Mary as “the true human being” or “the child of true humanity.” 

This is someone who is no longer torn between the seven powers of the ego and the power of love. This is someone who isn’t caught anymore between this world and the next. This is someone who has become a bridge between them both. A person who has remembered, experienced the soul while here, while human. 

“I am the one who comes from what is undivided,” to me means, I am the one who has remembered the soul while in this impermanent, fleeting, ever-changing body. I am the one who is anchored in a love that never ends, that never dies or changes, even as everything else around me changes. Including this body that I am also. I am the one who comes from what is limitless and eternal. I am the one who remembers the truth of what it means to be human.

One of my favorite passages from the Gospel of Thomas reads like a riddle. And helps to illuminate this state of union, or of becoming undivided, the gospel of Thomas focuses on.

“When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter the kingdom.”

Let me explain why I love this passage so much and why it’s an immensely radical statement for Christ to have made. Especially in the first century.

When you make the inner like the outer

When you can, with bravery like Thecla’s, make the inner like the outer, meaning allow what’s authentically within you to come forward and express this truth to the world around you, even if it means challenging or disrupting what the world, your family, or someone you love wants and expects of you. When you make your inner world transparent to the world outside of you, when you refuse to betray the truth of who you are for the sake of what the outside world is asking of you, then you will enter the kingdom.

And when you can make the upper like the lower

When you can grasp that there is no such thing as above and below when it comes to worth, not in the human realm or the spiritual realm. When you can understand that there is no hierarchy when it comes to ranking the existence of all things, when you can imagine that you are as worthy of love as an angel, as an animal, as a mountain range. When you can put into practice that no one on this earth is greater or less than the other, and that heaven is not above, or better, than this being right here, that actually earth is not lower than heaven, that actually heaven is right here, then you will enter the kingdom.

When you make male and female into a single one

When you can truly see that no matter what sex or gender we identify with, no matter the body we are born into or become, no sex or gender is greater or less than the other. We must make them into a single one, meaning equal in worth and equal in value to the world. Even if the world sees one sex or one gender as less powerful or more of a commodity than a human being, when you can realize that the male is not male and the female is not female, as in when you can see sex and gender not through the eyes of a cultural that values men more than women, then you will enter the kingdom. 

When you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot 

When you can allow your soul to replace the use of your eyes, replace the use of your hand, and replace the use of your feet, you will no longer see what your ego sees, or act the way your ego is compelling you to act, or move the way your ego wants you to move, but instead you will see, act, and move the way your soul wants you to move, then you will enter the kingdom.

An image in place of an image

When you can replace the image of yourself as somehow lowly, or unfit, or not quite right, or not good enough, or not worthy, or broken, and see with the eye of the heart that you are also and ultimately good, worthy, and connected directly from within you to more love than you could ever imagine, then you will enter the kingdom (from within). 

Christ says, in the gospel of Thomas, ‘If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you.’” Because what is within you is the kingdom. 

This is what creates the fire, the light, this experience, this re-union of merging with the soul, or the limitless love that exists within you. 

“There is light within a person of light, and it lights up the whole world.” Christ says in the Gospel of Thomas, and, "If they say to you, ‘Where have you come from?’ say to them, ‘We have come from the light.”

Heaven is not above us, love is not beyond us, and god is right here where we least expect it; right in the center of this fragile and ever-changing body. 

Christ says in the Gospel of Thomas, "What you look forward to has already come, but you do not recognize it." We don’t recognize it because it’s here within. We don’t recognize it because we’re looking outside of us, and what Christ wants us to understand in the Gospel of Thomas is that we walk around every day with heaven already right here, within. And that this is the truth of what it means to be human–that we are these mortal, vulnerable, fleeting human beings that constantly fail and fall down and make tremendous mistakes, all while containing an infinite fire, an immutable, inviolable soul, which is a love that never ends, and never fails. 

With only more love, 
M.