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God is One

Written March 21, 2000

Introduction

There is more, much more, said by science in the twentieth century about the higher dimensions and the concept of their greater reality. The concept of the fourth dimension of spacetime was presented to the world by the noted and well-known Albert Einstein early in the 20th century and by string theory of physics as developed in the 1970s and the early 1980s by John Schwarz of the California Institute of Technology and Michael Green, who had written his doctoral thesis at Cambridge University on a resonance theory of physics which was a precursor of string theory.

Einstein, in his general theory of relativity, showed that our three-dimensional world, with which we are rather familiar, as projected in time in the spacetime continuum of the fourth dimension, was curved in all directions, as is the two-dimensional surface of a globe in our three-dimensional world. We cannot conceive in our mind's eye how the three-dimensional space in which we live can be curved and I cannot prove to you mathematically how the general theory of relativity does this. Scholars in the field of physics, however, have fully accepted Einstein's theory and, of course, so do I. The concept that our three dimensional world is curved in the spacetime continuum fits perfectly into the field of theology, in my opinion, which I will discuss later in this paper.

I have written a previous paper (published on this site) entitled String Theory and the Human Mind, dated September 14, 1999, in which I have tried to describe string theory in a layman's language and the concept of its extension to the human being. I refer you to this paper posted on this website for the details. The extension of string theory to the mind and spirit concept of the human being then leads directly to the concept of God and his Son, Jesus Christ who was a human being, similar to all of us in our three-dimensional world. To reconcile that Jesus Christ lived as one of us some 2000 years ago and still was one and the same with God the Father was the perplexing question that Arius tried to deal with and in so doing was decried by the Council of Nicaea as a heretic. I do not agree with the conclusion of Arius that Jesus could only be human and not divine, but I admire him for having the courage to wrestle with this problem. Some seventeen centuries later, I ask you to consider the depth of the concept that I propose in this paper.

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2. Creation of the Cosmos

When God created the marvelous cosmos, it has been said that he created it out of nothing (ex-nihilo), but from a scientific perspective that seems to be an impossibility. Matter can be converted into energy — the atomic bomb — and the reverse may also be true by an omnipotent God. I discussed this concept in the afore-mentioned paper of September 14, 1999, but in that paper I purposely refrained from mentioning any theological aspects of creation because I was writing from a layman's scientific point of view exclusively. If the creation of that special singularity, from which came the big-bang, was the transformation of energy into matter, from whence came the required enormous amount of energy? The source of that energy cannot be identified; in like manner it cannot be said from whence did God come? Attributing infinite power to God who existed before the creation of the cosmos is the best that man can do.

That the singularity of an infinite mass concentrated in a single point came from God's transforming an infinite amount of his energy into matter is suggested by an unsolved problem of physics. Stephen Hawking and many other physicists are able through the art of mathematics to calculate backward in time to that eventful moment of the big-bang but they cannot account for the first very small fraction of a second from time equal zero. What happened in that first fraction of a second equal to the Planck constant which is 10^-43? This could have been the time that the infinite energy of God was being transformed into that singularity of matter. This singularity, however, was apparently different from the singularities that have been discovered at the center of black holes. Those singularities attract all matter into them, including the photons of light. The created singularity, on the other hand exploded in the big-bang and drove matter away from it in all directions.

It was a four-dimensional singularity which included not only matter but also time. It was the time element that probably exploded to drive matter outward from it in all directions. That small bubble, immediately after the big-bang, expanded in the fourth dimension of spacetime to form the expanding universe, which characteristic was discovered by Edwin Hubble in 1927 when he found the red shift of light from far-off galaxies. This red shift confirmed the concept of the expanding universe developed in Einstein's general theory of relativity.

Ever since the big-bang, time has been carrying us and the whole cosmos outwardly from that initial explosion at a uniform rate, probably in increments of the Planck constant, except in two cases that I recall, as recorded in the Bible. The first was told in the book of Joshua, chapter 10:12-14 when he and all Israel were fighting the Amorites. The second was told in the book of II Kings chapter 20:8-11 about King Hezekiah and how God caused the shadow on the sun dial to go backward. How did God do this? I, of course do not know how God did this, but in the first instance he caused the expansion of the cosmos to halt for a while, for time to stop, and in the second instance, God caused the expansion to contract for a short time, or to cause time to reverse itself.

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3. Spacetime

Is time real? Scientists have described time as our three-dimensional world moving in one, and only one, direction. They have drawn an arrow flying from the left to the right, to illustrate this passage of time, and have assumed that the arrow is moving perpendicular to our three dimensional world. We, having been born into this three-dimensional world and having lived all of our lives in it, cannot conceive how any direction could be perpendicular to the three dimensions of the space that we have come to know. We know, however, that time is passing and that we mortals cannot recover, or go back to a former moment of time. On the other hand, we do consider that we, and all objects around us are very real, very tangible. We can see, feel and hear our surroundings in the current moment of time. Therefore, we can say that we are living in a real world.

Let us go back to Flatland, a two-dimensional world and civilization. Mr. Square could not conceive of how anything could be perpendicular to his two-dimensional world, but we, three-dimensional people can easily see how Mr. Square himself could move perpendicular to himself to form a cube. Furthermore, we would say that the cube was more real, was more solid, than the infinitely thin two-dimensional Mr. Square. Now, if we would define time in the concept of Mr. Square as being movement in the third direction, perpendicular to the two-dimensional plane in which Mr. Square lives, we would say that Mr. Square, living in the third dimension of his time, and tracing a solid of his infinitely thin self, was more real than Mr. Square himself living in only a cross-section of himself in his “spacetime” continuum.

Therefore, we might reason that a four-dimensional being living in spacetime would see us as infinitely thin in terms of time, possibly with the thickness in time of the Planck constant (10^-43). As our very “thin” three-dimensional bodies, however, are traced in the spacetime continuum, they might be much more real than our present selves. We, in our three-dimensional world might be almost infinitely thin in spacetime, just as a two-dimensional object is very thin in our three-dimensional world.

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4. The Even Higher Dimensions

Extending this reasoning even further, the fifth dimension could be greater than the spacetime continuum of the fourth dimension. The sixth dimension could be greater than the fifth and the seventh dimension could be greater than the sixth. But, this is as far as one should go in this sort of reasoning because the eighth dimension is not greater than the seventh. The eighth dimension probably begins the descent of the progressively higher dimensions. Why can I say this with any degree of confidence. It is because of mathematics.

There was another of the many mathematical proofs concerning the volume and “surface area” of a unit sphere in progressively higher dimensions published in the July 1981 SIAM Review, the Journal of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. This mathematical proof shows that the volume of a unit sphere reached the maximum at the fifth dimension and the “surface area”, which we are considering in this paper rather than the volume, reached its maximum at the seventh dimension. In even higher dimensional spheres, both the volume and “surface area” diminished asymptotically toward zero at around the twenty-sixth dimension.

An editorial note in the SIAM Review article says, “R. P. Boas (Northwestern University) notes that he recalls seeing a graph of V_n vs. n, showing the maximum, in a book when he was an undergraduate, with the comment, 'This is one of the most remarkable phenomena in the wonderland of higher space.' Unfortunately, he does not recall the book.” My mathematician son, James T. Witherspoon, D.Sc., however, did produce this graph for me, using the equations of this article. It illustrates the solutions of this journal article:

This graph, plotted from one dimension to twenty-six dimensions, shows that the volume does reach its maximum in the fifth dimension and the surface area does reach its maximum in the seventh dimension. Both the volume and surface area approach zero as the dimensions increase to the original twenty-six dimensions of string theory.

Because of this mathematical proof, I have had the temerity to disagree with some of the authoritative persons that have developed string theory. For example, Brian Greene in his 1999 book The Elegant Universe says, 

“The essential requirement, again, is that all of these [higher] dimensions have a spacial extent smaller than the smallest length scales we can probe, since no experiment has yet revealed their existence.” (page 200).

Stephen Hawking has said essentially the same thing in his 1988 book A Brief History of Time, 

“The suggestion is that the other [higher] dimensions are curled up into a space of very small size, something like a million million million million millionth of an inch. This is so small that we don't notice it; we see only one time and three space dimensions...” (page 163).

Look, however, at the graph.

We do not see even the spacetime dimension except the infinitely “thin” current moment of time. We cannot go back to yesterday. We cannot even go back to the current moment as soon as it is past. In the infinite wisdom of God we are locked into the current moment of time and cannot get out of it until possibly when we die.

The thinking among the experts of string theory, however, seems to be changing somewhat in regard to the higher dimensions. They are beginning to recognize that some of the higher dimensions are probably not curled up into such a small ball that we cannot see them. They seem to be recognizing the implications of the above graph. A recent article in the January 7, 2000 issue of Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says:

The static compactification model of Horva and Witten has come to replace the older model of Candelas, Horowitz, Strominger, and Witten but it still has limitations. Nevertheless, the basic idea that at least some of the extra dimensions could be quite large has caught on, together with the suggestion that the basic length scale of quantum gravity, which hitherto has been equated to Planck's constant or to the slightly smaller length scale R_String of superstring theory, may be much larger, more like the electroweak scale of 10^-17 cm.

In principle this could allow extra dimensions approaching a millimeter! The string scale and the size of the extra dimensions and Newton's constant are related by a simple ratio. An experimental limitation on the scale of the extra dimension now arises from the accuracy with which gravity obeys the inverse square law.

The physicists are, of course, talking about only one string, whereas when we consider the human being in terms of the higher dimensions, we are thinking in terms of billions of strings. Hence, when we speak of the higher dimensions of the mind and spirit of a human being, the graph (above) might be appropriate to keep in mind.

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5. The Human Being

The Bible tells us that God created man in his image. I have attempted to describe this image in my afore-mentioned paper of September 14, 1999, how that man is a probably higher dimensional being than the three-dimensional form that we are familiar with seeing. If we are moving in an outward direction from that big-bang, and if the new string theory of physics has some semblance of truth that the one-dimensional string traces a two dimensional plane in the spacetime continuum, and inasmuch as the human body, as well as all animate and inanimate objects, is composed of billions of those one-dimensional strings to form real substance, which is us, this reasoning leads to the concept that the fourth dimension of spacetime is not destroyed when the current moment of time passes. The human body is therefore a four-dimensional object. But, we are more than merely flesh, bone and blood, we have minds and human spirits.

I have tried to set forth the concept in the afore-mentioned paper of September 14, 1999, that the human mind, indeed also the animal mind, functions in the fifth dimension transcendent to the brain in the fourth and third dimensions. This may be the source of memory upon which we constantly call for living in this three-dimensional world.

If the mind functions in the fifth dimension, theology would probably say the human spirit is the crowning element of the human being. The gift of the human spirit might have been how God created man from an animal resembling man that had developed gradually over millions, if not billions, of years. God might have chosen the most well developed animal and have added, or created, a spirit of man in the sixth dimension transcendent to, and dominant over, the human mind in the fifth dimension. This might have occurred only about ten to twelve thousand years ago, as Professor Julian Jaynes of Princeton University describes The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind in his 1976 book with that title. The adding of a spirit to the animal-man would not, of course, be visible in our three dimensional world, we cannot see human spirits. This concept, however, might resolve the conflict between the creationists and the evolutionists, and at the same time be in accord with the Biblical account even though it goes back a few thousand years before 4004 B.C. as the creationists avow. Some of the very old skeletal remains that anthropologists have found may be of the well-developed animal-man before a spirit in the sixth dimension had been added by God.

I speak of these higher dimensions in terms of reality. If a two-dimensional plane of infinite thinness is real, its movement in the third dimension to produce a solid, we would likely say that the solid was more real than the infinitely thin two-dimensional plane. In like manner, our physical bodies in the fourth dimension of spacetime, and all objects in spacetime, are probably more “solid,” more “real,” than what we have come to know as our real three-dimensional selves in this three-dimensional world. Carrying this reasoning two steps onward, the substance of the mind in the fifth dimension is likely more “real” than objects in the spacetime continuum. Furthermore, the human spirit in the sixth dimension might be even more “real” than the mind in the fifth dimension.

A Biblical reference that suggests that the mind is a “real and seeable” object is given in the sixth chapter of Matthew, verse 6: “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” I have italicized the words sees and secret because I think they have great meaning. The word “secret” implies, in my opinion, an area of being outside of our three dimensional world where we cannot go except in our mind's functioning. Furthermore, the word “sees” implies that there is reality or substance to our mind and that God can likely see the undulating contours of our substantial, indeed physical, minds as we pray.

The human spirit may be in the sixth dimension, transcendent to the mind. If so, it probably dominates and influences the mind. I will have more to say about the influence of the spirit upon the mind later in this paper.

I imagine that you are now saying to yourself, if you have read this far in this paper, “All of this discussion of the higher dimensions must be taken metaphorically. There is no reality beyond our three-dimensional world.” I will not contend with you at this point. Please take what I say about the higher dimensions metaphorically if you wish, but I think that as you ponder such metaphors, you will gradually come to recognize that the rationale of Christian doctrine, especially the doctrines of Christology, is more clearly understood if these doctrines are expressed in physical terms of the higher dimensions even though we cannot picture in our minds the appearance of this reality.

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6. The Humble Approach

Sir John Templeton wrote a book which was published in 1981 entitled The Humble Approach. A few excerpts from the introduction of this book seem appropriate to mention here:

We are perched on the frontiers of future knowledge... [God] has placed us at a new beginning... As human beings we are endowed with mind and spirit. We can think, imagine, and dream. We can search for future trends through the rich diversity of human thought... There is, however, a stumbling block: egotism. The closed-minded attitude of those who think they know it all inhibits future progress.

Some theologians, religious leaders, and lay people are frequently blind to the obstacles they themselves erect. Many are not even aware that the spiritual future could, or should, be different from anything that has ever been before.

Only now is man beginning to find evidence of hitherto undreamed-of forces and even dimensions of reality which transcend the invisible space-time field which holds together within its astonishing configuration all that man can observe in space and time. There are vast realms reaching out beyond the known, inspiring wonder and inviting inquiry, but it is humility that opens the way forward.

I am, indeed, grateful for these ideas from Sir John, a religious man who has apparently thought deeply into the foundations upon which faith is built. I have also given much thought to the Being of God and and his creation of man. I here present these ideas and concepts of Christian theology expressed in higher dimensions, but they need not stop there. I think that the concept of the higher dimensions can be applied to any of the major religions of the world. I have prayed to God for wisdom under the tutelage of his Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit of Truth, over the past fifty years and even longer. I acknowledge that I am a slow learner, but the following ideas and concepts that I think I have learned concerning science and theology seem to adhere very closely with the entire Biblical account. For this reason, I bow humbly in profound awe and gratitude before God. I have still much to learn, but I hope these expressed concepts stimulate you to think with me on these matters.

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7. The Being of God

If, as the Bible says, God created man in his image, then man must have some resemblance to God. God is, of course, infinitely greater than man, but I think that you would agree that God has a mind, and you know that God has a Spirit, the Holy Spirit. However, the Council of Nicaea said that the Holy Spirit is a different person than God the Father. The use of the word homoousious (of the same substance) to suggest that this relationship is very close indeed, it nevertheless separates the Holy Spirit from the Father even though this separation might be as close as a hairbreadth. Now if the Holy Spirit is a separate person, does the Holy Spirit have a mind, and if so, is the mind of the Holy Spirit separate from the mind of God the Father? Does the person of God the Father have a Spirit separate from the Holy Spirit? These are questions that I have not seen theologians address or even attempt to answer. They seem to say that the deep mystery of God's Being is too difficult to comprehend, but they hold fast to the concept that the Holy Spirit is a separate person from God the Father.

I invite your thought to return to the being of man, the image of God. Is our spirit a different person from ourselves? You answer, “No, it is an integral part of us, somewhere within our body, possibly in our brain.” But psychology is currently saying that our mind is within our brain. Can both our mind and spirit be within our brain? Researchers in the field of psychology and neuroscience have been searching the brain to find the mind, but it is my understanding that they have not really found the mind within the brain. This mind/brain research is continuing and what if they fall exhausted without finding the mind? They might then be driven to look outside of the brain in the third and fourth dimensions, and where else could they look? They might look into the fifth dimension, but is there separation between the higher dimensions?. There is no separation between the two-dimensional surface of a cube and the cube itself. Likewise, there is probably no separation between the three-dimensions that define our bodies and the spacetime continuum — string theory of physics seems to confirm this concept. Carrying this idea another step, there should be no separation whatsoever between the fourth dimension of spacetime, wherein our brain in past-time is located, and the fifth dimension of the mind. Furthermore, there is probably no separation between the fifth dimension of the mind and the sixth dimension of the spirit. Hence, we are integrated, spirit, mind, and body. We are all one person!

If man is eventually determined by the scientific mind/brain research to be at least a five-dimensional being, the next step should automatically lead to the human spirit being in the sixth dimension to integrate the whole person as being six-dimensional. Theologians should ponder this concept very deeply so that when science finally by default arrives at the conclusion that man is six-dimensional, theologians would already be sitting there waiting patiently for science to catch up with theology.

The sixth dimension might well be the dimension of the human spirit and if so, it would logically also be the domain of the Holy Spirit, transcendent to the mind of God in the fifth dimension just as the human spirit seems to be transcendent to, and dominant over, the human mind. We are the image of God, and in this respect, how could we be different from God?

God, however, is infinitely greater than man. That would place the Fatherhood of God in the seventh dimension, completely outside of the realm of man in the sixth dimension. The seventh dimension? Look again at the graph above.  (Click here to return to graph).  The seventh dimension is the greatest surface area of a unit sphere as computed mathematically. This is likely the domain of God the Father, dominating the whole cosmos, including infinitesimal man.

Following this reasoning even further and starting from the highest and largest seventh dimension as the domain of God the Father, the sixth dimension being the domain of God's Spirit, the Holy Spirit, as well as the domain of the human spirit, and the fifth dimension being the domain of the mind of God as well as the domain of the mind of man. If we stop there in describing God, God would be dangling without any foundation. Does God have any dimensions of his Being below the fifth dimension? I answer, “Yes!” All beings or objects of any dimension must contain all of the lower dimensions, and what or who constitutes the lower dimensions of God, including his mind and his Holy Spirit? I answer, “Melchizedek of the Old Testament, who visited Abram following his defeat of King Chedorlaomer and the other kings to retrieve the spoils of Sodom and Gomorrah as well as Lot, his nephew.”

There are many references in the Old Testament indicating that God comes into our three-dimensional world and reveals the cross section of his four dimensional physical body in our three dimensional world as his three-dimensional body. The story of the creation of Adam and Eve, may give an example. Many, and indeed probably most, theologians say that the story of the Garden of Eden is metaphorical and that we should let it go at that, but it might have some real connotations. Read Genesis 3:8-9, “And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, 'Where are you?' ” That is God in the flesh, the Eden story may be real, but I hear you saying that you read this story metaphorically because you don't think that it really occurred.

Most of the scholars of the Old Testament probably take this position. They take the Adam and Eve story metaphorically to illustrate the down-fall of mankind but that the Adam and Eve event really did not happen. It seems strange to me, however, why scholars say that some events told in the bible actually occurred while other events must be taken as not having really occurred but should be read metaphorically. This appears to resemble the way in which the Jesus Seminar of the University of Montana operated to determine whether or not Jesus actually said what is recorded in the Gospels by each member voting on each saying with colored beads. On the other hand, I suggest that if occurrences recorded in the Bible cannot be understood, they should not be accepted metaphorically but as actual occurrences that we do not yet understand but in time expect them to be understood with the constant gaining of knowledge under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth.

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7.1 Two Options

In this regard, it appears to me that there are two options that may be taken. The first option is the metaphoric interpretation that must be taken on occasion if one wishes to say that there is nothing beyond our three-dimensional world and everything that happens in this world must be described in a maximum of three dimensions. Hence, one's thinking is locked into the very thin cross sections (the current moment) of the fourth dimension of spacetime, which dimension I think is generally accepted by science. Therefore, one must take many occurrences in this world metaphorically because they cannot be explained in three-dimensional terms: for example, the “miracle” of physical healing of a person when doctors of the medical profession have said there was nothing more they could do. The second option allows one's thinking to go beyond our three-dimensional world into the higher dimensions and which the science of physics is even now beginning to explore in string or “M” theory. The science of psychology has not yet begun to explore in the study of the mind/brain relationship in the higher dimensions but eventually may be forced to go beyond our three-dimensional world in the search for the mind and memory.

The concept of the human being in the higher dimensions up to the sixth dimension of the spirit was described and discussed in my previous paper String Theory and the Human Mind dated September 14, 1999. The human being is the image of God; hence, God must also have six dimensions up through his Holy Spirit, but God is infinitely greater than man and therefore the Fatherhood of God is his Being also in the seventh, the largest mathematical dimension that is possible. This is God's crowning glory. Therefore, the lower three dimensions of God could and probably did walk in the Garden of Eden for his enjoyment with his new creation of Adam and Eve after he had added the sixth dimension of the spirit to the possibly five-dimensional animal creature that had existed on this earth for eons of time.

Please, with me, choose this second option. Let your thinking soar into the higher dimensions even though we cannot picture what they look like just as a two-dimensional creature could not picture the reality of our three-dimensional world. This higher dimensional thinking gives a new and very revealing insight into the meaning of the Incarnation of Jesus and the meaning of the Crucifixion. We will come to this later in this paper, please bear with me.

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8. More Substantiation of God having a Human type three-dimensional Body

Go to the Noah story when God reveals himself to Noah; Genesis 9:8-9, “Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, `Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your descendants after you.' ” What does the word behold signify? A dictionary definition is, “to hold in view or attention; look at; regard. Who or what does Noah and his sons see except the physical being of God.

Turn again to the Abraham story, Genesis 17:1, “When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, 'I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. And I will make a covenant between me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.' ” The word appeared is repeated over and over again and again in the book of Genesis when God speaks to Abraham and his son Isaac and grandson Jacob. This could well have been the physical appearance of God to these persons when God speaks to them.

Then go to the Jacob story (Genesis 32:24-30). Jacob wrestles with a man all night and in the early morning Jacob says, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”

We come to the book of the Exodus. God then does not speak in person, in the three-dimensional cross section of his Being, except to Moses, but not even to Moses at the beginning. When God first speaks to Moses it is from the “burning” bush. God spoke through his Holy Spirit, from or through the light of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit being the sixth dimension of God and not the third dimension of God, comes into our three-dimensional world only in the form of Light — the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. After the Tabernacle was constructed, the pillar would descend as the Shekinah Light over the Ark of the Covenant and between the two angelic figures. It is only the next higher dimension that apparently can enter the next lower dimension as a cross section of the higher dimensional being. Hence the Holy Spirit could come into the three-dimensional world only in the form of light — un-created light because the Holy Spirit being the sixth dimension of God existed before the time of creation.

There was an incident in the life of Aaron and his sister Miriam as told in the twelfth chapter of the book of Numbers. The two were complaining that God seemed to speak to the people only through Moses and not through them also. Indeed, they were better than Moses because he had married a Cushite woman. God heard their complaint and ordered the three of them (Aaron, Miriam and Moses) to come to the tent of meeting. God appeared to them, not in his three-dimensional form but in a pillar of light — the Holy Spirit. Read in Numbers 12:6-8:

And he [God] said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in dark speech; and he beholds the form of the Lord.

This is the most positive statement that I have seen in the Bible that God himself speaks of his form, rather obviously his physical form. As God's physical form is spoken of, as indeed the person of God is spoken of, the name of that person is Melchizedek. Who was Melchizedek? He was King of Salem, priest (the third and lower dimensions) of God Most High. But he had to have a Mind and Spirit, and what mind did he have but the Mind of God and what Spirit did he have but the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. The Epistle to the Hebrews of the New Testament tells us more about Melchizedek. We read in the first three verses of the seventh chapter:

For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him; and to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. He is without father or mother or genealogy, and has neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest for ever.

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9. The Son of God

Melchizedek resembles the Son of God? How could that be? It could also be said the Son of God resembles Melchizedek! Saying it this way could be more understandable when we read the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke.

In that first chapter, Luke tells the account of the angel Gabriel suddenly appearing to Mary. Gabriel must have come from heaven which could be all of past-time in the fourth dimension of spacetime. He merely had to come into Mary's three-dimensional world at that current moment of time by stepping into Mary's world from the fourth dimension, as Jesus did in his resurrection experiences. Gabriel said to the startled, possibly the terrified, Mary as told in Luke 1:30-35:

“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no husband?” And the angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”

Could the Holy Spirit come upon Mary to place that sperm cell in her womb so that she might conceive? It was demonstrated in the Pentateuch that the Holy Spirit could only enter the three-dimensional world in the form of Light. Could Light deliver the sperm cell? I think that the answer would be an emphatic “No.” Could Melchizedek have delivered this sperm cell? The answer could be an emphatic “Yes.” Why did Gabriel say that the Holy Spirit would come upon Mary? There could be at least two reasons. First, Mary was apparently a very frightened young girl and saying that the Holy Spirit would come upon her was probably less threatening than saying a man named Melchizedek will come upon you. The second could be that the Holy Spirit was the crowning glory of Melchizedek, it was the Spirit of God, Melchizedek's Spirit. Gabriel could have said that God himself would come upon her but Melchizedek was the personhood of God upward through the sixth dimension which did not include the Fatherhood of God in the seventh dimension. Melchizedek was similar to Jesus, who was to be born of Mary, and the personhood of Jesus terminated with the Holy Spirit after he was baptized by John the Baptist. That is why Jesus said during his public ministry that only his Father in the seventh dimension knows when the end of this earthly civilization will occur.

Arthur Peacocke, was a former scholar of biology at Oxford University and is now an ordained priest in the Anglican Church as well as being the former executive director of the Ian Ramsey Center at Oxford. He wrote a book entitled From DNA to DEAN. In this book he asked some very pertinent rhetorical questions about the biological conception in the womb of Mary. He asked:

Biological science... raises acute questions about the 'Virginal Conception'. Since females possess only X chromosomes, conception without a father to provide a Y chromosome could lead only to a female child with two XX chromosomes — unless there was some kind of de novo creation of a Y chromosome in the ovum entering entering Mary's uterus — for the birth narratives in the Gospels never deny, and indeed confirm, a normal gestation period of nine months. Even such a miraculous, almost magical, act would be beset with problems — what genes should the DNA of this Y chromosome possess? — those to give similarities to Joseph, or, if not, of whom? So one can go on piling Ossa on Pelion.

But a more general consideration now weighs heavily because of its theological import. If Jesus is really to be fully and completely human, all that we know scientifically about human nature shows that he must share both our evolutionary history and have the same multi-leveled, including genetic, basis for his personhood — and that means he must not only be flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, but also DNA of our DNA. If he does not, to use the traditional terms, our salvation is in jeopardy for `what he has not assumed he has not healed'. Hence it is theologically imperative that the birth stories and the doctrine of the virginal conception of Jesus be separated from the doctrine of the incarnation and be regarded in the same light as Adam and Eve — that is, as mythical and legendary stories intending to convey non-historical and non-biological truths. In this instance the truth includes the assertion that God took the initiative in shaping and creating the person and life of Jesus of Nazareth.

There is no need to pile Ossa on Pelion to reach the gods of Greek myth if the concept of the higher dimensions of man and the lower dimensions of God is employed. Arthur Peacocke says, however, that the conception in the womb of Mary should be read metaphorically because it is not known how the Y chromosome got there but that “the birth narratives in the Gospels never deny, and indeed confirm, a normal gestation period of nine months.” If the pregnancy was normal in all respects, the beginning of that pregnancy, it would seem, should also be just as normal. That Y chromosome could well have come from Melchizedek, the lower dimensions of God and that chromosome would also contain the DNA of Melchizedek, the DNA of God. It is that God-given chromosome in the womb of Mary that made Jesus divine, and the Mary-given chromosome that gave Jesus his human quality. It is said over and over again that Jesus was fully human and also fully divine. That is an impossibility. If Jesus was fully human, he would have had to have had a human father, but it could be utterly wrong to say that Jesus' father was Joseph, the man to whom Mary was betrothed. It would malign both Mary and Joseph. On the other hand Matthew said in his Gospel “and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.' ” Matthew 3:17. Again, “and a voice came from heaven, 'Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.' ” Mark 1:11. Still again, “and a voice came from heaven, 'Thou art my beloved Son, with thee I am well pleased.' ” Luke 3:22. John the Baptist testified the same, “but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' And I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God.” John 1:33-34. God did not say this is my adopted Son, nor did he say this is the person whom I have assumed to be my Son. God said this is my Son just as any human son is the combined product of a man and his wife.

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10. Why was it Necessary for Jesus to be both Divine and Human?

God had created angels before he created man, and it seems logical that God reasoned that he wanted to create human beings that might be even better than angles. Going back to Section 5, in addition to adding a human spirit to the animal-man, God might have reasoned if he gave man the freedom to break away from him if man so chose and if man decided on his own volition not to break away but to cling to God, that would be an even better creation.

Man, however, chose even at the outset to be independent of God, to use the free-will that God had given to him to be on his own, to be his own god. All of God's creation up to that time had been very good, but as soon as he gave man a free-will to do as he pleases, his experiment began to break down. It broke down so severely that God decided to start over with man. God caused the flood to occur. Possibly a thick cloud of ice crystals completely surrounding the earth to provide a more uniform temperature over its whole surface might have collapsed by the penetration of a huge meteor or the near passage of a comet. A recent book Noah's Flood by two Columbia University geologists, William Ryan and Walter Pitman, describes their findings that a deluge inundated the Black Sea basin some 7500 years ago, wiping out entire cities and submerging thousands of square miles of dry land. Furthermore, without the cloud of ice crystals surrounding the earth, the direct rays of the sun came directly to the surface of the earth and were not diffracted by the ice crystals. This condition after the flood caused the rainbow to appear when the direct rays of the sun struck the drops of rain in the air. The rainbow was the sign given by God that he would never again destroy the earth by such a flood, the cloud of ice crystals could not be re-established.

This again started the human civilization, but with the same or similar results — the Tower of Babel. After this second try, God must have reasoned that he must narrow the field. He would designate one man with whom he had found favor, Abram, whose name was changed by God to Abraham, and would make a nation springing from him.

After re-entering the Promised Land following the Egyptian captivity, they would from time to time break away from God and would worship the baals of the surrounding nations. God's wrath at those times was kindled as the wrath of parents over obstreperous children is often kindled. It was not that God's love of them waned, but like in the case of human parents, God's love must have been stretched to almost the breaking point. The Kingdom was split in two parts following the reign of Solomon, and the larger northern part broke from God to a greater extent than the southern part. God narrowed the field even more by allowing the northern Kingdom of Israel to be captured and assimilated by and into Assyria while for a time the Kingdom of Judah remained.

Judah , however, was captured by the Babylonians and after another long captivity a remnant was allowed to return to Jerusalem under Cyrus, King of Persia who had defeated Babylonia. Hence God narrowed the field even further, but even the remnant broke at times from God and generally worshiped the law and sacrifice as told in the Biblical book of Micah, rather than worshipping God himself.

After all of this experiment with humanity, God must have reasoned that he must narrow the field completely to each individual person, not only every Hebrew but every individual person in the world and to accomplish this change the Incarnation must occur as discussed in Section 9. God required a person with both divine DNA as well human DNA as described in subsequent sections.

God must have thought of this as being a last resort because he revealed these subsequent events to the prophet Isaiah even before the Babylonian captivity, as told by the prophet in chapters 5 through 9. Other prophets of the Old Testament also tell of this possibility.

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11. Jesus as a Boy

The DNA in the body, mind and spirit of Jesus revealed that God's DNA from Melchizedek must have been operative in the boy as he began to grow. Luke's Gospel is the only one that says anything about Jesus when he was a boy, but what Luke does say appears to have deep meaning, “And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.” Luke 2:40.

When he was twelve years of age, his parents went to Jerusalem from Nazareth as was their annual custom at the time of the feast of the Passover. When the feast was ended and his parents were returning to their home in Nazareth together with their friends, they became aware that Jesus was not with them. They returned to Jerusalem and after three days “found him in the Temple sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions; and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.” His parents said, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father [step-father] and I have been looking for you anxiously.” And he said to them, “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?” And they did not understand.

This shows that even when he was a boy, he must have had an extraordinary mind that even amazed the scholars in the Temple. He had to have the DNA of God that not only causes physical resemblances but mental and spiritual resemblances as well.

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12. Jesus' Baptism

Jesus went to John the Baptist at the River Jordan to be baptized. John hesitated but at the insistence of Jesus did baptize him. As Jesus was walking up out of the water, John, and probably others, saw the light of the Holy Spirit, the Shekinah Light, descending upon him and the light had the appearance of a dove. It was at that moment, according to Scripture, that a voice from heaven, God's voice, rang out, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Jesus truly was his Son in all respects, physical, mental and now distinctly in the realm of the spirit.

What occurred during that baptism? From the incident that immediately follows, it appears evident that the human spirit of Jesus was “welded” to the Holy Spirit of God so firmly that the two Spirits in effect became one and the same. As soon as Jesus came up out of the River Jordan, he was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. What was the purpose of this long period in the wilderness without food or water and to be tempted to turn stones into bread and other temptations? Many people say it was to show Jesus what the temptations of this life were, but Jesus already knew temptation through his thirty or more years on this earth. He had already experienced many temptations, and I dare say that his human nature manifested itself on some occasions during his boyhood and youthful experiences, he possibly did yield to temptation. He was not that perfect, he was not fully divine, only half-divine and half human from the DNA of God, or Melchizedek, on the one hand and from Mary on the other.

But, after his baptism, his human spirit was joined firmly to the Holy Spirit and he was led into the wilderness to test whether that “weld” was firm. The test proved that it was firm because he was not tempted by the worldly temptations. He was therefore prepared to enter upon his public ministry.

Most of us were also baptized. At our baptism, was our human spirit “welded” to the Holy Spirit as was the spirit of Jesus? I think the answer should be “No.” Jesus had the divine DNA of God and we do not. Therefore, Jesus was of nearly the same substance, but not of the identical substance, as God, and this condition applied not only to his physical being but also to his mind and spirit. His substance was not identical to that of God the Father because it was mixed for an ultimate purpose with that of human DNA, that of Mary. This is why the human spirit of Jesus could be “welded” to the Holy Spirit — his spirit had enough divine DNA so that the very firm connection could be made. This connection was possible because of the homoousios, of the same substance, proposed by Constantine at the Council of Nicaea.

Jesus was firmly connected to God his Father through the connection of his human spirit to the Holy Spirit. That is why he could say that he and the Father were one. Their Spirit had become the same. Turn to the 14th chapter of the Gospel of John through verse 11:

“Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the father, but by me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him.” 

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, `Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who also dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves.”

This says so positively that Jesus and God the Father are one and the same because they are joined in the sixth dimension of the spirit — Jesus' human spirit and God the Father's Holy Spirit. The disciples could not see that joining because, like us today, they could not see the higher dimensions beyond our three-dimensional world. This was the purpose of Jesus' baptism and the testing in the wilderness to see if the “weld” was firm, and it tested very firm.

It was the DNA that Jesus inherited from the lower dimensions of God, Melchizedek, that gave him enough of the same substance in the sixth dimension of the spirit — homoousios — that permitted his human spirit to be so firmly attached to God's Holy Spirit.

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13. Jesus' Public Ministry

The largest portions of the Gospel accounts portray Jesus' public ministry. His expressed parables tell stories of man's relationship to God and God's response to man. They also tell in story form of the glories of heaven. I will not use space in this paper to discuss these parables but wish to pass quickly to the last week of Jesus' life on this earth.

Likewise, I will not discuss Jesus' miracles in this paper as recorded in the Gospels, inasmuch as I have discussed these events in other papers, except to point out that they may be “explained” by the possibility of Jesus' prayers to his Father who probably acted in the fourth and higher dimensions the results of which touched our three-dimensional world.

Jesus was confronted by the highly educated persons of his days, scribes, pharisees and sadducees as well as lawyers. Jesus had the wise mind of God in most respects because his human spirit and God the Father's Holy Spirit were “welded” together so firmly that Jesus had the Spirit of God. The combined Spirits in the person of Jesus, as in man, might have dominated and influenced his mind. Therefore, Jesus in effect had the mind of God and was able not only to answer their questions but to turn his answers upon them to the point where they became speechless, they could not carry on the argument with Jesus.

Thus, we quickly pass to the last week of Jesus' earthly life.

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14. The Exaltation and Humiliation of Jesus

We read in the Gospel accounts that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a colt hearing the Hosannas of the people and riding over palm branches that they used to strew the way of his entry to exhibit their praise of him. This must have been a joyous occasion for Jesus. He was accepted by the people of Jerusalem and heard them sing their praises of him. But, praise quickly turned to humiliation by the people under the influence of Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year. Instead of Hosannas, they cried out, “Crucify him!” From joy to humiliation in such a short period of time probably intensified the humiliation.

Jesus was arrested by the Roman authorities, he was made jest of and mocked by the Roman soldiers who arrested him, he was forsaken by his disciples, he was quickly tried before Pilate who could find no fault in him but the populace, being stirred up by Caiaphas, shouted louder and louder, “Crucify him!!” He was also questioned by Herod, and he also could find no fault in Jesus. It was the custom to release one prisoner at Passover Time and Pilate, wishing to free Jesus, suggested that he free Jesus, but the people cried all the louder, “Crucify him, release Barabbas!!” — more and more humiliation. Hence, Pilate washed his hands of this matter and sent Jesus off to be cricified.

He was made to carry a rough-hewn heavy wooden cross on his shoulder and Luke tells that on the way to the crucifixion, when Jesus was apparently so exhausted that he could no longer bear the heavy cross, the soldiers seized a person, Simon of Cyrene, and made him bear the cross. When arriving at the place of the skull, in Hebrew called Golgotha, they nailed Jesus to this cross through his wrists and his feet, raised the cross with Jesus hanging on it and probably let it plunge with a thud into a prepared hole in the ground. As he hung on that cross, painful though it must have been, his words expressed love.

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15. The Crucifixion

Two criminals were also crucified at the same time with Jesus, one on each side of him. “One of the criminals riled on Jesus saying, 'Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!' But the other [criminal] rebuked him, saying, 'Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong... Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingly power.' And he [Jesus] said to him, 'Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.' ” Luke 23:39-43.

And again, “When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, 'Woman, behold your son!' Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold your mother!' And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. John 19:26-27.

After Jesus had hung on the cross for about six hours, his pain and suffering, as well as his extreme humiliation, must have been intensifying. The sky became dark, the light from the sun was shut off. It must not have been a total eclipse because that lasts for only a few minutes, but this darkness lasted for about three hours. I would like to suggest that God interposed either his hand or his body between the sun and the earth because he did not want to see what was next going to happen.

After hanging on the cross for hours Jesus finally turned to his own need. He said, “I thirst!” Then, under the intense suffering and humiliation, Jesus acted in the most human manner than he did in all of his earthly life. “Jesus cried with a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?' Which means, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' Mark:15:34. And Jesus uttered a loud cry, "It is finished," and breathed his last. Mark 15:37 and John 19:30. What happened when Jesus uttered the loud cry “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me.” God, his Father, of course, did not forsake him; Jesus, in his extreme humanity broke the “weld.” Jesus' human spirit was separated from God's Holy Spirit. Melchizedek could not have done this because he was fully God. He had no human DNA. Jesus, however, did have human DNA from Mary. Humans were given the freedom to break from God if they chose. It required the great suffering and the extreme humiliation of Jesus to cause this break from the Holy Spirit, from God his Father. There was no connection whatsoever, the “weld” was completely broken. Jesus had completely descended into hell; he had no more connection with his Father's Holy Spirit.

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16. The Purpose of the Incarnation and Crucifixion

This break from the Holy Spirit of God the Father must have in some manner opened the Holy Spirit to all people. I think that an illustrative name to be applied to this opening of the Holy Spirit might be the word “womb.” This womb, however, would have to be vastly different than the womb of a female human being; it was in the sixth dimension, a six-dimensional womb that could accommodate the “umbilical cords” to the six-dimensional spirit of each and every person living on the earth at any given time.

The physical evidence of this was that immediately after Jesus Christ said “My God, my God...” from the cross moments before he died, the curtain in the temple that separated the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place was torn from the top to the bottom. The Holy of Holies was where the Ark of the Covenant stood and over which the Shekinah Light shown, being the manifestation of the Holy Spirit of God. Only the high priest was permitted to enter the Holy of Holies and only once a year. This curtain was the physical manifestation of the separation of God and human beings. The entire length of this curtain was torn during the last moments that Jesus Christ hung on the cross and the tear symbolized that from then on there was no separation between God and man. This gave every person direct access to God.

I am sure that Jesus Christ did not act as a sacrifice to God his Father for all human sin, but acted to open the Holy Spirit by the functioning of his human DNA from Mary becoming almost completely dominant so that in his intense suffering and humiliation he broke that “weld.” The wrath of God the Father that demanded sacrifice as a sign of human repentance did not manifest itself at that time but the love of God, especially for his beloved Son, prevailed to the extent that he caused darkness to come over that scene which continued to exist for several hours when the suffering of his Son became the most severe.

That intense suffering and intense humiliation must have been the only way in which the Holy Spirit could be opened to each and every person. Furthermore, the intense suffering may not have been with only the Son, but the actual suffering of God the Father might also have been great as that break in the “weld” occurred.

Therefore, Jesus needed the divine DNA from the lower dimensions of God the Father, Melchizedek, so that his spiritual substance was enough like that of God his Father for his human spirit to be “welded” to the Holy Spirit of the Father. But that was only half of the total requirement. Jesus needed the human DNA of Mary so that he could become the most human in his entire life and break that “weld” to open the Holy Spirit of his Father.

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17. The “Death” of Jesus Christ

Like all human deaths when the heart stops beating and the lungs stop breathing, the body in our three-dimensional world really becomes dead and quickly begins to deteriorate. On the other hand, the living person immediately before their last heart beat and breath might at that moment be separated in time from the dead body. That is to say, the dead body continues to be in the current but passing moment of time, while the living body possibly stays with all past moments of time.

The experience of many persons who have become clinically dead and the attending medical doctors pronounce that person to be dead, have at the time their heart stops beating seemed to float away from their dead body and they can look back upon it. Darkness often seems to surround them but through such darkness they can see a distant light. This might be a purifying darkness to heal them of any disease or deformity before entering the light, possibly the un-created light of the Holy Spirit. In addition to the darkness, however, many have said they feel an intense love surrounding them, which might be the infinite love of God as the love of a human mother attends her infant as she holds it in her loving arms and speaks endearing words to it. The infant must feel secure in its new world as the mother's love surrounds that baby. The love of God, however, is infinitely greater than any human love. A person having such a “near-death” experience often says that they feel the intensity of that Love before they floated back to their dead body and it mysteriously revives. A woman in our church had such an experience and afterward she said that she no longer feared death but indeed looked forward to the time when she would “die” again and not return to her dead body.

All of past time might be heaven into which the “dead” person is born again. This would conform with the conversation that Jesus had with Nicodemus as told in the 3rd chapter of the Gospel of John. Jesus said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God... unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” These words of Jesus Christ might give substance to the concept that during this human life on earth we may be in the “womb” of the Holy Spirit which was opened to all mankind when Jesus' human spirit broke from the Holy Spirit during his last moments on the cross.

Jesus Christ probably opened that six-dimensional “womb” when that “weld” broke, but unlike the death of other human beings, Jesus, the Son of God, did apparently in the real sense of the word, descend into hell. He did not have a six-dimensional umbilical cord to be severed, he had no connection with God his Father whatsoever. He was without any spiritual connection whatsoever with the Holy Spirit of God his Father. He was truly in hell; that is, he had no connection or contact whatsoever with God his Father. Nevertheless, his living body immediately before he breathed his last on the cross continued to exist in the heaven of past-time just as all human beings continue to exist in past-time as we learn from near-death experiences of many people. Jesus death, however, was not a near-death experience. He did not return to lay on his dead body in the tomb; that body was completely “dead,” as we know death. His dead body in the current moment of time was indeed in the tomb for about 40 hours. His living body, on the other hand, in the past moments of spacetime re-entered our three-dimensional world. No near-death experiences that I recall were out of their physical three-dimensional bodies for that long a time. Jesus' physical body remaining in the current moment of time was really dead and buried, and his human spirit in past-time was completely severed from the Holy Spirit of his Father. He must have actually been in hell with no connection with God whatsoever.

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18. The Disposal of Jesus' Physical Body

After the Sabbath had passed, Mary Magdalene and another Mary went to the tomb where Jesus had been buried. They were surprised to find the large stone at the entrance of the cave where Jesus had been buried had been rolled away, possibly by an earthquake, and an angel was sitting upon it. The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. Lo, I have told you.” This is the account told in the 28th chapter of Matthew.

But, what happened to his dead body that was buried in the tomb? It must have been disposed of by God his Father in some sort of a nuclear manner that science may not yet have discovered. There is what is known as The Shroud of Turin. I do not wish to affirm that it was the actual shroud that Joseph of Arimathea used in his burial of Jesus, but some scientific testing does suggest that it is material of that time. Upon this material there is a negative type of a photographic image of parts of a man's body,including his face, that might have been made by a total disintegration of the body. It could not have been like a nuclear bomb but there might have been some sort of nuclear cremation of the body in preparation for his physical resurrection — his coming again into our three-dimensional world from the fourth dimension of spacetime.

It would have been very confusing to the people of that time if his dead body was still there when his living body in spacetime re-entered our three-dimensional world. Furthermore, the people of those days might have been tempted to worship the dead body rather that the living Lord, the Son of God.

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19. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ re-entered the then current moment of spacetime, as by analogy Mr. Sphere entered the two dimensional plane of Mr. Square in the afore mentioned book of Flatland — Mr. Sphere came into the current moment of Mr. Square's two-dimensional time.

John's Gospel, as well as Matthew's, says that he first appeared to Mary Magdalene. He must have been attracted to her during his earthly life, but according to John's account Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father...” Jesus must have still been in a vulnerable position, he had not yet returned to God his Father so that his human spirit could again be “welded” to his Father's Holy Spirit at some place on the Holy Spirit not to cover the “womb” of the Holy Spirit, but to again unite most firmly his human spirit to the Holy Spirit to become one Spirit, the Holy Spirit. It was Jesus' DNA, the homoousious, that again, like in his baptism, made it possible to unite the two Spirits to become one, the Holy Spirit of God the Father.

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20. A Greater Concept of Homoousious

But, that was not all of the unification of the Son with the Father this second time. His physical body must have been united with that of Melchizedek, to make the Son completely one with the Father. The Biblical evidence that this was true is given in only one of the Gospels, that of Luke, and I think that we should be very grateful that Luke told of the experience of Cleopas and his companion as they plodded along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus the afternoon of that first resurrection day. Turn with me to Luke 21:13-32; this is a remarkable account and I quote it in its entirety:

That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all of the things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What is this conversation which you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since this happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early this morning and did not find his body; and they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb, and found it just as the women had said; but him they did not see.” And he said to them, “ O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He appeared to be going further, but they constrained him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he opened to us the scriptures?” And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven gathered together and those who were with them, who said, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of bread.

Why did they not recognize Jesus on the road to Emmaus? The text says, “But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” This is, of course, the explanation that seems to satisfy most theologians, but there is probably a much better reason. Jesus' human spirit had been united with the Holy Spirit of his Father at the time of his baptism and this unity was made possible because both the Father and the Son had the same or similar DNA from the sperm cell delivered by Melchizedek into the womb of Mary. For this same reason, it seems reasonable that now after the resurrection that his spirit could be re-united with the Holy Spirit as it was at the time of his baptism but now his mind and physical body could also be united in the same manner.

Therefore, it could well have been the face of Melchizedek that was presented to Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus, and they did not recognize the face of Melchizedek. On the other hand, while he was sitting at table and breaking bread he must have turned the face of Jesus to them which they clearly recognized. He then immediately vanished from their sight by moving into past-time while they moved onward with the march of time in the current moment into which all of us are locked by the wisdom of God.

I recognize that most theologians would say that this experience of Cleopas and his companion was merely another miracle and the story must be read metaphorically, their eyes were temporarily distorted so that they could not recognize Jesus, in a similar manner to Jesus having restored sight to the blind, or else this account did not really happen but was told as another attempted confirmation of the resurrection. On the other hand, the account becomes really significant if you think in terms of the higher and lower dimensions of God as string theory is beginning to lead particle physicists to think in terms of the increasing size of some of the higher dimensions rather than being curled up into such a tiny ball that we cannot see them. Their thoughts are recently changing as revealed in the January 7, 2000 article in Science as mentioned above. I hope that the thoughts of theologians have not been so solidly frozen over the centuries that they also can change through reason as the physicists of string theory seem to be doing.

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21. The Reality of Jesus' Resurrected Body

After Cleopas and his companion had returned to Jerusalem, they found the eleven disciples and told them of their experience. As they were telling of this experience, Jesus suddenly stood among them. Note the similarity with Edwin Abbott's story of Flatland when Mr. Square was sitting in his living room, the doors of the house being locked, Mr. Sphere suddenly appears to him right in the middle of his living room. He had moved from his three-dimensional world into the two-dimensional world of Mr. Square. This was a startling and frightening experience for Mr. Square. The disciples in like manner were startled and frightened when they saw Jesus standing in their midst. Jesus had moved from four-dimensional spacetime into which he was released from the current moment of time when he died on the cross in the three-dimensional world of the disciples. They were startled and frightened because they did not understand the concept of the higher dimensions, Einstein had not yet been born. Read on with me in Luke 24:38-43:

And he [Jesus] said to to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do questionings rise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.

Jesus demonstrated his reality by eating the piece of fish and by letting the disciples feel him including the nail holes in his hands (wrists) and feet. This was no metaphor for the disciples, it was solid reality, it was the actual Jesus standing among them. It was the same Jesus that Cleopas and his companion saw on the Emmaus road but did not recognize him after his melding with Melchizedek made possible by the homoousios.

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22. The Ascension

Another post-resurrection experience of Jesus with the disciples is told in the first chapter of the book of The Acts of the Apostles:

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.” And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Jesus this time moved in the opposite direction, from earth into heaven, into the immediate past moment of time. He went from earth, when he was among his disciples, into heaven. That is the reason I italicized those words in the above quotation. Heaven could be, and possibly is, the spacetime continuum of the fourth dimension.

A number of years ago I read a lecture given by a Lutheran Professor who asked the rhetorical question of where did the body of Jesus go as described in the first chapter of Acts. He responded to his question by saying that Jesus likely went into one of the crystalline spheres described by the Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy in the second century. When I read that, I thought that it was tongue-in-cheek, but I came to the end of the lecture and that idea was not corrected. The crystalline spheres surrounding the earth have long been discarded by astronomy; therefore, I assume that he was saying that he did not know where heaven was located. I think that most people would say, including even the best theologians, that it is somewhere above us (or would it be above the Chinese living on the other side of the earth) beyond the sight of the most powerful telescopes available.

On the other hand, I suggest to you that heaven is very close to all of us, American or Chinese. It is ever expanding and begins at the immediate past moment and extends through all of the past moments of time in the fourth dimension of spacetime.

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23. Pentecost

And in the next chapter of Acts we read of an amazing incident:

When the day of Pentecost had come, they [the disciples] were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. And they were amazed and wondered, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own language? Parthians and Medes and [many other nations], we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”

Here again we encounter the Holy Spirit of God, the female part of God in the sixth dimension, entering our three-dimensional world in the form of light. This was the same light that formed the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night that led the Hebrews out of Egypt. It was the Shekinah Light, the fiery chariot that took Elijah to heaven, the Star of Bethlehem, and manifest in other incidents involving the Holy Spirit as recorded in the Bible. It was the manifestation of God's Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Wisdom, coming to the disciples and bestowing upon them an abundant measure of the wisdom of God.

This, however, was for the disciples in their beginning ministry. How about us? Review in your mind some of Hebrew history as told very briefly in Section 10 of this paper.

Even the relatively few Hebrews who returned to Jerusalem did not follow God, and the even fewer number that did try to obey placed so much emphasis upon the law and sacrifice which the prophet Micah decried centuries before when he said:

“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.

God's wrath from time to time descended upon his people like a human parent with obstreperous children. The human parent's love for his or her children may not diminish but his or her temper flares, and so did God's. God's patience was wearing thin and he must have eventually concluded to do as he had revealed to Isaiah and other prophets. This started the Incarnation and subsequent events as told above.

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24. God moves to the Individual, Anybody, Anywhere

The whole purpose of God was to open his Holy Spirit in a remarkable way to any and all individual person or persons who would drink deeply of the Water of Life and eat ravenously of the Bread of Life. But, how does one get this Water or Bread? God has apparently provided the source of that life-giving nourishment from his Holy Spirit. The “womb” of the Holy Spirit could have been opened when on the cross Jesus, the true Son of God, broke from the Holy Spirit, when his humanity came rushing over him through his physical pain and suffering as well as in his great humiliation. We could be in the “womb” of the Holy Spirit, all persons, during our earthly lives (remember, it would be a six-dimensional “womb”) and be fed the wisdom of love through a six-dimensional “umbilical cord” to a person's spirit in the sixth dimension. If a person chooses to receive this nourishment, they learn agape love and thereby grow in the spirit. But the individual person has the God-given freedom not to partake of this nourishment. They can starve their spirit and thereby diminish its influence upon their mind.

This could be any person, no matter what their religion or atheism, if they truly learn the wisdom of love. This requires effort on the part of each individual; it does not come easily because we are human beings with a freedom of will which seems to produce egotism in us. We are usually prone to take care of ourselves first, and if there is anything left over, the other person can have it. There is usually not much, if anything, left over. We thereby put a kink in the six-dimensional umbilical cord through which we receive this nourishment of wisdom — the art of knowing how to love other persons in all humility toward ourselves. This seems to be what Sir John Templeton had in mind. See Section 6.

At first, to learn the wisdom of love is a very difficult task. We are prone to take care of ourselves first, but practice makes more perfect. We can never come to perfection, however, because we have been given a free will by a loving God. Just how perfect must we become to be saved for eternal life in heaven? We can't know that answer, only God knows.

On the other hand, the more our spirits grow through the nourishment of the Water and Bread of Life, the more adept we become in love and the more automatic that love manifests itself to other persons. This could be because our human spirits, being and functioning in the sixth dimension, are transcendent to our minds in the fifth, or lower, dimension and provide the influence of love over our minds which govern our actions.

If our human spirits do not grow, or grow very feebly, even under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit, they become less and less dominant over our minds and our minds are thus liberated to dominate our action toward other people. We become more and more aggressive and violent to others, both physically violent, but more often mentally violent which is more difficult to detect by and in ourselves.

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25. Epilogue

In the main-line Protestant Christian Churches, membership and attendance have been declining over the past thirty or forty years as well as their financial conditions. On the other hand, many young people seem to be thirsting for a reasonable Christian faith that correlates with their studies in science. The Seminaries do not appear interested in developing such a theology and that may be the reason that the main-line Protestant Churches are languishing.

Arthur Peacock, mentioned above in this paper, gave the 1999 Witherspoon lecture on science/theology at the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton, New Jersey. He said in this lecture:

Theology needs to be, as Hans Kung has put it, 'truthful', 'free', 'critical' and `ecumenical' — a theology which deals with and interprets the realities of all that constitutes the world, especially human beings and their inner lives. Dare theology, by using IBE [Inference to the Best Information], enter the fray of contemporary, intellectual exchange and stand up and survive in its own right? To do so, it has to become an open exploration in which nothing is unrevisable.

The Bridge model for the science-and-theology enterprise must be replaced by the sense of a joint exploration into a common reality, some aspects of which will prove, in the end, to be ultimate — and so divine.

I wrote to him prior to the lecture about the concept of theology expressed in higher dimensions and he responded at that time:

...certainly if God 'transcends' space and time (4 dimensions), the language of 'higher' dimensions is attractive. But I suppose the question is, does such language refer to realities or is it simply analogical and metaphorical, like most language referring to the divine? I would tend to take the latter view but I appreciate your working through the consequences of a more 'realist' position with respect to 'higher dimensions'.

Professor Peacock apparently has not yet accepted the new string theory of physics, he is a biologist in the fields of science, but string theorists are beginning to lead the whole profession of physics, and ultimately all of science, in the concept of higher dimensions of reality. See Section 4 of this paper. He enlarged upon this Witherspoon lecture in an article in the March 2000 issue of the journal Zygon. Toward the end of this article, he said:

I myself have argued for a more dynamic view of God's continuous action in the process of the natural, including human, world — the action of a God who is indeed transcendent, incarnate, and immanent, in whom the world exists and who is its circumambient Reality.

We require an open, revisable, exploratory, radical (dare I say it?) liberal theology. This may well be unfashionable among Christians who seem everywhere to be retreating into their fortresses of classical Protestant Evangelism...

For such a Christian theology to have any viability, it may well have to be stripped down to newly conceived essentials and so be minimalist in its asseverations.

I agree wholeheartedly with Professor Peacock, and think that the concept of theology expressed in higher dimensions as merely outlined in this paper is a start in the direction of Arthur Peacocke's vision. I trust the capable theologians and scientists will rise to this challenge.

© William Witherspoon - 2004

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