Jesus Raises Lazarus to Life (Rabel)

(Back) The Parable of the Unprofitable Servant The Coming of the Kingdom (Next)

^11:38Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone lay against it. ^11:39Jesus saith, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time the body decayeth; for he hath been dead four days. ^11:40Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou believedst, thou shouldest see the glory of God?^11:41So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou heardest me. ^11:42And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the multitude that standeth around I said it, that they may believe that thou didst send me. ^11:43And when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. ^11:44He that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

The next incident is the raising of Lazarus, which is a very difficult incident to deal with on the metaphysical level, for a very obvious reason: most people are not so much interested on the metaphysical level. They are more interested in it on the literal, historical level; and you can guess why, for a very human reason. Many people at any given meeting in your center are going to be people who have grieved over the loss of loved ones, 112%.

Everybody is concerned about the loss of loved ones through death. Everybody is concerned about whether it is even possible to bring a dead corpse back to life, and even if they decide that it is possible, there is still another almost insurmountable question: do we have a right to, who makes the choice in a situation like that? Suppose I had, through right of consciousness, carte blanche power to restore a corpse to life. Now, in order for me to be sure that I use that power correctly, I would have to have the understanding of where and when and with whom it would be right to exercise such a power. Of course, in the case of Jesus, if we are going to stay just on the literal, historical level, we will have that ability to read souls. Whether the soul was still incarnate or not, did not count.

His ability was to read souls, all human souls and on any dimension, which were the province of His ministry. So, a soul which had just left the body, would still be within the kin of that consciousness of Jesus Christ no matter what course that soul would take afterward. Jesus would still be in contact with it and be able to read it. In the case of the individuals that he did revive into corporeality, obviously He found something in that soul which consented, which agreed to the process; and, therefore, it was a matter of consciousness. But in our case, before we would have that ability to read into souls, to establish our true rights in connection with them and our contact with them, we would have to have that much of a development in our understanding faculty and some others, and the power then, to revive inert bodies with the soul, which would impart the light to that body, would be no big deal, not really. If you have the consciousness of it, you have the know-how. A prosperity consciousness itself is its own how-to, Catherine Ponder or no Catherine Ponder; the consciousness of true prosperity, itself, is the how-to, not the gimmicks, the consciousness. The same thing with a healing consciousness. It is the how-to. People can share consciousness with other people if the sharee is willing (I just made up the word, sharee). If the sharee is willing, he may partake in the consciousness of the sharer, if the two are in rapport. When Jesus said, “If two or more are gathered together in my name…” He included Himself, so one other makes two.

Q. I thought that was in my consciousness, two or more gathered together in my consciousness.

A. If two or more of your faculties are gathered together in agreement with the Christ principle, the full Christ power is there too. That is on the strictly metaphysical. You see, all metaphysical validities also go into the outer validity; so if two persons are gathered together in my name, which would be Jesus and the person, or anyone else who wants to try it, there is the Presence of Jesus. Obviously, in the case of the daughter, Jairus and Lazarus, and I think there was one other, there was a rapport between the souls that made the transition, Jesus, Himself, of course; and although I have never read this or been told this by a teacher, my own feelings say that the loved ones of the departed were also very strongly a part of the success of this. I cannot rationalize this or explain it, it is just a feeling I had in meditating on this, that it was not just Jesus and just Lazarus, not just Jesus and just the little girl, but also the family of the little girl and the loved ones of Lazarus who also entered into this and did the contributing thing. I have gone over this with a fine-tooth comb with all my critical faculties and all my old skepticism to try to combat the account of these things as they are in the Gospels, and every time I come back to them thinking I will tap a little deeper this time. Guess what I find? My claws have worn a little duller, and my critical faculties are not quite so impulsive, and I have come to the point now where I have no problem in accepting it just the way it is written. But this does not rule out finding the metaphysical meaning.

I have to use my “Mysteries of John” teaching notes on this, and these are quite old. The first clue we have to the metaphysical meaning here is the word Lazarus itself. In the "Metaphysical Bible Dictionary”, it means "whom God helps" and then, strangely enough, the definition goes on "without succor". That word is archaic, meaning help and then helpless. Notice that: "Whom God helps without succor", helpless, the word means all three things, just as in the case of Job and in the case of Jonah. You have the definition of a Hebrew word that runs the whole gamut to its opposite. Here you have the same thing, but much more condensed. It starts out "whom God helps" and ends up "helpless".

Now, Lazarus, whom God helps without succor, helpless, means something in us, which at the present time, cannot help itself but can always be helped by God or a God-consciousness. In the “Metaphysical Bible Dictionary”, it explains it this way, "Lazarus, whom God helped without succor, refers to the part of the consciousness that is helped by the power of God, though utterly neglected by the man himself, or utterly incapable of helping itself as itself but must receive its help from something higher than itself, representing God.” Then, specifically in the MDT, Mr. Fillmore rather pinpoints the metaphysical meaning of Lazarus as "The vitalizing energies in the sub-consciousness that feed the body and give it the life force that renews its youth."

So, basically, we can view Lazarus as a symbol of the idea of the ever renewing life and vitality of the body consciousness, for which Mr. Fillmore chooses the word (and I wish he had not chosen that word but another) youth, because that is a misleading word. Most people are naturally going to connote turning back the clock when you use that word, and taking on the body of a young person again, in terms of time; whereas the metaphysical meaning of youth as Mr. Fillmore obviously meant it, was not turn back the clock to the early days, but ever-renewing, that is the real meaning, not going back to the age of sixteen, but the ever renewing process of life expression in the body. There is no age; age and time span have nothing to do with it. A body can take on characteristics of age and yet ever within itself be undergoing renewal. This is to be permanent, eternal; and the idea of this is the symbol of Lazarus.

Now, of course, race consciousness being what it is, our individualities still at a stage of development that it is, Lazarus dies or goes to sleep. Jesus said when he went to sleep, he went to sleep. Nobody understood what He meant by "went to sleep", so He said, "Well he died." It conveyed the same idea, but so does our belief in the idea of the possibility of eternal renewal of life expression in consciousness falls asleep and dies in people, mostly because of osmosis. You look at the clock, at the calendar, at the mirror, at other people - osmosis - the aging process; finally Lazarus goes to sleep. Then he might even die, then reincarnation; but through spiritual awareness, the divine idea of renewal, eternal renewal, eternal vivifying, perfect life expression can be raised from the dead, can be lifted or brought out of the tomb of disbelief, you see, the term of inertia, of neglect and brought back to active expression through consciousness. We have many wonderful Unity affirmations that help do this sort of thing. One that Mr. Fillmore suggested in “Jesus Christ Heals”: "I am the resurrection and the life". The Silent Unity affirmation is "I am the ever-renewing, ever-unfolding expression of infinite life."

Text of the original transcript of the 2nd paragraph of p.233 through the 1st paragraph of p.235.
Transcribed by Margaret Garvin on 04-09-2014