Welcome to my last and possibly most controversial post on some little known sayings of Yeshua that generally lie hidden from mainstream religious thought.
Today we look at the whole concept of violence and religion, and how, without the insights of Yeshua they can be surprisingly strange bedfellows. Please feel free to comment, disagree or ask any further questions as a ‘sacred can of worms’ lies behind this history changing quote.
Blessings
Dylan
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“For you took away the ‘key of knowledge’. You yourselves didn’t enter and you hindered the ones entering in.”
In this provocative statement Yeshua turns the Divine spotlight on the religious mindset of His day, indeed on the mindset of all religious systems throughout the ages. The sacred skeleton in the cupboard can no longer remain hidden in the pseudo-respectability that it attempts to clothe itself in.
What exactly is the ‘key of knowledge’ that Yeshua claims the religious top brass were holding back from the common man? In order to answer such a defining question we need to examine the context of the Nazarene’s debate with His Jewish elders.
Yeshua has just fired both barrels at the number of excessive laws extrapolated onto the Torah by the Jewish Scribes. In other words He was confronting the timeless issue of religious legalism that always reduces the big picture to the minutiae of religious duty.
Yet in His discussions Yeshua unearths a deeper problem that lies at the foundation of the religious mindset viz violence and its covering hypocrisy; the elephant in religion’s ‘holy of holies’. The revelation of violence at the heart of the sacred is, I believe, the key referred to by the Nazarene, the key that opens the door to a new perception of the Divine.
In first century Palestine the construction of tomb memorials to the prophets of past centuries helped consolidate Jewish identity in the face of Roman occupation. The religious authorities appeared to honour the pioneer spokesmen of their evolving faith whilst honouring their forefathers who’d murdered them. Yeshua went for the sacred jugular in exposing the blatant hypocrisy of His fellow debaters, claiming that all prophets throughout history ( Abel to Zechariah) had been murdered by the status quo religious representatives of their day.
Yeshua’s declaration that we cannot serve two masters appeared not to have registered with His audience. The religious violence of the past was repeatedly hushed up and literally whitewashed over in the victims’ memorial tombs, a good gloss being painted over the religiously motivated murders.
The Nazarene, a prophet Himself, ominously exposed the spirit that maintains the religious game throughout human history. He well and truly flushed the violent genie out of its shiny sacred lamp thus determining His own prophetic destiny.
“You are sons of your father who was a murderer from the beginning” elsewhere exploded the myth of a violent, angry God, the father in question being the “Satan” or “Adversary” of human desire. No wonder Yeshua’s listeners responded with violence further confirming their spiritual parentage.
The murder of Abel, the first brother, is a telling prototype of all religious rivalry and its resulting violence; the striking out of a jealousy birthed by a dysfunctional perception of the Divine. The first murder is interpreted as the first fruits of a Divine rejection – the secret mechanism that keeps the religious show on the road.
“For God and Ulster”,~ a paramilitary groups slogan for war in my homeland of Northern Ireland, says it all. The Divine has been mistakenly woven into the very fabric of human violence since Cain lashed out. Jealous of Divine approval the sons of God go to war carrying a dualistic view of His character deep within their wounded psyches.
No matter how good the cover up, the violence at the heart of religion will always rear its ugly head given time – like a Jack-in Box that must release its energy by popping up. “Look how they love one another” has become the taunt of non-believers as they witness the often bitter rivalry at the heart of sacrificial religion.
The revelation of religious violence by Yeshua quickly resulted in His own murder dressed up in the guise of a political and religious expediency; the Satanic genie hit back in its time-honoured modus operandi.
Further unmasked in the Crucifixion of its Divine whistle-blower the violent godfather quickly hit back dressing the risen Saviour in violent clothing of His own. A Father and Son who’d dispatch non believers in their conditional love to a place of eternal torment. A violent God ridding Himself of violent men.
Could it be that the religion of Yeshua has also does a tomb job on its dispatched prophets over the past two millennia? Is this ‘key of knowledge’ still important in our walk with the Divine? I believe so, for the essential nature of religion is still the same – under its Jesus layer lurks sibling rivalry that negates the very message of the Nazarene, the unconditional Divine Love that welcomes and accepts all.
Thankfully Spirit will always be heard outside the rivalry and ultimate violence of religious systems, the dualistic world of ‘them and us’. Let’s be on guard that we don’t mistake such a religious mindset as the Way of Yeshua.
Hi Dylan, I am very intrigued by this quote. Can you tell me where it is found? This phenomenon of rejecting truth and preventing others from experiencing it also is prevalent in government, religion, and lots of big organizations today. Thanks~ Rhonda
Hi RJ
Thanks for the question and comment. The quote is from Luke 11 verse 52. Hope that helps. The violent heart of religion and indeed all controlling power is I believe the ‘Satan’ that Yeshua came to expose through his life, teaching, death and resurrection.
Have a blessed Christmas period my 2011 friend.
Dylan
Evil is found here on earth, in the mind, and likely exclusive the the third dimension. The truth of the Divine in each of us, as ever-expanding consciousness, pure light energy, may be lost to many Souls in this place. But not in the 5th dimension. And that is where we are going.
Thanks for dropping by Rosanne. Yes, one day we’ll all be removed from the skewed desire matrix and see and know as we are known – it will be a place of many tears, yet one of Divine Presence is all its fullness.
Good article Dylan. It is the rejection at the heart of all religion which has put me on the path with no religion after giving fifty years to it as its humble servant. The violence is prevalent in more subtle forms than wars and executions. The hatred sputtered in the name of God at those of a diverging doctrine is nothing other than delusional hypocrisy. But only those outside the bonds of doctrine can see it. It only became clear to me once I distanced myself. It is now clear to me that the Divine permeates every human being making us all brothers and sisters. If only all would look within to recognize that.
Jim
A comment that I wholeheartedly agree with Jim. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this ‘key of knowledge’ that Yeshua idntified was widely proclaimed in pulpits far and wide; it would be the end of power play religion and its accompanying institutions.
Blessings
Dylan
Beautiful.
Thanks Josh. It really is Good News after all!
Having been blinded within the bounds of doctrine and what really was subtle violence (denying that all are part of God),I could not see these truths for a long time. It is unbelievable that such a powerful, violent religious system was founded in Yeshua’s name when his message was to expose and tear down this very thing! Thank God this is being exposed and understood so we can all find the truth and light within….Spirit within, instead of being controlled and deceived by a loveless and violent religious superstructure. I loved this article, Dylan. Thanks!
Thanks for dropping by with your insightful and most encouraging comment. Yes, its amazing how many of us lived within such a subliminally violent belief structure for so long. I see it as the door way through which I encountered Yeshua but not the place He’d planned for me to stay.
Glad you enjoyed the article. Please feel free to tell others about it if you think it will encourage them on the Journey Home.
Blessings
Dylan
“The murder of Abel, the first brother, is a telling prototype of all religious rivalry and its resulting violence; the striking out of a jealousy birthed by a dysfunctional perception of the Divine.” In what way does this have anything to do with religion, when you have previously defined religion as a system that employs priests and ritual, both of which are absent in this story?
Is the seed a flower? Is the founding murder, Abel’s demise at Cain’s hand, the seed of all religious blood sacrifice? Religion is a ritualized re-enactment of the founding murder – the more evolved it is the less actual blood involved – one established to defuse the contagion of inter-personal bloodletting, stemming from rampant communal desire.
Blessings
Dylan
Hi Dylan,
I wholly agree with your viewpoint. Sectarian religions are not the answer to what our world needs and are a regrettable perversion and corruption of the real practices which mysticism teaches us. Yeshua tried to start such a mission but his immediate followers made a mess of things by changing, misinterpreting and diluting his teachings.
Luckily the original mystic sayings have been reconstructed in recent years by a whole team of scholars:
https://jesussaying.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/the-original-part-of-the-sayings-gospel-q-the-sayings-of-the-tantric-jesus/
Of course intellectual scholars don’t as a rule have an eye for the deeper meaning of mystic sayings, so they fail to interpret them properly and don’t even recognize them as mystic teachings (they do call some of them ‘wisdom sayings’).
People like you make me hopeful that the age of religious dogma is finally coming to an end.
Looking forward to read more of your ideas and thoughts!
Andries