In my last posting I worked out what it would mean for the whole Gospel of John to be about the Logos of God. I came to that by asking: what if the gospel identified Jesus with the Logos so that an important explanation could be made about the Logos? In that sense, it's as John was saying “To show an example of what is possible” the Logos became flesh in Jesus.
So when I read John from that perspective, I started to see that what was expressed with that strange Greek term “logos” was “the formless, eternal essence” that is the basis of Creation. That way Jesus stands out as the one who was able to shed any identifying with the ego by finding his identity with the formless, eternal essence.
So in the very first chapter, vss. 3-4 express the eternal creative power by showing that through the Logos all things came into being. Then came the great connection between Logos, life, and light by expressing that what was created through the power of Logos had life and this life was the light of all people.
The Gospel then goes on to show Jesus identifying with the formless eternal essence of the Logos. That identifying then becomes the main theme of the entire Gospel. The portrayal shows Jesus being so far beyond any ego-identity that when he speaks “I” in a spiritual sense, he means his identity as the Logos, the creative power of God -- the life-giving power -- the light-bestowing power. In my last posting when I listed the famous “I am …” and “I will …” statements, it became obvious how he identified more with the formless eternal creative essence (the Logos) than identify with the mere non-eternal form of “Jesus.” So those “I” statements weren’t referring to the material Jesus but to the unlimited eternal essence.
Of course, this new realization changed my understanding of the statement that has caused a great deal of trouble over the centuries with Christianity’s relation with other religions. It seems to me that the trouble could be dealt with by seeing the statement from an open perspective rather than from an exclusivist perspective.
So we could understand that statement to mean “The formless, eternal essence is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through the formless, eternal essence.” That way the statement from Jesus becomes a universal statement rather than the previously thought of exclusive statement. So it’s not as though Jesus claimed that people can come to the way, the truth, and the life only by dedication to the material form of Jesus Christ; but instead, he was calling people to do what he did and identify ourselves with the formless, eternal essence.
He was calling people to get beyond any identification with ego as a controlling function, and he was making it possible for people to find their identity through their connection with the formless, eternal essence within.
Next when we read in Chapters 14-17 also the verses where Jesus gives agape to the disciples, we see him commanding that they share agape with one another. This was his way of showing how the spiritual power of agape is a Helper in the process of identifying with the formless, eternal essence that each person finds as their connection with God. There he was showing that a main spiritual purpose to the Logo’s work through Jesus was to bring God’s spiritual power of agape to people, and he made sure that it was working in the lives of his disciples.
By accepting that all those quotes refer to Jesus finding his identity more with the unlimited eternal essence than with any materially limited ego-identity -- then those “I” statements weren’t referring to the material Jesus but instead to the unlimited eternal essence. And I believe his will was for us to consider our identity with the formless, eternal essence, and not with any form of ego.
