End-time worship can be experienced when true believers receive the gift of the Spirit from the True Temple

The Theme of Temple Christology in John's Gospel

"John combined these two distinct Jewish traditions of thought, water and Spirit, as eschatological life, in developing his Temple Christology. Jesus now shares in the eschatological identity of God by granting the divine gift of new creational life which was anticipated and expected in early Judaism and Old testament. This life is available through faith in the True Temple who gives the eschatological Spirit, the source of new creational life. Additionally, the true worship is greater than the former worship because it is now more inclusive and not geographically limited. This end-time worship can be experienced when true believers receive the gift of the Spirit from the True Temple, thereby making their fellowship more intimate than their formal ceremonial Temple worship."

"Unless a person is regenerated by the power of the Spirit of God then he will not experience God’s eschatological benefits of eternal life"

“The Fourth Gospel makes a clear distinction between its two concepts of the Spirit, its revelatory function (cf. the Paraclete passages) and its life-giving function. The expression (Xxxxxx Hebrew fonts) should not be interpreted as referring to the revelatory function of the Spirit, although it can be translated this way, but rather as the reality of eschatological life. Schnackenburg seems to be in agreement since he says, ‘the pair of words, in which the emphasis is on (Xxxxxx Hebrew fonts), means the same thing in both its elements... The “truth” also means, in Johannine theology, the divine reality revealed by Jesus...[and] it is easy to understand that the true adorers “in Spirit and truth” are those who are “born of the Spirit” (cf. 3.3-8)’. True worshippers must be empowered by the Spirit of God in order to encounter God in worship, as they respond to the Father in exclusive worship by recognizing his divine reality of eschatological life found in the True Temple of God. Ridderbos affirms this reading by saying that the:

’Spirit’—here linked with ‘truth’ in a hendiadys as with ‘grace and truth’ in 1.17 refers to the time of salvation that has come with Christ and to the concomitant new way in which God wants to relate to human beings... ‘Spirit and truth’ refer to the fellowship thus established in its life-creating and life-giving power, as leading to the fullness of God’s gift (cf. 1.16) that is no longer mediated by all sorts of provisional and symbolic forms, but by the Spirit of God himself, which is why it is repeatedly called worship of the ‘Father’.

Therefore, the practice of monolatrous worship was required (‘must’) because the unique identity of God as the sole Creator of all eschatological life placed him in a distinctive category beyond all other reality. The Spirit in John refers to eschatological life so that it is now as the sole giver of this eschatological life that God is to be worshipped. In other words, because God relates to worshippers with his eschatological identity of self-continuity (‘God is Spirit’), those who worship need to come to a recognition of their relationship to the one God by finding eschatological life in the True Temple.

c. How do the other Johannine references to the new creational life, namely Jn 3.5, 7.39 and 20.22, support this reading in 4.23-34?

Once again, although some scholars understand the Spirit, in early Judaism and in John’s Gospel, as the author of revelation, prophecy, and purification, this section will explore further the concept of the Spirit in Jn 3.5, 7.39 and 20.22, along with Jn 4.23-34 and its Jewish parallels, as representing the eschatological Spirit of the new creation. First, Jesus’ discourse with Nicodemus concerning being ‘born from above’,[262] especially Jesus’ words in v. 5, ‘unless one is born of water and the Spirit, introduces the water and Spirit motifs found elsewhere in the Fourth Gospel.

The Theme of Temple Christology in John's Gospel
Stephen T. Um, T&T Clark Int'l (October 31, 2006) pp. 177-179

262. ‘Birth from above’ is a circumlocution for ‘birth from God’, and Jesus’ claim to Nicodemus is that unless a person is regenerated by the power of the Spirit of God then he will not experience God’s eschatological benefits of eternal life (Turner, The Holy Spirit, p. 67).

End-time worship can be experienced when true believers receive the gift of the Spirit from the True Temple

"CONCLUSION

This book has made a novel contribution to scholarship in the following two ways: (1) No other work has carefully investigated the early Jewish background of water and Spirit as the normative background for John 4; (2) No other work has developed Temple Christology by connecting two distinct Jewish traditions of water with the Spirit as eschatological life for the background of John's image of the Spirit as the source of new creational life.

In the introduction of this thesis, we observed that most scholars interpreted water as a symbol for revelation; however, we argued in Chapter 2 against that pervasive view...

Next, in Chapter 3, the concept of Spirit was examined and our findings refuted the restrictive definition which some scholars have advocated: Spirit was shown to be a powerful agent for creative and eschatological life rather than a mere communicative organ inspiring charismatic revelation or prophecy. God's new creative activity of providing eschatological life through the Spirit was analogous to his creative activity through the same Spirit. Both Spirit and breath in eschatological contexts were understood as divine gifts of new creational life, reflecting the unique identity of God who grants the Spirit. There was surely a clear Jewish association of the Spirit with the future new creation.

John not only recognized the strong Jewish association with water and Spirit with the future new creation but also remarkably combined these two distinct Jewish traditions to produce the image of Spirit as the source of eschatological life. First, the offer of this `living water', a symbol for the Spirit, extended by Jesus to the Samaritan woman to assuage her thirst (cf. Isa. 12.3; 26.19; 32.2, 20; 35.6-7; 41.17; 44.3; 49.10; 58.11) is understood by John to be the prophetic fulfillment of Isaiah's new creational promises. John shares the common Jewish interpretation of these texts as referring to the eschaton, developing this theme of Jewish expectation for the new creational age. The Isaianic texts referred to in Chapter 4, I.b.I.a (and Table 18) present sufficient evidence for an allusion in John 4.10-14. Second, water, representing a garden/Temple supply of abundant life, was developed by the Deutero-Isaiah passages and by eschatological Temple references (Ezek. 47.1-12; Joel 4.18; Zech. 14.8), describing a new creational place of blessedness. This source of life flowing from the end-time Temple is usually associated with the presence of God, and John represent Jesus as the true Temple who replaces the old temple as the source of eschatological life.

In addition to his use of the Jewish tradition of water within the messianic new creational age, John similarly establishes the Jewish understanding of the Spirit within the eschatological age. First, John refers to the Spirit as eschatological life; thus, it is as the source of eschatological life that God is to be worshipped. In other words, because God relates to worshippers with his eschatological identity of self-continuity (`God is Spirit'), they need to recognize their relationship to the one God by finding new creational life mediated by the Spirit in the True Temple. But this new life can be experienced by believing in the eschatological reality found in the True Temple of God, the giver of the life-giving Spirit. Second, God's self-disclosure of who he is and how he acts in history is made identifiable by the manifestation of his living presence in the True Temple, the one who participates in the unique divine identity of the one and only true God who exists eternally in himself. If a person experiences the reality of eschatological life by the new creational power of the Spirit, then that individual would be able to participate in the exclusive worship of God because he or she recognizes the unique divine identity of God, who is Spirit. In other words, the cosmic presence of God who represents the personal identity of self-continuity is now being identified in this inaugurated new creational kingdom by the reality of eschatological life found in the True Temple of God...

John combined these two distinct Jewish traditions of thought, water and Spirit, as eschatological life, in developing his Temple Christology. Jesus now shares in the eschatological identity of God by granting the divine gift of new creational life which was anticipated and expected in early Judaism and Old testament. This life is available through faith in the True Temple who gives the eschatological Spirit, the source of new creational life. Additionally, the true worship is greater than the former worship because it is now more inclusive and not geographically limited. This end-time worship can be experienced when true believers receive the gift of the Spirit from the True Temple, thereby making their fellowship more intimate than their formal ceremonial Temple worship.

The Theme of Temple Christology in John's Gospel
Stephen T. Um, T&T Clark Int'l (October 31, 2006) pp. 189-190

Amazon Editorial Reviews
Product Description
In the past, most scholars have interpreted water as a symbol for revelation. In this thesis, Stephen Um argues against that pervasive view. He believes that the evidence indicates more precisely that the most conventional way of describing water in early Judaism was the life-giving usage (e.g. original Eden, the present age, and the new creational age). He goes on in Chapter 3 to examine the concept of 'Spirit' and his findings refute the restrictive definition which some scholars have advocated: 'Spirit' is shown to be a powerful agent for creative and eschatological life rather than a mere communicative organ inspiring charismatic revelation or prophecy. John not only recognized the strong Jewish association of water and Spirit with the future new creation, but also remarkably combined these two distinct Jewish traditions to produce the image of Spirit as the source of eschatological life. Water, representing a supply of abundant life, was developed by the Deutero-Isaiah passages and by eschatological Temple references (Ezek 47:1-12; Joel 4:18; Zech 14:8), describing a new creational place of blessedness. Um posits that if a person experiences the reality of eschatological life by the new creational power of the Spirit, then that individual would be able to participate in the exclusive worship of God because he or she recognizes the unique divine identity of God, who is Spirit.
About the Author
The Reverend Dr. Stephen Um is a graduate of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (M.Div; Th.M.), and the University of St. Andrews in Scotland (Ph.D.). He teaches at Gordon-Conwell as a lecturer of New Testament.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD: PRESENT OR FUTURE?
by Anthony Buzzard

"In the Book of Acts the Kingdom of God was still the general formula for the substance of Christian teaching..." (Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. II, p. 855).

On the lips of Jesus the term Kingdom of God unquestionably summarized the very heart of His Message. "The Kingdom of God is the central theme of the teaching of Jesus, and it involves His whole understanding of His own person and work" (Theological Word Book of the Bible, Alan Richardson, p. 119).

Yet the voluminous discussions of the meaning of the Kingdom of the God, the heart of the Gospel preached by Jesus, and therefore the Christian Gospel, continue to leave the impression that the subject is complex in the extreme, indeed that the truth of the matter is virtually beyond recovery. An enormous amount of scholarly energy has gone into analyzing the biblical and non-biblical evidence in an effort to explain what Jesus taught as His central theme. Can it really be that our New Testament records provide no clear idea of what Christ and the Apostles meant us to understand by the Kingdom of God? Nothing less than the Gospel message of salvation is at stake.

Nearly all writers on this subject agree that the Kingdom has both a present and a future reference in the teaching of the New Testament. But it is the present reference which seems always to attract most attention, the impression being given that Jesus insisted on the fact that the Kingdom of God had arrived with His ministry. How deeply that notion has been instilled in us can be tested by asking in a variety of religious circles what is understood by the term Kingdom of God. Almost invariably the reaction will be that it is a present reality, a reign of God in the hearts of the believers, the Kingdom thus being, in some sense, synonymous with the Church. Now that emphasis might well appear convincing, were it not for a large number of impressively simple New Testament passages which flatly contradict the notion that the Kingdom was present, in the sense that the Kingdom itself had come with Jesus. Surprisingly, these passages seem to have escaped notice. Yet they provide the most obvious support for the fact that the coming of the Kingdom is linked overwhelmingly in the New Testament not with the ministry of Jesus in Palestine, but with the Coming of the Messiah in the glory of His Kingdom at the end of the age (popularly, but wrongly known as the end of the world). It is essential, therefore, at the outset, to make a fundamental distinction between the proclamation of the Good News of the Kingdom, which is at the heart of the ministry of Christ and the Apostles, and the future coming of the Kingdom which is consistently associated with His Coming in glory at the end of the "present evil age" (Gal. 1:4).

The Coming of the Kingdom

Any analysis of the time-element in connection with the Kingdom of God should quite naturally concern itself firstly with the New Testament use of the word "come" in reference to the Kingdom of God. Do the New Testament writers consider the coming of the Kingdom to have occurred already, or is it expected for the future? Immediately we are struck with the fact that we are to pray continually that the Kingdom should come ("Thy Kingdom come," Matt. 6:10, Luke 11:2). Jesus was undoubtedly present when these words were spoken; yet He urges His disciples to pray for the coming of the Kingdom! It is thus clear that it had not yet come; and this impression is reinforced by the fact that Jesus, speaking shortly before His death, did not expect to drink again of the wine of the Passover cup until the Kingdom had come (Luke 22:18). Moreover, Joseph of Arimathaea, who was a disciple (Matt. 27:57) and therefore understood the faith, was at the time of the crucifixion still waiting for the Kingdom to come (Luke 23:51). Its coming is here quite obviously still in the future. As absolute confirmation of this, we find in Luke 21:31 that it is the cataclysmic future events leading up to the return of Christ in glory which herald also the coming of the Kingdom of God: "When you see all these things [warning of the near approach of the Return of Christ in glory], know that the Kingdom of God is near" - "about to come" (Good News Bible).

The future coming of Christ in glory is thus decisively linked with the coming of the Kingdom.

We may add to these passages the crucial parable in Luke 19 in which Jesus describes Himself as a nobleman who is to depart to a "far country" (i.e., to the Father in heaven) to receive His authority to rule and then to return as King to establish the Kingdom. This information is given by Christ to correct the misunderstanding that the Kingdom of God was to appear immediately (Luke 19:11). According to Jesus, there is no question that it will appear, but not in the immediate future. It is significant that it was Jesus' being close to Jerusalem at the time that prompted the expectation that the Kingdom was about to be manifested publicly. This shows that the Kingdom was understood as being a Messianic government, centred upon Jerusalem, as all the prophets had envisaged it. Jesus says nothing, then or after the resurrection, to suggest that their understanding of the Kingdom was fundamentally wrong. It is only the question of the time of its arrival which needs to be clarified, and no precise chronological data are offered here or anywhere in the New Testament to allow the setting of dates. Much harm has been done to the New Testament doctrine of the Second Coming by those who succumb to the illusion that the precise time of the Great Event may be known in advance.

The parable in Luke 19 makes two important points: firstly that the Kingdom had not yet appeared, late in the ministry of Christ, and secondly that it will appear when Christ returns from the "far country," after an unspecified period of absence. It should be quite clear that the evidence of Scripture entirely negates the popular concept that the Kingdom of God had come with the ministry of Christ. In every case where the simple verb "come" is used of the Kingdom, it is a future coming which is being described.

www.focusonthekingdom.org/articles/kingdom.htm

Jesus: "But the Kingdom of God is within you and outside of you."

"The Gospel of Thomas also suggests that Jesus is aware of, and criticizing the views of the Kingdom of God as a time or a place that appear in the other gospels. Here Jesus says, "If those who lead you say to you, "look, the Kingdom is in the sky," then the birds will get there first. If they say "it's in the ocean," then the fish will get there first. But the Kingdom of God is within you and outside of you. Once you come to know yourselves, you will become known. And you will know that it is you who are the children of the living father."

In this gospel, and this is also the case in the Gospel of Luke, the Kingdom of God is not an event that's going to be catastrophically shattering the world as we know it and ushering in a new millennium. Here, as in Luke 17:20, the Kingdom of God is said to be an interior state; "It's within you," Luke says. And here it says, "It's inside you but it's also outside of you." It's like a state of consciousness. It's hard to describe. But the Kingdom of God here is something that you can enter when you attain gnosis, which means knowledge. But it doesn't mean intellectual knowledge. The Greeks had two words for knowledge. One is intellectual knowledge, like the knowledge of physics or something like that. But this gnosis is personal, like "I know that person, or do you know so and so." So this gnosis is self- knowledge; you could call it insight. It's a question of knowing who you really are, not at the ordinary level of your name and your social class or your position. But knowing yourself at a deep level. The secret of gnosis is that when you know yourself at that level you will also come to know God, because you will discover that the divine is within you."

Elaine H. Pagels, PBS and WGBH/FRONTLINE, 1998

The Great Adi Shakti Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

The Great Adi Shakti Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

The Paraclete Shri Mataji "So one has to understand that evolutionary process is absolutely free, without any effort and you can't pay for your evolution. It is spontaneous. Like you have this Mother Earth and you put the seed in it, then it sprouts by itself. What do you do? Nothing. It is spontaneous and that's what exactly happens to you, that spontaneously you achieve that state of the Spirit...

So science cannot answer many questions and one of them is that why are we on this Earth? What is the purpose of our life? What is the goal of our life? What is our identity? This question is not asked and, if asked, they cannot answer. They cannot answer this simple question, "Why are we on this Earth?" But one has to know that we are on this Earth to become the Spirit, to enter into the Kingdom of God. This is our purpose. That's why we are here and then to be the instruments of that Divine Power, which is All-Pervading."

The Paraclete Shri Mataji
Philadelphia, USA - October 15, 1993

"You cannot force on the organization of God anything. He is on His own, His organization is on His own. Only thing you can do is to enter into His Kingdom and become a part and parcel of that blissful domain.

You would never like to change it either. It is so wonderful. It is so protective, it's so loving, is so gentle, so kind, so compassionate, that you would hate to change that organization, but we do! We try to organize God.

For people who think that is the ultimate you have to seek, it's all arranged to enter into the Kingdom of God. The time has come. This is the Day of Resurrection. These are the days of Resurrection.

" The Paraclete Shri Mataji

"The Kingdom of God that we were promised is at hand. This is not a phrase out of a sermon or a lecture, but it is the actualization of the experience of the highest Truth which is Absolute, now manifesting itself in ordinary people at this present moment."

The Paraclete Shri Mataji

"He always talked about the future. He said “You have to enter into the Kingdom of God”; “Holy Ghost has to come.” He said that “You have to get somebody who will counsel you; who will redeem you; who will comfort you and that is the Holy Ghost.” "

The Paraclete Shri Mataji

"The work is tremendous. It's not for medium, mediocre people to do this job. Frightened, fearful, arrogant, cheeky - they cannot, they have no mettle... Tell all the nations and tell all the people all over the Great Message that the Time of Resurrection is here. Now! At this time, and that you are capable of doing it."

The Paraclete Shri Mataji
Cowley Manor Seminar, UK - July 31, 1982

"Today, Sahaja Yoga has reached the state of Mahayoga, which is en- masse evolution manifested through it. It is this day's Yuga Dharma. It is the way the Last Judgment is taking place. Announce it to all the seekers of truth, to all the nations of the world, so that nobody misses the blessings of the Divine to achieve their meaning, their absolute, their spirit."

The Paraclete Shri Mataji

NOTE: If this page was accessed during a web search you may wish to browse the sites listed below where this topic or related issues are discussed in detail to promote global peace, religious harmony, and spiritual development of humanity:

www.adishakti.org/
www.al-qiyamah.org/
www.adi-shakti.org/  — Divine Feminine (Hinduism)
www.holyspirit-shekinah.org/  — Divine Feminine (Christianity)
www.ruach-elohim.org/  — Divine Feminine (Judaism)
www.ruh-allah.org/  — Divine Feminine (Islam)
www.tao-mother.org/  — Divine Feminine (Taoism)
www.prajnaaparamita.org/  — Divine Feminine (Buddhism)
www.aykaa-mayee.org/  — Divine Feminine (Sikhism)
www.great-spirit-mother.org/  — Divine Feminine (Native Traditions)

"Now, the principle of Mother is in every, every scripture - has to be there." Shri Mataji, Radio Interview 1983 Oct 01, Santa Cruz, USA