Let us consider for a moment this short passage of scripture from the New Testament: “The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8:19-21).
The first thing that jumps out at me is that according to the New Testament our world is not right. Something is wrong, and that something penetrates to the very core of our incarnate experience. It is not only inside of us; it also can be seen and felt in all our environmental, creational interactions.
As we ponder this, the questions of how and why this has happened come to mind. Why was the creation subjected to frustration, and how was it brought into bondage to decay? Clearly the creation was not flawed in the beginning. Rather something happened to it at some point in time. How can we know this? By way of another Bible passage, wherein it is written that immediately after the creation was brought into manifestation God “saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31). And so we can deduce that in the beginning the creation was neither subject to frustration nor in bondage. Rather it was harmonious, free, and good. We might even say that it was perfect. So the next question is: what happened?
Going back to our original scripture, we read again that this perfect creation was “subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it.” What the scripture does not tell us is who “the one” is; nor does it propose a motive or reason for that one pursuing such a course of action, thereby leaving us scratching our heads in confusion and wondering: Who would do such a thing and why would they do it?
Another thought that might come to mind is that whoever or whatever did such a thing must have been very powerful. I mean, this is the entire creation we are talking about—not just our own world, but the entire universe. What kind of a being has that kind of power? And so we might deduce that there is some force or being at work in our universe whose power rivals that of God. For, it makes absolutely no sense that God was the one who subjected his own creation to frustration and bondage. Rather the only thing that makes sense is that some rival power whose will opposes God must have done this. Perhaps it is this line of thinking that gave rise to the fundamentalist religious belief in the power that we now call devil—a belief that not only can be found in most religious circles but is in many cases doctrinally so prominent that it seems as though this oppositional power not only rivals God; it is actually stronger than God. Unfortunately, when this is one’s belief they will essentially be worshipping the devil instead of God.
Thus a very dark and fearful mindset has permeated the religious world for a very long time. Ascribing greater power to the devil than to God has, in fact, become so prevalent in human thought that it has even seeped into our secular cultures. And this fearful societal mindset has played a major role in keeping human consciousness in the dark ages. Only with the rise of rational scientific thinking has man even begun to turn the tide.
In our day science has largely succeeded at freeing secular society of its fear of the devil, but the same cannot be said for the religious world. This is because most religionists tend to reject science on account of its unbridled faithless pragmatism. Then in the middle of the nineteenth century a new movement of thought took hold in some American religious circles—a challenging alternative to the ancient fundamentalist religious mindset called the metaphysical movement. What was interesting about this is that metaphysics, while itself being rooted in ancient religious ideals introduced a modern scientific aspect to the faith. It upheld faith as a valid philosophical outlook but then proceeded to cut away all the aspects of the ancient creeds that were purely superstitious and unscientific. In other words, it attempted to render faith more palatable to the scientific mind by giving it a scientific basis of its own. Not surprisingly then, one of the first things that metaphysicians did was to pronounce the devil to be dead and non-extant. God was once again portrayed as the only true higher power in our universe. There was no devil to be found in all of creation, nor had there ever been one. There was no rival power to God, nor had there ever been one. So what about the New Testament’s claim that the creation was at some point subjected to bondage and frustration? Is this a bogus claim or is it a true claim? And if it is true, that takes us back to square one in our quest to identify the “one who subjected it.” If the devil didn’t do it, who did?
For me, the New Testament’s claim that the creation has been subjected to frustration and brought into bondage to decay rings true. Even science has concurred that decay and death have become natural aspects of our biology. Of course, science sees these aspects as being simply haphazard. In other words, these aspects of our biology came into being for no apparent reason or cause. Rather they, like so many other aspects of our environmental reality, are “just how things are on this planet.” Thus the earthly environmental organism is not without its challenges, but at least it is life sustaining and allows mankind to flourish as a species to some degree. Furthermore, it is all we have to work with, so we might as well be grateful for it. That being said, science gives no credence whatsoever to the idea of the creation having been subjected to frustration and brought into bondage to decay by someone or something at some point in time. In its view such an idea is not only unscientific; it is archaic, superstitious, and misleading. It is nothing more than “religious nonsense.”
But as it turns out, there is one other alternative to these prevailing scientific and religious viewpoints, and that is that the creation was, in fact, brought into bondage by a certain influence or force but that up until now we have not rightly understood the nature or identity of the “one” that did this. Metaphysics has come the closest to solving this mystery. For, it not only did away with the devil; it also brought forth the idea that the human mind itself is the only power in our universe that can rival God. In other words, there is no devil; there is only the human tendency toward corrupt misguided belief systems. But are such systems powerful enough to subject the entire created universe to bondage and frustration? The answer is: yes they are.
In order to understand how this is possible, we must again go back to the beginning of this age—an age of time that began the moment that man became a mentally dominated creature. Again using the Bible as our source, we learn that mankind appeared on the scene after the rest of the work of creation had been completed. In other words, the creation of man was God’s final creative act. This means that at that time the rest of creation was perfect in harmony and beauty, and that was why God was pleased with it. Then it was mankind’s turn, and he too was created perfect. But then something happened to change that out-picturing of perfection: Man became a mentally dominated creature. Exactly how this came to pass will probably never be known; nor is it of crucial importance. What is important is to acknowledge that it happened and to try to gain some understanding of how it changed things on this plane of existence.
When man became a mental being the first outworking of the creation to be affected was his own nature and being. In other words, the perfection inherent in the creation of man’s own being was instantly lost and despoiled. Why did this happen? Because by becoming a mentally dominated creature mankind defied the order of God’s creation. He threw a monkey wrench in the workings of not only his own inner world but also of the environment around him. And what followed was the loss of innocence and perfection, first inside of man and then in the environment that he inhabited. This impact upon the environment took place simply because of man’s interactions with it. And so, man became an instrument of corruption, sowing imperfection in all the rest of God’s creation. It was like what happens when there is a virus in our computers. Eventually, it interacts with and infects the entire content.
But it was not just man’s mind that did this; it was the state of consciousness that man became stuck in on account of this inharmonious realignment of his inner world. In truth, the mind of man does not have the power to bring down the entire creation. But human consciousness does have this power. Why? Because human consciousness is made in the image of God. That means that it has the power to create and the power to corrupt. And so, it is actually human consciousness that subjected the creation to frustration and brought it into bondage to decay. Thus we now have found the identity of the one and need look no further in that direction.
What is interesting about all this is that human consciousness could have gone either way. It has the capability to do the works of the devil or to do the works of God—to create a world of great beauty and perfection. This means that it is the state of man’s consciousness that determines the manifested outcome. That is what the Bible is trying to teach us. Adam is simply an allegorical manifestation of mankind’s choice to adopt a lower state of consciousness—one that is decadent and destructive. And once having adopted that state of consciousness, we then proceeded to become stuck in it for thousands of years. That is why our world has always been so troubled. Our own lower state of consciousness not only created the troublesome manmade aspects of our world; it even brought the divine creation into a corrupt condition of bondage and frustration.
The fact that human consciousness can wield this kind of power not only explains many of the mysteries of this present age; it also represents our foremost hope for ushering in an altogether New Age of human endeavor. Why is this? Because if it was our Adamic state of consciousness that brought all of creation (including man) into bondage and frustration in this age that means that if we were to evolve into a new higher state of consciousness it could have just the opposite effect. Not only could it release creation from its negative holding pattern; it also could heal and make things right—that is, it could restore the creation to its original state of harmony and perfection, that which it had in the beginning when God saw all that he had made and behold: it was very good.
Yes, human consciousness has the power to do this. And yes, the evolution of consciousness is the answer to all our problems. This is what the scripture means when
it speaks of coming into the freedom and glory of children of God. The revealing of the children of God is a religious way of expressing the metaphysical truth pertaining to the evolution of human consciousness. It is what will happen when we leave Adamic consciousness behind and move forward into a state that the Bible explains in much greater detail: Christ Consciousness!
Yes, the Bible not only maps out where we went wrong; it shows us the Way to make things right through the evolution of consciousness. That is who Jesus was and why he did what he did. He was the embodiment of the new consciousness and by revealing himself to the world he showed us the Way to reveal our true selves.
In Adam, human consciousness subjected the entire universe to frustration and brought it into bondage to decay. In and through the Christ, this same universe will ultimately be liberated and healed. But it was not the man Jesus who was destined to accomplish this. That destiny is ours. Why is this? Because as the scripture says, there was one that brought this present reality to pass, and it is that same one that will reverse it—not one man but an entire race of beings who ill-advisedly adopted Adamic consciousness. Jesus was not moving in Adamic consciousness. Therefore he had no part in bringing the creation into its present state of bondage and frustration. That is a distinction that only we can claim. Now it is up to us to reverse the damage we have done. How? By leaving Adamic consciousness behind and adopting the same benign state of consciousness that Jesus was moving in.
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