In this episode we come to the final chapter of the Gospel of John, which I have been interpreting as a proclamation of the gospel of nonduality. In this chapter we explore how the gospel of nonduality had to struggle with dualistic gospel in the early centuries of the church. This involved a struggle for leadership in the church after the death of the apostle John. We look at the role of Mary Magdalene and women leaders in early nondual Christianity, as well as the nondual Gnostic texts of the Nag Hammadi library.
In this episode we come to the final chapter of the Gospel of John, which I have been interpreting as a proclamation of the gospel of nonduality. In this chapter we explore how the gospel of nonduality had to struggle with dualistic gospel in the early centuries of the church. This involved a struggle for leadership in the church after the death of the apostle John. We look at the role of Mary Magdalene and women leaders in early nondual Christianity, as well as the nondual Gnostic texts of the Nag Hammadi library.
Love, Death and Nonduality
We come today to the final chapter of the Gospel of John, which I have been interpreting as a proclamation of the gospel of nonduality. Chapter 21 is actually a postscript, an extra chapter that was added at a later date after the gospel was written. The verses at the end of chapter 20 are clearly intended as the conclusion of the book. Later the editor decided to attach one final resurrection appearance of Jesus to the gospel.
This extra chapter was added because of the death of the apostle John. John was the leader of the spiritual community in Ephesus out of which this gospel came. He was also the last surviving member of the original twelve apostles, the final physical link to the historical Jesus. During his later life he had become the de facto head of the whole church, so his death was a significant event.
Furthermore there was a rumor circulating that Jesus had said that the apostle John would not die before the Kingdom of God came to earth. People were expecting the end of the world soon. Then John died and nothing changed, leaving the church wondering what went wrong. Was Jesus mistaken? It was a crisis for many Christians. This chapter was added to address this crisis as well as the issue of church leadership after the death of the last apostle.
What does this have to do with nonduality? It turns out – a lot. The leadership of the church determined the teaching of the church. The leadership eventually decided to reject the nondual teachings and retain what later became known as traditional Christianity. That is why there are so few nondual teachings in the New Testament outside of the Gospel of John.
At the end of the first century there was a rivalry between the Church in Ephesus – where John’s spiritual community was located - and the Church of Rome, where Peter was the first bishop. The 21st chapter was added to address this question of leadership.
In this chapter there is a discussion between Jesus and Peter about tending his sheep, which is church talk for being a pastoral leader. Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him. Peter responds three times that he does love him. Jesus responds by instructing Peter three times to tend his sheep or feed his sheep, meaning to be the shepherd, the leader of the church
As every preacher knows, the key to understanding this passage is the word that Jesus uses for love and word that Peter uses. Even though they are both translated as love in English these are actually two different Greek words with very different meanings. Jesus uses the word agape – divine unconditional love. Jesus asks Peter twice if he loves him with agape love - divine unconditional love. Peter responds saying he loves Jesus, but uses the word philia, which means human emotional love. The third time Jesus questions if Peter even loves him with this philia love. Jesus calls into question if Peter really even has human love for Jesus, much less divine love.
The Gospel of John is calling into question the love of Peter for Jesus and hence the qualification of Peter (and future bishops of Rome) to be the leader of the church. On the other hand John is pictured as one who loves and is loved with this divine love. Throughout the Gospel of John, John is repeatedly called the beloved apostle. The word beloved is a form of the word agape – divine love. John represents agape love. Peter does not even measure up to the standard of human love. In other words, this story was meant to undermine the leadership of Peter and therefore the bishop of Rome.
The seemingly innocuous fishing story that starts off the chapter does the same thing, but in a much more subtle way. Chapter 21 begins with seven apostles going on a fishing trip to the Sea of Galilee. The trip was Peter’s idea. He is pictured as the leader of the expedition. He said he was going fishing and six of the apostles (only half, which is meant to show how divided the church was) decided to follow him. They spent all night fishing but under Peter’s leadership they caught nothing. Peter’s leadership failed. He could not even catch fish. How could he possibly lead the church? Furthermore it is pictured as happening at night, a time of darkness. Darkness in John’s gospel is symbolic as well as physical.
Only when dawn comes and the risen Christ arrives on the scene and points out where the fish are, do they catch anything. They haul in 153 fish. An exact number like 153 this is very unusual in the gospels. Numbers are always rounded off. For example earlier John does not say that Jesus fed 5087 people with a few loaves and fishes, but rounds it off to five thousand. But here it says that the disciples netted exactly 153 fish. Our attention is obviously being called to this number and its meaning.
The number is symbolic. We see the same use of symbolic numbers in the book of Revelation, which is also said to be written by the apostle John and came out of this same spiritual community. In the Revelation of John the number 666 was symbolic for the name of the Beast. In Greek and Latin every letter had a numerical equivalent. Caesar Nero – the villain of Revelation - added up to 666. In this story in the Gospel of John the name Magdalene adds up to 153.
We have already seen the prominence Mary Magdalene is given in this gospel. She was the first to see the risen Lord. She was the first to proclaim the message of the risen Lord to the apostles. For that reason she is often called the apostle to the apostles. Here in the Gospel of John her name is hidden in this story of Jesus appearing to seven disciples at the Sea of Galilee.
John was suggesting that Mary and her successors were the true leaders of the church. This final editor of the Gospel of John was thumbing his nose at the apostle Peter and the bishops of Rome. He was saying that Peter and his successors may claim to be the leaders of the Church, but they are incompetent. They cannot catch a thing. Mary Magdalene was more the leader of the Church than Peter.
We know from the so-called Gnostic Texts of the Nag Hammadi library that there was a strong movement in the early church that believed that Mary Magdalene was the rightful leader of the church. There are a lot of books in that collection that confirm that – books such as the Dialogue of the Savior, the Gospel of Philip, the Sophia of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Mary was written from her perspective. In the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Thomas and the Pistis Sophia (meaning the Wisdom of Faith), we see Peter opposing the leadership of Mary. These books show us that that there was a struggle for leadership going on between men and women in the early church.
The Nag Hammadi scrolls, many of which were mostly nondual in nature, reveal to us that there was a strong nondual tradition in early Christianity that was later suppressed by the Church. Those spiritual communities were often led by women in the tradition of Magdalene. That is why Mary Magdalene plays such a prominent roles in so many of these writings. They were the true heirs of the nondual gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of John is affirming that traditions.
Of course historically women lost the battle for leadership in the church. In the process the nondual gospel lost out to the dualistic gospel and the nondual books were banned. This is why Magdalene’s name had to be hidden in a symbolic number here in John’s gospel. It would never have made it into the Bible if her leadership had been more clearly affirmed. Only by the grace of God did it sneak past the censors in its present form.
In this context the Gospel of John explores the love of Peter for Jesus, which fell short. Peter did not love Christ the way that Jesus wanted. This was confirmed by the threefold profession of Peter that he loved Jesus, but not in a nondual way of identification as the beloved disciple loved Jesus, but only in a dualistic way.
This gospel calls us to a love that transcends dualistic love. Nondual love is not a relationship but a union with the Beloved. It is a union so strong that one’s own identity recedes into the background. That is why John never calls himself by name in this gospel. John is never identified by name in the Gospel of John. Instead he is referred to as the Beloved Disciple. His individual sense of identity dissolved in the love of Christ. That is nondual love in which two become one.
The other central issues in this chapter are death and the Second Coming. As I have said, the crisis that prompted this extra chapter to be added to the Gospel of John was the death of the apostle John. There was a belief circulating in the first century church that the last surviving apostle would not die before the Kingdom of God came. That was based on an interpretation of Jesus’ words spoken in the Olivet Discourse in the synoptic gospels, where he said, “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”
There developed a very popular belief that this referred to a physical return of Jesus to earth, just like many evangelicals and fundamentalists believe in a physical Second Coming of Jesus today. If that is what Jesus meant, then Jesus was wrong. That whole generation died and many generations after that, and still there has been no such physical Second Coming of Jesus. That is a problem for literalists.
But that is not what Jesus meant. Jesus meant that his generation would not die before some of them standing there saw the Kingdom of God, meaning that they would wake up to the Kingdom of God that is within us and around us. Jesus was talking about a spiritual awakening not a Second Coming. That is what it means to see the Kingdom of God. That is what it means to enter the Kingdom of God. That can happen before death. That is what Jesus invites us to. He invites us to enter into the Unitive Life. That is the message of the Gospel of John.
Well, that is it for today and that is it for the Gospel of John. I am going to be rewriting and editing these teachings and publish them in book format. My tentative title is “The Gospel of Nonduality: A Mystical Interpretation of the Gospel of John.” I am also hoping to put other teachings into another book with the tentative title “Talks on Christian Nonduality.”
That process will take some time. So that is what I am going to be doing for a few weeks or months. You can picture me sitting in front of my woodstove working at my laptop here in snowy New Hampshire during these winter months. Consequently I will not be posting as many podcast or YouTube episodes as I have been. Some, but not as often. Anyway, that is my plan to get through this second pandemic winter. So for now, grace and peace to you.