One Not Born of Woman (Gospel of Thomas)

Today we look at the fifteenth saying in the Gospel of Thomas. It is a short, but important saying. Jesus says, "When you see one who was not born of woman, fall on your faces and worship. That one is your Father."  I look at both the “not born of woman” part, and the use of the word Father. Father is one of Jesus’ favorite words for Nondual Reality.  

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Transcript

Today we look at the fifteenth saying in the Gospel of Thomas. It is a short, but important saying. Jesus says, "When you see one who was not born of woman, fall on your faces and worship. That one is your Father."  Before we get to the “not born of woman” part, I want to look at the use of the word Father here for a moment. Father is one of Jesus’ favorite words for Nondual Reality.  

Christians assume that the term Father emphasizes the idea of a personal God. That is certainly one level of meaning. That is what theism and traditional Christianity thinks it means to refer to the Divine as Father. But there is a deeper sense in which Jesus uses it. Father means that from which we come; it means something more like the Source, with a capital. It is the Source of our Being. The Ground of Being or Being Itself, to use the Christian philosopher Tillich’s phrase. It is the Tao or Brahman.   

That is the meaning of the Christological statement that the Son is eternally begotten by the Father, not created, and is of the same essence as the Father. Christ comes from the Divine and so do we. And we never leave that Source.  As the apostle Paul quoted to the Athenian philosophers, “in Him we live and move and have our being. Jesus used the word Father to refer to the Nondual Reality from which all dualistic existence comes. When you read the gospels in this light it changes everything.  

Jesus referred to God as Father quite a bit in the gospels. That is especially true in the Gospel of John, but it is also in the synoptic gospels of the New Testament – Matthew, Mark and Luke. The most famous prayer in the New Testament is the Lord’s Prayer, often called the “Our Father.” It starts: Our Father who art in heaven.” In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus talks about the Kingdom of the Father, rather than the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven. Father was equivalent in Jesus’ teaching to God or Heaven. 

Why did Jesus use this term? Because it was a underused biblical term for God, which Jesus redefined for his purpose. Father is such a commonplace term for God for Christians now that we forget that the word was not used for God in Jesus’ day. It is rare in the Hebrew scriptures. Only five times in the Old Testament is God explicitly called Father.  

The earliest usage is in the Book of Jeremiah, which is 6th century BC. Three times the term is used of God in the Book of Isaiah, all in the latter part of the book, which is called by scholars Third Isaiah because it was written in the post-exilic period, much later than the life of the prophet Isaiah. The fifth instance is the Book of Malachi, which is also very late.  

There are other passages in the Old Testament that compare God’s care as like a father, without directly calling God father. In any case the term was a rare and late idea in Hebrew Scripture.  

Jesus picks up this rarely used word for God and makes it prominent in his teaching. The way he used it was so radical that he got a lot of flack for it. A passage in the Gospel of John gives us insight into how religious leaders reacted to Jesus’ use of the term. After Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath, it says: 

“For that reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.” Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.” That is what calling God Father meant back then. This is important to remember. 

Christians today call God our Father without realizing how controversial that statement is. In Jesus’ day anyone who called God Father would be declaring themselves equal with God! That means that when Jesus taught his followers to pray the Lord’s Prayer, he was teaching people that they were equal with God. That was scandalous then and now, which is why the church watered down the meaning of the name. 

Our saying for today continues that controversial trend. Jesus says that there are people in this world who are not born of women. When we see one not born of woman we are to fall on our faces and worship, for that one is our Father. In other words, such a one is God! Such a one is a manifestation of the Divine. 

Christians say such things about Jesus – that he was one with the Father. We find this stated quite clearly in the Gospel of John, where Jesus says, “I and the Father are one.” Once again the religious leaders want to execute Jesus for saying this. As soon as Jesus speaks those words, the passage says: 

“Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” 

Jesus did nothing to dissuade people from thinking along those lines. When Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?” 

Jesus equated himself with the Father in the Gospel of John. In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus is takes this idea and applies it not just to himself, but also others. He says, "When you see one who was not born of woman, fall on your faces and worship. That one is your Father." Meaning, that one is God, is the Tao. Atman is Brahman.  

Jesus is referring to others who have had the same sort of spiritual awakening he had. Jesus knew who he was. So have other spiritual teachers. We are to honor them as manifestations of the Divine. That is why I honor spiritual teachers in other traditions. Jesus told me to! 

Christians consider Jesus unique in the history of the world. Christians talk about Jesus as God’s “only-begotten Son” or “one and only Son.” But that exclusivism is later Christian dogma speaking. We are all born of God as Sons and Daughters of God. Few know that. But only those who have awakened to their true nature know that they are one with the Source. 

Such a one is not born of woman, Jesus said. That does not mean that they are not human. That was the mistake of the Docetists, who thought Jesus was a spirit who only appeared to be physical. That he wasn’t really born of Mary.  

Jesus was saying that our true nature is eternal and immortal. Our true nature is unborn. When we meet someone who has become aware of their unborn nature, their face before they were born, that is the one we can bow down before. That is the meaning of the Indian gesture of folding your hands and bowing to one we meet. We are acknowledging the Divine in that person. 

This divine nature is the heart of all of us. That is our Source. We all have one Nature, and that nature is the one Jesus called the Father. We can’t get hung up on the masculine imagery here. I wish Jesus had used a word like Source or the Word or at least Mother and Father. But he was a product of his time, just as we are products of our time. We just have to realize that Jesus is referring to that which is beyond gender, beyond all dualities.  

This one immortal nature of all beings is mentioned in various places in the Bible. In one  place this is given a female persona. In the Book of Proverbs this Divine Source is called Wisdom is given a feminine personality. In the Septuagint she is known by her Greek name Sophia.  Wisdom plays the role in Proverbs that the Word (Logos) plays in the Prologue of the Gospel of John. And the Logos in John is the eternal Christ.  

So the feminine imagery is there, even in the Bible. But like I said, we should not get hung up on dualistic pronouns. All language is dualistic. The important thing to remember is that this Source, which is called the Tao in the Tao te Ching, is beyond dualities. When Jesus uses the word Father he is pointing to this One. Whenever Jesus uses the word Father, substitute the word Tao as you are reading, and we will understand what Jesus means. He points to our unborn nature. This is what we are. We are One not born of woman. We are born of God.