|
The Gospel of Thomas is unlike any other scripture written about Jesus. It is
a collection of Jesus' secret sayings that only someone who actually knew him,
like his twin, would be able to recount. Jesus, in the Gospel of Thomas, is a
teacher that points his followers in the direction of the Kingdom of Heaven. He
explains that the kingdom is a place with no poverty, where all is revealed and
that it is already inside and around them but they must learn how to find it.
The Kingdom of Heaven, according to Thomas' Jesus, is within each one of us.
This concept of god and the kingdom being a part of everyone is a common theme
throughout the Bible (Lk 17:21). In the third saying, Jesus tells his followers
that the way to gain access to this Kingdom inside us is to learn about
ourselves.
The knowledge that we came from the Kingdom (GTh 49), that we are sons of the
living father (GTh 3), and that are human bodies and lives are not worth
anything (GTh 87) are the keys to the Kingdom. If we do not know ourselves then
we will not enter the kingdom and we will be in poverty forever (GTh 3). He also
says that once we get back into the Kingdom there is nothing that we will not
understand (GTh 6b). The Kingdom of Heaven is like Adam's paradise in Eden.
Jesus said that, …whoever among you shall become as a child shall know the
Kingdom… (GTh 46). Eden was a place of innocence and to become like a child
would be to become innocent. In saying 37, the disciples ask when he will be
revealed to them and he answers when they can be naked without shame and jump on
their clothes like children.
This is not unlike Adam and Eve innocent, child-like, and undressed in Eden.
Jesus explains that the Kingdom of the Father is a treasure that lasts forever.
He describes it as a pearl that a merchant found and did all he could do to buy
it so that he could cherish it for the rest of his life (GTh 76). Jesus tells
another parable in which the Kingdom is a treasure buried in a father's farm and
he and his son never find it but the next man that owns the farm finds it (GTh
109). The first two men never found the Kingdom of Heaven because they did not
look within their own land or themselves but the third man does a little digging
and finds this eternal treasure. He who searches, will find…it will open to him
(GTh 94). In most stories about the Kingdom of Heaven, there is a sense that it
will happen in the future but, in this Gospel, Jesus gives of the impression
that the Kingdom is here now. He said, What you look for has come, but you do
not know it (GTh 51).
|
