There’s a moment in the Gospel of John where Jesus foresees a day that’s coming when those who follow him come to a certain realization. That paradigm shift is one that most Christians today have yet to arrive at. Mostly because they’ve been convinced that it’s too scandalous, to heretical, to be true.
Here’s what Jesus says will happen: “One day you will realize that I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” [John 14:20]
Now, most Christians today who read this verse assume that it’s all about Jesus. But I think Jesus is suggesting something even more radical than that. I think he’s suggesting that, one day, we will all realize that we are in the Father, and that we are all in one another.
Try reading it as if Jesus is sharing his own personal epiphany about himself with his disciples – that he and the Father are intertwined, and that he and everyone else are too.
This spiritual awareness of being one with the Divine and one with everything and everyone isn’t new. Ancient philosophers and mystics – both before Christ and after Christ – have had very similar experiences of this profound Oneness with all consciousness.
Jesus tells his disciples that he has had this realization and that, one day, his own disciples would experience the same realization for themselves.
The idea that we are in Christ and Christ is in us can be found all over the New Testament. Paul tells us that we are the Body of Christ, and that “Christ is all and is in all,” and that “He is the one in whom we all live and move and have our being,” and that we are all “filled with the fullness of Christ who fills everything in every way.”
So, it’s not too much of a stretch to see that Jesus was saying the very same thing. He is in the Father and you are in the Father. You are in Jesus and Jesus is in you. And you are in me and I am in you.
In other words, you could say these exact words about yourself: “Keith is in the Father, and you are in Keith, and Keith is in you.”
That’s just another way of saying exactly what Jesus, and Paul, and Buddha, and Athanasius, and so many other theologians, mystics, and philosophers have been saying for about as long as humans have walked the earth.
It’s also exactly what Quantum Scientists are realizing too. The universe appears to be inhabited and occupied by an almost endless number of separate particles, life forms and objects. But that’s an illusion. The Quantum reality is that every single thing we see in the universe is actually an expression of the very same Quantum Field. There is only the Quantum Field. Nothing else exists outside of this. So, while we may experience and perceive separate persons, or objects, or life forms, or particles all around us, what we’re actually experiencing is simply another expression of that one Quantum Field; of which we are also an expression.
So, that day that Jesus spoke about has already come, and is coming, and will come soon for everyone: We are in the Quantum Field, and the Quantum Field is in me, and the Quantum Field is in you. This is reality. There is no other reality but this one.
One day you will realize this. Maybe you already have. Maybe you’re still trying to accept it. Either way, that day is coming, and when it does, everything about how you look at others and how you think of your own self, and how you understand the Divine experience, will change forever…and for the better.
That’s the day when you also realize that God is in you; the day you realize that God is in everyone, and that means you could never harm anyone without harming God, or yourself.
This is how we, as a species, learn to love our neighbor as ourselves, and to beat our swords into plowshares and vow to study war no more. This is how we embrace peace and commit ourselves to feeding the hungry, and sheltering the homeless, and refuse to see anyone as the “other” because we have seen – and cannot unsee – the truth that we are all connected to God, and to one another.
This is how we bring the Kingdom of God to earth, as it is in heaven.
I cannot wait.
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Sola Deus: What If God Is All Of Us? by Keith Giles is now available on Amazon in Paperback and on Kindle.
Keith Giles is the best-selling author of the Jesus Un series. He has appeared on CNN, USA Today, BuzzFeed, and John Fugelsang’s “Tell Me Everything.” He hosts the Second Cup with Keith podcast, and co-hosts the Apostates Anonymous podcast, and the Heretic Happy Hour Podcast. Find out more about his online courses HERE>
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