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The Army of the Christ
by Cyd Ropp, Ph. D.
Copyright 2022; all rights reserved
Welcome back to Gnostic Insights. I am so glad to be writing my next book together with you here at Gnostic Insights. These episodes are forming the chapters for the upcoming book which will be called A Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospels. This exploration of gnostic cosmology is uniquely based upon the text of one of the ancient manuscripts recovered from the Egyptian desert in 1945. The concepts that I am sharing with you are universal and applicable to anyone who is seeking the truth about consciousness, God, the nature of life, death, and suffering, and the nature of the simulated reality we appear to be living in. This gnosis is also a “gospel” in that the word gospel means “good news.” The good news is that this gnostic gospel offers the promise of a personal relationship with higher order entities and the God Above All Gods. This is not a challenge to established religions, but rather a clarification of the nature of the Father and our relation to the Father. This gnosis also clarifies so many of the puzzles that established religions, philosophies, and even science have been unable to answer. If a Great Awakening is currently underway, then this gnosis is an integral addition to spreading the Word.
Last week we began to look at the creation of the Christ and the Third Order of Powers. We will continue with that most important thought again this week. Be sure to go back and listen to the episode immediately prior to this one if you haven’t heard it yet. That episode is called “Christ and the Third Order Powers.” As always, these readings come from the ancient book called the Tripartite Tractate of the Nag Hammadi codices. You can find a public domain copy of the Nag Hammadi and the Tripartite Tractate at gnosis.org. That is the translation I use for these Gnostic Insights.
Three episodes ago we covered the creation of the Second Order of Powers. That episode was called, “Second Order Powers—the New Pleroma of Logos.” There we discussed how we Second Order Powers were the generation of the new Pleroma of Logos when he returned from the Fall. We living creatures were designed to fit into the Boundary so we could operate according to the Simple Golden Rule to bring life, love, and cooperation into the otherwise dead deficiency. The Second Order Powers also bring a remembrance of the Father into his material realm, a memory entirely lacking in the shadows and phantoms of the imitation. We inhabit the deficiency, yoked to the apparent material of the imitation, and find ourselves trapped in a never-ending war with the deficiency.
The Tripartite Tractate says of us, “It was not from the sickness which came into being that they were produced… but (from) the one who sought after the pre-existent. Once he had prayed, he both raised himself to the good and sowed in them a pre-disposition to seek and pray to the glorious pre-existent one, and he sowed in them a thought about him and an idea, so that they should think that something greater than themselves exists prior to them, although they did not understand what it was. Begetting harmony and mutual love through that thought, they acted in unity and unanimity, since from unity and from unanimity they have received their very being.”
In the episode that followed, we learned that the Second Order Powers are subject to the “law of mutual combat” and, because of the never-ending battle against the deficiency, we tend to forget the harmony and mutual love of our higher Self and instead adopt the anger and violence of the enemy.
Picking up the story now in section eight of the Tripartite Tractate,
“The Logos which moved had the hope and the expectation of him who is exalted. As for those of the shadow, he separated himself from them in every way, since they fight against him and are not at all humble before him. He was content with the beings of the thought.”
Logos was content with the beings of thought—those Aeons of the Fullness that form the master formulae upon whom we living Second Order Powers are modelled—”because he had hope and expectation of him who is exalted.” That hope and expectation is another way of saying that Logos had faith in the Father of the Totalities. We humans feel the same way Logos did when we turn to the Father in faith—we feel hope and expectation that something will come of our prayers. On the other hand, Logos was not content with the shadows that came out of him after the Fall. Logos rejected the phantoms of the deficiency that had arisen from the presumptuous thought of his Ego.
Logos sought a solution to the hatred and disorder taking hold of his Second Order Powers who were fighting the never-ending war against the deficiency. In last week’s episode, we read the passages related to the creation of the Christ. Here is a quick review of that process:
“And as for the one who is set up in this way and who is within the exalted boundary, remembering the one who is defective, the Logos brought him forth in an invisible way among those who came into being according to the thought.”
The Christ was brought forth to “those who came into being according to the thought.” We Second Order Powers are those who were brought into being according to the thought of the ALL. We are fractal representations of the Aeons of the Fullness, who are themselves Self-aware aspects of the ALL sorted into a cooperative Hierarchy “within the exalted boundary.” That’s up above on the ethereal plane.
Remembering the one who is defective—that’s down below. “The one who is defective” refers to both we Second Order Powers who have become lost due to the “law of mutual combat” as well as to the Demiurge who is the Ego of the Fallen Aeon, lost within this material deficiency.
Speaking again of the Christ, “The order which was his came into being from him who ran on high and that which brought itself forth from him and from the entire perfection. The one who ran on high became for the one who was defective an intercessor with the emanation of the aeons which had come into being in accord with the things which exist. When he prayed to them, they consented joyously and willingly, since they were in agreement, and with harmonious consent, to aid the defective one.”
We covered this passage in last week’s episode. Briefly, the “one who ran on high” was the Self of Logos. The entire perfection is the entirety of the ALL, which is co-existent with the Son. The emanation of the Aeons refers to the ALL who have become Self-aware entities inhabiting a region called the Hierarchy of the Fullness of God, or the Pleroma of the Fullness. When Logos prayed to them, they were only too happy to aid the defective one. We’re talking about the Totalities of the ALL, so of course they’re in agreement and harmonious consent, because they are always in agreement and harmonious consent. The ALL do not have their own individual Egos. They are One and the same with the Son.
Quoting again, and we covered this in more detail last week, “They gathered together, asking the Father with beneficent intent that there be aid from above, from the Father, for his glory, since the defective one could not become perfect in any other way, unless it was the will of the Pleroma of the Father, which he had drawn to himself, revealed, and given to the defective one. Then from the harmony, in a joyous willingness which had come into being, they brought forth the fruit, which was a begetting from the harmony, a unity, a possession of the Totalities, revealing the countenance of the Father, of whom the aeons thought as they gave glory and prayed for help for their brother with a wish in which the Father counted himself with them.”
“They gathered together, asking the Father” refers to the ALL praying upstream to the Originating Consciousness out of whom they were emanated along with the Son.
Then, the Father … “made manifest the agreement of the revelation of his union with them, which is his beloved Son. … the one who is properly called “Savior” and “the Redeemer” and “the Well-Pleasing one” and “the Beloved,” “the one to whom prayers have been offered” and “the Christ” and “the Light of those appointed,” in accordance with the ones from whom he was brought forth, since he has become the names of the positions which were given to him. Yet, what other name may be applied to him except “the Son,” as we previously said, since he is the knowledge of the Father, whom he wanted them to know?”
This passage says that the united prayers of the ALL, the Aeons, and Logos manifested the Christ. The Christ is the Son of the Father made tangible, bringing full knowledge of the Son whom the Father wanted us to know.
Now, this next quote is really spectacular. Because it says that not only did the Christ manifest the face, or the countenance, of the Son, but it also manifested as the faces of all of the Aeons who had gathered together.
“Not only did the aeons generate the countenance of the Father to whom they gave praise, … but also they generated their own; for the aeons who give glory generated their countenance and their face. They were produced as an army for him, as for a king, since the beings of the thought have a powerful fellowship and an intermingled harmony. They came forth in a multifaceted form, in order that the one to whom help was to be given might see those to whom he had prayed for help. He also sees the one who gave it to him.”
It wasn’t only the singular Christ that was created–He who is the One image of the Son of God; it was the face of everyone who prays to the Father for help. This army of the Christ is the Third Order of Powers. These Third Order Powers are the Pleroma of the Christ, created as living images of the Son, the ALL, and the Aeons of the Fullness. They are far more powerful than we Second Order Powers and infinitely more powerful than the phantoms of the deficiency. There is one of those Third Order Powers for every one of us Second Order Powers down here, emanated for our redemption and liberation. The Tripartite Tractate says the Third Order Powers came forth in a “multifaceted form in order that the one to whom help was to be given might recognize them” as the answer to their prayers. “He also sees the one who gave it to him,” meaning the One, the Son, the Christ.
I interpret this to mean that “the one who needs help” is everybody down here below in this material creation. This includes all of us humans, all of us animals and plants, the bacteria, and all of the cells that make up our bodies. We are all Second Order Powers emanating from the Pleroma of Logos and we need help down here on this so-called material plane because we are stuck in a never-ending war with the Fallen Demiurge and the archons of the deficiency who are trying to kill us. The never-ending war is not only against archonic personalities, but against physical forces of chaos, entropy, and dissolution.
The “army of Christ” was emanated with the face of every single Aeon so that we might each recognize and personally relate to the Christ. Remember, the Logos Who Fell had a little fractal version of every one of the faces of the Aeons within his Pleroma and when he fell his fractal images cast shadows and phantoms of the Aeons that became the inverted, apparent substance of this universe.
Second Order Powers are representations of those same fractal Aeons of the Pleroma of Logos, but made to fit within the universal Boundary and remember the Father above. So, when we come down into this creation, we represent the faces of every single one of the Aeons of the Fullness. When the Christ was produced, his Pleroma became a true representation of the pre-existent beings of the thought of those who give glory to the Father. Because of this, there is a piece of light for every piece of darkness, a piece of life for every piece of death, and there is redemption for every Second Order Power that dwells on the material plane. There is also redemption for the Demiurge who rules this cosmos.
“For he revealed himself to him within him, since he is with him, is a fellow sufferer with him, gives him rest little by little, makes him grow, lifts him up, gives himself to him completely for enjoyment from a vision.”
In our modern Christian understanding, we think of the Christ as a singular entity—the Son. This is true, but our gnostic understanding adds the Pleroma of the Third Order of Powers into the equation. Even more limiting, Christians think of the Christ as only coming to Earth in the body of the man named Jesus of Nazareth. But the Christ also reflects and is able to redeem every representation that has ever come into this universe. Because of this, each one of us, whether we be humans or dogs, plants, insects, or skin cells, has a personal representation of the Christ that we can immediately recognize. You and I have our own, personalized, Third Order Power that brings us redemption. This is the true nature of the redeeming body and blood of Jesus—not that He hangs upon a cross until dead and is subsequently resurrected, but that his fractal story represents resurrection for all of us Second Order Powers, each with our own cross to bear.
“It had the designation of the Son and his essence and his power and his form, who is the one whom he loved and in whom he was pleased, who was entreated in a loving way. It was light and was a desire to be established and an openness for instruction and an eye for vision, qualities which it had from the exalted ones. It was also wisdom for his thinking in opposition to the things beneath the organization. It was also a word for speaking and the perfection of the things of this sort. And it is these who took form with him, but according to the image of the Pleroma, having their fathers who are the ones who gave them life, each one being a copy of each one of the faces… It has the name “the Church,” for in harmony they resemble the harmony in the assembly of those who have revealed themselves.”
When I prayed to the Father for salvation, I was able to recognize the Father and recognize the Christ because it came looking like me. There was a recognition of the power and personality of Christ. And when you pray to the Father for redemption and you pray to the Christ to save you, the Christ will appear to you in a form that you can personally recognize. The conventional Christian experience presents a truncated version of this mechanism by way of a personal relationship focused on Jesus. Jesus is the first fruit of the Third Order of Powers, and he is our exemplar.
Jesus is the example by which the salvation of Christ and his Pleroma of Third Order Powers walked the Earth, and he represents the perfection of the Christ. The perfect Self of Jesus never strayed into egoic behavior; he never forgot his true ethereal home; he knew all along who his Father was. And, when we pray for salvation from the never-ending war, we can also be filled with the power of the Christ and our own personal Third Order Powers. The Third Order Powers were produced as an army for the Christ, and we’ve each got our own soldier assigned to us. I don’t know for sure, but I’m thinking that this is where the idea of your guardian angel comes from. Many people have this notion that they have a guardian angel. It’s probably a Third Order Power that has your name on it; that’s your guardian angel.
My diagram of the Final Economy shows the Third Order of Powers nested right next to the Christ and above the Aeons of the Fullness, because the Third Order Powers were produced as an army for Christ and they were emanated after the Pleroma of the Hierarchy of God. They are placed above the Hierarchy of the Fullness that is the Pleroma of the Aeons, because the Third Order possesses the entirety of the ALL within them. They are co-existent with the Christ.
I acknowledge that this is a very different version of Christianity than has been traditionally presented to us. This is gnosis that was originally contained in the sacred scriptures that formed the New Testament prior to the Pope and Emperor of Rome getting their hands on it and stripping it out. It’s nice to know. I hope you get it. It doesn’t really matter, because all you need to know is that we come from the Father and to the Father we will return. We are emanations directly of the Father and the Father has promised to save us all and bring us all home.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me.” This has been taken to mean that one must acknowledge the power of the Christ before the Christ can redeem you. But I hope you can see that this puts all of the power of redemption in your hands rather than Christ’s. The Christ will redeem all Second Order Powers by the end of time, with or without your acknowledgment. What accepting the Christ now does for you is that it opens the door for the Third Order Powers to enter your egoic soul. This power makes it possible to live a joyous and virtuous life. It allows the love of the Father to flow through you and out into the world. And it eases your transition after the physical death of your body, so you may enter the afterlife without fear, knowing that you rest in the Pleroma of the Christ.
If you agree with me that this gnosis is important to share with the world, please help me cover the costs of keeping this podcast up and running. I appreciate you!