Let’s explore one of the corrupted teachings that Paul (Pauline Christianity) brought to the world in the name of Jesus, the sacrament of baptism. We will compare Christian baptism to the sanctification bathing practice of Jesus.

The baptismal rite of Paul’s form of Christianity was for one’s salvation while the bathing practice of Jesus and his people was for sanctification. According to Jewish religious law, if a person was polluted by childbirth, sexual activity or various other sources of contamination, such as contact with the dead, they needed ritualistic cleansing through immersion in water. Many Jews had limited access to bathing, which in most circumstances could only be done at the temple (for a fee) or, if you were wealthy enough to afford a comfortable bathing pool, in your own home. Bathing was for purification, not a one-time entry rite that sealed your membership as a Jew.

We can surely presume that Jesus would have been outraged at the priests bathing policies. It underscored the corruption of the temple priests, the advantage of the rich and the disadvantage and the un-fair treatment of the poor—all caused by a worship of money and religious dogma. It seems most reasonable that Jesus would have gone in search of an alternative way to the materialistic greed-driven law of the temple.

Jesus discovered another means on the banks of the Jordan River. This was in the person of John the Baptist whose immersion rite “was a silent protest against the urban cadres that controlled Judaism in Jerusalem, as well as a genuinely devoted practice.” (Rabbi Jesus, Bruce Chilton, pg. 46)

John took Jesus on as a student and after a period of time initiated him into the esoteric teachings and inner wisdom of bathing as well as the Chariot or Throne of God meditation, and many other equally mystical practices. During the act of bathing, John would tell the ones in the water, prior to immersion, to repent and thus release their sins:

“For John, and in ancient Judaism generally, repentance meant a ‘return’ (shuv in Hebrew, tuv in Aramaic) to God. By repenting, one acknowledged being headed in the wrong direction; by changing course, one was realigned with the divine. Repentance did not emphasize sin or depravity; the notion of original sin as a hopeless condition was a later motif in Christianity, developed by Augustine of Hippo during the fifth century C.E. John, far from preaching hopelessness, offered in repentance a pragmatic alternative to being estranged from God. In both Hebrew and Greek ‘to sin’ (chata, hamartano) originally meant to miss the mark, as in archery. A rabbi’s teaching showed how one could go right again, and only implied where one had gone wrong.” (Rabbi Jesus, Bruce Chilton, pg. 48)

Jesus was no different than the others that came to John:

“John demanded repentance from all those who came to be immersed by him, so that Jesus stood on the same ground as everyone else. The hurt inflicted during his childhood, the sense that he was an outcast, in the wrong through no fault of his own, was healed through his repeated immersions. The Jordan’s waters washed away his feeling of estrangement. He repented of the anger he had felt, of his resentment against his own people in Nazareth. He knew he was released from sin in John’s baptism. And, in turn, he was prepared to release the grudges he felt against others. His reward was a place in a group dedicated to a respected religious practice.” (Rabbi Jesus, Bruce Chilton, pg. 48-49)

Jesus watched and listened to John and eventually learned to conduct the sacred rites of immersion himself. During this period of time a spiritual philosophy developed within him that would stay with him throughout the rest of his life:

“John’s insistence on the dynamic relationship between repentance and release from sin was the source of Jesus’ emphasis on the same relationship throughout his own ministry. This release from sin, which is translated into English as ‘forgiveness,’ referred to the actual loosing or freeing (aphiemi in Greek, shebaq in Aramaic and Hebrew) of a person from the consequences of his own action by God. Jesus’ conviction that release from sin makes every Israelite pure—and thus acceptable in God’s eyes—is perhaps his most enduring legacy, and it was derived directly from his experience with John the Baptist.” (Rabbi Jesus, Bruce Chilton, pg. 49-50)

It seems that Jesus was not only a fast learner but also a dedicated student of John’s. His intense spiritual practice of immersion and Chariot visualizations brought the world of spirit closer and closer to Jesus. The Chariot, as the moving Throne of God, was one of the primary esoteric visualizations within Jewish mysticism. With its wheels of fire rolling through the heavens accompanied by the sound of mighty waters, the Chariot meditation brought the divineness of creation intimately alive within the body, mind and soul of Jesus.

As a devoted student, he bathed and bathed in the Jordan’s ‘living waters,’ that roared with the same sound as the heavenly Chariot. Ever more he increased his spiritual powers; until one morning while standing waist deep in the chilly stream with the morning star in the East and the first light of dawn breaking through the darkness of the night; he had his vision. As recorded in the Bible, it was the vision of a ‘dove.’ In esoteric teachings the dove not only symbolized the holy spirit of divine love but it also represented Venus, the morning star. The dove or the star descended into him, and for Jesus, this symbolized the divine spirit or the light of divinity within all things. Keep in mind that Jesus, as a student of the original Kabbalah, believed in the sacred knowledge that we all have the “holy spark” of God within.

Jesus progressed in is own spiritual training and development to the point of where he became known as a Chasid—a Jewish shaman, faith healer and sorcerer. During this ‘strengthening of spirit’ period of time, Jesus came to view John’s bathing philosophy of cleanness differently.

Directly related to his vision and repeated pre-dawn immersion practice as well as his own visionary and prophetic gifts, Jesus came to know, first-hand, within his heart and mind, that all people were already clean or pure with the divine spirit within them:

“Jesus had been brought by John to see that every Israelite had the means of purity at his disposal, and he came to insist that every Israelite was in fact already pure, embraced by divine Spirit, as he had been.” (Rabbi Jesus, Bruce Chilton, pg. 60)

To Jesus purity became one of the most important issues in his spiritual mission. But it was not the outward purity that mattered. What was necessary in the eyes of God was one’s inner purity. To Jesus the brightness and the lightness of a person’s heart was more important than money and one’s social and economic status. Ritual immersions to cleanse away one’s outward pollutions were not only ridiculous but were unnecessary. However, bathing to cleanse one of the inner pollutions of fear, anger and guilt was not only necessary but was also one of the ways to increase God’s Spirit within. And increasing the divinity within each person—could change the world. (Divine Humanity, The Original Message and Religion of the Prophet Jesus)