An addition to the BHT, containing the earliest account of the post-resurrection appearances of Christ in the New Testament, where Paul describes his early witness of the resurrection and what it means to be resurrected into Christ consciousness. This seems to be an excellent summary of the Christian Gospel, or “good news,” but it is something which I think we’ve generally misunderstood in Christianity for centuries. I feel that this is one of the most important translations of the BHT that I have been given the Grace to work out yet—yet not I. I was in tears by the end.

(The photo above is of Papyrus 15 (rotated), dated to the 3rd century, an early manuscript copy of the New Testament, showing the Greek text of 1 Corinthians 7:18-8:4.)

1 And now, my dear family, I want to repeat the “good news” that I taught to you before, that you heard and received, and in which you have established yourselves.

2 It is through this that you are saved, liberated, and are whole, but only if you are always mindful and remember what I taught to you. Unless you’ve been persuaded for the wrong egoic reasons.

3 The very first and most important thing I gave to you was what was given to me: that in Christ consciousness the ego dies for its sins of separation, as it is written,

4 that you pass through a dark night of nothingness, and that you are raised up again or awakened to the eternal Present day in God, as it is written.

5 And this Christ was seen in Peter, and then in the twelve apostles.

6 Then Christ was seen in over five hundred of our family on one occasion, most of whom are still with us, but a few have passed on.

7 Then Christ was seen in James, and in the rest of the apostles.

8 And very last, Christ appeared within me too, because I was reborn quite late.

9 For I am hardly an apostle or good messenger, and I’m not even worthy to be called such, because I criticized and harassed those who were gathering in God.

10 But by God’s gift of Grace—I am what I am. And God’s Grace in me has not been worthless, rather, I have worked far more effectively than all of them. But it wasn’t this ego-self “I,” but the Grace of God’s Self that was in me.

11 So, whether it was from them or me, we taught you this, and you put your trust and commitment in it.

12 And now that we have taught you that Christ consciousness is raised up again from the death of separate ego selves, why do some of you say that there is no such resurrection from death?

13 If there is no resurrection from a dead state, then Jesus was not “raised up” either.

14 And if Jesus was not “raised up,” then our teaching is futile, and your trust and confidence is futile and empty too.

15 And even more, we would be nothing more than lying about what we’ve experienced in God, because we have attested that God raised up Christ consciousness in us. And God did not raise up Christ in us if it was not from that which is dead.

16 If there is no resurrection from that which is dead, then Christ is not raised up either in us.

17 And if Christ does not rise up again, then your convictions are useless, and you are all still in your sins of separateness.

18 And those who have died into Christ are all simply destroyed.

19 If it is only for this particular instance of life that we have hope and trust in Christ, then we are of all humanity most lost.

20 But Jesus did, in fact, rise from a dead ego state, and became one of the first of those consecrated to God among those who are still spiritually dead to God.

21 Because it is by egoic human consciousness that mortality is recognized, so it is by egoless human consciousness that we transcend mortality.

22 As in Adam we all “surely die,” so it is in Christ consciousness we all realize we are Life.

23 But everything happens in its natural order: Jesus was one of the first so consecrated, and then all those in whom Christ consciousness comes and is present.

24 Then when the end of life comes, those in Christ consciousness give up the Kingdom within them to God their Source, after having rendered ineffective and impotent every single rule, and all the authorities on Earth, and every power known to humanity.

25 Truly, it is necessary that Christ consciousness reigns supreme, even until all enemies, hostilities, oppositions, hatreds, and enmities have come to an end.

26 And the very last “enemy” that becomes impotent is mortality itself.

27 As it is written (Ps. 8:6), “God puts all things under this Christ consciousness.” Now when it says “all things” are under this, it should be clear that this does not include God, who puts all things under this.

28 And when all things are put under this Christ consciousness, then will Christ also be put under God who put all things under Christ, so that God remains everything in everything, everywhere, the Supreme, the One.

29 If there is absolutely no resurrection into Christ consciousness, then why are they baptized for the death in their egos? If the spiritually dead are not raised up to Life, then why are they baptized for the cleansing of this death?

30 And why would we put ourselves in danger all day long?

31 For I swear, my dear family, that I (ego) die every single day, but am raised up again in my exhilaration of you which I have in Christ consciousness, as exemplified in Jesus, our true Self.

32 What would I have gained if I, as a mere human ego, fought with the wild beasts in Ephesus, if the dead are not raised up to Life? As it says in Isaiah 22:13, “Let’s just party tonight, because tomorrow we will die anyways!”

33 Don’t be fooled by all of these people, for as the Greek poet Menander said, “Bad companionship can defile good morals.”

34 Wake up to the just and the right, and do not separate yourselves in sin. For some among you do not have the direct knowledge of God. I say this to call out your confusion and errors.

35 Some of you may ask, “But in what way are the dead raised up again to Life? And with what kind of human body do they come again?”

36 This is egotistical, caring only about your human self. That which is planted does not come alive unless it is has died first to its ego-self.

37 When you plant a seed, you don’t plant the form of the living body that it will be, but rather the bare naked seed, maybe of wheat or some other grain.

38 And it is God alone that gives it the body or form as God or Nature wills it, and each and every seed is raised to Life with its own particular body or unique form.

39 All flesh is not the very same human flesh! One kind of flesh is of humanity. Another kind of flesh is the animals. And another is the fishes, and yet another is the birds.

40 And there are also bodies in the heavens above, like the planets and stars, and bodies on the Earth here below. And the majesty and beauty of the heavenly forms is of one quality, and that of the Earthly forms is another quality.

41 There is a particular glory in the sun we see in the sky, and there is a different grandeur we see in the moon at night, and yet another magnificence in the stars, and even the stars differ from one another in beauty and glory.

42 This is how it is when the dead are raised up to Life again. The body, or ego, that is put into the ground of that dark night dies, is destroyed, and it decays, and from that rises up that which is pure, innocent, genuine, and undefiled.

43 It is “planted” in the ground in infamy, being heavy with sin, shame, errors, and delusions, but from that rises up again in spectacular wonder and radiance. It is “planted” in that dark night in its weaknesses, diseases, deformities, and imperfections, yet from that rises up again that which is powerful and excellence unimaginable.

44 It is put into the “ground” as a natural human body or human ego, but from that is raised up a Spiritual body full of the Spirit of God. There are two sides to all forms—there is a natural outward material egoic mortal body and there is a Spiritual inner immaterial egoless immortal “body.”

45 That is why it is written in Genesis 2:7, “Humanity as Adam first emerges as a living breathing being or person;” but this last “Adam” in Christ is a life-endowing Spiritual consciousness.

46 Now, you’ll notice that the first thing that came was not this Spiritual consciousness, but rather the natural and material air-breathing body, and then later was realized the Spiritual “body” or consciousness which lives and “breathes” Spirit.

47 Humanity is at first made up of the ground of the Earth (“Adam”), carnal, material, sensual, concerned with outward physical forms; the One that comes second (“Christ”) is the true Self from heaven, from the Cosmos, at-one in our deeper Source in God or the totality of ultimate Reality.

48 Those who are materialistic are like that human made up of the soil of the Earth; and those who are of the Cosmos, or Spiritual nondual consciousness, are of that transhuman Spirit, even Christ.

49 And in the same way we have appeared like mere humans made of the Earth and flesh, so too in that realization will we appear like the Cosmos itself, the fullness of all Creation, even the Christ.

50 Here is what I’m saying, my dear family, that the flesh and blood physical bodies of humans cannot receive that Kingdom of God consciousness, just as that which decays in the Earth does not again receive the very same Life.

51 But look and listen carefully, and contemplate! I will point to a deep and hidden mystical Mystery, which is this—we (the true Self) does not actually die, but rather our minds will all be transformed or transfigured!

52 It will hit you suddenly, like the blink of an eye, at the very end of the ego-self, like the final note trumpeted in a symphony. And that last trumpet of the ego will come to a perfect silence, and that’s when the dead are raised up to that consciousness which is pure, innocent, genuine, undefiled, and immortal—our minds are transfigured, and the whole Cosmos becomes transfigured along with it!

53 Our perception of these physical and individual bodies that decay and die is transfigured such that they are endowed or clothed with all purity, beauty, goodness, and innocence. And our perception of this mortal flesh and individual self is arrayed in everlasting, eternal, or atemporal Presence of Life itself.

54 At that point, when that which decays and destroyed is endowed in consciousness with that which is perfectly innocent and pure, and this mortality is endowed with the consciousness of Life itself, that is the moment when the saying as is written in Isaiah 25:8 will happen to you, “Death itself is destroyed in a total blowout!“

55 Then we’ll say in ourselves as the prophet Hosea wrote, “Oh Death: where did all your worries, your anxieties, your torment, your distress all go? Oh Grave and Hell itself: where in the hell is your win?“

56 The pains and suffering that we associate with death and hell come from the “sin” of separateness, from our separate ego-self; and external outward laws of performance give the egoic self its power and strength.

57 But through the Grace of God/Reality, we are given the blowout victory by consciously waking up to our true Self, just as Jesus did, which is the “Christ.”

58 For that reason then, my dear dear family, be like a solid Mountain, firm and established, which is utterly immovable unless you choose to move it, at all times and in every Present moment of the now, the today of Life, be overflowing with an abundance of doing the compassionate work and good deeds of the true Self, because you know deep in your heart that all your intense and tiresome work and hard labor, all your blood, sweat, and tears that are shed, none of this is worthless, futile, or without fruit—in Christ!!