Paul stated that the Law is spiritual. But what does that mean? Hopefully, this post will shed some light for those who have been confused about the veil that the natural mind often places between the Law and Christ, and how we can reconcile the two spiritually.
In 2 Cor. 3:15, Paul mentions this veil. He states it was upon the hearts and minds of the Jews of his time. Paul’s main reasoning for this veil was that they lacked Christ, which could take the veil away. By this, Paul did not mean the literal-historical Christ religion has painted, but the Christ within, which consists of an inner revelation of truth revealed by the spirit.
Esoteric literature teaches us that Moses and the Law are symbolic of the rational and ethical nature of man. But this can still be quite confusing. The confusion comes from our modern day understanding of ethics and morals, and what the original authors of the Biblical stories considered ethics and morals. Today, morals are standards of behavior that the individual or a society finds acceptable and not acceptable so that the social well-being of a community can be established. But the spiritual nature of the Torah deals with ethics and morals in quite a different light. The esoteric understanding of ethics and morals are those characteristics which either take us closer to our innate divine nature, or continue to veil that divine nature. So rather than see the Torah as a set of commands for the unique community of Yaweh first, we have to see the Torah as a spiritual law for the unique individual. When the inner man is sanctified, it will always benefit the outer community. But it is the inner man which is dealt with first, and the Torah first and foremost teaches us about our relationship with the divine – or lack thereof.
Moses is the giver of the law. This law, Torah, from an outer perspective was the set of standards for the Israelites of what was acceptable and not acceptable before Yaweh. It seems like a stringent application of “do this” and “don’t do this” commandments. The problem is, St. Paul tells us the letter of the law (a literal reading) kills the spiritual intent. What he is truly saying is that the surface understanding alone brings no profit to the individual. The Law has a spiritual meaning to it that transcends the literal understanding of the commandments, and is the first step to reconciling the individual with God and man.
It’s clear from Paul’s context that the law of Moses, from a spiritual perspective, is more about the conscience of the inner man rather than his experience with the outer world. In other words, his relationship to the Law is not about a set of rules, but rather a set of inner revelations about the workings of the body and soul, it’s true nature, the limitations of the personal ego, and its separateness from the Divine nature that the Law can reveal to us. The Torah can be, if we let it, our metaphysical teacher which reveals the deeper mysteries of our minds and hearts, just as Jesus did as the ultimate fulfillment and fullness of the Torah.
The Esoteric Revelation of the Law
Let’s consider an Old Testament commandment from Leviticus which states the Israelite could not eat swine nor touch its carcass. What is the spiritual intent beneath the outer, literal command? I will suggest that it is more about what is filthy to the mind than to the body. Pigs naturally wallow in the mud, and therefore they symbolize the desire-mind which seeks its nourishment and gratification from the passions and desires of our lower animal nature. The outer command is do not eat swine. But the inner command means do not gratify the desire-mind, which is at enmity with God, or the divine nature within.
Interestingly, Paul tells us to eat whatever is put before us on the dinner table, unless it is offered to idols. But even then, this is for the conscience sake of the other person, meaning don’t do it if it reaffirms their belief in a superstition. (1 Cor 10:27-29)
So when Paul states that a veil is upon those that are reading the Torah, he means they read the law carnally, or strictly literal, and therefore miss its inner revelation. The spiritual intent here is not that the pig or pork itself is off limits, but rather points to the discipline the mind needs to develop to prepare itself for the birth of the Christ within.
Furthermore, Jesus stated that the law was made for man, not man for the law. In other words, the spiritual intent of the Torah isn’t so much about what man cannot and can do, but rather what helps us reconnect with the divine nature within us.
It is stated that Christ came to fulfill the law, not to end it. Again, what does this mean? We have a clear example which lines up with the explanation above about not eating pork. Jesus states it is not what goes into a person’s mouth that makes him unclean, but what comes out of his mouth because it is from the heart (and mind). Since Jesus is the fulfillment of the law, and that the entire Old Testament testifies of him as Paul states (the Christ nature within), then we can conclude that the laws are themselves symbolic of deeper inner revelations about the nature of the human conscious experience. This human conscious experience includes free will, which can choose the divine, or the natural.
Here is the esoteric reason for the Law: man has two natures: the animal, or instinctual nature, and the Divine nature. Man first learns to control his animal nature through that which the Law (spiritually) represents, if he or she so chooses. Nevertheless, while everything is permissible to the human experience, not everything is profitable to the soul.
So what do I mean when I say Moses symbolizes the moral nature of man? I do not mean moral as what is acceptable and not acceptable according to today’s societal standards (although there is certainly some correlation on a spiritual level). But I mean the nature within man which refuses to accept the mental and emotional bondage of Egypt. Again, Egypt is a Biblical symbol of mental bondage to the things of desire. So Moses and the Law is the revealer of that which is within man that comes to understand through experience that there is a higher spiritual principle to this thing we call life than simply the physical world we experience through the senses and the gratification thereof.
Sidenote: In the deepest level of spiritual understanding, there is a law which even transcends what we reap and sow (the Biblical definition of karma), but it will not be found within the confines of natural understanding nor action. And in the deepest respect for such a trandenscental experience, I am in no position to teach or advise in it. That is a journey you must travel for yourself 🙂
We must journey through the wilderness, the arena of life, and learn to control the lower nature. Every story about the Israelite journeying through the desert is about this constant battle and struggle between the higher and lower nature. The story of the Israelites is timeless, because it is our story, the story of every human being in all walks of life.
Moses
The author/s of the Torah skillfully illustrate Moses’s symbolic nature. While in Egypt, the land of desire, Moses killed an Egyptian. Are we to focus on the literal act, or is there a deeper spiritual message? Did Moses murder a person, or is the act symbolic of murdering the lust and gratification of carnality? In the literal story, Moses would be a murderer, an affront to our divine nature and the community of humanity at large. But in its deeper esoteric sense, I tell you that Moses would not have been worthy to lead God’s people (in the myth) had he not first killed an Egyptian. I hope you get my drift. The Torah has a deep sense of irony. Through a surface-literal reading only, God uses and favors most the murderers, harlots, and idolterors. (Moses, King David, Rahab, and Solomon, and if you count the New Testament, Paul). But this makes no sense to the natural man who sees things black and white, literal-only. The Torah is like a dark, empty cave to the natural mind. But to a spiritually-minded person, one who goes deeper within the text, it is like a land of treasure, revealing the secrets to man’s soul and psychological workings. It reveals not only the sacredness of the body-temple, but the divine construction of it through the physical, emotional, and mental network that embodies consciousness and self-awareness.
More on the Significance of Moses
While it is true that Moses is symbolic of something we would refer to as ethical, we must always go deeper. The natural mind can develop ethics. Throughout human history the ethical nature has evolved through the use of the intellect. Different societies have evolved through conquest, revolutions, etc. The intellect can rationalize that certain actions can develop social well-being by looking at its past failures and successes. And this is why societies have laws, and some nations develop laws with more freedom than others. But the Law of Moses transcends even this in its mystical application. And since the law is the forerunner to the more perfect law of love, which to the Jews is the indwelling messiah where the law is written on the heart according to Jeremiah, and to the Christians the Christ within according to Paul, the idea is one in the same. Which is why Christ could tell the Pharisee, in the Torah you think you have eternal life, but they are that which speak of ME (the eternal outpouring of the 2nd Logos made flesh). Jesus of the New Testament is the embodiment of the Old Testament messiah, and the early church fathers simply got bogged down in semantics, like arguing over Christ’s nature because of a literal reading.
Moses as the lawgiver then represents this: when the law is read spiritually, through the intellectual study of metaphysics and allegorical interpretation according to spiritual wisdom, it leads one to an intuitive understanding that there is a great spiritual realm above the physical world which we have the opportunity of discovering through the Christ within. And that is the reason why the law and Moses had to come first. It is a motif of the natural spiritual development of man. First comes animal nature, then the slow development of the moral nature, and then the greater spiritual nature of the divine.
Why Couldn’t Moses Enter the Promised Land
Which brings us to an important question: what’s up with Moses not being allowed to enter the Promised Land? What does it mean that he struck the rock instead of speaking to it, and why did God give out such a harsh punishment because of it?
Just as the Torah must have this Moses figure kill the Egyptian symbolically, so must the Torah show us that Moses could not enter the Promised Land. Moses does not enter because it would violate the deeper spiritual interpretation and symbolism of the text! He is that ethical and rational nature which seeks to discipline the soul so that it can begin to aspire to the higher spiritual nature within man. But symbolically, it is Joshua and Caleb only which can enter. Moses symbolizes the necessity of obedience to a higher standard, but Joshua and Caleb represent that standard in the form of faith.
In a sense, Moses represents not the outward appearance of certain laws and regulations, but a spiritual obedience, the kind of obedience which disciplines the mind and emotions, and refuses to let the desire-mind be the ruler of the soul. When one reaches this stage, it doesn’t mean that he or she can automatically enter what the Promised Land symbolizes. It just means that he or she is the scriptural and spiritual definition of an Israelite, which is one who is on the way, chosen and set apart, but still has much adversity (giants) to overcome.
Moses had already struck the rock previously to get water (truth). But the second time God commanded him to speak to the rock to get water, and he strikes it again, and a second time! In this act of disobedience Moses fails to symbolize access to the higher self, which can never be attained by the intellect. This act is the epitome of how far the intellect takes us. The symbolism of striking the rock again to get truth (water from the rock) represents the limitations of the intellect to receive the truth within, which only the Christ nature can provide. This provision comes in the form of the intellect being aided by the higher emotions in form of intuition and love. This is a process which must be developed.
In the overall arching theme of the Exodus and subsequent journey, we have to remember that it is the struggle of consciousness manifested in the flesh / physical body / personal ego. The metaphysical wisdom of the story relates more with psychology than religion teaches.
But there is one finality I am remembered of, especially after a conversation with my friend Paul (the natural Paul who lives near me and is interested in the same spiritual subjects). It is really about the union of the lower and higher nature, the divine union. But this is another subject for another time, and how this ties together. Blessings.
thanks josh for the article.
You can also put it in another way. The law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ (Galatians 3:24). When one reaches this point, one no longer is in need of the law because Joshua (Jesus) takes over and leads one to the promised land (state of mind) with Caleb which means capable.
In other words the one who has received the teaching of the law (Moses) is capable of entering the next level of consciousness led by Jesus.
Moses as a metaphor is cut off, no longer required at the next level of consciousness.
kind regards
Kris
Kris…
Thanks for the comment. As you might already know, Joshua is from the tribe of Ephriam and Caleb from the tribe of Judah. Seems like it should be the other way around, as Ephriam camped on the west (intellectual side) of the tabernacle. Surely another interesting sidenote for the body/temple. Blessings.
Josh, i would suggest you start your articles with you side note. Because most things are relative to what we know. And we know only the things we have done already.
The rest is hearsay. And … off course this is just my opinion 🙂
“”Sidenote: In the deepest level of spiritual understanding, there is a law which even transcends what we reap and sow (the Biblical definition of karma), but it will not be found within the confines of natural understanding nor action. And in the deepest respect for such a trandenscental experience, I am in no position to teach or advise in it. That is a journey you must travel for yourself 🙂”
Karma, imo, is that what we want to learn.
That what we do not know on the inside, we will experience on the outside (that’s a tough one). I can read and think and meditate all i want, but what i don’t DO i don’t KNOW. In other words Doing is knowing.
And i have no idea about the deepest level of understanding. It is imo an ongoing story.
Good point on so many levels, Leo!
Yea true but it just so happens that Joshua in Josh. 5 has all males circumcised, then performed the Pesah.
Can it be that the physical and spiritual are one on this plane, can not be separated and both need to be followed?
Well done, Josh. You hit on some really good points in this article.
Thanks for the comment, Paul.
Hi Josh,
Thank you for this really good article with so many excellent esoteric insights. This single sentence near the end of your article sums up so much truth:
“The metaphysical wisdom of the story relates more with psychology than religion teaches”.
This is so so true. For the Bible, in its essence, in its decoded format, is indeed a major project in mind science, in mind psychology. And when taken on-board mentally and esoterically, it transitions the consciousness out of animal or lower nature into higher spiritual nature. It brings the awareness into knowing FULL mind as opposed to partially knowing, thereby initiating divine nature into becoming our daily standard of living consciousness.
Blessings
Raymond, good to hear from you again after all your travels. And thanks for the comment. Hope you are doing well.
Hello Josh,
Great to see a new article on the blog again. As you may know I am not all that interested in the different Jewish laws as mentioned in the Old Testament, but I am definitely interested in your take on Moses. I am not sure that I agree with your view on all points but it certainly showed me some new aspects I did not consider before.
Your view on Moses killing an Egyptian being a symbolic act somehow never occurred to me before but I do agree with you. However you are taking the idea that Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land literally, within the context of the story of course, and my view is that Moses did not have to anymore. It was not a punishment but instead a reward as it were.
According to the tradition Moses lived on earth for 120 years. I think this is also a symbolic number and even Moses himself might be interpreted as a concept as well as a person.
I see this concept as a process in three phases of each 40 years:
1) The first 40 years Moses lives in Egypt and is considered to be – and raised as – the grandson of the pharaoh. As such he is, acts and feels like an Egyptian. As Mitsrayim, the Hebrew word for Egypt, symbolizes the world of duality, this means that Moses is the slave of his ego in this phase. However, there is the voice of his sister, Miriam, who speaks to him and finally gets through to him. So then he kills the Egyptian, that is the dominating ego in himself, and leaves this world that is dominated by the forces of ego.
2) The second 40 years he resides in the desert as a shepherd. In my first article The Significance of the Biblical Shepherd I described the function of a shepherd as follows:
“So what is a shepherd? In the Hebrew Bible it is always called the shepherd of the flock, the sheep and the goats, termed ‘tson’ in Hebrew. It is written as 90-1-50.
The first character is the tsade; as a word, ‘tsade’ means fish-hook. You can catch fish with such a fish-hook and fish are also a symbol of emotions and ego. That is why God commands man to rule over the fish of the sea (Gen.1:28).
As a number the tsade is 90, which is the number of birth at the next level, as the result of a long process. Note that Sarah was 90 years old when she gave birth to Isaac.
The aleph, one, of course is oneness, unity and love.
The nun, fifty, we also know already as the number of the higher consciousness (as in: Yehoshua Ben Nun).
So all together this word means the long process of crucifying your ego and getting control over your emotions and consequently the birth and awakening of the higher consciousness/ Christ and unity and love.”
This process again takes Moses 40 years and of course both times the number 40 itself also symbolizes this process of first being dominated by and after that conquering the ego and becoming master over it.
3) In the final 40 years Moses gets to return to Egypt, to confront the pharaoh, and finally to lead also his people out of the bondage he himself has overcome and to lead them into freedom and the Promised Land as well. Symbolically that means leading them from duality (Egypt = Mitsrayim, 380) to unity (Kanaan, 190).
This is his concluding task and when the moment has come that the Hebrews have reached the border of the Promised Land the lifelong task of Moses has been fulfilled. A new leader is now ready to take over the task of leading the people into and in this promised Land. His name is Yehoshua Ben Nun, which means Son of the fifty (higher consciousness/awareness).
At this point Moses himself is ready to climb the mountain Nebo. Nebo you can read as 50-bo. 50-bo means in him. The higher consciousness/awareness of the fifty is now rising in him and he is ascending to a world of a higher frequency or heaven. From this higher viewpoint he still gets to see the future of the people he has been guiding for so long.
Anny,
Correct. Fish also symbolize concepts of the mind, perceptions, ideals, even emotions. All that which we garner through experience on the physical plane. And most are clean to eat, speaking to this aspect of developing the intellect, which is an important aspect of our journey.
But yes, in the context of the story, we have to consider the fact that Moses was not allowed to enter, and why it is presented this way. I completely agree this is not a punishment, just as the fall from the Garden is not a punishment, but the narrative lends a reason that cannot be ignored. The plain fact is in the context of the story that Moses committed an act which displeased God (not literally of course).
And as you say, Moses is an ongoing psychological (within the soul) development of the evolution of consciousness. However even Moses does not represent all that messiah and Christ do. It is an evolutionary process, although Moses represents the conserver of our divine nature by the Law.
I like your break down of the 40-40-40 year period. He is the only one that lived according to God’s command that man shall live 120 years, which of course is all esoteric in meaning. I also remember your former article, and the significance of Joshua going forward. Have you ever considered that Joshua is not from Judah, but Ephriam, and Caleb is from Judah. I would be interested to get your take on this if you have ever looked into it.
Thanks for all your additional insight, Anny.
Hi Josh,
Thanks for your reply to my comment. Obviously we see Moses from a different standpoint. I respect yours but keep to mine, if you don’t mind. Different opinions can stand side by side. And Moses may represent different things in different models.
I agree with you that Moses was disobedient sometimes and did things that were not commanded by God but as I think I already wrote once before, the consequence of such a deed followed immediately. For instance when Moses threw down the two tables with the Ten Words on it and they broke into pieces, his ‘punishment’ was that he had to inscribe these Ten Words on two new stone tables himself again, which was back-breaking work. And that was the end of it. The law of karma in effect.
When you write: “However even Moses does not represent all that messiah and Christ do. It is an evolutionary process, although Moses represents the conserver of our divine nature by the Law.” I fully agree with you. We see something comparable in the story about the Transfiguration on the mount where Moses, Elijah and Jesus all represent a different level of Ascension and Enlightenment. But that does not diminish the value of the value of – the three stages of – Moses’s life which in themselves form a completion of a certain level.
In my comment I do not follow a sequence in Moses’s life that leads from a certain beginning to his ascension but I started at the end, the ascension (climbing the mountain) and the name of the mountain, Nebo, as the combination of these two form a powerful symbol.
As I have written before, even when there has been a lot of messing around with Bible texts, as long as symbols like these are still in them the intended message is still there. I used to think that messing with the Torah had not been possible as the copying of Torah scrolls has been done scrupulously for the last two thousand years, but there was of course a time before that when mistakes or even changes may have been made. That is why I take this hidden symbol very seriously, even if it were not completely in accordance with the rest of the story.
As I have already mentioned often the name Nebo means ‘50-bo’, the higher consciousness of the fifty is now in him (bo), in Moses. This name is not used accidentally. There does not just happen to be such a mountain with such a name in the story. Not in the Bible where names have meanings. So coming from this name with this meaning I started to figure out the meaning of the life that Moses must have led in order to reach the above-mentioned result.
No, I have never even thought about what tribe Joshua came from nor even considered Caleb. I purely focussed on the name Yehoshua. I do not remember Caleb playing a very important role either after the people entered the Promised Land.
Definitely, Anny. I think your interpretation is spot on as well. There is always multiple meanings in each story, each layer revealing something a little deeper.
Caleb doesn’t play a major role…it’s more silent, but just as important with Joshua. Maybe I will do a post on it sometime in the future. Thanks again for the comment!
Although I am not a learned scholar of either Old or New Testament, I’m not even remotely religous, I find your blog and all the comments very helpful in my path. Indeed I do. I love reading your stuff and gleaning so much valuable information that brings a certain clarity and peace even. Just dropping by to say Thank you and thank you for making it available to “students” like myself.
Jacomina
Thank you Jacomina for the comment. So happy to provide any info I can.
I think there’s a typo on the summary on your main page before clicking on the article?
Ah, Justin, I see that. It has to do with the image I chose. I need to go back and fix that. Thanks for pointing me towards that.
Excellent article Josh. I really enjoy how you simplify a deeply spiritual concept with the teachings of Moses in this post. I think what is being lost is the unwritten aspect of this article which is the readers responsibility to dive further into the mysteries of Moses. Just his name alone means; “to pull out/draw out,” this goes along with what Josh is eluding to in his interpretation of Moses, that which is to remove the lower aspect of the mind in order to prepare yourself for Christ’s consciousness.
Thanks again, Josh
Ken
Ken…
Thanks for that! And I like your comment about the unwritten aspect as well. That probably came to mind after reading mine and Anny’s discussion. Great point!
Hey Josh,
Long time reader, first time commenting, I regret I haven’t done this sooner.
Gratitude Brother, for sharing these deep works with such humble honesty.
A clear voice, in a very noisy wilderness.
Your writing and teachings feed the hungry soul my friend,
It is a blessing to have found you. Matthew 7:16.
Thank you.
A pleasure my friend. Thanks for the kind words!