Gospel of Thomas: Thomas 107

Thomas 107:  Jesus said, “The (Father’s) Kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them, the largest, went astray. He left the ninety-nine and looked for the one until he found it. After he had toiled, he said to the sheep, ‘I love you more than the ninety-nine.’”

The use of the word love makes a link to the way humans behave toward someone they are drawn to, on a deeper level. The largest sheep is symbolic of what we are—souls on the journey to becoming enlightened Spirits. When humans become enlightened Spirits, they are the largest sheep, desired above all others. Yeshua tells us the Father’s Kingdom is like a shepherd who seeks His most beloved sheep. This is a revelation about the way God the Source is drawn to Its Light, which has accumulated within humans to become the largest sheep (a Spirit). The toil is a metaphor for the journey through this universe—from the time when the Source initially expanded outward, to the time when Yeshua’s Spirit was thrust through the inner realm, into this one (Thomas 98). This is God the Father, the source of all things, working towards a reunion with the thing It had lost.

As with other sayings in the Gospel of Thomas, we see Thomas 107 presented in its original form. In The New Testament Gospels of Matthew 18:12-13 and Luke 15:4-6, we see the parable of Thomas 107 interpreted in a persuasive, hyperbolic manner, which denigrates the revelations within these words. The New Testament authors present this parable as a promise that God will come to save the sinner (the stray sheep), bringing them back to the fold. The implication is that humanity has gone astray, because they are no longer worthy of God. This stems from the Original Sin of disobedience, through the mythological story we see in Genesis. This lack of obedience was then redeemed through Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac, to Yahweh (God). This train of thought comes from the misguided understanding, within Christian denominations, that people are the design of a Creator God, from whom they have turned away. Even though they have done this, He will still love them when they come back to Him. In the Gospel of Thomas, we see that this parable actually talks about the desire God (the Source) has to join with human Spirits. This conclusion is logical when we read and meditate on all of these sayings collectively, thereby noticing the thread that has been laid down for us, by Yeshua. One of the most significant threads is the Source’s Light, which is over and through all things (Thomas 77). We have not walked away from It; we have not gone astray through our own will (Thomas 97). We are the Light that can grow (Thomas 96) and become the siblings of Yeshua (Thomas 99). In the Gospel of John, this parable becomes a discourse by Jesus, about the sheep recognising Him. This author was passionately concerned with making people accept that Jesus was the Christ. He could willingly lay down His life, just as He could raise it up again. This is why we see the story of Lazarus appear in John. As discussed previously, it would seem that the author(s) of John had visions of refuting what existed in the Gospel of Thomas. They attempted to do this by casting aspersions upon Thomas’s understanding and belief in Yeshua as the risen Christ. In the Gospel of Thomas, it is clear that Yeshua was human, flesh and bone. His body was destroyed, but His Soul was raised up, to become a Spirit, resurrected to the Source. His Spirit dwells in another realm/dimension, which humans cannot experience while in this existence.

A sheep is a creature that is inclined to go wherever its nose may lead it, or where the tail of another sheep might encourage it to follow. Having considered this trait, we can see that the sparks (souls) which emanated from the Source went onto the distant road (Thomas 97). The Light (meal) poured out of the jar, following the woman who represents the creative power of God the Source. Put simply, our souls are intrinsically connected to God the Father and we followed its expansion into the abyss. Through the nurturing of the collective consciousness (Holy Spirit), we are found. While consciousness is an intrinsic quality of humanity, it has taken eons for it to be fully recognised for its singularity. Yeshua delivered these secret teachings so that we may appreciate how we are all linked to the thing He came from. In becoming aware and meditating on this union, humans have found the Comforter, the collective home. In this galaxy, the human soul is desirable to God the Father, as are other beings that house the Light of the Source.

It is important that we recognise the condition of humanity. People have an inclination to deny the truth of what they really are because of their primal heritage. In the major faiths that claim Abraham as their lineage, we see obedience as a foremost point of concern. Indeed, the story of Abraham (Genesis 22:1-18) revolves around his willingness to sacrifice his only son to Yahweh (God). In this mythical character, we are supposed to see the ideal human, who is totally accepting of Yahweh’s will, even if it means taking his son’s life. Toward the end of this part of his story, Abraham is about to sacrifice his son Isaac. At this point, Yahweh’s angel stops him and tells Abraham that he was being tested—because he followed the will of God, his lineage would prosper and grow. To replace Abraham’s son on the sacrificial altar Abraham finds a ram stuck in bushes. It is not a coincidence that a sheep becomes the sacrifice. In the context of the Gospel of Thomas, we can see that the sheep represents the generations preceding John the Baptist and Yeshua. The sheep, that the Father loves above all others, was being destroyed at human hands. This attitude continued, to a lesser degree, after Yeshua. In this way, people’s tendency to place God outside of themselves has actually distanced them from the truth. This tendency stems from peoples primal heritage, which saw them create mythologies based on their literal observations of the natural world, overlaid onto the spiritual realm.

The inherent fear humans had of the night and the chaos seen in natural disasters, gave people a picture of an authoritarian, alpha-male god. This god had an opposing other in a fallen angel, becoming known as Satan. If it was not God the father punishing his children, it was the jealous Satan creating obstacles for people, because humans were God’s favored creation. (For an explanation of who the satan was see commentary for Thomas 21.) Such a patriarchal god is foreign to Jesus. The Father He speaks of is not one based on primitive four-dimensional observations. What then was Jesus casting out of those people supposedly possessed of demons? Demons are entities that have lost their way or rejected the Light. They fear the Light of the Source (Thomas 61), because their ego will not allow them to be one with the collective. They are the ones charmed and consumed by this realm (Thomas 7). All humans have demonic remnants and these characteristics stem from the creature people evolved from. Their beastly, antagonistic tendency is evidence of the primal man in battle with the collective consciousness (Holy Spirit). It is analogous to the chaotic transition that some humans experience as teenagers. The source of all things, the one Yeshua calls Father, extends past the fourth-dimension of time into all other dimensions. People can only experience this when they are liberated from the concept of self. 77^th Pearl: The Perpetual Tree is the catalyst for the realisation that the sheep is no longer the sacrifice. This wisdom opens the eyes of the human to the Father’s Light—the one who seeks to embrace us, not destroy us.

Without looking at the Gospel of Thomas as a whole, and recognising the metaphors that have an interconnecting thread, it is easy to look for the obvious meaning. Yeshua knew this would be the case within His contemporaries. At the beginning of this gospel we see the author include a subtle warning. The reader is told that these are the secret sayings the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded. For Yeshua’s actual purpose and message to be revealed to the world it was necessary for Him to give these cryptic sayings to one of His disciples. It is also important to recognise that in the opening statement it says, it was the living Jesus that spoke these words. This is a subtle way to reinforce that these are the words Jesus (Yeshua) actually spoke—they are not edited or paraphrased comments. Their cryptic nature of more than half of these sayings made them inaccessible to the authors of the canonical texts. The Gospel of Thomas is a symbolic representative of the shepherd in this realm. These words have come to find us—the sheep desired above others.

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