Did Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection make his blood pure, making him into God?
Became pure and so he became God and therefore we don't there's no other God we don't hear about any other God. See for almost three to four centuries after Jesus died there was great confusion in Christianity about the identity of Jesus.
Roughly in the fourth century there was a meeting of Catholic Christian priests and what was saying was called a Nicene Creed and in Nicene Creed Jesus was declared to be God but Jesus himself there are many statements where Jesus says I am not the father I am from the father. So I mentioned this book by Satyaraj Stephen Rosen. You mean that's in the Bible.
So there are several quotes where Jesus clearly says that he is not God. He's a son of God. So but basically when Jesus died when Jesus was crucified that was a big shock for his followers that basically in the Jesus was a part of a messianic tradition.
Messianic means that they expected a messiah to come and when Jesus came there were many signs which indicated that he was the messiah but and they had expected the messiah to to save them politically and when Jesus was killed it was you know how could a messenger how could a messiah of God be so helplessly killed. So it was a big setback and the way Jesus followers recover on the setback was they they felt that Jesus died for us and that way they concluded that no he is God but he is atoned for our sins and that's how they had the idea of the whole idea of resurrection of Jesus became central to Christian theology especially because of one of the apostles named Paul. Now Paul was actually an apostle who didn't even meet Jesus.
In fact while he was living while Jesus was living Paul was one of the strongest persecutors of Christians but later on he had a conversion experience and he became the most aggressive we could say proselytizer for Jesus. So if you look at there are the Gospels. Gospels are among the Bible.
The Gospels are the books which specifically talk about Jesus life and there is Mark and so the apostles who associated with Jesus they wrote the Gospels and they described the life of Jesus and in that there is very little if any indication that Jesus is God but later on Paul so the major part of the Bible is actually Paul's epistles. Epistles means like words of instruction which if he has given to the Romans he has given to the Corinthians and other people like that and they are a part of the Bible. So now it is Paul who has stressed the not the life and teachings of Jesus but the death of Jesus and subsequent Christians being saved because of the dying of Jesus.
That means the shift from living to the focus of being saved by Jesus. That happened because of Paul and there are many historians of religion who say that actually what is being practiced in the world today is not Christianity. It is Paulianity.
It is Paul's version of Christianity but this is intricate historical stuff for but the point is that Jesus himself did not emphasize this point that you know obviously after he died Jesus is not given instructions after he was crucified. So if you look at Jesus' own instructions they are about ethical and spiritual living. They are not about he being God and people being saved because they have faith that he is the only way to God.
That is a later addition to Christianity historically and if somebody studies the Bible objectively and studying the history of Christianity these are all very undeniable facts. So specifically while addressing so all this is for our understanding if you're talking with Christians who say like this then sometimes the best thing is don't disturb the minds of people. So they have that faith and at least because of their faith in Jesus saving them if they are practicing some level of God consciousness that is good.
They will be elevated by that. Prabhupada encouraged Christians that you should follow the commandment thou shalt not kill and avoid eating meat but so that's what we can do and try to encourage them and limit at that but if they are using this as a way to challenge our devotion to God as manifested in our tradition then we have to go back and again go back to the same point of narrow-mindedness and say that actually you know to say that God is limited to only one form or one particular manifestation that is to limit God's mercy and further if we see that in the Bible whether it is the Old Testament or New Testament there is not much positive knowledge about God. Who God is? What God does? What God looks like? These things are not told.
The Old Testament is primarily the narrative of the activities of the people of God that means the Egyptians were released under Moses from slavery and they fled and eventually they came to Israel. The Old Testament is primarily a narrative of the incidents that happened in their life and periodically God keeps intervening through supernatural occurrences but there is no direct knowledge about God. Similarly, the New Testament is teachings of Jesus, life and teachings of Jesus and then the teachings of the apostles as they have learned it from Jesus.
Again, these are mostly moral stories with some moral teachings. Again, there is no positive knowledge about God. So we can start with a philosophical definition of God that you know we can talk about six opulences of God and no Christian is going to say that God is not beautiful, God is not powerful, God is not wealthy.
Say God is all these and then we can say okay here there is a definition of God that you agree with and now you give me a description of God. Give me a person. Is there any person you know who fits this bill? And then Prabhupada would say that you know Krishna is a person who has these six opulences, who has manifested these six opulences.
So we have an objective definition of God and then we have a person, a conception that fits that bill. So Prabhupada would say if you have a better conception of God you give us, we worship that conception. But there is no better conception of God available actually because it's an objective criteria and there is a specific description, just like if somebody, we know who is the president of the United States, you know a person who can control the army, the person who can control the navy, person who can control the air force.
Now if you say there is a person at whose call the army, air force and navy are working, then we can say okay this is a criteria for the president, this is a person who fits the criteria, therefore this person is the president. So like that Krishna is God based on object, based on his having the qualities that are objectively to be present in God. And then somebody says no no no but if Krishna was God, Jesus did not tell that.
Why did Jesus not say that Krishna is God? So Prabhupada would say that Jesus actually gave very little. And for whatever little he told, he was crucified for that. So Jesus repeated thou shall not kill and the people of his times killed him only.
So he did say I have much more to say but you have not the ears to hear. And another point is that if somebody says that because this is not told by Jesus, we will not accept it. It's like say some Indian who is studying computer engineering and MIT in India, Maharashtra Institute of Technology.
That person gets an opportunity to come to MIT in America, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And he says no I will study computer engineering only in MIT India. I will not go anywhere else to study.
You will ask them are you interested in college or are you interested in knowledge? Similarly you will ask people, if you are saying that you will not study anything outside what is given in the Bible, you will not accept any conception that is not given in the Bible. Are you interested in knowledge or are you interested in college? Are you interested in God or are you interested in a particular religious text only? Religious texts are meant to give us knowledge about God. So there is the same one God known by different traditions but that God is much more personally and personably, personally means his personal attributes and personable means attractive.
He is much more personally and personably described in the bhakti literature of ancient India. So that way we can explain that it is not that Jesus is one God and there are other gods. Actually Jesus has come from one God and that one God has revealed himself in different ways in different traditions.
And if you are truly devoted to God then we will enrich ourselves with the description of the beauty of God in whichever tradition it is found.