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INNER CIRCLE: Separated In Our Minds (Not God’s)

INNER CIRCLE: Separated In Our Minds (Not God’s)

Last updated on: October 30, 2026 at 6:15 pm by Keith Giles

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INNER CIRCLE: Separated In Our Minds (Not God’s) 2026-10-30T18:15:09+00:00 Keith Giles

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Colossians 1:15-22

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, born prior to all creation, because in him were created all things in the heavens and on earth, the visible as well as the invisible, (whether Thrones or Lordships or Archons or Powers); all things were created through him and for him; and he is before all things, and all things hold together in him, and he is the head of the body, of the assembly (ecclesia) – who is the origin, firstborn from the dead, so that he might himself hold first place in all things – for in him all the Fullness was pleased to take up a dwelling, and through him to reconcile all things to him, making peace by the blood of his cross [through him], whether the things on the earth or the things in the heavens. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation…” (DBH, emphasis mine)

Paul (or one of his closest disciples) begins Colossians by establishing the centrality of Christ as the preexistent “image of the invisible God,” in whom, and for whom, all things were created, and by whom “all things hold together.” This is a much more developed concept of the Messiah – one individual person who was prophesied to come and save the Jewish people – into what we might call the “Cosmic Christ” – one being who transcends space and time and who sustains all reality in the Universe.

This same progression of the identity of Jesus is seen as we trace the descriptions of Christ from the earliest Gospel of Mark, to the middle Gospels of Luke and Matthew, and then on to the later Gospel of John. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is the Son of Man, and his disciples believe he might be the Messiah. In Matthew and Luke, Jesus is the Son of God. But by the time we get to the Gospel of John, Jesus has become synonymous with the Logos of God, which “was with God, and was God,” from before all Creation.

What’s even more fascinating is how Paul’s earliest epistles reflect that later development of the Cosmic Christ, even though his letters were all written prior to the Gospel of Mark. In other words, before the very first Gospel was written, the Apostle Paul was already teaching that Christ was the one in whom we all live and move and have our being, and that there is no separation between any of us because in Christ we are all one.

Clearly, there were different streams of early Christianity that did not all agree on who Jesus was, why he mattered, what he taught, and how we should follow his teachings. As I’ve already said, it is my contention that the Christ Consciousness teaching was one of several early doctrines within the Christian movement. It was reflected in the collected sayings of Jesus found in the Gospel of Thomas, and echoed in the letters of the Apostle Paul (as we have seen here). Through Paul’s teachings, this same message of Oneness and Unity in Christ was carried by his inner circle of disciples, namely Theudas, who later discipled Valentinus, the leader of the Valentinian Christian movement, which inspired several Nag Hammadi texts like the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Truth, Thunder Perfect Mind, and the Gospel of Mary (which was not uncovered at Nag Hammadi, but nonetheless contains the same teachings of non-duality and “Quantum Theology.”

While some argue that it was the Apostle Paul himself who originated this Cosmic Christ teaching, my view is that this was already an accepted teaching before he came on the scene, as evidenced by his statement in his earliest epistle to the Galatians that “we are all one in Christ,” needing no explanation to his audience. They already knew and accepted such teachings regarding our Oneness in Christ and our connection to the Divine. I would also argue that the sayings of Jesus found in the Gospel of Thomas originated prior to Paul’s writings, as evidenced when Paul quotes from that text and simply says, “As it is written,” without needing to qualify it to his readers; they were already familiar with these sayings of Jesus from Thomas.

In this passage, Paul also reaffirms his belief that the Pleroma (fullness) of God was in Christ, and that all things were reconciled to God through Christ, and that we were all once separated from God “in our minds.” Not in God’s mind, but in our minds. God has always known that nothing can ever separate us from one another, but we were the ones who had been taught to believe otherwise.

Paul’s Quantum Gospel insists that this idea of separation from God is – and always has been – a lie and a delusion that we all needed to awaken from.

Keith Giles is the best-selling author of the Jesus Un series. He has appeared on CNN, USA Today, Coast To Coast with George Noory, BuzzFeed, and John Fugelsang’s “Tell Me Everything.” He co-hosts the Heretic Happy Hour Podcast.

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