At the age of 67, the former President and writer of our declaration of independence, Thomas Jefferson, created a compilation of the gospel passages he titled, "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth". He had cobbled together snippets of over six copies of the New Testament, in Greek, Latin, French and King James English. It was literally snippets. He cut out the teachings of Jesus only and left off the passages involving Jesus' supernatural elements and powers. His Bible was Jesus without divinity, Jesus absent the miraculous. He pasted together Jesus the man, not a king, no divine authority, not the Son of God. Jefferson added in only the morality and philosophy of the Jesus he wanted, and he cut out the gospel that his reason couldn't comprehend. He deconstructed the new testament down to its demonic nature, he makes man the god.
Jefferson did leave in some aspects of the divine, (1:10) "And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him." Acknowledging his deist faith in an absent God, Jefferson attributes Jesus moral character to the grace of God. His reason apparently could imagine an invisible hand moving and inspiring the spirits of men towards goodness and wisdom. Apparently his reason cannot simply assign the human consciousness and psyche to animal instincts. As much as he couldn't tolerate a divine Jesus, he cannot simply abandon humanity to chance. And so, like so many throughout the ages, he fashions a guru god out of The king of the Universe. And in doing so he buries Jesus permanently in the grave.
The Jefferson Bible ends with:
(Matthew 27:59-60)
"And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed."
And that's it, that's his gospel. Jesus never leaves the grave, and he never ascended into his heavenly kingdom. He doesn't sit at the right hand of his father, and therefore he doesn't have the authority to impute his righteousness upon his children. Jesus doesn't send The Holy Spirit helper. He doesn't appear and walk and eat with the disciples. All his teachings following the resurrection are left off. Apparently nothing Jesus had to say beyond the grave held any value for Jefferson.
Jefferson isn't interested in the testimony of Thomas who demanded physical evidence of Jesus having risen, and he received that evidence. He's not interested in Peter's testimony about Jesus instructing them to, "Feed My sheep". Jefferson's personal Jesus isn't meeting them in his spirit body and he's not personally ushering in the age of grace. Jefferson's Jesus leaves without a word. And Jefferson misses out on the ultimate learning, he missed faith. He cannot gain God’s blessing and enjoy God’s grace, his reason will not allow it. He doesn't recognize the works of The Holy Spirit, and that is the unforgivable sin.
Jefferson misses out on God’s true intentions for saving mankind. After Jesus was resurrected, He appeared to the people He thought necessary. Jesus spoke with them, and he leaves behind His intentions for them and his expectations for all the people of God. Jesus was concerned about the disciples before the cross, and beyond the grave he remains concerned and intimately involved. Jefferson's Bible assigns Jesus to the darkness of the grave. He's still there. With Jefferson faith is not a relationship, it's not even a religion, it's simply a morality lesson, an ideology, (aka idol).
There's no hope for mankind in the Jefferson Bible because Jesus Christ does not demonstrate through his resurrection that He will return to love and reclaim each of us. In his Bible, Jesus doesn't come to each disciple in their personal journey. And no one receives a purpose, a blessing, or instruction to go and preach the good news. Jesus leaves everyone behind to make of themselves what they will. There is no divine mandate. No God to serve, no reason to be the church. No consecration, no fellowship in The Spirit. No Koinonia.
No reason to drink from the cup or eat the bread...there is no communion, after all Jesus is dead.
But worst of all...no anticipation.
This is it.
Might as well be an atheist.
What do we learn from this?
We learn that without the communion of the Holy Spirit, without the miraculous supernatural power and elements of faith, there is nothing worthy in any human person. There is no morality and there is no life. There's no basis for thinking that anyone is good or righteous because there is no basis for goodness and righteousness. We learn that even those who hunger and thirst for righteousness sake, are not blessed, because they cannot hunger or thirst for a dead Christ. They cannot be filled with a dead Christ.
Jefferson not only cut out the supernatural, he left off the rest of the New Testament witnesses and so he missed out on the ultimate truth.
1Corinthians 15:14
"And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless."
And he cannot participate in the church witness throughout human history.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon -
"the great facts of the gospel are that God was incarnate in Christ Jesus, that he lived here a life of holiness and love, that he died upon the cross for our sins, that he was buried in the tomb of Joseph, that the third day he rose again from the dead, that after a while he ascended to his Father’s throne where he now sitteth, and that he shall come by-and-by, to be our Judge, and in that day the dead in Christ shall rise by virtue of their union with him."
Jefferson, and the deists like him, have no union with Christ. They have no purpose, no calling, no witness, no testimony. Like Jesus still in the tomb where they leave him, their faith is dead. Jefferson saw himself as a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. Like so many he sums up his faith based upon an ideology and philosophy. But they have no substance for that faith because they reject the divine Jesus Christ. They believe much of the divinity and supernatural aspects of the Bible are hyperbole and absurd. And ironically they make themselves guilty of the revisionist view of scripture that many have accused the Biblical text writers of having done.
Food for thought:
9,000 copies of the 80-page volume of Jefferson's Bible were printed-by Congress itself, and copies were sent to every new senator for many decades. In the 1990s, it was reprinted and sent to every member of Congress. In January 2013, the American Humanist Association published an edition of the Jefferson Bible, distributing a free copy to every member of Congress and President Barack Obama.
Think about that in the context of what we see happening in our nation today .