Welcome back to Gnostic Insights. Today we are going to look at what is called “The Army of the Christ.”

Saying that Christ comes into the cosmos with an army is a rather strange way of labeling Christ. It gives rise to the same misunderstanding that caused the first century Jews to expect a mighty, war-faring Christ to ride in on a white stallion accompanied by a legion of warrior angels ready to slay the Roman occupiers. What they got instead was a humble man riding in on a donkey. As was his way, Jesus confounded expectations by presenting himself as the opposite. In actuality, Christ and his army of Third Order Powers come into this cosmos armed with Truth and Love. The purity of righteousness is the only revolutionary power that can redeem the world.

This exploration of gnostic cosmology is uniquely based upon the text of one of the ancient manuscripts recovered from the Egyptian desert in 1945. The concepts that I am sharing with you are universal and applicable to anyone who is seeking the truth about consciousness, God, the nature of life, death, and suffering, and the nature of the simulated reality we appear to be living in. This gnosis is also a “gospel” in that the word gospel means “good news.” The good news is that this gnostic gospel offers the promise of a personal relationship with higher order entities and the God Above All Gods. This is not a challenge to established religions, but rather a clarification of the nature of the Father and our relation to the Father. This gnosis also clarifies so many of the puzzles that established religions, philosophies, and even science have been unable to answer. If a Great Awakening is currently underway, then this gnosis is an integral addition to spreading the Word.

As always, these readings come from the ancient book called the Tripartite Tractate of the Nag Hammadi codices. We looked at the material in this episode in 2022 when I was writing my book, A Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospel, and I figured it was high time we reviewed the information. And, if you haven’t yet picked up your copy of A Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospel, please do so. It is the clearest presentation of the Tripartite Tractate you will ever find. The book is available in all formats through amazon or your local book dealer.

All life forms are called Second Order Powers and we were the generation of the new Pleroma of Logos when he returned from the Fall. We living creatures were designed to fit into the Boundary so we could operate according to the Simple Golden Rule to bring life, love, and cooperation into the otherwise dead deficiency. The Second Order Powers also bring a remembrance of the Father into his material realm, a memory entirely lacking in the shadows and phantoms of the imitation. We inhabit the deficiency, yoked to the apparent material of the imitation, and find ourselves trapped in a never-ending war with the deficiency. The Tripartite Tractate says of us,

“It was not from the sickness which came into being that they were produced… but (from) the one who sought after the pre-existent. Once he had prayed, he both raised himself to the good and sowed in them a pre-disposition to seek and pray to the glorious pre-existent one, and he sowed in them a thought about him and an idea, so that they should think that something greater than themselves exists prior to them, although they did not understand what it was. Begetting harmony and mutual love through that thought, they acted in unity and unanimity, since from unity and from unanimity they have received their very being.”

The Second Order Powers are subject to the “law of mutual combat” and, because of the never-ending battle against the deficiency, we tend to forget the harmony and mutual love of our higher Self and instead adopt the anger and violence of the enemy.

Picking up the story now in section eight of the Tripartite Tractate,

“The Logos which moved had the hope and the expectation of him who is exalted. As for those of the shadow, he separated himself from them in every way, since they fight against him and are not at all humble before him. He was content with the beings of the thought.”

Logos was content with the beings of thought—those Aeons of the Fullness that form the master formulae upon whom we living Second Order Powers are modelled—”because he had hope and expectation of him who is exalted.” That hope and expectation is another way of saying that Logos had faith in the Father of the Totalities. We humans feel the same way Logos did when we turn to the Father in faith—we feel hope and expectation that something will come of our prayers. On the other hand, Logos was not content with the shadows that came out of him after the Fall. Logos rejected the phantoms of the deficiency that had arisen from the presumptuous thought of his Ego.

Logos sought a solution to the hatred and disorder taking hold of his Second Order Powers who were fighting the never-ending war against the deficiency. As we read from the Tripartite Tractate in the passages related to the creation of the Christ. Here is a quick review of that process:

“And as for the one who is set up in this way and who is within the exalted boundary, remembering the one who is defective, the Logos brought him forth in an invisible way among those who came into being according to the thought.”

The Christ was brought forth to “those who came into being according to the thought.” We Second Order Powers are those who were brought into being according to the thought of the ALL, also known as the Fullness of God. We are fractal representations of the Aeons of the Fullness, who are themselves Self-aware aspects of the ALL sorted into a cooperative Hierarchy “within the exalted boundary.” That’s up above on the ethereal plane.

Remembering the one who is defective—that’s down below. “The one who is defective” refers to both we Second Order Powers who have become lost due to the “law of mutual combat” as well as to the Demiurge who is the Ego of the Fallen Aeon, lost within this material deficiency. Speaking again of the Christ,

“The order which was his came into being from him who ran on high and that which brought itself forth from him and from the entire perfection. The one who ran on high became for the one who was defective an intercessor with the emanation of the aeons which had come into being in accord with the things which exist. When he prayed to them, they consented joyously and willingly, since they were in agreement, and with harmonious consent, to aid the defective one.”

Briefly, the “one who ran on high” was the Self of Logos. The entire perfection is the entirety of the ALL, which is co-existent with the Son. The emanation of the Aeons refers to the ALL who have become Self-aware entities inhabiting a region called the Hierarchy of the Fullness of God, or the Pleroma of the Fullness. When Logos prayed to them, they were only too happy to aid the defective one. We’re talking about the Totalities of the ALL, so of course they’re in agreement and harmonious consent, because they are always in agreement and harmonious consent. The ALL do not have their own individual Egos. They are One and the same with the Son. Quoting again,

“They gathered together, asking the Father with beneficent intent that there be aid from above, from the Father, for his glory, since the defective one could not become perfect in any other way, unless it was the will of the Pleroma of the Father, which he had drawn to himself, revealed, and given to the defective one. Then from the harmony, in a joyous willingness which had come into being, they brought forth the fruit, which was a begetting from the harmony, a unity, a possession of the Totalities, revealing the countenance of the Father, of whom the aeons thought as they gave glory and prayed for help for their brother with a wish in which the Father counted himself with them.”

“They gathered together, asking the Father” refers to the ALL praying upstream to the Originating Consciousness out of whom they were emanated along with the Son.Then, the Father … “made manifest the agreement of the revelation of his union with them, which is his beloved Son. … the one who is properly called “Savior” and “the Redeemer” and “the Well-Pleasing one” and “the Beloved,” “the one to whom prayers have been offered” and “the Christ” and “the Light of those appointed,” in accordance with the ones from whom he was brought forth, since he has become the names of the positions which were given to him. Yet, what other name may be applied to him except “the Son,” as we previously said, since he is the knowledge of the Father, whom he wanted them to know?”

This passage says that the united prayers of the ALL, the Aeons, and Logos manifested the Christ. The Christ is the Son of the Father made tangible, bringing full knowledge of the Son whom the Father wanted us to know.

Now, this next quote is really spectacular. Because it says that not only did the Christ manifest the face, or the countenance, of the Son, but it also manifested as the faces of all of the Aeons who had gathered together.

“Not only did the aeons generate the countenance of the Father to whom they gave praise, … but also they generated their own; for the aeons who give glory generated their countenance and their face. They were produced as an army for him, as for a king, since the beings of the thought have a powerful fellowship and an intermingled harmony. They came forth in a mul...