Bush, Page 2

Powerful confirmation that “the burning bush” refers not only to the Christ “I Am” but also to the human “I Am” is found in Jesus’ response to the Sadducees’ challenge to interpret the resurrection in the light of the levirate law (Lk 20,27-38). This passage is discussed under Point #5 of “Karma and Reincarnation” above, but the point here is that the lower “I Am,” or human Ego, is addressed under the term “bush” in the statement (emphasis added), “But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord [i.e., the higher “I Am”] the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living; for all live to him [ie., the higher “I Am”].” Here it is the lower “I Am” which is “raised from the dead”; but the essential relationship between the higher and the lower “I Am” seems clearly implied.²

One should not overlook the immense significance of the fact that the pronouncement, “I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob,” first appears in Ex 3,6 in specific connection with the “Bush.” Its echo reverberates throughout the Bible. It is found at least six times in the Old and five times in the New Testaments, not counting the passages “(I am the) God of your fathers,” or the “God of Israel.” Its meaning may also be carried over into the trio “Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” more fully explored under that phrase later, as well as in the “Three Bodies” passages below. The overriding meaning of all later usages can be taken from this passage of its origination, for it is born in connection with the “burning bush,” and only later is the term “Lord” substituted for the “bush.” It was previously pointed out in “Karma and Reincarnation” (Point #5) that Lk 20,37-38 had this meaning, for there all the concepts (“Bush,” “God of” and the three “fathers”) are linked in illustrating “that the dead are raised” (in distinction from being “resurrected” when “they cannot die any more”). Without this understanding, one misses its critical thread of meaning in Jn 8,31-59 and Rom 9,1-13. We are being told throughout the Bible that the Christ-enabled human “I Am,” the (higher) Ego, is “Lord” meaning that it is “God” over the “Three Bodies.”John 8,52-53 shows that the “Three Bodies” die, but the “I Am” (or “burning bush”) does not. Both the Johannine and Pauline passages show that one is not a true child of Abraham who does not take in the higher “I Am” (Jn 8,39-47 and Rom 9,6-8) which is the “God” over such “fathers” or “Three Bodies.”

Mark’s account of the levirate law question (Mk 12,18-27) also relates Jesus’ answer to “the passage about the bush.” While more cryptic, its meaning is clarified by the fuller Luke version. Matthew is even more terse (Mt 22,23-32), but still compatible in meaning, though it jumps over the “bush” reference.

These represent the most pointed and clear scriptural usages of the “bush” metaphor, but from them we can garner meaning in other passages as well. If we there take “bush” to apply to the Ego, either the higher or the lower or both depending upon context, there is generally a wondrous enhancement of meaning. By the “higher Ego” is meant the Christ, the “I Am” who appeared to Moses, or the human Ego which has become fully perfected (See “Perfect”) through “becoming one with” the Christ. By the “lower Ego” is meant the human Ego which is not yet so perfected—one which has not yet reached the stage of not having to reincarnate (“for they cannot die anymore . . . [having become] sons of God,” Lk 20,36; Jn 1,12; Rev 3,12). Except for those exalted human beings who embody an angelic being or a perfected human soul returning in humility only to sacrificially serve others, one lives on Earth as a human being only because karmic debt remains, further perfection being required.

Gen 21,15: When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes.

This is part of the account of Hagar dispatching Ishmael into the “Wilderness,” an account filled with rich symbolism. We remember from the discussion in “I AM” above that the “Wilderness” is where the “I Am” is found, and here Ishmael is placed under a “bush” in the “wilderness.” For while Ishmael was not chosen to sire the line that would provide the physical body for the Incarnation of the Christ, he was blessed and did father twelve sons, the same number as Isaac, and both Ishmael and Isaac laid Abraham to rest (Gen 25,9). One cannot properly think of Ishmael pejoratively when the Biblical account is read in the light of anthroposophy. While it was through Isaac that Abraham’s descendants were to be named (Gen 21,12; Rom 9,7; Heb 11,18), we can see that in the higher sense this meant that it was through him that the higher “I Am,” the “Name” of Christ the LORD, the Kyrios (see “I AM”), was to come, and that the opportunity of developing the twelvefold zodiacal nature of the Ego promised in Gen 15,5 was not limited to Isaac’s line but extended also to Ishmael. See the Commentary for the meaning of their respective “names.”

Deut 33,13-17: (13) And of Joseph he said, “Blessed by the LORD be his land, with the choicest gifts of heaven above, . . . (14) with the choicest fruits of the sun,. . . (15) with the finest produce of the ancient mountains, . . . (16) with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness, and the favor of him that dwelt in the bush. Let these come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the crown of the head of him that is prince among his brothers. . . .”

The sun wisdom, the “choicest fruits of the sun,” is the natural clairvoyance that settles “upon the crown of the head” (see the discussion of the Abel and Solomon wisdom in the Appendix to “Three Bodies” below). Michelangelo depicted it in Moses by the stubs of two horns just above his hairline. We should see in this a certain significance in the “Name” Joseph. See “The Nativity.” The “favor of him that dwelt in the bush” suggests that the gift is bestowed by the descending Christ for the fulfillment of his mission. The “fullness,” pleroma, of the Elohim (Jn 1,16) is hinted.

Job 30,1-8: (1) But now they make sport of me, men who are younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock. (2) What could I gain from the strength of their hands, men whose vigor is gone? (3) Through want and hard hunger they gnaw the dry and desolate ground; (4) they pick mallow and the leaves of bushes, and to warm themselves the roots of the broom. (5) They are driven out from among men.. . . (6) In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell, in holes of the earth and of the rocks. (7) Among the bushes they bray; under the nettles they huddle together. (8) A senseless, a disreputable brood, they have been whipped out of the land. (Emphasis added)

One can appreciate the great meaning of this passage, as well as that of the book of Job in its entirety (more fully shown in “Three Bodies” herein), only when one sees that it sets out the multifold nature of the human being (see I-9) as presented by anthroposophy.