Biblical Alchemy: Coagulation (Stage 7)

"Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,' even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you." - Psalm 139: 7-12

The final stage of alchemy represents what has been true from the beginning - that our true identity, the pure gold hidden within, exists in perfect union with the divine. The Eden vision of humanity as the union of matter and spirit is realized as our dualistic categories fade into one complete whole. Here heaven and earth are one. The divine-human union of the Christ, God incarnate, becomes a claim not exclusive to one man, but the model for all humanity. We are branches of the same vine and members of the same body.

Israel's story from an enslaved people in Egypt to a royal priesthood in the promised land finds its climax with the ascension of King David to the throne in Jerusalem. This messiah figure manages to unite the twelve tribes of Israel and usher in a golden age for his people. As the ark of the covenant is brought to the capital city of Jerusalem, its bearers rest after every six steps to perform a sacrificial ritual on what would be the seventh - repeating the seven day pattern of creation. This seven day pattern, known as Sabbath, represents completeness and wholeness. God promises that this unified kingdom established through David will be an eternal kingdom and will continue through his son, Solomon, which means peace and rest. This Sabbath rest (Shabbat shalom), the peace that comes through wholeness, will require that Israel remembers who they are as God's image-bearers.

We've already explored how Jesus functions as a new Moses who offers a new Exodus from enslavement to a false kingdom, but Jesus also becomes the new messianic David, the unexpected king who reunifies the eternal kingdom. The gospel of Matthew in particular goes to great lengths to make these parallels. For this kingdom, the unification is cosmic in scope including all nations and even all of creation. This kingdom represents the wholeness and completion of the whole world, the ultimate Sabbath.

This reconciliation of all creation is captured in the idea of non-duality. All things, in their true form, are essentially one. This oneness is expressed and ordered in diverse ways, but the illusion that anything exists separately (matter separate from spirit, heaven separate from earth, you separate from me, etc) is what the process of alchemy has been slowly rescuing us from - a false belief and a false identity. Once we know who we are, whether we call it glorified humanity or incarnate divinity, our consciousness no long remains separate. Our consciousness is reconciled with the one true consciousness from which all things live, and move, and have their being.

After his resurrection, Jesus' body is seen ascending into the heavens to be seated at God's throne. This is the final picture of glorified humanity. From incarnation to ascension, the beginning and the ending tell us the same core truth about who we are. This is the way, the truth, and the life that Jesus reveals.

After his ascension, his disciples are involved in a miraculous event on the day of Pentecost in which the nations of the world, divided by language, are all able to understand the same words being spoken. In a reversal of the Tower of Babel, the nations are now unified in speech and truth. One of the last living disciples, John, later has a vision in which a golden city provides light to all of these nations. In this vision, the day is no longer divided by night, the land is no longer divided by the sea, and heaven and earth are one. The tree of life (represented by the philosophers' stone for the alchemists) is here for all people to be healed and bathed in the light of God's reconciling love.

“For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were separate and hostile in mind, doing impure deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless.” - Colossians 1:19-22