In reading the Gospel of Thomas, we can see something that is truly unique and different from the other, more well-known gospels that we are used to reading. The writer of the Gospel of Thomas didn’t include miracles or even the death and resurrection of Jesus; the author only included parables and sayings! An example of one of the sayings that were included was, “the one who finds the meaning of these words will not face death.”  (1) Another one is, “know what is in front of your face, and what is concealed from you will be revealed to you. For there is nothing concealed which will not be manifested.” (5) I like that one in particular, because if we were to only keep our eyes open, we will eventually see what’s going on around us or behind our backs, because secrets don’t stay secrets for long and sooner or later the truth will be revealed.

Jesus, in verse 13, tells the disciples to compare him to someone or something that they think he’s like. Immediately one disciple, Simon Peter, jumps in and says, “You are like a righteous angel.” (13) Matthew pipes up and says, “You are like a wise man.” (14) Jesus, after a while, says, “When you see him who was not born of woman, throw yourself down on your faces and adore him; that one is your father.” (15) So Jesus really doesn’t tell us who or what he is, but it can be implied that the idea of Jesus as a plain old human being can be thrown into the recycle bin due to the secret that he passed to Thomas.

It could be said then that the human condition, in Jesus’s eyes, is that the human body wants things, material things to be specific, and its because of this demand for material things is the reason why the material body can’t reach heaven. I think that early heresiologists would have found deemed this gospel heretical because of the fact that Thomas’s group cheered for a kind of salvation that doesn’t need Jesus to die and later be resurrected, but a salvation that relies on the teachings that Jesus spread as he traveled and ministered. This type of salvation sends the message of a type of salvation that is very different from proto-orthodox groups, and I can only imagine that they weren’t very impressed by this version of salvation, because it went against the “norm.”