For so long it puzzled me why John placed the most important naming in the New Testament in the past, rather than the present tense. Now I see that he, like Jesus, born a Jew, perhaps unconsciously, perhaps slyly intimated that the natural progression from polytheism to monotheism is to a world beyond god. The command in John 1:1 that the “Word was God,” placed god in time, rather than being time or transcending time. This comes in stark contrast to John 4:24 when he commanded: “God is spirit:” I now interpret this, as a god who killed his son and did not assure eternality, but ended the dream of immortality beyond time while bequeathing the “spirit” to us. Our responsibility is to allow that spirit to thrive within humanity and within time.
—from THE UNPUBLISHED WORKS