There must have been a big misunderstanding all those years ago. No question, Jesus realized something incredible. The oneness of reality. Achieving the living embodiment of God: theosis. Probably something like the satori experience of the Buddha or tons of Hindus before that. It probably has something do do with an ascetic life of eating wild locusts and honey in the desert for 40 days. Or meditating for seven years in a cave. (but that was someone else:-)).
So at step one, everything is peachy. We have this dude or dudess swimming around in the vastness of cosmic consciousness, becoming that cosmic consciousness without separation. Like the Zen Monk who goes to the hot dog vendor and says: "Make me one with everything." So what could be wrong with that?
Then come all the problems. When you come down from the mountain top how do you describe it? You might say that, "I am a part of the oneness." " I have seen the god within myself." Or even the short hand notation of: "I am God." Therein lies the problem. If everyone can achieve "godness," if it is ultimately democratic, what happens to the people who have based their lives on doing something "special" to serve God? Of course, these specialists would feel threatened. So someone has the bright idea (or perhaps the poor translation) that salvation can only come through Jesus and we (the priests) are god's special servants. And lo and behold, Jesus now is the "son" of God. And to make matters worse, because priests were often the only ones in the community who could read, or even had access to writings (the printing press was not invented until way way later), there was no way to ever break the deadlock of the priest's consolidation of power.
But now of course, with the Internet, any crackpot can write something that anyone around the world can read. So what's your excuse, children of god? The kingdom of god is within your hands:-).
