Beginning the Public Work

141:2.1The night be­fore they left Pella, Je­sus gave the apos­tles some fur­ther in­struc­tion with re­gard to the new king­dom. Said the Mas­ter: “You have been taught to look for the com­ing of the king­dom of God, and now I come an­nounc­ing that this long-looked-for king­dom is near at hand, even that it is al­ready here and in our midst. In ev­ery king­dom there must be a king seated upon his throne and de­cree­ing the laws of the realm. And so have you de­vel­oped a con­cept of the king­dom of heaven as a glo­ri­fied rule of the Jew­ish peo­ple over all the peo­ples of the earth with Mes­siah sit­ting on David’s throne and from this place of mirac­u­lous power pro­mul­gat­ing the laws of all the world. But, my chil­dren, you see not with the eye of faith, and you hear not with the un­der­stand­ing of the spirit. I de­clare that the king­dom of heaven is the re­al­iza­tion and ac­knowl­edg­ment of God’s rule within the hearts of men. True, there is a King in this king­dom, and that King is my Fa­ther and your Fa­ther. We are in­deed his loyal sub­jects, but far tran­scend­ing that fact is the trans­form­ing truth that we are his sons. In my life this truth is to be­come man­i­fest to all. Our Fa­ther also sits upon a throne, but not one made with hands. The throne of the In­fi­nite is the eter­nal dwell­ing place of the Fa­ther in the heaven of heav­ens; he fills all things and pro­claims his laws to uni­verses upon uni­verses. And the Fa­ther also rules within the hearts of his chil­dren on earth by the spirit which he has sent to live within the souls of mor­tal men.

141:2.2“When you are the sub­jects of this king­dom, you in­deed are made to hear the law of the Uni­verse Ruler; but when, be­cause of the gospel of the king­dom which I have come to de­clare, you faith-dis­cover your­selves as sons, you hence­forth look not upon your­selves as law-sub­ject crea­tures of an all-pow­er­ful king but as priv­i­leged sons of a lov­ing and di­vine Fa­ther. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, when the Fa­ther’s will is your law, you are hardly in the king­dom. But when the Fa­ther’s will be­comes truly your will, then are you in very truth in the king­dom be­cause the king­dom has thereby be­come an es­tab­lished ex­pe­ri­ence in you. When God’s will is your law, you are no­ble slave sub­jects; but when you be­lieve in this new gospel of di­vine son­ship, my Fa­ther’s will be­comes your will, and you are el­e­vated to the high po­si­tion of the free chil­dren of God, lib­er­ated sons of the king­dom.”

141:2.3Some of the apos­tles grasped some­thing of this teach­ing, but none of them com­pre­hended the full sig­nif­i­cance of this tremen­dous an­nounce­ment, un­less it was James Zeb­e­dee. But these words sank into their hearts and came forth to glad­den their min­istry dur­ing later years of ser­vice.