Further Discussions with Rodan

161:2.1Since Na­than­iel and Thomas had so fully ap­proved Ro­dan’s views of the gospel of the king­dom, there re­mained only one more point to con­sider, the teach­ing deal­ing with the di­vine na­ture of Je­sus, a doc­trine only so re­cently pub­licly an­nounced. Na­than­iel and Thomas jointly pre­sented their views of the di­vine na­ture of the Mas­ter, and the fol­low­ing nar­ra­tive is a con­densed, re­ar­ranged, and re­stated pre­sen­ta­tion of their teach­ing:

161:2.21. Je­sus has ad­mit­ted his di­vin­ity, and we be­lieve him. Many re­mark­able things have hap­pened in con­nec­tion with his min­istry which we can un­der­stand only by be­liev­ing that he is the Son of God as well as the Son of Man.

161:2.32. His life as­so­ci­a­tion with us ex­em­pli­fies the ideal of hu­man friend­ship; only a di­vine be­ing could pos­si­bly be such a hu­man friend. He is the most truly un­selfish per­son we have ever known. He is the friend even of sin­ners; he dares to love his en­e­mies. He is very loyal to us. While he does not hes­i­tate to re­prove us, it is plain to all that he truly loves us. The bet­ter you know him, the more you will love him. You will be charmed by his unswerv­ing de­vo­tion. Through all these years of our fail­ure to com­pre­hend his mis­sion, he has been a faith­ful friend. While he makes no use of flat­tery, he does treat us all with equal kind­ness; he is in­vari­ably ten­der and com­pas­sion­ate. He has shared his life and ev­ery­thing else with us. We are a happy com­mu­nity; we share all things in com­mon. We do not be­lieve that a mere hu­man could live such a blame­less life un­der such try­ing cir­cum­stances.

161:2.43. We think Je­sus is di­vine be­cause he never does wrong; he makes no mis­takes. His wis­dom is ex­traor­di­nary; his piety su­perb. He lives day by day in per­fect ac­cord with the Fa­ther’s will. He never re­pents of mis­deeds be­cause he trans­gresses none of the Fa­ther’s laws. He prays for us and with us, but he never asks us to pray for him. We be­lieve that he is con­sis­tently sin­less. We do not think that one who is only hu­man ever pro­fessed to live such a life. He claims to live a per­fect life, and we ac­knowl­edge that he does. Our piety springs from re­pen­tance, but his piety springs from righ­teous­ness. He even pro­fesses to for­give sins and does heal dis­eases. No mere man would sanely pro­fess to for­give sin; that is a di­vine pre­rog­a­tive. And he has seemed to be thus per­fect in his righ­teous­ness from the times of our first con­tact with him. We grow in grace and in the knowl­edge of the truth, but our Mas­ter ex­hibits ma­tu­rity of righ­teous­ness to start with. All men, good and evil, rec­og­nize these el­e­ments of good­ness in Je­sus. And yet never is his piety ob­tru­sive or os­ten­ta­tious. He is both meek and fear­less. He seems to ap­prove of our be­lief in his di­vin­ity. He is ei­ther what he pro­fesses to be, or else he is the great­est hyp­ocrite and fraud the world has ever known. We are per­suaded that he is just what he claims to be.

161:2.54. The unique­ness of his char­ac­ter and the per­fec­tion of his emo­tional con­trol con­vince us that he is a com­bi­na­tion of hu­man­ity and di­vin­ity. He un­fail­ingly re­sponds to the spec­ta­cle of hu­man need; suf­fer­ing never fails to ap­peal to him. His com­pas­sion is moved alike by phys­i­cal suf­fer­ing, men­tal an­guish, or spir­i­tual sor­row. He is quick to rec­og­nize and gen­er­ous to ac­knowl­edge the pres­ence of faith or any other grace in his fel­low men. He is so just and fair and at the same time so mer­ci­ful and con­sid­er­ate. He grieves over the spir­i­tual ob­sti­nacy of the peo­ple and re­joices when they con­sent to see the light of truth.

161:2.65. He seems to know the thoughts of men’s minds and to un­der­stand the long­ings of their hearts. And he is al­ways sym­pa­thetic with our trou­bled spir­its. He seems to pos­sess all our hu­man emo­tions, but they are mag­nif­i­cently glo­ri­fied. He strongly loves good­ness and equally hates sin. He pos­sesses a super­hu­man con­scious­ness of the pres­ence of De­ity. He prays like a man but per­forms like a God. He seems to fore­know things; he even now dares to speak about his death, some mys­tic ref­er­ence to his fu­ture glo­ri­fi­ca­tion. While he is kind, he is also brave and coura­geous. He never fal­ters in do­ing his duty.

161:2.76. We are con­stantly im­pressed by the phe­nom­e­non of his super­hu­man knowl­edge. Hardly does a day pass but some­thing tran­spires to dis­close that the Mas­ter knows what is go­ing on away from his im­me­di­ate pres­ence. He also seems to know about the thoughts of his as­so­ciates. He un­doubt­edly has com­mu­nion with ce­les­tial per­son­al­i­ties; he un­ques­tion­ably lives on a spir­i­tual plane far above the rest of us. Ev­ery­thing seems to be open to his unique un­der­stand­ing. He asks us ques­tions to draw us out, not to gain in­for­ma­tion.

161:2.87. Re­cently the Mas­ter does not hes­i­tate to as­sert his super­hu­man­ity. From the day of our or­di­na­tion as apos­tles right on down to re­cent times, he has never de­nied that he came from the Fa­ther above. He speaks with the au­thor­ity of a di­vine teacher. The Mas­ter does not hes­i­tate to re­fute the re­li­gious teach­ings of to­day and to de­clare the new gospel with pos­i­tive au­thor­ity. He is as­sertive, pos­i­tive, and au­thor­i­ta­tive. Even John the Bap­tist, when he heard Je­sus speak, de­clared that he was the Son of God. He seems to be so suf­fi­cient within him­self. He craves not the sup­port of the mul­ti­tude; he is in­dif­fer­ent to the opin­ions of men. He is brave and yet so free from pride.

161:2.98. He con­stantly talks about God as an ever-pres­ent as­so­ciate in all that he does. He goes about do­ing good, for God seems to be in him. He makes the most as­tound­ing as­ser­tions about him­self and his mis­sion on earth, state­ments which would be ab­surd if he were not di­vine. He once de­clared, “Be­fore Abra­ham was, I am.” He has def­i­nitely claimed di­vin­ity; he pro­fesses to be in part­ner­ship with God. He well-nigh ex­hausts the pos­si­bil­i­ties of lan­guage in the re­it­er­a­tion of his claims of in­ti­mate as­so­ci­a­tion with the heav­enly Fa­ther. He even dares to as­sert that he and the Fa­ther are one. He says that any­one who has seen him has seen the Fa­ther. And he says and does all these tremen­dous things with such child­like nat­u­ral­ness. He al­ludes to his as­so­ci­a­tion with the Fa­ther in the same man­ner that he refers to his as­so­ci­a­tion with us. He seems to be so sure about God and speaks of these re­la­tions in such a mat­ter-of-fact way.

161:2.109. In his prayer life he ap­pears to com­mu­ni­cate di­rectly with his Fa­ther. We have heard few of his prayers, but these few would in­di­cate that he talks with God, as it were, face to face. He seems to know the fu­ture as well as the past. He sim­ply could not be all of this and do all of these ex­traor­di­nary things un­less he were some­thing more than hu­man. We know he is hu­man, we are sure of that, but we are al­most equally sure that he is also di­vine. We be­lieve that he is di­vine. We are con­vinced that he is the Son of Man and the Son of God.

161:2.11When Na­than­iel and Thomas had con­cluded their con­fer­ences with Ro­dan, they hur­ried on to­ward Je­ru­sa­lem to join their fel­low apos­tles, ar­riv­ing on Fri­day of that week. This had been a great ex­pe­ri­ence in the lives of all three of these be­liev­ers, and the other apos­tles learned much from the re­count­ing of these ex­pe­ri­ences by Na­than­iel and Thomas.

161:2.12Ro­dan made his way back to Alexan­dria, where he long taught his phi­los­o­phy in the school of Meganta. He be­came a mighty man in the later af­fairs of the king­dom of heaven; he was a faith­ful be­liever to the end of his earth days, yield­ing up his life in Greece with oth­ers when the per­se­cu­tions were at their height.