At the Feast of Dedication

164:5.1All of the time this Sab­bath-break­ing ses­sion of the San­hedrin was in prog­ress in one of the tem­ple cham­bers, Je­sus was walk­ing about near at hand, teach­ing the peo­ple in Sol­o­mon’s Porch, hop­ing that he would be sum­moned be­fore the San­hedrin where he could tell them the good news of the lib­erty and joy of di­vine son­ship in the king­dom of God. But they were afraid to send for him. They were al­ways dis­con­certed by these sud­den and pub­lic ap­pear­ances of Je­sus in Je­ru­sa­lem. The very oc­ca­sion they had so ar­dently sought, Je­sus now gave them, but they feared to bring him be­fore the San­hedrin even as a wit­ness, and even more they feared to ar­rest him.

164:5.2This was mid­win­ter in Je­ru­sa­lem, and the peo­ple sought the par­tial shel­ter of Sol­o­mon’s Porch; and as Je­sus lin­gered, the crowds asked him many ques­tions, and he taught them for more than two hours. Some of the Jew­ish teach­ers sought to en­trap him by pub­licly ask­ing him: “How long will you hold us in sus­pense? If you are the Mes­siah, why do you not plainly tell us?” Said Je­sus: “I have told you about my­self and my Fa­ther many times, but you will not be­lieve me. Can you not see that the works I do in my Fa­ther’s name bear wit­ness for me? But many of you be­lieve not be­cause you be­long not to my fold. The teacher of truth at­tracts only those who hunger for the truth and who thirst for righ­teous­ness. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they fol­low me. And to all who fol­low my teach­ing I give eter­nal life; they shall never per­ish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Fa­ther, who has given me these chil­dren, is greater than all, so that no one is able to pluck them out of my Fa­ther’s hand. The Fa­ther and I are one.” Some of the un­be­liev­ing Jews rushed over to where they were still build­ing the tem­ple to pick up stones to cast at Je­sus, but the be­liev­ers re­strained them.

164:5.3Je­sus con­tin­ued his teach­ing: “Many lov­ing works have I shown you from the Fa­ther, so that now would I in­quire for which one of these good works do you think to stone me?” And then an­swered one of the Phar­isees: “For no good work would we stone you but for blas­phemy, inas­much as you, be­ing a man, dare to make your­self equal with God.” And Je­sus an­swered: “You charge the Son of Man with blas­phemy be­cause you re­fused to be­lieve me when I de­clared to you that I was sent by God. If I do not the works of God, be­lieve me not, but if I do the works of God, even though you be­lieve not in me, I should think you would be­lieve the works. But that you may be cer­tain of what I pro­claim, let me again as­sert that the Fa­ther is in me and I in the Fa­ther, and that, as the Fa­ther dwells in me, so will I dwell in ev­ery one who be­lieves this gospel.” And when the peo­ple heard these words, many of them rushed out to lay hands upon the stones to cast at him, but he passed out through the tem­ple precincts; and meet­ing Na­than­iel and Thomas, who had been in at­ten­dance upon the ses­sion of the San­hedrin, he waited with them near the tem­ple un­til Josiah came from the coun­cil cham­ber.

164:5.4Je­sus and the two apos­tles did not go in search of Josiah at his home un­til they heard he had been cast out of the syn­a­gogue. When they came to his house, Thomas called him out in the yard, and Je­sus, speak­ing to him, said: “Josiah, do you be­lieve in the Son of God?” And Josiah an­swered, “Tell me who he is that I may be­lieve in him.” And Je­sus said: “You have both seen and heard him, and it is he who now speaks to you.” And Josiah said, “Lord, I be­lieve,” and falling down, he wor­shiped.

164:5.5When Josiah learned that he had been cast out of the syn­a­gogue, he was at first greatly down­cast, but he was much en­cour­aged when Je­sus di­rected that he should im­me­di­ately pre­pare to go with them to the camp at Pella. This sim­ple-minded man of Je­ru­sa­lem had in­deed been cast out of a Jew­ish syn­a­gogue, but be­hold the Cre­ator of a uni­verse lead­ing him forth to be­come as­so­ci­ated with the spir­i­tual no­bil­ity of that day and gen­er­a­tion.

164:5.6And now Je­sus left Je­ru­sa­lem, not again to re­turn un­til near the time when he pre­pared to leave this world. With the two apos­tles and Josiah the Mas­ter went back to Pella. And Josiah proved to be one of the re­cip­i­ents of the Mas­ter’s mirac­u­lous min­istry who turned out fruit­fully, for he be­came a life­long preacher of the gospel of the king­dom.