Last Teaching at Pella

169:4.1Je­sus al­ways had trou­ble try­ing to ex­plain to the apos­tles that, while they pro­claimed the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom of God, the Fa­ther in heaven was not a king. At the time Je­sus lived on earth and taught in the flesh, the peo­ple of Uran­tia knew mostly of kings and em­per­ors in the gov­ern­ments of the na­tions, and the Jews had long con­tem­plated the com­ing of the king­dom of God. For these and other rea­sons, the Mas­ter thought best to des­ig­nate the spir­i­tual broth­er­hood of man as the king­dom of heaven and the spirit head of this broth­er­hood as the Fa­ther in heaven. Never did Je­sus re­fer to his Fa­ther as a king. In his in­ti­mate talks with the apos­tles he al­ways re­ferred to him­self as the Son of Man and as their el­der brother. He de­picted all his fol­low­ers as ser­vants of man­kind and mes­sen­gers of the gospel of the king­dom.

169:4.2Je­sus never gave his apos­tles a sys­tem­atic les­son con­cern­ing the per­son­al­ity and at­tri­butes of the Fa­ther in heaven. He never asked men to be­lieve in his Fa­ther; he took it for granted they did. Je­sus never be­lit­tled him­self by of­fer­ing ar­gu­ments in proof of the re­al­ity of the Fa­ther. His teach­ing re­gard­ing the Fa­ther all cen­tered in the dec­la­ra­tion that he and the Fa­ther are one; that he who has seen the Son has seen the Fa­ther; that the Fa­ther, like the Son, knows all things; that only the Son re­ally knows the Fa­ther, and he to whom the Son will re­veal him; that he who knows the Son knows also the Fa­ther; and that the Fa­ther sent him into the world to re­veal their com­bined na­tures and to show forth their con­joint work. He never made other pro­nounce­ments about his Fa­ther ex­cept to the woman of Samaria at Ja­cob’s well, when he de­clared, “God is spirit.”

169:4.3You learn about God from Je­sus by ob­serv­ing the di­vin­ity of his life, not by de­pend­ing on his teach­ings. From the life of the Mas­ter you may each as­sim­i­late that con­cept of God which rep­re­sents the mea­sure of your ca­pac­ity to per­ceive re­al­i­ties spir­i­tual and di­vine, truths real and eter­nal. The fi­nite can never hope to com­pre­hend the In­fi­nite ex­cept as the In­fi­nite was fo­cal­ized in the time-space per­son­al­ity of the fi­nite ex­pe­ri­ence of the hu­man life of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth.

169:4.4Je­sus well knew that God can be known only by the re­al­i­ties of ex­pe­ri­ence; never can he be un­der­stood by the mere teach­ing of the mind. Je­sus taught his apos­tles that, while they never could fully un­der­stand God, they could most cer­tainly know him, even as they had known the Son of Man. You can know God, not by un­der­stand­ing what Je­sus said, but by know­ing what Je­sus was. Je­sus was a rev­e­la­tion of God.

169:4.5Ex­cept when quot­ing the He­brew scrip­tures, Je­sus re­ferred to De­ity by only two names: God and Fa­ther. And when the Mas­ter made ref­er­ence to his Fa­ther as God, he usu­ally em­ployed the He­brew word sig­ni­fy­ing the plu­ral God (the Trin­ity) and not the word Yah­weh, which stood for the pro­gres­sive con­cep­tion of the tribal God of the Jews.

169:4.6Je­sus never called the Fa­ther a king, and he very much re­gret­ted that the Jew­ish hope for a re­stored king­dom and John’s procla­ma­tion of a com­ing king­dom made it nec­es­sary for him to de­nom­i­nate his pro­posed spir­i­tual broth­er­hood the king­dom of heaven. With the one ex­cep­tion—the dec­la­ra­tion that “God is spirit”—Je­sus never re­ferred to De­ity in any man­ner other than in terms de­scrip­tive of his own per­sonal re­la­tion­ship with the First Source and Cen­ter of Par­a­dise.

169:4.7Je­sus em­ployed the word God to des­ig­nate the idea of De­ity and the word Fa­ther to des­ig­nate the ex­pe­ri­ence of know­ing God. When the word Fa­ther is em­ployed to de­note God, it should be un­der­stood in its largest pos­si­ble mean­ing. The word God can­not be de­fined and there­fore stands for the in­fi­nite con­cept of the Fa­ther, while the term Fa­ther, be­ing ca­pa­ble of par­tial def­i­ni­tion, may be em­ployed to rep­re­sent the hu­man con­cept of the di­vine Fa­ther as he is as­so­ci­ated with man dur­ing the course of mor­tal ex­is­tence.

169:4.8To the Jews, Elo­him was the God of gods, while Yah­weh was the God of Is­rael. Je­sus ac­cepted the con­cept of Elo­him and called this su­preme group of be­ings God. In the place of the con­cept of Yah­weh, the racial de­ity, he in­tro­duced the idea of the fa­ther­hood of God and the world-wide broth­er­hood of man. He ex­alted the Yah­weh con­cept of a de­i­fied racial Fa­ther to the idea of a Fa­ther of all the chil­dren of men, a di­vine Fa­ther of the in­di­vid­ual be­liever. And he fur­ther taught that this God of uni­verses and this Fa­ther of all men were one and the same Par­a­dise De­ity.

169:4.9Je­sus never claimed to be the man­i­fes­ta­tion of Elo­him (God) in the flesh. He never de­clared that he was a rev­e­la­tion of Elo­him (God) to the worlds. He never taught that he who had seen him had seen Elo­him (God). But he did pro­claim him­self as the rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther in the flesh, and he did say that whoso had seen him had seen the Fa­ther. As the di­vine Son he claimed to rep­re­sent only the Fa­ther.

169:4.10He was, in­deed, the Son of even the Elo­him God; but in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh and to the mor­tal sons of God, he chose to limit his life rev­e­la­tion to the por­trayal of his Fa­ther’s char­ac­ter in so far as such a rev­e­la­tion might be com­pre­hen­si­ble to mor­tal man. As re­gards the char­ac­ter of the other per­sons of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity, we shall have to be con­tent with the teach­ing that they are al­to­gether like the Fa­ther, who has been re­vealed in per­sonal por­trai­ture in the life of his in­car­nated Son, Je­sus of Naz­a­reth.

169:4.11Al­though Je­sus re­vealed the true na­ture of the heav­enly Fa­ther in his earth life, he taught lit­tle about him. In fact, he taught only two things: that God in him­self is spirit, and that, in all mat­ters of re­la­tion­ship with his crea­tures, he is a Fa­ther. On this evening Je­sus made the fi­nal pro­nounce­ment of his re­la­tion­ship with God when he de­clared: “I have come out from the Fa­ther, and I have come into the world; again, I will leave the world and go to the Fa­ther.”

169:4.12But mark you! never did Je­sus say, “Whoso has heard me has heard God.” But he did say, “He who has seen me has seen the Fa­ther.” To hear Je­sus’ teach­ing is not equiv­a­lent to know­ing God, but to see Je­sus is an ex­pe­ri­ence which in it­self is a rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther to the soul. The God of uni­verses rules the far-flung cre­ation, but it is the Fa­ther in heaven who sends forth his spirit to dwell within your minds.

169:4.13Je­sus is the spir­i­tual lens in hu­man like­ness which makes vis­i­ble to the ma­te­rial crea­ture Him who is in­vis­i­ble. He is your el­der brother who, in the flesh, makes known to you a Be­ing of in­fi­nite at­tri­butes whom not even the ce­les­tial hosts can pre­sume fully to un­der­stand. But all of this must con­sist in the per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence of the in­di­vid­ual be­liever. God who is spirit can be known only as a spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. God can be re­vealed to the fi­nite sons of the ma­te­rial worlds, by the di­vine Son of the spir­i­tual realms, only as a Fa­ther. You can know the Eter­nal as a Fa­ther; you can wor­ship him as the God of uni­verses, the in­fi­nite Cre­ator of all ex­is­tences.