Tuesday Morning in the Temple

174:5.1About noon­time, as Philip was pur­chas­ing sup­plies for the new camp which was that day be­ing es­tab­lished near Geth­sem­ane, he was ac­costed by a del­e­ga­tion of strangers, a group of be­liev­ing Greeks from Alexan­dria, Athens, and Rome, whose spokesman said to the apos­tle: “You have been pointed out to us by those who know you; so we come to you, Sir, with the re­quest to see Je­sus, your Mas­ter.” Philip was taken by sur­prise thus to meet these promi­nent and in­quir­ing Greek gen­tiles in the mar­ket place, and, since Je­sus had so ex­plic­itly charged all of the twelve not to en­gage in any pub­lic teach­ing dur­ing the Pass­over week, he was a bit per­plexed as to the right way to han­dle this mat­ter. He was also dis­con­certed be­cause these men were for­eign gen­tiles. If they had been Jews or near-by and fa­mil­iar gen­tiles, he would not have hes­i­tated so markedly. What he did was this: He asked these Greeks to re­main right where they were. As he has­tened away, they sup­posed that he went in search of Je­sus, but in re­al­ity he hur­ried off to the home of Joseph, where he knew An­drew and the other apos­tles were at lunch; and call­ing An­drew out, he ex­plained the pur­pose of his com­ing, and then, ac­com­pa­nied by An­drew, he re­turned to the wait­ing Greeks.

174:5.2Since Philip had about fin­ished the pur­chas­ing of sup­plies, he and An­drew re­turned with the Greeks to the home of Joseph, where Je­sus re­ceived them; and they sat near while he spoke to his apos­tles and a num­ber of lead­ing dis­ci­ples as­sem­bled at this lun­cheon. Said Je­sus:

174:5.3“My Fa­ther sent me to this world to re­veal his lov­ing-kind­ness to the chil­dren of men, but those to whom I first came have re­fused to re­ceive me. True, in­deed, many of you have be­lieved my gospel for your­selves, but the chil­dren of Abra­ham and their lead­ers are about to re­ject me, and in so do­ing they will re­ject Him who sent me. I have freely pro­claimed the gospel of sal­va­tion to this peo­ple; I have told them of son­ship with joy, lib­erty, and life more abun­dant in the spirit. My Fa­ther has done many won­der­ful works among these fear-rid­den sons of men. But truly did the Prophet Isa­iah re­fer to this peo­ple when he wrote: ‘Lord, who has be­lieved our teach­ings? And to whom has the Lord been re­vealed?’ Truly have the lead­ers of my peo­ple de­lib­er­ately blinded their eyes that they see not, and hard­ened their hearts lest they be­lieve and be saved. All these years have I sought to heal them of their un­be­lief that they might be re­cip­i­ents of the Fa­ther’s eter­nal sal­va­tion. I know that not all have failed me; some of you have in­deed be­lieved my mes­sage. In this room now are a full score of men who were once mem­bers of the San­hedrin, or who were high in the coun­cils of the na­tion, al­beit even some of you still shrink from open con­fes­sion of the truth lest they cast you out of the syn­a­gogue. Some of you are tempted to love the glory of men more than the glory of God. But I am con­strained to show for­bear­ance since I fear for the safety and loy­alty of even some of those who have been so long near me, and who have lived so close by my side.

174:5.4“In this ban­quet cham­ber I per­ceive there are as­sem­bled Jews and gen­tiles in about equal num­bers, and I would ad­dress you as the first and last of such a group that I may in­struct in the af­fairs of the king­dom be­fore I go to my Fa­ther.”

174:5.5These Greeks had been in faith­ful at­ten­dance upon Je­sus’ teach­ing in the tem­ple. On Mon­day evening they had held a con­fer­ence at the home of Nicode­mus, which lasted un­til the dawn of day, and thirty of them had elected to en­ter the king­dom.

174:5.6As Je­sus stood be­fore them at this time, he per­ceived the end of one dis­pen­sa­tion and the be­gin­ning of an­other. Turn­ing his at­ten­tion to the Greeks, the Mas­ter said:

174:5.7“He who be­lieves this gospel, be­lieves not merely in me but in Him who sent me. When you look upon me, you see not only the Son of Man but also Him who sent me. I am the light of the world, and whoso­ever will be­lieve my teach­ing shall no longer abide in dark­ness. If you gen­tiles will hear me, you shall re­ceive the words of life and shall en­ter forth­with into the joy­ous lib­erty of the truth of son­ship with God. If my fel­low coun­try­men, the Jews, choose to re­ject me and to refuse my teach­ings, I will not sit in judg­ment on them, for I came not to judge the world but to of­fer it sal­va­tion. Nev­er­the­less, they who re­ject me and refuse to re­ceive my teach­ing shall be brought to judg­ment in due sea­son by my Fa­ther and those whom he has ap­pointed to sit in judg­ment on such as re­ject the gift of mercy and the truths of sal­va­tion. Re­mem­ber, all of you, that I speak not of my­self, but that I have faith­fully de­clared to you that which the Fa­ther com­manded I should re­veal to the chil­dren of men. And these words which the Fa­ther di­rected me to speak to the world are words of di­vine truth, ev­er­last­ing mercy, and eter­nal life.

174:5.8“But to both Jew and gen­tile I de­clare the hour has about come when the Son of Man will be glo­ri­fied. You well know that, ex­cept a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies in good soil, it springs up again to life and bears much fruit. He who self­ishly loves his life stands in dan­ger of los­ing it; but he who is will­ing to lay down his life for my sake and the gospel’s shall en­joy a more abun­dant ex­is­tence on earth and in heaven, life eter­nal. If you will truly fol­low me, even af­ter I have gone to my Fa­ther, then shall you be­come my dis­ci­ples and the sin­cere ser­vants of your fel­low mor­tals.

174:5.9“I know my hour is ap­proach­ing, and I am trou­bled. I per­ceive that my peo­ple are de­ter­mined to spurn the king­dom, but I am re­joiced to re­ceive these truth-seek­ing gen­tiles who come here to­day in­quir­ing for the way of light. Nev­er­the­less, my heart aches for my peo­ple, and my soul is dis­traught by that which lies just be­fore me. What shall I say as I look ahead and dis­cern what is about to be­fall me? Shall I say, Fa­ther save me from this aw­ful hour? No! For this very pur­pose have I come into the world and even to this hour. Rather will I say, and pray that you will join me: Fa­ther, glo­rify your name; your will be done.”

174:5.10When Je­sus had thus spo­ken, the Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster of his in­dwelling dur­ing pre­bap­tismal times ap­peared be­fore him, and as he paused no­tice­ably, this now mighty spirit of the Fa­ther’s rep­re­sen­ta­tion spoke to Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, say­ing: “I have glo­ri­fied my name in your be­stowals many times, and I will glo­rify it once more.”

174:5.11While the Jews and gen­tiles here as­sem­bled heard no voice, they could not fail to dis­cern that the Mas­ter had paused in his speak­ing while a mes­sage came to him from some super­hu­man source. They all said, ev­ery man to the one who was by him, “An an­gel has spo­ken to him.”

174:5.12Then Je­sus con­tin­ued to speak: “All this has not hap­pened for my sake but for yours. I know of a cer­tainty that the Fa­ther will re­ceive me and ac­cept my mis­sion in your be­half, but it is need­ful that you be en­cour­aged and be made ready for the fiery trial which is just ahead. Let me as­sure you that vic­tory shall even­tu­ally crown our united ef­forts to en­lighten the world and lib­er­ate man­kind. The old or­der is bring­ing it­self to judg­ment; the Prince of this world I have cast down; and all men shall be­come free by the light of the spirit which I will pour out upon all flesh af­ter I have as­cended to my Fa­ther in heaven.

174:5.13“And now I de­clare to you that I, if I be lifted up on earth and in your lives, will draw all men to my­self and into the fel­low­ship of my Fa­ther. You have be­lieved that the De­liv­erer would abide on earth for­ever, but I de­clare that the Son of Man will be re­jected by men, and that he will go back to the Fa­ther. Only a lit­tle while will I be with you; only a lit­tle time will the liv­ing light be among this dark­ened gen­er­a­tion. Walk while you have this light so that the on­com­ing dark­ness and con­fu­sion may not over­take you. He who walks in the dark­ness knows not where he goes; but if you will choose to walk in the light, you shall all in­deed be­come lib­er­ated sons of God. And now, all of you, come with me while we go back to the tem­ple and I speak farewell words to the chief priests, the scribes, the Phar­isees, the Sad­ducees, the Hero­di­ans, and the be­nighted rulers of Is­rael.”

174:5.14Hav­ing thus spo­ken, Je­sus led the way over the nar­row streets of Je­ru­sa­lem back to the tem­ple. They had just heard the Mas­ter say that this was to be his farewell dis­course in the tem­ple, and they fol­lowed him in si­lence and in deep med­i­ta­tion.