The Faith of Jesus

196:2.1Some day a ref­or­ma­tion in the Chris­tian church may strike deep enough to get back to the unadul­ter­ated re­li­gious teach­ings of Je­sus, the au­thor and fin­isher of our faith. You may preach a re­li­gion about Je­sus, but, per­force, you must live the re­li­gion of Je­sus. In the en­thu­si­asm of Pen­te­cost, Pe­ter un­in­ten­tion­ally in­au­gu­rated a new re­li­gion, the re­li­gion of the risen and glo­ri­fied Christ. The Apos­tle Paul later on trans­formed this new gospel into Chris­tian­ity, a re­li­gion em­body­ing his own the­o­logic views and por­tray­ing his own per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence with the Je­sus of the Da­mas­cus road. The gospel of the king­dom is founded on the per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence of the Je­sus of Gal­i­lee; Chris­tian­ity is founded al­most ex­clu­sively on the per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence of the Apos­tle Paul. Al­most the whole of the New Tes­ta­ment is de­voted, not to the por­trayal of the sig­nif­i­cant and in­spir­ing re­li­gious life of Je­sus, but to a dis­cus­sion of Paul’s re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence and to a por­trayal of his per­sonal re­li­gious con­vic­tions. The only no­table ex­cep­tions to this state­ment, aside from cer­tain parts of Mat­thew, Mark, and Luke, are the Book of He­brews and the Epis­tle of James. Even Pe­ter, in his writ­ing, only once re­verted to the per­sonal re­li­gious life of his Mas­ter. The New Tes­ta­ment is a su­perb Chris­tian doc­u­ment, but it is only mea­gerly Je­su­so­nian.

196:2.2Je­sus’ life in the flesh por­trays a tran­scen­dent re­li­gious growth from the early ideas of prim­i­tive awe and hu­man rev­er­ence up through years of per­sonal spir­i­tual com­mu­nion un­til he fi­nally ar­rived at that ad­vanced and ex­alted sta­tus of the con­scious­ness of his one­ness with the Fa­ther. And thus, in one short life, did Je­sus tra­verse that ex­pe­ri­ence of re­li­gious spir­i­tual pro­gres­sion which man be­gins on earth and or­di­nar­ily achieves only at the con­clu­sion of his long so­journ in the spirit train­ing schools of the suc­ces­sive lev­els of the pre-Par­a­dise ca­reer. Je­sus pro­gressed from a purely hu­man con­scious­ness of the faith cer­tain­ties of per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence to the sub­lime spir­i­tual heights of the pos­i­tive re­al­iza­tion of his di­vine na­ture and to the con­scious­ness of his close as­so­ci­a­tion with the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther in the man­age­ment of a uni­verse. He pro­gressed from the hum­ble sta­tus of mor­tal de­pen­dence which prompted him spon­ta­neously to say to the one who called him Good Teacher, “Why do you call me good? None is good but God,” to that sub­lime con­scious­ness of achieved di­vin­ity which led him to ex­claim, “Which one of you con­victs me of sin?” And this pro­gress­ing as­cent from the hu­man to the di­vine was an ex­clu­sively mor­tal achieve­ment. And when he had thus at­tained di­vin­ity, he was still the same hu­man Je­sus, the Son of Man as well as the Son of God.

196:2.3Mark, Mat­thew, and Luke re­tain some­thing of the pic­ture of the hu­man Je­sus as he en­gaged in the su­perb strug­gle to as­cer­tain the di­vine will and to do that will. John pre­sents a pic­ture of the tri­umphant Je­sus as he walked on earth in the full con­scious­ness of di­vin­ity. The great mis­take that has been made by those who have stud­ied the Mas­ter’s life is that some have con­ceived of him as en­tirely hu­man, while oth­ers have thought of him as only di­vine. Through­out his en­tire ex­pe­ri­ence he was truly both hu­man and di­vine, even as he yet is.

196:2.4But the great­est mis­take was made in that, while the hu­man Je­sus was rec­og­nized as hav­ing a re­li­gion, the di­vine Je­sus (Christ) al­most overnight be­came a re­li­gion. Paul’s Chris­tian­ity made sure of the ado­ra­tion of the di­vine Christ, but it al­most wholly lost sight of the strug­gling and valiant hu­man Je­sus of Gal­i­lee, who, by the valor of his per­sonal re­li­gious faith and the hero­ism of his in­dwelling Ad­juster, as­cended from the lowly lev­els of hu­man­ity to be­come one with di­vin­ity, thus be­com­ing the new and liv­ing way whereby all mor­tals may so as­cend from hu­man­ity to di­vin­ity. Mor­tals in all stages of spir­i­tu­al­ity and on all worlds may find in the per­sonal life of Je­sus that which will strengthen and in­spire them as they pro­gress from the low­est spirit lev­els up to the high­est di­vine val­ues, from the be­gin­ning to the end of all per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence.

196:2.5At the time of the writ­ing of the New Tes­ta­ment, the au­thors not only most pro­foundly be­lieved in the di­vin­ity of the risen Christ, but they also de­vot­edly and sin­cerely be­lieved in his im­me­di­ate re­turn to earth to con­sum­mate the heav­enly king­dom. This strong faith in the Lord’s im­me­di­ate re­turn had much to do with the ten­dency to omit from the rec­ord those ref­er­ences which por­trayed the purely hu­man ex­pe­ri­ences and at­tri­butes of the Mas­ter. The whole Chris­tian move­ment tended away from the hu­man pic­ture of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth to­ward the ex­al­ta­tion of the risen Christ, the glo­ri­fied and soon-re­turn­ing Lord Je­sus Christ.

196:2.6Je­sus founded the re­li­gion of per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence in do­ing the will of God and serv­ing the hu­man broth­er­hood; Paul founded a re­li­gion in which the glo­ri­fied Je­sus be­came the ob­ject of wor­ship and the broth­er­hood con­sisted of fel­low be­liev­ers in the di­vine Christ. In the be­stowal of Je­sus these two con­cepts were po­ten­tial in his di­vine-hu­man life, and it is in­deed a pity that his fol­low­ers failed to cre­ate a uni­fied re­li­gion which might have given proper rec­og­ni­tion to both the hu­man and the di­vine na­tures of the Mas­ter as they were in­sep­a­ra­bly bound up in his earth life and so glo­ri­ously set forth in the orig­i­nal gospel of the king­dom.

196:2.7You would be nei­ther shocked nor dis­turbed by some of Je­sus’ strong pro­nounce­ments if you would only re­mem­ber that he was the world’s most whole­hearted and de­voted re­li­gion­ist. He was a wholly con­se­crated mor­tal, un­re­servedly ded­i­cated to do­ing his Fa­ther’s will. Many of his ap­par­ently hard say­ings were more of a per­sonal con­fes­sion of faith and a pledge of de­vo­tion than com­mands to his fol­low­ers. And it was this very sin­gle­ness of pur­pose and un­selfish de­vo­tion that en­abled him to ef­fect such ex­traor­di­nary prog­ress in the con­quest of the hu­man mind in one short life. Many of his dec­la­ra­tions should be con­sid­ered as a con­fes­sion of what he de­manded of him­self rather than what he re­quired of all his fol­low­ers. In his de­vo­tion to the cause of the king­dom, Je­sus burned all bridges be­hind him; he sac­ri­ficed all hin­drances to the do­ing of his Fa­ther’s will.

196:2.8Je­sus blessed the poor be­cause they were usu­ally sin­cere and pi­ous; he con­demned the rich be­cause they were usu­ally wan­ton and ir­re­li­gious. He would equally con­demn the ir­re­li­gious pau­per and com­mend the con­se­crated and wor­ship­ful man of wealth.

196:2.9Je­sus led men to feel at home in the world; he de­liv­ered them from the slav­ery of taboo and taught them that the world was not fun­da­men­tally evil. He did not long to es­cape from his earthly life; he mas­tered a tech­nique of ac­cept­ably do­ing the Fa­ther’s will while in the flesh. He at­tained an ide­al­is­tic re­li­gious life in the very midst of a re­al­is­tic world. Je­sus did not share Paul’s pes­simistic view of hu­mankind. The Mas­ter looked upon men as the sons of God and fore­saw a mag­nif­i­cent and eter­nal fu­ture for those who chose sur­vival. He was not a moral skep­tic; he viewed man pos­i­tively, not neg­a­tively. He saw most men as weak rather than wicked, more dis­traught than de­praved. But no mat­ter what their sta­tus, they were all God’s chil­dren and his breth­ren.

196:2.10He taught men to place a high value upon them­selves in time and in eter­nity. Be­cause of this high es­ti­mate which Je­sus placed upon men, he was will­ing to spend him­self in the un­remit­ting ser­vice of hu­mankind. And it was this in­fi­nite worth of the fi­nite that made the golden rule a vi­tal fac­tor in his re­li­gion. What mor­tal can fail to be up­lifted by the ex­traor­di­nary faith Je­sus has in him?

196:2.11Je­sus of­fered no rules for so­cial ad­vance­ment; his was a re­li­gious mis­sion, and re­li­gion is an ex­clu­sively in­di­vid­ual ex­pe­ri­ence. The ul­ti­mate goal of so­ci­ety’s most ad­vanced achieve­ment can never hope to tran­scend Je­sus’ broth­er­hood of men based on the rec­og­ni­tion of the fa­ther­hood of God. The ideal of all so­cial at­tain­ment can be re­al­ized only in the com­ing of this di­vine king­dom.