commandments

• achieve perfection

1:0.3The en­light­ened worlds all rec­og­nize and wor­ship the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, the eter­nal maker and in­fi­nite up­holder of all cre­ation. The will crea­tures of uni­verse upon uni­verse have em­barked upon the long, long Par­a­dise jour­ney, the fas­ci­nat­ing strug­gle of the eter­nal ad­ven­ture of at­tain­ing God the Fa­ther. The tran­scen­dent goal of the chil­dren of time is to find the eter­nal God, to com­pre­hend the di­vine na­ture, to rec­og­nize the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. God-know­ing crea­tures have only one su­preme am­bi­tion, just one con­sum­ing de­sire, and that is to be­come, as they are in their spheres, like him as he is in his Par­a­dise per­fec­tion of per­son­al­ity and in his uni­ver­sal sphere of righ­teous su­prem­acy. From the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther who in­hab­its eter­nity there has gone forth the su­preme man­date, “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect.” In love and mercy the mes­sen­gers of Par­a­dise have car­ried this di­vine ex­hor­ta­tion down through the ages and out through the uni­verses, even to such lowly an­i­mal-ori­gin crea­tures as the hu­man races of Uran­tia.

1:0.4This mag­nif­i­cent and uni­ver­sal in­junc­tion to strive for the at­tain­ment of the per­fec­tion of di­vin­ity is the first duty, and should be the high­est am­bi­tion, of all the strug­gling crea­ture cre­ation of the God of per­fec­tion. This pos­si­bil­ity of the at­tain­ment of di­vine per­fec­tion is the fi­nal and cer­tain des­tiny of all man’s eter­nal spir­i­tual prog­ress.

1:0.5Uran­tia mor­tals can hardly hope to be per­fect in the in­fi­nite sense, but it is en­tirely pos­si­ble for hu­man be­ings, start­ing out as they do on this planet, to at­tain the su­per­nal and di­vine goal which the in­fi­nite God has set for mor­tal man; and when they do achieve this des­tiny, they will, in all that per­tains to self-re­al­iza­tion and mind at­tain­ment, be just as re­plete in their sphere of di­vine per­fec­tion as God him­self is in his sphere of in­fin­ity and eter­nity. Such per­fec­tion may not be uni­ver­sal in the ma­te­rial sense, un­lim­ited in in­tel­lec­tual grasp, or fi­nal in spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence, but it is fi­nal and com­plete in all fi­nite as­pects of di­vin­ity of will, per­fec­tion of per­son­al­ity mo­ti­va­tion, and God-con­scious­ness.

1:0.6This is the true mean­ing of that di­vine com­mand, “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect,” which ever urges mor­tal man on­ward and beck­ons him in­ward in that long and fas­ci­nat­ing strug­gle for the at­tain­ment of higher and higher lev­els of spir­i­tual val­ues and true uni­verse mean­ings. This sub­lime search for the God of uni­verses is the su­preme ad­ven­ture of the in­hab­i­tants of all the worlds of time and space.

• sovereignty of free will in choosing eternal life

5:6.8Hav­ing thus pro­vided for the growth of the im­mor­tal soul and hav­ing lib­er­ated man’s in­ner self from the fet­ters of ab­so­lute de­pen­dence on an­te­ced­ent cau­sa­tion, the Fa­ther stands aside. Now, man hav­ing thus been lib­er­ated from the fet­ters of cau­sa­tion re­sponse, at least as per­tains to eter­nal des­tiny, and pro­vi­sion hav­ing been made for the growth of the im­mor­tal self, the soul, it re­mains for man him­self to will the cre­ation or to in­hibit the cre­ation of this sur­viv­ing and eter­nal self which is his for the choos­ing. No other be­ing, force, cre­ator, or agency in all the wide uni­verse of uni­verses can in­ter­fere to any de­gree with the ab­so­lute sov­er­eignty of the mor­tal free will, as it op­er­ates within the realms of choice, re­gard­ing the eter­nal des­tiny of the per­son­al­ity of the choos­ing mor­tal. As per­tains to eter­nal sur­vival, God has de­creed the sov­er­eignty of the ma­te­rial and mor­tal will, and that de­cree is ab­so­lute.

• sovereignty of free will in choosing eternal life

5:6.12Con­cern­ing those per­son­al­i­ties who are not Ad­juster in­dwelt: The at­tri­bute of choice-lib­erty is also be­stowed by the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, and such per­sons are like­wise em­braced in the great cir­cuit of di­vine love, the per­son­al­ity cir­cuit of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. God pro­vides for the sov­er­eign choice of all true per­son­al­i­ties. No per­sonal crea­ture can be co­erced into the eter­nal ad­ven­ture; the por­tal of eter­nity opens only in re­sponse to the free­will choice of the free­will sons of the God of free will.

• achieve perfection

7:4.7The Eter­nal Son is the per­sonal trus­tee, the di­vine cus­to­dian, of the Fa­ther’s uni­ver­sal plan of crea­ture as­cen­sion. Hav­ing pro­mul­gated the uni­ver­sal man­date, “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect,” the Fa­ther in­trusted the ex­e­cu­tion of this tremen­dous un­der­tak­ing to the Eter­nal Son; and the Eter­nal Son shares the fos­ter­ing of this su­per­nal en­ter­prise with his di­vine co-or­di­nate, the In­fi­nite Spirit. Thus do the De­i­ties ef­fec­tively co-op­er­ate in the work of cre­ation, con­trol, evo­lu­tion, rev­e­la­tion, and min­is­tra­tion—and if re­quired, in restora­tion and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

• achieve perfection

7:5.1The Eter­nal Son with­out reser­va­tion joined with the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther in broad­cast­ing that tremen­dous in­junc­tion to all cre­ation: “Be you per­fect, even as your Fa­ther in Ha­vona is per­fect.” And ever since, that in­vi­ta­tion-com­mand has mo­ti­vated all the sur­vival plans and the be­stowal projects of the Eter­nal Son and his vast fam­ily of co-or­di­nate and as­so­ci­ated Sons. And in these very be­stowals the Sons of God have be­come to all evo­lu­tion­ary crea­tures “the way, the truth, and the life.”

• achieve perfection

26:4.12The pil­grim lands on the re­ceiv­ing planet of Ha­vona, the pi­lot world of the sev­enth cir­cuit, with only one en­dow­ment of per­fec­tion, per­fec­tion of pur­pose. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has de­creed: “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect.” That is the as­tound­ing in­vi­ta­tion-com­mand broad­cast to the fi­nite chil­dren of the worlds of space. The pro­mul­ga­tion of that in­junc­tion has set all cre­ation astir in the co-op­er­a­tive ef­fort of the ce­les­tial be­ings to as­sist in bring­ing about the ful­fill­ment and re­al­iza­tion of that tremen­dous com­mand of the First Great Source and Cen­ter.

• achieve perfection

26:9.3The test of time is al­most over; the race for eter­nity has been all but run. The days of un­cer­tainty are end­ing; the temp­ta­tion to doubt is van­ish­ing; the in­junc­tion to be per­fect has been obeyed. From the very bot­tom of in­tel­li­gent ex­is­tence the crea­ture of time and ma­te­rial per­son­al­ity has as­cended the evo­lu­tion­ary spheres of space, thus prov­ing the fea­si­bil­ity of the as­cen­sion plan while for­ever demon­strat­ing the jus­tice and righ­teous­ness of the com­mand of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther to his lowly crea­tures of the worlds: “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect.”

• achieve perfection

26:11.4Mor­tals have re­ceived the Par­a­dise com­mand: “Be you per­fect, even as your Par­a­dise Fa­ther is per­fect.” To these trin­i­tized sons of the con­joint corps the super­vis­ing super­na­phim never cease to pro­claim: “Be you un­der­stand­ing of your as­cen­dant breth­ren, even as the Par­a­dise Cre­ator Sons know and love them.”

• achieve perfection

31:3.62. The mor­tal fi­nal­i­ters have fully com­plied with the in­junc­tion of the ages, “Be you per­fect”; they have as­cended the uni­ver­sal path of mor­tal at­tain­ment; they have found God, and they have been duly in­ducted into the Corps of the Fi­nal­ity. Such be­ings have at­tained the pres­ent limit of spirit pro­gres­sion but not fi­nal­ity of ul­ti­mate spirit sta­tus. They have achieved the pres­ent limit of crea­ture per­fec­tion but not fi­nal­ity of crea­ture ser­vice. They have ex­pe­ri­enced the full­ness of De­ity wor­ship but not fi­nal­ity of ex­pe­ri­en­tial De­ity at­tain­ment.

• achieve perfection

37:5.3Not be­ing Ad­juster fused, they never be­come fi­nal­i­ters, but they do even­tu­ally be­come en­rolled in the lo­cal uni­verse Corps of Per­fec­tion. They have in spirit obeyed the Fa­ther’s com­mand, “Be you per­fect.”

• achieve perfection

40:7.4These are the mor­tals who have been com­manded by the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect.” The Fa­ther has be­stowed him­self upon you, placed his own spirit within you; there­fore does he de­mand ul­ti­mate per­fec­tion of you. The nar­ra­tive of hu­man as­cent from the mor­tal spheres of time to the di­vine realms of eter­nity con­sti­tutes an in­trigu­ing recital not in­cluded in my as­sign­ment, but this su­per­nal ad­ven­ture should be the su­preme study of mor­tal man.

• “Father’s prayer” taught in Dalamatia

66:5.14None of the Prince’s staff would pre­sent rev­e­la­tion to com­pli­cate evo­lu­tion; they pre­sented rev­e­la­tion only as the cli­max of their ex­haus­tion of the forces of evo­lu­tion. But Hap did yield to the de­sire of the in­hab­i­tants of the city for the es­tab­lish­ment of a form of re­li­gious ser­vice. His group pro­vided the Dala­ma­tians with the seven chants of wor­ship and also gave them the daily praise-phrase and even­tu­ally taught them “the Fa­ther’s prayer,” which was:

66:5.15“Fa­ther of all, whose Son we honor, look down upon us with fa­vor. De­liver us from the fear of all save you. Make us a plea­sure to our di­vine teach­ers and for­ever put truth on our lips. De­liver us from vi­o­lence and anger; give us re­spect for our el­ders and that which be­longs to our neigh­bors. Give us this sea­son green pas­tures and fruit­ful flocks to glad­den our hearts. We pray for the has­ten­ing of the com­ing of the prom­ised up­lifter, and we would do your will on this world as oth­ers do on worlds be­yond.”

• 7 of Dalamatia and Eden were taboos

66:7.8Hap pre­sented the early races with a moral law. This code was known as “The Fa­ther’s Way” and con­sisted of the fol­low­ing seven com­mands:

66:7.91. You shall not fear nor serve any God but the Fa­ther of all.

66:7.102. You shall not dis­obey the Fa­ther’s Son, the world’s ruler, nor show dis­re­spect to his super­hu­man as­so­ciates.

66:7.113. You shall not speak a lie when called be­fore the judges of the peo­ple.

66:7.124. You shall not kill men, women, or chil­dren.

66:7.135. You shall not steal your neigh­bor’s goods or cat­tle.

66:7.146. You shall not touch your friend’s wife.

66:7.157. You shall not show dis­re­spect to your par­ents or to the el­ders of the tribe.

66:7.16This was the law of Dala­ma­tia for al­most three hun­dred thou­sand years. And many of the stones on which this law was in­scribed now lie be­neath the wa­ters off the shores of Mes­o­po­ta­mia and Per­sia. It be­came the cus­tom to hold one of these com­mands in mind for each day of the week, us­ing it for salu­ta­tions and meal­time thanks­giv­ing.

• 7 of Eden

74:7.12The laws of the Gar­den were based on the older codes of Dala­ma­tia and were pro­mul­gated un­der seven heads:

74:7.131. The laws of health and san­i­ta­tion.

74:7.142. The so­cial reg­u­la­tions of the Gar­den.

74:7.153. The code of trade and com­merce.

74:7.164. The laws of fair play and com­pe­ti­tion.

74:7.175. The laws of home life.

74:7.186. The civil codes of the golden rule.

74:7.197. The seven com­mands of su­preme moral rule.

74:7.20The moral law of Eden was lit­tle dif­fer­ent from the seven com­mand­ments of Dala­ma­tia. But the Adamites taught many ad­di­tional rea­sons for these com­mands; for in­stance, re­gard­ing the in­junc­tion against mur­der, the in­dwelling of the Thought Ad­juster was pre­sented as an ad­di­tional rea­son for not de­stroy­ing hu­man life. They taught that “whoso sheds man’s blood by man shall his blood be shed, for in the im­age of God made he man.”

• earliest c. against stealing women and property

89:1.3Among the ear­li­est pro­hi­bi­tions were re­stric­tions on the ap­pro­pri­a­tion of women and other prop­erty. As re­li­gion be­gan to play a larger part in the evo­lu­tion of the taboo, the ar­ti­cle rest­ing un­der ban was re­garded as un­clean, sub­se­quently as un­holy. The rec­ords of the He­brews are full of the men­tion of things clean and un­clean, holy and un­holy, but their be­liefs along these lines were far less cum­ber­some and ex­ten­sive than were those of many other peo­ples.

• 7 of Dalamatia and Eden were taboos

89:1.4The seven com­mand­ments of Dala­ma­tia and Eden, as well as the ten in­junc­tions of the He­brews, were def­i­nite taboos, all ex­pressed in the same neg­a­tive form as were the most an­cient pro­hi­bi­tions. But these newer codes were truly eman­ci­pat­ing in that they took the place of thou­sands of pre-ex­is­tent taboos. And more than this, these later com­mand­ments def­i­nitely prom­ised some­thing in re­turn for obe­di­ence.

• 7 of Melchizedek

93:4.6The seven com­mand­ments pro­mul­gated by Mel­chiz­e­dek were pat­terned along the lines of the an­cient Dala­ma­tian su­preme law and very much re­sem­bled the seven com­mands taught in the first and sec­ond Edens. These com­mands of the Salem re­li­gion were:

93:4.71. You shall not serve any God but the Most High Cre­ator of heaven and earth.

93:4.82. You shall not doubt that faith is the only re­quire­ment for eter­nal sal­va­tion.

93:4.93. You shall not bear false wit­ness.

93:4.104. You shall not kill.

93:4.115. You shall not steal.

93:4.126. You shall not com­mit adul­tery.

93:4.137. You shall not show dis­re­spect for your par­ents and el­ders.

• achieve perfection

94:3.1While the high­est phase of Brah­man­ism was hardly a re­li­gion, it was truly one of the most no­ble reaches of the mor­tal mind into the do­mains of phi­los­o­phy and meta­physics. Hav­ing started out to dis­cover fi­nal re­al­ity, the In­dian mind did not stop un­til it had spec­u­lated about al­most ev­ery phase of the­ol­ogy ex­cept­ing the es­sen­tial dual con­cept of re­li­gion: the ex­is­tence of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther of all uni­verse crea­tures and the fact of the as­cend­ing ex­pe­ri­ence in the uni­verse of these very crea­tures as they seek to at­tain the eter­nal Fa­ther, who has com­manded them to be per­fect, even as he is per­fect.

• 5 of Gautama

94:8.9The moral com­mand­ments of Gau­tama’s preach­ment were five in num­ber:

94:8.101. You shall not kill.

94:8.112. You shall not steal.

94:8.123. You shall not be un­chaste.

94:8.134. You shall not lie.

94:8.145. You shall not drink in­tox­i­cat­ing liq­uors.

• 10 of Moses

96:4.4The fact that Yah­weh was the god of the flee­ing He­brews ex­plains why they tar­ried so long be­fore the holy moun­tain of Sinai, and why they there re­ceived the ten com­mand­ments which Moses pro­mul­gated in the name of Yah­weh, the god of Ho­reb. Dur­ing this lengthy so­journ be­fore Sinai the re­li­gious cer­e­mo­ni­als of the newly evolv­ing He­brew wor­ship were fur­ther per­fected.

• achieve perfection

99:5.3The re­li­gion of Je­sus is the most dy­namic in­flu­ence ever to ac­ti­vate the hu­man race. Je­sus shat­tered tra­di­tion, de­stroyed dogma, and called man­kind to the achieve­ment of its high­est ide­als in time and eter­nity—to be per­fect, even as the Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect.

• achieve perfection

107:0.3God, hav­ing com­manded man to be per­fect, even as he is per­fect, has de­scended as the Ad­juster to be­come man’s ex­pe­ri­en­tial part­ner in the achieve­ment of the su­per­nal des­tiny which has been thus or­dained. The frag­ment of God which in­dwells the mind of man is the ab­so­lute and un­qual­i­fied as­sur­ance that man can find the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther in as­so­ci­a­tion with this di­vine Ad­juster, which came forth from God to find man and son­ship him even in the days of the flesh.

• celestial beings to show respect for superiors, consideration for subordinates, never to land on Divinington

107:3.63. Never to at­tempt a land­ing on the shores of Di­vin­ing­ton.

• commandments

110:3.6You must not re­gard co-op­er­a­tion with your Ad­juster as a par­tic­u­larly con­scious pro­cess, for it is not; but your mo­tives and your de­ci­sions, your faith­ful de­ter­mi­na­tions and your su­preme de­sires, do con­sti­tute real and ef­fec­tive co-op­er­a­tion. You can con­sciously aug­ment Ad­juster har­mony by:

110:3.71. Choos­ing to re­spond to di­vine lead­ing; sin­cerely bas­ing the hu­man life on the high­est con­scious­ness of truth, beauty, and good­ness, and then co-or­di­nat­ing these qual­i­ties of di­vin­ity through wis­dom, wor­ship, faith, and love.

110:3.82. Lov­ing God and de­sir­ing to be like him—gen­uine rec­og­ni­tion of the di­vine fa­ther­hood and lov­ing wor­ship of the heav­enly Par­ent.

110:3.93. Lov­ing man and sin­cerely de­sir­ing to serve him—whole­hearted rec­og­ni­tion of the broth­er­hood of man cou­pled with an in­tel­li­gent and wise af­fec­tion for each of your fel­low mor­tals.

110:3.104. Joy­ful ac­cep­tance of cos­mic citizen­ship—hon­est rec­og­ni­tion of your pro­gres­sive obli­ga­tions to the Su­preme Be­ing, aware­ness of the in­ter­de­pen­dence of evo­lu­tion­ary man and evolv­ing De­ity. This is the birth of cos­mic moral­ity and the dawn­ing re­al­iza­tion of uni­ver­sal duty.

• love God with all heart, soul, and might

131:2.2“In the be­gin­ning God cre­ated the heav­ens and the earth and all things therein. And, be­hold, all he cre­ated was very good. The Lord, he is God; there is none be­side him in heaven above or upon the earth be­neath. There­fore shall you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. The earth shall be full of the knowl­edge of the Lord as the wa­ters cover the sea. The heav­ens de­clare the glory of God, and the fir­ma­ment shows his hand­i­work. Day af­ter day ut­ters speech; night af­ter night shows knowl­edge. There is no speech or lan­guage where their voice is not heard. The Lord’s work is great, and in wis­dom has he made all things; the great­ness of the Lord is un­search­able. He knows the num­ber of the stars; he calls them all by their names.

• 2 great
• achieve perfection

131:2.13“And to all who love the Lord su­premely and their neigh­bors like them­selves, the God of heaven says: ‘I will ran­som you from the grave; I will re­deem you from death. I will be mer­ci­ful to your chil­dren, as well as just. Have I not said of my crea­tures on earth, you are the sons of the liv­ing God? And have I not loved you with an ev­er­last­ing love? Have I not called you to be­come like me and to dwell for­ever with me in Par­a­dise?’”

• 2 great

131:10.2“The Lord our God is one Lord, and you should love him with all your mind and heart while you do your very best to love all his chil­dren as you love your­self. This one God is our heav­enly Fa­ther, in whom all things con­sist, and who dwells, by his spirit, in ev­ery sin­cere hu­man soul. And we who are the chil­dren of God should learn how to com­mit the keep­ing of our souls to him as to a faith­ful Cre­ator. With our heav­enly Fa­ther all things are pos­si­ble. Since he is the Cre­ator, hav­ing made all things and all be­ings, it could not be oth­er­wise. Though we can­not see God, we can know him. And by daily liv­ing the will of the Fa­ther in heaven, we can re­veal him to our fel­low men.

• love one another as Jesus loves us

131:10.5“I will no longer be sat­is­fied to be­lieve that God is the Fa­ther of all my peo­ple; I will hence­forth be­lieve that he is also my Fa­ther. Al­ways will I try to wor­ship God with the help of the Spirit of Truth, which is my helper when I have be­come re­ally God-know­ing. But first of all I am go­ing to prac­tice wor­ship­ing God by learn­ing how to do the will of God on earth; that is, I am go­ing to do my best to treat each of my fel­low mor­tals just as I think God would like to have him treated. And when we live this sort of a life in the flesh, we may ask many things of God, and he will give us the de­sire of our hearts that we may be the bet­ter pre­pared to serve our fel­lows. And all of this lov­ing ser­vice of the chil­dren of God en­larges our ca­pac­ity to re­ceive and ex­pe­ri­ence the joys of heaven, the high plea­sures of the min­istry of the spirit of heaven.

• achieve perfection

137:8.13“And this king­dom which I de­clare to you is not a reign of power and plenty. The king­dom of heaven is not a mat­ter of meat and drink but rather a life of pro­gres­sive righ­teous­ness and in­creas­ing joy in the per­fect­ing ser­vice of my Fa­ther who is in heaven. For has not the Fa­ther said of his chil­dren of the world, ‘It is my will that they should even­tu­ally be per­fect, even as I am per­fect.’

• love one another as Jesus loves us

140:3.15“I say to you: Love your en­e­mies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who de­spite­fully use you. And what­so­ever you be­lieve that I would do to men, do you also to them.

140:5.1From the Ser­mon on the Mount to the dis­course of the Last Sup­per, Je­sus taught his fol­low­ers to man­i­fest fa­therly love rather than broth­erly love. Broth­erly love would love your neigh­bor as you love your­self, and that would be ad­e­quate ful­fill­ment of the “golden rule.” But fa­therly af­fec­tion would re­quire that you should love your fel­low mor­tals as Je­sus loves you.

140:5.2Je­sus loves man­kind with a dual af­fec­tion. He lived on earth as a two­fold per­son­al­ity—hu­man and di­vine. As the Son of God he loves man with a fa­therly love—he is man’s Cre­ator, his uni­verse Fa­ther. As the Son of Man, Je­sus loves mor­tals as a brother—he was truly a man among men.

• achieve perfection

140:5.3Je­sus did not ex­pect his fol­low­ers to achieve an im­pos­si­ble man­i­fes­ta­tion of broth­erly love, but he did ex­pect them to so strive to be like God—to be per­fect even as the Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect—that they could be­gin to look upon man as God looks upon his crea­tures and there­fore could be­gin to love men as God loves them—to show forth the be­gin­nings of a fa­therly af­fec­tion. In the course of these ex­hor­ta­tions to the twelve apos­tles, Je­sus sought to re­veal this new con­cept of fa­therly love as it is re­lated to cer­tain emo­tional at­ti­tudes con­cerned in mak­ing nu­mer­ous en­vi­ron­men­tal so­cial ad­just­ments.

140:5.4The Mas­ter in­tro­duced this mo­men­tous dis­course by call­ing at­ten­tion to four faith at­ti­tudes as the pre­lude to the sub­se­quent por­trayal of his four tran­scen­dent and su­preme re­ac­tions of fa­therly love in con­trast to the lim­i­ta­tions of mere broth­erly love.

140:5.5He first talked about those who were poor in spirit, hun­gered af­ter righ­teous­ness, en­dured meek­ness, and who were pure in heart. Such spirit-dis­cern­ing mor­tals could be ex­pected to at­tain such lev­els of di­vine self­less­ness as to be able to at­tempt the amaz­ing ex­er­cise of fa­therly af­fec­tion; that even as mourn­ers they would be em­pow­ered to show mercy, pro­mote peace, and en­dure per­se­cu­tions, and through­out all of these try­ing sit­u­a­tions to love even unlovely man­kind with a fa­therly love. A fa­ther’s af­fec­tion can at­tain lev­els of de­vo­tion that im­mea­sur­ably tran­scend a brother’s af­fec­tion.

140:5.6The faith and the love of these beat­i­tudes strengthen moral char­ac­ter and cre­ate hap­pi­ness. Fear and anger weaken char­ac­ter and de­stroy hap­pi­ness. This mo­men­tous ser­mon started out upon the note of hap­pi­ness.

140:5.71. “Happy are the poor in spirit—the hum­ble.” To a child, hap­pi­ness is the sat­is­fac­tion of im­me­di­ate plea­sure crav­ing. The adult is will­ing to sow seeds of self-de­nial in or­der to reap sub­se­quent har­vests of aug­mented hap­pi­ness. In Je­sus’ times and since, hap­pi­ness has all too of­ten been as­so­ci­ated with the idea of the pos­ses­sion of wealth. In the story of the Phar­isee and the pub­li­can pray­ing in the tem­ple, the one felt rich in spirit—ego­tis­ti­cal; the other felt “poor in spirit”—hum­ble. One was self-suf­fi­cient; the other was teach­able and truth-seek­ing. The poor in spirit seek for goals of spir­i­tual wealth—for God. And such seek­ers af­ter truth do not have to wait for re­wards in a dis­tant fu­ture; they are re­warded now. They find the king­dom of heaven within their own hearts, and they ex­pe­ri­ence such hap­pi­ness now.

140:5.82. “Happy are they who hunger and thirst for righ­teous­ness, for they shall be filled.” Only those who feel poor in spirit will ever hunger for righ­teous­ness. Only the hum­ble seek for di­vine strength and crave spir­i­tual power. But it is most dan­ger­ous to know­ingly en­gage in spir­i­tual fast­ing in or­der to im­prove one’s ap­petite for spir­i­tual en­dow­ments. Phys­i­cal fast­ing be­comes dan­ger­ous af­ter four or five days; one is apt to lose all de­sire for food. Pro­longed fast­ing, ei­ther phys­i­cal or spir­i­tual, tends to de­stroy hunger.

140:5.9Ex­pe­ri­en­tial righ­teous­ness is a plea­sure, not a duty. Je­sus’ righ­teous­ness is a dy­namic love—fa­therly-broth­erly af­fec­tion. It is not the neg­a­tive or thou-shalt-not type of righ­teous­ness. How could one ever hunger for some­thing neg­a­tive—some­thing “not to do”?

140:5.10It is not so easy to teach a child mind these first two of the beat­i­tudes, but the ma­ture mind should grasp their sig­nif­i­cance.

140:5.113. “Happy are the meek, for they shall in­herit the earth.” Gen­uine meek­ness has no re­la­tion to fear. It is rather an at­ti­tude of man co-op­er­at­ing with God—“Your will be done.” It em­braces pa­tience and for­bear­ance and is mo­ti­vated by an un­shak­able faith in a law­ful and friendly uni­verse. It mas­ters all temp­ta­tions to rebel against the di­vine lead­ing. Je­sus was the ideal meek man of Uran­tia, and he in­her­ited a vast uni­verse.

140:5.124. “Happy are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Spir­i­tual pu­rity is not a neg­a­tive qual­ity, ex­cept that it does lack sus­pi­cion and re­venge. In dis­cussing pu­rity, Je­sus did not in­tend to deal ex­clu­sively with hu­man sex at­ti­tudes. He re­ferred more to that faith which man should have in his fel­low man; that faith which a par­ent has in his child, and which en­ables him to love his fel­lows even as a fa­ther would love them. A fa­ther’s love need not pam­per, and it does not con­done evil, but it is al­ways an­ti­cyn­i­cal. Fa­therly love has sin­gle­ness of pur­pose, and it al­ways looks for the best in man; that is the at­ti­tude of a true par­ent.

140:5.13To see God—by faith—means to ac­quire true spir­i­tual in­sight. And spir­i­tual in­sight en­hances Ad­juster guid­ance, and these in the end aug­ment God-con­scious­ness. And when you know the Fa­ther, you are con­firmed in the as­sur­ance of di­vine son­ship, and you can in­creas­ingly love each of your broth­ers in the flesh, not only as a brother—with broth­erly love—but also as a fa­ther—with fa­therly af­fec­tion.

140:5.14It is easy to teach this ad­mo­ni­tion even to a child. Chil­dren are nat­u­rally trust­ful, and par­ents should see to it that they do not lose that sim­ple faith. In deal­ing with chil­dren, avoid all de­cep­tion and re­frain from sug­gest­ing sus­pi­cion. Wisely help them to choose their heroes and se­lect their life­work.

• achieve perfection

140:5.15And then Je­sus went on to in­struct his fol­low­ers in the re­al­iza­tion of the chief pur­pose of all hu­man strug­gling—per­fec­tion—even di­vine at­tain­ment. Al­ways he ad­mon­ished them: “Be you per­fect, even as your Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect.” He did not ex­hort the twelve to love their neigh­bors as they loved them­selves. That would have been a wor­thy achieve­ment; it would have in­di­cated the achieve­ment of broth­erly love. He rather ad­mon­ished his apos­tles to love men as he had loved them—to love with a fa­therly as well as a broth­erly af­fec­tion. And he il­lus­trated this by point­ing out four su­preme re­ac­tions of fa­therly love:

140:5.161. “Happy are they who mourn, for they shall be com­forted.” So-called com­mon sense or the best of logic would never sug­gest that hap­pi­ness could be de­rived from mourn­ing. But Je­sus did not re­fer to out­ward or os­ten­ta­tious mourn­ing. He al­luded to an emo­tional at­ti­tude of ten­der­heart­ed­ness. It is a great er­ror to teach boys and young men that it is un­manly to show ten­der­ness or oth­er­wise to give ev­i­dence of emo­tional feel­ing or phys­i­cal suf­fer­ing. Sym­pa­thy is a wor­thy at­tri­bute of the male as well as the fe­male. It is not nec­es­sary to be cal­loused in or­der to be manly. This is the wrong way to cre­ate coura­geous men. The world’s great men have not been afraid to mourn. Moses, the mourner, was a greater man than ei­ther Sam­son or Go­liath. Moses was a su­perb leader, but he was also a man of meek­ness. Be­ing sen­si­tive and re­spon­sive to hu­man need cre­ates gen­uine and last­ing hap­pi­ness, while such kindly at­ti­tudes safe­guard the soul from the de­struc­tive in­flu­ences of anger, hate, and sus­pi­cion.

140:5.172. “Happy are the mer­ci­ful, for they shall ob­tain mercy.” Mercy here de­notes the height and depth and breadth of the truest friend­ship—lov­ing-kind­ness. Mercy some­times may be pas­sive, but here it is ac­tive and dy­namic—su­preme fa­ther­li­ness. A lov­ing par­ent ex­pe­ri­ences lit­tle dif­fi­culty in for­giv­ing his child, even many times. And in an un­spoiled child the urge to re­lieve suf­fer­ing is nat­u­ral. Chil­dren are nor­mally kind and sym­pa­thetic when old enough to ap­pre­ci­ate ac­tual con­di­tions.

140:5.183. “Happy are the peace­mak­ers, for they shall be called the sons of God.” Je­sus’ hear­ers were long­ing for mil­i­tary de­liv­er­ance, not for peace­mak­ers. But Je­sus’ peace is not of the pa­cific and neg­a­tive kind. In the face of tri­als and per­se­cu­tions he said, “My peace I leave with you.” “Let not your heart be trou­bled, nei­ther let it be afraid.” This is the peace that pre­vents ru­inous con­flicts. Per­sonal peace in­te­grates per­son­al­ity. So­cial peace pre­vents fear, greed, and anger. Po­lit­i­cal peace pre­vents race an­tag­o­nisms, na­tional sus­pi­cions, and war. Peace­mak­ing is the cure of dis­trust and sus­pi­cion.

140:5.19Chil­dren can eas­ily be taught to func­tion as peace­mak­ers. They en­joy team ac­tiv­i­ties; they like to play to­gether. Said the Mas­ter at an­other time: “Whoso­ever will save his life shall lose it, but whoso­ever will lose his life shall find it.”

140:5.204. “Happy are they who are per­se­cuted for righ­teous­ness’ sake, for theirs is the king­dom of heaven. Happy are you when men shall re­vile you and per­se­cute you and shall say all man­ner of evil against you falsely. Re­joice and be ex­ceed­ingly glad, for great is your re­ward in heaven.”

140:5.21So of­ten per­se­cu­tion does fol­low peace. But young peo­ple and brave adults never shun dif­fi­culty or dan­ger. “Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends.” And a fa­therly love can freely do all these things—things which broth­erly love can hardly en­com­pass. And prog­ress has al­ways been the fi­nal har­vest of per­se­cu­tion.

140:5.22Chil­dren al­ways re­spond to the chal­lenge of cour­age. Youth is ever will­ing to “take a dare.” And ev­ery child should early learn to sac­ri­fice.

140:5.23And so it is re­vealed that the beat­i­tudes of the Ser­mon on the Mount are based on faith and love and not on law—ethics and duty.

140:5.24Fa­therly love de­lights in re­turn­ing good for evil—do­ing good in re­tal­i­a­tion for in­jus­tice.

• achieve perfection

140:8.32The Mas­ter came to cre­ate in man a new spirit, a new will—to im­part a new ca­pac­ity for know­ing the truth, ex­pe­ri­enc­ing com­pas­sion, and choos­ing good­ness—the will to be in har­mony with God’s will, cou­pled with the eter­nal urge to be­come per­fect, even as the Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect.

• achieve perfection

140:10.1That evening while teach­ing in the house, for it had be­gun to rain, Je­sus talked at great length, try­ing to show the twelve what they must be, not what they must do. They knew only a re­li­gion that im­posed the do­ing of cer­tain things as the means of at­tain­ing righ­teous­ness—sal­va­tion. But Je­sus would re­it­er­ate, “In the king­dom you must be righ­teous in or­der to do the work.” Many times did he re­peat, “Be you there­fore per­fect, even as your Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect.” All the while was the Mas­ter ex­plain­ing to his be­wil­dered apos­tles that the sal­va­tion which he had come to bring to the world was to be had only by be­liev­ing, by sim­ple and sin­cere faith. Said Je­sus: “John preached a bap­tism of re­pen­tance, sor­row for the old way of liv­ing. You are to pro­claim the bap­tism of fel­low­ship with God. Preach re­pen­tance to those who stand in need of such teach­ing, but to those al­ready seek­ing sin­cere en­trance to the king­dom, open the doors wide and bid them en­ter into the joy­ous fel­low­ship of the sons of God.” But it was a dif­fi­cult task to per­suade these Galilean fish­er­men that, in the king­dom, be­ing righ­teous, by faith, must pre­cede do­ing righ­teous­ness in the daily life of the mor­tals of earth.

• 2 great

142:3.22“And then will you re­mem­ber that once again—in the greater spir­i­tual en­light­en­ment of Isa­iah’s day—these ten neg­a­tive com­mand­ments were changed into the great and pos­i­tive law of love, the in­junc­tion to love God su­premely and your neigh­bor as your­self. And it is this su­preme law of love for God and for man that I also de­clare to you as con­sti­tut­ing the whole duty of man.”

• love one another as Jesus loves us

147:4.9“6. The spir­i­tual level. And then last, but great­est of all, we at­tain the level of spirit in­sight and spir­i­tual in­ter­pre­ta­tion which im­pels us to rec­og­nize in this rule of life the di­vine com­mand to treat all men as we con­ceive God would treat them. That is the uni­verse ideal of hu­man re­la­tion­ships. And this is your at­ti­tude to­ward all such prob­lems when your su­preme de­sire is ever to do the Fa­ther’s will. I would, there­fore, that you should do to all men that which you know I would do to them in like cir­cum­stances.”

• love God and learn to do his will

149:6.7“You have been taught that you should ‘fear God and keep his com­mand­ments, for that is the whole duty of man.’ But I have come to give you a new and higher com­mand­ment. I would teach you to ‘love God and learn to do his will, for that is the high­est priv­i­lege of the lib­er­ated sons of God.’ Your fa­thers were taught to ‘fear God—the Al­mighty King.’ I teach you, ‘Love God—the all-mer­ci­ful Fa­ther.’

• Sanhedrists deserted c. in favor of oral traditions

153:3.3Then one of the Je­ru­sa­lem spies who had been ob­serv­ing Je­sus and his apos­tles, said: “We no­tice that nei­ther you nor your apos­tles wash your hands prop­erly be­fore you eat bread. You must well know that such a prac­tice as eat­ing with de­filed and un­washed hands is a trans­gres­sion of the law of the el­ders. Nei­ther do you prop­erly wash your drink­ing cups and eat­ing ves­sels. Why is it that you show such dis­re­spect for the tra­di­tions of the fa­thers and the laws of our el­ders?” And when Je­sus heard him speak, he an­swered: “Why is it that you transgress the com­mand­ments of God by the laws of your tra­di­tion? The com­mand­ment says, ‘Honor your fa­ther and your mother,’ and di­rects that you share with them your sub­stance if nec­es­sary; but you en­act a law of tra­di­tion which per­mits un­du­ti­ful chil­dren to say that the money where­with the par­ents might have been as­sisted has been ‘given to God.’ The law of the el­ders thus re­lieves such crafty chil­dren of their re­spon­si­bil­ity, not­with­stand­ing that the chil­dren sub­se­quently use all such monies for their own com­fort. Why is it that you in this way make void the com­mand­ment by your own tra­di­tion? Well did Isa­iah proph­esy of you hyp­ocrites, say­ing: ‘This peo­ple hon­ors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they wor­ship me, teach­ing as their doc­trines the pre­cepts of men.’

153:3.4“You can see how it is that you desert the com­mand­ment while you hold fast to the tra­di­tion of men. Al­to­gether will­ing are you to re­ject the word of God while you main­tain your own tra­di­tions. And in many other ways do you dare to set up your own teach­ings above the law and the proph­ets.”

153:3.5Je­sus then di­rected his re­marks to all pres­ent. He said: “But hear­ken to me, all of you. It is not that which en­ters into the mouth that spir­i­tu­ally de­files the man, but rather that which pro­ceeds out of the mouth and from the heart.” But even the apos­tles failed fully to grasp the mean­ing of his words, for Si­mon Pe­ter also asked him: “Lest some of your hear­ers be un­nec­es­sar­ily of­fended, would you ex­plain to us the mean­ing of these words?” And then said Je­sus to Pe­ter: “Are you also hard of un­der­stand­ing? Know you not that ev­ery plant which my heav­enly Fa­ther has not planted shall be rooted up? Turn now your at­ten­tion to those who would know the truth. You can­not com­pel men to love the truth. Many of these teach­ers are blind guides. And you know that, if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the pit. But hear­ken while I tell you the truth con­cern­ing those things which morally de­file and spir­i­tu­ally con­tam­i­nate men. I de­clare it is not that which en­ters the body by the mouth or gains ac­cess to the mind through the eyes and ears, that de­files the man. Man is only de­filed by that evil which may orig­i­nate within the heart, and which finds ex­pres­sion in the words and deeds of such un­holy per­sons. Do you not know it is from the heart that there come forth evil thoughts, wicked projects of mur­der, theft, and adul­ter­ies, to­gether with jeal­ousy, pride, anger, re­venge, rail­ings, and false wit­ness? And it is just such things that de­file men, and not that they eat bread with cer­e­mo­ni­ally un­clean hands.”

153:3.6The Phar­i­saic com­mis­sion­ers of the Je­ru­sa­lem San­hedrin were now al­most con­vinced that Je­sus must be ap­pre­hended on a charge of blas­phemy or on one of flout­ing the sa­cred law of the Jews; where­fore their ef­forts to in­volve him in the dis­cus­sion of, and pos­si­ble at­tack upon, some of the tra­di­tions of the el­ders, or so-called oral laws of the na­tion. No mat­ter how scarce wa­ter might be, these tra­di­tion­ally en­slaved Jews would never fail to go through with the re­quired cer­e­mo­nial wash­ing of the hands be­fore ev­ery meal. It was their be­lief that “it is bet­ter to die than to transgress the com­mand­ments of the el­ders.” The spies asked this ques­tion be­cause it had been re­ported that Je­sus had said, “Sal­va­tion is a mat­ter of clean hearts rather than of clean hands.” But such be­liefs, when they once be­come a part of one’s re­li­gion, are hard to get away from. Even many years af­ter this day the Apos­tle Pe­ter was still held in the bond­age of fear to many of these tra­di­tions about things clean and un­clean, only be­ing fi­nally de­liv­ered by ex­pe­ri­enc­ing an ex­traor­di­nary and vivid dream. All of this can the bet­ter be un­der­stood when it is re­called that these Jews looked upon eat­ing with un­washed hands in the same light as com­merce with a har­lot, and both were equally pun­ish­able by ex­com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

153:3.7Thus did the Mas­ter elect to dis­cuss and ex­pose the folly of the whole rab­binic sys­tem of rules and reg­u­la­tions which was rep­re­sented by the oral law—the tra­di­tions of the el­ders, all of which were re­garded as more sa­cred and more bind­ing upon the Jews than even the teach­ings of the Scrip­tures. And Je­sus spoke out with less re­serve be­cause he knew the hour had come when he could do noth­ing more to pre­vent an open rup­ture of re­la­tions with these re­li­gious lead­ers.

• love one another as Jesus loves us

155:3.4In­creas­ingly they learned from Je­sus to look upon hu­man per­son­al­i­ties in terms of their pos­si­bil­i­ties in time and in eter­nity. They learned that many souls can best be led to love the un­seen God by be­ing first taught to love their breth­ren whom they can see. And it was in this con­nec­tion that new mean­ing be­came at­tached to the Mas­ter’s pro­nounce­ment con­cern­ing un­selfish ser­vice for one’s fel­lows: “Inas­much as you did it to one of the least of my breth­ren, you did it to me.”

• 10 of Moses

163:2.4Then An­drew brought to Je­sus a cer­tain rich young man who was a de­vout be­liever, and who de­sired to re­ceive or­di­na­tion. This young man, Mata­dor­mus, was a mem­ber of the Je­ru­sa­lem San­hedrin; he had heard Je­sus teach and had been sub­se­quently in­structed in the gospel of the king­dom by Pe­ter and the other apos­tles. Je­sus talked with Mata­dor­mus con­cern­ing the re­quire­ments of or­di­na­tion and re­quested that he de­fer de­ci­sion un­til af­ter he had thought more fully about the mat­ter. Early the next morn­ing, as Je­sus was go­ing for a walk, this young man ac­costed him and said: “Mas­ter, I would know from you the as­sur­ances of eter­nal life. See­ing that I have ob­served all the com­mand­ments from my youth, I would like to know what more I must do to gain eter­nal life?” In an­swer to this ques­tion Je­sus said: “If you keep all the com­mand­ments—do not com­mit adul­tery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false wit­ness, do not de­fraud, honor your par­ents—you do well, but sal­va­tion is the re­ward of faith, not merely of works. Do you be­lieve this gospel of the king­dom?” And Mata­dor­mus an­swered: “Yes, Mas­ter, I do be­lieve ev­ery­thing you and your apos­tles have taught me.” And Je­sus said, “Then are you in­deed my dis­ci­ple and a child of the king­dom.”

• 2 great
• Pharisees taught 613 rules

163:4.87. Teach that man’s whole duty is summed up in this one com­mand­ment: Love the Lord your God with all your mind and soul and your neigh­bor as your­self. (This they were to teach as man’s whole duty in place of the 613 rules of liv­ing ex­pounded by the Phar­isees.)

174:4.1An­other group of Sad­ducees had been in­structed to ask Je­sus en­tan­gling ques­tions about an­gels, but when they be­held the fate of their com­rades who had sought to en­trap him with ques­tions con­cern­ing the res­ur­rec­tion, they very wisely de­cided to hold their peace; they re­tired with­out ask­ing a ques­tion. It was the pre­ar­ranged plan of the con­fed­er­ated Phar­isees, scribes, Sad­ducees, and Hero­di­ans to fill up the en­tire day with these en­tan­gling ques­tions, hop­ing thereby to dis­credit Je­sus be­fore the peo­ple and at the same time ef­fec­tively to pre­vent his hav­ing any time for the procla­ma­tion of his dis­turb­ing teach­ings.

174:4.2Then came for­ward one of the groups of the Phar­isees to ask ha­rass­ing ques­tions, and the spokesman, sig­nal­ing to Je­sus, said: “Mas­ter, I am a lawyer, and I would like to ask you which, in your opin­ion, is the great­est com­mand­ment?” Je­sus an­swered: “There is but one com­mand­ment, and that one is the great­est of all, and that com­mand­ment is: ‘Hear O Is­rael, the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.’ This is the first and great com­mand­ment. And the sec­ond com­mand­ment is like this first; in­deed, it springs di­rectly there­from, and it is: ‘You shall love your neigh­bor as your­self.’ There is no other com­mand­ment greater than these; on these two com­mand­ments hang all the law and the proph­ets.”

174:4.3When the lawyer per­ceived that Je­sus had an­swered not only in ac­cor­dance with the high­est con­cept of Jew­ish re­li­gion, but that he had also an­swered wisely in the sight of the as­sem­bled mul­ti­tude, he thought it the bet­ter part of valor openly to com­mend the Mas­ter’s re­ply. Ac­cord­ingly, he said: “Of a truth, Mas­ter, you have well said that God is one and there is none be­side him; and that to love him with all the heart, un­der­stand­ing, and strength, and also to love one’s neigh­bor as one’s self, is the first and great com­mand­ment; and we are agreed that this great com­mand­ment is much more to be re­garded than all the burnt of­fer­ings and sac­ri­fices.” When the lawyer an­swered thus dis­creetly, Je­sus looked down upon him and said, “My friend, I per­ceive that you are not far from the king­dom of God.”

174:4.4Je­sus spoke the truth when he re­ferred to this lawyer as be­ing “not far from the king­dom,” for that very night he went out to the Mas­ter’s camp near Geth­sem­ane, pro­fessed faith in the gospel of the king­dom, and was bap­tized by Josiah, one of the dis­ci­ples of Ab­ner.

174:4.5Two or three other groups of the scribes and Phar­isees were pres­ent and had in­tended to ask ques­tions, but they were ei­ther dis­armed by Je­sus’ an­swer to the lawyer, or they were de­terred by the dis­com­fi­ture of all who had un­der­taken to en­snare him. Af­ter this no man dared to ask him an­other ques­tion in pub­lic.

174:4.6When no more ques­tions were forth­com­ing, and as the noon hour was near, Je­sus did not re­sume his teach­ing but was con­tent merely to ask the Phar­isees and their as­so­ciates a ques­tion. Said Je­sus: “Since you ask no more ques­tions, I would like to ask you one. What do you think of the De­liv­erer? That is, whose son is he?” Af­ter a brief pause one of the scribes an­swered, “The Mes­siah is the son of David.” And since Je­sus knew that there had been much de­bate, even among his own dis­ci­ples, as to whether or not he was the son of David, he asked this fur­ther ques­tion: “If the De­liv­erer is in­deed the son of David, how is it that, in the Psalm which you ac­credit to David, he him­self, speak­ing in the spirit, says, ‘The Lord said to my lord, sit on my right hand un­til I make your en­e­mies the foot­stool of your feet.’ If David calls him Lord, how then can he be his son?” Al­though the rulers, the scribes, and the chief priests made no re­ply to this ques­tion, they like­wise re­frained from ask­ing him any more ques­tions in an ef­fort to en­tan­gle him. They never an­swered this ques­tion which Je­sus put to them, but af­ter the Mas­ter’s death they at­tempted to es­cape the dif­fi­culty by chang­ing the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of this Psalm so as to make it re­fer to Abra­ham in­stead of the Mes­siah. Oth­ers sought to es­cape the dilemma by dis­al­low­ing that David was the au­thor of this so-called Mes­sianic Psalm.

174:4.7A short time back the Phar­isees had en­joyed the man­ner in which the Sad­ducees had been si­lenced by the Mas­ter; now the Sad­ducees were de­lighted by the fail­ure of the Phar­isees; but such ri­valry was only mo­men­tary; they speed­ily for­got their time-hon­ored dif­fer­ences in the united ef­fort to stop Je­sus’ teach­ings and do­ings. But through­out all of these ex­pe­ri­ences the com­mon peo­ple heard him gladly.

180:1.1Af­ter a few mo­ments of in­for­mal con­ver­sa­tion, Je­sus stood up and said: “When I en­acted for you a para­ble in­di­cat­ing how you should be will­ing to serve one an­other, I said that I de­sired to give you a new com­mand­ment; and I would do this now as I am about to leave you. You well know the com­mand­ment which di­rects that you love one an­other; that you love your neigh­bor even as your­self. But I am not wholly sat­is­fied with even that sin­cere de­vo­tion on the part of my chil­dren. I would have you per­form still greater acts of love in the king­dom of the be­liev­ing broth­er­hood. And so I give you this new com­mand­ment: That you love one an­other even as I have loved you. And by this will all men know that you are my dis­ci­ples if you thus love one an­other.

180:1.2“When I give you this new com­mand­ment, I do not place any new bur­den upon your souls; rather do I bring you new joy and make it pos­si­ble for you to ex­pe­ri­ence new plea­sure in know­ing the de­lights of the be­stowal of your heart’s af­fec­tion upon your fel­low men. I am about to ex­pe­ri­ence the su­preme joy, even though en­dur­ing out­ward sor­row, in the be­stowal of my af­fec­tion upon you and your fel­low mor­tals.

180:1.3“When I in­vite you to love one an­other, even as I have loved you, I hold up be­fore you the su­preme mea­sure of true af­fec­tion, for greater love can no man have than this: that he will lay down his life for his friends. And you are my friends; you will con­tinue to be my friends if you are but will­ing to do what I have taught you. You have called me Mas­ter, but I do not call you ser­vants. If you will only love one an­other as I am lov­ing you, you shall be my friends, and I will ever speak to you of that which the Fa­ther re­veals to me.

180:1.4“You have not merely cho­sen me, but I have also cho­sen you, and I have or­dained you to go forth into the world to yield the fruit of lov­ing ser­vice to your fel­lows even as I have lived among you and re­vealed the Fa­ther to you. The Fa­ther and I will both work with you, and you shall ex­pe­ri­ence the di­vine full­ness of joy if you will only obey my com­mand to love one an­other, even as I have loved you.”

180:1.5If you would share the Mas­ter’s joy, you must share his love. And to share his love means that you have shared his ser­vice. Such an ex­pe­ri­ence of love does not de­liver you from the dif­fi­cul­ties of this world; it does not cre­ate a new world, but it most cer­tainly does make the old world new.

180:1.6Keep in mind: It is loy­alty, not sac­ri­fice, that Je­sus de­mands. The con­scious­ness of sac­ri­fice im­plies the ab­sence of that whole­hearted af­fec­tion which would have made such a lov­ing ser­vice a su­preme joy. The idea of duty sig­ni­fies that you are ser­vant-minded and hence are miss­ing the mighty thrill of do­ing your ser­vice as a friend and for a friend. The im­pulse of friend­ship tran­scends all con­vic­tions of duty, and the ser­vice of a friend for a friend can never be called a sac­ri­fice. The Mas­ter has taught the apos­tles that they are the sons of God. He has called them breth­ren, and now, be­fore he leaves, he calls them his friends.

• the new commandment

181:2.4“Once we called you and your brother sons of thun­der. You started out with us strong-minded and in­tol­er­ant, but you have changed much since you wanted me to call fire down upon the heads of ig­no­rant and thought­less un­be­liev­ers. And you must change yet more. You should be­come the apos­tle of the new com­mand­ment which I have this night given you. Ded­i­cate your life to teach­ing your breth­ren how to love one an­other, even as I have loved you.”