inquiring Greeks

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.

190:4.1About half past four o’clock, at the home of one Flav­ius, the Mas­ter made his sixth mor­ontia ap­pear­ance to some forty Greek be­liev­ers there as­sem­bled. While they were en­gaged in dis­cussing the re­ports of the Mas­ter’s res­ur­rec­tion, he man­i­fested him­self in their midst, not­with­stand­ing that the doors were se­curely fas­tened, and speak­ing to them, said: “Peace be upon you. While the Son of Man ap­peared on earth among the Jews, he came to min­is­ter to all men. In the king­dom of my Fa­ther there shall be nei­ther Jew nor gen­tile; you will all be breth­ren—the sons of God. Go you, there­fore, to all the world, pro­claim­ing this gospel of sal­va­tion as you have re­ceived it from the am­bas­sadors of the king­dom, and I will fel­low­ship you in the broth­er­hood of the Fa­ther’s sons of faith and truth.” And when he had thus charged them, he took leave, and they saw him no more. They re­mained within the house all evening; they were too much over­come with awe and fear to ven­ture forth. Nei­ther did any of these Greeks sleep that night; they stayed awake dis­cussing these things and hop­ing that the Mas­ter might again visit them. Among this group were many of the Greeks who were at Geth­sem­ane when the sol­diers ar­rested Je­sus and Ju­das be­trayed him with a kiss.

190:4.2Ru­mors of Je­sus’ res­ur­rec­tion and re­ports con­cern­ing the many ap­pear­ances to his fol­low­ers are spread­ing rapidly, and the whole city is be­ing wrought up to a high pitch of ex­cite­ment. Al­ready the Mas­ter has ap­peared to his fam­ily, to the women, and to the Greeks, and pres­ently he man­i­fests him­self in the midst of the apos­tles. The San­hedrin is soon to be­gin the con­sid­er­a­tion of these new prob­lems which have been so sud­denly thrust upon the Jew­ish rulers. Je­sus thinks much about his apos­tles but de­sires that they be left alone for a few more hours of solemn re­flec­tion and thought­ful con­sid­er­a­tion be­fore he vis­its them.

193:0.1The six­teenth mor­ontia man­i­fes­ta­tion of Je­sus oc­curred on Fri­day, May 5, in the court­yard of Nicode­mus, about nine o’clock at night. On this evening the Je­ru­sa­lem be­liev­ers had made their first at­tempt to get to­gether since the res­ur­rec­tion. As­sem­bled here at this time were the eleven apos­tles, the women’s corps and their as­so­ciates, and about fifty other lead­ing dis­ci­ples of the Mas­ter, in­clud­ing a num­ber of the Greeks. This com­pany of be­liev­ers had been vis­it­ing in­for­mally for more than half an hour when, sud­denly, the mor­ontia Mas­ter ap­peared in full view and im­me­di­ately be­gan to in­struct them. Said Je­sus:

193:0.2“Peace be upon you. This is the most rep­re­sen­ta­tive group of be­liev­ers—apos­tles and dis­ci­ples, both men and women—to which I have ap­peared since the time of my de­liv­er­ance from the flesh. I now call you to wit­ness that I told you be­fore­hand that my so­journ among you must come to an end; I told you that pres­ently I must re­turn to the Fa­ther. And then I plainly told you how the chief priests and the rulers of the Jews would de­liver me up to be put to death, and that I would rise from the grave. Why, then, did you al­low your­selves to be­come so dis­con­certed by all this when it came to pass? and why were you so sur­prised when I rose from the tomb on the third day? You failed to be­lieve me be­cause you heard my words with­out com­pre­hend­ing the mean­ing thereof.

193:0.3“And now you should give ear to my words lest you again make the mis­take of hear­ing my teach­ing with the mind while in your hearts you fail to com­pre­hend the mean­ing. From the be­gin­ning of my so­journ as one of you, I taught you that my one pur­pose was to re­veal my Fa­ther in heaven to his chil­dren on earth. I have lived the God-re­veal­ing be­stowal that you might ex­pe­ri­ence the God-know­ing ca­reer. I have re­vealed God as your Fa­ther in heaven; I have re­vealed you as the sons of God on earth. It is a fact that God loves you, his sons. By faith in my word this fact be­comes an eter­nal and liv­ing truth in your hearts. When, by liv­ing faith, you be­come di­vinely God-con­scious, you are then born of the spirit as chil­dren of light and life, even the eter­nal life where­with you shall as­cend the uni­verse of uni­verses and at­tain the ex­pe­ri­ence of find­ing God the Fa­ther on Par­a­dise.

193:0.4“I ad­mon­ish you ever to re­mem­ber that your mis­sion among men is to pro­claim the gospel of the king­dom—the re­al­ity of the fa­ther­hood of God and the truth of the son­ship of man. Pro­claim the whole truth of the good news, not just a part of the sav­ing gospel. Your mes­sage is not changed by my res­ur­rec­tion ex­pe­ri­ence. Son­ship with God, by faith, is still the sav­ing truth of the gospel of the king­dom. You are to go forth preach­ing the love of God and the ser­vice of man. That which the world needs most to know is: Men are the sons of God, and through faith they can ac­tu­ally re­al­ize, and daily ex­pe­ri­ence, this en­nobling truth. My be­stowal should help all men to know that they are the chil­dren of God, but such knowl­edge will not suf­fice if they fail per­son­ally to faith-grasp the sav­ing truth that they are the liv­ing spirit sons of the eter­nal Fa­ther. The gospel of the king­dom is con­cerned with the love of the Fa­ther and the ser­vice of his chil­dren on earth.

193:0.5“Among your­selves, here, you share the knowl­edge that I have risen from the dead, but that is not strange. I have the power to lay down my life and to take it up again; the Fa­ther gives such power to his Par­a­dise Sons. You should the rather be stirred in your hearts by the knowl­edge that the dead of an age en­tered upon the eter­nal as­cent soon af­ter I left Joseph’s new tomb. I lived my life in the flesh to show how you can, through lov­ing ser­vice, be­come God-re­veal­ing to your fel­low men even as, by lov­ing you and serv­ing you, I have be­come God-re­veal­ing to you. I have lived among you as the Son of Man that you, and all other men, might know that you are all in­deed the sons of God. There­fore, go you now into all the world preach­ing this gospel of the king­dom of heaven to all men. Love all men as I have loved you; serve your fel­low mor­tals as I have served you. Freely you have re­ceived, freely give. Only tarry here in Je­ru­sa­lem while I go to the Fa­ther, and un­til I send you the Spirit of Truth. He shall lead you into the en­larged truth, and I will go with you into all the world. I am with you al­ways, and my peace I leave with you.”

193:0.6When the Mas­ter had spo­ken to them, he van­ished from their sight. It was near day­break be­fore these be­liev­ers dis­persed; all night they re­mained to­gether, earnestly dis­cussing the Mas­ter’s ad­mo­ni­tions and con­tem­plat­ing all that had be­fallen them. James Zeb­e­dee and oth­ers of the apos­tles also told them of their ex­pe­ri­ences with the mor­ontia Mas­ter in Gal­i­lee and re­cited how he had three times ap­peared to them.

175:0.1Shortly af­ter two o’clock on this Tues­day af­ter­noon, Je­sus, ac­com­pa­nied by eleven apos­tles, Joseph of Ari­mathea, the thirty Greeks, and cer­tain other dis­ci­ples, ar­rived at the tem­ple and be­gan the de­liv­ery of his last ad­dress in the courts of the sa­cred ed­i­fice. This dis­course was in­tended to be his last ap­peal to the Jew­ish peo­ple and the fi­nal in­dict­ment of his ve­he­ment en­e­mies and would-be de­stroy­ers—the scribes, Phar­isees, Sad­ducees, and the chief rulers of Is­rael. Through­out the forenoon the var­i­ous groups had had an op­por­tu­nity to ques­tion Je­sus; this af­ter­noon no one asked him a ques­tion.

177:3.5Shortly af­ter noon, more than twenty of the Greeks who had met with Je­sus and the twelve at the home of Joseph of Ari­mathea ar­rived at the camp, and Pe­ter and John spent sev­eral hours in con­fer­ence with them. These Greeks, at least some of them, were well ad­vanced in the knowl­edge of the king­dom, hav­ing been in­structed by Ro­dan at Alexan­dria.

177:3.6That evening, af­ter re­turn­ing to the camp, Je­sus vis­ited with the Greeks, and had it not been that such a course would have greatly dis­turbed his apos­tles and many of his lead­ing dis­ci­ples, he would have or­dained these twenty Greeks, even as he had the sev­enty.

182:2.6Then Je­sus turned to the chief of the vis­it­ing Greeks who were en­camped with them, and said: “My brother, be not dis­turbed by what is about to take place since I have al­ready fore­warned you. The Son of Man will be put to death at the in­sti­ga­tion of his en­e­mies, the chief priests and the rulers of the Jews, but I will rise to be with you a short time be­fore I go to the Fa­ther. And when you have seen all this come to pass, glo­rify God and strengthen your breth­ren.”

139:5.9The in­abil­ity of Philip to adapt him­self to a new sit­u­a­tion was well shown when the Greeks came to him at Je­ru­sa­lem, say­ing: “Sir, we de­sire to see Je­sus.” Now Philip would have said to any Jew ask­ing such a ques­tion, “Come.” But these men were for­eign­ers, and Philip could re­mem­ber no in­struc­tions from his su­pe­ri­ors re­gard­ing such mat­ters; so the only thing he could think to do was to con­sult the chief, An­drew, and then they both es­corted the in­quir­ing Greeks to Je­sus. Like­wise, when he went into Samaria preach­ing and bap­tiz­ing be­liev­ers, as he had been in­structed by his Mas­ter, he re­frained from lay­ing hands on his con­verts in to­ken of their hav­ing re­ceived the Spirit of Truth. This was done by Pe­ter and John, who pres­ently came down from Je­ru­sa­lem to ob­serve his work in be­half of the mother church.

183:0.2Al­though eight of the apos­tles were sound asleep, the Greeks who were en­camped along­side them were more fear­ful of trou­ble, so much so that they had posted a sen­tinel to give the alarm in case dan­ger should arise. When these two mes­sen­gers hur­ried into camp, the Greek sen­tinel pro­ceeded to arouse all of his fel­low coun­try­men, who streamed forth from their tents, fully dressed and fully armed. All the camp was now aroused ex­cept the eight apos­tles. Pe­ter de­sired to call his as­so­ciates, but Je­sus def­i­nitely for­bade him. The Mas­ter mildly ad­mon­ished them all to re­turn to their tents, but they were re­luc­tant to com­ply with his sug­ges­tion.