Jesus

157:5.1The new and vi­tal fea­ture of Pe­ter’s con­fes­sion was the clear-cut rec­og­ni­tion that Je­sus was the Son of God, of his un­ques­tioned di­vin­ity. Ever since his bap­tism and the wed­ding at Cana these apos­tles had var­i­ously re­garded him as the Mes­siah, but it was not a part of the Jew­ish con­cept of the na­tional de­liv­erer that he should be di­vine. The Jews had not taught that the Mes­siah would spring from di­vin­ity; he was to be the “anointed one,” but hardly had they con­tem­plated him as be­ing “the Son of God.” In the sec­ond con­fes­sion more em­pha­sis was placed upon the com­bined na­ture, the su­per­nal fact that he was the Son of Man and the Son of God, and it was upon this great truth of the union of the hu­man na­ture with the di­vine na­ture that Je­sus de­clared he would build the king­dom of heaven.

161:2.109. In his prayer life he ap­pears to com­mu­ni­cate di­rectly with his Fa­ther. We have heard few of his prayers, but these few would in­di­cate that he talks with God, as it were, face to face. He seems to know the fu­ture as well as the past. He sim­ply could not be all of this and do all of these ex­traor­di­nary things un­less he were some­thing more than hu­man. We know he is hu­man, we are sure of that, but we are al­most equally sure that he is also di­vine. We be­lieve that he is di­vine. We are con­vinced that he is the Son of Man and the Son of God.

• offered mercy to Caligastia and Daligastia

53:8.6The last act of Mi­chael be­fore leav­ing Uran­tia was to of­fer mercy to Cali­gas­tia and Dali­gas­tia, but they spurned his ten­der prof­fer. Cali­gas­tia, your apos­tate Plan­e­tary Prince, is still free on Uran­tia to pros­e­cute his ne­far­i­ous de­signs, but he has ab­so­lutely no power to en­ter the minds of men, nei­ther can he draw near to their souls to tempt or cor­rupt them un­less they re­ally de­sire to be cursed with his wicked pres­ence.

• shattered tradition and destroyed dogma

92:5.135. The first cen­tury af­ter Christ. As a re­li­gious teacher, Je­sus of Naz­a­reth started out with the cult which had been es­tab­lished by John the Bap­tist and pro­gressed as far as he could away from fasts and forms. Aside from Je­sus, Paul of Tar­sus and Philo of Alexan­dria were the great­est teach­ers of this era. Their con­cepts of re­li­gion have played a dom­i­nant part in the evo­lu­tion of that faith which bears the name of Christ.

• shattered tradition and destroyed dogma

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.

• loved men so much because he placed such a high value upon them

100:4.4In phys­i­cal life the senses tell of the ex­is­tence of things; mind dis­cov­ers the re­al­ity of mean­ings; but the spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence re­veals to the in­di­vid­ual the true val­ues of life. These high lev­els of hu­man liv­ing are at­tained in the su­preme love of God and in the un­selfish love of man. If you love your fel­low men, you must have dis­cov­ered their val­ues. Je­sus loved men so much be­cause he placed such a high value upon them. You can best dis­cover val­ues in your as­so­ciates by dis­cov­er­ing their mo­ti­va­tion. If some­one ir­ri­tates you, causes feel­ings of re­sent­ment, you should sym­pa­thet­i­cally seek to dis­cern his view­point, his rea­sons for such ob­jec­tion­able con­duct. If once you un­der­stand your neigh­bor, you will be­come tol­er­ant, and this tol­er­ance will grow into friend­ship and ripen into love.

• faith of Jesus
• faith of Jesus › perfect but never presumptuous

100:7.7Of Je­sus it was truly said, “He trusted God.” As a man among men he most sub­limely trusted the Fa­ther in heaven. He trusted his Fa­ther as a lit­tle child trusts his earthly par­ent. His faith was per­fect but never pre­sump­tu­ous. No mat­ter how cruel na­ture might ap­pear to be or how in­dif­fer­ent to man’s wel­fare on earth, Je­sus never fal­tered in his faith. He was im­mune to dis­ap­point­ment and im­per­vi­ous to per­se­cu­tion. He was un­touched by ap­par­ent fail­ure.

• faith of Jesus › in us

100:7.9Je­sus was an un­usu­ally cheer­ful per­son, but he was not a blind and un­rea­son­ing op­ti­mist. His con­stant word of ex­hor­ta­tion was, “Be of good cheer.” He could main­tain this con­fi­dent at­ti­tude be­cause of his unswerv­ing trust in God and his un­shak­able con­fi­dence in man. He was al­ways touch­ingly con­sid­er­ate of all men be­cause he loved them and be­lieved in them. Still he was al­ways true to his con­vic­tions and mag­nif­i­cently firm in his de­vo­tion to the do­ing of his Fa­ther’s will.

• loved the sinner, hated the sin

100:7.11He was can­did, but al­ways kind. Said he, “If it were not so, I would have told you.” He was frank, but al­ways friendly. He was out­spo­ken in his love for the sin­ner and in his ha­tred for sin. But through­out all this amaz­ing frank­ness he was unerringly fair.

• faith of Jesus › provides 7 levels of salvation

101:6.8The teach­ings of Je­sus con­sti­tuted the first Uran­tian re­li­gion which so fully em­braced a har­mo­nious co-or­di­na­tion of knowl­edge, wis­dom, faith, truth, and love as com­pletely and si­mul­ta­ne­ously to pro­vide tem­po­ral tran­quil­lity, in­tel­lec­tual cer­tainty, moral en­light­en­ment, philo­sophic sta­bil­ity, eth­i­cal sen­si­tiv­ity, God-con­scious­ness, and the pos­i­tive as­sur­ance of per­sonal sur­vival. The faith of Je­sus pointed the way to fi­nal­ity of hu­man sal­va­tion, to the ul­ti­mate of mor­tal uni­verse at­tain­ment, since it pro­vided for:

101:6.91. Sal­va­tion from ma­te­rial fet­ters in the per­sonal re­al­iza­tion of son­ship with God, who is spirit.

101:6.102. Sal­va­tion from in­tel­lec­tual bond­age: man shall know the truth, and the truth shall set him free.

101:6.113. Sal­va­tion from spir­i­tual blind­ness, the hu­man re­al­iza­tion of the fra­ter­nity of mor­tal be­ings and the mor­ontian aware­ness of the broth­er­hood of all uni­verse crea­tures; the ser­vice-dis­cov­ery of spir­i­tual re­al­ity and the min­istry-rev­e­la­tion of the good­ness of spirit val­ues.

101:6.124. Sal­va­tion from in­com­plete­ness of self through the at­tain­ment of the spirit lev­els of the uni­verse and through the even­tual re­al­iza­tion of the har­mony of Ha­vona and the per­fec­tion of Par­a­dise.

101:6.135. Sal­va­tion from self, de­liv­er­ance from the lim­i­ta­tions of self-con­scious­ness through the at­tain­ment of the cos­mic lev­els of the Su­preme Mind and by co-or­di­na­tion with the at­tain­ments of all other self-con­scious be­ings.

101:6.146. Sal­va­tion from time, the achieve­ment of an eter­nal life of un­end­ing pro­gres­sion in God-rec­og­ni­tion and God-ser­vice.

101:6.157. Sal­va­tion from the fi­nite, the per­fected one­ness with De­ity in and through the Su­preme by which the crea­ture at­tempts the tran­scen­den­tal dis­cov­ery of the Ul­ti­mate on the post­fi­naliter lev­els of the ab­so­nite.

• faith of Jesus › nourished by, and revelatory of, realities beyond the Ultimate

101:6.16Such a sev­en­fold sal­va­tion is the equiv­a­lent of the com­plete­ness and per­fec­tion of the re­al­iza­tion of the ul­ti­mate ex­pe­ri­ence of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. And all this, in po­ten­tial, is con­tained within the re­al­ity of the faith of the hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence of re­li­gion. And it can be so con­tained since the faith of Je­sus was nour­ished by, and was rev­e­la­tory of, even re­al­i­ties be­yond the ul­ti­mate; the faith of Je­sus ap­proached the sta­tus of a uni­verse ab­so­lute in so far as such is pos­si­ble of man­i­fes­ta­tion in the evolv­ing cos­mos of time and space.

• faith of Jesus › man foretastes eternity by appropriating

101:6.17Through the ap­pro­pri­a­tion of the faith of Je­sus, mor­tal man can fore­taste in time the re­al­i­ties of eter­nity. Je­sus made the dis­cov­ery, in hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence, of the Fi­nal Fa­ther, and his broth­ers in the flesh of mor­tal life can fol­low him along this same ex­pe­ri­ence of Fa­ther dis­cov­ery. They can even at­tain, as they are, the same sat­is­fac­tion in this ex­pe­ri­ence with the Fa­ther as did Je­sus as he was. New po­ten­tials were ac­tu­al­ized in the uni­verse of Neb­a­don con­se­quent upon the ter­mi­nal be­stowal of Mi­chael, and one of these was the new il­lu­mi­na­tion of the path of eter­nity that leads to the Fa­ther of all, and which can be tra­versed even by the mor­tals of ma­te­rial flesh and blood in the ini­tial life on the plan­ets of space. Je­sus was and is the new and liv­ing way whereby man can come into the di­vine in­her­i­tance which the Fa­ther has de­creed shall be his for but the ask­ing. In Je­sus there is abun­dantly demon­strated both the be­gin­nings and end­ings of the faith ex­pe­ri­ence of hu­man­ity, even of di­vine hu­man­ity.

• flouted Jewish sacred traditions

121:7.3The scribes, the Phar­isees, and the priest­hood held the Jews in a ter­ri­ble bond­age of rit­u­al­ism and le­gal­ism, a bond­age far more real than that of the Ro­man po­lit­i­cal rule. The Jews of Je­sus’ time were not only held in sub­ju­ga­tion to the law but were equally bound by the slav­ish de­mands of the tra­di­tions, which in­volved and in­vaded ev­ery do­main of per­sonal and so­cial life. These minute reg­u­la­tions of con­duct pur­sued and dom­i­nated ev­ery loyal Jew, and it is not strange that they promptly re­jected one of their num­ber who pre­sumed to ig­nore their sa­cred tra­di­tions, and who dared to flout their long-hon­ored reg­u­la­tions of so­cial con­duct. They could hardly re­gard with fa­vor the teach­ings of one who did not hes­i­tate to clash with dog­mas which they re­garded as hav­ing been or­dained by Fa­ther Abra­ham him­self. Moses had given them their law and they would not com­pro­mise.

• concealed matters which might cause him to look different

124:4.1This was an event­ful year in Je­sus’ life. He con­tin­ued to make prog­ress at school and was in­de­fati­ga­ble in his study of na­ture, while in­creas­ingly he pros­e­cuted his study of the meth­ods whereby men make a liv­ing. He be­gan do­ing reg­u­lar work in the home car­pen­ter shop and was per­mit­ted to man­age his own earn­ings, a very un­usual ar­range­ment to ob­tain in a Jew­ish fam­ily. This year he also learned the wis­dom of keep­ing such mat­ters a se­cret in the fam­ily. He was be­com­ing con­scious of the way in which he had caused trou­ble in the vil­lage, and hence­forth he be­came in­creas­ingly dis­creet in con­ceal­ing ev­ery­thing which might cause him to be re­garded as dif­fer­ent from his fel­lows.

• experienced doubt

124:4.2Through­out this year he ex­pe­ri­enced many sea­sons of un­cer­tainty, if not ac­tual doubt, re­gard­ing the na­ture of his mis­sion. His nat­u­rally de­vel­op­ing hu­man mind did not yet fully grasp the re­al­ity of his dual na­ture. The fact that he had a sin­gle per­son­al­ity ren­dered it dif­fi­cult for his con­scious­ness to rec­og­nize the dou­ble ori­gin of those fac­tors which com­posed the na­ture as­so­ci­ated with that self­same per­son­al­ity.

• seldom corrected misunderstandings

124:4.5This year Je­sus paid more at­ten­tion than ever to mu­sic, and he con­tin­ued to teach the home school for his broth­ers and sis­ters. It was at about this time that the lad be­came keenly con­scious of the dif­fer­ence be­tween the view­points of Joseph and Mary re­gard­ing the na­ture of his mis­sion. He pon­dered much over his par­ents’ dif­fer­ing opin­ions, of­ten hear­ing their dis­cus­sions when they thought he was sound asleep. More and more he in­clined to the view of his fa­ther, so that his mother was des­tined to be hurt by the re­al­iza­tion that her son was grad­u­ally re­ject­ing her guid­ance in mat­ters hav­ing to do with his life ca­reer. And, as the years passed, this breach of un­der­stand­ing widened. Less and less did Mary com­pre­hend the sig­nif­i­cance of Je­sus’ mis­sion, and in­creas­ingly was this good mother hurt by the fail­ure of her fa­vorite son to ful­fill her fond ex­pec­ta­tions.

• sickened by irreverence of Jerusalem temple

125:0.3From the time they left Naz­a­reth un­til they reached the sum­mit of the Mount of Olives, Je­sus ex­pe­ri­enced one long stress of ex­pec­tant an­tic­i­pa­tion. All through a joy­ful child­hood he had rev­er­ently heard of Je­ru­sa­lem and its tem­ple; now he was soon to be­hold them in re­al­ity. From the Mount of Olives and from the out­side, on closer in­spec­tion, the tem­ple had been all and more than Je­sus had ex­pected; but when he once en­tered its sa­cred por­tals, the great dis­il­lu­sion­ment be­gan.

125:0.4In com­pany with his par­ents Je­sus passed through the tem­ple precincts on his way to join that group of new sons of the law who were about to be con­se­crated as cit­i­zens of Is­rael. He was a lit­tle dis­ap­pointed by the gen­eral de­meanor of the tem­ple throngs, but the first great shock of the day came when his mother took leave of them on her way to the women’s gallery. It had never oc­curred to Je­sus that his mother was not to ac­com­pany him to the con­se­cra­tion cer­e­monies, and he was thor­oughly in­dig­nant that she was made to suf­fer from such un­just dis­crim­i­na­tion. While he strongly re­sented this, aside from a few re­marks of protest to his fa­ther, he said noth­ing. But he thought, and thought deeply, as his ques­tions to the scribes and teach­ers a week later dis­closed.

125:1.1Ev­ery­where Je­sus went through­out the tem­ple courts, he was shocked and sick­ened by the spirit of ir­rev­er­ence which he ob­served. He deemed the con­duct of the tem­ple throngs to be in­con­sis­tent with their pres­ence in “his Fa­ther’s house.” But he re­ceived the shock of his young life when his fa­ther es­corted him into the court of the gen­tiles with its noisy jar­gon, loud talk­ing and curs­ing, min­gled in­dis­crim­i­nately with the bleat­ing of sheep and the bab­ble of noises which be­trayed the pres­ence of the money-chang­ers and the ven­dors of sac­ri­fi­cial an­i­mals and sundry other com­mer­cial com­modi­ties.

125:1.2But most of all was his sense of pro­pri­ety out­raged by the sight of the frivolous cour­te­sans parad­ing about within this precinct of the tem­ple, just such painted women as he had so re­cently seen when on a visit to Sep­pho­ris. This pro­fa­na­tion of the tem­ple fully aroused all his youth­ful in­dig­na­tion, and he did not hes­i­tate to ex­press him­self freely to Joseph.

125:1.3Je­sus ad­mired the sen­ti­ment and ser­vice of the tem­ple, but he was shocked by the spir­i­tual ug­li­ness which he be­held on the faces of so many of the un­think­ing wor­shipers.

125:1.4They now passed down to the priests’ court be­neath the rock ledge in front of the tem­ple, where the al­tar stood, to ob­serve the killing of the droves of an­i­mals and the wash­ing away of the blood from the hands of the of­fi­ci­at­ing slaugh­ter priests at the bronze foun­tain. The blood­stained pave­ment, the gory hands of the priests, and the sounds of the dy­ing an­i­mals were more than this na­ture-lov­ing lad could stand. The ter­ri­ble sight sick­ened this boy of Naz­a­reth; he clutched his fa­ther’s arm and begged to be taken away. They walked back through the court of the gen­tiles, and even the coarse laugh­ter and pro­fane jest­ing which he there heard were a re­lief from the sights he had just be­held.

125:1.5Joseph saw how his son had sick­ened at the sight of the tem­ple rites and wisely led him around to view the “Gate Beau­ti­ful,” the artis­tic gate made of Corinthian bronze. But Je­sus had had enough for his first visit at the tem­ple. They re­turned to the up­per court for Mary and walked about in the open air and away from the crowds for an hour, view­ing the As­monean palace, the stately home of Herod, and the tower of the Ro­man guards. Dur­ing this stroll Joseph ex­plained to Je­sus that only the in­hab­i­tants of Je­ru­sa­lem were per­mit­ted to wit­ness the daily sac­ri­fices in the tem­ple, and that the dwellers in Gal­i­lee came up only three times a year to par­tic­i­pate in the tem­ple wor­ship: at the Pass­over, at the feast of Pen­te­cost (seven weeks af­ter Pass­over), and at the feast of taber­na­cles in Oc­to­ber. These feasts were es­tab­lished by Moses. They then dis­cussed the two later es­tab­lished feasts of the ded­i­ca­tion and of Purim. Af­ter­ward they went to their lodg­ings and made ready for the cel­e­bra­tion of the Pass­over.

• Jesus did not › take unfair advantage of opponents

125:5.8And all the day through, those who lis­tened mar­veled at these ques­tions, and none was more as­ton­ished than Si­mon. For more than four hours this Naz­a­reth youth plied these Jew­ish teach­ers with thought-pro­vok­ing and heart-search­ing ques­tions. He made few com­ments on the re­marks of his el­ders. He con­veyed his teach­ing by the ques­tions he would ask. By the deft and sub­tle phras­ing of a ques­tion he would at one and the same time chal­lenge their teach­ing and sug­gest his own. In the man­ner of his ask­ing a ques­tion there was an ap­peal­ing com­bi­na­tion of sagac­ity and hu­mor which en­deared him even to those who more or less re­sented his youth­ful­ness. He was al­ways em­i­nently fair and con­sid­er­ate in the ask­ing of these pen­e­trat­ing ques­tions. On this event­ful af­ter­noon in the tem­ple he ex­hib­ited that same re­luc­tance to take un­fair ad­van­tage of an op­po­nent which char­ac­ter­ized his en­tire sub­se­quent pub­lic min­istry. As a youth, and later on as a man, he seemed to be ut­terly free from all ego­is­tic de­sire to win an ar­gu­ment merely to ex­pe­ri­ence log­i­cal tri­umph over his fel­lows, be­ing in­ter­ested su­premely in just one thing: to pro­claim ev­er­last­ing truth and thus ef­fect a fuller rev­e­la­tion of the eter­nal God.

• sat at no man’s feet

126:2.3Je­sus cheer­fully ac­cepted the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties so sud­denly thrust upon him, and he car­ried them faith­fully to the end. At least one great prob­lem and an­tic­i­pated dif­fi­culty in his life had been trag­i­cally solved—he would not now be ex­pected to go to Je­ru­sa­lem to study un­der the rab­bis. It re­mained al­ways true that Je­sus “sat at no man’s feet.” He was ever will­ing to learn from even the hum­blest of lit­tle chil­dren, but he never de­rived au­thor­ity to teach truth from hu­man sources.

• concealed matters which might cause him to look different

126:3.14But Je­sus was learn­ing not to speak of all his thoughts, not to pre­sent all his ideas to the world, not even to his own mother. From this year on, Je­sus’ dis­clo­sures about what was go­ing on in his mind steadily di­min­ished; that is, he talked less about those things which an av­er­age per­son could not grasp, and which would lead to his be­ing re­garded as pe­cu­liar or dif­fer­ent from or­di­nary folks. To all ap­pear­ances he be­came com­mon­place and con­ven­tional, though he did long for some­one who could un­der­stand his prob­lems. He craved a trust­wor­thy and con­fi­den­tial friend, but his prob­lems were too com­plex for his hu­man as­so­ciates to com­pre­hend. The unique­ness of the un­usual sit­u­a­tion com­pelled him to bear his bur­dens alone.

• awareness of pre-existence, divinity

127:0.1As Je­sus en­tered upon his ado­les­cent years, he found him­self the head and sole sup­port of a large fam­ily. Within a few years af­ter his fa­ther’s death all their prop­erty was gone. As time passed, he be­came in­creas­ingly con­scious of his pre-ex­is­tence; at the same time he be­gan more fully to re­al­ize that he was pres­ent on earth and in the flesh for the ex­press pur­pose of re­veal­ing his Par­a­dise Fa­ther to the chil­dren of men.

• seldom corrected misunderstandings

127:1.7By the end of this year he had just about made up his mind that he would, af­ter rear­ing his fam­ily and see­ing them mar­ried, en­ter pub­licly upon his work as a teacher of truth and as a re­vealer of the heav­enly Fa­ther to the world. He knew he was not to be­come the ex­pected Jew­ish Mes­siah, and he con­cluded that it was next to use­less to dis­cuss these mat­ters with his mother; he de­cided to al­low her to en­ter­tain what­ever ideas she might choose since all he had said in the past had made lit­tle or no im­pres­sion upon her and he re­called that his fa­ther had never been able to say any­thing that would change her mind. From this year on he talked less and less with his mother, or any­one else, about these prob­lems. His was such a pe­cu­liar mis­sion that no one liv­ing on earth could give him ad­vice con­cern­ing its pros­e­cu­tion.

127:1.8He was a real though youth­ful fa­ther to the fam­ily; he spent ev­ery pos­si­ble hour with the young­sters, and they truly loved him. His mother grieved to see him work so hard; she sor­rowed that he was day by day toil­ing at the car­pen­ter’s bench earn­ing a liv­ing for the fam­ily in­stead of be­ing, as they had so fondly planned, at Je­ru­sa­lem study­ing with the rab­bis. While there was much about her son that Mary could not un­der­stand, she did love him, and she most thor­oughly ap­pre­ci­ated the will­ing man­ner in which he shoul­dered the re­spon­si­bil­ity of the home.

• concealed matters which might cause him to look different

127:2.7Je­sus’ po­si­tion was made more dif­fi­cult be­cause his mother and un­cle, and even his younger brother James, all urged him to join the na­tion­al­ist cause. All the bet­ter Jews of Naz­a­reth had en­listed, and those young men who had not joined the move­ment would all en­list the mo­ment Je­sus changed his mind. He had but one wise coun­selor in all Naz­a­reth, his old teacher, the chazan, who coun­seled him about his re­ply to the cit­i­zens’ com­mit­tee of Naz­a­reth when they came to ask for his an­swer to the pub­lic ap­peal which had been made. In all Je­sus’ young life this was the very first time he had con­sciously re­sorted to pub­lic strat­egy. Thereto­fore, al­ways had he de­pended upon a frank state­ment of truth to clar­ify the sit­u­a­tion, but now he could not de­clare the full truth. He could not in­ti­mate that he was more than a man; he could not dis­close his idea of the mis­sion which awaited his at­tain­ment of a riper man­hood. De­spite these lim­i­ta­tions his re­li­gious fealty and na­tional loy­alty were di­rectly chal­lenged. His fam­ily was in a tur­moil, his youth­ful friends in di­vi­sion, and the en­tire Jew­ish con­tin­gent of the town in a hub­bub. And to think that he was to blame for it all! And how in­no­cent he had been of all in­ten­tion to make trou­ble of any kind, much less a dis­tur­bance of this sort.

• interested in, loved, all types of people

127:3.7Upon re­turn­ing to Naz­a­reth, Je­sus be­gan work in the old fam­ily re­pair shop and was greatly cheered by be­ing able to meet so many peo­ple each day from all parts of the coun­try and sur­round­ing dis­tricts. Je­sus truly loved peo­ple—just com­mon folks. Each month he made his pay­ments on the shop and, with James’s help, con­tin­ued to pro­vide for the fam­ily.

• Jesus did not › select his parents

128:0.1As Je­sus of Naz­a­reth en­tered upon the early years of his adult life, he had lived, and con­tin­ued to live, a nor­mal and av­er­age hu­man life on earth. Je­sus came into this world just as other chil­dren come; he had noth­ing to do with se­lect­ing his par­ents. He did choose this par­tic­u­lar world as the planet whereon to carry out his sev­enth and fi­nal be­stowal, his in­car­na­tion in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, but oth­er­wise he en­tered the world in a nat­u­ral man­ner, grow­ing up as a child of the realm and wrestling with the vi­cis­si­tudes of his en­vi­ron­ment just as do other mor­tals on this and on sim­i­lar worlds.

• awareness of pre-existence, divinity
• experienced doubt

128:1.8Of his hu­man na­ture he was never in doubt; it was self-ev­i­dent and al­ways pres­ent in his con­scious­ness. But of his di­vine na­ture there was al­ways room for doubt and con­jec­ture, at least this was true right up to the event of his bap­tism. The self-re­al­iza­tion of di­vin­ity was a slow and, from the hu­man stand­point, a nat­u­ral evo­lu­tion­ary rev­e­la­tion. This rev­e­la­tion and self-re­al­iza­tion of di­vin­ity be­gan in Je­ru­sa­lem when he was not quite thir­teen years old with the first super­nat­u­ral oc­cur­rence of his hu­man ex­is­tence; and this ex­pe­ri­ence of ef­fect­ing the self-re­al­iza­tion of his di­vine na­ture was com­pleted at the time of his sec­ond super­nat­u­ral ex­pe­ri­ence while in the flesh, the episode at­ten­dant upon his bap­tism by John in the Jor­dan, which event marked the be­gin­ning of his pub­lic ca­reer of min­istry and teach­ing.

128:1.9Be­tween these two ce­les­tial vis­i­ta­tions, one in his thir­teenth year and the other at his bap­tism, there oc­curred noth­ing super­nat­u­ral or super­hu­man in the life of this in­car­nated Cre­ator Son. Not­with­stand­ing this, the babe of Beth­le­hem, the lad, youth, and man of Naz­a­reth, was in re­al­ity the in­car­nated Cre­ator of a uni­verse; but he never once used aught of this power, nor did he uti­lize the guid­ance of ce­les­tial per­son­al­i­ties, aside from that of his guard­ian ser­a­phim, in the liv­ing of his hu­man life up to the day of his bap­tism by John. And we who thus tes­tify know whereof we speak.

128:1.10And yet, through­out all these years of his life in the flesh he was truly di­vine. He was ac­tu­ally a Cre­ator Son of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther. When once he had es­poused his pub­lic ca­reer, sub­se­quent to the tech­ni­cal com­ple­tion of his purely mor­tal ex­pe­ri­ence of sov­er­eignty ac­quire­ment, he did not hes­i­tate pub­licly to ad­mit that he was the Son of God. He did not hes­i­tate to de­clare, “I am Al­pha and Omega, the be­gin­ning and the end, the first and the last.” He made no protest in later years when he was called Lord of Glory, Ruler of a Uni­verse, the Lord God of all cre­ation, the Holy One of Is­rael, the Lord of all, our Lord and our God, God with us, hav­ing a name above ev­ery name and on all worlds, the Om­nipo­tence of a uni­verse, the Uni­verse Mind of this cre­ation, the One in whom are hid all trea­sures of wis­dom and knowl­edge, the full­ness of Him who fills all things, the eter­nal Word of the eter­nal God, the One who was be­fore all things and in whom all things con­sist, the Cre­ator of the heav­ens and the earth, the Up­holder of a uni­verse, the Judge of all the earth, the Giver of life eter­nal, the True Shep­herd, the De­liv­erer of the worlds, and the Cap­tain of our sal­va­tion.

128:1.11He never ob­jected to any of these ti­tles as they were ap­plied to him sub­se­quent to the emer­gence from his purely hu­man life into the later years of his self-con­scious­ness of the min­istry of di­vin­ity in hu­man­ity, and for hu­man­ity, and to hu­man­ity on this world and for all other worlds. Je­sus ob­jected to but one ti­tle as ap­plied to him: When he was once called Im­manuel, he merely replied, “Not I, that is my el­der brother.”

128:1.12Al­ways, even af­ter his emer­gence into the larger life on earth, Je­sus was sub­mis­sively sub­ject to the will of the Fa­ther in heaven.

128:1.13Af­ter his bap­tism he thought noth­ing of per­mit­ting his sin­cere be­liev­ers and grate­ful fol­low­ers to wor­ship him. Even while he wres­tled with pov­erty and toiled with his hands to pro­vide the ne­ces­si­ties of life for his fam­ily, his aware­ness that he was a Son of God was grow­ing; he knew that he was the maker of the heav­ens and this very earth whereon he was now liv­ing out his hu­man ex­is­tence. And the hosts of ce­les­tial be­ings through­out the great and on­look­ing uni­verse like­wise knew that this man of Naz­a­reth was their beloved Sov­er­eign and Cre­ator-fa­ther. A pro­found sus­pense per­vaded the uni­verse of Neb­a­don through­out these years; all ce­les­tial eyes were con­tin­u­ously fo­cused on Uran­tia—on Pales­tine.

• interested in, loved, all types of people

128:3.7On the Sun­day af­ter Pass­over week Si­mon and Je­sus started on their way back to Naz­a­reth. Si­mon never for­got what Je­sus taught him on this trip. He had al­ways loved Je­sus, but now he felt that he had be­gun to know his fa­ther-brother. They had many heart-to-heart talks as they jour­neyed through the coun­try and pre­pared their meals by the way­side. They ar­rived home Thurs­day noon, and Si­mon kept the fam­ily up late that night re­lat­ing his ex­pe­ri­ences.

• sat at no man’s feet

128:4.2Pres­ently this mer­chant brought be­fore Je­sus a group of twelve mer­chants and bankers who agreed to sup­port this newly pro­jected school. Je­sus man­i­fested deep in­ter­est in the pro­posed school, helped them plan for its or­ga­ni­za­tion, but al­ways ex­pressed the fear that his other and un­stated but prior obli­ga­tions would pre­vent his ac­cept­ing the di­rec­tion of such a pre­ten­tious en­ter­prise. His would-be bene­fac­tor was per­sis­tent, and he prof­itably em­ployed Je­sus at his home do­ing some trans­lat­ing while he, his wife, and their sons and daugh­ters sought to pre­vail upon Je­sus to ac­cept the prof­fered honor. But he would not con­sent. He well knew that his mis­sion on earth was not to be sup­ported by in­sti­tu­tions of learn­ing; he knew that he must not ob­li­gate him­self in the least to be di­rected by the “coun­cils of men,” no mat­ter how well-in­ten­tioned.

• avoided impression of overattractive personal career

128:4.5Je­sus most clev­erly and in­ten­tion­ally con­trived to de­tach var­i­ous episodes of his life so that they never be­came, in the eyes of the world, as­so­ci­ated to­gether as the do­ings of a sin­gle in­di­vid­ual. Many times in sub­se­quent years he lis­tened to the recital of this very story of the strange Galilean who de­clined the op­por­tu­nity of found­ing a school in Da­mas­cus to com­pete with Alexan­dria.

128:4.6One pur­pose which Je­sus had in mind, when he sought to seg­re­gate cer­tain fea­tures of his earthly ex­pe­ri­ence, was to pre­vent the build­ing up of such a ver­sa­tile and spec­tac­u­lar ca­reer as would cause sub­se­quent gen­er­a­tions to ven­er­ate the teacher in place of obey­ing the truth which he had lived and taught. Je­sus did not want to build up such a hu­man rec­ord of achieve­ment as would at­tract at­ten­tion from his teach­ing. Very early he rec­og­nized that his fol­low­ers would be tempted to for­mu­late a re­li­gion about him which might be­come a com­peti­tor of the gospel of the king­dom that he in­tended to pro­claim to the world. Ac­cord­ingly, he con­sis­tently sought to sup­press ev­ery­thing dur­ing his event­ful ca­reer which he thought might be made to serve this nat­u­ral hu­man ten­dency to ex­alt the teacher in place of pro­claim­ing his teach­ings.

• awareness of pre-existence, divinity

128:7.1As this year be­gan, Je­sus of Naz­a­reth be­came strongly con­scious that he pos­sessed a wide range of po­ten­tial power. But he was like­wise fully per­suaded that this power was not to be em­ployed by his per­son­al­ity as the Son of Man, at least not un­til his hour should come.

• avoided impression of overattractive personal career

129:1.8When it came to the pay­ment of taxes, Je­sus reg­is­tered him­self as a “skilled crafts­man of Ca­per­naum.” From this day on to the end of his earth life he was known as a res­i­dent of Ca­per­naum. He never claimed any other le­gal res­i­dence, al­though he did, for var­i­ous rea­sons, per­mit oth­ers to as­sign his res­i­dence to Da­mas­cus, Beth­any, Naz­a­reth, and even Alexan­dria.

• avoided impression of overattractive personal career

129:3.5In all your ef­forts to de­ci­pher the mean­ing of Je­sus’ life on Uran­tia, you must be mind­ful of the mo­ti­va­tion of the Mi­chael be­stowal. If you would com­pre­hend the mean­ing of many of his ap­par­ently strange do­ings, you must dis­cern the pur­pose of his so­journ on your world. He was con­sis­tently care­ful not to build up an over­at­trac­tive and at­ten­tion-con­sum­ing per­sonal ca­reer. He wanted to make no un­usual or over­pow­er­ing ap­peals to his fel­low men. He was ded­i­cated to the work of re­veal­ing the heav­enly Fa­ther to his fel­low mor­tals and at the same time was con­se­crated to the sub­lime task of liv­ing his mor­tal earth life all the while sub­ject to the will of the same Par­a­dise Fa­ther.

• interested in, loved, all types of people

129:3.8The real pur­pose of his trip around the Med­i­ter­ra­nean basin was to know men. He came very close to hun­dreds of hu­mankind on this jour­ney. He met and loved all man­ner of men, rich and poor, high and low, black and white, ed­u­cated and un­e­d­u­cated, cul­tured and un­cul­tured, an­i­mal­is­tic and spir­i­tual, re­li­gious and ir­re­li­gious, moral and im­moral.

• awareness of pre-existence, divinity

129:3.9On this Med­i­ter­ra­nean jour­ney Je­sus made great ad­vances in his hu­man task of mas­ter­ing the ma­te­rial and mor­tal mind, and his in­dwelling Ad­juster made great prog­ress in the as­cen­sion and spir­i­tual con­quest of this same hu­man in­tel­lect. By the end of this tour Je­sus vir­tu­ally knew—with all hu­man cer­tainty—that he was a Son of God, a Cre­ator Son of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. The Ad­juster more and more was able to bring up in the mind of the Son of Man shad­owy mem­o­ries of his Par­a­dise ex­pe­ri­ence in as­so­ci­a­tion with his di­vine Fa­ther ere he ever came to or­ga­nize and ad­min­is­ter this lo­cal uni­verse of Neb­a­don. Thus did the Ad­juster, lit­tle by lit­tle, bring to Je­sus’ hu­man con­scious­ness those nec­es­sary mem­o­ries of his for­mer and di­vine ex­is­tence in the var­i­ous epochs of the well-nigh eter­nal past. The last episode of his pre­hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence to be brought forth by the Ad­juster was his farewell con­fer­ence with Im­manuel of Sal­ving­ton just be­fore his sur­ren­der of con­scious per­son­al­ity to em­bark upon the Uran­tia in­car­na­tion. And this fi­nal mem­ory pic­ture of pre­hu­man ex­is­tence was made clear in Je­sus’ con­scious­ness on the very day of his bap­tism by John in the Jor­dan.

• rare good humor; not man of sorrows

129:4.4The Son of Man ex­pe­ri­enced those wide ranges of hu­man emo­tion which reach from su­perb joy to pro­found sor­row. He was a child of joy and a be­ing of rare good hu­mor; like­wise was he a “man of sor­rows and ac­quainted with grief.” In a spir­i­tual sense, he did live through the mor­tal life from the bot­tom to the top, from the be­gin­ning to the end. From a ma­te­rial point of view, he might ap­pear to have es­caped liv­ing through both so­cial ex­tremes of hu­man ex­is­tence, but in­tel­lec­tu­ally he be­came wholly fa­mil­iar with the en­tire and com­plete ex­pe­ri­ence of hu­mankind.

• very fond of doing things for people

132:4.4As might have been ex­pected, such a ver­sa­tile and ag­gres­sive man could not thus func­tion for six months in the world’s metropo­lis with­out be­ing ap­proached by nu­mer­ous per­sons who de­sired to se­cure his ser­vices in con­nec­tion with some busi­ness or, more of­ten, for some project of teach­ing, so­cial re­form, or re­li­gious move­ment. More than a dozen such prof­fers were made, and he uti­lized each one as an op­por­tu­nity for im­part­ing some thought of spir­i­tual en­no­ble­ment by well-cho­sen words or by some oblig­ing ser­vice. Je­sus was very fond of do­ing things—even lit­tle things—for all sorts of peo­ple.

• seldom corrected misunderstandings

134:1.2At the end of his Med­i­ter­ra­nean jour­ney Je­sus had re­ceived suf­fi­cient money to meet his liv­ing ex­penses al­most up to the time of the be­gin­ning of his pub­lic min­istry. But aside from Zeb­e­dee of Ca­per­naum and the peo­ple whom he met on this ex­traor­di­nary trip, the world never knew that he made this jour­ney. His fam­ily al­ways be­lieved that he spent this time in study at Alexan­dria. Je­sus never con­firmed these be­liefs, nei­ther did he make open de­nial of such mis­un­der­stand­ings.

• awareness of pre-existence, divinity

134:8.5Af­ter more than five weeks of un­bro­ken com­mu­nion with his Par­a­dise Fa­ther, Je­sus be­came ab­so­lutely as­sured of his na­ture and of the cer­tainty of his tri­umph over the ma­te­rial lev­els of time-space per­son­al­ity man­i­fes­ta­tion. He fully be­lieved in, and did not hes­i­tate to as­sert, the as­cen­dancy of his di­vine na­ture over his hu­man na­ture.

• avoided impression of overattractive personal career

134:9.9But a great change had been com­ing over Je­sus. Few of the peo­ple who had en­joyed his vis­its and min­is­tra­tions as he had gone up and down in the land ever sub­se­quently rec­og­nized in the pub­lic teacher the same per­son they had known and loved as a pri­vate in­di­vid­ual in for­mer years. And there was a rea­son for this fail­ure of his early ben­e­fi­cia­ries to rec­og­nize him in his later role of pub­lic and au­thor­i­ta­tive teacher. For long years this trans­for­ma­tion of mind and spirit had been in prog­ress, and it was fin­ished dur­ing the event­ful so­journ on Mount Her­mon.

• regular in work habits

135:8.2Je­sus’ broth­ers James and Jude had talked about go­ing down to John for bap­tism; and now that Jude had come over to Ca­per­naum for the Sab­bath ser­vices, both he and James, af­ter lis­ten­ing to Je­sus’ dis­course in the syn­a­gogue, de­cided to take coun­sel with him con­cern­ing their plans. This was on Sat­ur­day night, Jan­uary 12, A.D. 26. Je­sus re­quested that they post­pone the dis­cus­sion un­til the fol­low­ing day, when he would give them his an­swer. He slept very lit­tle that night, be­ing in close com­mu­nion with the Fa­ther in heaven. He had ar­ranged to have noon­time lunch with his broth­ers and to ad­vise them con­cern­ing bap­tism by John. That Sun­day morn­ing Je­sus was work­ing as usual in the boat­shop. James and Jude had ar­rived with the lunch and were wait­ing in the lum­ber room for him, as it was not yet time for the mid­day re­cess, and they knew that Je­sus was very reg­u­lar about such mat­ters.

• awareness of pre-existence, divinity

136:2.4When the re­turned and now ex­alted Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster had thus spo­ken, all was si­lence. And while the four of them tar­ried in the wa­ter, Je­sus, look­ing up to the near-by Ad­juster, prayed: “My Fa­ther who reigns in heaven, hal­lowed be your name. Your king­dom come! Your will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven.” When he had prayed, the “heav­ens were opened,” and the Son of Man saw the vi­sion, pre­sented by the now Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster, of him­self as a Son of God as he was be­fore he came to earth in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, and as he would be when the in­car­nated life should be fin­ished. This heav­enly vi­sion was seen only by Je­sus.

• refused to employ spirit forces for himself

136:6.1Hav­ing set­tled his pol­icy con­cern­ing all per­son­al­i­ties of all classes of his cre­ated in­tel­li­gences, so far as this could be de­ter­mined in view of the in­her­ent po­ten­tial of his new sta­tus of di­vin­ity, Je­sus now turned his thoughts to­ward him­self. What would he, now the fully self-con­scious cre­ator of all things and be­ings ex­is­tent in this uni­verse, do with these cre­ator pre­rog­a­tives in the re­cur­ring life sit­u­a­tions which would im­me­di­ately con­front him when he re­turned to Gal­i­lee to re­sume his work among men? In fact, al­ready, and right where he was in these lonely hills, had this prob­lem forcibly pre­sented it­self in the mat­ter of ob­tain­ing food. By the third day of his soli­tary med­i­ta­tions the hu­man body grew hun­gry. Should he go in quest of food as any or­di­nary man would, or should he merely ex­er­cise his nor­mal cre­ative pow­ers and pro­duce suit­able bod­ily nour­ish­ment ready at hand? And this great de­ci­sion of the Mas­ter has been por­trayed to you as a temp­ta­tion—as a chal­lenge by sup­posed en­e­mies that he “com­mand that these stones be­come loaves of bread.”

• refused to employ spirit forces for himself

136:8.1The next great prob­lem with which this God-man wres­tled and which he pres­ently de­cided in ac­cor­dance with the will of the Fa­ther in heaven, con­cerned the ques­tion as to whether or not any of his super­hu­man pow­ers should be em­ployed for the pur­pose of at­tract­ing the at­ten­tion and win­ning the ad­her­ence of his fel­low men. Should he in any man­ner lend his uni­verse pow­ers to the grat­i­fi­ca­tion of the Jew­ish han­ker­ing for the spec­tac­u­lar and the mar­velous? He de­cided that he should not. He set­tled upon a pol­icy of pro­ce­dure which elim­i­nated all such prac­tices as the method of bring­ing his mis­sion to the no­tice of men. And he con­sis­tently lived up to this great de­ci­sion. Even when he per­mit­ted the man­i­fes­ta­tion of nu­mer­ous time-short­en­ing min­is­tra­tions of mercy, he al­most in­vari­ably ad­mon­ished the re­cip­i­ents of his heal­ing min­istry to tell no man about the ben­e­fits they had re­ceived. And al­ways did he refuse the taunt­ing chal­lenge of his en­e­mies to “show us a sign” in proof and dem­on­stra­tion of his di­vin­ity.

• content with seemingly inadequate means and personalities; ignored power of wealth, great men

136:8.4Je­sus had trav­eled much; he re­called Rome, Alexan­dria, and Da­mas­cus. He knew the meth­ods of the world—how peo­ple gained their ends in pol­i­tics and com­merce by com­pro­mise and diplo­macy. Would he uti­lize this knowl­edge in the fur­ther­ance of his mis­sion on earth? No! He like­wise de­cided against all com­pro­mise with the wis­dom of the world and the in­flu­ence of riches in the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom. He again chose to de­pend ex­clu­sively on the Fa­ther’s will.

• Jesus did not › serve evil that worship of God might presumably derive therefrom

136:9.3You can hardly imag­ine what would have hap­pened on Uran­tia had this God-man, now in po­ten­tial pos­ses­sion of all power in heaven and on earth, once de­cided to un­furl the ban­ner of sov­er­eignty, to mar­shal his won­der-work­ing bat­tal­ions in mil­i­tant ar­ray! But he would not com­pro­mise. He would not serve evil that the wor­ship of God might pre­sum­ably be de­rived there­from. He would abide by the Fa­ther’s will. He would pro­claim to an on­look­ing uni­verse, “You shall wor­ship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”

• awareness of pre-existence, divinity

137:4.2Je­sus was now thor­oughly self-con­scious re­gard­ing his hu­man ex­is­tence, his di­vine pre-ex­is­tence, and the sta­tus of his com­bined, or fused, hu­man and di­vine na­tures. With per­fect poise he could at one mo­ment en­act the hu­man role or im­me­di­ately as­sume the per­son­al­ity pre­rog­a­tives of the di­vine na­ture.

• content with seemingly inadequate means and personalities; ignored power of wealth, great men

138:6.5Je­sus had a per­fect grasp of the sit­u­a­tion; he pos­sessed un­lim­ited power, which might have been uti­lized in the fur­ther­ance of his mis­sion, but he was wholly con­tent with means and per­son­al­i­ties which most peo­ple would have re­garded as in­ad­e­quate and would have looked upon as in­signif­i­cant. He was en­gaged in a mis­sion of enor­mous dra­matic pos­si­bil­i­ties, but he in­sisted on go­ing about his Fa­ther’s busi­ness in the most quiet and un­dra­matic man­ner; he stu­diously avoided all dis­play of power. And he now planned to work qui­etly, at least for sev­eral months, with his twelve apos­tles around about the Sea of Gal­i­lee.

• taught as one having authority

138:8.8Je­sus made plain to his apos­tles the dif­fer­ence be­tween the re­pen­tance of so-called good works as taught by the Jews and the change of mind by faith—the new birth—which he re­quired as the price of ad­mis­sion to the king­dom. He taught his apos­tles that faith was the only req­ui­site to en­ter­ing the Fa­ther’s king­dom. John had taught them “re­pen­tance—to flee from the wrath to come.” Je­sus taught, “Faith is the open door for en­ter­ing into the pres­ent, per­fect, and eter­nal love of God.” Je­sus did not speak like a prophet, one who comes to de­clare the word of God. He seemed to speak of him­self as one hav­ing au­thor­ity. Je­sus sought to di­vert their minds from mir­a­cle seek­ing to the find­ing of a real and per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence in the sat­is­fac­tion and as­sur­ance of the in­dwelling of God’s spirit of love and sav­ing grace.

• interested only in the individual, not the mass

138:8.9The dis­ci­ples early learned that the Mas­ter had a pro­found re­spect and sym­pa­thetic re­gard for ev­ery hu­man be­ing he met, and they were tremen­dously im­pressed by this uni­form and un­vary­ing con­sid­er­a­tion which he so con­sis­tently gave to all sorts of men, women, and chil­dren. He would pause in the midst of a pro­found dis­course that he might go out in the road to speak good cheer to a pass­ing woman laden with her bur­den of body and soul. He would in­ter­rupt a se­ri­ous con­fer­ence with his apos­tles to frat­er­nize with an in­trud­ing child. Noth­ing ever seemed so im­por­tant to Je­sus as the in­di­vid­ual hu­man who chanced to be in his im­me­di­ate pres­ence. He was mas­ter and teacher, but he was more—he was also a friend and neigh­bor, an un­der­stand­ing com­rade.

• Jesus did not › show favoritism

139:4.2Since John was the young­est of the twelve and so closely as­so­ci­ated with Je­sus in his fam­ily af­fairs, he was very dear to the Mas­ter, but it can­not be truth­fully said that he was “the dis­ci­ple whom Je­sus loved.” You would hardly sus­pect such a mag­nan­i­mous per­son­al­ity as Je­sus to be guilty of show­ing fa­voritism, of lov­ing one of his apos­tles more than the oth­ers. The fact that John was one of the three per­sonal aides of Je­sus lent fur­ther color to this mis­taken idea, not to men­tion that John, along with his brother James, had known Je­sus longer than the oth­ers.

• interested in, loved, all types of people
• interested only in the individual, not the mass

139:5.7There was lit­tle about Philip’s per­son­al­ity that was im­pres­sive. He was of­ten spo­ken of as “Philip of Beth­saida, the town where An­drew and Pe­ter live.” He was al­most with­out dis­cern­ing vi­sion; he was un­able to grasp the dra­matic pos­si­bil­i­ties of a given sit­u­a­tion. He was not pes­simistic; he was sim­ply pro­saic. He was also greatly lack­ing in spir­i­tual in­sight. He would not hes­i­tate to in­ter­rupt Je­sus in the midst of one of the Mas­ter’s most pro­found dis­courses to ask an ap­par­ently fool­ish ques­tion. But Je­sus never rep­ri­manded him for such thought­less­ness; he was pa­tient with him and con­sid­er­ate of his in­abil­ity to grasp the deeper mean­ings of the teach­ing. Je­sus well knew that, if he once re­buked Philip for ask­ing these an­noy­ing ques­tions, he would not only wound this hon­est soul, but such a rep­ri­mand would so hurt Philip that he would never again feel free to ask ques­tions. Je­sus knew that on his worlds of space there were un­told bil­lions of sim­i­lar slow-think­ing mor­tals, and he wanted to en­cour­age them all to look to him and al­ways to feel free to come to him with their ques­tions and prob­lems. Af­ter all, Je­sus was re­ally more in­ter­ested in Philip’s fool­ish ques­tions than in the ser­mon he might be preach­ing. Je­sus was su­premely in­ter­ested in men, all kinds of men.

• no respecter of persons

139:9.9And how grate­fully proud were these hum­ble men on that day when the Mas­ter re­fused to ac­cept a cer­tain rich man as an evan­ge­list un­less he would sell his goods and help the poor. When the peo­ple heard this and be­held the twins among his coun­selors, they knew of a cer­tainty that Je­sus was no re­specter of per­sons. But only a di­vine in­sti­tu­tion—the king­dom of heaven—could ever have been built upon such a mediocre hu­man foun­da­tion!

• no respecter of persons

139:12.7To Je­sus, Ju­das was a faith ad­ven­ture. From the be­gin­ning the Mas­ter fully un­der­stood the weak­ness of this apos­tle and well knew the dan­gers of ad­mit­ting him to fel­low­ship. But it is the na­ture of the Sons of God to give ev­ery cre­ated be­ing a full and equal chance for sal­va­tion and sur­vival. Je­sus wanted not only the mor­tals of this world but the on­look­ers of in­nu­mer­able other worlds to know that, when doubts ex­ist as to the sin­cer­ity and whole­heart­ed­ness of a crea­ture’s de­vo­tion to the king­dom, it is the in­vari­able prac­tice of the Judges of men fully to re­ceive the doubt­ful can­di­date. The door of eter­nal life is wide open to all; “whoso­ever will may come”; there are no re­stric­tions or qual­i­fi­ca­tions save the faith of the one who comes.

• taught as one having authority

140:3.21Never be­fore had the apos­tles heard Je­sus speak in this way, for he had talked to them as one hav­ing su­preme au­thor­ity. They came down from the moun­tain about sun­down, but no man asked Je­sus a ques­tion.

• interested only in the individual, not the mass

140:8.113. So­cial at­ti­tude. The Jew­ish rab­bis had long de­bated the ques­tion: Who is my neigh­bor? Je­sus came pre­sent­ing the idea of ac­tive and spon­ta­neous kind­ness, a love of one’s fel­low men so gen­uine that it ex­panded the neigh­bor­hood to in­clude the whole world, thereby mak­ing all men one’s neigh­bors. But with all this, Je­sus was in­ter­ested only in the in­di­vid­ual, not the mass. Je­sus was not a so­ci­ol­o­gist, but he did la­bor to break down all forms of self­ish iso­la­tion. He taught pure sym­pa­thy, com­pas­sion. Mi­chael of Neb­a­don is a mercy-dom­i­nated Son; com­pas­sion is his very na­ture.

• Jesus did not › act as economic or social reformer

140:8.154. Eco­nomic at­ti­tude. Je­sus worked, lived, and traded in the world as he found it. He was not an eco­nomic re­former, al­though he did fre­quently call at­ten­tion to the in­jus­tice of the un­equal dis­tri­bu­tion of wealth. But he did not of­fer any sug­ges­tions by way of rem­edy. He made it plain to the three that, while his apos­tles were not to hold prop­erty, he was not preach­ing against wealth and prop­erty, merely its un­equal and un­fair dis­tri­bu­tion. He rec­og­nized the need for so­cial jus­tice and in­dus­trial fair­ness, but he of­fered no rules for their at­tain­ment.

140:8.16He never taught his fol­low­ers to avoid earthly pos­ses­sions, only his twelve apos­tles. Luke, the physi­cian, was a strong be­liever in so­cial equal­ity, and he did much to in­ter­pret Je­sus’ say­ings in har­mony with his per­sonal be­liefs. Je­sus never per­son­ally di­rected his fol­low­ers to adopt a com­mu­nal mode of life; he made no pro­nounce­ment of any sort re­gard­ing such mat­ters.

140:8.17Je­sus fre­quently warned his lis­ten­ers against cov­etous­ness, declar­ing that “a man’s hap­pi­ness con­sists not in the abun­dance of his ma­te­rial pos­ses­sions.” He con­stantly re­it­er­ated, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” He made no di­rect at­tack on the pos­ses­sion of prop­erty, but he did in­sist that it is eter­nally es­sen­tial that spir­i­tual val­ues come first. In his later teach­ings he sought to cor­rect many er­ro­neous Uran­tia views of life by nar­rat­ing nu­mer­ous para­bles which he pre­sented in the course of his pub­lic min­istry. Je­sus never in­tended to for­mu­late eco­nomic the­o­ries; he well knew that each age must evolve its own reme­dies for ex­ist­ing trou­bles. And if Je­sus were on earth to­day, liv­ing his life in the flesh, he would be a great dis­ap­point­ment to the ma­jor­ity of good men and women for the sim­ple rea­son that he would not take sides in pres­ent-day po­lit­i­cal, so­cial, or eco­nomic dis­putes. He would re­main grandly aloof while teach­ing you how to per­fect your in­ner spir­i­tual life so as to ren­der you many­fold more com­pe­tent to at­tack the so­lu­tion of your purely hu­man prob­lems.

140:8.18Je­sus would make all men God­like and then stand by sym­pa­thet­i­cally while these sons of God solve their own po­lit­i­cal, so­cial, and eco­nomic prob­lems. It was not wealth that he de­nounced, but what wealth does to the ma­jor­ity of its devo­tees. On this Thurs­day af­ter­noon Je­sus first told his as­so­ciates that “it is more blessed to give than to re­ceive.”

• Jesus did not › act as economic or social reformer

140:8.31The Mas­ter of­fered no so­lu­tions for the non­re­li­gious prob­lems of his own age nor for any sub­se­quent age. Je­sus wished to de­velop spir­i­tual in­sight into eter­nal re­al­i­ties and to stim­u­late ini­tia­tive in the orig­i­nal­ity of liv­ing; he con­cerned him­self ex­clu­sively with the un­der­ly­ing and per­ma­nent spir­i­tual needs of the hu­man race. He re­vealed a good­ness equal to God. He ex­alted love—truth, beauty, and good­ness—as the di­vine ideal and the eter­nal re­al­ity.

• interested only in the individual, not the mass

140:10.5The one char­ac­ter­is­tic of Je­sus’ teach­ing was that the moral­ity of his phi­los­o­phy orig­i­nated in the per­sonal re­la­tion of the in­di­vid­ual to God—this very child-fa­ther re­la­tion­ship. Je­sus placed em­pha­sis on the in­di­vid­ual, not on the race or na­tion. While eat­ing sup­per, Je­sus had the talk with Mat­thew in which he ex­plained that the moral­ity of any act is de­ter­mined by the in­di­vid­ual’s mo­tive. Je­sus’ moral­ity was al­ways pos­i­tive. The golden rule as re­stated by Je­sus de­mands ac­tive so­cial con­tact; the older neg­a­tive rule could be obeyed in iso­la­tion. Je­sus stripped moral­ity of all rules and cer­e­monies and el­e­vated it to ma­jes­tic lev­els of spir­i­tual think­ing and truly righ­teous liv­ing.

• Jesus did not › reveal plans to apostles

141:0.1On the first day of the week, Jan­uary 19, A.D. 27, Je­sus and the twelve apos­tles made ready to de­part from their head­quar­ters in Beth­saida. The twelve knew noth­ing of their Mas­ter’s plans ex­cept that they were go­ing up to Je­ru­sa­lem to at­tend the Pass­over feast in April, and that it was the in­ten­tion to jour­ney by way of the Jor­dan val­ley. They did not get away from Zeb­e­dee’s house un­til near noon be­cause the fam­i­lies of the apos­tles and oth­ers of the dis­ci­ples had come to say good-bye and wish them well in the new work they were about to be­gin.

• Jesus did not › do what others could acceptably perform

141:1.3Je­sus did no pub­lic preach­ing. An­drew di­vided the mul­ti­tude and as­signed the preach­ers for the forenoon and af­ter­noon as­sem­blies; af­ter the evening meal Je­sus talked with the twelve. He taught them noth­ing new but re­viewed his for­mer teach­ing and an­swered their many ques­tions. On one of these evenings he told the twelve some­thing about the forty days which he spent in the hills near this place.

• content with seemingly inadequate means and personalities; ignored power of wealth, great men

141:7.8To in­sure the rec­og­ni­tion of his Fa­ther in the un­fold­ing of the plan of the king­dom, Je­sus ex­plained that he had pur­posely ig­nored the “great men of earth.” He be­gan his work with the poor, the very class which had been so ne­glected by most of the evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gions of pre­ced­ing times. He de­spised no man; his plan was world-wide, even uni­ver­sal. He was so bold and em­phatic in these an­nounce­ments that even Pe­ter, James, and John were tempted to think he might pos­si­bly be be­side him­self.

• sat at no man’s feet

141:7.12The apos­tles were be­gin­ning to rec­og­nize the un­af­fected friend­li­ness of Je­sus. Though the Mas­ter was easy of ap­proach, he al­ways lived in­de­pen­dent of, and above, all hu­man be­ings. Not for one mo­ment was he ever dom­i­nated by any purely mor­tal in­flu­ence or sub­ject to frail hu­man judg­ment. He paid no at­ten­tion to pub­lic opin­ion, and he was un­in­flu­enced by praise. He sel­dom paused to cor­rect mis­un­der­stand­ings or to re­sent mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion. He never asked any man for ad­vice; he never made re­quests for prayers.

• interested only in the individual, not the mass
• Jesus did not › interfere in matters between his and John’s apostles

144:6.3An­drew and Ab­ner al­ter­nated in pre­sid­ing over these joint meet­ings of the two apos­tolic groups. These men had many dif­fi­cul­ties to dis­cuss and nu­mer­ous prob­lems to solve. Again and again would they take their trou­bles to Je­sus, only to hear him say: “I am con­cerned only with your per­sonal and purely re­li­gious prob­lems. I am the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Fa­ther to the in­di­vid­ual, not to the group. If you are in per­sonal dif­fi­culty in your re­la­tions with God, come to me, and I will hear you and coun­sel you in the so­lu­tion of your prob­lem. But when you en­ter upon the co-or­di­na­tion of di­ver­gent hu­man in­ter­pre­ta­tions of re­li­gious ques­tions and upon the so­cial­iza­tion of re­li­gion, you are des­tined to solve all such prob­lems by your own de­ci­sions. Al­beit, I am ever sym­pa­thetic and al­ways in­ter­ested, and when you ar­rive at your con­clu­sions touch­ing these mat­ters of non­spir­i­tual im­port, pro­vided you are all agreed, then I pledge in ad­vance my full ap­proval and hearty co-op­er­a­tion. And now, in or­der to leave you un­ham­pered in your de­lib­er­a­tions, I am leav­ing you for two weeks. Be not anx­ious about me, for I will re­turn to you. I will be about my Fa­ther’s busi­ness, for we have other realms be­sides this one.”

• taught as one having authority

145:2.11Even though the peo­ple of Ca­per­naum were fa­mil­iar with Je­sus’ teach­ing, they were as­ton­ished at his ser­mon on this Sab­bath day. He taught, in­deed, as one hav­ing au­thor­ity and not as the scribes.

• taught as one having authority

145:3.3The whole day’s events had set the stage for this ex­traor­di­nary sun­down scene. Even the text Je­sus had used for his af­ter­noon ser­mon had in­ti­mated that sick­ness should be ban­ished; and he had spo­ken with such un­prece­dented power and au­thor­ity! His mes­sage was so com­pelling! While he made no ap­peal to hu­man au­thor­ity, he did speak di­rectly to the con­sciences and souls of men. Though he did not re­sort to logic, le­gal quib­bles, or clever say­ings, he did make a pow­er­ful, di­rect, clear, and per­sonal ap­peal to the hearts of his hear­ers.

• antagonism with Judaism always positive

147:6.6Je­sus’ an­tag­o­nism to the Jew­ish tra­di­tions and slav­ish cer­e­mo­ni­als was al­ways pos­i­tive. It con­sisted in what he did and in what he af­firmed. The Mas­ter spent lit­tle time in neg­a­tive de­nun­ci­a­tions. He taught that those who know God can en­joy the lib­erty of liv­ing with­out de­ceiv­ing them­selves by the li­censes of sin­ning. Said Je­sus to the apos­tles: “Men, if you are en­light­ened by the truth and re­ally know what you are do­ing, you are blessed; but if you know not the di­vine way, you are un­for­tu­nate and al­ready break­ers of the law.”

• Jesus did not › do what others could acceptably perform

148:0.3While An­drew con­tin­ued in gen­eral charge of the apos­tolic ac­tiv­i­ties, Pe­ter was in full charge of the school of the evan­ge­lists. The apos­tles all did their share in teach­ing groups of evan­ge­lists each forenoon, and both teach­ers and pupils taught the peo­ple dur­ing the af­ter­noons. Af­ter the evening meal, five nights a week, the apos­tles con­ducted ques­tion classes for the ben­e­fit of the evan­ge­lists. Once a week Je­sus pre­sided at this ques­tion hour, an­swer­ing the holdover ques­tions from pre­vi­ous ses­sions.

• Jesus did not › do what others could acceptably perform

149:0.2Be­fore the de­par­ture on this Sun­day morn­ing An­drew and Pe­ter asked Je­sus to give the fi­nal charge to the new evan­ge­lists, but the Mas­ter de­clined, say­ing that it was not his prov­ince to do those things which oth­ers could ac­cept­ably per­form. Af­ter due de­lib­er­a­tion it was de­cided that James Zeb­e­dee should ad­min­is­ter the charge. At the con­clu­sion of James’s re­marks Je­sus said to the evan­ge­lists: “Go now forth to do the work as you have been charged, and later on, when you have shown your­selves com­pe­tent and faith­ful, I will or­dain you to preach the gospel of the king­dom.”

• Jesus did not › turn anyone away

149:2.6While, at that par­tic­u­lar time, the fame of Je­sus rested chiefly upon his rep­u­ta­tion as a healer, it does not fol­low that it con­tin­ued so to rest. As time passed, more and more he was sought for spir­i­tual help. But it was the phys­i­cal cures that made the most di­rect and im­me­di­ate ap­peal to the com­mon peo­ple. Je­sus was in­creas­ingly sought by the vic­tims of moral en­slave­ment and men­tal ha­rass­ments, and he in­vari­ably taught them the way of de­liv­er­ance. Fa­thers sought his ad­vice re­gard­ing the man­age­ment of their sons, and moth­ers came for help in the guid­ance of their daugh­ters. Those who sat in dark­ness came to him, and he re­vealed to them the light of life. His ear was ever open to the sor­rows of man­kind, and he al­ways helped those who sought his min­istry.

• destroyed what was only when he offered superior alternative

149:2.11Je­sus tran­scended all the teach­ings of his fore­bears when he boldly sub­sti­tuted clean hearts for clean hands as the mark of true re­li­gion. He put re­al­ity in the place of tra­di­tion and swept aside all pre­ten­sions of van­ity and hypocrisy. And yet this fear­less man of God did not give vent to de­struc­tive crit­i­cism or man­i­fest an ut­ter dis­re­gard of the re­li­gious, so­cial, eco­nomic, and po­lit­i­cal us­ages of his day. He was not a mil­i­tant rev­o­lu­tion­ist; he was a pro­gres­sive evo­lu­tion­ist. He en­gaged in the de­struc­tion of that which was only when he si­mul­ta­ne­ously of­fered his fel­lows the su­pe­rior thing which ought to be.

• taught as one having authority

149:2.13The Mas­ter was ad­mired by all who met him ex­cept by those who en­ter­tained deep-seated re­li­gious prej­u­dices or those who thought they dis­cerned po­lit­i­cal dan­gers in his teach­ings. Men were as­ton­ished at the orig­i­nal­ity and au­thor­i­ta­tive­ness of his teach­ing. They mar­veled at his pa­tience in deal­ing with back­ward and trou­ble­some in­quir­ers. He in­spired hope and con­fi­dence in the hearts of all who came un­der his min­istry. Only those who had not met him feared him, and he was hated only by those who re­garded him as the cham­pion of that truth which was des­tined to over­throw the evil and er­ror which they had de­ter­mined to hold in their hearts at all cost.

• Jesus did not › resort to ignoble tactics
• taught as one having authority

149:4.5It was not so much what Je­sus taught about the bal­anced char­ac­ter that im­pressed his as­so­ciates as the fact that his own life was such an elo­quent ex­em­pli­fi­ca­tion of his teach­ing. He lived in the midst of stress and storm, but he never wa­vered. His en­e­mies con­tin­u­ally laid snares for him, but they never en­trapped him. The wise and learned en­deav­ored to trip him, but he did not stum­ble. They sought to em­broil him in de­bate, but his an­swers were al­ways en­light­en­ing, dig­ni­fied, and fi­nal. When he was in­ter­rupted in his dis­courses with mul­ti­tudi­nous ques­tions, his an­swers were al­ways sig­nif­i­cant and con­clu­sive. Never did he re­sort to ig­no­ble tac­tics in meet­ing the con­tin­u­ous pres­sure of his en­e­mies, who did not hes­i­tate to em­ploy ev­ery sort of false, un­fair, and un­righ­teous mode of at­tack upon him.

• Jesus did not › interfere in matters between his and John’s apostles

150:0.2Among the many mat­ters con­sid­ered by this joint con­fer­ence was the prac­tice of anoint­ing the sick with cer­tain forms of oil in con­nec­tion with prayers for heal­ing. Again did Je­sus de­cline to par­tic­i­pate in their dis­cus­sions or to ex­press him­self re­gard­ing their con­clu­sions. The apos­tles of John had al­ways used the anoint­ing oil in their min­istry to the sick and af­flicted, and they sought to es­tab­lish this as a uni­form prac­tice for both groups, but the apos­tles of Je­sus re­fused to bind them­selves by such a reg­u­la­tion.

• antagonism with Judaism always positive

153:1.2Je­sus com­pre­hended that he faced the im­me­di­ate dec­la­ra­tion of avowed and open war­fare by his in­creas­ing en­e­mies, and he elected boldly to as­sume the of­fen­sive. At the feed­ing of the five thou­sand he had chal­lenged their ideas of the ma­te­rial Mes­siah; now he chose again openly to at­tack their con­cept of the Jew­ish de­liv­erer. This cri­sis, which be­gan with the feed­ing of the five thou­sand, and which ter­mi­nated with this Sab­bath af­ter­noon ser­mon, was the out­ward turn­ing of the tide of pop­u­lar fame and ac­claim. Hence­forth, the work of the king­dom was to be in­creas­ingly con­cerned with the more im­por­tant task of win­ning last­ing spir­i­tual con­verts for the truly re­li­gious broth­er­hood of man­kind. This ser­mon marks the cri­sis in the tran­si­tion from the pe­riod of dis­cus­sion, con­tro­versy, and de­ci­sion to that of open war­fare and fi­nal ac­cep­tance or fi­nal re­jec­tion.

• Jesus did not › turn anyone away

153:2.8And then said Je­sus, point­ing up to the de­vice of a pot of manna which dec­o­rated the lin­tel of this new syn­a­gogue, and which was em­bel­lished with grape clus­ters: “You have thought that your fore­fa­thers in the wilder­ness ate manna—the bread of heaven—but I say to you that this was the bread of earth. While Moses did not give your fa­thers bread from heaven, my Fa­ther now stands ready to give you the true bread of life. The bread of heaven is that which comes down from God and gives eter­nal life to the men of the world. And when you say to me, Give us this liv­ing bread, I will an­swer: I am this bread of life. He who comes to me shall not hunger, while he who be­lieves me shall never thirst. You have seen me, lived with me, and be­held my works, yet you be­lieve not that I came forth from the Fa­ther. But to those who do be­lieve—fear not. All those led of the Fa­ther shall come to me, and he who comes to me shall in no­wise be cast out.

• Jesus did not › seek to become martyr

156:2.5Je­sus made it clear to the twenty-four that he had not fled from Gal­i­lee be­cause he lacked cour­age to con­front his en­e­mies. They com­pre­hended that he was not yet ready for an open clash with es­tab­lished re­li­gion, and that he did not seek to be­come a mar­tyr. It was dur­ing one of these con­fer­ences at the home of Justa that the Mas­ter first told his dis­ci­ples that “even though heaven and earth shall pass away, my words of truth shall not.”

• faith of Jesus › in people

157:4.6Je­sus was be­gin­ning to have faith in the loy­alty and in­tegrity of his apos­tles. The Mas­ter con­ceived that a faith which could stand what his cho­sen rep­re­sen­ta­tives had re­cently passed through would un­doubt­edly en­dure the fiery tri­als which were just ahead and emerge from the ap­par­ent wreck­age of all their hopes into the new light of a new dis­pen­sa­tion and thereby be able to go forth to en­lighten a world sit­ting in dark­ness. On this day the Mas­ter be­gan to be­lieve in the faith of his apos­tles, save one.

• taught as one having authority

157:6.5A new sig­nif­i­cance at­taches to all of Je­sus’ teach­ings from this point on. Be­fore Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi he pre­sented the gospel of the king­dom as its mas­ter teacher. Af­ter Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi he ap­peared not merely as a teacher but as the di­vine rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the eter­nal Fa­ther, who is the cen­ter and cir­cum­fer­ence of this spir­i­tual king­dom, and it was re­quired that he do all this as a hu­man be­ing, the Son of Man.

• rare good humor; not man of sorrows

159:3.10You shall not por­tray your teacher as a man of sor­rows. Fu­ture gen­er­a­tions shall know also the ra­di­ance of our joy, the buoy­ance of our good will, and the in­spi­ra­tion of our good hu­mor. We pro­claim a mes­sage of good news which is in­fec­tious in its trans­form­ing power. Our re­li­gion is throb­bing with new life and new mean­ings. Those who ac­cept this teach­ing are filled with joy and in their hearts are con­strained to re­joice ev­er­more. In­creas­ing hap­pi­ness is al­ways the ex­pe­ri­ence of all who are cer­tain about God.

• went about doing good

159:5.10Je­sus did not ad­vo­cate the prac­tice of neg­a­tive sub­mis­sion to the in­dig­ni­ties of those who might pur­posely seek to im­pose upon the prac­ti­tion­ers of non­re­sis­tance to evil, but rather that his fol­low­ers should be wise and alert in the quick and pos­i­tive re­ac­tion of good to evil to the end that they might ef­fec­tively over­come evil with good. For­get not, the truly good is in­vari­ably more pow­er­ful than the most ma­lig­nant evil. The Mas­ter taught a pos­i­tive stan­dard of righ­teous­ness: “Whoso­ever wishes to be my dis­ci­ple, let him dis­re­gard him­self and take up the full mea­sure of his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties daily to fol­low me.” And he so lived him­self in that “he went about do­ing good.” And this as­pect of the gospel was well il­lus­trated by many para­bles which he later spoke to his fol­low­ers. He never ex­horted his fol­low­ers pa­tiently to bear their obli­ga­tions but rather with en­ergy and en­thu­si­asm to live up to the full mea­sure of their hu­man re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and di­vine priv­i­leges in the king­dom of God.

• taught as one having authority

161:2.87. Re­cently the Mas­ter does not hes­i­tate to as­sert his super­hu­man­ity. From the day of our or­di­na­tion as apos­tles right on down to re­cent times, he has never de­nied that he came from the Fa­ther above. He speaks with the au­thor­ity of a di­vine teacher. The Mas­ter does not hes­i­tate to re­fute the re­li­gious teach­ings of to­day and to de­clare the new gospel with pos­i­tive au­thor­ity. He is as­sertive, pos­i­tive, and au­thor­i­ta­tive. Even John the Bap­tist, when he heard Je­sus speak, de­clared that he was the Son of God. He seems to be so suf­fi­cient within him­self. He craves not the sup­port of the mul­ti­tude; he is in­dif­fer­ent to the opin­ions of men. He is brave and yet so free from pride.

• went about doing good

161:2.98. He con­stantly talks about God as an ever-pres­ent as­so­ciate in all that he does. He goes about do­ing good, for God seems to be in him. He makes the most as­tound­ing as­ser­tions about him­self and his mis­sion on earth, state­ments which would be ab­surd if he were not di­vine. He once de­clared, “Be­fore Abra­ham was, I am.” He has def­i­nitely claimed di­vin­ity; he pro­fesses to be in part­ner­ship with God. He well-nigh ex­hausts the pos­si­bil­i­ties of lan­guage in the re­it­er­a­tion of his claims of in­ti­mate as­so­ci­a­tion with the heav­enly Fa­ther. He even dares to as­sert that he and the Fa­ther are one. He says that any­one who has seen him has seen the Fa­ther. And he says and does all these tremen­dous things with such child­like nat­u­ral­ness. He al­ludes to his as­so­ci­a­tion with the Fa­ther in the same man­ner that he refers to his as­so­ci­a­tion with us. He seems to be so sure about God and speaks of these re­la­tions in such a mat­ter-of-fact way.

161:3.1Con­scious­ness of di­vin­ity was a grad­ual growth in the mind of Je­sus up to the oc­ca­sion of his bap­tism. Af­ter he be­came fully self-con­scious of his di­vine na­ture, pre­hu­man ex­is­tence, and uni­verse pre­rog­a­tives, he seems to have pos­sessed the power of var­i­ously lim­it­ing his hu­man con­scious­ness of his di­vin­ity. It ap­pears to us that from his bap­tism un­til the cru­ci­fix­ion it was en­tirely op­tional with Je­sus whether to de­pend only on the hu­man mind or to uti­lize the knowl­edge of both the hu­man and the di­vine minds. At times he ap­peared to avail him­self of only that in­for­ma­tion which was res­i­dent in the hu­man in­tel­lect. On other oc­ca­sions he ap­peared to act with such full­ness of knowl­edge and wis­dom as could be af­forded only by the uti­liza­tion of the super­hu­man con­tent of his di­vine con­scious­ness.

• avoided impression of overattractive personal career

161:3.2We can un­der­stand his unique per­for­mances only by ac­cept­ing the the­ory that he could, at will, self-limit his di­vin­ity con­scious­ness. We are fully cog­nizant that he fre­quently with­held from his as­so­ciates his fore­knowl­edge of events, and that he was aware of the na­ture of their think­ing and plan­ning. We un­der­stand that he did not wish his fol­low­ers to know too fully that he was able to dis­cern their thoughts and to pen­e­trate their plans. He did not de­sire too far to tran­scend the con­cept of the hu­man as it was held in the minds of his apos­tles and dis­ci­ples.

161:3.3We are ut­terly at a loss to dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween his prac­tice of self-lim­it­ing his di­vine con­scious­ness and his tech­nique of con­ceal­ing his pre­knowl­edge and thought dis­cern­ment from his hu­man as­so­ciates. We are con­vinced that he used both of these tech­niques, but we are not al­ways able, in a given in­stance, to spec­ify which method he may have em­ployed. We fre­quently ob­served him act­ing with only the hu­man con­tent of con­scious­ness; then would we be­hold him in con­fer­ence with the di­rec­tors of the ce­les­tial hosts of the uni­verse and dis­cern the un­doubted func­tion­ing of the di­vine mind. And then on al­most num­ber­less oc­ca­sions did we wit­ness the work­ing of this com­bined per­son­al­ity of man and God as it was ac­ti­vated by the ap­par­ent per­fect union of the hu­man and the di­vine minds. This is the limit of our knowl­edge of such phe­nom­ena; we re­ally do not ac­tu­ally know the full truth about this mys­tery.

• emotional ecstasy upon return of the 70

163:6.3And it was at this time, just be­fore par­tak­ing of the evening meal, that Je­sus ex­pe­ri­enced one of those rare mo­ments of emo­tional ec­stasy which his fol­low­ers had oc­ca­sion­ally wit­nessed. He said: “I thank you, my Fa­ther, Lord of heaven and earth, that, while this won­der­ful gospel was hid­den from the wise and self-righ­teous, the spirit has re­vealed these spir­i­tual glo­ries to these chil­dren of the king­dom. Yes, my Fa­ther, it must have been pleas­ing in your sight to do this, and I re­joice to know that the good news will spread to all the world even af­ter I shall have re­turned to you and the work which you have given me to per­form. I am might­ily moved as I re­al­ize you are about to de­liver all au­thor­ity into my hands, that only you re­ally know who I am, and that only I re­ally know you, and those to whom I have re­vealed you. And when I have fin­ished this rev­e­la­tion to my breth­ren in the flesh, I will con­tinue the rev­e­la­tion to your crea­tures on high.”

• abhorred pure ceremony

166:1.2By the time Je­sus ar­rived at this break­fast, most of the Phar­isees, with two or three lawyers, were al­ready there and seated at the ta­ble. The Mas­ter im­me­di­ately took his seat at the left of Na­than­iel with­out go­ing to the wa­ter basins to wash his hands. Many of the Phar­isees, es­pe­cially those fa­vor­able to Je­sus’ teach­ings, knew that he washed his hands only for pur­poses of clean­li­ness, that he ab­horred these purely cer­e­mo­nial per­for­mances; so they were not sur­prised at his com­ing di­rectly to the ta­ble with­out hav­ing twice washed his hands. But Na­than­iel was shocked by this fail­ure of the Mas­ter to com­ply with the strict re­quire­ments of Phar­i­saic prac­tice. Nei­ther did Je­sus wash his hands, as did the Phar­isees, af­ter each course of food nor at the end of the meal.

• Jesus did not › turn anyone away

166:3.3“You also have an­other say­ing among you, and one that con­tains much truth: That the way which leads to eter­nal life is straight and nar­row, that the door which leads thereto is like­wise nar­row so that, of those who seek sal­va­tion, few can find en­trance through this door. You also have a teach­ing that the way which leads to de­struc­tion is broad, that the en­trance thereto is wide, and that there are many who choose to go this way. And this proverb is not with­out its mean­ing. But I de­clare that sal­va­tion is first a mat­ter of your per­sonal choos­ing. Even if the door to the way of life is nar­row, it is wide enough to ad­mit all who sin­cerely seek to en­ter, for I am that door. And the Son will never refuse en­trance to any child of the uni­verse who, by faith, seeks to find the Fa­ther through the Son.

• refused to employ spirit forces for himself

166:4.2In an­swer to Thomas’s in­quiry, Je­sus said: “Have I been so long with you, and yet you con­tinue to ask me such ques­tions? Have you failed to ob­serve how the Son of Man lives as one with you and con­sis­tently re­fuses to em­ploy the forces of heaven for his per­sonal sus­te­nance? Do we not all live by the same means whereby all men ex­ist? Do you see the power of the spir­i­tual world man­i­fested in the ma­te­rial life of this world, save for the rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther and the some­time heal­ing of his af­flicted chil­dren?

• interested only in the individual, not the mass

170:3.10The re­li­gion of the king­dom is per­sonal, in­di­vid­ual; the fruits, the re­sults, are fa­mil­ial, so­cial. Je­sus never failed to ex­alt the sa­cred­ness of the in­di­vid­ual as con­trasted with the com­mu­nity. But he also rec­og­nized that man de­vel­ops his char­ac­ter by un­selfish ser­vice; that he un­folds his moral na­ture in lov­ing re­la­tions with his fel­lows.

170:3.11By teach­ing that the king­dom is within, by ex­alt­ing the in­di­vid­ual, Je­sus struck the death­blow of the old so­ci­ety in that he ush­ered in the new dis­pen­sa­tion of true so­cial righ­teous­ness. This new or­der of so­ci­ety the world has lit­tle known be­cause it has re­fused to prac­tice the prin­ci­ples of the gospel of the king­dom of heaven. And when this king­dom of spir­i­tual pre-em­i­nence does come upon the earth, it will not be man­i­fested in mere im­proved so­cial and ma­te­rial con­di­tions, but rather in the glo­ries of those en­hanced and en­riched spir­i­tual val­ues which are char­ac­ter­is­tic of the ap­proach­ing age of im­proved hu­man re­la­tions and ad­vanc­ing spir­i­tual at­tain­ments.

• interested only in the individual, not the mass

170:4.91. The pre-em­i­nence of the in­di­vid­ual.

• interested only in the individual, not the mass

171:7.4Je­sus could help men so much be­cause he loved them so sin­cerely. He truly loved each man, each woman, and each child. He could be such a true friend be­cause of his re­mark­able in­sight—he knew so fully what was in the heart and in the mind of man. He was an in­ter­ested and keen ob­server. He was an ex­pert in the com­pre­hen­sion of hu­man need, clever in de­tect­ing hu­man long­ings.

• faith of Jesus › in people

171:7.5Je­sus was never in a hurry. He had time to com­fort his fel­low men “as he passed by.” And he al­ways made his friends feel at ease. He was a charm­ing lis­tener. He never en­gaged in the med­dle­some prob­ing of the souls of his as­so­ciates. As he com­forted hun­gry minds and min­is­tered to thirsty souls, the re­cip­i­ents of his mercy did not so much feel that they were con­fess­ing to him as that they were con­fer­ring with him. They had un­bounded con­fi­dence in him be­cause they saw he had so much faith in them.

• Jesus did not › follow up or direct people

171:7.6He never seemed to be cu­ri­ous about peo­ple, and he never man­i­fested a de­sire to di­rect, man­age, or fol­low them up. He in­spired pro­found self-con­fi­dence and ro­bust cour­age in all who en­joyed his as­so­ci­a­tion. When he smiled on a man, that mor­tal ex­pe­ri­enced in­creased ca­pac­ity for solv­ing his man­i­fold prob­lems.

• faith of Jesus › in people

171:7.8The Mas­ter could dis­cern sav­ing faith in the gross su­per­sti­tion of the woman who sought heal­ing by touch­ing the hem of his gar­ment. He was al­ways ready and will­ing to stop a ser­mon or de­tain a mul­ti­tude while he min­is­tered to the needs of a sin­gle per­son, even to a lit­tle child. Great things hap­pened not only be­cause peo­ple had faith in Je­sus, but also be­cause Je­sus had so much faith in them.

• went about doing good

171:7.9Most of the re­ally im­por­tant things which Je­sus said or did seemed to hap­pen ca­su­ally, “as he passed by.” There was so lit­tle of the pro­fes­sional, the well-planned, or the pre­med­i­tated in the Mas­ter’s earthly min­istry. He dis­pensed health and scat­tered hap­pi­ness nat­u­rally and grace­fully as he jour­neyed through life. It was lit­er­ally true, “He went about do­ing good.”

• Jesus did not › disclose knowledge of associates’ thoughts

172:2.1On this Sun­day morn­ing, in Si­mon’s beau­ti­ful gar­den, the Mas­ter called his twelve apos­tles around him and gave them their fi­nal in­struc­tions prepara­tory to en­ter­ing Je­ru­sa­lem. He told them that he would prob­a­bly de­liver many ad­dresses and teach many lessons be­fore re­turn­ing to the Fa­ther but ad­vised the apos­tles to re­frain from do­ing any pub­lic work dur­ing this Pass­over so­journ in Je­ru­sa­lem. He in­structed them to re­main near him and to “watch and pray.” Je­sus knew that many of his apos­tles and im­me­di­ate fol­low­ers even then car­ried swords con­cealed on their per­sons, but he made no ref­er­ence to this fact.

• never premeditated anything dramatic

172:3.11When he had fin­ished speak­ing, they be­gan the de­scent of Oli­vet and pres­ently were joined by the mul­ti­tude of vis­i­tors who had come from Je­ru­sa­lem wav­ing palm branches, shout­ing hosan­nas, and oth­er­wise ex­press­ing glee­ful­ness and good fel­low­ship. The Mas­ter had not planned that these crowds should come out from Je­ru­sa­lem to meet them; that was the work of oth­ers. He never pre­med­i­tated any­thing which was dra­matic.

• Jesus did not › reveal plans to apostles

172:5.1This Sun­day evening as they re­turned to Beth­any, Je­sus walked in front of the apos­tles. Not a word was spo­ken un­til they sep­a­rated af­ter ar­riv­ing at Si­mon’s house. No twelve hu­man be­ings ever ex­pe­ri­enced such di­verse and in­ex­pli­ca­ble emo­tions as now surged through the minds and souls of these am­bas­sadors of the king­dom. These sturdy Galileans were con­fused and dis­con­certed; they did not know what to ex­pect next; they were too sur­prised to be much afraid. They knew noth­ing of the Mas­ter’s plans for the next day, and they asked no ques­tions. They went to their lodg­ings, though they did not sleep much, save the twins. But they did not keep armed watch over Je­sus at Si­mon’s house.

173:1.1A huge com­mer­cial traf­fic had grown up in as­so­ci­a­tion with the ser­vices and cer­e­monies of the tem­ple wor­ship. There was the busi­ness of pro­vid­ing suit­able an­i­mals for the var­i­ous sac­ri­fices. Though it was per­mis­si­ble for a wor­shiper to pro­vide his own sac­ri­fice, the fact re­mained that this an­i­mal must be free from all “blem­ish” in the mean­ing of the Levit­i­cal law and as in­ter­preted by of­fi­cial in­spec­tors of the tem­ple. Many a wor­shiper had ex­pe­ri­enced the hu­mil­i­a­tion of hav­ing his sup­pos­edly per­fect an­i­mal re­jected by the tem­ple ex­am­in­ers. It there­fore be­came the more gen­eral prac­tice to pur­chase sac­ri­fi­cial an­i­mals at the tem­ple, and al­though there were sev­eral sta­tions on near-by Oli­vet where they could be bought, it had be­come the vogue to buy these an­i­mals di­rectly from the tem­ple pens. Grad­u­ally there had grown up this cus­tom of sell­ing all kinds of sac­ri­fi­cial an­i­mals in the tem­ple courts. An ex­ten­sive busi­ness, in which enor­mous prof­its were made, had thus been brought into ex­is­tence. Part of these gains was re­served for the tem­ple trea­sury, but the larger part went in­di­rectly into the hands of the rul­ing high-priestly fam­i­lies.

173:1.2This sale of an­i­mals in the tem­ple pros­pered be­cause, when the wor­shiper pur­chased such an an­i­mal, al­though the price might be some­what high, no more fees had to be paid, and he could be sure the in­tended sac­ri­fice would not be re­jected on the ground of pos­sess­ing real or tech­ni­cal blem­ishes. At one time or an­other sys­tems of ex­or­bi­tant over­charge were prac­ticed upon the com­mon peo­ple, es­pe­cially dur­ing the great na­tional feasts. At one time the greedy priests went so far as to de­mand the equiv­a­lent of the value of a week’s la­bor for a pair of doves which should have been sold to the poor for a few pen­nies. The “sons of An­nas” had al­ready be­gun to es­tab­lish their bazaars in the tem­ple precincts, those very mer­chan­dise marts which per­sisted to the time of their fi­nal over­throw by a mob three years be­fore the de­struc­tion of the tem­ple it­self.

173:1.3But traf­fic in sac­ri­fi­cial an­i­mals and sundry mer­chan­dise was not the only way in which the courts of the tem­ple were pro­faned. At this time there was fos­tered an ex­ten­sive sys­tem of bank­ing and com­mer­cial ex­change which was car­ried on right within the tem­ple precincts. And this all came about in the fol­low­ing man­ner: Dur­ing the As­monean dy­nasty the Jews coined their own sil­ver money, and it had be­come the prac­tice to re­quire the tem­ple dues of one-half shekel and all other tem­ple fees to be paid with this Jew­ish coin. This reg­u­la­tion ne­ces­si­tated that money-chang­ers be li­censed to ex­change the many sorts of cur­rency in cir­cu­la­tion through­out Pales­tine and other prov­inces of the Ro­man Em­pire for this or­tho­dox shekel of Jew­ish coin­ing. The tem­ple head tax, payable by all ex­cept women, slaves, and mi­nors, was one-half shekel, a coin about the size of a ten-cent piece but twice as thick. By the times of Je­sus the priests had also been ex­empted from the pay­ment of tem­ple dues. Ac­cord­ingly, from the 15^th to the 25^th of the month pre­ced­ing the Pass­over, ac­cred­ited money-chang­ers erected their booths in the prin­ci­pal cities of Pales­tine for the pur­pose of pro­vid­ing the Jew­ish peo­ple with proper money to meet the tem­ple dues af­ter they had reached Je­ru­sa­lem. Af­ter this ten-day pe­riod these money-chang­ers moved on to Je­ru­sa­lem and pro­ceeded to set up their ex­change ta­bles in the courts of the tem­ple. They were per­mit­ted to charge the equiv­a­lent of from three to four cents com­mis­sion for the ex­change of a coin val­ued at about ten cents, and in case a coin of larger value was of­fered for ex­change, they were al­lowed to col­lect dou­ble. Like­wise did these tem­ple bankers profit from the ex­change of all money in­tended for the pur­chase of sac­ri­fi­cial an­i­mals and for the pay­ment of vows and the mak­ing of of­fer­ings.

173:1.4These tem­ple money-chang­ers not only con­ducted a reg­u­lar bank­ing busi­ness for profit in the ex­change of more than twenty sorts of money which the vis­it­ing pil­grims would pe­ri­od­i­cally bring to Je­ru­sa­lem, but they also en­gaged in all other kinds of trans­ac­tions per­tain­ing to the bank­ing busi­ness. Both the tem­ple trea­sury and the tem­ple rulers prof­ited tremen­dously from these com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ties. It was not un­com­mon for the tem­ple trea­sury to hold up­wards of ten mil­lion dol­lars while the com­mon peo­ple lan­guished in pov­erty and con­tin­ued to pay these un­just levies.

173:1.5In the midst of this noisy ag­gre­ga­tion of money-chang­ers, mer­chan­dis­ers, and cat­tle sell­ers, Je­sus, on this Mon­day morn­ing, at­tempted to teach the gospel of the heav­enly king­dom. He was not alone in re­sent­ing this pro­fa­na­tion of the tem­ple; the com­mon peo­ple, es­pe­cially the Jew­ish vis­i­tors from for­eign prov­inces, also heart­ily re­sented this prof­i­teer­ing des­e­cra­tion of their na­tional house of wor­ship. At this time the San­hedrin it­self held its reg­u­lar meet­ings in a cham­ber sur­rounded by all this bab­ble and con­fu­sion of trade and barter.

173:1.6As Je­sus was about to be­gin his ad­dress, two things hap­pened to ar­rest his at­ten­tion. At the money ta­ble of a near-by ex­changer a vi­o­lent and heated ar­gu­ment had arisen over the al­leged over­charg­ing of a Jew from Alexan­dria, while at the same mo­ment the air was rent by the bel­low­ing of a drove of some one hun­dred bul­locks which was be­ing driven from one sec­tion of the an­i­mal pens to an­other. As Je­sus paused, silently but thought­fully con­tem­plat­ing this scene of com­merce and con­fu­sion, close by he be­held a sim­ple-minded Galilean, a man he had once talked with in Iron, be­ing ridiculed and jos­tled about by su­per­cil­ious and would-be su­pe­rior Judeans; and all of this com­bined to pro­duce one of those strange and pe­ri­odic up­ris­ings of in­dig­nant emo­tion in the soul of Je­sus.

173:1.7To the amaze­ment of his apos­tles, stand­ing near at hand, who re­frained from par­tic­i­pa­tion in what so soon fol­lowed, Je­sus stepped down from the teach­ing plat­form and, go­ing over to the lad who was driv­ing the cat­tle through the court, took from him his whip of cords and swiftly drove the an­i­mals from the tem­ple. But that was not all; he strode ma­jes­ti­cally be­fore the won­der­ing gaze of the thou­sands as­sem­bled in the tem­ple court to the far­thest cat­tle pen and pro­ceeded to open the gates of ev­ery stall and to drive out the im­pris­oned an­i­mals. By this time the as­sem­bled pil­grims were elec­tri­fied, and with up­roar­i­ous shout­ing they moved to­ward the bazaars and be­gan to over­turn the ta­bles of the money-chang­ers. In less than five min­utes all com­merce had been swept from the tem­ple. By the time the near-by Ro­man guards had ap­peared on the scene, all was quiet, and the crowds had be­come or­derly; Je­sus, re­turn­ing to the speaker’s stand, spoke to the mul­ti­tude: “You have this day wit­nessed that which is writ­ten in the Scrip­tures: ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all na­tions, but you have made it a den of rob­bers.’”

173:1.8But be­fore he could ut­ter other words, the great as­sem­bly broke out in hosan­nas of praise, and pres­ently a throng of youths stepped out from the crowd to sing grate­ful hymns of ap­pre­ci­a­tion that the pro­fane and prof­i­teer­ing mer­chan­dis­ers had been ejected from the sa­cred tem­ple. By this time cer­tain of the priests had ar­rived on the scene, and one of them said to Je­sus, “Do you not hear what the chil­dren of the Levites say?” And the Mas­ter replied, “Have you never read, ‘Out of the mouths of babes and suck­lings has praise been per­fected’?” And all the rest of that day while Je­sus taught, guards set by the peo­ple stood watch at ev­ery arch­way, and they would not per­mit any­one to carry even an empty ves­sel across the tem­ple courts.

173:1.9When the chief priests and the scribes heard about these hap­pen­ings, they were dum­founded. All the more they feared the Mas­ter, and all the more they de­ter­mined to de­stroy him. But they were non­plused. They did not know how to ac­com­plish his death, for they greatly feared the mul­ti­tudes, who were now so out­spo­ken in their ap­proval of his over­throw of the pro­fane prof­i­teers. And all this day, a day of quiet and peace in the tem­ple courts, the peo­ple heard Je­sus’ teach­ing and lit­er­ally hung on his words.

173:1.10This sur­pris­ing act of Je­sus was be­yond the com­pre­hen­sion of his apos­tles. They were so taken aback by this sud­den and un­ex­pected move of their Mas­ter that they re­mained through­out the whole episode hud­dled to­gether near the speaker’s stand; they never lifted a hand to fur­ther this cleans­ing of the tem­ple. If this spec­tac­u­lar event had oc­curred the day be­fore, at the time of Je­sus’ tri­umphal ar­rival at the tem­ple at the ter­mi­na­tion of his tu­mul­tuous pro­ces­sion through the gates of the city, all the while loudly ac­claimed by the mul­ti­tude, they would have been ready for it, but com­ing as it did, they were wholly un­pre­pared to par­tic­i­pate.

• detested commercialization of religion

173:1.11This cleans­ing of the tem­ple dis­closes the Mas­ter’s at­ti­tude to­ward com­mer­cial­iz­ing the prac­tices of re­li­gion as well as his de­tes­ta­tion of all forms of un­fair­ness and prof­i­teer­ing at the ex­pense of the poor and the un­learned. This episode also demon­strates that Je­sus did not look with ap­proval upon the re­fusal to em­ploy force to pro­tect the ma­jor­ity of any given hu­man group against the un­fair and en­slav­ing prac­tices of un­just mi­nori­ties who may be able to en­trench them­selves be­hind po­lit­i­cal, fi­nan­cial, or ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal power. Shrewd, wicked, and de­sign­ing men are not to be per­mit­ted to or­ga­nize them­selves for the ex­ploita­tion and op­pres­sion of those who, be­cause of their ide­al­ism, are not dis­posed to re­sort to force for self-pro­tec­tion or for the fur­ther­ance of their laud­able life projects.

• sat at no man’s feet

173:2.6Je­sus never in­tended to ap­peal to John for his au­thor­ity; John had never been or­dained by the San­hedrin. Je­sus’ au­thor­ity was in him­self and in his Fa­ther’s eter­nal su­prem­acy.

• Jesus did not › resort to ignoble tactics

173:2.7In em­ploy­ing this method of deal­ing with his ad­ver­saries, Je­sus did not mean to dodge the ques­tion. At first it may seem that he was guilty of a mas­terly eva­sion, but it was not so. Je­sus was never dis­posed to take un­fair ad­van­tage of even his en­e­mies. In this ap­par­ent eva­sion he re­ally sup­plied all his hear­ers with the an­swer to the Phar­isees’ ques­tion as to the au­thor­ity be­hind his mis­sion. They had as­serted that he per­formed by au­thor­ity of the prince of dev­ils. Je­sus had re­peat­edly as­serted that all his teach­ing and works were by the power and au­thor­ity of his Fa­ther in heaven. This the Jew­ish lead­ers re­fused to ac­cept and were seek­ing to cor­ner him into ad­mit­ting that he was an ir­reg­u­lar teacher since he had never been sanc­tioned by the San­hedrin. In an­swer­ing them as he did, while not claim­ing au­thor­ity from John, he so sat­is­fied the peo­ple with the in­fer­ence that the ef­fort of his en­e­mies to en­snare him was ef­fec­tively turned upon them­selves and was much to their dis­credit in the eyes of all pres­ent.

• no respecter of persons

179:3.9“When I came into this cham­ber tonight, you were not con­tent proudly to refuse to wash one an­other’s feet, but you must also fall to dis­put­ing among your­selves as to who should have the places of honor at my ta­ble. Such hon­ors the Phar­isees and the chil­dren of this world seek, but it should not be so among the am­bas­sadors of the heav­enly king­dom. Do you not know that there can be no place of prefer­ment at my ta­ble? Do you not un­der­stand that I love each of you as I do the oth­ers? Do you not know that the place near­est me, as men re­gard such hon­ors, can mean noth­ing con­cern­ing your stand­ing in the king­dom of heaven? You know that the kings of the gen­tiles have lord­ship over their sub­jects, while those who ex­er­cise this au­thor­ity are some­times called bene­fac­tors. But it shall not be so in the king­dom of heaven. He who would be great among you, let him be­come as the younger; while he who would be chief, let him be­come as one who serves. Who is the greater, he who sits at meat, or he who serves? Is it not com­monly re­garded that he who sits at meat is the greater? But you will ob­serve that I am among you as one who serves. If you are will­ing to be­come fel­low ser­vants with me in do­ing the Fa­ther’s will, in the king­dom to come you shall sit with me in power, still do­ing the Fa­ther’s will in fu­ture glory.”

• rare good humor; not man of sorrows

181:1.8A cer­tain amount of both sto­icism and op­ti­mism are ser­vice­able in liv­ing a life on earth, but nei­ther has aught to do with that su­perb peace which the Son of God be­stows upon his breth­ren in the flesh. The peace which Mi­chael gives his chil­dren on earth is that very peace which filled his own soul when he him­self lived the mor­tal life in the flesh and on this very world. The peace of Je­sus is the joy and sat­is­fac­tion of a God-know­ing in­di­vid­ual who has achieved the tri­umph of learn­ing fully how to do the will of God while liv­ing the mor­tal life in the flesh. The peace of Je­sus’ mind was founded on an ab­so­lute hu­man faith in the ac­tu­al­ity of the di­vine Fa­ther’s wise and sym­pa­thetic over­care. Je­sus had trou­ble on earth, he has even been falsely called the “man of sor­rows,” but in and through all of these ex­pe­ri­ences he en­joyed the com­fort of that con­fi­dence which ever em­pow­ered him to pro­ceed with his life pur­pose in the full as­sur­ance that he was achiev­ing the Fa­ther’s will.

• faith of Jesus › in people

181:2.26And then Je­sus went over to Thomas, who, stand­ing up, heard him say: “Thomas, you have of­ten lacked faith; how­ever, when you have had your sea­sons with doubt, you have never lacked cour­age. I know well that the false proph­ets and spu­ri­ous teach­ers will not de­ceive you. Af­ter I have gone, your breth­ren will the more ap­pre­ci­ate your crit­i­cal way of view­ing new teach­ings. And when you all are scat­tered to the ends of the earth in the times to come, re­mem­ber that you are still my am­bas­sador. Ded­i­cate your life to the great work of show­ing how the crit­i­cal ma­te­rial mind of man can tri­umph over the in­er­tia of in­tel­lec­tual doubt­ing when faced by the dem­on­stra­tion of the man­i­fes­ta­tion of liv­ing truth as it op­er­ates in the ex­pe­ri­ence of spirit-born men and women who yield the fruits of the spirit in their lives, and who love one an­other, even as I have loved you. Thomas, I am glad you joined us, and I know, af­ter a short pe­riod of per­plex­ity, you will go on in the ser­vice of the king­dom. Your doubts have per­plexed your breth­ren, but they have never trou­bled me. I have con­fi­dence in you, and I will go be­fore you even to the ut­ter­most parts of the earth.”

• refused to employ spirit forces for himself

182:3.7Ear­lier in the evening it had not seemed so dif­fi­cult to drink the cup, but as the hu­man Je­sus bade farewell to his apos­tles and sent them to their rest, the trial grew more ap­palling. Je­sus ex­pe­ri­enced that nat­u­ral ebb and flow of feel­ing which is com­mon to all hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence, and just now he was weary from work, ex­hausted from the long hours of stren­u­ous la­bor and painful anx­i­ety con­cern­ing the safety of his apos­tles. While no mor­tal can pre­sume to un­der­stand the thoughts and feel­ings of the in­car­nate Son of God at such a time as this, we know that he en­dured great an­guish and suf­fered un­told sor­row, for the per­spi­ra­tion rolled off his face in great drops. He was at last con­vinced that the Fa­ther in­tended to al­low nat­u­ral events to take their course; he was fully de­ter­mined to em­ploy none of his sov­er­eign power as the su­preme head of a uni­verse to save him­self.

• sorrow of love bore down on

182:3.9The ex­pe­ri­ence of part­ing with the apos­tles was a great strain on the hu­man heart of Je­sus; this sor­row of love bore down on him and made it more dif­fi­cult to face such a death as he well knew awaited him. He re­al­ized how weak and how ig­no­rant his apos­tles were, and he dreaded to leave them. He well knew that the time of his de­par­ture had come, but his hu­man heart longed to find out whether there might not pos­si­bly be some le­git­i­mate av­enue of es­cape from this ter­ri­ble plight of suf­fer­ing and sor­row. And when it had thus sought es­cape, and failed, it was will­ing to drink the cup. The di­vine mind of Mi­chael knew he had done his best for the twelve apos­tles; but the hu­man heart of Je­sus wished that more might have been done for them be­fore they should be left alone in the world. Je­sus’ heart was be­ing crushed; he truly loved his breth­ren. He was iso­lated from his fam­ily in the flesh; one of his cho­sen as­so­ciates was be­tray­ing him. His fa­ther Joseph’s peo­ple had re­jected him and thereby sealed their doom as a peo­ple with a spe­cial mis­sion on earth. His soul was tor­tured by baf­fled love and re­jected mercy. It was just one of those aw­ful hu­man mo­ments when ev­ery­thing seems to bear down with crush­ing cru­elty and ter­ri­ble agony.

182:3.10Je­sus’ hu­man­ity was not in­sen­si­ble to this sit­u­a­tion of pri­vate lone­li­ness, pub­lic shame, and the ap­pear­ance of the fail­ure of his cause. All these sen­ti­ments bore down on him with in­de­scrib­able heav­i­ness. In this great sor­row his mind went back to the days of his child­hood in Naz­a­reth and to his early work in Gal­i­lee. At the time of this great trial there came up in his mind many of those pleas­ant scenes of his earthly min­istry. And it was from these old mem­o­ries of Naz­a­reth, Ca­per­naum, Mount Her­mon, and of the sun­rise and sun­set on the shim­mer­ing Sea of Gal­i­lee, that he soothed him­self as he made his hu­man heart strong and ready to en­counter the traitor who should so soon be­tray him.

• refused to employ spirit forces for himself

183:1.2The Fa­ther in heaven de­sired the be­stowal Son to fin­ish his earth ca­reer nat­u­rally, just as all mor­tals must fin­ish up their lives on earth and in the flesh. Or­di­nary men and women can­not ex­pect to have their last hours on earth and the super­ven­ing episode of death made easy by a spe­cial dis­pen­sa­tion. Ac­cord­ingly, Je­sus elected to lay down his life in the flesh in the man­ner which was in keep­ing with the out­work­ing of nat­u­ral events, and he stead­fastly re­fused to ex­tri­cate him­self from the cruel clutches of a wicked con­spir­acy of in­hu­man events which swept on with hor­ri­ble cer­tainty to­ward his un­be­liev­able hu­mil­i­a­tion and ig­no­min­ious death. And ev­ery bit of all this as­tound­ing man­i­fes­ta­tion of ha­tred and this un­prece­dented dem­on­stra­tion of cru­elty was the work of evil men and wicked mor­tals. God in heaven did not will it, nei­ther did the arch­en­e­mies of Je­sus dic­tate it, though they did much to in­sure that un­think­ing and evil mor­tals would thus re­ject the be­stowal Son. Even the fa­ther of sin turned his face away from the ex­cru­ci­at­ing hor­ror of the scene of the cru­ci­fix­ion.

• majestic bearing before accusers

183:3.4Je­sus made one last ef­fort to save Ju­das from ac­tu­ally be­tray­ing him in that, be­fore the traitor could reach him, he stepped to one side and, ad­dress­ing the fore­most sol­dier on the left, the cap­tain of the Ro­mans, said, “Whom do you seek?” The cap­tain an­swered, “Je­sus of Naz­a­reth.” Then Je­sus stepped up im­me­di­ately in front of the of­fi­cer and, stand­ing there in the calm majesty of the God of all this cre­ation, said, “I am he.” Many of this armed band had heard Je­sus teach in the tem­ple, oth­ers had learned about his mighty works, and when they heard him thus boldly an­nounce his iden­tity, those in the front ranks fell sud­denly back­ward. They were over­come with sur­prise at his calm and ma­jes­tic an­nounce­ment of iden­tity. There was, there­fore, no need for Ju­das to go on with his plan of be­trayal. The Mas­ter had boldly re­vealed him­self to his en­e­mies, and they could have taken him with­out Ju­das’s as­sis­tance. But the traitor had to do some­thing to ac­count for his pres­ence with this armed band, and be­sides, he wanted to make a show of car­ry­ing out his part of the be­trayal bar­gain with the rulers of the Jews in or­der to be el­i­gi­ble for the great re­ward and hon­ors which he be­lieved would be heaped upon him in com­pen­sa­tion for his prom­ise to de­liver Je­sus into their hands.

• refused to employ spirit forces for himself

183:3.7Je­sus was ready to go back to Je­ru­sa­lem with the guards, and the cap­tain of the sol­diers was al­to­gether will­ing to al­low the three apos­tles and their as­so­ciates to go their way in peace. But be­fore they were able to get started, as Je­sus stood there await­ing the cap­tain’s or­ders, one Malchus, the Syr­ian body­guard of the high priest, stepped up to Je­sus and made ready to bind his hands be­hind his back, al­though the Ro­man cap­tain had not di­rected that Je­sus should be thus bound. When Pe­ter and his as­so­ciates saw their Mas­ter be­ing sub­jected to this in­dig­nity, they were no longer able to re­strain them­selves. Pe­ter drew his sword and with the oth­ers rushed for­ward to smite Malchus. But be­fore the sol­diers could come to the de­fense of the high priest’s ser­vant, Je­sus raised a for­bid­ding hand to Pe­ter and, speak­ing sternly, said: “Pe­ter, put up your sword. They who take the sword shall per­ish by the sword. Do you not un­der­stand that it is the Fa­ther’s will that I drink this cup? And do you not fur­ther know that I could even now com­mand more than twelve le­gions of an­gels and their as­so­ciates, who would de­liver me from the hands of these few men?”

• refused to employ spirit forces for himself

183:4.2An­drew had been re­leased from all re­spon­si­bil­ity in the group man­age­ment of his fel­low apos­tles; ac­cord­ingly, in this great­est of all crises in their lives, he was silent. Af­ter a short in­for­mal dis­cus­sion, Si­mon Ze­lo­tes stood up on the stone wall of the olive press and, mak­ing an im­pas­sioned plea for loy­alty to the Mas­ter and the cause of the king­dom, ex­horted his fel­low apos­tles and the other dis­ci­ples to has­ten on af­ter the mob and ef­fect the res­cue of Je­sus. The ma­jor­ity of the com­pany would have been dis­posed to fol­low his ag­gres­sive lead­er­ship had it not been for the ad­vice of Na­than­iel, who stood up the mo­ment Si­mon had fin­ished speak­ing and called their at­ten­tion to Je­sus’ oft-re­peated teach­ings re­gard­ing non­re­sis­tance. He fur­ther re­minded them that Je­sus had that very night in­structed them that they should pre­serve their lives for the time when they should go forth into the world pro­claim­ing the good news of the gospel of the heav­enly king­dom. And Na­than­iel was en­cour­aged in this stand by James Zeb­e­dee, who now told how Pe­ter and oth­ers drew their swords to de­fend the Mas­ter against ar­rest, and that Je­sus bade Si­mon Pe­ter and his fel­low swords­men sheathe their blades. Mat­thew and Philip also made speeches, but noth­ing def­i­nite came of this dis­cus­sion un­til Thomas, call­ing their at­ten­tion to the fact that Je­sus had coun­seled Laz­a­rus against ex­pos­ing him­self to death, pointed out that they could do noth­ing to save their Mas­ter inas­much as he re­fused to al­low his friends to de­fend him, and since he per­sisted in re­frain­ing from the use of his di­vine pow­ers to frus­trate his hu­man en­e­mies. Thomas per­suaded them to scat­ter, ev­ery man for him­self, with the un­der­stand­ing that David Zeb­e­dee would re­main at the camp to main­tain a clear­ing­house and mes­sen­ger head­quar­ters for the group. By half past two o’clock that morn­ing the camp was de­serted; only David re­mained on hand with three or four mes­sen­gers, the oth­ers hav­ing been dis­patched to se­cure in­for­ma­tion as to where Je­sus had been taken, and what was go­ing to be done with him.

• majestic bearing before accusers

184:1.2An­nas had not seen Je­sus for sev­eral years, not since the time when the Mas­ter called at his house and im­me­di­ately left upon ob­serv­ing his cold­ness and re­serve in re­ceiv­ing him. An­nas had thought to pre­sume on this early ac­quain­tance and thereby at­tempt to per­suade Je­sus to aban­don his claims and leave Pales­tine. He was re­luc­tant to par­tic­i­pate in the mur­der of a good man and had rea­soned that Je­sus might choose to leave the coun­try rather than to suf­fer death. But when An­nas stood be­fore the stal­wart and de­ter­mined Galilean, he knew at once that it would be use­less to make such pro­pos­als. Je­sus was even more ma­jes­tic and well poised than An­nas re­mem­bered him.

• Jesus did not › reply to accusers

184:1.4An­nas en­tered his spa­cious au­di­ence cham­ber, seated him­self in a large chair, and com­manded that Je­sus be brought be­fore him. Af­ter a few mo­ments spent in silently sur­vey­ing the Mas­ter, he said: “You re­al­ize that some­thing must be done about your teach­ing since you are dis­turb­ing the peace and or­der of our coun­try.” As An­nas looked in­quir­ingly at Je­sus, the Mas­ter looked full into his eyes but made no re­ply. Again An­nas spoke, “What are the names of your dis­ci­ples, be­sides Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, the ag­i­ta­tor?” Again Je­sus looked down upon him, but he did not an­swer.

184:1.5An­nas was con­sid­er­ably dis­turbed by Je­sus’ re­fusal to an­swer his ques­tions, so much so that he said to him: “Do you have no care as to whether I am friendly to you or not? Do you have no re­gard for the power I have in de­ter­min­ing the is­sues of your com­ing trial?” When Je­sus heard this, he said: “An­nas, you know that you could have no power over me un­less it were per­mit­ted by my Fa­ther. Some would de­stroy the Son of Man be­cause they are ig­no­rant; they know no bet­ter, but you, friend, know what you are do­ing. How can you, there­fore, re­ject the light of God?”

• glance of commingled pity and love upon Peter

184:2.8Pe­ter was so per­turbed that he sought to es­cape con­tact with his ac­cusers by go­ing away from the fire and re­main­ing by him­self on the porch. Af­ter more than an hour of this iso­la­tion, the gate-keeper and her sis­ter chanced to meet him, and both of them again teas­ingly charged him with be­ing a fol­lower of Je­sus. And again he de­nied the ac­cu­sa­tion. Just as he had once more de­nied all con­nec­tion with Je­sus, the cock crowed, and Pe­ter re­mem­bered the words of warn­ing spo­ken to him by his Mas­ter ear­lier that same night. As he stood there, heavy of heart and crushed with the sense of guilt, the palace doors opened, and the guards led Je­sus past on the way to Cai­a­phas. As the Mas­ter passed Pe­ter, he saw, by the light of the torches, the look of de­spair on the face of his for­mer self-con­fi­dent and su­per­fi­cially brave apos­tle, and he turned and looked upon Pe­ter. Pe­ter never for­got that look as long as he lived. It was such a glance of com­min­gled pity and love as mor­tal man had never be­held in the face of the Mas­ter.

• majestic bearing before accusers

184:3.5Je­sus ap­peared be­fore this court clothed in his usual gar­ments and with his hands bound to­gether be­hind his back. The en­tire court was star­tled and some­what con­fused by his ma­jes­tic ap­pear­ance. Never had they gazed upon such a pris­oner nor wit­nessed such com­po­sure in a man on trial for his life.

• Jesus did not › reply to accusers

184:3.6The Jew­ish law re­quired that at least two wit­nesses must agree upon any point be­fore a charge could be laid against the pris­oner. Ju­das could not be used as a wit­ness against Je­sus be­cause the Jew­ish law specif­i­cally for­bade the tes­ti­mony of a traitor. More than a score of false wit­nesses were on hand to tes­tify against Je­sus, but their tes­ti­mony was so con­tra­dic­tory and so ev­i­dently trumped up that the San­hedrists them­selves were very much ashamed of the per­for­mance. Je­sus stood there, look­ing down be­nignly upon these per­jur­ers, and his very coun­te­nance dis­con­certed the ly­ing wit­nesses. Through­out all this false tes­ti­mony the Mas­ter never said a word; he made no re­ply to their many false ac­cu­sa­tions.

184:3.7The first time any two of their wit­nesses ap­proached even the sem­blance of an agree­ment was when two men tes­ti­fied that they had heard Je­sus say in the course of one of his tem­ple dis­courses that he would “de­stroy this tem­ple made with hands and in three days make an­other tem­ple with­out hands.” That was not ex­actly what Je­sus said, re­gard­less of the fact that he pointed to his own body when he made the re­mark re­ferred to.

184:3.8Al­though the high priest shouted at Je­sus, “Do you not an­swer any of these charges?” Je­sus opened not his mouth. He stood there in si­lence while all of these false wit­nesses gave their tes­ti­mony. Ha­tred, fa­nati­cism, and un­scrupu­lous ex­ag­ger­a­tion so char­ac­ter­ized the words of these per­jur­ers that their tes­ti­mony fell in its own en­tan­gle­ments. The very best refu­ta­tion of their false ac­cu­sa­tions was the Mas­ter’s calm and ma­jes­tic si­lence.

• majestic bearing before accusers

184:3.19Thirty prej­u­diced and tra­di­tion-blinded false judges, with their false wit­nesses, are pre­sum­ing to sit in judg­ment on the righ­teous Cre­ator of a uni­verse. And these im­pas­sioned ac­cusers are ex­as­per­ated by the ma­jes­tic si­lence and su­perb bear­ing of this God-man. His si­lence is ter­ri­ble to en­dure; his speech is fear­lessly de­fi­ant. He is un­moved by their threats and un­daunted by their as­saults. Man sits in judg­ment on God, but even then he loves them and would save them if he could.

• Jesus did not › reply to accusers

184:4.3Through­out this aw­ful hour Je­sus ut­tered no word. To this gen­tle and sen­si­tive soul of hu­mankind, joined in per­son­al­ity re­la­tion­ship with the God of all this uni­verse, there was no more bit­ter por­tion of his cup of hu­mil­i­a­tion than this ter­ri­ble hour at the mercy of these ig­no­rant and cruel guards and ser­vants, who had been stim­u­lated to abuse him by the ex­am­ple of the mem­bers of this so-called San­hedrist court.

• Jesus did not › reply to accusers

185:2.15When Je­sus heard these ac­cu­sa­tions, he well knew that he had not been heard on these mat­ters be­fore the Jew­ish court, and so did John Zeb­e­dee and his ac­cusers, but he made no re­ply to their false charges. Even when Pi­late bade him an­swer his ac­cusers, he opened not his mouth. Pi­late was so as­ton­ished at the un­fair­ness of the whole pro­ceed­ing and so im­pressed by Je­sus’ silent and mas­terly bear­ing that he de­cided to take the pris­oner in­side the hall and ex­am­ine him pri­vately.

• majestic bearing before accusers

185:2.16Pi­late was con­fused in mind, fear­ful of the Jews in his heart, and might­ily stirred in his spirit by the spec­ta­cle of Je­sus’ stand­ing there in majesty be­fore his blood­thirsty ac­cusers and gaz­ing down on them, not in silent con­tempt, but with an ex­pres­sion of gen­uine pity and sor­row­ful af­fec­tion.

• Jesus did not › reply to accusers
• majestic bearing before accusers

185:4.2When they brought Je­sus be­fore Herod, the tetrarch was star­tled by his stately ap­pear­ance and the calm com­po­sure of his coun­te­nance. For some fif­teen min­utes Herod asked Je­sus ques­tions, but the Mas­ter would not an­swer. Herod taunted and dared him to per­form a mir­a­cle, but Je­sus would not re­ply to his many in­quiries or re­spond to his taunts.

• Jesus did not › reply to accusers

186:2.2Be­fore the San­hedrist court Je­sus de­clined to make replies to the tes­ti­mony of per­jured wit­nesses. There was but one ques­tion which would al­ways elicit an an­swer, whether asked by friend or foe, and that was the one con­cern­ing the na­ture and di­vin­ity of his mis­sion on earth. When asked if he were the Son of God, he un­fail­ingly made re­ply. He stead­fastly re­fused to speak when in the pres­ence of the cu­ri­ous and wicked Herod. Be­fore Pi­late he spoke only when he thought that Pi­late or some other sin­cere per­son might be helped to a bet­ter knowl­edge of the truth by what he said. Je­sus had taught his apos­tles the use­less­ness of cast­ing their pearls be­fore swine, and he now dared to prac­tice what he had taught. His con­duct at this time ex­em­pli­fied the pa­tient sub­mis­sion of the hu­man na­ture cou­pled with the ma­jes­tic si­lence and solemn dig­nity of the di­vine na­ture. He was al­to­gether will­ing to dis­cuss with Pi­late any ques­tion re­lated to the po­lit­i­cal charges brought against him—any ques­tion which he rec­og­nized as be­long­ing to the gov­er­nor’s ju­ris­dic­tion.

• refused to use even human powers to save himself

186:2.3Je­sus was con­vinced that it was the will of the Fa­ther that he sub­mit him­self to the nat­u­ral and or­di­nary course of hu­man events just as ev­ery other mor­tal crea­ture must, and there­fore he re­fused to em­ploy even his purely hu­man pow­ers of per­sua­sive elo­quence to in­flu­ence the out­come of the machi­na­tions of his so­cially near­sighted and spir­i­tu­ally blinded fel­low mor­tals. Al­though Je­sus lived and died on Uran­tia, his whole hu­man ca­reer, from first to last, was a spec­ta­cle de­signed to in­flu­ence and in­struct the en­tire uni­verse of his cre­ation and un­ceas­ing up­hold­ing.

• majestic bearing before accusers

186:4.3By the time the sol­diers were ready to de­part with Je­sus for Gol­go­tha, they had be­gun to be im­pressed by his un­usual com­po­sure and ex­traor­di­nary dig­nity, by his un­com­plain­ing si­lence.

• lonely before crucifixion

187:1.8As the Mas­ter trudged along on the way to the cru­ci­fix­ion, he was very weary; he was nearly ex­hausted. He had had nei­ther food nor wa­ter since the Last Sup­per at the home of Eli­jah Mark; nei­ther had he been per­mit­ted to en­joy one mo­ment of sleep. In ad­di­tion, there had been one hear­ing right af­ter an­other up to the hour of his con­dem­na­tion, not to men­tion the abu­sive scourg­ings with their ac­com­pa­ny­ing phys­i­cal suf­fer­ing and loss of blood. Super­im­posed upon all this was his ex­treme men­tal an­guish, his acute spir­i­tual ten­sion, and a ter­ri­ble feel­ing of hu­man lone­li­ness.

• refused to use even human powers to save himself

187:3.3Many who passed by wagged their heads and, rail­ing at him, said: “You who would de­stroy the tem­ple and build it again in three days, save your­self. If you are the Son of God, why do you not come down from your cross?” In like man­ner some of the rulers of the Jews mocked him, say­ing, “He saved oth­ers, but him­self he can­not save.” Oth­ers said, “If you are the king of the Jews, come down from the cross, and we will be­lieve in you.” And later on they mocked him the more, say­ing: “He trusted in God to de­liver him. He even claimed to be the Son of God—look at him now—cru­ci­fied be­tween two thieves.” Even the two thieves also railed at him and cast re­proach upon him.

• Jesus did not › reply to accusers

187:3.4Inas­much as Je­sus would make no re­ply to their taunts, and since it was near­ing noon­time of this spe­cial prepa­ra­tion day, by half past eleven o’clock most of the jest­ing and jeer­ing crowd had gone its way; less than fifty per­sons re­mained on the scene. The sol­diers now pre­pared to eat lunch and drink their cheap, sour wine as they set­tled down for the long death­watch. As they par­took of their wine, they de­ri­sively of­fered a toast to Je­sus, say­ing, “Hail and good for­tune! to the king of the Jews.” And they were as­ton­ished at the Mas­ter’s tol­er­ant re­gard of their ridicule and mock­ing.

• abhorred pure ceremony

190:2.4When James per­ceived that Je­sus was ad­dress­ing him, he started to fall to his knees, ex­claim­ing, “My fa­ther and my brother,” but Je­sus bade him stand while he spoke with him. And they walked through the gar­den and talked for al­most three min­utes; talked over ex­pe­ri­ences of for­mer days and fore­cast the events of the near fu­ture. As they neared the house, Je­sus said, “Farewell, James, un­til I greet you all to­gether.”

• faith of Jesus › securely held him

196:0.5The­ol­ogy may fix, for­mu­late, de­fine, and dog­ma­tize faith, but in the hu­man life of Je­sus faith was per­sonal, liv­ing, orig­i­nal, spon­ta­neous, and purely spir­i­tual. This faith was not rev­er­ence for tra­di­tion nor a mere in­tel­lec­tual be­lief which he held as a sa­cred creed, but rather a sub­lime ex­pe­ri­ence and a pro­found con­vic­tion which se­curely held him. His faith was so real and all-en­com­pass­ing that it ab­so­lutely swept away any spir­i­tual doubts and ef­fec­tively de­stroyed ev­ery con­flict­ing de­sire. Noth­ing was able to tear him away from the spir­i­tual an­chor­age of this fer­vent, sub­lime, and un­daunted faith. Even in the face of ap­par­ent de­feat or in the throes of dis­ap­point­ment and threat­en­ing de­spair, he calmly stood in the di­vine pres­ence free from fear and fully con­scious of spir­i­tual in­vin­ci­bil­ity. Je­sus en­joyed the in­vig­o­rat­ing as­sur­ance of the pos­ses­sion of un­flinch­ing faith, and in each of life’s try­ing sit­u­a­tions he un­fail­ingly ex­hib­ited an un­ques­tion­ing loy­alty to the Fa­ther’s will. And this su­perb faith was un­daunted even by the cruel and crush­ing threat of an ig­no­min­ious death.

• faith of Jesus › asks disciples to believe not in him but with him

196:0.13Je­sus does not re­quire his dis­ci­ples to be­lieve in him but rather to be­lieve with him, be­lieve in the re­al­ity of the love of God and in full con­fi­dence ac­cept the se­cu­rity of the as­sur­ance of son­ship with the heav­enly Fa­ther. The Mas­ter de­sires that all his fol­low­ers should fully share his tran­scen­dent faith. Je­sus most touch­ingly chal­lenged his fol­low­ers, not only to be­lieve what he be­lieved, but also to be­lieve as he be­lieved. This is the full sig­nif­i­cance of his one su­preme re­quire­ment, “Fol­low me.”

• faith of Jesus › free from presumption

196:0.14Je­sus’ earthly life was de­voted to one great pur­pose—do­ing the Fa­ther’s will, liv­ing the hu­man life re­li­giously and by faith. The faith of Je­sus was trust­ing, like that of a child, but it was wholly free from pre­sump­tion. He made ro­bust and manly de­ci­sions, coura­geously faced man­i­fold dis­ap­point­ments, res­o­lutely sur­mounted ex­traor­di­nary dif­fi­cul­ties, and un­flinch­ingly con­fronted the stern re­quire­ments of duty. It re­quired a strong will and an un­fail­ing con­fi­dence to be­lieve what Je­sus be­lieved and as he be­lieved.

• faith of Jesus › in us

196:1.5It should not be the aim of king­dom be­liev­ers lit­er­ally to im­i­tate the out­ward life of Je­sus in the flesh but rather to share his faith; to trust God as he trusted God and to be­lieve in men as he be­lieved in men. Je­sus never ar­gued about ei­ther the fa­ther­hood of God or the broth­er­hood of men; he was a liv­ing il­lus­tra­tion of the one and a pro­found dem­on­stra­tion of the other.

• led men to feel at home in the world
• saw most men as weak rather than wicked

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.

• faith of Jesus › in us

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?

• Jesus did not › act as economic or social reformer

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.

• behold the man!

100:7.1Al­though the av­er­age mor­tal of Uran­tia can­not hope to at­tain the high per­fec­tion of char­ac­ter which Je­sus of Naz­a­reth ac­quired while so­journ­ing in the flesh, it is al­to­gether pos­si­ble for ev­ery mor­tal be­liever to de­velop a strong and uni­fied per­son­al­ity along the per­fected lines of the Je­sus per­son­al­ity. The unique fea­ture of the Mas­ter’s per­son­al­ity was not so much its per­fec­tion as its sym­me­try, its ex­qui­site and bal­anced uni­fi­ca­tion. The most ef­fec­tive pre­sen­ta­tion of Je­sus con­sists in fol­low­ing the ex­am­ple of the one who said, as he ges­tured to­ward the Mas­ter stand­ing be­fore his ac­cusers, “Be­hold the man!”

• enemies feared his presence

100:7.4The Son of Man was al­ways a well-poised per­son­al­ity. Even his en­e­mies main­tained a whole­some re­spect for him; they even feared his pres­ence. Je­sus was un­afraid. He was sur­charged with di­vine en­thu­si­asm, but he never be­came fa­nat­i­cal. He was emo­tion­ally ac­tive but never flighty. He was imag­i­na­tive but al­ways prac­ti­cal. He frankly faced the re­al­i­ties of life, but he was never dull or pro­saic. He was coura­geous but never reck­less; pru­dent but never cow­ardly. He was sym­pa­thetic but not sen­ti­men­tal; unique but not ec­cen­tric. He was pi­ous but not sanc­ti­mo­nious. And he was so well-poised be­cause he was so per­fectly uni­fied.

• opinions concerning J.

100:7.12Je­sus was con­sis­tently cheer­ful, not­with­stand­ing he some­times drank deeply of the cup of hu­man sor­row. He fear­lessly faced the re­al­i­ties of ex­is­tence, yet was he filled with en­thu­si­asm for the gospel of the king­dom. But he con­trolled his en­thu­si­asm; it never con­trolled him. He was un­re­servedly ded­i­cated to “the Fa­ther’s busi­ness.” This di­vine en­thu­si­asm led his un­spir­i­tual breth­ren to think he was be­side him­self, but the on­look­ing uni­verse ap­praised him as the model of san­ity and the pat­tern of su­preme mor­tal de­vo­tion to the high stan­dards of spir­i­tual liv­ing. And his con­trolled en­thu­si­asm was con­ta­gious; his as­so­ciates were con­strained to share his di­vine op­ti­mism.

• Tiberius admired

132:0.1Since Gonod car­ried greet­ings from the princes of In­dia to Tiberius, the Ro­man ruler, on the third day af­ter their ar­rival in Rome the two In­di­ans and Je­sus ap­peared be­fore him. The mo­rose em­peror was un­usu­ally cheer­ful on this day and chat­ted long with the trio. And when they had gone from his pres­ence, the em­peror, re­fer­ring to Je­sus, re­marked to the aide stand­ing on his right, “If I had that fel­low’s kingly bear­ing and gra­cious man­ner, I would be a real em­peror, eh?”

• opinions concerning J.

137:8.18When he had thus spo­ken, he sat down. All who heard him were as­ton­ished at his words. His dis­ci­ples mar­veled. But the peo­ple were not pre­pared to re­ceive the good news from the lips of this God-man. About one third who heard him be­lieved the mes­sage even though they could not fully com­pre­hend it; about one third pre­pared in their hearts to re­ject such a purely spir­i­tual con­cept of the ex­pected king­dom, while the re­main­ing one third could not grasp his teach­ing, many truly be­liev­ing that he “was be­side him­self.”

• we love J. more the better we know him

149:2.14On both friends and foes he ex­er­cised a strong and pe­cu­liarly fas­ci­nat­ing in­flu­ence. Mul­ti­tudes would fol­low him for weeks, just to hear his gra­cious words and be­hold his sim­ple life. De­voted men and women loved Je­sus with a well-nigh super­hu­man af­fec­tion. And the bet­ter they knew him the more they loved him. And all this is still true; even to­day and in all fu­ture ages, the more man comes to know this God-man, the more he will love and fol­low af­ter him.

149:3.1Not­with­stand­ing the fa­vor­able re­cep­tion of Je­sus and his teach­ings by the com­mon peo­ple, the re­li­gious lead­ers at Je­ru­sa­lem be­came in­creas­ingly alarmed and an­tag­o­nis­tic. The Phar­isees had for­mu­lated a sys­tem­atic and dog­matic the­ol­ogy. Je­sus was a teacher who taught as the oc­ca­sion served; he was not a sys­tem­atic teacher. Je­sus taught not so much from the law as from life, by para­bles. (And when he em­ployed a para­ble for il­lus­trat­ing his mes­sage, he de­signed to uti­lize just one fea­ture of the story for that pur­pose. Many wrong ideas con­cern­ing the teach­ings of Je­sus may be se­cured by at­tempt­ing to make al­le­gories out of his para­bles.)

149:3.2The re­li­gious lead­ers at Je­ru­sa­lem were be­com­ing well-nigh fran­tic as a re­sult of the re­cent con­ver­sion of young Abra­ham and by the de­ser­tion of the three spies who had been bap­tized by Pe­ter, and who were now out with the evan­ge­lists on this sec­ond preach­ing tour of Gal­i­lee. The Jew­ish lead­ers were in­creas­ingly blinded by fear and prej­u­dice, while their hearts were hard­ened by the con­tin­ued re­jec­tion of the ap­peal­ing truths of the gospel of the king­dom. When men shut off the ap­peal to the spirit that dwells within them, there is lit­tle that can be done to mod­ify their at­ti­tude.

149:3.3When Je­sus first met with the evan­ge­lists at the Beth­saida camp, in con­clud­ing his ad­dress, he said: “You should re­mem­ber that in body and mind—emo­tion­ally—men re­act in­di­vid­u­ally. The only uni­form thing about men is the in­dwelling spirit. Though di­vine spir­its may vary some­what in the na­ture and ex­tent of their ex­pe­ri­ence, they re­act uni­formly to all spir­i­tual ap­peals. Only through, and by ap­peal to, this spirit can man­kind ever at­tain unity and broth­er­hood.” But many of the lead­ers of the Jews had closed the doors of their hearts to the spir­i­tual ap­peal of the gospel. From this day on they ceased not to plan and plot for the Mas­ter’s de­struc­tion. They were con­vinced that Je­sus must be ap­pre­hended, con­victed, and ex­e­cuted as a re­li­gious of­fender, a vi­o­la­tor of the car­di­nal teach­ings of the Jew­ish sa­cred law.

• 90% of followers deserted after king-making episode

152:5.2Of the five thou­sand who were mirac­u­lously fed, and who, when their stom­achs were full and their hearts empty, would have made him king, only about five hun­dred per­sisted in fol­low­ing af­ter him. But be­fore these re­ceived word that he was back in Beth­saida, Je­sus asked An­drew to as­sem­ble the twelve apos­tles and their as­so­ciates, in­clud­ing the women, say­ing, “I de­sire to speak with them.” And when all were ready, Je­sus said:

• 90% of followers deserted after king-making episode

152:6.2While Je­sus and the twelve were rest­ing at Gen­nesaret, the mul­ti­tudes dis­persed, some go­ing to their homes, oth­ers go­ing on up to Je­ru­sa­lem for the Pass­over. In less than one month’s time the en­thu­si­as­tic and open fol­low­ers of Je­sus, who num­bered more than fifty thou­sand in Gal­i­lee alone, shrank to less than five hun­dred. Je­sus de­sired to give his apos­tles such an ex­pe­ri­ence with the fick­le­ness of pop­u­lar ac­claim that they would not be tempted to rely on such man­i­fes­ta­tions of tran­sient re­li­gious hys­te­ria af­ter he should leave them alone in the work of the king­dom, but he was only par­tially suc­cess­ful in this ef­fort.

• opinions concerning J.

154:4.1On this same Sat­ur­day night, in Ca­per­naum a group of fifty lead­ing cit­i­zens met at the syn­a­gogue to dis­cuss the mo­men­tous ques­tion: “What shall we do with Je­sus?” They talked and de­bated un­til af­ter mid­night, but they could not find any com­mon ground for agree­ment. Aside from a few per­sons who in­clined to the be­lief that Je­sus might be the Mes­siah, at least a holy man, or per­haps a prophet, the meet­ing was di­vided into four nearly equal groups who held, re­spec­tively, the fol­low­ing views of Je­sus:

154:4.21. That he was a de­luded and harm­less re­li­gious fa­natic.

154:4.32. That he was a dan­ger­ous and de­sign­ing ag­i­ta­tor who might stir up re­bel­lion.

154:4.43. That he was in league with dev­ils, that he might even be a prince of dev­ils.

154:4.54. That he was be­side him­self, that he was mad, men­tally un­bal­anced.

• men have not been unable, but afraid, to comprehend J.

156:2.4In many ways these gen­tile be­liev­ers ap­pre­ci­ated Je­sus’ teach­ings more fully than the Jews. Many of these Greek-speak­ing Sy­rophoeni­cians came to know not only that Je­sus was like God but also that God was like Je­sus. These so-called hea­then achieved a good un­der­stand­ing of the Mas­ter’s teach­ings about the uni­for­mity of the laws of this world and the en­tire uni­verse. They grasped the teach­ing that God is no re­specter of per­sons, races, or na­tions; that there is no fa­voritism with the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther; that the uni­verse is wholly and ever law-abid­ing and un­fail­ingly de­pend­able. These gen­tiles were not afraid of Je­sus; they dared to ac­cept his mes­sage. All down through the ages men have not been un­able to com­pre­hend Je­sus; they have been afraid to.

• opinions concerning J.

157:3.5More than half the apos­tles par­tic­i­pated in an­swer­ing Je­sus’ ques­tion. They told him that he was re­garded as a prophet or as an ex­traor­di­nary man by all who knew him; that even his en­e­mies greatly feared him, ac­count­ing for his pow­ers by the in­dict­ment that he was in league with the prince of dev­ils. They told him that some in Judea and Samaria who had not met him per­son­ally be­lieved he was John the Bap­tist risen from the dead. Pe­ter ex­plained that he had been, at sundry times and by var­i­ous per­sons, com­pared with Moses, Eli­jah, Isa­iah, and Jeremiah. When Je­sus had lis­tened to this re­port, he drew him­self upon his feet, and look­ing down upon the twelve sit­ting about him in a semi­cir­cle, with startling em­pha­sis he pointed to them with a sweep­ing ges­ture of his hand and asked, “But who say you that I am?” There was a mo­ment of tense si­lence. The twelve never took their eyes off the Mas­ter, and then Si­mon Pe­ter, spring­ing to his feet, ex­claimed: “You are the De­liv­erer, the Son of the liv­ing God.” And the eleven sit­ting apos­tles arose to their feet with one ac­cord, thereby in­di­cat­ing that Pe­ter had spo­ken for all of them.

• we love J. more the better we know him

161:2.32. His life as­so­ci­a­tion with us ex­em­pli­fies the ideal of hu­man friend­ship; only a di­vine be­ing could pos­si­bly be such a hu­man friend. He is the most truly un­selfish per­son we have ever known. He is the friend even of sin­ners; he dares to love his en­e­mies. He is very loyal to us. While he does not hes­i­tate to re­prove us, it is plain to all that he truly loves us. The bet­ter you know him, the more you will love him. You will be charmed by his unswerv­ing de­vo­tion. Through all these years of our fail­ure to com­pre­hend his mis­sion, he has been a faith­ful friend. While he makes no use of flat­tery, he does treat us all with equal kind­ness; he is in­vari­ably ten­der and com­pas­sion­ate. He has shared his life and ev­ery­thing else with us. We are a happy com­mu­nity; we share all things in com­mon. We do not be­lieve that a mere hu­man could live such a blame­less life un­der such try­ing cir­cum­stances.

• opinions concerning J.

162:1.10The mul­ti­tudes who lis­tened to the Mas­ter’s teach­ings were di­vided in their opin­ions. Some said he was a good man; some a prophet; some that he was truly the Mes­siah; oth­ers said he was a mis­chievous med­dler, that he was lead­ing the peo­ple astray with his strange doc­trines. His en­e­mies hes­i­tated to de­nounce him openly for fear of his friendly be­liev­ers, while his friends feared to ac­knowl­edge him openly for fear of the Jew­ish lead­ers, know­ing that the San­hedrin was de­ter­mined to put him to death. But even his en­e­mies mar­veled at his teach­ing, know­ing that he had not been in­structed in the schools of the rab­bis.

• opinions concerning J.

162:2.2When the crowd heard these words, they fell to wran­gling among them­selves. Some said he was mad; some that he had a devil. Oth­ers said this was in­deed the prophet of Gal­i­lee whom the scribes and Phar­isees had long sought to kill. Some said the re­li­gious au­thor­i­ties were afraid to mo­lest him; oth­ers thought that they laid not hands upon him be­cause they had be­come be­liev­ers in him. Af­ter con­sid­er­able de­bate one of the crowd stepped for­ward and asked Je­sus, “Why do the rulers seek to kill you?” And he replied: “The rulers seek to kill me be­cause they re­sent my teach­ing about the good news of the king­dom, a gospel that sets men free from the bur­den­some tra­di­tions of a for­mal re­li­gion of cer­e­monies which these teach­ers are de­ter­mined to up­hold at any cost. They cir­cum­cise in ac­cor­dance with the law on the Sab­bath day, but they would kill me be­cause I once on the Sab­bath day set free a man held in the bond­age of af­flic­tion. They fol­low af­ter me on the Sab­bath to spy on me but would kill me be­cause on an­other oc­ca­sion I chose to make a griev­ously stricken man com­pletely whole on the Sab­bath day. They seek to kill me be­cause they well know that, if you hon­estly be­lieve and dare to ac­cept my teach­ing, their sys­tem of tra­di­tional re­li­gion will be over­thrown, for­ever de­stroyed. Thus will they be de­prived of au­thor­ity over that to which they have de­voted their lives since they stead­fastly refuse to ac­cept this new and more glo­ri­ous gospel of the king­dom of God. And now do I ap­peal to ev­ery one of you: Judge not ac­cord­ing to out­ward ap­pear­ances but rather judge by the true spirit of these teach­ings; judge righ­teously.”

• opinions concerning J.

162:6.4And Je­sus con­tin­ued to an­swer the ques­tions of both the mul­ti­tude and the Phar­isees. Some thought he was a prophet; some be­lieved him to be the Mes­siah; oth­ers said he could not be the Christ, see­ing that he came from Gal­i­lee, and that the Mes­siah must re­store David’s throne. Still they dared not ar­rest him.

• thousands have proved promises of

163:6.8And they found the Mas­ter’s words to be true when they put his promises to the test. And since that day count­less thou­sands also have tested and proved the surety of these same promises.

• opinions concerning J.

165:2.11When they heard these words, his apos­tles were con­fused, his dis­ci­ples were amazed, while the Phar­isees from Je­ru­sa­lem and around about went out into the night, say­ing, “He is ei­ther mad or has a devil.” But even some of the Je­ru­sa­lem teach­ers said: “He speaks like one hav­ing au­thor­ity; be­sides, who ever saw one hav­ing a devil open the eyes of a man born blind and do all of the won­der­ful things which this man has done?”

165:2.12On the mor­row about half of these Jew­ish teach­ers pro­fessed be­lief in Je­sus, and the other half in dis­may re­turned to Je­ru­sa­lem and their homes.

• opinions concerning J.

166:1.6And when Je­sus had fin­ished speak­ing at Na­than­iel’s ta­ble, he went out of the house with­out par­tak­ing of food. And of the Phar­isees who heard these words, some be­came be­liev­ers in his teach­ing and en­tered into the king­dom, but the larger num­ber per­sisted in the way of dark­ness, be­com­ing all the more de­ter­mined to lie in wait for him that they might catch some of his words which could be used to bring him to trial and judg­ment be­fore the San­hedrin at Je­ru­sa­lem.

• opinions concerning J.

172:3.15There re­ally was no deep sig­nif­i­cance to be at­tached to this su­per­fi­cial and spon­ta­neous out­burst of pop­u­lar en­thu­si­asm. This wel­come, al­though it was joy­ous and sin­cere, did not be­to­ken any real or deep-seated con­vic­tion in the hearts of this fes­tive mul­ti­tude. These same crowds were equally as will­ing quickly to re­ject Je­sus later on this week when the San­hedrin once took a firm and de­cided stand against him, and when they be­came dis­il­lu­sioned—when they re­al­ized that Je­sus was not go­ing to es­tab­lish the king­dom in ac­cor­dance with their long-cher­ished ex­pec­ta­tions.

• common people heard gladly

173:3.2And the peo­ple spoke with one ac­cord, say­ing, “The first son.” And then said Je­sus: “Even so; and now do I de­clare that the pub­li­cans and har­lots, even though they ap­pear to refuse the call to re­pen­tance, shall see the er­ror of their way and go on into the king­dom of God be­fore you, who make great pre­ten­sions of serv­ing the Fa­ther in heaven while you refuse to do the works of the Fa­ther. It was not you, the Phar­isees and scribes, who be­lieved John, but rather the pub­li­cans and sin­ners; nei­ther do you be­lieve my teach­ing, but the com­mon peo­ple hear my words gladly.”

• common people heard gladly

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.

• opinions concerning J.

185:3.6Pi­late was not able to fathom Je­sus’ words, nor was he able to un­der­stand the na­ture of his spir­i­tual king­dom, but he was now cer­tain that the pris­oner had done noth­ing wor­thy of death. One look at Je­sus, face to face, was enough to con­vince even Pi­late that this gen­tle and weary, but ma­jes­tic and up­right, man was no wild and dan­ger­ous rev­o­lu­tion­ary who as­pired to es­tab­lish him­self on the tem­po­ral throne of Is­rael. Pi­late thought he un­der­stood some­thing of what Je­sus meant when he called him­self a king, for he was fa­mil­iar with the teach­ings of the Sto­ics, who de­clared that “the wise man is king.” Pi­late was thor­oughly con­vinced that, in­stead of be­ing a dan­ger­ous sedi­tion­mon­ger, Je­sus was noth­ing more or less than a harm­less vi­sion­ary, an in­no­cent fa­natic.

• behold the man!

186:2.11Pi­late spoke more truly than he knew when, af­ter Je­sus had been scourged, he pre­sented him be­fore the mul­ti­tude, ex­claim­ing, “Be­hold the man!” In­deed, the fear-rid­den Ro­man gov­er­nor lit­tle dreamed that at just that mo­ment the uni­verse stood at at­ten­tion, gaz­ing upon this unique scene of its beloved Sov­er­eign thus sub­jected in hu­mil­i­a­tion to the taunts and blows of his dark­ened and de­graded mor­tal sub­jects. And as Pi­late spoke, there echoed through­out all Neb­a­don, “Be­hold God and man!” Through­out a uni­verse, un­told mil­lions have ever since that day con­tin­ued to be­hold that man, while the God of Ha­vona, the su­preme ruler of the uni­verse of uni­verses, ac­cepts the man of Naz­a­reth as the sat­is­fac­tion of the ideal of the mor­tal crea­tures of this lo­cal uni­verse of time and space. In his match­less life he never failed to re­veal God to man. Now, in these fi­nal episodes of his mor­tal ca­reer and in his sub­se­quent death, he made a new and touch­ing rev­e­la­tion of man to God.

• common people heard gladly

196:1.4The com­mon peo­ple heard Je­sus gladly, and they will again re­spond to the pre­sen­ta­tion of his sin­cere hu­man life of con­se­crated re­li­gious mo­ti­va­tion if such truths shall again be pro­claimed to the world. The peo­ple heard him gladly be­cause he was one of them, an un­pre­ten­tious lay­man; the world’s great­est re­li­gious teacher was in­deed a lay­man.

142:7.15Je­sus is a di­vine Son, one in the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther’s full con­fi­dence. He had been with the Fa­ther and com­pre­hended him fully. He had now lived his earth life to the full sat­is­fac­tion of the Fa­ther, and this in­car­na­tion in the flesh had en­abled him fully to com­pre­hend man. Je­sus was the per­fec­tion of man; he had at­tained just such per­fec­tion as all true be­liev­ers are des­tined to at­tain in him and through him. Je­sus re­vealed a God of per­fec­tion to man and pre­sented in him­self the per­fected son of the realms to God.

97:5.3Speak­ing to the fear-rid­den and soul-hun­gry He­brews, this prophet said: “Arise and shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” “The spirit of the Lord is upon me be­cause he has anointed me to preach good tid­ings to the meek; he has sent me to bind up the bro­ken­hearted, to pro­claim lib­erty to the cap­tives and the open­ing of the prison to those who are bound.” “I will greatly re­joice in the Lord, my soul shall be joy­ful in my God, for he has clothed me with the gar­ments of sal­va­tion and has cov­ered me with his robe of righ­teous­ness.” “In all their af­flic­tions he was af­flicted, and the an­gel of his pres­ence saved them. In his love and in his pity he re­deemed them.”

123:5.11When en­ter­ing school at seven years (at this time the Jews had just in­au­gu­rated a com­pul­sory ed­u­ca­tion law), it was cus­tom­ary for the pupils to choose their “birth­day text,” a sort of golden rule to guide them through­out their stud­ies, one upon which they of­ten ex­pa­ti­ated at their grad­u­a­tion when thir­teen years old. The text which Je­sus chose was from the Prophet Isa­iah: “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the meek, to bind up the bro­ken­hearted, to pro­claim lib­erty to the cap­tives, and to set the spir­i­tual pris­on­ers free.”

126:5.2Al­ready had this youth well-nigh en­com­passed the com­pre­hen­sion of how men lived in his day. And how well he un­der­stood life in the home, field, and work­shop is shown by his sub­se­quent teach­ings, which so re­pletely re­veal his in­ti­mate con­tact with all phases of hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

148:5.5“But, Na­than­iel, there is much in the Scrip­tures which would have in­structed you if you had only read with dis­cern­ment. Do you not re­mem­ber that it is writ­ten: ‘My son, de­spise not the chas­ten­ing of the Lord; nei­ther be weary of his cor­rec­tion, for whom the Lord loves he cor­rects, even as the fa­ther cor­rects the son in whom he takes de­light.’ ‘The Lord does not af­flict will­ingly.’ ‘Be­fore I was af­flicted, I went astray, but now do I keep the law. Af­flic­tion was good for me that I might thereby learn the di­vine statutes.’ ‘I know your sor­rows. The eter­nal God is your refuge, while un­der­neath are the ev­er­last­ing arms.’ ‘The Lord also is a refuge for the op­pressed, a haven of rest in times of trou­ble.’ ‘The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of af­flic­tion; the Lord will not for­get the sick.’ ‘As a fa­ther shows com­pas­sion for his chil­dren, so is the Lord com­pas­sion­ate to those who fear him. He knows your body; he re­mem­bers that you are dust.’ ‘He heals the bro­ken­hearted and binds up their wounds.’ ‘He is the hope of the poor, the strength of the needy in his dis­tress, a refuge from the storm, and a shadow from the dev­as­tat­ing heat.’ ‘He gives power to the faint, and to them who have no might he in­creases strength.’ ‘A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smok­ing flax he will not quench.’ ‘When you pass through the wa­ters of af­flic­tion, I will be with you, and when the rivers of ad­ver­sity over­flow you, I will not for­sake you.’ ‘He has sent me to bind up the bro­ken­hearted, to pro­claim lib­erty to the cap­tives, and to com­fort all who mourn.’ ‘There is cor­rec­tion in suf­fer­ing; af­flic­tion does not spring forth from the dust.’”

150:8.9And when he had ceased read­ing from the law, he turned to Isa­iah and be­gan to read: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me be­cause he has anointed me to preach good tid­ings to the poor. He has sent me to pro­claim re­lease to the cap­tives and the re­cov­er­ing of sight to the blind, to set at lib­erty those who are bruised and to pro­claim the ac­cept­able year of the Lord.”

190:5.4As they walked along, Je­sus said to them: “How slow you are to com­pre­hend the truth! When you tell me that it is about the teach­ings and work of this man that you have your dis­cus­sions, then may I en­lighten you since I am more than fa­mil­iar with these teach­ings. Do you not re­mem­ber that this Je­sus al­ways taught that his king­dom was not of this world, and that all men, be­ing the sons of God, should find lib­erty and free­dom in the spir­i­tual joy of the fel­low­ship of the broth­er­hood of lov­ing ser­vice in this new king­dom of the truth of the heav­enly Fa­ther’s love? Do you not re­call how this Son of Man pro­claimed the sal­va­tion of God for all men, min­is­ter­ing to the sick and af­flicted and set­ting free those who were bound by fear and en­slaved by evil? Do you not know that this man of Naz­a­reth told his dis­ci­ples that he must go to Je­ru­sa­lem, be de­liv­ered up to his en­e­mies, who would put him to death, and that he would arise on the third day? Have you not been told all this? And have you never read in the Scrip­tures con­cern­ing this day of sal­va­tion for Jew and gen­tile, where it says that in him shall all the fam­i­lies of the earth be blessed; that he will hear the cry of the needy and save the souls of the poor who seek him; that all na­tions shall call him blessed? That such a De­liv­erer shall be as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. That he will feed the flock like a true shep­herd, gath­er­ing the lambs in his arms and ten­derly car­ry­ing them in his bo­som. That he will open the eyes of the spir­i­tu­ally blind and bring the pris­on­ers of de­spair out into full lib­erty and light; that all who sit in dark­ness shall see the great light of eter­nal sal­va­tion. That he will bind up the bro­ken­hearted, pro­claim lib­erty to the cap­tives of sin, and open up the prison to those who are en­slaved by fear and bound by evil. That he will com­fort those who mourn and be­stow upon them the joy of sal­va­tion in the place of sor­row and heav­i­ness. That he shall be the de­sire of all na­tions and the ev­er­last­ing joy of those who seek righ­teous­ness. That this Son of truth and righ­teous­ness shall rise upon the world with heal­ing light and sav­ing power; even that he will save his peo­ple from their sins; that he will re­ally seek and save those who are lost. That he will not de­stroy the weak but min­is­ter sal­va­tion to all who hunger and thirst for righ­teous­ness. That those who be­lieve in him shall have eter­nal life. That he will pour out his spirit upon all flesh, and that this Spirit of Truth shall be in each be­liever a well of wa­ter, spring­ing up into ev­er­last­ing life. Did you not un­der­stand how great was the gospel of the king­dom which this man de­liv­ered to you? Do you not per­ceive how great a sal­va­tion has come upon you?”

182:1.3“Fa­ther, my hour has come; now glo­rify your Son that the Son may glo­rify you. I know that you have given me full au­thor­ity over all liv­ing crea­tures in my realm, and I will give eter­nal life to all who will be­come faith sons of God. And this is eter­nal life, that my crea­tures should know you as the only true God and Fa­ther of all, and that they should be­lieve in him whom you sent into the world. Fa­ther, I have ex­alted you on earth and have ac­com­plished the work which you gave me to do. I have al­most fin­ished my be­stowal upon the chil­dren of our own cre­ation; there re­mains only for me to lay down my life in the flesh. And now, O my Fa­ther, glo­rify me with the glory which I had with you be­fore this world was and re­ceive me once more at your right hand.

136:4.10The forty days in the moun­tain wilder­ness were not a pe­riod of great temp­ta­tion but rather the pe­riod of the Mas­ter’s great de­ci­sions. Dur­ing these days of lone com­mu­nion with him­self and his Fa­ther’s im­me­di­ate pres­ence—the Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster (he no longer had a per­sonal se­raphic guard­ian)—he ar­rived, one by one, at the great de­ci­sions which were to con­trol his poli­cies and con­duct for the re­main­der of his earth ca­reer. Sub­se­quently the tra­di­tion of a great temp­ta­tion be­came at­tached to this pe­riod of iso­la­tion through con­fu­sion with the frag­men­tary nar­ra­tives of the Mount Her­mon strug­gles, and fur­ther be­cause it was the cus­tom to have all great proph­ets and hu­man lead­ers be­gin their pub­lic ca­reers by un­der­go­ing these sup­posed sea­sons of fast­ing and prayer. It had al­ways been Je­sus’ prac­tice, when fac­ing any new or se­ri­ous de­ci­sions, to with­draw for com­mu­nion with his own spirit that he might seek to know the will of God.

144:1.8Much of this time Je­sus was alone on the moun­tain near the camp. Oc­ca­sion­ally he took with him Pe­ter, James, or John, but more of­ten he went off to pray or com­mune alone. Sub­se­quent to the bap­tism of Je­sus and the forty days in the Perean hills, it is hardly proper to speak of these sea­sons of com­mu­nion with his Fa­ther as prayer, nor is it con­sis­tent to speak of Je­sus as wor­ship­ing, but it is al­to­gether cor­rect to al­lude to these sea­sons as per­sonal com­mu­nion with his Fa­ther.

145:5.1Nei­ther did Je­sus sleep much that Sat­ur­day night. He re­al­ized that the world was filled with phys­i­cal dis­tress and over­run with ma­te­rial dif­fi­cul­ties, and he con­tem­plated the great dan­ger of be­ing com­pelled to de­vote so much of his time to the care of the sick and af­flicted that his mis­sion of es­tab­lish­ing the spir­i­tual king­dom in the hearts of men would be in­ter­fered with or at least sub­or­di­nated to the min­istry of things phys­i­cal. Be­cause of these and sim­i­lar thoughts which oc­cu­pied the mor­tal mind of Je­sus dur­ing the night, he arose that Sun­day morn­ing long be­fore day­break and went all alone to one of his fa­vorite places for com­mu­nion with the Fa­ther. The theme of Je­sus’ prayer on this early morn­ing was for wis­dom and judg­ment that he might not al­low his hu­man sym­pa­thy, joined with his di­vine mercy, to make such an ap­peal to him in the pres­ence of mor­tal suf­fer­ing that all of his time would be oc­cu­pied with phys­i­cal min­istry to the ne­glect of the spir­i­tual. Though he did not wish al­to­gether to avoid min­is­ter­ing to the sick, he knew that he must also do the more im­por­tant work of spir­i­tual teach­ing and re­li­gious train­ing.

145:5.2Je­sus went out in the hills to pray so many times be­cause there were no pri­vate rooms suit­able for his per­sonal de­vo­tions.

147:0.1Je­sus and the apos­tles ar­rived in Ca­per­naum on Wednes­day, March 17, and spent two weeks at the Beth­saida head­quar­ters be­fore they de­parted for Je­ru­sa­lem. These two weeks the apos­tles taught the peo­ple by the sea­side while Je­sus spent much time alone in the hills about his Fa­ther’s busi­ness. Dur­ing this pe­riod Je­sus, ac­com­pa­nied by James and John Zeb­e­dee, made two se­cret trips to Tiberias, where they met with the be­liev­ers and in­structed them in the gospel of the king­dom.

148:3.1Through­out this pe­riod Je­sus con­ducted pub­lic ser­vices at the en­camp­ment less than a dozen times and spoke only once in the Ca­per­naum syn­a­gogue, the sec­ond Sab­bath be­fore their de­par­ture with the newly trained evan­ge­lists upon their sec­ond pub­lic preach­ing tour of Gal­i­lee.

148:3.2Not since his bap­tism had the Mas­ter been so much alone as dur­ing this pe­riod of the evan­ge­lists’ train­ing en­camp­ment at Beth­saida. When­ever any one of the apos­tles ven­tured to ask Je­sus why he was ab­sent so much from their midst, he would in­vari­ably an­swer that he was “about the Fa­ther’s busi­ness.”

148:3.3Dur­ing these pe­ri­ods of ab­sence, Je­sus was ac­com­pa­nied by only two of the apos­tles. He had re­leased Pe­ter, James, and John tem­porar­ily from their as­sign­ment as his per­sonal com­pan­ions that they might also par­tic­i­pate in the work of train­ing the new evan­ge­lis­tic can­di­dates, num­ber­ing more than one hun­dred. When the Mas­ter de­sired to go to the hills about the Fa­ther’s busi­ness, he would sum­mon to ac­com­pany him any two of the apos­tles who might be at lib­erty. In this way each of the twelve en­joyed an op­por­tu­nity for close as­so­ci­a­tion and in­ti­mate con­tact with Je­sus.

148:3.4It has not been re­vealed for the pur­poses of this rec­ord, but we have been led to in­fer that the Mas­ter, dur­ing many of these soli­tary sea­sons in the hills, was in di­rect and ex­ec­u­tive as­so­ci­a­tion with many of his chief di­rec­tors of uni­verse af­fairs. Ever since about the time of his bap­tism this in­car­nated Sov­er­eign of our uni­verse had be­come in­creas­ingly and con­sciously ac­tive in the di­rec­tion of cer­tain phases of uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tion. And we have al­ways held the opin­ion that, in some way not re­vealed to his im­me­di­ate as­so­ciates, dur­ing these weeks of de­creased par­tic­i­pa­tion in the af­fairs of earth he was en­gaged in the di­rec­tion of those high spirit in­tel­li­gences who were charged with the run­ning of a vast uni­verse, and that the hu­man Je­sus chose to des­ig­nate such ac­tiv­i­ties on his part as be­ing “about his Fa­ther’s busi­ness.”

148:3.5Many times, when Je­sus was alone for hours, but when two of his apos­tles were near by, they ob­served his fea­tures un­dergo rapid and mul­ti­tudi­nous changes, al­though they heard him speak no words. Nei­ther did they ob­serve any vis­i­ble man­i­fes­ta­tion of ce­les­tial be­ings who might have been in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with their Mas­ter, such as some of them did wit­ness on a sub­se­quent oc­ca­sion.

151:0.1By March 10 all of the preach­ing and teach­ing groups had for­gath­ered at Beth­saida. Thurs­day night and Fri­day many of them went out to fish, while on the Sab­bath day they at­tended the syn­a­gogue to hear an aged Jew of Da­mas­cus dis­course on the glory of fa­ther Abra­ham. Je­sus spent most of this Sab­bath day alone in the hills. That Sat­ur­day night the Mas­ter talked for more than an hour to the as­sem­bled groups on “The mis­sion of ad­ver­sity and the spir­i­tual value of dis­ap­point­ment.” This was a mem­o­rable oc­ca­sion, and his hear­ers never for­got the les­son he im­parted.

151:5.1The mul­ti­tude con­tin­ued to in­crease through­out the week. On Sab­bath Je­sus has­tened away to the hills, but when Sun­day morn­ing came, the crowds re­turned. Je­sus spoke to them in the early af­ter­noon af­ter the preach­ing of Pe­ter, and when he had fin­ished, he said to his apos­tles: “I am weary of the throngs; let us cross over to the other side that we may rest for a day.”

152:4.1The apos­tles, with­out their Mas­ter—sent off by them­selves—en­tered the boat and in si­lence be­gan to row to­ward Beth­saida on the west­ern shore of the lake. None of the twelve was so crushed and down­cast as Si­mon Pe­ter. Hardly a word was spo­ken; they were all think­ing of the Mas­ter alone in the hills. Had he for­saken them? He had never be­fore sent them all away and re­fused to go with them. What could all this mean?

152:5.5Je­sus then an­nounced that he wished to with­draw for a few days of rest with his apos­tles be­fore they made ready to go up to Je­ru­sa­lem for the Pass­over, and he for­bade any of the dis­ci­ples or the mul­ti­tude to fol­low him. Ac­cord­ingly they went by boat to the re­gion of Gen­nesaret for two or three days of rest and sleep. Je­sus was prepar­ing for a great cri­sis of his life on earth, and he there­fore spent much time in com­mu­nion with the Fa­ther in heaven.

153:5.2And now, on top of all of these wor­ries, when they reached home, Je­sus re­fused to eat. For hours he iso­lated him­self in one of the up­per rooms. It was al­most mid­night when Joab, the leader of the evan­ge­lists, re­turned and re­ported that about one third of his as­so­ciates had de­serted the cause. All through the evening loyal dis­ci­ples had come and gone, re­port­ing that the re­vul­sion of feel­ing to­ward the Mas­ter was gen­eral in Ca­per­naum. The lead­ers from Je­ru­sa­lem were not slow to feed this feel­ing of dis­af­fec­tion and in ev­ery way pos­si­ble to seek to pro­mote the move­ment away from Je­sus and his teach­ings. Dur­ing these try­ing hours the twelve women were in ses­sion over at Pe­ter’s house. They were tremen­dously up­set, but none of them de­serted.

158:1.6It was about three o’clock on this beau­ti­ful af­ter­noon that Je­sus took leave of the three apos­tles, say­ing: “I go apart by my­self for a sea­son to com­mune with the Fa­ther and his mes­sen­gers; I bid you tarry here and, while await­ing my re­turn, pray that the Fa­ther’s will may be done in all your ex­pe­ri­ence in con­nec­tion with the fur­ther be­stowal mis­sion of the Son of Man.” And af­ter say­ing this to them, Je­sus with­drew for a long con­fer­ence with Ga­briel and the Fa­ther Mel­chiz­e­dek, not re­turn­ing un­til about six o’clock. When Je­sus saw their anx­i­ety over his pro­longed ab­sence, he said: “Why were you afraid? You well know I must be about my Fa­ther’s busi­ness; where­fore do you doubt when I am not with you? I now de­clare that the Son of Man has cho­sen to go through his full life in your midst and as one of you. Be of good cheer; I will not leave you un­til my work is fin­ished.”

160:1.10But the great­est of all meth­ods of prob­lem solv­ing I have learned from Je­sus, your Mas­ter. I re­fer to that which he so con­sis­tently prac­tices, and which he has so faith­fully taught you, the iso­la­tion of wor­ship­ful med­i­ta­tion. In this habit of Je­sus’ go­ing off so fre­quently by him­self to com­mune with the Fa­ther in heaven is to be found the tech­nique, not only of gath­er­ing strength and wis­dom for the or­di­nary con­flicts of liv­ing, but also of ap­pro­pri­at­ing the en­ergy for the so­lu­tion of the higher prob­lems of a moral and spir­i­tual na­ture. But even cor­rect meth­ods of solv­ing prob­lems will not com­pen­sate for in­her­ent de­fects of per­son­al­ity or atone for the ab­sence of the hunger and thirst for true righ­teous­ness.

160:1.11I am deeply im­pressed with the cus­tom of Je­sus in go­ing apart by him­self to en­gage in these sea­sons of soli­tary sur­vey of the prob­lems of liv­ing; to seek for new stores of wis­dom and en­ergy for meet­ing the man­i­fold de­mands of so­cial ser­vice; to quicken and deepen the su­preme pur­pose of liv­ing by ac­tu­ally sub­ject­ing the to­tal per­son­al­ity to the con­scious­ness of con­tact­ing with di­vin­ity; to grasp for pos­ses­sion of new and bet­ter meth­ods of ad­just­ing one­self to the ever-chang­ing sit­u­a­tions of liv­ing ex­is­tence; to ef­fect those vi­tal re­con­struc­tions and read­just­ments of one’s per­sonal at­ti­tudes which are so es­sen­tial to en­hanced in­sight into ev­ery­thing worth while and real; and to do all of this with an eye sin­gle to the glory of God—to breathe in sin­cer­ity your Mas­ter’s fa­vorite prayer, “Not my will, but yours, be done.”

160:1.12This wor­ship­ful prac­tice of your Mas­ter brings that re­lax­ation which re­news the mind; that il­lu­mi­na­tion which in­spires the soul; that cour­age which en­ables one bravely to face one’s prob­lems; that self-un­der­stand­ing which oblit­er­ates de­bil­i­tat­ing fear; and that con­scious­ness of union with di­vin­ity which equips man with the as­sur­ance that en­ables him to dare to be God­like. The re­lax­ation of wor­ship, or spir­i­tual com­mu­nion as prac­ticed by the Mas­ter, re­lieves ten­sion, re­moves con­flicts, and might­ily aug­ments the to­tal re­sources of the per­son­al­ity. And all this phi­los­o­phy, plus the gospel of the king­dom, con­sti­tutes the new re­li­gion as I un­der­stand it.

160:3.1The ef­fort to­ward ma­tu­rity ne­ces­si­tates work, and work re­quires en­ergy. Whence the power to ac­com­plish all this? The phys­i­cal things can be taken for granted, but the Mas­ter has well said, “Man can­not live by bread alone.” Granted the pos­ses­sion of a nor­mal body and rea­son­ably good health, we must next look for those lures which will act as a stim­u­lus to call forth man’s slum­ber­ing spir­i­tual forces. Je­sus has taught us that God lives in man; then how can we in­duce man to re­lease these soul-bound pow­ers of di­vin­ity and in­fin­ity? How shall we in­duce men to let go of God that he may spring forth to the re­fresh­ment of our own souls while in tran­sit out­ward and then to serve the pur­pose of en­light­en­ing, up­lift­ing, and bless­ing count­less other souls? How best can I awaken these la­tent pow­ers for good which lie dor­mant in your souls? One thing I am sure of: Emo­tional ex­cite­ment is not the ideal spir­i­tual stim­u­lus. Ex­cite­ment does not aug­ment en­ergy; it rather ex­hausts the pow­ers of both mind and body. Whence then comes the en­ergy to do these great things? Look to your Mas­ter. Even now he is out in the hills tak­ing in power while we are here giv­ing out en­ergy. The se­cret of all this prob­lem is wrapped up in spir­i­tual com­mu­nion, in wor­ship. From the hu­man stand­point it is a ques­tion of com­bined med­i­ta­tion and re­lax­ation. Med­i­ta­tion makes the con­tact of mind with spirit; re­lax­ation de­ter­mines the ca­pac­ity for spir­i­tual re­cep­tiv­ity. And this in­ter­change of strength for weak­ness, cour­age for fear, the will of God for the mind of self, con­sti­tutes wor­ship. At least, that is the way the philoso­pher views it.

163:6.1On Fri­day, De­cem­ber 30, while Je­sus was away in the near-by hills with Pe­ter, James, and John, the sev­enty mes­sen­gers were ar­riv­ing by cou­ples, ac­com­pa­nied by nu­mer­ous be­liev­ers, at the Pella head­quar­ters. All sev­enty were as­sem­bled at the teach­ing site about five o’clock when Je­sus re­turned to the camp. The evening meal was de­layed for more than an hour while these en­thu­si­asts for the gospel of the king­dom re­lated their ex­pe­ri­ences. David’s mes­sen­gers had brought much of this news to the apos­tles dur­ing pre­vi­ous weeks, but it was truly in­spir­ing to hear these newly or­dained teach­ers of the gospel per­son­ally tell how their mes­sage had been re­ceived by hun­gry Jews and gen­tiles. At last Je­sus was able to see men go­ing out to spread the good news with­out his per­sonal pres­ence. The Mas­ter now knew that he could leave this world with­out se­ri­ously hin­der­ing the prog­ress of the king­dom.

• Father’s will concerning

4:5.6The be­stowal of a Par­a­dise Son on your world was in­her­ent in the sit­u­a­tion of clos­ing a plan­e­tary age; it was in­es­cap­able, and it was not made nec­es­sary for the pur­pose of win­ning the fa­vor of God. This be­stowal also hap­pened to be the fi­nal per­sonal act of a Cre­ator Son in the long ad­ven­ture of earn­ing the ex­pe­ri­en­tial sov­er­eignty of his uni­verse. What a trav­esty upon the in­fi­nite char­ac­ter of God! this teach­ing that his fa­therly heart in all its aus­tere cold­ness and hard­ness was so un­touched by the mis­for­tunes and sor­rows of his crea­tures that his ten­der mer­cies were not forth­com­ing un­til he saw his blame­less Son bleed­ing and dy­ing upon the cross of Cal­vary!

• Christianity built up around J.’ death

143:5.11The apos­tles never ceased to be shocked by Je­sus’ will­ing­ness to talk with women, women of ques­tion­able char­ac­ter, even im­moral women. It was very dif­fi­cult for Je­sus to teach his apos­tles that women, even so-called im­moral women, have souls which can choose God as their Fa­ther, thereby be­com­ing daugh­ters of God and can­di­dates for life ev­er­last­ing. Even nine­teen cen­turies later many show the same un­will­ing­ness to grasp the Mas­ter’s teach­ings. Even the Chris­tian re­li­gion has been per­sis­tently built up around the fact of the death of Christ in­stead of around the truth of his life. The world should be more con­cerned with his happy and God-re­veal­ing life than with his tragic and sor­row­ful death.

• Jesus foretold

162:2.1The first af­ter­noon that Je­sus taught in the tem­ple, a con­sid­er­able com­pany sat lis­ten­ing to his words de­pict­ing the lib­erty of the new gospel and the joy of those who be­lieve the good news, when a cu­ri­ous lis­tener in­ter­rupted him to ask: “Teacher, how is it you can quote the Scrip­tures and teach the peo­ple so flu­ently when I am told that you are un­taught in the learn­ing of the rab­bis?” Je­sus replied: “No man has taught me the truths which I de­clare to you. And this teach­ing is not mine but His who sent me. If any man re­ally de­sires to do my Fa­ther’s will, he shall cer­tainly know about my teach­ing, whether it be God’s or whether I speak for my­self. He who speaks for him­self seeks his own glory, but when I de­clare the words of the Fa­ther, I thereby seek the glory of him who sent me. But be­fore you try to en­ter into the new light, should you not rather fol­low the light you al­ready have? Moses gave you the law, yet how many of you hon­estly seek to ful­fill its de­mands? Moses in this law en­joins you, say­ing, ‘You shall not kill’; not­with­stand­ing this com­mand some of you seek to kill the Son of Man.”

• Jesus foretold

171:2.2“You who would fol­low af­ter me from this time on, must be will­ing to pay the price of whole­hearted ded­i­ca­tion to the do­ing of my Fa­ther’s will. If you would be my dis­ci­ples, you must be will­ing to for­sake fa­ther, mother, wife, chil­dren, broth­ers, and sis­ters. If any one of you would now be my dis­ci­ple, you must be will­ing to give up even your life just as the Son of Man is about to of­fer up his life for the com­ple­tion of the mis­sion of do­ing the Fa­ther’s will on earth and in the flesh.

• Jesus foretold

171:4.2Early on Thurs­day morn­ing be­fore the oth­ers were awake, Je­sus called An­drew and said: “Awaken your breth­ren! I have some­thing to say to them.” Je­sus knew about the swords and which of his apos­tles had re­ceived and were wear­ing these weapons, but he never dis­closed to them that he knew such things. When An­drew had aroused his as­so­ciates, and they had as­sem­bled off by them­selves, Je­sus said: “My chil­dren, you have been with me a long while, and I have taught you much that is need­ful for this time, but I would now warn you not to put your trust in the un­cer­tain­ties of the flesh nor in the frail­ties of man’s de­fense against the tri­als and test­ing which lie ahead of us. I have called you apart here by your­selves that I may once more plainly tell you that we are go­ing up to Je­ru­sa­lem, where you know the Son of Man has al­ready been con­demned to death. Again am I telling you that the Son of Man will be de­liv­ered into the hands of the chief priests and the re­li­gious rulers; that they will con­demn him and then de­liver him into the hands of the gen­tiles. And so will they mock the Son of Man, even spit upon him and scourge him, and they will de­liver him up to death. And when they kill the Son of Man, be not dis­mayed, for I de­clare that on the third day he shall rise. Take heed to your­selves and re­mem­ber that I have fore­warned you.”

171:4.3Again were the apos­tles amazed, stunned; but they could not bring them­selves to re­gard his words as lit­eral; they could not com­pre­hend that the Mas­ter meant just what he said. They were so blinded by their per­sis­tent be­lief in the tem­po­ral king­dom on earth, with head­quar­ters at Je­ru­sa­lem, that they sim­ply could not—would not—per­mit them­selves to ac­cept Je­sus’ words as lit­eral. They pon­dered all that day as to what the Mas­ter could mean by such strange pro­nounce­ments. But none of them dared to ask him a ques­tion con­cern­ing these state­ments. Not un­til af­ter his death did these be­wil­dered apos­tles wake up to the re­al­iza­tion that the Mas­ter had spo­ken to them plainly and di­rectly in an­tic­i­pa­tion of his cru­ci­fix­ion.

171:4.4It was here at Livias, just af­ter break­fast, that cer­tain friendly Phar­isees came to Je­sus and said: “Flee in haste from these parts, for Herod, just as he sought John, now seeks to kill you. He fears an up­ris­ing of the peo­ple and has de­cided to kill you. We bring you this warn­ing that you may es­cape.”

171:4.5And this was partly true. The res­ur­rec­tion of Laz­a­rus fright­ened and alarmed Herod, and know­ing that the San­hedrin had dared to con­demn Je­sus, even in ad­vance of a trial, Herod made up his mind ei­ther to kill Je­sus or to drive him out of his do­mains. He re­ally de­sired to do the lat­ter since he so feared him that he hoped he would not be com­pelled to ex­e­cute him.

171:4.6When Je­sus heard what the Phar­isees had to say, he replied: “I well know about Herod and his fear of this gospel of the king­dom. But, mis­take not, he would much pre­fer that the Son of Man go up to Je­ru­sa­lem to suf­fer and die at the hands of the chief priests; he is not anx­ious, hav­ing stained his hands with the blood of John, to be­come re­spon­si­ble for the death of the Son of Man. Go you and tell that fox that the Son of Man preaches in Perea to­day, to­mor­row goes into Judea, and af­ter a few days, will be per­fected in his mis­sion on earth and pre­pared to as­cend to the Fa­ther.”

171:4.7Then turn­ing to his apos­tles, Je­sus said: “From olden times the proph­ets have per­ished in Je­ru­sa­lem, and it is only be­fit­ting that the Son of Man should go up to the city of the Fa­ther’s house to be of­fered up as the price of hu­man big­otry and as the re­sult of re­li­gious prej­u­dice and spir­i­tual blind­ness. O Je­ru­sa­lem, Je­ru­sa­lem, which kills the proph­ets and stones the teach­ers of truth! How of­ten would I have gath­ered your chil­dren to­gether even as a hen gath­ers her own brood un­der her wings, but you would not let me do it! Be­hold, your house is about to be left to you des­o­late! You will many times de­sire to see me, but you shall not. You will then seek but not find me.” And when he had spo­ken, he turned to those around him and said: “Nev­er­the­less, let us go up to Je­ru­sa­lem to at­tend the Pass­over and do that which be­comes us in ful­fill­ing the will of the Fa­ther in heaven.”

• accomplished things by death he could not in life

171:4.9Je­sus had been ac­cepted by these be­liev­ers as the Mes­siah, and the Jews knew lit­tle or noth­ing about a suf­fer­ing Mes­siah. They did not un­der­stand that Je­sus was to ac­com­plish many things by his death which could never have been achieved by his life. While it was the res­ur­rec­tion of Laz­a­rus that nerved the apos­tles to en­ter Je­ru­sa­lem, it was the mem­ory of the trans­fig­u­ra­tion that sus­tained the Mas­ter at this try­ing pe­riod of his be­stowal.

• Jesus foretold

172:1.6Je­sus, know­ing what they thought and hear­ing what they said, put his hand upon Mary’s head as she knelt by his side and, with a kindly ex­pres­sion upon his face, said: “Let her alone, ev­ery one of you. Why do you trou­ble her about this, see­ing that she has done a good thing in her heart? To you who mur­mur and say that this oint­ment should have been sold and the money given to the poor, let me say that you have the poor al­ways with you so that you may min­is­ter to them at any time it seems good to you; but I shall not al­ways be with you; I go soon to my Fa­ther. This woman has long saved this oint­ment for my body at its burial, and now that it has seemed good to her to make this anoint­ing in an­tic­i­pa­tion of my death, she shall not be de­nied such sat­is­fac­tion. In the do­ing of this, Mary has re­proved all of you in that by this act she evinces faith in what I have said about my death and as­cen­sion to my Fa­ther in heaven. This woman shall not be re­proved for that which she has this night done; rather do I say to you that in the ages to come, wher­ever this gospel shall be preached through­out the whole world, what she has done will be spo­ken of in mem­ory of her.”

172:1.7It was be­cause of this re­buke, which he took as a per­sonal re­proof, that Ju­das Is­car­iot fi­nally made up his mind to seek re­venge for his hurt feel­ings. Many times had he en­ter­tained such ideas sub­con­sciously, but now he dared to think such wicked thoughts in his open and con­scious mind. And many oth­ers en­cour­aged him in this at­ti­tude since the cost of this oint­ment was a sum equal to the earn­ings of one man for one year—enough to pro­vide bread for five thou­sand per­sons. But Mary loved Je­sus; she had pro­vided this pre­cious oint­ment with which to em­balm his body in death, for she be­lieved his words when he fore­warned them that he must die, and it was not to be de­nied her if she changed her mind and chose to be­stow this of­fer­ing upon the Mas­ter while he yet lived.

• Jesus foretold

173:5.4Af­ter speak­ing this para­ble, Je­sus was about to dis­miss the mul­ti­tude when a sym­pa­thetic be­liever, mak­ing his way through the crowds to­ward him, asked: “But, Mas­ter, how shall we know about these things? how shall we be ready for the king’s in­vi­ta­tion? what sign will you give us whereby we shall know that you are the Son of God?” And when the Mas­ter heard this, he said, “Only one sign shall be given you.” And then, point­ing to his own body, he con­tin­ued, “De­stroy this tem­ple, and in three days I will raise it up.” But they did not un­der­stand him, and as they dis­persed, they talked among them­selves, say­ing, “Al­most fifty years has this tem­ple been in build­ing, and yet he says he will de­stroy it and raise it up in three days.” Even his own apos­tles did not com­pre­hend the sig­nif­i­cance of this ut­ter­ance, but sub­se­quently, af­ter his res­ur­rec­tion, they re­called what he had said.

• Jesus foretold

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.”

• Jesus foretold

175:1.4“My Fa­ther has long dealt in mercy with this peo­ple. Gen­er­a­tion af­ter gen­er­a­tion have we sent our proph­ets to teach and warn them, and gen­er­a­tion af­ter gen­er­a­tion have they killed these heaven-sent teach­ers. And now do your will­ful high priests and stub­born rulers go right on do­ing this same thing. As Herod brought about the death of John, you like­wise now make ready to de­stroy the Son of Man.

• Jesus foretold

175:1.20“Woe upon you, false guides of a na­tion! Over yon­der have you built a mon­u­ment to the mar­tyred proph­ets of old, while you plot to de­stroy Him of whom they spoke. You gar­nish the tombs of the righ­teous and flat­ter your­selves that, had you lived in the days of your fa­thers, you would not have killed the proph­ets; and then in the face of such self-righ­teous think­ing you make ready to slay him of whom the proph­ets spoke, the Son of Man. Inas­much as you do these things, are you wit­ness to your­selves that you are the wicked sons of them who slew the proph­ets. Go on, then, and fill up the cup of your con­dem­na­tion to the full!

• Jesus foretold

176:1.1In an­swer­ing Na­than­iel’s ques­tion, Je­sus said: “Yes, I will tell you about the times when this peo­ple shall have filled up the cup of their in­iq­uity; when jus­tice shall swiftly de­scend upon this city of our fa­thers. I am about to leave you; I go to the Fa­ther. Af­ter I leave you, take heed that no man de­ceive you, for many will come as de­liv­er­ers and will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and ru­mors of wars, be not trou­bled, for though all these things will hap­pen, the end of Je­ru­sa­lem is not yet at hand. You should not be per­turbed by famines or earth­quakes; nei­ther should you be con­cerned when you are de­liv­ered up to the civil au­thor­i­ties and are per­se­cuted for the sake of the gospel. You will be thrown out of the syn­a­gogue and put in prison for my sake, and some of you will be killed. When you are brought up be­fore gov­er­nors and rulers, it shall be for a tes­ti­mony of your faith and to show your stead­fast­ness in the gospel of the king­dom. And when you stand be­fore judges, be not anx­ious be­fore­hand as to what you should say, for the spirit will teach you in that very hour what you should an­swer your ad­ver­saries. In these days of tra­vail, even your own kins­folk, un­der the lead­er­ship of those who have re­jected the Son of Man, will de­liver you up to prison and death. For a time you may be hated by all men for my sake, but even in these per­se­cu­tions I will not for­sake you; my spirit will not desert you. Be pa­tient! doubt not that this gospel of the king­dom will tri­umph over all en­e­mies and, even­tu­ally, be pro­claimed to all na­tions.”

• earth’s greatest tragedy

178:2.1Not many of the Mas­ter’s hear­ers were able to take in even a part of his forenoon ad­dress. Of all who heard him, the Greeks com­pre­hended most. Even the eleven apos­tles were be­wil­dered by his al­lu­sions to fu­ture po­lit­i­cal king­doms and to suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions of king­dom be­liev­ers. Je­sus’ most de­voted fol­low­ers could not rec­on­cile the im­pend­ing end of his earthly min­istry with these ref­er­ences to an ex­tended fu­ture of gospel ac­tiv­i­ties. Some of these Jew­ish be­liev­ers were be­gin­ning to sense that earth’s great­est tragedy was about to take place, but they could not rec­on­cile such an im­pend­ing dis­as­ter with ei­ther the Mas­ter’s cheer­fully in­dif­fer­ent per­sonal at­ti­tude or his forenoon dis­course, wherein he re­peat­edly al­luded to the fu­ture trans­ac­tions of the heav­enly king­dom, ex­tend­ing over vast stretches of time and em­brac­ing re­la­tions with many and suc­ces­sive tem­po­ral king­doms on earth.

• Jesus foretold

178:3.2“Sit down and rest your­selves while I talk with you about what must shortly come to pass. All these years have I lived with you as breth­ren, and I have taught you the truth con­cern­ing the king­dom of heaven and have re­vealed to you the mys­ter­ies thereof. And my Fa­ther has in­deed done many won­der­ful works in con­nec­tion with my mis­sion on earth. You have been wit­nesses of all this and par­tak­ers in the ex­pe­ri­ence of be­ing la­bor­ers to­gether with God. And you will bear me wit­ness that I have for some time warned you that I must pres­ently re­turn to the work the Fa­ther has given me to do; I have plainly told you that I must leave you in the world to carry on the work of the king­dom. It was for this pur­pose that I set you apart, in the hills of Ca­per­naum. The ex­pe­ri­ence you have had with me, you must now make ready to share with oth­ers. As the Fa­ther sent me into this world, so am I about to send you forth to rep­re­sent me and fin­ish the work I have be­gun.

• Jesus foretold

179:4.1For some min­utes the apos­tles ate in si­lence, but un­der the in­flu­ence of the Mas­ter’s cheer­ful de­meanor they were soon drawn into con­ver­sa­tion, and ere long the meal was pro­ceed­ing as if noth­ing out of the or­di­nary had oc­curred to in­ter­fere with the good cheer and so­cial ac­cord of this ex­traor­di­nary oc­ca­sion. Af­ter some time had elapsed, in about the mid­dle of this sec­ond course of the meal, Je­sus, look­ing them over, said: “I have told you how much I de­sired to have this sup­per with you, and know­ing how the evil forces of dark­ness have con­spired to bring about the death of the Son of Man, I de­ter­mined to eat this sup­per with you in this se­cret cham­ber and a day in ad­vance of the Pass­over since I will not be with you by this time to­mor­row night. I have re­peat­edly told you that I must re­turn to the Fa­ther. Now has my hour come, but it was not re­quired that one of you should be­tray me into the hands of my en­e­mies.”

• Jesus foretold

180:6.7And since Je­sus knew they asked these ques­tions, he said: “Do you in­quire among your­selves about what I meant when I said that in a lit­tle while I would not be with you, and that, when you would see me again, I would be on my way to the Fa­ther? I have plainly told you that the Son of Man must die, but that he will rise again. Can you not then dis­cern the mean­ing of my words? You will first be made sor­row­ful, but later on will you re­joice with many who will un­der­stand these things af­ter they have come to pass. A woman is in­deed sor­row­ful in the hour of her tra­vail, but when she is once de­liv­ered of her child, she im­me­di­ately for­gets her an­guish in the joy of the knowl­edge that a man has been born into the world. And so are you about to sor­row over my de­par­ture, but I will soon see you again, and then will your sor­row be turned into re­joic­ing, and there shall come to you a new rev­e­la­tion of the sal­va­tion of God which no man can ever take away from you. And all the worlds will be blessed in this same rev­e­la­tion of life in ef­fect­ing the over­throw of death. Hith­erto have you made all your re­quests in my Fa­ther’s name. Af­ter you see me again, you may also ask in my name, and I will hear you.

• Jesus foretold

181:1.5“And now, as I am about to leave you, I would speak words of com­fort. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I make these gifts not as the world gives—by mea­sure—I give each of you all you will re­ceive. Let not your heart be trou­bled, nei­ther let it be fear­ful. I have over­come the world, and in me you shall all tri­umph through faith. I have warned you that the Son of Man will be killed, but I as­sure you I will come back be­fore I go to the Fa­ther, even though it be for only a lit­tle while. And af­ter I have as­cended to the Fa­ther, I will surely send the new teacher to be with you and to abide in your very hearts. And when you see all this come to pass, be not dis­mayed, but rather be­lieve, inas­much as you knew it all be­fore­hand. I have loved you with a great af­fec­tion, and I would not leave you, but it is the Fa­ther’s will. My hour has come.

• Jesus foretold

181:2.3“And now, as I en­ter upon the clos­ing hours of my earthly ca­reer, re­main near at hand that I may leave any mes­sage with you re­gard­ing my fam­ily. As con­cerns the work put in my hands by the Fa­ther, it is now fin­ished ex­cept for my death in the flesh, and I am ready to drink this last cup. But as for the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties left to me by my earthly fa­ther, Joseph, while I have at­tended to these dur­ing my life, I must now de­pend upon you to act in my stead in all these mat­ters. And I have cho­sen you to do this for me, John, be­cause you are the young­est and will there­fore very likely out­live these other apos­tles.

• Jesus foretold

182:2.5Af­ter the eight apos­tles had fi­nally gone to their tents, and while Pe­ter, James, and John were stand­ing by to re­ceive the Mas­ter’s or­ders, Je­sus called to David Zeb­e­dee, “Send to me your most fleet and trust­wor­thy mes­sen­ger.” When David brought to the Mas­ter one Ja­cob, once a run­ner on the overnight mes­sen­ger ser­vice be­tween Je­ru­sa­lem and Beth­saida, Je­sus, ad­dress­ing him, said: “In all haste, go to Ab­ner at Phil­a­del­phia and say: ‘The Mas­ter sends greet­ings of peace to you and says that the hour has come when he will be de­liv­ered into the hands of his en­e­mies, who will put him to death, but that he will rise from the dead and ap­pear to you shortly, be­fore he goes to the Fa­ther, and that he will then give you guid­ance to the time when the new teacher shall come to live in your hearts.’” And when Ja­cob had re­hearsed this mes­sage to the Mas­ter’s sat­is­fac­tion, Je­sus sent him on his way, say­ing: “Fear not what any man may do to you, Ja­cob, for this night an un­seen mes­sen­ger will run by your side.”

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.”

183:1.1There is great dan­ger of mis­un­der­stand­ing the mean­ing of nu­mer­ous say­ings and many events as­so­ci­ated with the ter­mi­na­tion of the Mas­ter’s ca­reer in the flesh. The cruel treat­ment of Je­sus by the ig­no­rant ser­vants and the cal­loused sol­diers, the un­fair con­duct of his tri­als, and the un­feel­ing at­ti­tude of the pro­fessed re­li­gious lead­ers, must not be con­fused with the fact that Je­sus, in pa­tiently sub­mit­ting to all this suf­fer­ing and hu­mil­i­a­tion, was truly do­ing the will of the Fa­ther in Par­a­dise. It was, in­deed and in truth, the will of the Fa­ther that his Son should drink to the full the cup of mor­tal ex­pe­ri­ence, from birth to death, but the Fa­ther in heaven had noth­ing what­ever to do with in­sti­gat­ing the bar­barous be­hav­ior of those sup­pos­edly civ­i­lized hu­man be­ings who so bru­tally tor­tured the Mas­ter and so hor­ri­bly heaped suc­ces­sive in­dig­ni­ties upon his non­re­sist­ing per­son. These in­hu­man and shock­ing ex­pe­ri­ences which Je­sus was called upon to en­dure in the fi­nal hours of his mor­tal life were not in any sense a part of the di­vine will of the Fa­ther, which his hu­man na­ture had so tri­umphantly pledged to carry out at the time of the fi­nal sur­ren­der of man to God as sig­ni­fied in the three­fold prayer which he in­dited in the gar­den while his weary apos­tles slept the sleep of phys­i­cal ex­haus­tion.

• made plain certainty of survival

188:4.6Je­sus lived and died for a whole uni­verse, not just for the races of this one world. While the mor­tals of the realms had sal­va­tion even be­fore Je­sus lived and died on Uran­tia, it is nev­er­the­less a fact that his be­stowal on this world greatly il­lu­mi­nated the way of sal­va­tion; his death did much to make for­ever plain the cer­tainty of mor­tal sur­vival af­ter death in the flesh.

130:1.1Dur­ing their stay in Joppa, Je­sus met Ga­diah, a Phil­is­tine in­ter­preter who worked for one Si­mon a tan­ner. Gonod’s agents in Mes­o­po­ta­mia had trans­acted much busi­ness with this Si­mon; so Gonod and his son de­sired to pay him a visit on their way to Cae­sarea. While they tar­ried at Joppa, Je­sus and Ga­diah be­came warm friends. This young Phil­is­tine was a truth seeker. Je­sus was a truth giver; he was the truth for that gen­er­a­tion on Uran­tia. When a great truth seeker and a great truth giver meet, the re­sult is a great and lib­er­at­ing en­light­en­ment born of the ex­pe­ri­ence of new truth.

130:1.2One day af­ter the evening meal Je­sus and the young Phil­is­tine strolled down by the sea, and Ga­diah, not know­ing that this “scribe of Da­mas­cus” was so well versed in the He­brew tra­di­tions, pointed out to Je­sus the ship land­ing from which it was re­puted that Jonah had em­barked on his ill-fated voy­age to Tarshish. And when he had con­cluded his re­marks, he asked Je­sus this ques­tion: “But do you sup­pose the big fish re­ally did swal­low Jonah?” Je­sus per­ceived that this young man’s life had been tremen­dously in­flu­enced by this tra­di­tion, and that its con­tem­pla­tion had im­pressed upon him the folly of try­ing to run away from duty; Je­sus there­fore said noth­ing that would sud­denly de­stroy the foun­da­tions of Ga­diah’s pres­ent mo­ti­va­tion for prac­ti­cal liv­ing. In an­swer­ing this ques­tion, Je­sus said: “My friend, we are all Jon­ahs with lives to live in ac­cor­dance with the will of God, and at all times when we seek to es­cape the pres­ent duty of liv­ing by run­ning away to far-off en­tice­ments, we thereby put our­selves in the im­me­di­ate con­trol of those in­flu­ences which are not di­rected by the pow­ers of truth and the forces of righ­teous­ness. The flight from duty is the sac­ri­fice of truth. The es­cape from the ser­vice of light and life can only re­sult in those dis­tress­ing con­flicts with the dif­fi­cult whales of self­ish­ness which lead even­tu­ally to dark­ness and death un­less such God-for­sak­ing Jon­ahs shall turn their hearts, even when in the very depths of de­spair, to seek af­ter God and his good­ness. And when such dis­heart­ened souls sin­cerely seek for God—hunger for truth and thirst for righ­teous­ness—there is noth­ing that can hold them in fur­ther cap­tiv­ity. No mat­ter into what great depths they may have fallen, when they seek the light with a whole heart, the spirit of the Lord God of heaven will de­liver them from their cap­tiv­ity; the evil cir­cum­stances of life will spew them out upon the dry land of fresh op­por­tu­ni­ties for re­newed ser­vice and wiser liv­ing.”

130:1.3Ga­diah was might­ily moved by Je­sus’ teach­ing, and they talked long into the night by the sea­side, and be­fore they went to their lodg­ings, they prayed to­gether and for each other. This was the same Ga­diah who lis­tened to the later preach­ing of Pe­ter, be­came a pro­found be­liever in Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, and held a mem­o­rable ar­gu­ment with Pe­ter one evening at the home of Dor­cas. And Ga­diah had very much to do with the fi­nal de­ci­sion of Si­mon, the wealthy leather mer­chant, to em­brace Chris­tian­ity.

130:1.4(In this nar­ra­tive of the per­sonal work of Je­sus with his fel­low mor­tals on this tour of the Med­i­ter­ra­nean, we shall, in ac­cor­dance with our per­mis­sion, freely trans­late his words into mod­ern phrase­ol­ogy cur­rent on Uran­tia at the time of this pre­sen­ta­tion.)

130:1.5Je­sus’ last visit with Ga­diah had to do with a dis­cus­sion of good and evil. This young Phil­is­tine was much trou­bled by a feel­ing of in­jus­tice be­cause of the pres­ence of evil in the world along­side the good. He said: “How can God, if he is in­finitely good, per­mit us to suf­fer the sor­rows of evil; af­ter all, who cre­ates evil?” It was still be­lieved by many in those days that God cre­ates both good and evil, but Je­sus never taught such er­ror. In an­swer­ing this ques­tion, Je­sus said: “My brother, God is love; there­fore he must be good, and his good­ness is so great and real that it can­not con­tain the small and un­real things of evil. God is so pos­i­tively good that there is ab­so­lutely no place in him for neg­a­tive evil. Evil is the im­ma­ture choos­ing and the un­think­ing mis­step of those who are re­sis­tant to good­ness, re­ject­ful of beauty, and dis­loyal to truth. Evil is only the mis­adap­ta­tion of im­ma­tu­rity or the dis­rup­tive and dis­tort­ing in­flu­ence of ig­no­rance. Evil is the in­ev­i­ta­ble dark­ness which fol­lows upon the heels of the un­wise re­jec­tion of light. Evil is that which is dark and un­true, and which, when con­sciously em­braced and will­fully en­dorsed, be­comes sin.

130:1.6“Your Fa­ther in heaven, by en­dow­ing you with the power to choose be­tween truth and er­ror, cre­ated the po­ten­tial neg­a­tive of the pos­i­tive way of light and life; but such er­rors of evil are re­ally nonex­is­tent un­til such a time as an in­tel­li­gent crea­ture wills their ex­is­tence by mischoos­ing the way of life. And then are such evils later ex­alted into sin by the know­ing and de­lib­er­ate choice of such a will­ful and re­bel­lious crea­ture. This is why our Fa­ther in heaven per­mits the good and the evil to go along to­gether un­til the end of life, just as na­ture al­lows the wheat and the tares to grow side by side un­til the har­vest.” Ga­diah was fully sat­is­fied with Je­sus’ an­swer to his ques­tion af­ter their sub­se­quent dis­cus­sion had made clear to his mind the real mean­ing of these mo­men­tous state­ments.

130:4.1The night be­fore they left Alexan­dria Ga­nid and Je­sus had a long visit with one of the gov­ern­ment pro­fes­sors at the uni­ver­sity who lec­tured on the teach­ings of Plato. Je­sus in­ter­preted for the learned Greek teacher but in­jected no teach­ing of his own in refu­ta­tion of the Greek phi­los­o­phy. Gonod was away on busi­ness that evening; so, af­ter the pro­fes­sor had de­parted, the teacher and his pupil had a long and heart-to-heart talk about Plato’s doc­trines. While Je­sus gave qual­i­fied ap­proval of some of the Greek teach­ings which had to do with the the­ory that the ma­te­rial things of the world are shad­owy re­flec­tions of in­vis­i­ble but more sub­stan­tial spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties, he sought to lay a more trust­wor­thy foun­da­tion for the lad’s think­ing; so he be­gan a long dis­ser­ta­tion con­cern­ing the na­ture of re­al­ity in the uni­verse. In sub­stance and in mod­ern phrase­ol­ogy Je­sus said to Ga­nid:

130:4.2The source of uni­verse re­al­ity is the In­fi­nite. The ma­te­rial things of fi­nite cre­ation are the time-space reper­cus­sions of the Par­a­dise Pat­tern and the Uni­ver­sal Mind of the eter­nal God. Cau­sa­tion in the phys­i­cal world, self-con­scious­ness in the in­tel­lec­tual world, and pro­gress­ing self­hood in the spirit world—these re­al­i­ties, pro­jected on a uni­ver­sal scale, com­bined in eter­nal re­lat­ed­ness, and ex­pe­ri­enced with per­fec­tion of qual­ity and di­vin­ity of value—con­sti­tute the re­al­ity of the Su­preme. But in an ever-chang­ing uni­verse the Orig­i­nal Per­son­al­ity of cau­sa­tion, in­tel­li­gence, and spirit ex­pe­ri­ence is change­less, ab­so­lute. All things, even in an eter­nal uni­verse of lim­it­less val­ues and di­vine qual­i­ties, may, and of­ten­times do, change ex­cept the Ab­so­lutes and that which has at­tained the phys­i­cal sta­tus, in­tel­lec­tual em­brace, or spir­i­tual iden­tity which is ab­so­lute.

130:4.3The high­est level to which a fi­nite crea­ture can pro­gress is the rec­og­ni­tion of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther and the know­ing of the Su­preme. And even then such be­ings of fi­nal­ity des­tiny go on ex­pe­ri­enc­ing change in the mo­tions of the phys­i­cal world and in its ma­te­rial phe­nom­ena. Like­wise do they re­main aware of self­hood pro­gres­sion in their con­tin­u­ing as­cen­sion of the spir­i­tual uni­verse and of grow­ing con­scious­ness in their deep­en­ing ap­pre­ci­a­tion of, and re­sponse to, the in­tel­lec­tual cos­mos. Only in the per­fec­tion, har­mony, and una­nim­ity of will can the crea­ture be­come as one with the Cre­ator; and such a state of di­vin­ity is at­tained and main­tained only by the crea­ture’s con­tin­u­ing to live in time and eter­nity by con­sis­tently con­form­ing his fi­nite per­sonal will to the di­vine will of the Cre­ator. Al­ways must the de­sire to do the Fa­ther’s will be su­preme in the soul and dom­i­nant over the mind of an as­cend­ing son of God.

130:4.4A one-eyed per­son can never hope to vi­su­al­ize depth of per­spec­tive. Nei­ther can sin­gle-eyed ma­te­rial sci­en­tists nor sin­gle-eyed spir­i­tual mys­tics and al­le­gorists cor­rectly vi­su­al­ize and ad­e­quately com­pre­hend the true depths of uni­verse re­al­ity. All true val­ues of crea­ture ex­pe­ri­ence are con­cealed in depth of rec­og­ni­tion.

130:4.5Mind­less cau­sa­tion can­not evolve the re­fined and com­plex from the crude and the sim­ple, nei­ther can spir­it­less ex­pe­ri­ence evolve the di­vine char­ac­ters of eter­nal sur­vival from the ma­te­rial minds of the mor­tals of time. The one at­tri­bute of the uni­verse which so ex­clu­sively char­ac­ter­izes the in­fi­nite De­ity is this un­end­ing cre­ative be­stowal of per­son­al­ity which can sur­vive in pro­gres­sive De­ity at­tain­ment.

130:4.6Per­son­al­ity is that cos­mic en­dow­ment, that phase of uni­ver­sal re­al­ity, which can co­ex­ist with un­lim­ited change and at the same time re­tain its iden­tity in the very pres­ence of all such changes, and for­ever af­ter­ward.

130:4.7Life is an adap­ta­tion of the orig­i­nal cos­mic cau­sa­tion to the de­mands and pos­si­bil­i­ties of uni­verse sit­u­a­tions, and it comes into be­ing by the ac­tion of the Uni­ver­sal Mind and the ac­ti­va­tion of the spirit spark of the God who is spirit. The mean­ing of life is its adapt­abil­ity; the value of life is its pro­gress­abil­ity—even to the heights of God-con­scious­ness.

130:4.8Mis­adap­ta­tion of self-con­scious life to the uni­verse re­sults in cos­mic dishar­mony. Fi­nal di­ver­gence of per­son­al­ity will from the trend of the uni­verses ter­mi­nates in in­tel­lec­tual iso­la­tion, per­son­al­ity seg­re­ga­tion. Loss of the in­dwelling spirit pi­lot super­venes in spir­i­tual ces­sa­tion of ex­is­tence. In­tel­li­gent and pro­gress­ing life be­comes then, in and of it­self, an in­con­tro­vert­ible proof of the ex­is­tence of a pur­pose­ful uni­verse ex­press­ing the will of a di­vine Cre­ator. And this life, in the ag­gre­gate, strug­gles to­ward higher val­ues, hav­ing for its fi­nal goal the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

130:4.9Only in de­gree does man pos­sess mind above the an­i­mal level aside from the higher and quasi-spir­i­tual min­is­tra­tions of in­tel­lect. There­fore an­i­mals (not hav­ing wor­ship and wis­dom) can­not ex­pe­ri­ence super­con­scious­ness, con­scious­ness of con­scious­ness. The an­i­mal mind is only con­scious of the ob­jec­tive uni­verse.

130:4.10Knowl­edge is the sphere of the ma­te­rial or fact-dis­cern­ing mind. Truth is the do­main of the spir­i­tu­ally en­dowed in­tel­lect that is con­scious of know­ing God. Knowl­edge is demon­stra­ble; truth is ex­pe­ri­enced. Knowl­edge is a pos­ses­sion of the mind; truth an ex­pe­ri­ence of the soul, the pro­gress­ing self. Knowl­edge is a func­tion of the non­spir­i­tual level; truth is a phase of the mind-spirit level of the uni­verses. The eye of the ma­te­rial mind per­ceives a world of fac­tual knowl­edge; the eye of the spir­i­tu­al­ized in­tel­lect dis­cerns a world of true val­ues. These two views, syn­chro­nized and har­mo­nized, re­veal the world of re­al­ity, wherein wis­dom in­ter­prets the phe­nom­ena of the uni­verse in terms of pro­gres­sive per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence.

• evil

130:4.11Er­ror (evil) is the penalty of im­per­fec­tion. The qual­i­ties of im­per­fec­tion or facts of mis­adap­ta­tion are dis­closed on the ma­te­rial level by crit­i­cal ob­ser­va­tion and by sci­en­tific anal­y­sis; on the moral level, by hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence. The pres­ence of evil con­sti­tutes proof of the in­ac­cu­ra­cies of mind and the im­ma­tu­rity of the evolv­ing self. Evil is, there­fore, also a mea­sure of im­per­fec­tion in uni­verse in­ter­pre­ta­tion. The pos­si­bil­ity of mak­ing mis­takes is in­her­ent in the ac­qui­si­tion of wis­dom, the scheme of pro­gress­ing from the par­tial and tem­po­ral to the com­plete and eter­nal, from the rel­a­tive and im­per­fect to the fi­nal and per­fected. Er­ror is the shadow of rel­a­tive in­com­plete­ness which must of ne­ces­sity fall across man’s as­cend­ing uni­verse path to Par­a­dise per­fec­tion. Er­ror (evil) is not an ac­tual uni­verse qual­ity; it is sim­ply the ob­ser­va­tion of a rel­a­tiv­ity in the re­lat­ed­ness of the im­per­fec­tion of the in­com­plete fi­nite to the as­cend­ing lev­els of the Su­preme and Ul­ti­mate.

130:4.12Al­though Je­sus told all this to the lad in lan­guage best suited to his com­pre­hen­sion, at the end of the dis­cus­sion Ga­nid was heavy of eye and was soon lost in slum­ber. They rose early the next morn­ing to go aboard the boat bound for Lasea on the is­land of Crete. But be­fore they em­barked, the lad had still fur­ther ques­tions to ask about evil, to which Je­sus replied:

130:4.13Evil is a rel­a­tiv­ity con­cept. It arises out of the ob­ser­va­tion of the im­per­fec­tions which ap­pear in the shadow cast by a fi­nite uni­verse of things and be­ings as such a cos­mos ob­scures the liv­ing light of the uni­ver­sal ex­pres­sion of the eter­nal re­al­i­ties of the In­fi­nite One.

130:4.14Po­ten­tial evil is in­her­ent in the nec­es­sary in­com­plete­ness of the rev­e­la­tion of God as a time-space-lim­ited ex­pres­sion of in­fin­ity and eter­nity. The fact of the par­tial in the pres­ence of the com­plete con­sti­tutes rel­a­tiv­ity of re­al­ity, cre­ates ne­ces­sity for in­tel­lec­tual choos­ing, and es­tab­lishes value lev­els of spirit rec­og­ni­tion and re­sponse. The in­com­plete and fi­nite con­cept of the In­fi­nite which is held by the tem­po­ral and lim­ited crea­ture mind is, in and of it­self, po­ten­tial evil. But the aug­ment­ing er­ror of un­jus­ti­fied de­fi­ciency in rea­son­able spir­i­tual rec­ti­fi­ca­tion of these orig­i­nally in­her­ent in­tel­lec­tual dishar­monies and spir­i­tual in­suf­fi­cien­cies, is equiv­a­lent to the re­al­iza­tion of ac­tual evil.

130:4.15All static, dead, con­cepts are po­ten­tially evil. The fi­nite shadow of rel­a­tive and liv­ing truth is con­tin­u­ally mov­ing. Static con­cepts in­vari­ably re­tard sci­ence, pol­i­tics, so­ci­ety, and re­li­gion. Static con­cepts may rep­re­sent a cer­tain knowl­edge, but they are de­fi­cient in wis­dom and de­void of truth. But do not per­mit the con­cept of rel­a­tiv­ity so to mis­lead you that you fail to rec­og­nize the co-or­di­na­tion of the uni­verse un­der the guid­ance of the cos­mic mind, and its sta­bi­lized con­trol by the en­ergy and spirit of the Su­preme.

130:7.1Most of the time en route to Carthage Je­sus talked with his fel­low trav­el­ers about things so­cial, po­lit­i­cal, and com­mer­cial; hardly a word was said about re­li­gion. For the first time Gonod and Ga­nid dis­cov­ered that Je­sus was a good sto­ry­teller, and they kept him busy telling tales about his early life in Gal­i­lee. They also learned that he was reared in Gal­i­lee and not in ei­ther Je­ru­sa­lem or Da­mas­cus.

130:7.2When Ga­nid in­quired what one could do to make friends, hav­ing no­ticed that the ma­jor­ity of per­sons whom they chanced to meet were at­tracted to Je­sus, his teacher said: “Be­come in­ter­ested in your fel­lows; learn how to love them and watch for the op­por­tu­nity to do some­thing for them which you are sure they want done,” and then he quoted the olden Jew­ish proverb—“A man who would have friends must show him­self friendly.”

130:7.3At Carthage Je­sus had a long and mem­o­rable talk with a Mith­raic priest about im­mor­tal­ity, about time and eter­nity. This Per­sian had been ed­u­cated at Alexan­dria, and he re­ally de­sired to learn from Je­sus. Put into the words of to­day, in sub­stance Je­sus said in an­swer to his many ques­tions:

130:7.4Time is the stream of flow­ing tem­po­ral events per­ceived by crea­ture con­scious­ness. Time is a name given to the suc­ces­sion-ar­range­ment whereby events are rec­og­nized and seg­re­gated. The uni­verse of space is a time-re­lated phe­nom­e­non as it is viewed from any in­te­rior po­si­tion out­side of the fixed abode of Par­a­dise. The mo­tion of time is only re­vealed in re­la­tion to some­thing which does not move in space as a time phe­nom­e­non. In the uni­verse of uni­verses Par­a­dise and its De­i­ties tran­scend both time and space. On the in­hab­ited worlds, hu­man per­son­al­ity (in­dwelt and ori­ented by the Par­a­dise Fa­ther’s spirit) is the only phys­i­cally re­lated re­al­ity which can tran­scend the ma­te­rial se­quence of tem­po­ral events.

130:7.5An­i­mals do not sense time as does man, and even to man, be­cause of his sec­tional and cir­cum­scribed view, time ap­pears as a suc­ces­sion of events; but as man as­cends, as he pro­gresses in­ward, the en­larg­ing view of this event pro­ces­sion is such that it is dis­cerned more and more in its whole­ness. That which for­merly ap­peared as a suc­ces­sion of events then will be viewed as a whole and per­fectly re­lated cy­cle; in this way will cir­cu­lar si­mul­tane­ity in­creas­ingly dis­place the one­time con­scious­ness of the lin­ear se­quence of events.

130:7.6There are seven dif­fer­ent con­cep­tions of space as it is con­di­tioned by time. Space is mea­sured by time, not time by space. The con­fu­sion of the sci­en­tist grows out of fail­ure to rec­og­nize the re­al­ity of space. Space is not merely an in­tel­lec­tual con­cept of the vari­a­tion in re­lat­ed­ness of uni­verse ob­jects. Space is not empty, and the only thing man knows which can even par­tially tran­scend space is mind. Mind can func­tion in­de­pen­dently of the con­cept of the space-re­lat­ed­ness of ma­te­rial ob­jects. Space is rel­a­tively and com­par­a­tively fi­nite to all be­ings of crea­ture sta­tus. The nearer con­scious­ness ap­proaches the aware­ness of seven cos­mic di­men­sions, the more does the con­cept of po­ten­tial space ap­proach ul­ti­macy. But the space po­ten­tial is truly ul­ti­mate only on the ab­so­lute level.

130:7.7It must be ap­par­ent that uni­ver­sal re­al­ity has an ex­pand­ing and al­ways rel­a­tive mean­ing on the as­cend­ing and per­fect­ing lev­els of the cos­mos. Ul­ti­mately, sur­viv­ing mor­tals achieve iden­tity in a seven-di­men­sional uni­verse.

130:7.8The time-space con­cept of a mind of ma­te­rial ori­gin is des­tined to un­dergo suc­ces­sive en­large­ments as the con­scious and con­ceiv­ing per­son­al­ity as­cends the lev­els of the uni­verses. When man at­tains the mind in­ter­ven­ing be­tween the ma­te­rial and the spir­i­tual planes of ex­is­tence, his ideas of time-space will be enor­mously ex­panded both as to qual­ity of per­cep­tion and quan­tity of ex­pe­ri­ence. The en­larg­ing cos­mic con­cep­tions of an ad­vanc­ing spirit per­son­al­ity are due to aug­men­ta­tions of both depth of in­sight and scope of con­scious­ness. And as per­son­al­ity passes on, up­ward and in­ward, to the tran­scen­den­tal lev­els of De­ity-like­ness, the time-space con­cept will in­creas­ingly ap­prox­i­mate the time­less and space­less con­cepts of the Ab­so­lutes. Rel­a­tively, and in ac­cor­dance with tran­scen­den­tal at­tain­ment, these con­cepts of the ab­so­lute level are to be en­vi­sioned by the chil­dren of ul­ti­mate des­tiny.

132:1.1It was with Ang­a­mon, the leader of the Sto­ics, that Je­sus had an all-night talk early dur­ing his so­journ in Rome. This man sub­se­quently be­came a great friend of Paul and proved to be one of the strong sup­port­ers of the Chris­tian church at Rome. In sub­stance, and re­stated in mod­ern phrase­ol­ogy, Je­sus taught Ang­a­mon:

132:1.2The stan­dard of true val­ues must be looked for in the spir­i­tual world and on di­vine lev­els of eter­nal re­al­ity. To an as­cend­ing mor­tal all lower and ma­te­rial stan­dards must be rec­og­nized as tran­sient, par­tial, and in­fe­rior. The sci­en­tist, as such, is lim­ited to the dis­cov­ery of the re­lat­ed­ness of ma­te­rial facts. Tech­ni­cally, he has no right to as­sert that he is ei­ther ma­te­ri­al­ist or ide­al­ist, for in so do­ing he has as­sumed to for­sake the at­ti­tude of a true sci­en­tist since any and all such as­ser­tions of at­ti­tude are the very essence of phi­los­o­phy.

132:1.3Un­less the moral in­sight and the spir­i­tual at­tain­ment of man­kind are pro­por­tion­ately aug­mented, the un­lim­ited ad­vance­ment of a purely ma­te­ri­al­is­tic cul­ture may even­tu­ally be­come a men­ace to civ­i­liza­tion. A purely ma­te­ri­al­is­tic sci­ence har­bors within it­self the po­ten­tial seed of the de­struc­tion of all sci­en­tific striv­ing, for this very at­ti­tude presages the ul­ti­mate col­lapse of a civ­i­liza­tion which has aban­doned its sense of moral val­ues and has re­pu­di­ated its spir­i­tual goal of at­tain­ment.

132:1.4The ma­te­ri­al­is­tic sci­en­tist and the ex­treme ide­al­ist are des­tined al­ways to be at log­ger­heads. This is not true of those sci­en­tists and ide­al­ists who are in pos­ses­sion of a com­mon stan­dard of high moral val­ues and spir­i­tual test lev­els. In ev­ery age sci­en­tists and re­li­gion­ists must rec­og­nize that they are on trial be­fore the bar of hu­man need. They must es­chew all war­fare be­tween them­selves while they strive valiantly to jus­tify their con­tin­ued sur­vival by en­hanced de­vo­tion to the ser­vice of hu­man prog­ress. If the so-called sci­ence or re­li­gion of any age is false, then must it ei­ther pu­rify its ac­tiv­i­ties or pass away be­fore the emer­gence of a ma­te­rial sci­ence or spir­i­tual re­li­gion of a truer and more wor­thy or­der.

132:2.1Mar­dus was the ac­knowl­edged leader of the Cyn­ics of Rome, and he be­came a great friend of the scribe of Da­mas­cus. Day af­ter day he con­versed with Je­sus, and night upon night he lis­tened to his su­per­nal teach­ing. Among the more im­por­tant dis­cus­sions with Mar­dus was the one de­signed to an­swer this sin­cere Cynic’s ques­tion about good and evil. In sub­stance, and in twen­ti­eth-cen­tury phrase­ol­ogy, Je­sus said:

132:2.2My brother, good and evil are merely words sym­bol­iz­ing rel­a­tive lev­els of hu­man com­pre­hen­sion of the ob­serv­able uni­verse. If you are eth­i­cally lazy and so­cially in­dif­fer­ent, you can take as your stan­dard of good the cur­rent so­cial us­ages. If you are spir­i­tu­ally in­do­lent and morally un­pro­gres­sive, you may take as your stan­dards of good the re­li­gious prac­tices and tra­di­tions of your con­tem­po­raries. But the soul that sur­vives time and emerges into eter­nity must make a liv­ing and per­sonal choice be­tween good and evil as they are de­ter­mined by the true val­ues of the spir­i­tual stan­dards es­tab­lished by the di­vine spirit which the Fa­ther in heaven has sent to dwell within the heart of man. This in­dwelling spirit is the stan­dard of per­son­al­ity sur­vival.

132:2.3Good­ness, like truth, is al­ways rel­a­tive and un­fail­ingly evil-con­trasted. It is the per­cep­tion of these qual­i­ties of good­ness and truth that en­ables the evolv­ing souls of men to make those per­sonal de­ci­sions of choice which are es­sen­tial to eter­nal sur­vival.

132:2.4The spir­i­tu­ally blind in­di­vid­ual who log­i­cally fol­lows sci­en­tific dic­ta­tion, so­cial us­age, and re­li­gious dogma stands in grave dan­ger of sac­ri­fic­ing his moral free­dom and los­ing his spir­i­tual lib­erty. Such a soul is des­tined to be­come an in­tel­lec­tual par­rot, a so­cial au­toma­ton, and a slave to re­li­gious au­thor­ity.

132:2.5Good­ness is al­ways grow­ing to­ward new lev­els of the in­creas­ing lib­erty of moral self-re­al­iza­tion and spir­i­tual per­son­al­ity at­tain­ment—the dis­cov­ery of, and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with, the in­dwelling Ad­juster. An ex­pe­ri­ence is good when it height­ens the ap­pre­ci­a­tion of beauty, aug­ments the moral will, en­hances the dis­cern­ment of truth, en­larges the ca­pac­ity to love and serve one’s fel­lows, ex­alts the spir­i­tual ide­als, and uni­fies the su­preme hu­man mo­tives of time with the eter­nal plans of the in­dwelling Ad­juster, all of which lead di­rectly to an in­creased de­sire to do the Fa­ther’s will, thereby fos­ter­ing the di­vine pas­sion to find God and to be more like him.

132:2.6As you as­cend the uni­verse scale of crea­ture de­vel­op­ment, you will find in­creas­ing good­ness and di­min­ish­ing evil in per­fect ac­cor­dance with your ca­pac­ity for good­ness-ex­pe­ri­ence and truth-dis­cern­ment. The abil­ity to en­ter­tain er­ror or ex­pe­ri­ence evil will not be fully lost un­til the as­cend­ing hu­man soul achieves fi­nal spirit lev­els.

132:2.7Good­ness is liv­ing, rel­a­tive, al­ways pro­gress­ing, in­vari­ably a per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence, and ev­er­last­ingly cor­re­lated with the dis­cern­ment of truth and beauty. Good­ness is found in the rec­og­ni­tion of the pos­i­tive truth-val­ues of the spir­i­tual level, which must, in hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence, be con­trasted with the neg­a­tive coun­ter­part—the shad­ows of po­ten­tial evil.

132:2.8Un­til you at­tain Par­a­dise lev­els, good­ness will al­ways be more of a quest than a pos­ses­sion, more of a goal than an ex­pe­ri­ence of at­tain­ment. But even as you hunger and thirst for righ­teous­ness, you ex­pe­ri­ence in­creas­ing sat­is­fac­tion in the par­tial at­tain­ment of good­ness. The pres­ence of good­ness and evil in the world is in it­self pos­i­tive proof of the ex­is­tence and re­al­ity of man’s moral will, the per­son­al­ity, which thus iden­ti­fies these val­ues and is also able to choose be­tween them.

132:2.9By the time of the at­tain­ment of Par­a­dise the as­cend­ing mor­tal’s ca­pac­ity for iden­ti­fy­ing the self with true spirit val­ues has be­come so en­larged as to re­sult in the at­tain­ment of the per­fec­tion of the pos­ses­sion of the light of life. Such a per­fected spirit per­son­al­ity be­comes so wholly, di­vinely, and spir­i­tu­ally uni­fied with the pos­i­tive and su­preme qual­i­ties of good­ness, beauty, and truth that there re­mains no pos­si­bil­ity that such a righ­teous spirit would cast any neg­a­tive shadow of po­ten­tial evil when ex­posed to the search­ing lu­mi­nos­ity of the di­vine light of the in­fi­nite Rulers of Par­a­dise. In all such spirit per­son­al­i­ties, good­ness is no longer par­tial, con­trastive, and com­par­a­tive; it has be­come di­vinely com­plete and spir­i­tu­ally re­plete; it ap­proaches the pu­rity and per­fec­tion of the Su­preme.

132:2.10The pos­si­bil­ity of evil is nec­es­sary to moral choos­ing, but not the ac­tu­al­ity thereof. A shadow is only rel­a­tively real. Ac­tual evil is not nec­es­sary as a per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence. Po­ten­tial evil acts equally well as a de­ci­sion stim­u­lus in the realms of moral prog­ress on the lower lev­els of spir­i­tual de­vel­op­ment. Evil be­comes a re­al­ity of per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence only when a moral mind makes evil its choice.

132:3.1Nabon was a Greek Jew and fore­most among the lead­ers of the chief mys­tery cult in Rome, the Mith­raic. While this high priest of Mith­ra­ism held many con­fer­ences with the Da­mas­cus scribe, he was most per­ma­nently in­flu­enced by their dis­cus­sion of truth and faith one evening. Nabon had thought to make a con­vert of Je­sus and had even sug­gested that he re­turn to Pales­tine as a Mith­raic teacher. He lit­tle re­al­ized that Je­sus was prepar­ing him to be­come one of the early con­verts to the gospel of the king­dom. Re­stated in mod­ern phrase­ol­ogy, the sub­stance of Je­sus’ teach­ing was:

132:3.2Truth can­not be de­fined with words, only by liv­ing. Truth is al­ways more than knowl­edge. Knowl­edge per­tains to things ob­served, but truth tran­scends such purely ma­te­rial lev­els in that it con­sorts with wis­dom and em­braces such im­pon­der­ables as hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence, even spir­i­tual and liv­ing re­al­i­ties. Knowl­edge orig­i­nates in sci­ence; wis­dom, in true phi­los­o­phy; truth, in the re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence of spir­i­tual liv­ing. Knowl­edge deals with facts; wis­dom, with re­la­tion­ships; truth, with re­al­ity val­ues.

132:3.3Man tends to crys­tal­lize sci­ence, for­mu­late phi­los­o­phy, and dog­ma­tize truth be­cause he is men­tally lazy in ad­just­ing to the pro­gres­sive strug­gles of liv­ing, while he is also ter­ri­bly afraid of the un­known. Nat­u­ral man is slow to ini­ti­ate changes in his habits of think­ing and in his tech­niques of liv­ing.

132:3.4Re­vealed truth, per­son­ally dis­cov­ered truth, is the su­preme de­light of the hu­man soul; it is the joint cre­ation of the ma­te­rial mind and the in­dwelling spirit. The eter­nal sal­va­tion of this truth-dis­cern­ing and beauty-lov­ing soul is as­sured by that hunger and thirst for good­ness which leads this mor­tal to de­velop a sin­gle­ness of pur­pose to do the Fa­ther’s will, to find God and to be­come like him. There is never con­flict be­tween true knowl­edge and truth. There may be con­flict be­tween knowl­edge and hu­man be­liefs, be­liefs col­ored with prej­u­dice, dis­torted by fear, and dom­i­nated by the dread of fac­ing new facts of ma­te­rial dis­cov­ery or spir­i­tual prog­ress.

132:3.5But truth can never be­come man’s pos­ses­sion with­out the ex­er­cise of faith. This is true be­cause man’s thoughts, wis­dom, ethics, and ide­als will never rise higher than his faith, his sub­lime hope. And all such true faith is pred­i­cated on pro­found re­flec­tion, sin­cere self-crit­i­cism, and un­com­pro­mis­ing moral con­scious­ness. Faith is the in­spi­ra­tion of the spir­i­tized cre­ative imag­i­na­tion.

132:3.6Faith acts to re­lease the super­hu­man ac­tiv­i­ties of the di­vine spark, the im­mor­tal germ, that lives within the mind of man, and which is the po­ten­tial of eter­nal sur­vival. Plants and an­i­mals sur­vive in time by the tech­nique of pass­ing on from one gen­er­a­tion to an­other iden­ti­cal par­ti­cles of them­selves. The hu­man soul (per­son­al­ity) of man sur­vives mor­tal death by iden­tity as­so­ci­a­tion with this in­dwelling spark of di­vin­ity, which is im­mor­tal, and which func­tions to per­pet­u­ate the hu­man per­son­al­ity upon a con­tin­u­ing and higher level of pro­gres­sive uni­verse ex­is­tence. The con­cealed seed of the hu­man soul is an im­mor­tal spirit. The sec­ond gen­er­a­tion of the soul is the first of a suc­ces­sion of per­son­al­ity man­i­fes­ta­tions of spir­i­tual and pro­gress­ing ex­is­tences, ter­mi­nat­ing only when this di­vine en­tity at­tains the source of its ex­is­tence, the per­sonal source of all ex­is­tence, God, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

132:3.7Hu­man life con­tin­ues—sur­vives—be­cause it has a uni­verse func­tion, the task of find­ing God. The faith-ac­ti­vated soul of man can­not stop short of the at­tain­ment of this goal of des­tiny; and when it does once achieve this di­vine goal, it can never end be­cause it has be­come like God—eter­nal.

132:3.8Spir­i­tual evo­lu­tion is an ex­pe­ri­ence of the in­creas­ing and vol­un­tary choice of good­ness at­tended by an equal and pro­gres­sive diminu­tion of the pos­si­bil­ity of evil. With the at­tain­ment of fi­nal­ity of choice for good­ness and of com­pleted ca­pac­ity for truth ap­pre­ci­a­tion, there comes into ex­is­tence a per­fec­tion of beauty and ho­li­ness whose righ­teous­ness eter­nally in­hibits the pos­si­bil­ity of the emer­gence of even the con­cept of po­ten­tial evil. Such a God-know­ing soul casts no shadow of doubt­ing evil when func­tion­ing on such a high spirit level of di­vine good­ness.

132:3.9The pres­ence of the Par­a­dise spirit in the mind of man con­sti­tutes the rev­e­la­tion prom­ise and the faith pledge of an eter­nal ex­is­tence of di­vine pro­gres­sion for ev­ery soul seek­ing to achieve iden­tity with this im­mor­tal and in­dwelling spirit frag­ment of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

132:3.10Uni­verse prog­ress is char­ac­ter­ized by in­creas­ing per­son­al­ity free­dom be­cause it is as­so­ci­ated with the pro­gres­sive at­tain­ment of higher and higher lev­els of self-un­der­stand­ing and con­se­quent vol­un­tary self-re­straint. The at­tain­ment of per­fec­tion of spir­i­tual self-re­straint equals com­plete­ness of uni­verse free­dom and per­sonal lib­erty. Faith fos­ters and main­tains man’s soul in the midst of the con­fu­sion of his early ori­en­ta­tion in such a vast uni­verse, whereas prayer be­comes the great uni­fier of the var­i­ous in­spi­ra­tions of the cre­ative imag­i­na­tion and the faith urges of a soul try­ing to iden­tify it­self with the spirit ide­als of the in­dwelling and as­so­ci­ated di­vine pres­ence.

132:3.11Nabon was greatly im­pressed by these words, as he was by each of his talks with Je­sus. These truths con­tin­ued to burn within his heart, and he was of great as­sis­tance to the later ar­riv­ing preach­ers of Je­sus’ gospel.

132:5.1A cer­tain rich man, a Ro­man cit­i­zen and a Stoic, be­came greatly in­ter­ested in Je­sus’ teach­ing, hav­ing been in­tro­duced by Ang­a­mon. Af­ter many in­ti­mate con­fer­ences this wealthy cit­i­zen asked Je­sus what he would do with wealth if he had it, and Je­sus an­swered him: “I would be­stow ma­te­rial wealth for the en­hance­ment of ma­te­rial life, even as I would min­is­ter knowl­edge, wis­dom, and spir­i­tual ser­vice for the en­rich­ment of the in­tel­lec­tual life, the en­no­ble­ment of the so­cial life, and the ad­vance­ment of the spir­i­tual life. I would ad­min­is­ter ma­te­rial wealth as a wise and ef­fec­tive trus­tee of the re­sources of one gen­er­a­tion for the ben­e­fit and en­no­ble­ment of the next and suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tions.”

132:5.2But the rich man was not fully sat­is­fied with Je­sus’ an­swer. He made bold to ask again: “But what do you think a man in my po­si­tion should do with his wealth? Should I keep it, or should I give it away?” And when Je­sus per­ceived that he re­ally de­sired to know more of the truth about his loy­alty to God and his duty to men, he fur­ther an­swered: “My good friend, I dis­cern that you are a sin­cere seeker af­ter wis­dom and an hon­est lover of truth; there­fore am I minded to lay be­fore you my view of the so­lu­tion of your prob­lems hav­ing to do with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of wealth. I do this be­cause you have asked for my coun­sel, and in giv­ing you this ad­vice, I am not con­cerned with the wealth of any other rich man; I am of­fer­ing ad­vice only to you and for your per­sonal guid­ance. If you hon­estly de­sire to re­gard your wealth as a trust, if you re­ally wish to be­come a wise and ef­fi­cient stew­ard of your ac­cu­mu­lated wealth, then would I coun­sel you to make the fol­low­ing anal­y­sis of the sources of your riches: Ask your­self, and do your best to find the hon­est an­swer, whence came this wealth? And as a help in the study of the sources of your great for­tune, I would sug­gest that you bear in mind the fol­low­ing ten dif­fer­ent meth­ods of amass­ing ma­te­rial wealth:

132:5.3“1. In­her­ited wealth—riches de­rived from par­ents and other an­ces­tors.

132:5.4“2. Dis­cov­ered wealth—riches de­rived from the un­cul­ti­vated re­sources of mother earth.

132:5.5“3. Trade wealth—riches ob­tained as a fair profit in the ex­change and barter of ma­te­rial goods.

132:5.6“4. Un­fair wealth—riches de­rived from the un­fair ex­ploita­tion or the en­slave­ment of one’s fel­lows.

132:5.7“5. In­ter­est wealth—in­come de­rived from the fair and just earn­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties of in­vested cap­i­tal.

132:5.8“6. Ge­nius wealth—riches ac­cru­ing from the re­wards of the cre­ative and in­ven­tive en­dow­ments of the hu­man mind.

132:5.9“7. Ac­ci­den­tal wealth—riches de­rived from the gen­eros­ity of one’s fel­lows or tak­ing ori­gin in the cir­cum­stances of life.

132:5.10“8. Stolen wealth—riches se­cured by un­fair­ness, dis­hon­esty, theft, or fraud.

132:5.11“9. Trust funds—wealth lodged in your hands by your fel­lows for some spe­cific use, now or in the fu­ture.

132:5.12“10. Earned wealth—riches de­rived di­rectly from your own per­sonal la­bor, the fair and just re­ward of your own daily ef­forts of mind and body.

132:5.13“And so, my friend, if you would be a faith­ful and just stew­ard of your large for­tune, be­fore God and in ser­vice to men, you must ap­prox­i­mately di­vide your wealth into these ten grand di­vi­sions, and then pro­ceed to ad­min­is­ter each por­tion in ac­cor­dance with the wise and hon­est in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the laws of jus­tice, eq­uity, fair­ness, and true ef­fi­ciency; al­beit, the God of heaven would not con­demn you if some­times you erred, in doubt­ful sit­u­a­tions, on the side of mer­ci­ful and un­selfish re­gard for the dis­tress of the suf­fer­ing vic­tims of the un­for­tu­nate cir­cum­stances of mor­tal life. When in hon­est doubt about the eq­uity and jus­tice of ma­te­rial sit­u­a­tions, let your de­ci­sions fa­vor those who are in need, fa­vor those who suf­fer the mis­for­tune of un­de­served hard­ships.”

132:5.14Af­ter dis­cussing these mat­ters for sev­eral hours and in re­sponse to the rich man’s re­quest for fur­ther and more de­tailed in­struc­tion, Je­sus went on to am­plify his ad­vice, in sub­stance say­ing: “While I of­fer fur­ther sug­ges­tions con­cern­ing your at­ti­tude to­ward wealth, I would ad­mon­ish you to re­ceive my coun­sel as given only to you and for your per­sonal guid­ance. I speak only for my­self and to you as an in­quir­ing friend. I ad­jure you not to be­come a dic­ta­tor as to how other rich men shall re­gard their wealth. I would ad­vise you:

132:5.15“1. As stew­ard of in­her­ited wealth you should con­sider its sources. You are un­der moral obli­ga­tion to rep­re­sent the past gen­er­a­tion in the hon­est trans­mit­tal of le­git­i­mate wealth to suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tions af­ter sub­tract­ing a fair toll for the ben­e­fit of the pres­ent gen­er­a­tion. But you are not ob­li­gated to per­pet­u­ate any dis­hon­esty or in­jus­tice in­volved in the un­fair ac­cu­mu­la­tion of wealth by your an­ces­tors. Any por­tion of your in­her­ited wealth which turns out to have been de­rived through fraud or un­fair­ness, you may dis­burse in ac­cor­dance with your con­vic­tions of jus­tice, gen­eros­ity, and resti­tu­tion. The re­main­der of your le­git­i­mate in­her­ited wealth you may use in eq­uity and trans­mit in se­cu­rity as the trus­tee of one gen­er­a­tion for an­other. Wise dis­crim­i­na­tion and sound judg­ment should dic­tate your de­ci­sions re­gard­ing the be­quest of riches to your suc­ces­sors.

132:5.16“2. Ev­ery­one who en­joys wealth as a re­sult of dis­cov­ery should re­mem­ber that one in­di­vid­ual can live on earth but a short sea­son and should, there­fore, make ad­e­quate pro­vi­sion for the shar­ing of these dis­cov­er­ies in help­ful ways by the largest pos­si­ble num­ber of his fel­low men. While the dis­cov­erer should not be de­nied all re­ward for ef­forts of dis­cov­ery, nei­ther should he self­ishly pre­sume to lay claim to all of the ad­van­tages and bless­ings to be de­rived from the un­cov­er­ing of na­ture’s hoarded re­sources.

132:5.17“3. As long as men choose to con­duct the world’s busi­ness by trade and barter, they are en­ti­tled to a fair and le­git­i­mate profit. Ev­ery trades­man de­serves wages for his ser­vices; the mer­chant is en­ti­tled to his hire. The fair­ness of trade and the hon­est treat­ment ac­corded one’s fel­lows in the or­ga­nized busi­ness of the world cre­ate many dif­fer­ent sorts of profit wealth, and all these sources of wealth must be judged by the high­est prin­ci­ples of jus­tice, hon­esty, and fair­ness. The hon­est trader should not hes­i­tate to take the same profit which he would gladly ac­cord his fel­low trader in a sim­i­lar trans­ac­tion. While this sort of wealth is not iden­ti­cal with in­di­vid­u­ally earned in­come when busi­ness deal­ings are con­ducted on a large scale, at the same time, such hon­estly ac­cu­mu­lated wealth en­dows its pos­ses­sor with a con­sid­er­able eq­uity as re­gards a voice in its sub­se­quent dis­tri­bu­tion.

132:5.18“4. No mor­tal who knows God and seeks to do the di­vine will can stoop to en­gage in the op­pres­sions of wealth. No no­ble man will strive to ac­cu­mu­late riches and amass wealth-power by the en­slave­ment or un­fair ex­ploita­tion of his broth­ers in the flesh. Riches are a moral curse and a spir­i­tual stigma when they are de­rived from the sweat of op­pressed mor­tal man. All such wealth should be re­stored to those who have thus been robbed or to their chil­dren and their chil­dren’s chil­dren. An en­dur­ing civ­i­liza­tion can­not be built upon the prac­tice of de­fraud­ing the la­borer of his hire.

132:5.19“5. Hon­est wealth is en­ti­tled to in­ter­est. As long as men bor­row and lend, that which is fair in­ter­est may be col­lected pro­vided the cap­i­tal lent was le­git­i­mate wealth. First cleanse your cap­i­tal be­fore you lay claim to the in­ter­est. Do not be­come so small and grasp­ing that you would stoop to the prac­tice of usury. Never per­mit your­self to be so self­ish as to em­ploy money-power to gain un­fair ad­van­tage over your strug­gling fel­lows. Yield not to the temp­ta­tion to take usury from your brother in fi­nan­cial dis­tress.

132:5.20“6. If you chance to se­cure wealth by flights of ge­nius, if your riches are de­rived from the re­wards of in­ven­tive en­dow­ment, do not lay claim to an un­fair por­tion of such re­wards. The ge­nius owes some­thing to both his an­ces­tors and his progeny; like­wise is he un­der obli­ga­tion to the race, na­tion, and cir­cum­stances of his in­ven­tive dis­cov­er­ies; he should also re­mem­ber that it was as man among men that he la­bored and wrought out his in­ven­tions. It would be equally un­just to de­prive the ge­nius of all his in­cre­ment of wealth. And it will ever be im­pos­si­ble for men to es­tab­lish rules and reg­u­la­tions ap­pli­ca­ble equally to all these prob­lems of the eq­ui­table dis­tri­bu­tion of wealth. You must first rec­og­nize man as your brother, and if you hon­estly de­sire to do by him as you would have him do by you, the com­mon­place dic­tates of jus­tice, hon­esty, and fair­ness will guide you in the just and im­par­tial set­tle­ment of ev­ery re­cur­ring prob­lem of eco­nomic re­wards and so­cial jus­tice.

132:5.21“7. Ex­cept for the just and le­git­i­mate fees earned in ad­min­is­tra­tion, no man should lay per­sonal claim to that wealth which time and chance may cause to fall into his hands. Ac­ci­den­tal riches should be re­garded some­what in the light of a trust to be ex­pended for the ben­e­fit of one’s so­cial or eco­nomic group. The pos­ses­sors of such wealth should be ac­corded the ma­jor voice in the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the wise and ef­fec­tive dis­tri­bu­tion of such un­earned re­sources. Civ­i­lized man will not al­ways look upon all that he con­trols as his per­sonal and pri­vate pos­ses­sion.

132:5.22“8. If any por­tion of your for­tune has been know­ingly de­rived from fraud; if aught of your wealth has been ac­cu­mu­lated by dis­hon­est prac­tices or un­fair meth­ods; if your riches are the prod­uct of un­just deal­ings with your fel­lows, make haste to re­store all these ill-got­ten gains to the right­ful own­ers. Make full amends and thus cleanse your for­tune of all dis­hon­est riches.

132:5.23“9. The trustee­ship of the wealth of one per­son for the ben­e­fit of oth­ers is a solemn and sa­cred re­spon­si­bil­ity. Do not haz­ard or jeop­ar­dize such a trust. Take for your­self of any trust only that which all hon­est men would al­low.

132:5.24“10. That part of your for­tune which rep­re­sents the earn­ings of your own men­tal and phys­i­cal ef­forts—if your work has been done in fair­ness and eq­uity—is truly your own. No man can gain­say your right to hold and use such wealth as you may see fit pro­vided your ex­er­cise of this right does not work harm upon your fel­lows.”

132:5.25When Je­sus had fin­ished coun­sel­ing him, this wealthy Ro­man arose from his couch and, in say­ing farewell for the night, de­liv­ered him­self of this prom­ise: “My good friend, I per­ceive you are a man of great wis­dom and good­ness, and to­mor­row I will be­gin the ad­min­is­tra­tion of all my wealth in ac­cor­dance with your coun­sel.”

133:1.1A very in­ter­est­ing in­ci­dent oc­curred one af­ter­noon by the road­side as they neared Tar­en­tum. They ob­served a rough and bul­ly­ing youth bru­tally at­tack­ing a smaller lad. Je­sus has­tened to the as­sis­tance of the as­saulted youth, and when he had res­cued him, he tightly held on to the of­fender un­til the smaller lad had made his es­cape. The mo­ment Je­sus re­leased the lit­tle bully, Ga­nid pounced upon the boy and be­gan soundly to thrash him, and to Ga­nid’s as­ton­ish­ment Je­sus promptly in­ter­fered. Af­ter he had re­strained Ga­nid and per­mit­ted the fright­ened boy to es­cape, the young man, as soon as he got his breath, ex­cit­edly ex­claimed: “I can­not un­der­stand you, Teacher. If mercy re­quires that you res­cue the smaller lad, does not jus­tice de­mand the pun­ish­ment of the larger and of­fend­ing youth?” In an­swer­ing, Je­sus said:

133:1.2“Ga­nid, it is true, you do not un­der­stand. Mercy min­istry is al­ways the work of the in­di­vid­ual, but jus­tice pun­ish­ment is the func­tion of the so­cial, gov­ern­men­tal, or uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tive groups. As an in­di­vid­ual I am be­holden to show mercy; I must go to the res­cue of the as­saulted lad, and in all con­sis­tency I may em­ploy suf­fi­cient force to re­strain the ag­gres­sor. And that is just what I did. I achieved the de­liv­er­ance of the as­saulted lad; that was the end of mercy min­istry. Then I forcibly de­tained the ag­gres­sor a suf­fi­cient length of time to en­able the weaker party to the dis­pute to make his es­cape, af­ter which I with­drew from the af­fair. I did not pro­ceed to sit in judg­ment on the ag­gres­sor, thus to pass upon his mo­tive—to ad­ju­di­cate all that en­tered into his at­tack upon his fel­low—and then un­der­take to ex­e­cute the pun­ish­ment which my mind might dic­tate as just rec­om­pense for his wrong­do­ing. Ga­nid, mercy may be lav­ish, but jus­tice is pre­cise. Can­not you dis­cern that no two per­sons are likely to agree as to the pun­ish­ment which would sat­isfy the de­mands of jus­tice? One would im­pose forty lashes, an­other twenty, while still an­other would ad­vise soli­tary con­fine­ment as a just pun­ish­ment. Can you not see that on this world such re­spon­si­bil­i­ties had bet­ter rest upon the group or be ad­min­is­tered by cho­sen rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the group? In the uni­verse, judg­ment is vested in those who fully know the an­tecedents of all wrong­do­ing as well as its mo­ti­va­tion. In civ­i­lized so­ci­ety and in an or­ga­nized uni­verse the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice pre­sup­poses the pass­ing of just sen­tence con­se­quent upon fair judg­ment, and such pre­rog­a­tives are vested in the ju­ridi­cal groups of the worlds and in the all-know­ing ad­min­is­tra­tors of the higher uni­verses of all cre­ation.”

133:1.3For days they talked about this prob­lem of man­i­fest­ing mercy and ad­min­is­ter­ing jus­tice. And Ga­nid, at least to some ex­tent, un­der­stood why Je­sus would not en­gage in per­sonal com­bat. But Ga­nid asked one last ques­tion, to which he never re­ceived a fully sat­is­fac­tory an­swer; and that ques­tion was: “But, Teacher, if a stronger and ill-tem­pered crea­ture should at­tack you and threaten to de­stroy you, what would you do? Would you make no ef­fort to de­fend your­self?” Al­though Je­sus could not fully and sat­is­fac­to­rily an­swer the lad’s ques­tion, inas­much as he was not will­ing to dis­close to him that he (Je­sus) was liv­ing on earth as the ex­em­pli­fi­ca­tion of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther’s love to an on­look­ing uni­verse, he did say this much:

133:1.4“Ga­nid, I can well un­der­stand how some of these prob­lems per­plex you, and I will en­deavor to an­swer your ques­tion. First, in all at­tacks which might be made upon my per­son, I would de­ter­mine whether or not the ag­gres­sor was a son of God—my brother in the flesh—and if I thought such a crea­ture did not pos­sess moral judg­ment and spir­i­tual rea­son, I would un­hesi­tat­ingly de­fend my­self to the full ca­pac­ity of my pow­ers of re­sis­tance, re­gard­less of con­se­quences to the at­tacker. But I would not thus as­sault a fel­low man of son­ship sta­tus, even in self-de­fense. That is, I would not pun­ish him in ad­vance and with­out judg­ment for his as­sault upon me. I would by ev­ery pos­si­ble ar­ti­fice seek to pre­vent and dis­suade him from mak­ing such an at­tack and to mit­i­gate it in case of my fail­ure to abort it. Ga­nid, I have ab­so­lute con­fi­dence in my heav­enly Fa­ther’s over­care; I am con­se­crated to do­ing the will of my Fa­ther in heaven. I do not be­lieve that real harm can be­fall me; I do not be­lieve that my life­work can re­ally be jeop­ar­dized by any­thing my en­e­mies might wish to visit upon me, and surely we have no vi­o­lence to fear from our friends. I am ab­so­lutely as­sured that the en­tire uni­verse is friendly to me—this all-pow­er­ful truth I in­sist on be­liev­ing with a whole­hearted trust in spite of all ap­pear­ances to the con­trary.”

133:1.5But Ga­nid was not fully sat­is­fied. Many times they talked over these mat­ters, and Je­sus told him some of his boy­hood ex­pe­ri­ences and also about Ja­cob the stone ma­son’s son. On learn­ing how Ja­cob ap­pointed him­self to de­fend Je­sus, Ga­nid said: “Oh, I be­gin to see! In the first place very sel­dom would any nor­mal hu­man be­ing want to at­tack such a kindly per­son as you, and even if any­one should be so un­think­ing as to do such a thing, there is pretty sure to be near at hand some other mor­tal who will fly to your as­sis­tance, even as you al­ways go to the res­cue of any per­son you ob­serve to be in dis­tress. In my heart, Teacher, I agree with you, but in my head I still think that if I had been Ja­cob, I would have en­joyed pun­ish­ing those rude fel­lows who pre­sumed to at­tack you just be­cause they thought you would not de­fend your­self. I pre­sume you are fairly safe in your jour­ney through life since you spend much of your time help­ing oth­ers and min­is­ter­ing to your fel­lows in dis­tress—well, most likely there’ll al­ways be some­one on hand to de­fend you.” And Je­sus replied: “That test has not yet come, Ga­nid, and when it does, we will have to abide by the Fa­ther’s will.” And that was about all the lad could get his teacher to say on this dif­fi­cult sub­ject of self-de­fense and non­re­sis­tance. On an­other oc­ca­sion he did draw from Je­sus the opin­ion that or­ga­nized so­ci­ety had ev­ery right to em­ploy force in the ex­e­cu­tion of its just man­dates.

133:5.1They shortly ar­rived at the olden cen­ter of Greek sci­ence and learn­ing, and Ga­nid was thrilled with the thought of be­ing in Athens, of be­ing in Greece, the cul­tural cen­ter of the one­time Alexan­drian em­pire, which had ex­tended its bor­ders even to his own land of In­dia. There was lit­tle busi­ness to trans­act; so Gonod spent most of his time with Je­sus and Ga­nid, vis­it­ing the many points of in­ter­est and lis­ten­ing to the in­ter­est­ing dis­cus­sions of the lad and his ver­sa­tile teacher.

133:5.2A great uni­ver­sity still thrived in Athens, and the trio made fre­quent vis­its to its halls of learn­ing. Je­sus and Ga­nid had thor­oughly dis­cussed the teach­ings of Plato when they at­tended the lec­tures in the mu­seum at Alexan­dria. They all en­joyed the art of Greece, ex­am­ples of which were still to be found here and there about the city.

133:5.3Both the fa­ther and the son greatly en­joyed the dis­cus­sion on sci­ence which Je­sus had at their inn one evening with a Greek philoso­pher. Af­ter this pedant had talked for al­most three hours, and when he had fin­ished his dis­course, Je­sus, in terms of mod­ern thought, said:

133:5.4Sci­en­tists may some day mea­sure the en­ergy, or force man­i­fes­ta­tions, of grav­i­ta­tion, light, and elec­tric­ity, but these same sci­en­tists can never (sci­en­tif­i­cally) tell you what these uni­verse phe­nom­ena are. Sci­ence deals with phys­i­cal-en­ergy ac­tiv­i­ties; re­li­gion deals with eter­nal val­ues. True phi­los­o­phy grows out of the wis­dom which does its best to cor­re­late these quan­ti­ta­tive and qual­i­ta­tive ob­ser­va­tions. There al­ways ex­ists the dan­ger that the purely phys­i­cal sci­en­tist may be­come af­flicted with math­e­mat­i­cal pride and sta­tis­ti­cal ego­tism, not to men­tion spir­i­tual blind­ness.

133:5.5Logic is valid in the ma­te­rial world, and math­e­mat­ics is re­li­able when lim­ited in its ap­pli­ca­tion to phys­i­cal things; but nei­ther is to be re­garded as wholly de­pend­able or in­fal­li­ble when ap­plied to life prob­lems. Life em­braces phe­nom­ena which are not wholly ma­te­rial. Arith­metic says that, if one man could shear a sheep in ten min­utes, ten men could shear it in one minute. That is sound math­e­mat­ics, but it is not true, for the ten men could not so do it; they would get in one an­other’s way so badly that the work would be greatly de­layed.

133:5.6Math­e­mat­ics as­serts that, if one per­son stands for a cer­tain unit of in­tel­lec­tual and moral value, ten per­sons would stand for ten times this value. But in deal­ing with hu­man per­son­al­ity it would be nearer the truth to say that such a per­son­al­ity as­so­ci­a­tion is a sum equal to the square of the num­ber of per­son­al­i­ties con­cerned in the equa­tion rather than the sim­ple arith­meti­cal sum. A so­cial group of hu­man be­ings in co-or­di­nated work­ing har­mony stands for a force far greater than the sim­ple sum of its parts.

133:5.7Quan­tity may be iden­ti­fied as a fact, thus be­com­ing a sci­en­tific uni­for­mity. Qual­ity, be­ing a mat­ter of mind in­ter­pre­ta­tion, rep­re­sents an es­ti­mate of val­ues, and must, there­fore, re­main an ex­pe­ri­ence of the in­di­vid­ual. When both sci­ence and re­li­gion be­come less dog­matic and more tol­er­ant of crit­i­cism, phi­los­o­phy will then be­gin to achieve unity in the in­tel­li­gent com­pre­hen­sion of the uni­verse.

133:5.8There is unity in the cos­mic uni­verse if you could only dis­cern its work­ings in ac­tu­al­ity. The real uni­verse is friendly to ev­ery child of the eter­nal God. The real prob­lem is: How can the fi­nite mind of man achieve a log­i­cal, true, and cor­re­spond­ing unity of thought? This uni­verse-know­ing state of mind can be had only by con­ceiv­ing that the quan­ti­ta­tive fact and the qual­i­ta­tive value have a com­mon cau­sa­tion in the Par­a­dise Fa­ther. Such a con­cep­tion of re­al­ity yields a broader in­sight into the pur­pose­ful unity of uni­verse phe­nom­ena; it even re­veals a spir­i­tual goal of pro­gres­sive per­son­al­ity achieve­ment. And this is a con­cept of unity which can sense the un­chang­ing back­ground of a liv­ing uni­verse of con­tin­u­ally chang­ing im­per­sonal re­la­tions and evolv­ing per­sonal re­la­tion­ships.

133:5.9Mat­ter and spirit and the state in­ter­ven­ing be­tween them are three in­ter­re­lated and in­teras­so­ci­ated lev­els of the true unity of the real uni­verse. Re­gard­less of how di­ver­gent the uni­verse phe­nom­ena of fact and value may ap­pear to be, they are, af­ter all, uni­fied in the Su­preme.

133:5.10Re­al­ity of ma­te­rial ex­is­tence at­taches to un­rec­og­nized en­ergy as well as to vis­i­ble mat­ter. When the en­er­gies of the uni­verse are so slowed down that they ac­quire the req­ui­site de­gree of mo­tion, then, un­der fa­vor­able con­di­tions, these same en­er­gies be­come mass. And for­get not, the mind which can alone per­ceive the pres­ence of ap­par­ent re­al­i­ties is it­self also real. And the fun­da­men­tal cause of this uni­verse of en­ergy-mass, mind, and spirit, is eter­nal—it ex­ists and con­sists in the na­ture and re­ac­tions of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther and his ab­so­lute co-or­di­nates.

133:5.11They were all more than as­tounded at the words of Je­sus, and when the Greek took leave of them, he said: “At last my eyes have be­held a Jew who thinks some­thing be­sides racial su­pe­ri­or­ity and talks some­thing be­sides re­li­gion.” And they re­tired for the night.

133:5.12The so­journ in Athens was pleas­ant and prof­itable, but it was not par­tic­u­larly fruit­ful in its hu­man con­tacts. Too many of the Athe­ni­ans of that day were ei­ther in­tel­lec­tu­ally proud of their rep­u­ta­tion of an­other day or men­tally stupid and ig­no­rant, be­ing the off­spring of the in­fe­rior slaves of those ear­lier pe­ri­ods when there was glory in Greece and wis­dom in the minds of its peo­ple. Even then, there were still many keen minds to be found among the cit­i­zens of Athens.

• soul

133:6.4There was a pro­gres­sive thinker con­nected with this lo­cal school of phi­los­o­phy, and Je­sus had sev­eral prof­itable ses­sions with him. In the course of these talks Je­sus had re­peat­edly used the word “soul.” This learned Greek fi­nally asked him what he meant by “soul,” and he replied:

133:6.5“The soul is the self-re­flec­tive, truth-dis­cern­ing, and spirit-per­ceiv­ing part of man which for­ever el­e­vates the hu­man be­ing above the level of the an­i­mal world. Self-con­scious­ness, in and of it­self, is not the soul. Moral self-con­scious­ness is true hu­man self-re­al­iza­tion and con­sti­tutes the foun­da­tion of the hu­man soul, and the soul is that part of man which rep­re­sents the po­ten­tial sur­vival value of hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence. Moral choice and spir­i­tual at­tain­ment, the abil­ity to know God and the urge to be like him, are the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the soul. The soul of man can­not ex­ist apart from moral think­ing and spir­i­tual ac­tiv­ity. A stag­nant soul is a dy­ing soul. But the soul of man is dis­tinct from the di­vine spirit which dwells within the mind. The di­vine spirit ar­rives si­mul­ta­ne­ously with the first moral ac­tiv­ity of the hu­man mind, and that is the oc­ca­sion of the birth of the soul.

133:6.6“The sav­ing or los­ing of a soul has to do with whether or not the moral con­scious­ness at­tains sur­vival sta­tus through eter­nal al­liance with its as­so­ci­ated im­mor­tal spirit en­dow­ment. Sal­va­tion is the spir­i­tu­al­iza­tion of the self-re­al­iza­tion of the moral con­scious­ness, which thereby be­comes pos­sessed of sur­vival value. All forms of soul con­flict con­sist in the lack of har­mony be­tween the moral, or spir­i­tual, self-con­scious­ness and the purely in­tel­lec­tual self-con­scious­ness.

133:6.7“The hu­man soul, when ma­tured, en­no­bled, and spir­i­tu­al­ized, ap­proaches the heav­enly sta­tus in that it comes near to be­ing an en­tity in­ter­ven­ing be­tween the ma­te­rial and the spir­i­tual, the ma­te­rial self and the di­vine spirit. The evolv­ing soul of a hu­man be­ing is dif­fi­cult of de­scrip­tion and more dif­fi­cult of dem­on­stra­tion be­cause it is not dis­cov­er­able by the meth­ods of ei­ther ma­te­rial in­ves­ti­ga­tion or spir­i­tual prov­ing. Ma­te­rial sci­ence can­not demon­strate the ex­is­tence of a soul, nei­ther can pure spirit-test­ing. Not­with­stand­ing the fail­ure of both ma­te­rial sci­ence and spir­i­tual stan­dards to dis­cover the ex­is­tence of the hu­man soul, ev­ery morally con­scious mor­tal knows of the ex­is­tence of his soul as a real and ac­tual per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence.”

• mind

133:7.5The last week of their so­journ in the moun­tains Je­sus and Ga­nid had a long talk on the func­tions of the hu­man mind. Af­ter sev­eral hours of dis­cus­sion the lad asked this ques­tion: “But, Teacher, what do you mean when you say that man ex­pe­ri­ences a higher form of self-con­scious­ness than do the higher an­i­mals?” And as re­stated in mod­ern phrase­ol­ogy, Je­sus an­swered:

133:7.6My son, I have al­ready told you much about the mind of man and the di­vine spirit that lives therein, but now let me em­pha­size that self-con­scious­ness is a re­al­ity. When any an­i­mal be­comes self-con­scious, it be­comes a prim­i­tive man. Such an at­tain­ment re­sults from a co-or­di­na­tion of func­tion be­tween im­per­sonal en­ergy and spirit-con­ceiv­ing mind, and it is this phe­nom­e­non which war­rants the be­stowal of an ab­so­lute fo­cal point for the hu­man per­son­al­ity, the spirit of the Fa­ther in heaven.

133:7.7Ideas are not sim­ply a rec­ord of sen­sa­tions; ideas are sen­sa­tions plus the re­flec­tive in­ter­pre­ta­tions of the per­sonal self; and the self is more than the sum of one’s sen­sa­tions. There be­gins to be some­thing of an ap­proach to unity in an evolv­ing self­hood, and that unity is de­rived from the in­dwelling pres­ence of a part of ab­so­lute unity which spir­i­tu­ally ac­ti­vates such a self-con­scious an­i­mal-ori­gin mind.

133:7.8No mere an­i­mal could pos­sess a time self-con­scious­ness. An­i­mals pos­sess a phys­i­o­log­i­cal co-or­di­na­tion of as­so­ci­ated sen­sa­tion-rec­og­ni­tion and mem­ory thereof, but none ex­pe­ri­ence a mean­ing­ful rec­og­ni­tion of sen­sa­tion or ex­hibit a pur­pose­ful as­so­ci­a­tion of these com­bined phys­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ences such as is man­i­fested in the con­clu­sions of in­tel­li­gent and re­flec­tive hu­man in­ter­pre­ta­tions. And this fact of self-con­scious ex­is­tence, as­so­ci­ated with the re­al­ity of his sub­se­quent spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence, con­sti­tutes man a po­ten­tial son of the uni­verse and fore­shad­ows his even­tual at­tain­ment of the Su­preme Unity of the uni­verse.

133:7.9Nei­ther is the hu­man self merely the sum of the suc­ces­sive states of con­scious­ness. With­out the ef­fec­tive func­tion­ing of a con­scious­ness sorter and as­so­ci­a­tor there would not ex­ist suf­fi­cient unity to war­rant the des­ig­na­tion of a self­hood. Such an un­uni­fied mind could hardly at­tain con­scious lev­els of hu­man sta­tus. If the as­so­ci­a­tions of con­scious­ness were just an ac­ci­dent, the minds of all men would then ex­hibit the un­con­trolled and ran­dom as­so­ci­a­tions of cer­tain phases of men­tal mad­ness.

133:7.10A hu­man mind, built up solely out of the con­scious­ness of phys­i­cal sen­sa­tions, could never at­tain spir­i­tual lev­els; this kind of ma­te­rial mind would be ut­terly lack­ing in a sense of moral val­ues and would be with­out a guid­ing sense of spir­i­tual dom­i­nance which is so es­sen­tial to achiev­ing har­mo­nious per­son­al­ity unity in time, and which is in­sep­a­ra­ble from per­son­al­ity sur­vival in eter­nity.

133:7.11The hu­man mind early be­gins to man­i­fest qual­i­ties which are super­ma­te­rial; the truly re­flec­tive hu­man in­tel­lect is not al­to­gether bound by the lim­its of time. That in­di­vid­u­als so dif­fer in their life per­for­mances in­di­cates, not only the vary­ing en­dow­ments of hered­ity and the dif­fer­ent in­flu­ences of the en­vi­ron­ment, but also the de­gree of uni­fi­ca­tion with the in­dwelling spirit of the Fa­ther which has been achieved by the self, the mea­sure of the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the one with the other.

133:7.12The hu­man mind does not well stand the con­flict of dou­ble al­le­giance. It is a se­vere strain on the soul to un­dergo the ex­pe­ri­ence of an ef­fort to serve both good and evil. The su­premely happy and ef­fi­ciently uni­fied mind is the one wholly ded­i­cated to the do­ing of the will of the Fa­ther in heaven. Un­re­solved con­flicts de­stroy unity and may ter­mi­nate in mind dis­rup­tion. But the sur­vival char­ac­ter of a soul is not fos­tered by at­tempt­ing to se­cure peace of mind at any price, by the sur­ren­der of no­ble as­pi­ra­tions, and by the com­pro­mise of spir­i­tual ide­als; rather is such peace at­tained by the stal­wart as­ser­tion of the tri­umph of that which is true, and this vic­tory is achieved in the over­com­ing of evil with the po­tent force of good.

• miscellaneous titles

145:2.1The next Sab­bath, at the af­ter­noon ser­vice in the syn­a­gogue, Je­sus preached his ser­mon on “The Will of the Fa­ther in Heaven.” In the morn­ing Si­mon Pe­ter had preached on “The King­dom.” At the Thurs­day evening meet­ing of the syn­a­gogue An­drew had taught, his sub­ject be­ing “The New Way.” At this par­tic­u­lar time more peo­ple be­lieved in Je­sus in Ca­per­naum than in any other one city on earth.

148:6.1It was this same evening at Beth­saida that John also asked Je­sus why so many ap­par­ently in­no­cent peo­ple suf­fered from so many dis­eases and ex­pe­ri­enced so many af­flic­tions. In an­swer­ing John’s ques­tions, among many other things, the Mas­ter said:

148:6.2“My son, you do not com­pre­hend the mean­ing of ad­ver­sity or the mis­sion of suf­fer­ing. Have you not read that mas­ter­piece of Semitic lit­er­a­ture—the Scrip­ture story of the af­flic­tions of Job? Do you not re­call how this won­der­ful para­ble be­gins with the recital of the ma­te­rial pros­per­ity of the Lord’s ser­vant? You well re­mem­ber that Job was blessed with chil­dren, wealth, dig­nity, po­si­tion, health, and ev­ery­thing else which men value in this tem­po­ral life. Ac­cord­ing to the time-hon­ored teach­ings of the chil­dren of Abra­ham such ma­te­rial pros­per­ity was all-suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence of di­vine fa­vor. But such ma­te­rial pos­ses­sions and such tem­po­ral pros­per­ity do not in­di­cate God’s fa­vor. My Fa­ther in heaven loves the poor just as much as the rich; he is no re­specter of per­sons.

148:6.3“Al­though trans­gres­sion of di­vine law is sooner or later fol­lowed by the har­vest of pun­ish­ment, while men cer­tainly even­tu­ally do reap what they sow, still you should know that hu­man suf­fer­ing is not al­ways a pun­ish­ment for an­te­ced­ent sin. Both Job and his friends failed to find the true an­swer for their per­plex­i­ties. And with the light you now en­joy you would hardly as­sign to ei­ther Sa­tan or God the parts they play in this unique para­ble. While Job did not, through suf­fer­ing, find the res­o­lu­tion of his in­tel­lec­tual trou­bles or the so­lu­tion of his phil­o­soph­i­cal dif­fi­cul­ties, he did achieve great vic­to­ries; even in the very face of the break­down of his the­o­log­i­cal de­fenses he as­cended to those spir­i­tual heights where he could sin­cerely say, ‘I ab­hor my­self’; then was there granted him the sal­va­tion of a vi­sion of God. So even through mis­un­der­stood suf­fer­ing, Job as­cended to the super­hu­man plane of moral un­der­stand­ing and spir­i­tual in­sight. When the suf­fer­ing ser­vant ob­tains a vi­sion of God, there fol­lows a soul peace which passes all hu­man un­der­stand­ing.

148:6.4“The first of Job’s friends, Elip­haz, ex­horted the suf­ferer to ex­hibit in his af­flic­tions the same for­ti­tude he had pre­scribed for oth­ers dur­ing the days of his pros­per­ity. Said this false com­forter: ‘Trust in your re­li­gion, Job; re­mem­ber that it is the wicked and not the righ­teous who suf­fer. You must de­serve this pun­ish­ment, else you would not be af­flicted. You well know that no man can be righ­teous in God’s sight. You know that the wicked never re­ally pros­per. Any­way, man seems pre­des­tined to trou­ble, and per­haps the Lord is only chastis­ing you for your own good.’ No won­der poor Job failed to get much com­fort from such an in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the prob­lem of hu­man suf­fer­ing.

148:6.5“But the coun­sel of his sec­ond friend, Bil­dad, was even more de­press­ing, not­with­stand­ing its sound­ness from the stand­point of the then ac­cepted the­ol­ogy. Said Bil­dad: ‘God can­not be un­just. Your chil­dren must have been sin­ners since they per­ished; you must be in er­ror, else you would not be so af­flicted. And if you are re­ally righ­teous, God will cer­tainly de­liver you from your af­flic­tions. You should learn from the his­tory of God’s deal­ings with man that the Al­mighty de­stroys only the wicked.’

148:6.6“And then you re­mem­ber how Job replied to his friends, say­ing: ‘I well know that God does not hear my cry for help. How can God be just and at the same time so ut­terly dis­re­gard my in­no­cence? I am learn­ing that I can get no sat­is­fac­tion from ap­peal­ing to the Al­mighty. Can­not you dis­cern that God tol­er­ates the per­se­cu­tion of the good by the wicked? And since man is so weak, what chance has he for con­sid­er­a­tion at the hands of an om­nipo­tent God? God has made me as I am, and when he thus turns upon me, I am de­fense­less. And why did God ever cre­ate me just to suf­fer in this mis­er­able fash­ion?’

148:6.7“And who can chal­lenge the at­ti­tude of Job in view of the coun­sel of his friends and the er­ro­neous ideas of God which oc­cu­pied his own mind? Do you not see that Job longed for a hu­man God, that he hun­gered to com­mune with a di­vine Be­ing who knows man’s mor­tal es­tate and un­der­stands that the just must of­ten suf­fer in in­no­cence as a part of this first life of the long Par­a­dise as­cent? Where­fore has the Son of Man come forth from the Fa­ther to live such a life in the flesh that he will be able to com­fort and suc­cor all those who must hence­forth be called upon to en­dure the af­flic­tions of Job.

148:6.8“Job’s third friend, Zophar, then spoke still less com­fort­ing words when he said: ‘You are fool­ish to claim to be righ­teous, see­ing that you are thus af­flicted. But I ad­mit that it is im­pos­si­ble to com­pre­hend God’s ways. Per­haps there is some hid­den pur­pose in all your mis­eries.’ And when Job had lis­tened to all three of his friends, he ap­pealed di­rectly to God for help, plead­ing the fact that ‘man, born of woman, is few of days and full of trou­ble.’

148:6.9“Then be­gan the sec­ond ses­sion with his friends. Elip­haz grew more stern, ac­cus­ing, and sar­cas­tic. Bil­dad be­came in­dig­nant at Job’s con­tempt for his friends. Zophar re­it­er­ated his melan­choly ad­vice. Job by this time had be­come dis­gusted with his friends and ap­pealed again to God, and now he ap­pealed to a just God against the God of in­jus­tice em­bod­ied in the phi­los­o­phy of his friends and en­shrined even in his own re­li­gious at­ti­tude. Next Job took refuge in the con­so­la­tion of a fu­ture life in which the in­equities of mor­tal ex­is­tence may be more justly rec­ti­fied. Fail­ure to re­ceive help from man drives Job to God. Then en­sues the great strug­gle in his heart be­tween faith and doubt. Fi­nally, the hu­man suf­ferer be­gins to see the light of life; his tor­tured soul as­cends to new heights of hope and cour­age; he may suf­fer on and even die, but his en­light­ened soul now ut­ters that cry of tri­umph, ‘My Vin­di­ca­tor lives!’

148:6.10“Job was al­to­gether right when he chal­lenged the doc­trine that God af­flicts chil­dren in or­der to pun­ish their par­ents. Job was ever ready to ad­mit that God is righ­teous, but he longed for some soul-sat­is­fy­ing rev­e­la­tion of the per­sonal char­ac­ter of the Eter­nal. And that is our mis­sion on earth. No more shall suf­fer­ing mor­tals be de­nied the com­fort of know­ing the love of God and un­der­stand­ing the mercy of the Fa­ther in heaven. While the speech of God spo­ken from the whirl­wind was a ma­jes­tic con­cept for the day of its ut­ter­ance, you have al­ready learned that the Fa­ther does not thus re­veal him­self, but rather that he speaks within the hu­man heart as a still, small voice, say­ing, ‘This is the way; walk therein.’ Do you not com­pre­hend that God dwells within you, that he has be­come what you are that he may make you what he is!”

148:6.11Then Je­sus made this fi­nal state­ment: “The Fa­ther in heaven does not will­ingly af­flict the chil­dren of men. Man suf­fers, first, from the ac­ci­dents of time and the im­per­fec­tions of the evil of an im­ma­ture phys­i­cal ex­is­tence. Next, he suf­fers the in­ex­orable con­se­quences of sin—the trans­gres­sion of the laws of life and light. And fi­nally, man reaps the har­vest of his own in­iq­ui­tous per­sis­tence in re­bel­lion against the righ­teous rule of heaven on earth. But man’s mis­eries are not a per­sonal vis­i­ta­tion of di­vine judg­ment. Man can, and will, do much to lessen his tem­po­ral suf­fer­ings. But once and for all be de­liv­ered from the su­per­sti­tion that God af­flicts man at the be­hest of the evil one. Study the Book of Job just to dis­cover how many wrong ideas of God even good men may hon­estly en­ter­tain; and then note how even the painfully af­flicted Job found the God of com­fort and sal­va­tion in spite of such er­ro­neous teach­ings. At last his faith pierced the clouds of suf­fer­ing to dis­cern the light of life pour­ing forth from the Fa­ther as heal­ing mercy and ev­er­last­ing righ­teous­ness.”

148:6.12John pon­dered these say­ings in his heart for many days. His en­tire af­ter­life was markedly changed as a re­sult of this con­ver­sa­tion with the Mas­ter in the gar­den, and he did much, in later times, to cause the other apos­tles to change their view­points re­gard­ing the source, na­ture, and pur­pose of com­mon­place hu­man af­flic­tions. But John never spoke of this con­fer­ence un­til af­ter the Mas­ter had de­parted.

149:5.1When Je­sus was vis­it­ing the group of evan­ge­lists work­ing un­der the super­vi­sion of Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, dur­ing their evening con­fer­ence Si­mon asked the Mas­ter: “Why are some per­sons so much more happy and con­tented than oth­ers? Is con­tent­ment a mat­ter of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence?” Among other things, Je­sus said in an­swer to Si­mon’s ques­tion:

149:5.2“Si­mon, some per­sons are nat­u­rally more happy than oth­ers. Much, very much, de­pends upon the will­ing­ness of man to be led and di­rected by the Fa­ther’s spirit which lives within him. Have you not read in the Scrip­tures the words of the wise man, ‘The spirit of man is the can­dle of the Lord, search­ing all the in­ward parts’? And also that such spirit-led mor­tals say: ‘The lines are fallen to me in pleas­ant places; yes, I have a goodly her­itage.’ ‘A lit­tle that a righ­teous man has is bet­ter than the riches of many wicked,’ for ‘a good man shall be sat­is­fied from within him­self.’ ‘A merry heart makes a cheer­ful coun­te­nance and is a con­tin­ual feast. Bet­ter is a lit­tle with the rev­er­ence of the Lord than great trea­sure and trou­ble there­with. Bet­ter is a din­ner of herbs where love is than a fat­ted ox and ha­tred there­with. Bet­ter is a lit­tle with righ­teous­ness than great rev­enues with­out rec­ti­tude.’ ‘A merry heart does good like a med­i­cine.’ ‘Bet­ter is a hand­ful with com­po­sure than a super­abun­dance with sor­row and vex­a­tion of spirit.’

149:5.3“Much of man’s sor­row is born of the dis­ap­point­ment of his am­bi­tions and the wound­ing of his pride. Al­though men owe a duty to them­selves to make the best of their lives on earth, hav­ing thus sin­cerely ex­erted them­selves, they should cheer­fully ac­cept their lot and ex­er­cise in­ge­nu­ity in mak­ing the most of that which has fallen to their hands. All too many of man’s trou­bles take ori­gin in the fear soil of his own nat­u­ral heart. ‘The wicked flee when no man pur­sues.’ ‘The wicked are like the trou­bled sea, for it can­not rest, but its wa­ters cast up mire and dirt; there is no peace, says God, for the wicked.’

149:5.4“Seek not, then, for false peace and tran­sient joy but rather for the as­sur­ance of faith and the sureties of di­vine son­ship which yield com­po­sure, con­tent­ment, and su­preme joy in the spirit.”

149:5.5Je­sus hardly re­garded this world as a “vale of tears.” He rather looked upon it as the birth sphere of the eter­nal and im­mor­tal spir­its of Par­a­dise as­cen­sion, the “vale of soul mak­ing.”

149:6.1It was at Gamala, dur­ing the evening con­fer­ence, that Philip said to Je­sus: “Mas­ter, why is it that the Scrip­tures in­struct us to ‘fear the Lord,’ while you would have us look to the Fa­ther in heaven with­out fear? How are we to har­mo­nize these teach­ings?” And Je­sus replied to Philip, say­ing:

149:6.2“My chil­dren, I am not sur­prised that you ask such ques­tions. In the be­gin­ning it was only through fear that man could learn rev­er­ence, but I have come to re­veal the Fa­ther’s love so that you will be at­tracted to the wor­ship of the Eter­nal by the draw­ing of a son’s af­fec­tion­ate rec­og­ni­tion and re­cip­ro­ca­tion of the Fa­ther’s pro­found and per­fect love. I would de­liver you from the bond­age of driv­ing your­selves through slav­ish fear to the irk­some ser­vice of a jeal­ous and wrath­ful King-God. I would in­struct you in the Fa­ther-son re­la­tion­ship of God and man so that you may be joy­fully led into that sub­lime and su­per­nal free wor­ship of a lov­ing, just, and mer­ci­ful Fa­ther-God.

149:6.3“The ‘fear of the Lord’ has had dif­fer­ent mean­ings in the suc­ces­sive ages, com­ing up from fear, through an­guish and dread, to awe and rev­er­ence. And now from rev­er­ence I would lead you up, through rec­og­ni­tion, re­al­iza­tion, and ap­pre­ci­a­tion, to love. When man rec­og­nizes only the works of God, he is led to fear the Su­preme; but when man be­gins to un­der­stand and ex­pe­ri­ence the per­son­al­ity and char­ac­ter of the liv­ing God, he is led in­creas­ingly to love such a good and per­fect, uni­ver­sal and eter­nal Fa­ther. And it is just this chang­ing of the re­la­tion of man to God that con­sti­tutes the mis­sion of the Son of Man on earth.

149:6.4“In­tel­li­gent chil­dren do not fear their fa­ther in or­der that they may re­ceive good gifts from his hand; but hav­ing al­ready re­ceived the abun­dance of good things be­stowed by the dic­tates of the fa­ther’s af­fec­tion for his sons and daugh­ters, these much loved chil­dren are led to love their fa­ther in re­spon­sive rec­og­ni­tion and ap­pre­ci­a­tion of such mu­nif­i­cent benef­i­cence. The good­ness of God leads to re­pen­tance; the benef­i­cence of God leads to ser­vice; the mercy of God leads to sal­va­tion; while the love of God leads to in­tel­li­gent and free­hearted wor­ship.

149:6.5“Your fore­bears feared God be­cause he was mighty and mys­te­ri­ous. You shall adore him be­cause he is mag­nif­i­cent in love, plen­teous in mercy, and glo­ri­ous in truth. The power of God en­gen­ders fear in the heart of man, but the no­bil­ity and righ­teous­ness of his per­son­al­ity beget rev­er­ence, love, and will­ing wor­ship. A du­ti­ful and af­fec­tion­ate son does not fear or dread even a mighty and no­ble fa­ther. I have come into the world to put love in the place of fear, joy in the place of sor­row, con­fi­dence in the place of dread, lov­ing ser­vice and ap­pre­cia­tive wor­ship in the place of slav­ish bond­age and mean­ing­less cer­e­monies. But it is still true of those who sit in dark­ness that ‘the fear of the Lord is the be­gin­ning of wis­dom.’ But when the light has more fully come, the sons of God are led to praise the In­fi­nite for what he is rather than to fear him for what he does.

149:6.6“When chil­dren are young and un­think­ing, they must nec­es­sar­ily be ad­mon­ished to honor their par­ents; but when they grow older and be­come some­what more ap­pre­cia­tive of the ben­e­fits of the pa­ren­tal min­istry and pro­tec­tion, they are led up, through un­der­stand­ing re­spect and in­creas­ing af­fec­tion, to that level of ex­pe­ri­ence where they ac­tu­ally love their par­ents for what they are more than for what they have done. The fa­ther nat­u­rally loves his child, but the child must de­velop his love for the fa­ther from the fear of what the fa­ther can do, through awe, dread, de­pen­dence, and rev­er­ence, to the ap­pre­cia­tive and af­fec­tion­ate re­gard of love.

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.’

149:6.8“In the king­dom of heaven, which I have come to de­clare, there is no high and mighty king; this king­dom is a di­vine fam­ily. The uni­ver­sally rec­og­nized and un­re­servedly wor­shiped cen­ter and head of this far-flung broth­er­hood of in­tel­li­gent be­ings is my Fa­ther and your Fa­ther. I am his Son, and you are also his sons. There­fore it is eter­nally true that you and I are breth­ren in the heav­enly es­tate, and all the more so since we have be­come breth­ren in the flesh of the earthly life. Cease, then, to fear God as a king or serve him as a mas­ter; learn to rev­er­ence him as the Cre­ator; honor him as the Fa­ther of your spirit youth; love him as a mer­ci­ful de­fender; and ul­ti­mately wor­ship him as the lov­ing and all-wise Fa­ther of your more ma­ture spir­i­tual re­al­iza­tion and ap­pre­ci­a­tion.

149:6.9“Out of your wrong con­cepts of the Fa­ther in heaven grow your false ideas of hu­mil­ity and springs much of your hypocrisy. Man may be a worm of the dust by na­ture and ori­gin, but when he be­comes in­dwelt by my Fa­ther’s spirit, that man be­comes di­vine in his des­tiny. The be­stowal spirit of my Fa­ther will surely re­turn to the di­vine source and uni­verse level of ori­gin, and the hu­man soul of mor­tal man which shall have be­come the re­born child of this in­dwelling spirit shall cer­tainly as­cend with the di­vine spirit to the very pres­ence of the eter­nal Fa­ther.

149:6.10“Hu­mil­ity, in­deed, be­comes mor­tal man who re­ceives all these gifts from the Fa­ther in heaven, al­beit there is a di­vine dig­nity at­tached to all such faith can­di­dates for the eter­nal as­cent of the heav­enly king­dom. The mean­ing­less and me­nial prac­tices of an os­ten­ta­tious and false hu­mil­ity are in­com­pat­i­ble with the ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the source of your sal­va­tion and the rec­og­ni­tion of the des­tiny of your spirit-born souls. Hu­mil­ity be­fore God is al­to­gether ap­pro­pri­ate in the depths of your hearts; meek­ness be­fore men is com­mend­able; but the hypocrisy of self-con­scious and at­ten­tion-crav­ing hu­mil­ity is child­ish and un­wor­thy of the en­light­ened sons of the king­dom.

149:6.11“You do well to be meek be­fore God and self-con­trolled be­fore men, but let your meek­ness be of spir­i­tual ori­gin and not the self-de­cep­tive dis­play of a self-con­scious sense of self-righ­teous su­pe­ri­or­ity. The prophet spoke ad­vis­edly when he said, ‘Walk humbly with God,’ for, while the Fa­ther in heaven is the In­fi­nite and the Eter­nal, he also dwells ‘with him who is of a con­trite mind and a hum­ble spirit.’ My Fa­ther dis­dains pride, loathes hypocrisy, and ab­hors in­iq­uity. And it was to em­pha­size the value of sin­cer­ity and per­fect trust in the lov­ing sup­port and faith­ful guid­ance of the heav­enly Fa­ther that I have so of­ten re­ferred to the lit­tle child as il­lus­tra­tive of the at­ti­tude of mind and the re­sponse of spirit which are so es­sen­tial to the en­trance of mor­tal man into the spirit re­al­i­ties of the king­dom of heaven.

149:6.12“Well did the Prophet Jeremiah de­scribe many mor­tals when he said: ‘You are near God in the mouth but far from him in the heart.’ And have you not also read that dire­ful warn­ing of the prophet who said: ‘The priests thereof teach for hire, and the proph­ets thereof di­vine for money. At the same time they pro­fess piety and pro­claim that the Lord is with them.’ Have you not been well warned against those who ‘speak peace to their neigh­bors when mis­chief is in their hearts,’ those who ‘flat­ter with the lips while the heart is given to dou­ble-deal­ing’? Of all the sor­rows of a trust­ing man, none are so ter­ri­ble as to be ‘wounded in the house of a trusted friend.’”

150:3.1The Sab­bath ser­vices of the apos­tolic party had been put in the hands of the women by An­drew, upon in­struc­tions from Je­sus. This meant, of course, that they could not be held in the new syn­a­gogue. The women se­lected Joanna to have charge of this oc­ca­sion, and the meet­ing was held in the ban­quet room of Herod’s new palace, Herod be­ing away in res­i­dence at Ju­lias in Perea. Joanna read from the Scrip­tures con­cern­ing woman’s work in the re­li­gious life of Is­rael, mak­ing ref­er­ence to Miriam, Deb­o­rah, Es­ther, and oth­ers.

150:3.2Late that evening Je­sus gave the united group a mem­o­rable talk on “Magic and Su­per­sti­tion.” In those days the ap­pear­ance of a bright and sup­pos­edly new star was re­garded as a to­ken in­di­cat­ing that a great man had been born on earth. Such a star hav­ing then re­cently been ob­served, An­drew asked Je­sus if these be­liefs were well founded. In the long an­swer to An­drew’s ques­tion the Mas­ter en­tered upon a thor­ough­go­ing dis­cus­sion of the whole sub­ject of hu­man su­per­sti­tion. The state­ment which Je­sus made at this time may be sum­ma­rized in mod­ern phrase­ol­ogy as fol­lows:

150:3.31. The courses of the stars in the heav­ens have noth­ing what­ever to do with the events of hu­man life on earth. As­tron­omy is a proper pur­suit of sci­ence, but as­trol­ogy is a mass of su­per­sti­tious er­ror which has no place in the gospel of the king­dom.

150:3.42. The ex­am­i­na­tion of the in­ter­nal or­gans of an an­i­mal re­cently killed can re­veal noth­ing about weather, fu­ture events, or the out­come of hu­man af­fairs.

150:3.53. The spir­its of the dead do not come back to com­mu­ni­cate with their fam­i­lies or their one­time friends among the liv­ing.

150:3.64. Charms and relics are im­po­tent to heal dis­ease, ward off dis­as­ter, or in­flu­ence evil spir­its; the be­lief in all such ma­te­rial means of in­flu­enc­ing the spir­i­tual world is noth­ing but gross su­per­sti­tion.

150:3.75. Cast­ing lots, while it may be a con­ve­nient way of set­tling many mi­nor dif­fi­cul­ties, is not a method de­signed to dis­close the di­vine will. Such out­comes are purely mat­ters of ma­te­rial chance. The only means of com­mu­nion with the spir­i­tual world is em­braced in the spirit en­dow­ment of man­kind, the in­dwelling spirit of the Fa­ther, to­gether with the out­poured spirit of the Son and the om­ni­pres­ent in­flu­ence of the In­fi­nite Spirit.

150:3.86. Div­ina­tion, sor­cery, and witch­craft are su­per­sti­tions of ig­no­rant minds, as also are the delu­sions of magic. The be­lief in magic num­bers, omens of good luck, and harbingers of bad luck, is pure and un­founded su­per­sti­tion.

150:3.97. The in­ter­pre­ta­tion of dreams is largely a su­per­sti­tious and ground­less sys­tem of ig­no­rant and fan­tas­tic spec­u­la­tion. The gospel of the king­dom must have noth­ing in com­mon with the sooth­sayer priests of prim­i­tive re­li­gion.

150:3.108. The spir­its of good or evil can­not dwell within ma­te­rial sym­bols of clay, wood, or metal; idols are noth­ing more than the ma­te­rial of which they are made.

150:3.119. The prac­tices of the en­chanters, the wiz­ards, the ma­gi­cians, and the sor­cer­ers, were de­rived from the su­per­sti­tions of the Egyp­tians, the As­syr­i­ans, the Baby­lo­ni­ans, and the an­cient Ca­naan­ites. Amulets and all sorts of in­can­ta­tions are fu­tile ei­ther to win the pro­tec­tion of good spir­its or to ward off sup­posed evil spir­its.

150:3.1210. He ex­posed and de­nounced their be­lief in spells, or­deals, be­witch­ing, curs­ing, signs, man­drakes, knot­ted cords, and all other forms of ig­no­rant and en­slav­ing su­per­sti­tion.

150:5.1One evening at Shunem, af­ter John’s apos­tles had re­turned to He­bron, and af­ter Je­sus’ apos­tles had been sent out two and two, when the Mas­ter was en­gaged in teach­ing a group of twelve of the younger evan­ge­lists who were la­bor­ing un­der the di­rec­tion of Ja­cob, to­gether with the twelve women, Rachel asked Je­sus this ques­tion: “Mas­ter, what shall we an­swer when women ask us, What shall I do to be saved?” When Je­sus heard this ques­tion, he an­swered:

150:5.2“When men and women ask what shall we do to be saved, you shall an­swer, Be­lieve this gospel of the king­dom; ac­cept di­vine for­give­ness. By faith rec­og­nize the in­dwelling spirit of God, whose ac­cep­tance makes you a son of God. Have you not read in the Scrip­tures where it says, ‘In the Lord have I righ­teous­ness and strength.’ Also where the Fa­ther says, ‘My righ­teous­ness is near; my sal­va­tion has gone forth, and my arms shall en­fold my peo­ple.’ ‘My soul shall be joy­ful in the love of my God, for he has clothed me with the gar­ments of sal­va­tion and has cov­ered me with the robe of his righ­teous­ness.’ Have you not also read of the Fa­ther that his name ‘shall be called the Lord our righ­teous­ness.’ ‘Take away the filthy rags of self-righ­teous­ness and clothe my son with the robe of di­vine righ­teous­ness and eter­nal sal­va­tion.’ It is for­ever true, ‘the just shall live by faith.’ En­trance into the Fa­ther’s king­dom is wholly free, but prog­ress—growth in grace—is es­sen­tial to con­tin­u­ance therein.

150:5.3“Sal­va­tion is the gift of the Fa­ther and is re­vealed by his Sons. Ac­cep­tance by faith on your part makes you a par­taker of the di­vine na­ture, a son or a daugh­ter of God. By faith you are jus­ti­fied; by faith are you saved; and by this same faith are you eter­nally ad­vanced in the way of pro­gres­sive and di­vine per­fec­tion. By faith was Abra­ham jus­ti­fied and made aware of sal­va­tion by the teach­ings of Mel­chiz­e­dek. All down through the ages has this same faith saved the sons of men, but now has a Son come forth from the Fa­ther to make sal­va­tion more real and ac­cept­able.”

150:5.4When Je­sus had left off speak­ing, there was great re­joic­ing among those who had heard these gra­cious words, and they all went on in the days that fol­lowed pro­claim­ing the gospel of the king­dom with new power and with re­newed en­ergy and en­thu­si­asm. And the women re­joiced all the more to know they were in­cluded in these plans for the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom on earth.

150:5.5In sum­ming up his fi­nal state­ment, Je­sus said: “You can­not buy sal­va­tion; you can­not earn righ­teous­ness. Sal­va­tion is the gift of God, and righ­teous­ness is the nat­u­ral fruit of the spirit-born life of son­ship in the king­dom. You are not to be saved be­cause you live a righ­teous life; rather is it that you live a righ­teous life be­cause you have al­ready been saved, have rec­og­nized son­ship as the gift of God and ser­vice in the king­dom as the su­preme de­light of life on earth. When men be­lieve this gospel, which is a rev­e­la­tion of the good­ness of God, they will be led to vol­un­tary re­pen­tance of all known sin. Re­al­iza­tion of son­ship is in­com­pat­i­ble with the de­sire to sin. King­dom be­liev­ers hunger for righ­teous­ness and thirst for di­vine per­fec­tion.”

• miscellaneous titles

150:6.1At the evening dis­cus­sions Je­sus talked upon many sub­jects. Dur­ing the re­main­der of this tour—be­fore they all re­united at Naz­a­reth—he dis­cussed “The Love of God,” “Dreams and Vi­sions,” “Mal­ice,” “Hu­mil­ity and Meek­ness,” “Cour­age and Loy­alty,” “Mu­sic and Wor­ship,” “Ser­vice and Obe­di­ence,” “Pride and Pre­sump­tion,” “For­give­ness in Re­la­tion to Re­pen­tance,” “Peace and Per­fec­tion,” “Evil Speak­ing and Envy,” “Evil, Sin, and Temp­ta­tion,” “Doubts and Un­be­lief,” “Wis­dom and Wor­ship.” With the older apos­tles away, these younger groups of both men and women more freely en­tered into these dis­cus­sions with the Mas­ter.

153:2.1Je­sus in­tro­duced this ser­mon by read­ing from the law as found in Deuteron­omy: “But it shall come to pass, if this peo­ple will not hear­ken to the voice of God, that the curses of trans­gres­sion shall surely over­take them. The Lord shall cause you to be smit­ten by your en­e­mies; you shall be re­moved into all the king­doms of the earth. And the Lord shall bring you and the king you have set up over you into the hands of a strange na­tion. You shall be­come an as­ton­ish­ment, a proverb, and a by­word among all na­tions. Your sons and your daugh­ters shall go into cap­tiv­ity. The strangers among you shall rise high in au­thor­ity while you are brought very low. And these things shall be upon you and your seed for­ever be­cause you would not hear­ken to the word of the Lord. There­fore shall you serve your en­e­mies who shall come against you. You shall en­dure hunger and thirst and wear this alien yoke of iron. The Lord shall bring against you a na­tion from afar, from the end of the earth, a na­tion whose tongue you shall not un­der­stand, a na­tion of fierce coun­te­nance, a na­tion which will have lit­tle re­gard for you. And they shall be­siege you in all your towns un­til the high for­ti­fied walls wherein you have trusted come down; and all the land shall fall into their hands. And it shall come to pass that you will be driven to eat the fruit of your own bod­ies, the flesh of your sons and daugh­ters, dur­ing this time of siege, be­cause of the strait­ness where­with your en­e­mies shall press you.”

153:2.2And when Je­sus had fin­ished this read­ing, he turned to the Proph­ets and read from Jeremiah: “‘If you will not hear­ken to the words of my ser­vants the proph­ets whom I have sent you, then will I make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city a curse to all the na­tions of the earth.’ And the priests and the teach­ers heard Jeremiah speak these words in the house of the Lord. And it came to pass that, when Jeremiah had made an end of speak­ing all that the Lord had com­manded him to speak to all the peo­ple, the priests and teach­ers laid hold of him, say­ing, ‘You shall surely die.’ And all the peo­ple crowded around Jeremiah in the house of the Lord. And when the princes of Ju­dah heard these things, they sat in judg­ment on Jeremiah. Then spoke the priests and the teach­ers to the princes and to all the peo­ple, say­ing: ‘This man is wor­thy to die, for he has proph­e­sied against our city, and you have heard him with your own ears.’ Then spoke Jeremiah to all the princes and to all the peo­ple: ‘The Lord sent me to proph­esy against this house and against this city all the words which you have heard. Now, there­fore, amend your ways and re­form your do­ings and obey the voice of the Lord your God that you may es­cape the evil which has been pro­nounced against you. As for me, be­hold I am in your hands. Do with me as seems good and right in your eyes. But know you for cer­tain that, if you put me to death, you shall bring in­no­cent blood upon your­selves and upon this peo­ple, for of a truth the Lord has sent me to speak all these words in your ears.’

153:2.3“The priests and teach­ers of that day sought to kill Jeremiah, but the judges would not con­sent, al­beit, for his words of warn­ing, they did let him down by cords in a filthy dun­geon un­til he sank in mire up to his armpits. That is what this peo­ple did to the Prophet Jeremiah when he obeyed the Lord’s com­mand to warn his breth­ren of their im­pend­ing po­lit­i­cal down­fall. To­day, I de­sire to ask you: What will the chief priests and re­li­gious lead­ers of this peo­ple do with the man who dares to warn them of the day of their spir­i­tual doom? Will you also seek to put to death the teacher who dares to pro­claim the word of the Lord, and who fears not to point out wherein you refuse to walk in the way of light which leads to the en­trance to the king­dom of heaven?

153:2.4“What is it you seek as ev­i­dence of my mis­sion on earth? We have left you undis­turbed in your po­si­tions of in­flu­ence and power while we preached glad tid­ings to the poor and the out­cast. We have made no hos­tile at­tack upon that which you hold in rev­er­ence but have rather pro­claimed new lib­erty for man’s fear-rid­den soul. I came into the world to re­veal my Fa­ther and to es­tab­lish on earth the spir­i­tual broth­er­hood of the sons of God, the king­dom of heaven. And not­with­stand­ing that I have so many times re­minded you that my king­dom is not of this world, still has my Fa­ther granted you many man­i­fes­ta­tions of ma­te­rial won­ders in ad­di­tion to more ev­i­den­tial spir­i­tual trans­for­ma­tions and re­gen­er­a­tions.

153:2.5“What new sign is it that you seek at my hands? I de­clare that you al­ready have suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to en­able you to make your de­ci­sion. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to many who sit be­fore me this day, you are con­fronted with the ne­ces­sity of choos­ing which way you will go; and I say to you, as Joshua said to your fore­fa­thers, ‘choose you this day whom you will serve.’ To­day, many of you stand at the part­ing of the ways.

153:2.6“Some of you, when you could not find me af­ter the feast­ing of the mul­ti­tude on the other side, hired the Tiberias fish­ing fleet, which a week be­fore had taken shel­ter near by dur­ing a storm, to go in pur­suit of me, and what for? Not for truth and righ­teous­ness or that you might the bet­ter know how to serve and min­is­ter to your fel­low men! No, but rather that you might have more bread for which you had not la­bored. It was not to fill your souls with the word of life, but only that you might fill the belly with the bread of ease. And long have you been taught that the Mes­siah, when he should come, would work those won­ders which would make life pleas­ant and easy for all the cho­sen peo­ple. It is not strange, then, that you who have been thus taught should long for the loaves and the fishes. But I de­clare to you that such is not the mis­sion of the Son of Man. I have come to pro­claim spir­i­tual lib­erty, teach eter­nal truth, and fos­ter liv­ing faith.

153:2.7“My breth­ren, han­ker not af­ter the meat which per­ishes but rather seek for the spir­i­tual food that nour­ishes even to eter­nal life; and this is the bread of life which the Son gives to all who will take it and eat, for the Fa­ther has given the Son this life with­out mea­sure. And when you asked me, ‘What must we do to per­form the works of God?’ I plainly told you: ‘This is the work of God, that you be­lieve him whom he has sent.’”

153:2.9“And now let me de­clare to you, once and for all time, that I have come down upon the earth, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. And this is the fi­nal will of Him who sent me, that of all those he has given me I should not lose one. And this is the will of the Fa­ther: That ev­ery one who be­holds the Son and who be­lieves him shall have eter­nal life. Only yes­ter­day did I feed you with bread for your bod­ies; to­day I of­fer you the bread of life for your hun­gry souls. Will you now take the bread of the spirit as you then so will­ingly ate the bread of this world?”

153:2.10As Je­sus paused for a mo­ment to look over the con­gre­ga­tion, one of the teach­ers from Je­ru­sa­lem (a mem­ber of the San­hedrin) rose up and asked: “Do I un­der­stand you to say that you are the bread which comes down from heaven, and that the manna which Moses gave to our fa­thers in the wilder­ness did not?” And Je­sus an­swered the Phar­isee, “You un­der­stood aright.” Then said the Phar­isee: “But are you not Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, the son of Joseph, the car­pen­ter? Are not your fa­ther and mother, as well as your broth­ers and sis­ters, well known to many of us? How then is it that you ap­pear here in God’s house and de­clare that you have come down from heaven?”

153:2.11By this time there was much mur­mur­ing in the syn­a­gogue, and such a tu­mult was threat­ened that Je­sus stood up and said: “Let us be pa­tient; the truth never suf­fers from hon­est ex­am­i­na­tion. I am all that you say but more. The Fa­ther and I are one; the Son does only that which the Fa­ther teaches him, while all those who are given to the Son by the Fa­ther, the Son will re­ceive to him­self. You have read where it is writ­ten in the Proph­ets, ‘You shall all be taught by God,’ and that ‘Those whom the Fa­ther teaches will hear also his Son.’ Ev­ery one who yields to the teach­ing of the Fa­ther’s in­dwelling spirit will even­tu­ally come to me. Not that any man has seen the Fa­ther, but the Fa­ther’s spirit does live within man. And the Son who came down from heaven, he has surely seen the Fa­ther. And those who truly be­lieve this Son al­ready have eter­nal life.

153:2.12“I am this bread of life. Your fa­thers ate manna in the wilder­ness and are dead. But this bread which comes down from God, if a man eats thereof, he shall never die in spirit. I re­peat, I am this liv­ing bread, and ev­ery soul who at­tains the re­al­iza­tion of this united na­ture of God and man shall live for­ever. And this bread of life which I give to all who will re­ceive is my own liv­ing and com­bined na­ture. The Fa­ther in the Son and the Son one with the Fa­ther—that is my life-giv­ing rev­e­la­tion to the world and my sav­ing gift to all na­tions.”

153:2.13When Je­sus had fin­ished speak­ing, the ruler of the syn­a­gogue dis­missed the con­gre­ga­tion, but they would not de­part. They crowded up around Je­sus to ask more ques­tions while oth­ers mur­mured and dis­puted among them­selves. And this state of af­fairs con­tin­ued for more than three hours. It was well past seven o’clock be­fore the au­di­ence fi­nally dis­persed.

155:5.1This mem­o­rable dis­course on re­li­gion, sum­ma­rized and re­stated in mod­ern phrase­ol­ogy, gave ex­pres­sion to the fol­low­ing truths:

155:5.2While the re­li­gions of the world have a dou­ble ori­gin—nat­u­ral and rev­e­la­tory—at any one time and among any one peo­ple there are to be found three dis­tinct forms of re­li­gious de­vo­tion. And these three man­i­fes­ta­tions of the re­li­gious urge are:

155:5.31. Prim­i­tive re­li­gion. The sem­i­nat­u­ral and in­stinc­tive urge to fear mys­te­ri­ous en­er­gies and wor­ship su­pe­rior forces, chiefly a re­li­gion of the phys­i­cal na­ture, the re­li­gion of fear.

155:5.42. The re­li­gion of civ­i­liza­tion. The ad­vanc­ing re­li­gious con­cepts and prac­tices of the civ­i­liz­ing races—the re­li­gion of the mind—the in­tel­lec­tual the­ol­ogy of the au­thor­ity of es­tab­lished re­li­gious tra­di­tion.

155:5.53. True re­li­gion—the re­li­gion of rev­e­la­tion. The rev­e­la­tion of super­nat­u­ral val­ues, a par­tial in­sight into eter­nal re­al­i­ties, a glimpse of the good­ness and beauty of the in­fi­nite char­ac­ter of the Fa­ther in heaven—the re­li­gion of the spirit as demon­strated in hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

155:5.6The re­li­gion of the phys­i­cal senses and the su­per­sti­tious fears of nat­u­ral man, the Mas­ter re­fused to be­lit­tle, though he de­plored the fact that so much of this prim­i­tive form of wor­ship should per­sist in the re­li­gious forms of the more in­tel­li­gent races of man­kind. Je­sus made it clear that the great dif­fer­ence be­tween the re­li­gion of the mind and the re­li­gion of the spirit is that, while the for­mer is up­held by ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal au­thor­ity, the lat­ter is wholly based on hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

155:5.7And then the Mas­ter, in his hour of teach­ing, went on to make clear these truths:

155:5.8Un­til the races be­come highly in­tel­li­gent and more fully civ­i­lized, there will per­sist many of those child­like and su­per­sti­tious cer­e­monies which are so char­ac­ter­is­tic of the evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gious prac­tices of prim­i­tive and back­ward peo­ples. Un­til the hu­man race pro­gresses to the level of a higher and more gen­eral rec­og­ni­tion of the re­al­i­ties of spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence, large num­bers of men and women will con­tinue to show a per­sonal pref­er­ence for those re­li­gions of au­thor­ity which re­quire only in­tel­lec­tual as­sent, in con­trast to the re­li­gion of the spirit, which en­tails ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion of mind and soul in the faith ad­ven­ture of grap­pling with the rig­or­ous re­al­i­ties of pro­gres­sive hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

155:5.9The ac­cep­tance of the tra­di­tional re­li­gions of au­thor­ity pre­sents the easy way out for man’s urge to seek sat­is­fac­tion for the long­ings of his spir­i­tual na­ture. The set­tled, crys­tal­lized, and es­tab­lished re­li­gions of au­thor­ity af­ford a ready refuge to which the dis­tracted and dis­traught soul of man may flee when ha­rassed by fear and tor­mented by un­cer­tainty. Such a re­li­gion re­quires of its devo­tees, as the price to be paid for its sat­is­fac­tions and as­sur­ances, only a pas­sive and purely in­tel­lec­tual as­sent.

155:5.10And for a long time there will live on earth those timid, fear­ful, and hes­i­tant in­di­vid­u­als who will pre­fer thus to se­cure their re­li­gious con­so­la­tions, even though, in so cast­ing their lot with the re­li­gions of au­thor­ity, they com­pro­mise the sov­er­eignty of per­son­al­ity, de­base the dig­nity of self-re­spect, and ut­terly sur­ren­der the right to par­tic­i­pate in that most thrilling and in­spir­ing of all pos­si­ble hu­man ex­pe­ri­ences: the per­sonal quest for truth, the ex­hil­a­ra­tion of fac­ing the per­ils of in­tel­lec­tual dis­cov­ery, the de­ter­mi­na­tion to ex­plore the re­al­i­ties of per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence, the su­preme sat­is­fac­tion of ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the per­sonal tri­umph of the ac­tual re­al­iza­tion of the vic­tory of spir­i­tual faith over in­tel­lec­tual doubt as it is hon­estly won in the su­preme ad­ven­ture of all hu­man ex­is­tence—man seek­ing God, for him­self and as him­self, and find­ing him.

155:5.11The re­li­gion of the spirit means ef­fort, strug­gle, con­flict, faith, de­ter­mi­na­tion, love, loy­alty, and prog­ress. The re­li­gion of the mind—the the­ol­ogy of au­thor­ity—re­quires lit­tle or none of these ex­er­tions from its for­mal be­liev­ers. Tra­di­tion is a safe refuge and an easy path for those fear­ful and half­hearted souls who in­stinc­tively shun the spirit strug­gles and men­tal un­cer­tain­ties as­so­ci­ated with those faith voy­ages of dar­ing ad­ven­ture out upon the high seas of un­ex­plored truth in search for the far­ther shores of spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties as they may be dis­cov­ered by the pro­gres­sive hu­man mind and ex­pe­ri­enced by the evolv­ing hu­man soul.

155:5.12And Je­sus went on to say: “At Je­ru­sa­lem the re­li­gious lead­ers have for­mu­lated the var­i­ous doc­trines of their tra­di­tional teach­ers and the proph­ets of other days into an es­tab­lished sys­tem of in­tel­lec­tual be­liefs, a re­li­gion of au­thor­ity. The ap­peal of all such re­li­gions is largely to the mind. And now are we about to en­ter upon a deadly con­flict with such a re­li­gion since we will so shortly be­gin the bold procla­ma­tion of a new re­li­gion—a re­li­gion which is not a re­li­gion in the pres­ent-day mean­ing of that word, a re­li­gion that makes its chief ap­peal to the di­vine spirit of my Fa­ther which re­sides in the mind of man; a re­li­gion which shall de­rive its au­thor­ity from the fruits of its ac­cep­tance that will so cer­tainly ap­pear in the per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence of all who re­ally and truly be­come be­liev­ers in the truths of this higher spir­i­tual com­mu­nion.”

155:5.13Point­ing out each of the twenty-four and call­ing them by name, Je­sus said: “And now, which one of you would pre­fer to take this easy path of con­for­mity to an es­tab­lished and fos­silized re­li­gion, as de­fended by the Phar­isees at Je­ru­sa­lem, rather than to suf­fer the dif­fi­cul­ties and per­se­cu­tions at­ten­dant upon the mis­sion of pro­claim­ing a bet­ter way of sal­va­tion to men while you re­al­ize the sat­is­fac­tion of dis­cov­er­ing for your­selves the beau­ties of the re­al­i­ties of a liv­ing and per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence in the eter­nal truths and su­preme grandeurs of the king­dom of heaven? Are you fear­ful, soft, and ease-seek­ing? Are you afraid to trust your fu­ture in the hands of the God of truth, whose sons you are? Are you dis­trust­ful of the Fa­ther, whose chil­dren you are? Will you go back to the easy path of the cer­tainty and in­tel­lec­tual set­tled­ness of the re­li­gion of tra­di­tional au­thor­ity, or will you gird your­selves to go for­ward with me into that un­cer­tain and trou­blous fu­ture of pro­claim­ing the new truths of the re­li­gion of the spirit, the king­dom of heaven in the hearts of men?”

155:5.14All twenty-four of his hear­ers rose to their feet, in­tend­ing to sig­nify their united and loyal re­sponse to this, one of the few emo­tional ap­peals which Je­sus ever made to them, but he raised his hand and stopped them, say­ing: “Go now apart by your­selves, each man alone with the Fa­ther, and there find the un­emo­tional an­swer to my ques­tion, and hav­ing found such a true and sin­cere at­ti­tude of soul, speak that an­swer freely and boldly to my Fa­ther and your Fa­ther, whose in­fi­nite life of love is the very spirit of the re­li­gion we pro­claim.”

155:5.15The evan­ge­lists and apos­tles went apart by them­selves for a short time. Their spir­its were up­lifted, their minds were in­spired, and their emo­tions might­ily stirred by what Je­sus had said. But when An­drew called them to­gether, the Mas­ter said only: “Let us re­sume our jour­ney. We go into Phoeni­cia to tarry for a sea­son, and all of you should pray the Fa­ther to trans­form your emo­tions of mind and body into the higher loy­al­ties of mind and the more sat­is­fy­ing ex­pe­ri­ences of the spirit.”

155:5.16As they jour­neyed on down the road, the twenty-four were silent, but pres­ently they be­gan to talk one with an­other, and by three o’clock that af­ter­noon they could not go far­ther; they came to a halt, and Pe­ter, go­ing up to Je­sus, said: “Mas­ter, you have spo­ken to us the words of life and truth. We would hear more; we be­seech you to speak to us fur­ther con­cern­ing these mat­ters.”

155:6.1And so, while they paused in the shade of the hill­side, Je­sus con­tin­ued to teach them re­gard­ing the re­li­gion of the spirit, in sub­stance say­ing:

155:6.2You have come out from among those of your fel­lows who choose to re­main sat­is­fied with a re­li­gion of mind, who crave se­cu­rity and pre­fer con­for­mity. You have elected to ex­change your feel­ings of au­thor­i­ta­tive cer­tainty for the as­sur­ances of the spirit of ad­ven­tur­ous and pro­gres­sive faith. You have dared to protest against the gru­el­ing bond­age of in­sti­tu­tional re­li­gion and to re­ject the au­thor­ity of the tra­di­tions of rec­ord which are now re­garded as the word of God. Our Fa­ther did in­deed speak through Moses, Eli­jah, Isa­iah, Amos, and Hosea, but he did not cease to min­is­ter words of truth to the world when these proph­ets of old made an end of their ut­ter­ances. My Fa­ther is no re­specter of races or gen­er­a­tions in that the word of truth is vouch­safed one age and with­held from an­other. Com­mit not the folly of call­ing that di­vine which is wholly hu­man, and fail not to dis­cern the words of truth which come not through the tra­di­tional or­a­cles of sup­posed in­spi­ra­tion.

155:6.3I have called upon you to be born again, to be born of the spirit. I have called you out of the dark­ness of au­thor­ity and the lethargy of tra­di­tion into the tran­scen­dent light of the re­al­iza­tion of the pos­si­bil­ity of mak­ing for your­selves the great­est dis­cov­ery pos­si­ble for the hu­man soul to make—the su­per­nal ex­pe­ri­ence of find­ing God for your­self, in your­self, and of your­self, and of do­ing all this as a fact in your own per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence. And so may you pass from death to life, from the au­thor­ity of tra­di­tion to the ex­pe­ri­ence of know­ing God; thus will you pass from dark­ness to light, from a racial faith in­her­ited to a per­sonal faith achieved by ac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence; and thereby will you pro­gress from a the­ol­ogy of mind handed down by your an­ces­tors to a true re­li­gion of spirit which shall be built up in your souls as an eter­nal en­dow­ment.

155:6.4Your re­li­gion shall change from the mere in­tel­lec­tual be­lief in tra­di­tional au­thor­ity to the ac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence of that liv­ing faith which is able to grasp the re­al­ity of God and all that re­lates to the di­vine spirit of the Fa­ther. The re­li­gion of the mind ties you hope­lessly to the past; the re­li­gion of the spirit con­sists in pro­gres­sive rev­e­la­tion and ever beck­ons you on to­ward higher and holier achieve­ments in spir­i­tual ide­als and eter­nal re­al­i­ties.

155:6.5While the re­li­gion of au­thor­ity may im­part a pres­ent feel­ing of set­tled se­cu­rity, you pay for such a tran­sient sat­is­fac­tion the price of the loss of your spir­i­tual free­dom and re­li­gious lib­erty. My Fa­ther does not re­quire of you as the price of en­ter­ing the king­dom of heaven that you should force your­self to sub­scribe to a be­lief in things which are spir­i­tu­ally re­pug­nant, un­holy, and un­truth­ful. It is not re­quired of you that your own sense of mercy, jus­tice, and truth should be out­raged by sub­mis­sion to an out­worn sys­tem of re­li­gious forms and cer­e­monies. The re­li­gion of the spirit leaves you for­ever free to fol­low the truth wher­ever the lead­ings of the spirit may take you. And who can judge—per­haps this spirit may have some­thing to im­part to this gen­er­a­tion which other gen­er­a­tions have re­fused to hear?

155:6.6Shame on those false re­li­gious teach­ers who would drag hun­gry souls back into the dim and dis­tant past and there leave them! And so are these un­for­tu­nate per­sons doomed to be­come fright­ened by ev­ery new dis­cov­ery, while they are dis­com­fited by ev­ery new rev­e­la­tion of truth. The prophet who said, “He will be kept in per­fect peace whose mind is stayed on God,” was not a mere in­tel­lec­tual be­liever in au­thor­i­ta­tive the­ol­ogy. This truth-know­ing hu­man had dis­cov­ered God; he was not merely talk­ing about God.

155:6.7I ad­mon­ish you to give up the prac­tice of al­ways quot­ing the proph­ets of old and prais­ing the heroes of Is­rael, and in­stead as­pire to be­come liv­ing proph­ets of the Most High and spir­i­tual heroes of the com­ing king­dom. To honor the God-know­ing lead­ers of the past may in­deed be worth while, but why, in so do­ing, should you sac­ri­fice the su­preme ex­pe­ri­ence of hu­man ex­is­tence: find­ing God for your­selves and know­ing him in your own souls?

155:6.8Ev­ery race of man­kind has its own men­tal out­look upon hu­man ex­is­tence; there­fore must the re­li­gion of the mind ever run true to these var­i­ous racial view­points. Never can the re­li­gions of au­thor­ity come to uni­fi­ca­tion. Hu­man unity and mor­tal broth­er­hood can be achieved only by and through the super­en­dow­ment of the re­li­gion of the spirit. Racial minds may dif­fer, but all man­kind is in­dwelt by the same di­vine and eter­nal spirit. The hope of hu­man broth­er­hood can only be re­al­ized when, and as, the di­ver­gent mind re­li­gions of au­thor­ity be­come im­preg­nated with, and over­shad­owed by, the uni­fy­ing and en­nobling re­li­gion of the spirit—the re­li­gion of per­sonal spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence.

155:6.9The re­li­gions of au­thor­ity can only di­vide men and set them in con­sci­en­tious ar­ray against each other; the re­li­gion of the spirit will pro­gres­sively draw men to­gether and cause them to be­come un­der­stand­ingly sym­pa­thetic with one an­other. The re­li­gions of au­thor­ity re­quire of men uni­for­mity in be­lief, but this is im­pos­si­ble of re­al­iza­tion in the pres­ent state of the world. The re­li­gion of the spirit re­quires only unity of ex­pe­ri­ence—uni­for­mity of des­tiny—mak­ing full al­lowance for di­ver­sity of be­lief. The re­li­gion of the spirit re­quires only uni­for­mity of in­sight, not uni­for­mity of view­point and out­look. The re­li­gion of the spirit does not de­mand uni­for­mity of in­tel­lec­tual views, only unity of spirit feel­ing. The re­li­gions of au­thor­ity crys­tal­lize into life­less creeds; the re­li­gion of the spirit grows into the in­creas­ing joy and lib­erty of en­nobling deeds of lov­ing ser­vice and mer­ci­ful min­is­tra­tion.

155:6.10But watch, lest any of you look with dis­dain upon the chil­dren of Abra­ham be­cause they have fallen on these evil days of tra­di­tional bar­ren­ness. Our fore­fa­thers gave them­selves up to the per­sis­tent and pas­sion­ate search for God, and they found him as no other whole race of men have ever known him since the times of Adam, who knew much of this as he was him­self a Son of God. My Fa­ther has not failed to mark the long and un­tir­ing strug­gle of Is­rael, ever since the days of Moses, to find God and to know God. For weary gen­er­a­tions the Jews have not ceased to toil, sweat, groan, tra­vail, and en­dure the suf­fer­ings and ex­pe­ri­ence the sor­rows of a mis­un­der­stood and de­spised peo­ple, all in or­der that they might come a lit­tle nearer the dis­cov­ery of the truth about God. And, not­with­stand­ing all the fail­ures and fal­ter­ings of Is­rael, our fa­thers pro­gres­sively, from Moses to the times of Amos and Hosea, did re­veal in­creas­ingly to the whole world an ever clearer and more truth­ful pic­ture of the eter­nal God. And so was the way pre­pared for the still greater rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther which you have been called to share.

155:6.11Never for­get there is only one ad­ven­ture which is more sat­is­fy­ing and thrilling than the at­tempt to dis­cover the will of the liv­ing God, and that is the su­preme ex­pe­ri­ence of hon­estly try­ing to do that di­vine will. And fail not to re­mem­ber that the will of God can be done in any earthly oc­cu­pa­tion. Some call­ings are not holy and oth­ers sec­u­lar. All things are sa­cred in the lives of those who are spirit led; that is, sub­or­di­nated to truth, en­no­bled by love, dom­i­nated by mercy, and re­strained by fair­ness—jus­tice. The spirit which my Fa­ther and I shall send into the world is not only the Spirit of Truth but also the spirit of ide­al­is­tic beauty.

155:6.12You must cease to seek for the word of God only on the pages of the olden rec­ords of the­o­logic au­thor­ity. Those who are born of the spirit of God shall hence­forth dis­cern the word of God re­gard­less of whence it ap­pears to take ori­gin. Di­vine truth must not be dis­counted be­cause the chan­nel of its be­stowal is ap­par­ently hu­man. Many of your breth­ren have minds which ac­cept the the­ory of God while they spir­i­tu­ally fail to re­al­ize the pres­ence of God. And that is just the rea­son why I have so of­ten taught you that the king­dom of heaven can best be re­al­ized by ac­quir­ing the spir­i­tual at­ti­tude of a sin­cere child. It is not the men­tal im­ma­tu­rity of the child that I com­mend to you but rather the spir­i­tual sim­plic­ity of such an easy-be­liev­ing and fully-trust­ing lit­tle one. It is not so im­por­tant that you should know about the fact of God as that you should in­creas­ingly grow in the abil­ity to feel the pres­ence of God.

155:6.13When you once be­gin to find God in your soul, pres­ently you will be­gin to dis­cover him in other men’s souls and even­tu­ally in all the crea­tures and cre­ations of a mighty uni­verse. But what chance does the Fa­ther have to ap­pear as a God of su­preme loy­al­ties and di­vine ide­als in the souls of men who give lit­tle or no time to the thought­ful con­tem­pla­tion of such eter­nal re­al­i­ties? While the mind is not the seat of the spir­i­tual na­ture, it is in­deed the gate­way thereto.

155:6.14But do not make the mis­take of try­ing to prove to other men that you have found God; you can­not con­sciously pro­duce such valid proof, al­beit there are two pos­i­tive and pow­er­ful demon­stra­tions of the fact that you are God-know­ing, and they are:

155:6.151. The fruits of the spirit of God show­ing forth in your daily rou­tine life.

155:6.162. The fact that your en­tire life plan fur­nishes pos­i­tive proof that you have un­re­servedly risked ev­ery­thing you are and have on the ad­ven­ture of sur­vival af­ter death in the pur­suit of the hope of find­ing the God of eter­nity, whose pres­ence you have fore­tasted in time.

155:6.17Now, mis­take not, my Fa­ther will ever re­spond to the faintest flicker of faith. He takes note of the phys­i­cal and su­per­sti­tious emo­tions of the prim­i­tive man. And with those hon­est but fear­ful souls whose faith is so weak that it amounts to lit­tle more than an in­tel­lec­tual con­for­mity to a pas­sive at­ti­tude of as­sent to re­li­gions of au­thor­ity, the Fa­ther is ever alert to honor and fos­ter even all such fee­ble at­tempts to reach out for him. But you who have been called out of dark­ness into the light are ex­pected to be­lieve with a whole heart; your faith shall dom­i­nate the com­bined at­ti­tudes of body, mind, and spirit.

155:6.18You are my apos­tles, and to you re­li­gion shall not be­come a the­o­logic shel­ter to which you may flee in fear of fac­ing the rugged re­al­i­ties of spir­i­tual prog­ress and ide­al­is­tic ad­ven­ture; but rather shall your re­li­gion be­come the fact of real ex­pe­ri­ence which tes­ti­fies that God has found you, ide­al­ized, en­no­bled, and spir­i­tu­al­ized you, and that you have en­listed in the eter­nal ad­ven­ture of find­ing the God who has thus found and son­shipped you.

155:6.19And when Je­sus had fin­ished speak­ing, he beck­oned to An­drew and, point­ing to the west to­ward Phoeni­cia, said: “Let us be on our way.”

• forgiveness

159:1.4Si­mon Pe­ter was the apos­tle in charge of the work­ers at Hip­pos, and when he heard Je­sus thus speak, he asked: “Lord, how of­ten shall my brother sin against me, and I for­give him? Un­til seven times?” And Je­sus an­swered Pe­ter: “Not only seven times but even to sev­enty times and seven. There­fore may the king­dom of heaven be likened to a cer­tain king who or­dered a fi­nan­cial reck­on­ing with his stew­ards. And when they had be­gun to con­duct this ex­am­i­na­tion of ac­counts, one of his chief re­tain­ers was brought be­fore him con­fess­ing that he owed his king ten thou­sand tal­ents. Now this of­fi­cer of the king’s court pleaded that hard times had come upon him, and that he did not have where­with to pay this obli­ga­tion. And so the king com­manded that his prop­erty be con­fis­cated, and that his chil­dren be sold to pay his debt. When this chief stew­ard heard this stern de­cree, he fell down on his face be­fore the king and im­plored him to have mercy and grant him more time, say­ing, ‘Lord, have a lit­tle more pa­tience with me, and I will pay you all.’ And when the king looked upon this neg­li­gent ser­vant and his fam­ily, he was moved with com­pas­sion. He or­dered that he should be re­leased, and that the loan should be wholly for­given.

159:1.5“And this chief stew­ard, hav­ing thus re­ceived mercy and for­give­ness at the hands of the king, went about his busi­ness, and find­ing one of his sub­or­di­nate stew­ards who owed him a mere hun­dred denarii, he laid hold upon him and, tak­ing him by the throat, said, ‘Pay me all you owe.’ And then did this fel­low stew­ard fall down be­fore the chief stew­ard and, be­seech­ing him, said: ‘Only have pa­tience with me, and I will pres­ently be able to pay you.’ But the chief stew­ard would not show mercy to his fel­low stew­ard but rather had him cast in prison un­til he should pay his debt. When his fel­low ser­vants saw what had hap­pened, they were so dis­tressed that they went and told their lord and mas­ter, the king. When the king heard of the do­ings of his chief stew­ard, he called this un­grate­ful and un­for­giv­ing man be­fore him and said: ‘You are a wicked and un­wor­thy stew­ard. When you sought for com­pas­sion, I freely for­gave you your en­tire debt. Why did you not also show mercy to your fel­low stew­ard, even as I showed mercy to you?’ And the king was so very an­gry that he de­liv­ered his un­grate­ful chief stew­ard to the jail­ers that they might hold him un­til he had paid all that was due. And even so shall my heav­enly Fa­ther show the more abun­dant mercy to those who freely show mercy to their fel­lows. How can you come to God ask­ing con­sid­er­a­tion for your short­com­ings when you are wont to chas­tise your breth­ren for be­ing guilty of these same hu­man frail­ties? I say to all of you: Freely you have re­ceived the good things of the king­dom; there­fore freely give to your fel­lows on earth.”

159:1.6Thus did Je­sus teach the dan­gers and il­lus­trate the un­fair­ness of sit­ting in per­sonal judg­ment upon one’s fel­lows. Dis­ci­pline must be main­tained, jus­tice must be ad­min­is­tered, but in all these mat­ters the wis­dom of the broth­er­hood should pre­vail. Je­sus in­vested leg­isla­tive and ju­di­cial au­thor­ity in the group, not in the in­di­vid­ual. Even this in­vest­ment of au­thor­ity in the group must not be ex­er­cised as per­sonal au­thor­ity. There is al­ways dan­ger that the ver­dict of an in­di­vid­ual may be warped by prej­u­dice or dis­torted by pas­sion. Group judg­ment is more likely to re­move the dan­gers and elim­i­nate the un­fair­ness of per­sonal bias. Je­sus sought al­ways to min­i­mize the el­e­ments of un­fair­ness, re­tal­i­a­tion, and vengeance.

159:1.7[The use of the term sev­enty-seven as an il­lus­tra­tion of mercy and for­bear­ance was de­rived from the Scrip­tures re­fer­ring to Lamech’s ex­ul­ta­tion be­cause of the metal weapons of his son Tubal-Cain, who, com­par­ing these su­pe­rior in­stru­ments with those of his en­e­mies, ex­claimed: “If Cain, with no weapon in his hand, was avenged seven times, I shall now be avenged sev­enty-seven.”]

162:5.1On the evening of the next to the last day of the feast, when the scene was bril­liantly il­lu­mi­nated by the lights of the can­de­labras and the torches, Je­sus stood up in the midst of the as­sem­bled throng and said:

162:5.2“I am the light of the world. He who fol­lows me shall not walk in dark­ness but shall have the light of life. Pre­sum­ing to place me on trial and as­sum­ing to sit as my judges, you de­clare that, if I bear wit­ness of my­self, my wit­ness can­not be true. But never can the crea­ture sit in judg­ment on the Cre­ator. Even if I do bear wit­ness about my­self, my wit­ness is ev­er­last­ingly true, for I know whence I came, who I am, and whither I go. You who would kill the Son of Man know not whence I came, who I am, or whither I go. You only judge by the ap­pear­ances of the flesh; you do not per­ceive the re­al­i­ties of the spirit. I judge no man, not even my arch­en­emy. But if I should choose to judge, my judg­ment would be true and righ­teous, for I would judge not alone but in as­so­ci­a­tion with my Fa­ther, who sent me into the world, and who is the source of all true judg­ment. You even al­low that the wit­ness of two re­li­able per­sons may be ac­cepted—well, then, I bear wit­ness of these truths; so also does my Fa­ther in heaven. And when I told you this yes­ter­day, in your dark­ness you asked me, ‘Where is your Fa­ther?’ Truly, you know nei­ther me nor my Fa­ther, for if you had known me, you would also have known the Fa­ther.

162:5.3“I have al­ready told you that I am go­ing away, and that you will seek me and not find me, for where I am go­ing you can­not come. You who would re­ject this light are from be­neath; I am from above. You who pre­fer to sit in dark­ness are of this world; I am not of this world, and I live in the eter­nal light of the Fa­ther of lights. You all have had abun­dant op­por­tu­nity to learn who I am, but you shall have still other ev­i­dence con­firm­ing the iden­tity of the Son of Man. I am the light of life, and ev­ery one who de­lib­er­ately and with un­der­stand­ing re­jects this sav­ing light shall die in his sins. Much I have to tell you, but you are un­able to re­ceive my words. How­ever, he who sent me is true and faith­ful; my Fa­ther loves even his erring chil­dren. And all that my Fa­ther has spo­ken I also pro­claim to the world.

162:5.4“When the Son of Man is lifted up, then shall you all know that I am he, and that I have done noth­ing of my­self but only as the Fa­ther has taught me. I speak these words to you and to your chil­dren. And he who sent me is even now with me; he has not left me alone, for I do al­ways that which is pleas­ing in his sight.”

162:5.5As Je­sus thus taught the pil­grims in the tem­ple courts, many be­lieved. And no man dared to lay hands upon him.

162:6.1On the last day, the great day of the feast, as the pro­ces­sion from the pool of Siloam passed through the tem­ple courts, and just af­ter the wa­ter and the wine had been poured down upon the al­tar by the priests, Je­sus, stand­ing among the pil­grims, said: “If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. From the Fa­ther above I bring to this world the wa­ter of life. He who be­lieves me shall be filled with the spirit which this wa­ter rep­re­sents, for even the Scrip­tures have said, ‘Out of him shall flow rivers of liv­ing wa­ters.’ When the Son of Man has fin­ished his work on earth, there shall be poured out upon all flesh the liv­ing Spirit of Truth. Those who re­ceive this spirit shall never know spir­i­tual thirst.”

162:6.2Je­sus did not in­ter­rupt the ser­vice to speak these words. He ad­dressed the wor­shipers im­me­di­ately af­ter the chant­ing of the Hal­lel, the re­spon­sive read­ing of the Psalms ac­com­pa­nied by wav­ing of the branches be­fore the al­tar. Just here was a pause while the sac­ri­fices were be­ing pre­pared, and it was at this time that the pil­grims heard the fas­ci­nat­ing voice of the Mas­ter de­clare that he was the giver of liv­ing wa­ter to ev­ery spirit-thirst­ing soul.

162:6.3At the con­clu­sion of this early morn­ing ser­vice Je­sus con­tin­ued to teach the mul­ti­tude, say­ing: “Have you not read in the Scrip­ture: ‘Be­hold, as the wa­ters are poured out upon the dry ground and spread over the parched soil, so will I give the spirit of ho­li­ness to be poured out upon your chil­dren for a bless­ing even to your chil­dren’s chil­dren’? Why will you thirst for the min­istry of the spirit while you seek to wa­ter your souls with the tra­di­tions of men, poured from the bro­ken pitch­ers of cer­e­mo­nial ser­vice? That which you see go­ing on about this tem­ple is the way in which your fa­thers sought to sym­bol­ize the be­stowal of the di­vine spirit upon the chil­dren of faith, and you have done well to per­pet­u­ate these sym­bols, even down to this day. But now has come to this gen­er­a­tion the rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther of spir­its through the be­stowal of his Son, and all of this will cer­tainly be fol­lowed by the be­stowal of the spirit of the Fa­ther and the Son upon the chil­dren of men. To ev­ery one who has faith shall this be­stowal of the spirit be­come the true teacher of the way which leads to life ev­er­last­ing, to the true wa­ters of life in the king­dom of heaven on earth and in the Fa­ther’s Par­a­dise over there.”

162:7.1On the af­ter­noon of the last day of the feast and af­ter the apos­tles had failed in their ef­forts to per­suade him to flee from Je­ru­sa­lem, Je­sus again went into the tem­ple to teach. Find­ing a large com­pany of be­liev­ers as­sem­bled in Sol­o­mon’s Porch, he spoke to them, say­ing:

162:7.2“If my words abide in you and you are minded to do the will of my Fa­ther, then are you truly my dis­ci­ples. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. I know how you will an­swer me: We are the chil­dren of Abra­ham, and we are in bond­age to none; how then shall we be made free? Even so, I do not speak of out­ward sub­jec­tion to an­other’s rule; I re­fer to the lib­er­ties of the soul. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, ev­ery­one who com­mits sin is the bond ser­vant of sin. And you know that the bond ser­vant is not likely to abide for­ever in the mas­ter’s house. You also know that the son does re­main in his fa­ther’s house. If, there­fore, the Son shall make you free, shall make you sons, you shall be free in­deed.

162:7.3“I know that you are Abra­ham’s seed, yet your lead­ers seek to kill me be­cause my word has not been al­lowed to have its trans­form­ing in­flu­ence in their hearts. Their souls are sealed by prej­u­dice and blinded by the pride of re­venge. I de­clare to you the truth which the eter­nal Fa­ther shows me, while these de­luded teach­ers seek to do the things which they have learned only from their tem­po­ral fa­thers. And when you re­ply that Abra­ham is your fa­ther, then do I tell you that, if you were the chil­dren of Abra­ham, you would do the works of Abra­ham. Some of you be­lieve my teach­ing, but oth­ers seek to de­stroy me be­cause I have told you the truth which I re­ceived from God. But Abra­ham did not so treat the truth of God. I per­ceive that some among you are de­ter­mined to do the works of the evil one. If God were your Fa­ther, you would know me and love the truth which I re­veal. Will you not see that I come forth from the Fa­ther, that I am sent by God, that I am not do­ing this work of my­self? Why do you not un­der­stand my words? Is it be­cause you have cho­sen to be­come the chil­dren of evil? If you are the chil­dren of dark­ness, you will hardly walk in the light of the truth which I re­veal. The chil­dren of evil fol­low only in the ways of their fa­ther, who was a de­ceiver and stood not for the truth be­cause there came to be no truth in him. But now comes the Son of Man speak­ing and liv­ing the truth, and many of you refuse to be­lieve.

162:7.4“Which of you con­victs me of sin? If I, then, pro­claim and live the truth shown me by the Fa­ther, why do you not be­lieve? He who is of God hears gladly the words of God; for this cause many of you hear not my words, be­cause you are not of God. Your teach­ers have even pre­sumed to say that I do my works by the power of the prince of dev­ils. One near by has just said that I have a devil, that I am a child of the devil. But all of you who deal hon­estly with your own souls know full well that I am not a devil. You know that I honor the Fa­ther even while you would dis­honor me. I seek not my own glory, only the glory of my Par­a­dise Fa­ther. And I do not judge you, for there is one who judges for me.

162:7.5“Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you who be­lieve the gospel that, if a man will keep this word of truth alive in his heart, he shall never taste death. And now just at my side a scribe says this state­ment proves that I have a devil, see­ing that Abra­ham is dead, also the proph­ets. And he asks: ‘Are you so much greater than Abra­ham and the proph­ets that you dare to stand here and say that whoso keeps your word shall not taste death? Who do you claim to be that you dare to ut­ter such blas­phemies?’ And I say to all such that, if I glo­rify my­self, my glory is as noth­ing. But it is the Fa­ther who shall glo­rify me, even the same Fa­ther whom you call God. But you have failed to know this your God and my Fa­ther, and I have come to bring you to­gether; to show you how to be­come truly the sons of God. Though you know not the Fa­ther, I truly know him. Even Abra­ham re­joiced to see my day, and by faith he saw it and was glad.”

162:7.6When the un­be­liev­ing Jews and the agents of the San­hedrin who had gath­ered about by this time heard these words, they raised a tu­mult, shout­ing: “You are not fifty years of age, and yet you talk about see­ing Abra­ham; you are a child of the devil!” Je­sus was un­able to con­tinue the dis­course. He only said as he de­parted, “Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, be­fore Abra­ham was, I am.” Many of the un­be­liev­ers rushed forth for stones to cast at him, and the agents of the San­hedrin sought to place him un­der ar­rest, but the Mas­ter quickly made his way through the tem­ple cor­ri­dors and es­caped to a se­cret meet­ing place near Beth­any where Martha, Mary, and Laz­a­rus awaited him.

163:3.1By the time Je­sus had fin­ished talk­ing with Mata­dor­mus, Pe­ter and a num­ber of the apos­tles had gath­ered about him, and as the rich young man was de­part­ing, Je­sus turned around to face the apos­tles and said: “You see how dif­fi­cult it is for those who have riches to en­ter fully into the king­dom of God! Spir­i­tual wor­ship can­not be shared with ma­te­rial de­vo­tions; no man can serve two mas­ters. You have a say­ing that it is ‘eas­ier for a camel to go through the eye of a nee­dle than for the hea­then to in­herit eter­nal life.’ And I de­clare that it is as easy for this camel to go through the nee­dle’s eye as for these self-sat­is­fied rich ones to en­ter the king­dom of heaven.”

163:3.2When Pe­ter and the apos­tles heard these words, they were as­ton­ished ex­ceed­ingly, so much so that Pe­ter said: “Who then, Lord, can be saved? Shall all who have riches be kept out of the king­dom?” And Je­sus replied: “No, Pe­ter, but all who put their trust in riches shall hardly en­ter into the spir­i­tual life that leads to eter­nal prog­ress. But even then, much which is im­pos­si­ble to man is not be­yond the reach of the Fa­ther in heaven; rather should we rec­og­nize that with God all things are pos­si­ble.”

163:3.3As they went off by them­selves, Je­sus was grieved that Mata­dor­mus did not re­main with them, for he greatly loved him. And when they had walked down by the lake, they sat there be­side the wa­ter, and Pe­ter, speak­ing for the twelve (who were all pres­ent by this time), said: “We are trou­bled by your words to the rich young man. Shall we re­quire those who would fol­low you to give up all their worldly goods?” And Je­sus said: “No, Pe­ter, only those who would be­come apos­tles, and who de­sire to live with me as you do and as one fam­ily. But the Fa­ther re­quires that the af­fec­tions of his chil­dren be pure and un­di­vided. What­ever thing or per­son comes be­tween you and the love of the truths of the king­dom, must be sur­ren­dered. If one’s wealth does not in­vade the precincts of the soul, it is of no con­se­quence in the spir­i­tual life of those who would en­ter the king­dom.”

163:3.4And then said Pe­ter, “But, Mas­ter, we have left ev­ery­thing to fol­low you, what then shall we have?” And Je­sus spoke to all of the twelve: “Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, there is no man who has left wealth, home, wife, breth­ren, par­ents, or chil­dren for my sake and for the sake of the king­dom of heaven who shall not re­ceive man­i­fold more in this world, per­haps with some per­se­cu­tions, and in the world to come eter­nal life. But many who are first shall be last, while the last shall of­ten be first. The Fa­ther deals with his crea­tures in ac­cor­dance with their needs and in obe­di­ence to his just laws of mer­ci­ful and lov­ing con­sid­er­a­tion for the wel­fare of a uni­verse.

163:3.5“The king­dom of heaven is like a house­holder who was a large em­ployer of men, and who went out early in the morn­ing to hire la­bor­ers to work in his vine­yard. When he had agreed with the la­bor­ers to pay them a denar­ius a day, he sent them into the vine­yard. Then he went out about nine o’clock, and see­ing oth­ers stand­ing in the mar­ket place idle, he said to them: ‘Go you also to work in my vine­yard, and what­so­ever is right I will pay you.’ And they went at once to work. Again he went out about twelve and about three and did like­wise. And go­ing to the mar­ket place about five in the af­ter­noon, he found still oth­ers stand­ing idle, and he in­quired of them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all the day?’ And the men an­swered, ‘Be­cause no­body has hired us.’ Then said the house­holder: ‘Go you also to work in my vine­yard, and what­ever is right I will pay you.’

163:3.6“When evening came, this owner of the vine­yard said to his stew­ard: ‘Call the la­bor­ers and pay them their wages, be­gin­ning with the last hired and end­ing with the first.’ When those who were hired about five o’clock came, they re­ceived a denar­ius each, and so it was with each of the other la­bor­ers. When the men who were hired at the be­gin­ning of the day saw how the later com­ers were paid, they ex­pected to re­ceive more than the amount agreed upon. But like the oth­ers ev­ery man re­ceived only a denar­ius. And when each had re­ceived his pay, they com­plained to the house­holder, say­ing: ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour, and yet you have paid them the same as us who have borne the bur­den of the day in the scorch­ing sun.’

163:3.7“Then an­swered the house­holder: ‘My friends, I do you no wrong. Did not each of you agree to work for a denar­ius a day? Take now that which is yours and go your way, for it is my de­sire to give to those who came last as much as I have given to you. Is it not law­ful for me to do what I will with my own? or do you be­grudge my gen­eros­ity be­cause I de­sire to be good and to show mercy?’”

165:3.1By the end of Jan­uary the Sab­bath-af­ter­noon mul­ti­tudes num­bered al­most three thou­sand. On Sat­ur­day, Jan­uary 28, Je­sus preached the mem­o­rable ser­mon on “Trust and Spir­i­tual Pre­pared­ness.” Af­ter pre­lim­i­nary re­marks by Si­mon Pe­ter, the Mas­ter said:

165:3.2“What I have many times said to my apos­tles and to my dis­ci­ples, I now de­clare to this mul­ti­tude: Be­ware of the leaven of the Phar­isees which is hypocrisy, born of prej­u­dice and nur­tured in tra­di­tional bond­age, al­beit many of these Phar­isees are hon­est of heart and some of them abide here as my dis­ci­ples. Pres­ently all of you shall un­der­stand my teach­ing, for there is noth­ing now cov­ered that shall not be re­vealed. That which is now hid from you shall all be made known when the Son of Man has com­pleted his mis­sion on earth and in the flesh.

165:3.3“Soon, very soon, will the things which our en­e­mies now plan in se­crecy and in dark­ness be brought out into the light and be pro­claimed from the house­tops. But I say to you, my friends, when they seek to de­stroy the Son of Man, be not afraid of them. Fear not those who, al­though they may be able to kill the body, af­ter that have no more power over you. I ad­mon­ish you to fear none, in heaven or on earth, but to re­joice in the knowl­edge of Him who has power to de­liver you from all un­righ­teous­ness and to pre­sent you blame­less be­fore the judg­ment seat of a uni­verse.

165:3.4“Are not five spar­rows sold for two pen­nies? And yet, when these birds flit about in quest of their sus­te­nance, not one of them ex­ists with­out the knowl­edge of the Fa­ther, the source of all life. To the se­raphic guard­i­ans the very hairs of your head are num­bered. And if all of this is true, why should you live in fear of the many tri­fles which come up in your daily lives? I say to you: Fear not; you are of much more value than many spar­rows.

165:3.5“All of you who have had the cour­age to con­fess faith in my gospel be­fore men I will pres­ently ac­knowl­edge be­fore the an­gels of heaven; but he who shall know­ingly deny the truth of my teach­ings be­fore men shall be de­nied by his guard­ian of des­tiny even be­fore the an­gels of heaven.

165:3.6“Say what you will about the Son of Man, and it shall be for­given you; but he who pre­sumes to blas­pheme against God shall hardly find for­give­ness. When men go so far as know­ingly to as­cribe the do­ings of God to the forces of evil, such de­lib­er­ate rebels will hardly seek for­give­ness for their sins.

165:3.7“And when our en­e­mies bring you be­fore the rulers of the syn­a­gogues and be­fore other high au­thor­i­ties, be not con­cerned about what you should say and be not anx­ious as to how you should an­swer their ques­tions, for the spirit that dwells within you shall cer­tainly teach you in that very hour what you should say in honor of the gospel of the king­dom.

165:3.8“How long will you tarry in the val­ley of de­ci­sion? Why do you halt be­tween two opin­ions? Why should Jew or gen­tile hes­i­tate to ac­cept the good news that he is a son of the eter­nal God? How long will it take us to per­suade you to en­ter joy­fully into your spir­i­tual in­her­i­tance? I came into this world to re­veal the Fa­ther to you and to lead you to the Fa­ther. The first I have done, but the last I may not do with­out your con­sent; the Fa­ther never com­pels any man to en­ter the king­dom. The in­vi­ta­tion ever has been and al­ways will be: Whoso­ever will, let him come and freely par­take of the wa­ter of life.”

165:3.9When Je­sus had fin­ished speak­ing, many went forth to be bap­tized by the apos­tles in the Jor­dan while he lis­tened to the ques­tions of those who re­mained.

165:5.1That evening af­ter sup­per, when Je­sus and the twelve gath­ered to­gether for their daily con­fer­ence, An­drew asked: “Mas­ter, while we were bap­tiz­ing the be­liev­ers, you spoke many words to the lin­ger­ing mul­ti­tude which we did not hear. Would you be will­ing to re­peat these words for our ben­e­fit?” And in re­sponse to An­drew’s re­quest, Je­sus said:

165:5.2“Yes, An­drew, I will speak to you about these mat­ters of wealth and self-sup­port, but my words to you, the apos­tles, must be some­what dif­fer­ent from those spo­ken to the dis­ci­ples and the mul­ti­tude since you have for­saken ev­ery­thing, not only to fol­low me, but to be or­dained as am­bas­sadors of the king­dom. Al­ready have you had sev­eral years’ ex­pe­ri­ence, and you know that the Fa­ther whose king­dom you pro­claim will not for­sake you. You have ded­i­cated your lives to the min­istry of the king­dom; there­fore be not anx­ious or wor­ried about the things of the tem­po­ral life, what you shall eat, nor yet for your body, what you shall wear. The wel­fare of the soul is more than food and drink; the prog­ress in the spirit is far above the need of rai­ment. When you are tempted to doubt the sure­ness of your bread, con­sider the ravens; they sow not nei­ther reap, they have no store­houses or barns, and yet the Fa­ther pro­vides food for ev­ery one of them that seeks it. And of how much more value are you than many birds! Be­sides, all of your anx­i­ety or fret­ting doubts can do noth­ing to sup­ply your ma­te­rial needs. Which of you by anx­i­ety can add a hand­breadth to your stature or a day to your life? Since such mat­ters are not in your hands, why do you give anx­ious thought to any of these prob­lems?

165:5.3“Con­sider the lilies, how they grow; they toil not, nei­ther do they spin; yet I say to you, even Sol­o­mon in all his glory was not ar­rayed like one of these. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive to­day and to­mor­row is cut down and cast into the fire, how much more shall he clothe you, the am­bas­sadors of the heav­enly king­dom. O you of lit­tle faith! When you whole­heart­edly de­vote your­selves to the procla­ma­tion of the gospel of the king­dom, you should not be of doubt­ful minds con­cern­ing the sup­port of your­selves or the fam­i­lies you have for­saken. If you give your lives truly to the gospel, you shall live by the gospel. If you are only be­liev­ing dis­ci­ples, you must earn your own bread and con­tribute to the sus­te­nance of all who teach and preach and heal. If you are anx­ious about your bread and wa­ter, wherein are you dif­fer­ent from the na­tions of the world who so dili­gently seek such ne­ces­si­ties? De­vote your­selves to your work, be­liev­ing that both the Fa­ther and I know that you have need of all these things. Let me as­sure you, once and for all, that, if you ded­i­cate your lives to the work of the king­dom, all your real needs shall be sup­plied. Seek the greater thing, and the lesser will be found therein; ask for the heav­enly, and the earthly shall be in­cluded. The shadow is cer­tain to fol­low the sub­stance.

165:5.4“You are only a small group, but if you have faith, if you will not stum­ble in fear, I de­clare that it is my Fa­ther’s good plea­sure to give you this king­dom. You have laid up your trea­sures where the purse waxes not old, where no thief can de­spoil, and where no moth can de­stroy. And as I told the peo­ple, where your trea­sure is, there will your heart be also.

165:5.5“But in the work which is just ahead of us, and in that which re­mains for you af­ter I go to the Fa­ther, you will be griev­ously tried. You must all be on your watch against fear and doubts. Ev­ery one of you, gird up the loins of your minds and let your lamps be kept burn­ing. Keep your­selves like men who are watch­ing for their mas­ter to re­turn from the mar­riage feast so that, when he comes and knocks, you may quickly open to him. Such watch­ful ser­vants are blessed by the mas­ter who finds them faith­ful at such a great mo­ment. Then will the mas­ter make his ser­vants sit down while he him­self serves them. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you that a cri­sis is just ahead in your lives, and it be­hooves you to watch and be ready.

165:5.6“You well un­der­stand that no man would suf­fer his house to be bro­ken into if he knew what hour the thief was to come. Be you also on watch for your­selves, for in an hour that you least sus­pect and in a man­ner you think not, shall the Son of Man de­part.”

165:5.7For some min­utes the twelve sat in si­lence. Some of these warn­ings they had heard be­fore but not in the set­ting pre­sented to them at this time.

166:4.1While most Pales­tini­ans ate only two meals a day, it was the cus­tom of Je­sus and the apos­tles, when on a jour­ney, to pause at mid­day for rest and re­fresh­ment. And it was at such a noon­tide stop on the way to Phil­a­del­phia that Thomas asked Je­sus: “Mas­ter, from hear­ing your re­marks as we jour­neyed this morn­ing, I would like to in­quire whether spir­i­tual be­ings are con­cerned in the pro­duc­tion of strange and ex­traor­di­nary events in the ma­te­rial world and, fur­ther, to ask whether the an­gels and other spirit be­ings are able to pre­vent ac­ci­dents.”

166:4.3“All too long have your fa­thers be­lieved that pros­per­ity was the to­ken of di­vine ap­proval; that ad­ver­sity was the proof of God’s dis­plea­sure. I de­clare that such be­liefs are su­per­sti­tions. Do you not ob­serve that far greater num­bers of the poor joy­fully re­ceive the gospel and im­me­di­ately en­ter the king­dom? If riches ev­i­dence di­vine fa­vor, why do the rich so many times refuse to be­lieve this good news from heaven?

166:4.4“The Fa­ther causes his rain to fall on the just and the un­just; the sun like­wise shines on the righ­teous and the un­righ­teous. You know about those Galileans whose blood Pi­late min­gled with the sac­ri­fices, but I tell you these Galileans were not in any man­ner sin­ners above all their fel­lows just be­cause this hap­pened to them. You also know about the eigh­teen men upon whom the tower of Siloam fell, killing them. Think not that these men who were thus de­stroyed were of­fend­ers above all their breth­ren in Je­ru­sa­lem. These folks were sim­ply in­no­cent vic­tims of one of the ac­ci­dents of time.

166:4.5“There are three groups of events which may oc­cur in your lives:

166:4.6“1. You may share in those nor­mal hap­pen­ings which are a part of the life you and your fel­lows live on the face of the earth.

166:4.7“2. You may chance to fall vic­tim to one of the ac­ci­dents of na­ture, one of the mis­chances of men, know­ing full well that such oc­cur­rences are in no way pre­ar­ranged or oth­er­wise pro­duced by the spir­i­tual forces of the realm.

166:4.8“3. You may reap the har­vest of your di­rect ef­forts to com­ply with the nat­u­ral laws gov­ern­ing the world.

166:4.9“There was a cer­tain man who planted a fig tree in his yard, and when he had many times sought fruit thereon and found none, he called the vine­dressers be­fore him and said: ‘Here have I come these three sea­sons look­ing for fruit on this fig tree and have found none. Cut down this bar­ren tree; why should it en­cum­ber the ground?’ But the head gar­dener an­swered his mas­ter: ‘Let it alone for one more year so that I may dig around it and put on fer­til­izer, and then, next year, if it bears no fruit, it shall be cut down.’ And when they had thus com­plied with the laws of fruit­ful­ness, since the tree was liv­ing and good, they were re­warded with an abun­dant yield.

166:4.10“In the mat­ter of sick­ness and health, you should know that these bod­ily states are the re­sult of ma­te­rial causes; health is not the smile of heaven, nei­ther is af­flic­tion the frown of God.

166:4.11“The Fa­ther’s hu­man chil­dren have equal ca­pac­ity for the re­cep­tion of ma­te­rial bless­ings; there­fore does he be­stow things phys­i­cal upon the chil­dren of men with­out dis­crim­i­na­tion. When it comes to the be­stowal of spir­i­tual gifts, the Fa­ther is lim­ited by man’s ca­pac­ity for re­ceiv­ing these di­vine en­dow­ments. Al­though the Fa­ther is no re­specter of per­sons, in the be­stowal of spir­i­tual gifts he is lim­ited by man’s faith and by his will­ing­ness al­ways to abide by the Fa­ther’s will.”

166:4.12As they jour­neyed on to­ward Phil­a­del­phia, Je­sus con­tin­ued to teach them and to an­swer their ques­tions hav­ing to do with ac­ci­dents, sick­ness, and mir­a­cles, but they were not able fully to com­pre­hend this in­struc­tion. One hour of teach­ing will not wholly change the be­liefs of a life­time, and so Je­sus found it nec­es­sary to re­it­er­ate his mes­sage, to tell again and again that which he wished them to un­der­stand; and even then they failed to grasp the mean­ing of his earth mis­sion un­til af­ter his death and res­ur­rec­tion.

• marriage

167:5.2That night, in Jeri­cho, the un­friendly Phar­isees sought to en­trap the Mas­ter by in­duc­ing him to dis­cuss mar­riage and di­vorce, as did their fel­lows one time in Gal­i­lee, but Je­sus art­fully avoided their ef­forts to bring him into con­flict with their laws con­cern­ing di­vorce. As the pub­li­can and the Phar­isee il­lus­trated good and bad re­li­gion, their di­vorce prac­tices served to con­trast the bet­ter mar­riage laws of the Jew­ish code with the dis­grace­ful lax­ity of the Phar­i­saic in­ter­pre­ta­tions of these Mo­saic di­vorce statutes. The Phar­isee judged him­self by the low­est stan­dard; the pub­li­can squared him­self by the high­est ideal. De­vo­tion, to the Phar­isee, was a means of in­duc­ing self-righ­teous in­ac­tiv­ity and the as­sur­ance of false spir­i­tual se­cu­rity; de­vo­tion, to the pub­li­can, was a means of stir­ring up his soul to the re­al­iza­tion of the need for re­pen­tance, con­fes­sion, and the ac­cep­tance, by faith, of mer­ci­ful for­give­ness. The Phar­isee sought jus­tice; the pub­li­can sought mercy. The law of the uni­verse is: Ask and you shall re­ceive; seek and you shall find.

167:5.3Though Je­sus re­fused to be drawn into a con­tro­versy with the Phar­isees con­cern­ing di­vorce, he did pro­claim a pos­i­tive teach­ing of the high­est ide­als re­gard­ing mar­riage. He ex­alted mar­riage as the most ideal and high­est of all hu­man re­la­tion­ships. Like­wise, he in­ti­mated strong dis­ap­proval of the lax and un­fair di­vorce prac­tices of the Je­ru­sa­lem Jews, who at that time per­mit­ted a man to di­vorce his wife for the most tri­fling of rea­sons, such as be­ing a poor cook, a faulty house­keeper, or for no bet­ter rea­son than that he had be­come en­am­ored of a bet­ter-look­ing woman.

167:5.4The Phar­isees had even gone so far as to teach that di­vorce of this easy va­ri­ety was a spe­cial dis­pen­sa­tion granted the Jew­ish peo­ple, par­tic­u­larly the Phar­isees. And so, while Je­sus re­fused to make pro­nounce­ments deal­ing with mar­riage and di­vorce, he did most bit­terly de­nounce these shame­ful flout­ings of the mar­riage re­la­tion­ship and pointed out their in­jus­tice to women and chil­dren. He never sanc­tioned any di­vorce prac­tice which gave man any ad­van­tage over woman; the Mas­ter coun­te­nanced only those teach­ings which ac­corded women equal­ity with men.

167:5.5Al­though Je­sus did not of­fer new man­dates gov­ern­ing mar­riage and di­vorce, he did urge the Jews to live up to their own laws and higher teach­ings. He con­stantly ap­pealed to the writ­ten Scrip­tures in his ef­fort to im­prove their prac­tices along these so­cial lines. While thus up­hold­ing the high and ideal con­cepts of mar­riage, Je­sus skill­fully avoided clash­ing with his ques­tion­ers about the so­cial prac­tices rep­re­sented by ei­ther their writ­ten laws or their much-cher­ished di­vorce priv­i­leges.

167:5.6It was very dif­fi­cult for the apos­tles to un­der­stand the Mas­ter’s re­luc­tance to make pos­i­tive pro­nounce­ments rel­a­tive to sci­en­tific, so­cial, eco­nomic, and po­lit­i­cal prob­lems. They did not fully re­al­ize that his earth mis­sion was ex­clu­sively con­cerned with rev­e­la­tions of spir­i­tual and re­li­gious truths.

167:5.7Af­ter Je­sus had talked about mar­riage and di­vorce, later on that evening his apos­tles pri­vately asked many ad­di­tional ques­tions, and his an­swers to these in­quiries re­lieved their minds of many mis­con­cep­tions. At the con­clu­sion of this con­fer­ence Je­sus said: “Mar­riage is hon­or­able and is to be de­sired by all men. The fact that the Son of Man pur­sues his earth mis­sion alone is in no way a re­flec­tion on the de­sir­abil­ity of mar­riage. That I should so work is the Fa­ther’s will, but this same Fa­ther has di­rected the cre­ation of male and fe­male, and it is the di­vine will that men and women should find their high­est ser­vice and con­se­quent joy in the es­tab­lish­ment of homes for the re­cep­tion and train­ing of chil­dren, in the cre­ation of whom these par­ents be­come co­part­ners with the Mak­ers of heaven and earth. And for this cause shall a man leave his fa­ther and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be­come as one.”

167:5.8And in this way Je­sus re­lieved the minds of the apos­tles of many wor­ries about mar­riage and cleared up many mis­un­der­stand­ings re­gard­ing di­vorce; at the same time he did much to ex­alt their ide­als of so­cial union and to aug­ment their re­spect for women and chil­dren and for the home.

167:7.1As they jour­neyed up the hills from Jeri­cho to Beth­any, Na­than­iel walked most of the way by the side of Je­sus, and their dis­cus­sion of chil­dren in re­la­tion to the king­dom of heaven led in­di­rectly to the con­sid­er­a­tion of the min­istry of an­gels. Na­than­iel fi­nally asked the Mas­ter this ques­tion: “See­ing that the high priest is a Sad­ducee, and since the Sad­ducees do not be­lieve in an­gels, what shall we teach the peo­ple re­gard­ing the heav­enly min­is­ters?” Then, among other things, Je­sus said:

167:7.2“The an­gelic hosts are a sep­a­rate or­der of cre­ated be­ings; they are en­tirely dif­fer­ent from the ma­te­rial or­der of mor­tal crea­tures, and they func­tion as a dis­tinct group of uni­verse in­tel­li­gences. An­gels are not of that group of crea­tures called ‘the Sons of God’ in the Scrip­tures; nei­ther are they the glo­ri­fied spir­its of mor­tal men who have gone on to pro­gress through the man­sions on high. An­gels are a di­rect cre­ation, and they do not re­pro­duce them­selves. The an­gelic hosts have only a spir­i­tual kin­ship with the hu­man race. As man pro­gresses in the jour­ney to the Fa­ther in Par­a­dise, he does tra­verse a state of be­ing at one time anal­o­gous to the state of the an­gels, but mor­tal man never be­comes an an­gel.

167:7.3“The an­gels never die, as man does. The an­gels are im­mor­tal un­less, per­chance, they be­come in­volved in sin as did some of them with the de­cep­tions of Lu­cifer. The an­gels are the spirit ser­vants in heaven, and they are nei­ther all-wise nor all-pow­er­ful. But all of the loyal an­gels are truly pure and holy.

167:7.4“And do you not re­mem­ber that I said to you once be­fore that, if you had your spir­i­tual eyes anointed, you would then see the heav­ens opened and be­hold the an­gels of God as­cend­ing and de­scend­ing? It is by the min­istry of the an­gels that one world may be kept in touch with other worlds, for have I not re­peat­edly told you that I have other sheep not of this fold? And these an­gels are not the spies of the spirit world who watch upon you and then go forth to tell the Fa­ther the thoughts of your heart and to re­port on the deeds of the flesh. The Fa­ther has no need of such ser­vice inas­much as his own spirit lives within you. But these an­gelic spir­its do func­tion to keep one part of the heav­enly cre­ation in­formed con­cern­ing the do­ings of other and re­mote parts of the uni­verse. And many of the an­gels, while func­tion­ing in the gov­ern­ment of the Fa­ther and the uni­verses of the Sons, are as­signed to the ser­vice of the hu­man races. When I taught you that many of these ser­a­phim are min­is­ter­ing spir­its, I spoke not in fig­u­ra­tive lan­guage nor in po­etic strains. And all this is true, re­gard­less of your dif­fi­culty in com­pre­hend­ing such mat­ters.

167:7.5“Many of these an­gels are en­gaged in the work of sav­ing men, for have I not told you of the se­raphic joy when one soul elects to for­sake sin and be­gin the search for God? I did even tell you of the joy in the pres­ence of the an­gels of heaven over one sin­ner who re­pents, thereby in­di­cat­ing the ex­is­tence of other and higher or­ders of ce­les­tial be­ings who are like­wise con­cerned in the spir­i­tual wel­fare and with the di­vine prog­ress of mor­tal man.

167:7.6“Also are these an­gels very much con­cerned with the means whereby man’s spirit is re­leased from the taber­na­cles of the flesh and his soul es­corted to the man­sions in heaven. An­gels are the sure and heav­enly guides of the soul of man dur­ing that un­charted and in­def­i­nite pe­riod of time which in­ter­venes be­tween the death of the flesh and the new life in the spirit abodes.”

167:7.7And he would have spo­ken fur­ther with Na­than­iel re­gard­ing the min­istry of an­gels, but he was in­ter­rupted by the ap­proach of Martha, who had been in­formed that the Mas­ter was draw­ing near to Beth­any by friends who had ob­served him as­cend­ing the hills to the east. And she now has­tened to greet him.

• miscellaneous titles

171:0.1The day af­ter the mem­o­rable ser­mon on “The King­dom of Heaven,” Je­sus an­nounced that on the fol­low­ing day he and the apos­tles would de­part for the Pass­over at Je­ru­sa­lem, vis­it­ing nu­mer­ous cities in south­ern Perea on the way.

171:2.1When Je­sus and the com­pany of al­most one thou­sand fol­low­ers ar­rived at the Beth­any ford of the Jor­dan some­times called Bethabara, his dis­ci­ples be­gan to re­al­ize that he was not go­ing di­rectly to Je­ru­sa­lem. While they hes­i­tated and de­bated among them­selves, Je­sus climbed upon a huge stone and de­liv­ered that dis­course which has be­come known as “Count­ing the Cost.” The Mas­ter said:

171:2.3“If you are not will­ing to pay the full price, you can hardly be my dis­ci­ple. Be­fore you go fur­ther, you should each sit down and count the cost of be­ing my dis­ci­ple. Which one of you would un­der­take to build a watch­tower on your lands with­out first sit­ting down to count up the cost to see whether you had money enough to com­plete it? If you fail thus to reckon the cost, af­ter you have laid the foun­da­tion, you may dis­cover that you are un­able to fin­ish that which you have be­gun, and there­fore will all your neigh­bors mock you, say­ing, ‘Be­hold, this man be­gan to build but was un­able to fin­ish his work.’ Again, what king, when he pre­pares to make war upon an­other king, does not first sit down and take coun­sel as to whether he will be able, with ten thou­sand men, to meet him who comes against him with twenty thou­sand? If the king can­not af­ford to meet his en­emy be­cause he is un­pre­pared, he sends an em­bassy to this other king, even when he is yet a great way off, ask­ing for terms of peace.

171:2.4“Now, then, must each of you sit down and count the cost of be­ing my dis­ci­ple. From now on you will not be able to fol­low af­ter us, lis­ten­ing to the teach­ing and be­hold­ing the works; you will be re­quired to face bit­ter per­se­cu­tions and to bear wit­ness for this gospel in the face of crush­ing dis­ap­point­ment. If you are un­will­ing to re­nounce all that you are and to ded­i­cate all that you have, then are you un­wor­thy to be my dis­ci­ple. If you have al­ready con­quered your­self within your own heart, you need have no fear of that out­ward vic­tory which you must pres­ently gain when the Son of Man is re­jected by the chief priests and the Sad­ducees and is given into the hands of mock­ing un­be­liev­ers.

171:2.5“Now should you ex­am­ine your­self to find out your mo­tive for be­ing my dis­ci­ple. If you seek honor and glory, if you are worldly minded, you are like the salt when it has lost its sa­vor. And when that which is val­ued for its salti­ness has lost its sa­vor, where­with shall it be sea­soned? Such a condi­ment is use­less; it is fit only to be cast out among the refuse. Now have I warned you to turn back to your homes in peace if you are not will­ing to drink with me the cup which is be­ing pre­pared. Again and again have I told you that my king­dom is not of this world, but you will not be­lieve me. He who has ears to hear let him hear what I say.”

171:2.6Im­me­di­ately af­ter speak­ing these words, Je­sus, lead­ing the twelve, started off on the way to Hes­h­bon, fol­lowed by about five hun­dred. Af­ter a brief de­lay the other half of the mul­ti­tude went on up to Je­ru­sa­lem. His apos­tles, to­gether with the lead­ing dis­ci­ples, thought much about these words, but still they clung to the be­lief that, af­ter this brief pe­riod of ad­ver­sity and trial, the king­dom would cer­tainly be set up some­what in ac­cor­dance with their long-cher­ished hopes.

• miscellaneous titles

173:2.2At the noon ses­sion of the San­hedrin it was unan­i­mously agreed that Je­sus must be speed­ily de­stroyed, inas­much as no friend of the Mas­ter at­tended this meet­ing. But they could not agree as to when and how he should be taken into cus­tody. Fi­nally they agreed upon ap­point­ing five groups to go out among the peo­ple and seek to en­tan­gle him in his teach­ing or oth­er­wise to dis­credit him in the sight of those who lis­tened to his in­struc­tion. Ac­cord­ingly, about two o’clock, when Je­sus had just be­gun his dis­course on “The Lib­erty of Son­ship,” a group of these el­ders of Is­rael made their way up near Je­sus and, in­ter­rupt­ing him in the cus­tom­ary man­ner, asked this ques­tion: “By what au­thor­ity do you do these things? Who gave you this au­thor­ity?”

174:1.1For sev­eral days Pe­ter and James had been en­gaged in dis­cussing their dif­fer­ences of opin­ion about the Mas­ter’s teach­ing re­gard­ing the for­give­ness of sin. They had both agreed to lay the mat­ter be­fore Je­sus, and Pe­ter em­braced this oc­ca­sion as a fit­ting op­por­tu­nity for se­cur­ing the Mas­ter’s coun­sel. Ac­cord­ingly, Si­mon Pe­ter broke in on the con­ver­sa­tion deal­ing with the dif­fer­ences be­tween praise and wor­ship, by ask­ing: “Mas­ter, James and I are not in ac­cord re­gard­ing your teach­ings hav­ing to do with the for­give­ness of sin. James claims you teach that the Fa­ther for­gives us even be­fore we ask him, and I main­tain that re­pen­tance and con­fes­sion must pre­cede the for­give­ness. Which of us is right? what do you say?”

174:1.2Af­ter a short si­lence Je­sus looked sig­nif­i­cantly at all four and an­swered: “My breth­ren, you err in your opin­ions be­cause you do not com­pre­hend the na­ture of those in­ti­mate and lov­ing re­la­tions be­tween the crea­ture and the Cre­ator, be­tween man and God. You fail to grasp that un­der­stand­ing sym­pa­thy which the wise par­ent en­ter­tains for his im­ma­ture and some­times erring child. It is in­deed doubt­ful whether in­tel­li­gent and af­fec­tion­ate par­ents are ever called upon to for­give an av­er­age and nor­mal child. Un­der­stand­ing re­la­tion­ships as­so­ci­ated with at­ti­tudes of love ef­fec­tively pre­vent all those es­trange­ments which later ne­ces­si­tate the read­just­ment of re­pen­tance by the child with for­give­ness by the par­ent.

174:1.3“A part of ev­ery fa­ther lives in the child. The fa­ther en­joys pri­or­ity and su­pe­ri­or­ity of un­der­stand­ing in all mat­ters con­nected with the child-par­ent re­la­tion­ship. The par­ent is able to view the im­ma­tu­rity of the child in the light of the more ad­vanced pa­ren­tal ma­tu­rity, the riper ex­pe­ri­ence of the older part­ner. With the earthly child and the heav­enly Fa­ther, the di­vine par­ent pos­sesses in­fin­ity and di­vin­ity of sym­pa­thy and ca­pac­ity for lov­ing un­der­stand­ing. Di­vine for­give­ness is in­ev­i­ta­ble; it is in­her­ent and in­alien­able in God’s in­fi­nite un­der­stand­ing, in his per­fect knowl­edge of all that con­cerns the mis­taken judg­ment and er­ro­neous choos­ing of the child. Di­vine jus­tice is so eter­nally fair that it un­fail­ingly em­bod­ies un­der­stand­ing mercy.

174:1.4“When a wise man un­der­stands the in­ner im­pulses of his fel­lows, he will love them. And when you love your brother, you have al­ready for­given him. This ca­pac­ity to un­der­stand man’s na­ture and for­give his ap­par­ent wrong­do­ing is God­like. If you are wise par­ents, this is the way you will love and un­der­stand your chil­dren, even for­give them when tran­sient mis­un­der­stand­ing has ap­par­ently sep­a­rated you. The child, be­ing im­ma­ture and lack­ing in the fuller un­der­stand­ing of the depth of the child-fa­ther re­la­tion­ship, must fre­quently feel a sense of guilty sep­a­ra­tion from a fa­ther’s full ap­proval, but the true fa­ther is never con­scious of any such sep­a­ra­tion. Sin is an ex­pe­ri­ence of crea­ture con­scious­ness; it is not a part of God’s con­scious­ness.

174:1.5“Your in­abil­ity or un­will­ing­ness to for­give your fel­lows is the mea­sure of your im­ma­tu­rity, your fail­ure to at­tain adult sym­pa­thy, un­der­stand­ing, and love. You hold grudges and nurse venge­ful­ness in di­rect pro­por­tion to your ig­no­rance of the in­ner na­ture and true long­ings of your chil­dren and your fel­low be­ings. Love is the out­work­ing of the di­vine and in­ner urge of life. It is founded on un­der­stand­ing, nur­tured by un­selfish ser­vice, and per­fected in wis­dom.”

176:2.1On sev­eral oc­ca­sions Je­sus had made state­ments which led his hear­ers to in­fer that, while he in­tended pres­ently to leave this world, he would most cer­tainly re­turn to con­sum­mate the work of the heav­enly king­dom. As the con­vic­tion grew on his fol­low­ers that he was go­ing to leave them, and af­ter he had de­parted from this world, it was only nat­u­ral for all be­liev­ers to lay fast hold upon these promises to re­turn. The doc­trine of the sec­ond com­ing of Christ thus be­came early in­cor­po­rated into the teach­ings of the Chris­tians, and al­most ev­ery sub­se­quent gen­er­a­tion of dis­ci­ples has de­voutly be­lieved this truth and has con­fi­dently looked for­ward to his some­time com­ing.

176:2.2If they were to part with their Mas­ter and Teacher, how much more did these first dis­ci­ples and the apos­tles grasp at this prom­ise to re­turn, and they lost no time in as­so­ci­at­ing the pre­dicted de­struc­tion of Je­ru­sa­lem with this prom­ised sec­ond com­ing. And they con­tin­ued thus to in­ter­pret his words not­with­stand­ing that, through­out this evening of in­struc­tion on Mount Oli­vet, the Mas­ter took par­tic­u­lar pains to pre­vent just such a mis­take.

176:2.3In fur­ther an­swer to Pe­ter’s ques­tion, Je­sus said: “Why do you still look for the Son of Man to sit upon the throne of David and ex­pect that the ma­te­rial dreams of the Jews will be ful­filled? Have I not told you all these years that my king­dom is not of this world? The things which you now look down upon are com­ing to an end, but this will be a new be­gin­ning out of which the gospel of the king­dom will go to all the world and this sal­va­tion will spread to all peo­ples. And when the king­dom shall have come to its full fruition, be as­sured that the Fa­ther in heaven will not fail to visit you with an en­larged rev­e­la­tion of truth and an en­hanced dem­on­stra­tion of righ­teous­ness, even as he has al­ready be­stowed upon this world him who be­came the prince of dark­ness, and then Adam, who was fol­lowed by Mel­chiz­e­dek, and in these days, the Son of Man. And so will my Fa­ther con­tinue to man­i­fest his mercy and show forth his love, even to this dark and evil world. So also will I, af­ter my Fa­ther has in­vested me with all power and au­thor­ity, con­tinue to fol­low your for­tunes and to guide in the af­fairs of the king­dom by the pres­ence of my spirit, who shall shortly be poured out upon all flesh. Even though I shall thus be pres­ent with you in spirit, I also prom­ise that I will some­time re­turn to this world, where I have lived this life in the flesh and achieved the ex­pe­ri­ence of si­mul­ta­ne­ously re­veal­ing God to man and lead­ing man to God. Very soon must I leave you and take up the work the Fa­ther has in­trusted to my hands, but be of good cour­age, for I will some­time re­turn. In the mean­time, my Spirit of the Truth of a uni­verse shall com­fort and guide you.

176:2.4“You be­hold me now in weak­ness and in the flesh, but when I re­turn, it shall be with power and in the spirit. The eye of flesh be­holds the Son of Man in the flesh, but only the eye of the spirit will be­hold the Son of Man glo­ri­fied by the Fa­ther and ap­pear­ing on earth in his own name.

176:2.5“But the times of the reap­pear­ing of the Son of Man are known only in the coun­cils of Par­a­dise; not even the an­gels of heaven know when this will oc­cur. How­ever, you should un­der­stand that, when this gospel of the king­dom shall have been pro­claimed to all the world for the sal­va­tion of all peo­ples, and when the full­ness of the age has come to pass, the Fa­ther will send you an­other dis­pen­sa­tional be­stowal, or else the Son of Man will re­turn to ad­judge the age.

176:2.6“And now con­cern­ing the tra­vail of Je­ru­sa­lem, about which I have spo­ken to you, even this gen­er­a­tion will not pass away un­til my words are ful­filled; but con­cern­ing the times of the com­ing again of the Son of Man, no one in heaven or on earth may pre­sume to speak. But you should be wise re­gard­ing the ripen­ing of an age; you should be alert to dis­cern the signs of the times. You know when the fig tree shows its ten­der branches and puts forth its leaves that sum­mer is near. Like­wise, when the world has passed through the long win­ter of ma­te­rial-mind­ed­ness and you dis­cern the com­ing of the spir­i­tual spring­time of a new dis­pen­sa­tion, should you know that the sum­mer­time of a new vis­i­ta­tion draws near.

176:2.7“But what is the sig­nif­i­cance of this teach­ing hav­ing to do with the com­ing of the Sons of God? Do you not per­ceive that, when each of you is called to lay down his life strug­gle and pass through the por­tal of death, you stand in the im­me­di­ate pres­ence of judg­ment, and that you are face to face with the facts of a new dis­pen­sa­tion of ser­vice in the eter­nal plan of the in­fi­nite Fa­ther? What the whole world must face as a lit­eral fact at the end of an age, you, as in­di­vid­u­als, must each most cer­tainly face as a per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence when you reach the end of your nat­u­ral life and thereby pass on to be con­fronted with the con­di­tions and de­mands in­her­ent in the next rev­e­la­tion of the eter­nal pro­gres­sion of the Fa­ther’s king­dom.”

176:2.8Of all the dis­courses which the Mas­ter gave his apos­tles, none ever be­came so con­fused in their minds as this one, given this Tues­day evening on the Mount of Olives, re­gard­ing the two­fold sub­ject of the de­struc­tion of Je­ru­sa­lem and his own sec­ond com­ing. There was, there­fore, lit­tle agree­ment be­tween the sub­se­quent writ­ten ac­counts based on the mem­o­ries of what the Mas­ter said on this ex­traor­di­nary oc­ca­sion. Con­se­quently, when the rec­ords were left blank con­cern­ing much that was said that Tues­day evening, there grew up many tra­di­tions; and very early in the sec­ond cen­tury a Jew­ish apoc­a­lyp­tic about the Mes­siah writ­ten by one Selta, who was at­tached to the court of the Em­peror Caligula, was bod­ily copied into the Mat­thew Gospel and sub­se­quently added (in part) to the Mark and Luke rec­ords. It was in these writ­ings of Selta that the para­ble of the ten vir­gins ap­peared. No part of the gospel rec­ord ever suf­fered such con­fus­ing mis­con­struc­tion as this evening’s teach­ing. But the Apos­tle John never be­came thus con­fused.

176:2.9As these thir­teen men re­sumed their jour­ney to­ward the camp, they were speech­less and un­der great emo­tional ten­sion. Ju­das had fi­nally con­firmed his de­ci­sion to aban­don his as­so­ciates. It was a late hour when David Zeb­e­dee, John Mark, and a num­ber of the lead­ing dis­ci­ples wel­comed Je­sus and the twelve to the new camp, but the apos­tles did not want to sleep; they wanted to know more about the de­struc­tion of Je­ru­sa­lem, the Mas­ter’s de­par­ture, and the end of the world.

178:1.1Je­sus talked to about fifty of his trusted fol­low­ers for al­most two hours and an­swered a score of ques­tions re­gard­ing the re­la­tion of the king­dom of heaven to the king­doms of this world, con­cern­ing the re­la­tion of son­ship with God to cit­i­zen­ship in earthly gov­ern­ments. This dis­course, to­gether with his an­swers to ques­tions, may be sum­ma­rized and re­stated in mod­ern lan­guage as fol­lows:

178:1.2The king­doms of this world, be­ing ma­te­rial, may of­ten find it nec­es­sary to em­ploy phys­i­cal force in the ex­e­cu­tion of their laws and for the main­te­nance of or­der. In the king­dom of heaven true be­liev­ers will not re­sort to the em­ploy­ment of phys­i­cal force. The king­dom of heaven, be­ing a spir­i­tual broth­er­hood of the spirit-born sons of God, may be pro­mul­gated only by the power of the spirit. This dis­tinc­tion of pro­ce­dure refers to the re­la­tions of the king­dom of be­liev­ers to the king­doms of sec­u­lar gov­ern­ment and does not nul­lify the right of so­cial groups of be­liev­ers to main­tain or­der in their ranks and ad­min­is­ter dis­ci­pline upon un­ruly and un­wor­thy mem­bers.

178:1.3There is noth­ing in­com­pat­i­ble be­tween son­ship in the spir­i­tual king­dom and cit­i­zen­ship in the sec­u­lar or civil gov­ern­ment. It is the be­liever’s duty to ren­der to Cae­sar the things which are Cae­sar’s and to God the things which are God’s. There can­not be any dis­agree­ment be­tween these two re­quire­ments, the one be­ing ma­te­rial and the other spir­i­tual, un­less it should de­velop that a Cae­sar pre­sumes to usurp the pre­rog­a­tives of God and de­mand that spir­i­tual homage and su­preme wor­ship be ren­dered to him. In such a case you shall wor­ship only God while you seek to en­lighten such mis­guided earthly rulers and in this way lead them also to the rec­og­ni­tion of the Fa­ther in heaven. You shall not ren­der spir­i­tual wor­ship to earthly rulers; nei­ther should you em­ploy the phys­i­cal forces of earthly gov­ern­ments, whose rulers may some­time be­come be­liev­ers, in the work of fur­ther­ing the mis­sion of the spir­i­tual king­dom.

178:1.4Son­ship in the king­dom, from the stand­point of ad­vanc­ing civ­i­liza­tion, should as­sist you in be­com­ing the ideal cit­i­zens of the king­doms of this world since broth­er­hood and ser­vice are the cor­ner­stones of the gospel of the king­dom. The love call of the spir­i­tual king­dom should prove to be the ef­fec­tive de­stroyer of the hate urge of the un­be­liev­ing and war-minded cit­i­zens of the earthly king­doms. But these ma­te­rial-minded sons in dark­ness will never know of your spir­i­tual light of truth un­less you draw very near them with that un­selfish so­cial ser­vice which is the nat­u­ral out­growth of the bear­ing of the fruits of the spirit in the life ex­pe­ri­ence of each in­di­vid­ual be­liever.

178:1.5As mor­tal and ma­te­rial men, you are in­deed cit­i­zens of the earthly king­doms, and you should be good cit­i­zens, all the bet­ter for hav­ing be­come re­born spirit sons of the heav­enly king­dom. As faith-en­light­ened and spirit-lib­er­ated sons of the king­dom of heaven, you face a dou­ble re­spon­si­bil­ity of duty to man and duty to God while you vol­un­tar­ily as­sume a third and sa­cred obli­ga­tion: ser­vice to the broth­er­hood of God-know­ing be­liev­ers.

178:1.6You may not wor­ship your tem­po­ral rulers, and you should not em­ploy tem­po­ral power in the fur­ther­ance of the spir­i­tual king­dom; but you should man­i­fest the righ­teous min­istry of lov­ing ser­vice to be­liev­ers and un­be­liev­ers alike. In the gospel of the king­dom there re­sides the mighty Spirit of Truth, and pres­ently I will pour out this same spirit upon all flesh. The fruits of the spirit, your sin­cere and lov­ing ser­vice, are the mighty so­cial lever to up­lift the races of dark­ness, and this Spirit of Truth will be­come your power-mul­ti­ply­ing ful­crum.

178:1.7Dis­play wis­dom and ex­hibit sagac­ity in your deal­ings with un­be­liev­ing civil rulers. By dis­cre­tion show your­selves to be ex­pert in iron­ing out mi­nor dis­agree­ments and in ad­just­ing tri­fling mis­un­der­stand­ings. In ev­ery pos­si­ble way—in ev­ery­thing short of your spir­i­tual al­le­giance to the rulers of the uni­verse—seek to live peace­ably with all men. Be you al­ways as wise as ser­pents but as harm­less as doves.

178:1.8You should be made all the bet­ter cit­i­zens of the sec­u­lar gov­ern­ment as a re­sult of be­com­ing en­light­ened sons of the king­dom; so should the rulers of earthly gov­ern­ments be­come all the bet­ter rulers in civil af­fairs as a re­sult of be­liev­ing this gospel of the heav­enly king­dom. The at­ti­tude of un­selfish ser­vice of man and in­tel­li­gent wor­ship of God should make all king­dom be­liev­ers bet­ter world cit­i­zens, while the at­ti­tude of hon­est cit­i­zen­ship and sin­cere de­vo­tion to one’s tem­po­ral duty should help to make such a cit­i­zen the more eas­ily reached by the spirit call to son­ship in the heav­enly king­dom.

178:1.9So long as the rulers of earthly gov­ern­ments seek to ex­er­cise the au­thor­ity of re­li­gious dic­ta­tors, you who be­lieve this gospel can ex­pect only trou­ble, per­se­cu­tion, and even death. But the very light which you bear to the world, and even the very man­ner in which you will suf­fer and die for this gospel of the king­dom, will, in them­selves, even­tu­ally en­lighten the whole world and re­sult in the grad­ual di­vorce­ment of pol­i­tics and re­li­gion. The per­sis­tent preach­ing of this gospel of the king­dom will some day bring to all na­tions a new and un­be­liev­able lib­er­a­tion, in­tel­lec­tual free­dom, and re­li­gious lib­erty.

178:1.10Un­der the soon-com­ing per­se­cu­tions by those who hate this gospel of joy and lib­erty, you will thrive and the king­dom will pros­per. But you will stand in grave dan­ger in sub­se­quent times when most men will speak well of king­dom be­liev­ers and many in high places nom­i­nally ac­cept the gospel of the heav­enly king­dom. Learn to be faith­ful to the king­dom even in times of peace and pros­per­ity. Tempt not the an­gels of your super­vi­sion to lead you in trou­blous ways as a lov­ing dis­ci­pline de­signed to save your ease-drift­ing souls.

178:1.11Re­mem­ber that you are com­mis­sioned to preach this gospel of the king­dom—the su­preme de­sire to do the Fa­ther’s will cou­pled with the su­preme joy of the faith re­al­iza­tion of son­ship with God—and you must not al­low any­thing to di­vert your de­vo­tion to this one duty. Let all man­kind ben­e­fit from the over­flow of your lov­ing spir­i­tual min­istry, en­light­en­ing in­tel­lec­tual com­mu­nion, and up­lift­ing so­cial ser­vice; but none of these hu­man­i­tar­ian labors, nor all of them, should be per­mit­ted to take the place of pro­claim­ing the gospel. These mighty min­is­tra­tions are the so­cial by-prod­ucts of the still more mighty and sub­lime min­is­tra­tions and trans­for­ma­tions wrought in the heart of the king­dom be­liever by the liv­ing Spirit of Truth and by the per­sonal re­al­iza­tion that the faith of a spirit-born man con­fers the as­sur­ance of liv­ing fel­low­ship with the eter­nal God.

178:1.12You must not seek to pro­mul­gate truth nor to es­tab­lish righ­teous­ness by the power of civil gov­ern­ments or by the en­ac­tion of sec­u­lar laws. You may al­ways la­bor to per­suade men’s minds, but you must never dare to com­pel them. You must not for­get the great law of hu­man fair­ness which I have taught you in pos­i­tive form: What­so­ever you would that men should do to you, do even so to them.

178:1.13When a king­dom be­liever is called upon to serve the civil gov­ern­ment, let him ren­der such ser­vice as a tem­po­ral cit­i­zen of such a gov­ern­ment, al­beit such a be­liever should dis­play in his civil ser­vice all of the or­di­nary traits of cit­i­zen­ship as these have been en­hanced by the spir­i­tual en­light­en­ment of the en­nobling as­so­ci­a­tion of the mind of mor­tal man with the in­dwelling spirit of the eter­nal God. If the un­be­liever can qual­ify as a su­pe­rior civil ser­vant, you should se­ri­ously ques­tion whether the roots of truth in your heart have not died from the lack of the liv­ing wa­ters of com­bined spir­i­tual com­mu­nion and so­cial ser­vice. The con­scious­ness of son­ship with God should quicken the en­tire life ser­vice of ev­ery man, woman, and child who has be­come the pos­ses­sor of such a mighty stim­u­lus to all the in­her­ent pow­ers of a hu­man per­son­al­ity.

178:1.14You are not to be pas­sive mys­tics or col­or­less as­cetics; you should not be­come dream­ers and drifters, supinely trust­ing in a fic­ti­tious Prov­i­dence to pro­vide even the ne­ces­si­ties of life. You are in­deed to be gen­tle in your deal­ings with erring mor­tals, pa­tient in your in­ter­course with ig­no­rant men, and for­bear­ing un­der provo­ca­tion; but you are also to be valiant in de­fense of righ­teous­ness, mighty in the pro­mul­ga­tion of truth, and ag­gres­sive in the preach­ing of this gospel of the king­dom, even to the ends of the earth.

178:1.15This gospel of the king­dom is a liv­ing truth. I have told you it is like the leaven in the dough, like the grain of mus­tard seed; and now I de­clare that it is like the seed of the liv­ing be­ing, which, from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion, while it re­mains the same liv­ing seed, un­fail­ingly un­folds it­self in new man­i­fes­ta­tions and grows ac­cept­ably in chan­nels of new adap­ta­tion to the pe­cu­liar needs and con­di­tions of each suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tion. The rev­e­la­tion I have made to you is a liv­ing rev­e­la­tion, and I de­sire that it shall bear ap­pro­pri­ate fruits in each in­di­vid­ual and in each gen­er­a­tion in ac­cor­dance with the laws of spir­i­tual growth, in­crease, and adap­ta­tive de­vel­op­ment. From gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion this gospel must show in­creas­ing vi­tal­ity and ex­hibit greater depth of spir­i­tual power. It must not be per­mit­ted to be­come merely a sa­cred mem­ory, a mere tra­di­tion about me and the times in which we now live.

178:1.16And for­get not: We have made no di­rect at­tack upon the per­sons or upon the au­thor­ity of those who sit in Moses’ seat; we only of­fered them the new light, which they have so vig­or­ously re­jected. We have as­sailed them only by the de­nun­ci­a­tion of their spir­i­tual dis­loy­alty to the very truths which they pro­fess to teach and safe­guard. We clashed with these es­tab­lished lead­ers and rec­og­nized rulers only when they threw them­selves di­rectly in the way of the preach­ing of the gospel of the king­dom to the sons of men. And even now, it is not we who as­sail them, but they who seek our de­struc­tion. Do not for­get that you are com­mis­sioned to go forth preach­ing only the good news. You are not to at­tack the old ways; you are skill­fully to put the leaven of new truth in the midst of the old be­liefs. Let the Spirit of Truth do his own work. Let con­tro­versy come only when they who de­spise the truth force it upon you. But when the will­ful un­be­liever at­tacks you, do not hes­i­tate to stand in vig­or­ous de­fense of the truth which has saved and sanc­ti­fied you.

178:1.17Through­out the vi­cis­si­tudes of life, re­mem­ber al­ways to love one an­other. Do not strive with men, even with un­be­liev­ers. Show mercy even to those who de­spite­fully abuse you. Show your­selves to be loyal cit­i­zens, up­right ar­ti­sans, praise­wor­thy neigh­bors, de­voted kins­men, un­der­stand­ing par­ents, and sin­cere be­liev­ers in the broth­er­hood of the Fa­ther’s king­dom. And my spirit shall be upon you, now and even to the end of the world.

178:1.18When Je­sus had con­cluded his teach­ing, it was al­most one o’clock, and they im­me­di­ately went back to the camp, where David and his as­so­ciates had lunch ready for them.

179:5.1As they brought Je­sus the third cup of wine, the “cup of bless­ing,” he arose from the couch and, tak­ing the cup in his hands, blessed it, say­ing: “Take this cup, all of you, and drink of it. This shall be the cup of my re­mem­brance. This is the cup of the bless­ing of a new dis­pen­sa­tion of grace and truth. This shall be to you the em­blem of the be­stowal and min­istry of the di­vine Spirit of Truth. And I will not again drink this cup with you un­til I drink in new form with you in the Fa­ther’s eter­nal king­dom.”

179:5.2The apos­tles all sensed that some­thing out of the or­di­nary was tran­spir­ing as they drank of this cup of bless­ing in pro­found rev­er­ence and per­fect si­lence. The old Pass­over com­mem­o­rated the emer­gence of their fa­thers from a state of racial slav­ery into in­di­vid­ual free­dom; now the Mas­ter was in­sti­tut­ing a new re­mem­brance sup­per as a sym­bol of the new dis­pen­sa­tion wherein the en­slaved in­di­vid­ual emerges from the bond­age of cer­e­mo­ni­al­ism and self­ish­ness into the spir­i­tual joy of the broth­er­hood and fel­low­ship of the lib­er­ated faith sons of the liv­ing God.

179:5.3When they had fin­ished drink­ing this new cup of re­mem­brance, the Mas­ter took up the bread and, af­ter giv­ing thanks, broke it in pieces and, di­rect­ing them to pass it around, said: “Take this bread of re­mem­brance and eat it. I have told you that I am the bread of life. And this bread of life is the united life of the Fa­ther and the Son in one gift. The word of the Fa­ther, as re­vealed in the Son, is in­deed the bread of life.” When they had par­taken of the bread of re­mem­brance, the sym­bol of the liv­ing word of truth in­car­nated in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, they all sat down.

179:5.4In in­sti­tut­ing this re­mem­brance sup­per, the Mas­ter, as was al­ways his habit, re­sorted to para­bles and sym­bols. He em­ployed sym­bols be­cause he wanted to teach cer­tain great spir­i­tual truths in such a man­ner as to make it dif­fi­cult for his suc­ces­sors to at­tach pre­cise in­ter­pre­ta­tions and def­i­nite mean­ings to his words. In this way he sought to pre­vent suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions from crys­tal­liz­ing his teach­ing and bind­ing down his spir­i­tual mean­ings by the dead chains of tra­di­tion and dogma. In the es­tab­lish­ment of the only cer­e­mony or sacra­ment as­so­ci­ated with his whole life mis­sion, Je­sus took great pains to sug­gest his mean­ings rather than to com­mit him­self to pre­cise def­i­ni­tions. He did not wish to de­stroy the in­di­vid­ual’s con­cept of di­vine com­mu­nion by es­tab­lish­ing a pre­cise form; nei­ther did he de­sire to limit the be­liever’s spir­i­tual imag­i­na­tion by for­mally cramp­ing it. He rather sought to set man’s re­born soul free upon the joy­ous wings of a new and liv­ing spir­i­tual lib­erty.

179:5.5Not­with­stand­ing the Mas­ter’s ef­fort thus to es­tab­lish this new sacra­ment of the re­mem­brance, those who fol­lowed af­ter him in the in­ter­ven­ing cen­turies saw to it that his ex­press de­sire was ef­fec­tively thwarted in that his sim­ple spir­i­tual sym­bol­ism of that last night in the flesh has been re­duced to pre­cise in­ter­pre­ta­tions and sub­jected to the al­most math­e­mat­i­cal pre­ci­sion of a set for­mula. Of all Je­sus’ teach­ings none have be­come more tra­di­tion-stan­dard­ized.

179:5.6This sup­per of re­mem­brance, when it is par­taken of by those who are Son-be­liev­ing and God-know­ing, does not need to have as­so­ci­ated with its sym­bol­ism any of man’s puerile mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tions re­gard­ing the mean­ing of the di­vine pres­ence, for upon all such oc­ca­sions the Mas­ter is re­ally pres­ent. The re­mem­brance sup­per is the be­liever’s sym­bolic ren­dezvous with Mi­chael. When you be­come thus spirit-con­scious, the Son is ac­tu­ally pres­ent, and his spirit frat­er­nizes with the in­dwelling frag­ment of his Fa­ther.

179:5.7Af­ter they had en­gaged in med­i­ta­tion for a few mo­ments, Je­sus con­tin­ued speak­ing: “When you do these things, re­call the life I have lived on earth among you and re­joice that I am to con­tinue to live on earth with you and to serve through you. As in­di­vid­u­als, con­tend not among your­selves as to who shall be great­est. Be you all as breth­ren. And when the king­dom grows to em­brace large groups of be­liev­ers, like­wise should you re­frain from con­tend­ing for great­ness or seek­ing prefer­ment be­tween such groups.”

179:5.8And this mighty oc­ca­sion took place in the up­per cham­ber of a friend. There was noth­ing of sa­cred form or of cer­e­mo­nial con­se­cra­tion about ei­ther the sup­per or the build­ing. The re­mem­brance sup­per was es­tab­lished with­out ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal sanc­tion.

179:5.9When Je­sus had thus es­tab­lished the sup­per of the re­mem­brance, he said to the eleven: “And as of­ten as you do this, do it in re­mem­brance of me. And when you do re­mem­ber me, first look back upon my life in the flesh, re­call that I was once with you, and then, by faith, dis­cern that you shall all some­time sup with me in the Fa­ther’s eter­nal king­dom. This is the new Pass­over which I leave with you, even the mem­ory of my be­stowal life, the word of eter­nal truth; and of my love for you, the out­pour­ing of my Spirit of Truth upon all flesh.”

179:5.10And they ended this cel­e­bra­tion of the old but blood­less Pass­over in con­nec­tion with the in­au­gu­ra­tion of the new sup­per of the re­mem­brance, by singing, all to­gether, the one hun­dred and eigh­teenth Psalm.

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.

180:2.1Then Je­sus stood up again and con­tin­ued teach­ing his apos­tles: “I am the true vine, and my Fa­ther is the hus­band­man. I am the vine, and you are the branches. And the Fa­ther re­quires of me only that you shall bear much fruit. The vine is pruned only to in­crease the fruit­ful­ness of its branches. Ev­ery branch com­ing out of me which bears no fruit, the Fa­ther will take away. Ev­ery branch which bears fruit, the Fa­ther will cleanse that it may bear more fruit. Al­ready are you clean through the word I have spo­ken, but you must con­tinue to be clean. You must abide in me, and I in you; the branch will die if it is sep­a­rated from the vine. As the branch can­not bear fruit ex­cept it abides in the vine, so nei­ther can you yield the fruits of lov­ing ser­vice ex­cept you abide in me. Re­mem­ber: I am the real vine, and you are the liv­ing branches. He who lives in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit of the spirit and ex­pe­ri­ence the su­preme joy of yield­ing this spir­i­tual har­vest. If you will main­tain this liv­ing spir­i­tual con­nec­tion with me, you will bear abun­dant fruit. If you abide in me and my words live in you, you will be able to com­mune freely with me, and then can my liv­ing spirit so in­fuse you that you may ask what­so­ever my spirit wills and do all this with the as­sur­ance that the Fa­ther will grant us our pe­ti­tion. Herein is the Fa­ther glo­ri­fied: that the vine has many liv­ing branches, and that ev­ery branch bears much fruit. And when the world sees these fruit-bear­ing branches—my friends who love one an­other, even as I have loved them—all men will know that you are truly my dis­ci­ples.

180:2.2“As the Fa­ther has loved me, so have I loved you. Live in my love even as I live in the Fa­ther’s love. If you do as I have taught you, you shall abide in my love even as I have kept the Fa­ther’s word and ev­er­more abide in his love.”

180:2.3The Jews had long taught that the Mes­siah would be “a stem aris­ing out of the vine” of David’s an­ces­tors, and in com­mem­o­ra­tion of this olden teach­ing a large em­blem of the grape and its at­tached vine dec­o­rated the en­trance to Herod’s tem­ple. The apos­tles all re­called these things while the Mas­ter talked to them this night in the up­per cham­ber.

180:2.4But great sor­row later at­tended the mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Mas­ter’s in­fer­ences re­gard­ing prayer. There would have been lit­tle dif­fi­culty about these teach­ings if his ex­act words had been re­mem­bered and sub­se­quently truth­fully re­corded. But as the rec­ord was made, be­liev­ers even­tu­ally re­garded prayer in Je­sus’ name as a sort of su­preme magic, think­ing that they would re­ceive from the Fa­ther any­thing they asked for. For cen­turies hon­est souls have con­tin­ued to wreck their faith against this stum­bling block. How long will it take the world of be­liev­ers to un­der­stand that prayer is not a pro­cess of get­ting your way but rather a pro­gram of tak­ing God’s way, an ex­pe­ri­ence of learn­ing how to rec­og­nize and ex­e­cute the Fa­ther’s will? It is en­tirely true that, when your will has been truly aligned with his, you can ask any­thing con­ceived by that will-union, and it will be granted. And such a will-union is ef­fected by and through Je­sus even as the life of the vine flows into and through the liv­ing branches.

180:2.5When there ex­ists this liv­ing con­nec­tion be­tween di­vin­ity and hu­man­ity, if hu­man­ity should thought­lessly and ig­no­rantly pray for self­ish ease and vain­glo­ri­ous ac­com­plish­ments, there could be only one di­vine an­swer: more and in­creased bear­ing of the fruits of the spirit on the stems of the liv­ing branches. When the branch of the vine is alive, there can be only one an­swer to all its pe­ti­tions: in­creased grape bear­ing. In fact, the branch ex­ists only for, and can do noth­ing ex­cept, fruit bear­ing, yield­ing grapes. So does the true be­liever ex­ist only for the pur­pose of bear­ing the fruits of the spirit: to love man as he him­self has been loved by God—that we should love one an­other, even as Je­sus has loved us.

180:2.6And when the Fa­ther’s hand of dis­ci­pline is laid upon the vine, it is done in love, in or­der that the branches may bear much fruit. And a wise hus­band­man cuts away only the dead and fruit­less branches.

180:2.7Je­sus had great dif­fi­culty in lead­ing even his apos­tles to rec­og­nize that prayer is a func­tion of spirit-born be­liev­ers in the spirit-dom­i­nated king­dom.

180:3.1The eleven had scarcely ceased their dis­cus­sions of the dis­course on the vine and the branches when the Mas­ter, in­di­cat­ing that he was de­sirous of speak­ing to them fur­ther and know­ing that his time was short, said: “When I have left you, be not dis­cour­aged by the en­mity of the world. Be not down­cast even when faint­hearted be­liev­ers turn against you and join hands with the en­e­mies of the king­dom. If the world shall hate you, you should re­call that it hated me even be­fore it hated you. If you were of this world, then would the world love its own, but be­cause you are not, the world re­fuses to love you. You are in this world, but your lives are not to be world­like. I have cho­sen you out of the world to rep­re­sent the spirit of an­other world even to this world from which you have been cho­sen. But al­ways re­mem­ber the words I have spo­ken to you: The ser­vant is not greater than his mas­ter. If they dare to per­se­cute me, they will also per­se­cute you. If my words of­fend the un­be­liev­ers, so also will your words of­fend the un­godly. And all of this will they do to you be­cause they be­lieve not in me nor in Him who sent me; so will you suf­fer many things for the sake of my gospel. But when you en­dure these tribu­la­tions, you should re­call that I also suf­fered be­fore you for the sake of this gospel of the heav­enly king­dom.

180:3.2“Many of those who will as­sail you are ig­no­rant of the light of heaven, but this is not true of some who now per­se­cute us. If we had not taught them the truth, they might do many strange things with­out falling un­der con­dem­na­tion, but now, since they have known the light and pre­sumed to re­ject it, they have no ex­cuse for their at­ti­tude. He who hates me hates my Fa­ther. It can­not be oth­er­wise; the light which would save you if ac­cepted can only con­demn you if it is know­ingly re­jected. And what have I done to these men that they should hate me with such a ter­ri­ble ha­tred? Noth­ing, save to of­fer them fel­low­ship on earth and sal­va­tion in heaven. But have you not read in the Scrip­ture the say­ing: ‘And they hated me with­out a cause’?

180:3.3“But I will not leave you alone in the world. Very soon, af­ter I have gone, I will send you a spirit helper. You shall have with you one who will take my place among you, one who will con­tinue to teach you the way of truth, who will even com­fort you.

180:3.4“Let not your hearts be trou­bled. You be­lieve in God; con­tinue to be­lieve also in me. Even though I must leave you, I will not be far from you. I have al­ready told you that in my Fa­ther’s uni­verse there are many tar­ry­ing-places. If this were not true, I would not have re­peat­edly told you about them. I am go­ing to re­turn to these worlds of light, sta­tions in the Fa­ther’s heaven to which you shall some­time as­cend. From these places I came into this world, and the hour is now at hand when I must re­turn to my Fa­ther’s work in the spheres on high.

180:3.5“If I thus go be­fore you into the Fa­ther’s heav­enly king­dom, so will I surely send for you that you may be with me in the places that were pre­pared for the mor­tal sons of God be­fore this world was. Even though I must leave you, I will be pres­ent with you in spirit, and even­tu­ally you shall be with me in per­son when you have as­cended to me in my uni­verse even as I am about to as­cend to my Fa­ther in his greater uni­verse. And what I have told you is true and ev­er­last­ing, even though you may not fully com­pre­hend it. I go to the Fa­ther, and though you can­not now fol­low me, you shall cer­tainly fol­low me in the ages to come.”

180:3.6When Je­sus sat down, Thomas arose and said: “Mas­ter, we do not know where you are go­ing; so of course we do not know the way. But we will fol­low you this very night if you will show us the way.”

180:3.7When Je­sus heard Thomas, he an­swered: “Thomas, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man goes to the Fa­ther ex­cept through me. All who find the Fa­ther, first find me. If you know me, you know the way to the Fa­ther. And you do know me, for you have lived with me and you now see me.”

180:3.8But this teach­ing was too deep for many of the apos­tles, es­pe­cially for Philip, who, af­ter speak­ing a few words with Na­than­iel, arose and said: “Mas­ter, show us the Fa­ther, and ev­ery­thing you have said will be made plain.”

180:3.9And when Philip had spo­ken, Je­sus said: “Philip, have I been so long with you and yet you do not even now know me? Again do I de­clare: He who has seen me has seen the Fa­ther. How can you then say, Show us the Fa­ther? Do you not be­lieve that I am in the Fa­ther and the Fa­ther in me? Have I not taught you that the words which I speak are not my words but the words of the Fa­ther? I speak for the Fa­ther and not of my­self. I am in this world to do the Fa­ther’s will, and that I have done. My Fa­ther abides in me and works through me. Be­lieve me when I say that the Fa­ther is in me, and that I am in the Fa­ther, or else be­lieve me for the sake of the very life I have lived—for the work’s sake.”

180:3.10As the Mas­ter went aside to re­fresh him­self with wa­ter, the eleven en­gaged in a spir­ited dis­cus­sion of these teach­ings, and Pe­ter was be­gin­ning to de­liver him­self of an ex­tended speech when Je­sus re­turned and beck­oned them to be seated.

• sonship and citizenship

181:2.10Si­mon wanted to speak fur­ther, but Je­sus raised his hand and, stop­ping him, went on to say: “None of my apos­tles are more sin­cere and hon­est at heart than you, but not one of them will be so up­set and dis­heart­ened as you, af­ter my de­par­ture. In all of your dis­cour­age­ment my spirit shall abide with you, and these, your breth­ren, will not for­sake you. Do not for­get what I have taught you re­gard­ing the re­la­tion of cit­i­zen­ship on earth to son­ship in the Fa­ther’s spir­i­tual king­dom. Pon­der well all that I have said to you about ren­der­ing to Cae­sar the things which are Cae­sar’s and to God that which is God’s. Ded­i­cate your life, Si­mon, to show­ing how ac­cept­ably mor­tal man may ful­fill my in­junc­tion con­cern­ing the si­mul­ta­ne­ous rec­og­ni­tion of tem­po­ral duty to civil pow­ers and spir­i­tual ser­vice in the broth­er­hood of the king­dom. If you will be taught by the Spirit of Truth, never will there be con­flict be­tween the re­quire­ments of cit­i­zen­ship on earth and son­ship in heaven un­less the tem­po­ral rulers pre­sume to re­quire of you the homage and wor­ship which be­long only to God.

157:4.5Je­sus, still stand­ing, then said to the twelve: “You are my cho­sen am­bas­sadors, but I know that, in the cir­cum­stances, you could not en­ter­tain this be­lief as a re­sult of mere hu­man knowl­edge. This is a rev­e­la­tion of the spirit of my Fa­ther to your in­most souls. And when, there­fore, you make this con­fes­sion by the in­sight of the spirit of my Fa­ther which dwells within you, I am led to de­clare that upon this foun­da­tion will I build the broth­er­hood of the king­dom of heaven. Upon this rock of spir­i­tual re­al­ity will I build the liv­ing tem­ple of spir­i­tual fel­low­ship in the eter­nal re­al­i­ties of my Fa­ther’s king­dom. All the forces of evil and the hosts of sin shall not pre­vail against this hu­man fra­ter­nity of the di­vine spirit. And while my Fa­ther’s spirit shall ever be the di­vine guide and men­tor of all who en­ter the bonds of this spirit fel­low­ship, to you and your suc­ces­sors I now de­liver the keys of the out­ward king­dom—the au­thor­ity over things tem­po­ral—the so­cial and eco­nomic fea­tures of this as­so­ci­a­tion of men and women as fel­lows of the king­dom.” And again he charged them, for the time be­ing, that they should tell no man that he was the Son of God.

157:4.7And ever since that day this same Je­sus has been build­ing that liv­ing tem­ple upon that same eter­nal foun­da­tion of his di­vine son­ship, and those who thereby be­come self-con­scious sons of God are the hu­man stones which con­sti­tute this liv­ing tem­ple of son­ship erect­ing to the glory and honor of the wis­dom and love of the eter­nal Fa­ther of spir­its.

191:5.3“Peace be upon you. For a full week have I tar­ried that I might ap­pear again when you were all pres­ent to hear once more the com­mis­sion to go into all the world and preach this gospel of the king­dom. Again I tell you: As the Fa­ther sent me into the world, so send I you. As I have re­vealed the Fa­ther, so shall you re­veal the di­vine love, not merely with words, but in your daily liv­ing. I send you forth, not to love the souls of men, but rather to love men. You are not merely to pro­claim the joys of heaven but also to ex­hibit in your daily ex­pe­ri­ence these spirit re­al­i­ties of the di­vine life since you al­ready have eter­nal life, as the gift of God, through faith. When you have faith, when power from on high, the Spirit of Truth, has come upon you, you will not hide your light here be­hind closed doors; you will make known the love and the mercy of God to all man­kind. Through fear you now flee from the facts of a dis­agree­able ex­pe­ri­ence, but when you shall have been bap­tized with the Spirit of Truth, you will bravely and joy­ously go forth to meet the new ex­pe­ri­ences of pro­claim­ing the good news of eter­nal life in the king­dom of God. You may tarry here and in Gal­i­lee for a short sea­son while you re­cover from the shock of the tran­si­tion from the false se­cu­rity of the au­thor­ity of tra­di­tion­al­ism to the new or­der of the au­thor­ity of facts, truth, and faith in the su­preme re­al­i­ties of liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. Your mis­sion to the world is founded on the fact that I lived a God-re­veal­ing life among you; on the truth that you and all other men are the sons of God; and it shall con­sist in the life which you will live among men—the ac­tual and liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of lov­ing men and serv­ing them, even as I have loved and served you. Let faith re­veal your light to the world; let the rev­e­la­tion of truth open the eyes blinded by tra­di­tion; let your lov­ing ser­vice ef­fec­tu­ally de­stroy the prej­u­dice en­gen­dered by ig­no­rance. By so draw­ing close to your fel­low men in un­der­stand­ing sym­pa­thy and with un­selfish de­vo­tion, you will lead them into a sav­ing knowl­edge of the Fa­ther’s love. The Jews have ex­tolled good­ness; the Greeks have ex­alted beauty; the Hin­dus preach de­vo­tion; the far­away as­cetics teach rev­er­ence; the Ro­mans de­mand loy­alty; but I re­quire of my dis­ci­ples life, even a life of lov­ing ser­vice for your broth­ers in the flesh.”

123:5.8Je­sus re­ceived his moral train­ing and spir­i­tual cul­ture chiefly in his own home. He se­cured much of his in­tel­lec­tual and the­o­log­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion from the chazan. But his real ed­u­ca­tion—that equip­ment of mind and heart for the ac­tual test of grap­pling with the dif­fi­cult prob­lems of life—he ob­tained by min­gling with his fel­low men. It was this close as­so­ci­a­tion with his fel­low men, young and old, Jew and gen­tile, that af­forded him the op­por­tu­nity to know the hu­man race. Je­sus was highly ed­u­cated in that he thor­oughly un­der­stood men and de­vot­edly loved them.

124:3.3Je­sus spent con­sid­er­able time at the car­a­van sup­ply shop, and by con­vers­ing with the trav­el­ers from all parts of the world, he ac­quired a store of in­for­ma­tion about in­ter­na­tional af­fairs that was amaz­ing, con­sid­er­ing his age. This was the last year in which he en­joyed much free play and youth­ful joy­ous­ness. From this time on dif­fi­cul­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties rapidly mul­ti­plied in the life of this youth.

125:2.12Af­ter all, Pass­over week had been a great event in Je­sus’ life. He had en­joyed the op­por­tu­nity of meet­ing scores of boys about his own age, fel­low can­di­dates for the con­se­cra­tion, and he uti­lized such con­tacts as a means of learn­ing how peo­ple lived in Mes­o­po­ta­mia, Tur­kes­tan, and Parthia, as well as in the Far-West­ern prov­inces of Rome. He was al­ready fairly con­ver­sant with the way in which the youth of Egypt and other re­gions near Pales­tine grew up. There were thou­sands of young peo­ple in Je­ru­sa­lem at this time, and the Naz­a­reth lad per­son­ally met, and more or less ex­ten­sively in­ter­viewed, more than one hun­dred and fifty. He was par­tic­u­larly in­ter­ested in those who hailed from the Far-East­ern and the re­mote West­ern coun­tries. As a re­sult of these con­tacts the lad be­gan to en­ter­tain a de­sire to travel about the world for the pur­pose of learn­ing how the var­i­ous groups of his fel­low men toiled for their liveli­hood.

128:2.5Liv­ing much of the time in Sep­pho­ris for six months af­forded Je­sus a new op­por­tu­nity to be­come bet­ter ac­quainted with the gen­tile view­point of life. He worked with gen­tiles, lived with gen­tiles, and in ev­ery pos­si­ble man­ner did he make a close and painstak­ing study of their habits of liv­ing and of the gen­tile mind.

128:3.4Si­mon greatly en­joyed his visit to Je­ru­sa­lem. He was duly re­ceived into the com­mon­wealth of Is­rael at the Pass­over con­se­cra­tion of the new sons of the com­mand­ment. While Si­mon at­tended the Pass­over cer­e­monies, Je­sus min­gled with the throngs of vis­i­tors and en­gaged in many in­ter­est­ing per­sonal con­fer­ences with nu­mer­ous gen­tile pros­e­lytes.

129:1.7Through­out this year Je­sus built boats and con­tin­ued to ob­serve how men lived on earth. Fre­quently he would go down to visit at the car­a­van sta­tion, Ca­per­naum be­ing on the di­rect travel route from Da­mas­cus to the south. Ca­per­naum was a strong Ro­man mil­i­tary post, and the gar­ri­son’s com­mand­ing of­fi­cer was a gen­tile be­liever in Yah­weh, “a de­vout man,” as the Jews were wont to des­ig­nate such pros­e­lytes. This of­fi­cer be­longed to a wealthy Ro­man fam­ily, and he took it upon him­self to build a beau­ti­ful syn­a­gogue in Ca­per­naum, which had been pre­sented to the Jews a short time be­fore Je­sus came to live with Zeb­e­dee. Je­sus con­ducted the ser­vices in this new syn­a­gogue more than half the time this year, and some of the car­a­van peo­ple who chanced to at­tend re­mem­bered him as the car­pen­ter from Naz­a­reth.

129:3.7The Son of Man, dur­ing the time and through the ex­pe­ri­ences of this tour of the Ro­man world, prac­ti­cally com­pleted his ed­u­ca­tional con­tact-train­ing with the di­ver­si­fied peo­ples of the world of his day and gen­er­a­tion. By the time of his re­turn to Naz­a­reth, through the medium of this travel-train­ing he had just about learned how man lived and wrought out his ex­is­tence on Uran­tia.

130:0.5On this Med­i­ter­ra­nean tour Je­sus spent about half of each day teach­ing Ga­nid and act­ing as in­ter­preter dur­ing Gonod’s busi­ness con­fer­ences and so­cial con­tacts. The re­main­der of each day, which was at his dis­posal, he de­voted to mak­ing those close per­sonal con­tacts with his fel­low men, those in­ti­mate as­so­ci­a­tions with the mor­tals of the realm, which so char­ac­ter­ized his ac­tiv­i­ties dur­ing these years that just pre­ceded his pub­lic min­istry.

130:0.6From first­hand ob­ser­va­tion and ac­tual con­tact Je­sus ac­quainted him­self with the higher ma­te­rial and in­tel­lec­tual civ­i­liza­tion of the Oc­ci­dent and the Lev­ant; from Gonod and his bril­liant son he learned a great deal about the civ­i­liza­tion and cul­ture of In­dia and China, for Gonod, him­self a cit­i­zen of In­dia, had made three ex­ten­sive trips to the em­pire of the yel­low race.

132:4.1Je­sus did not de­vote all his leisure while in Rome to this work of prepar­ing men and women to be­come fu­ture dis­ci­ples in the on­com­ing king­dom. He spent much time gain­ing an in­ti­mate knowl­edge of all races and classes of men who lived in this, the largest and most cos­mopoli­tan city of the world. In each of these nu­mer­ous hu­man con­tacts Je­sus had a dou­ble pur­pose: He de­sired to learn their re­ac­tions to the life they were liv­ing in the flesh, and he was also minded to say or do some­thing to make that life richer and more worth while. His re­li­gious teach­ings dur­ing these weeks were no dif­fer­ent than those which char­ac­ter­ized his later life as teacher of the twelve and preacher to the mul­ti­tudes.

134:0.1Dur­ing the Med­i­ter­ra­nean jour­ney Je­sus had care­fully stud­ied the peo­ple he met and the coun­tries through which he passed, and at about this time he reached his fi­nal de­ci­sion as to the re­main­der of his life on earth. He had fully con­sid­ered and now fi­nally ap­proved the plan which pro­vided that he be born of Jew­ish par­ents in Pales­tine, and he there­fore de­lib­er­ately re­turned to Gal­i­lee to await the be­gin­ning of his life­work as a pub­lic teacher of truth; he be­gan to lay plans for a pub­lic ca­reer in the land of his fa­ther Joseph’s peo­ple, and he did this of his own free will.

134:7.3At An­ti­och the Son of Man lived for over two months, work­ing, ob­serv­ing, study­ing, vis­it­ing, min­is­ter­ing, and all the while learn­ing how man lives, how he thinks, feels, and re­acts to the en­vi­ron­ment of hu­man ex­is­tence. For three weeks of this pe­riod he worked as a tent­maker. He re­mained longer in An­ti­och than at any other place he vis­ited on this trip. Ten years later, when the Apos­tle Paul was preach­ing in An­ti­och and heard his fol­low­ers speak of the doc­trines of the Da­mas­cus scribe, he lit­tle knew that his pupils had heard the voice, and lis­tened to the teach­ings, of the Mas­ter him­self.

161:2.43. We think Je­sus is di­vine be­cause he never does wrong; he makes no mis­takes. His wis­dom is ex­traor­di­nary; his piety su­perb. He lives day by day in per­fect ac­cord with the Fa­ther’s will. He never re­pents of mis­deeds be­cause he trans­gresses none of the Fa­ther’s laws. He prays for us and with us, but he never asks us to pray for him. We be­lieve that he is con­sis­tently sin­less. We do not think that one who is only hu­man ever pro­fessed to live such a life. He claims to live a per­fect life, and we ac­knowl­edge that he does. Our piety springs from re­pen­tance, but his piety springs from righ­teous­ness. He even pro­fesses to for­give sins and does heal dis­eases. No mere man would sanely pro­fess to for­give sin; that is a di­vine pre­rog­a­tive. And he has seemed to be thus per­fect in his righ­teous­ness from the times of our first con­tact with him. We grow in grace and in the knowl­edge of the truth, but our Mas­ter ex­hibits ma­tu­rity of righ­teous­ness to start with. All men, good and evil, rec­og­nize these el­e­ments of good­ness in Je­sus. And yet never is his piety ob­tru­sive or os­ten­ta­tious. He is both meek and fear­less. He seems to ap­prove of our be­lief in his di­vin­ity. He is ei­ther what he pro­fesses to be, or else he is the great­est hyp­ocrite and fraud the world has ever known. We are per­suaded that he is just what he claims to be.

• told to be about Father’s business

37:2.8One of the high du­ties of the Evening Stars is to ac­com­pany the Avo­nal be­stowal Sons on their plan­e­tary mis­sions, even as Ga­briel ac­com­pa­nied Mi­chael on his Uran­tia be­stowal. The two at­tend­ing super­an­gels are the rank­ing per­son­al­i­ties of such mis­sions, serv­ing as co­com­man­ders of the arch­an­gels and all oth­ers as­signed to these un­der­tak­ings. It is the se­nior of these super­an­gel com­man­ders who, at the sig­nif­i­cant time and age, bids the Avo­nal be­stowal Son, “Be about your brother’s busi­ness.”

• birth › Vevona heralded

39:5.53. The Souls of Peace. The early mil­len­ni­ums of the up­ward striv­ings of evo­lu­tion­ary men are marked by many a strug­gle. Peace is not the nat­u­ral state of the ma­te­rial realms. The worlds first re­al­ize “peace on earth and good will among men” through the min­istry of the se­raphic souls of peace. Al­though these an­gels were largely thwarted in their early ef­forts on Uran­tia, Vevona, chief of the souls of peace in Adam’s day, was left on Uran­tia and is now at­tached to the staff of the res­i­dent gov­er­nor gen­eral. And it was this same Vevona who, when Mi­chael was born, her­alded to the worlds, as the leader of the an­gelic host, “Glory to God in Ha­vona and on earth peace and good will among men.”

• resurrection › on third day

52:5.6Upon the res­ur­rec­tion of a be­stowal Son, on the third day af­ter yield­ing up his in­car­nated life, he as­cends to the right hand of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, re­ceives the as­sur­ance of the ac­cep­tance of the be­stowal mis­sion, and re­turns to the Cre­ator Son at the head­quar­ters of the lo­cal uni­verse. There­upon the be­stowal Avo­nal and the Cre­ator Mi­chael send their joint spirit, the Spirit of Truth, into the be­stowal world. This is the oc­ca­sion when the “spirit of the tri­umphant Son is poured out upon all flesh.” The Uni­verse Mother Spirit also par­tic­i­pates in this be­stowal of the Spirit of Truth, and con­comi­tant there­with there is­sues the be­stowal edict of the Thought Ad­justers. There­after all nor­mal-minded will crea­tures of that world will re­ceive Ad­justers as soon as they at­tain the age of moral re­spon­si­bil­ity, of spir­i­tual choice.

• taken to Egypt as child

95:5.2Since the dis­ap­pear­ance of Mel­chiz­e­dek in the flesh, no hu­man be­ing up to that time had pos­sessed such an amaz­ingly clear con­cept of the re­vealed re­li­gion of Salem as Ikh­na­ton. In some re­spects this young Egyp­tian king is one of the most re­mark­able per­sons in hu­man his­tory. Dur­ing this time of in­creas­ing spir­i­tual de­pres­sion in Mes­o­po­ta­mia, he kept alive the doc­trine of El Elyon, the One God, in Egypt, thus main­tain­ing the philo­sophic mono­the­is­tic chan­nel which was vi­tal to the re­li­gious back­ground of the then fu­ture be­stowal of Mi­chael. And it was in rec­og­ni­tion of this ex­ploit, among other rea­sons, that the child Je­sus was taken to Egypt, where some of the spir­i­tual suc­ces­sors of Ikh­na­ton saw him and to some ex­tent un­der­stood cer­tain phases of his di­vine mis­sion to Uran­tia.

• morontia appearances › morontia transit

101:6.5Christ Mi­chael, when be­stowed on Uran­tia, lived un­der the reign of evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion up to the time of his bap­tism. From that mo­ment up to and in­clud­ing the event of his cru­ci­fix­ion he car­ried for­ward his work by the com­bined guid­ance of evo­lu­tion­ary and re­vealed re­li­gion. From the morn­ing of his res­ur­rec­tion un­til his as­cen­sion he tra­versed the man­i­fold phases of the mor­ontia life of mor­tal tran­si­tion from the world of mat­ter to that of spirit. Af­ter his as­cen­sion Mi­chael be­came mas­ter of the ex­pe­ri­ence of Su­prem­acy, the re­al­iza­tion of the Su­preme; and be­ing the one per­son in Neb­a­don pos­sessed of un­lim­ited ca­pac­ity to ex­pe­ri­ence the re­al­ity of the Su­preme, he forth­with at­tained to the sta­tus of the sov­er­eignty of su­prem­acy in and to his lo­cal uni­verse.

• birth › midwayers revealed to Chaldean priests

119:7.6Cer­tain wise men of earth knew of Mi­chael’s im­pend­ing ar­rival. Through the con­tacts of one world with an­other, these wise men of spir­i­tual in­sight learned of the forth­com­ing be­stowal of Mi­chael on Uran­tia. And the ser­a­phim did, through the mid­way crea­tures, make an­nounce­ment to a group of Chaldean priests whose leader was Ard­non. These men of God vis­ited the new­born child in the manger. The only super­nat­u­ral event as­so­ci­ated with the birth of Je­sus was this an­nounce­ment to Ard­non and his as­so­ciates by the ser­a­phim of for­mer at­tach­ment to Adam and Eve in the first gar­den.

122:8.1All that night Mary was rest­less so that nei­ther of them slept much. By the break of day the pangs of child­birth were well in ev­i­dence, and at noon, Au­gust 21, 7 B.C., with the help and kind min­is­tra­tions of women fel­low trav­el­ers, Mary was de­liv­ered of a male child. Je­sus of Naz­a­reth was born into the world, was wrapped in the clothes which Mary had brought along for such a pos­si­ble con­tin­gency, and laid in a near-by manger.

122:8.2In just the same man­ner as all ba­bies be­fore that day and since have come into the world, the prom­ised child was born; and on the eighth day, ac­cord­ing to the Jew­ish prac­tice, he was cir­cum­cised and for­mally named Joshua (Je­sus).

122:8.3The next day af­ter the birth of Je­sus, Joseph made his en­roll­ment. Meet­ing a man they had talked with two nights pre­vi­ously at Jeri­cho, Joseph was taken by him to a well-to-do friend who had a room at the inn, and who said he would gladly ex­change quar­ters with the Naz­a­reth cou­ple. That af­ter­noon they moved up to the inn, where they lived for al­most three weeks un­til they found lodg­ings in the home of a dis­tant rel­a­tive of Joseph.

122:8.4The sec­ond day af­ter the birth of Je­sus, Mary sent word to Eliz­a­beth that her child had come and re­ceived word in re­turn invit­ing Joseph up to Je­ru­sa­lem to talk over all their af­fairs with Zach­a­rias. The fol­low­ing week Joseph went to Je­ru­sa­lem to con­fer with Zach­a­rias. Both Zach­a­rias and Eliz­a­beth had be­come pos­sessed with the sin­cere con­vic­tion that Je­sus was in­deed to be­come the Jew­ish de­liv­erer, the Mes­siah, and that their son John was to be his chief of aides, his right-hand man of des­tiny. And since Mary held these same ideas, it was not dif­fi­cult to pre­vail upon Joseph to re­main in Beth­le­hem, the City of David, so that Je­sus might grow up to be­come the suc­ces­sor of David on the throne of all Is­rael. Ac­cord­ingly, they re­mained in Beth­le­hem more than a year, Joseph mean­time work­ing some at his car­pen­ter’s trade.

122:8.5At the noon­tide birth of Je­sus the ser­a­phim of Uran­tia, as­sem­bled un­der their di­rec­tors, did sing an­thems of glory over the Beth­le­hem manger, but these ut­ter­ances of praise were not heard by hu­man ears. No shep­herds nor any other mor­tal crea­tures came to pay homage to the babe of Beth­le­hem un­til the day of the ar­rival of cer­tain priests from Ur, who were sent down from Je­ru­sa­lem by Zach­a­rias.

122:8.6These priests from Mes­o­po­ta­mia had been told some­time be­fore by a strange re­li­gious teacher of their coun­try that he had had a dream in which he was in­formed that “the light of life” was about to ap­pear on earth as a babe and among the Jews. And thither went these three teach­ers look­ing for this “light of life.” Af­ter many weeks of fu­tile search in Je­ru­sa­lem, they were about to re­turn to Ur when Zach­a­rias met them and dis­closed his be­lief that Je­sus was the ob­ject of their quest and sent them on to Beth­le­hem, where they found the babe and left their gifts with Mary, his earth mother. The babe was al­most three weeks old at the time of their visit.

122:8.7These wise men saw no star to guide them to Beth­le­hem. The beau­ti­ful leg­end of the star of Beth­le­hem orig­i­nated in this way: Je­sus was born Au­gust 21 at noon, 7 B.C. On May 29, 7 B.C., there oc­curred an ex­traor­di­nary con­junc­tion of Jupiter and Sat­urn in the con­stel­la­tion of Pisces. And it is a re­mark­able as­tro­nomic fact that sim­i­lar con­junc­tions oc­curred on Septem­ber 29 and De­cem­ber 5 of the same year. Upon the ba­sis of these ex­traor­di­nary but wholly nat­u­ral events the well-mean­ing zealots of the suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tion con­structed the ap­peal­ing leg­end of the star of Beth­le­hem and the ador­ing Magi led thereby to the manger, where they be­held and wor­shiped the new­born babe. Ori­en­tal and near-Ori­en­tal minds de­light in fairy sto­ries, and they are con­tin­u­ally spin­ning such beau­ti­ful myths about the lives of their re­li­gious lead­ers and po­lit­i­cal heroes. In the ab­sence of print­ing, when most hu­man knowl­edge was passed by word of mouth from one gen­er­a­tion to an­other, it was very easy for myths to be­come tra­di­tions and for tra­di­tions even­tu­ally to be­come ac­cepted as facts.

• arrival of Adjuster

123:2.1In some­thing more than a year af­ter the re­turn to Naz­a­reth the boy Je­sus ar­rived at the age of his first per­sonal and whole­hearted moral de­ci­sion; and there came to abide with him a Thought Ad­juster, a di­vine gift of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther, which had afore­time served with Ma­chi­venta Mel­chiz­e­dek, thus gain­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence of func­tion­ing in con­nec­tion with the in­car­na­tion of a super­mor­tal be­ing liv­ing in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh. This event oc­curred on Febru­ary 11, 2 B.C. Je­sus was no more aware of the com­ing of the di­vine Mon­i­tor than are the mil­lions upon mil­lions of other chil­dren who, be­fore and since that day, have like­wise re­ceived these Thought Ad­justers to in­dwell their minds and work for the ul­ti­mate spir­i­tu­al­iza­tion of these minds and the eter­nal sur­vival of their evolv­ing im­mor­tal souls.

• studied flowers by day, stars by night

123:3.10Much of his spare time—when his mother did not re­quire his help about the house—was spent study­ing the flow­ers and plants by day and the stars by night. He evinced a trou­ble­some pen­chant for ly­ing on his back and gaz­ing won­der­ingly up into the starry heav­ens long af­ter his usual bed­time in this well-or­dered Naz­a­reth house­hold.

• fall from stairs in sandstorm

123:4.5The only real ac­ci­dent Je­sus had up to this time was a fall down the back-yard stone stairs which led up to the can­vas-roofed bed­room. It hap­pened dur­ing an un­ex­pected July sand­storm from the east. The hot winds, car­ry­ing blasts of fine sand, usu­ally blew dur­ing the rainy sea­son, es­pe­cially in March and April. It was ex­traor­di­nary to have such a storm in July. When the storm came up, Je­sus was on the house­top play­ing, as was his habit, for dur­ing much of the dry sea­son this was his ac­cus­tomed play­room. He was blinded by the sand when de­scend­ing the stairs and fell. Af­ter this ac­ci­dent Joseph built a balustrade up both sides of the stair­way.

• excused from school 1 week per month

123:6.1This was an in­ter­est­ing year at school. Al­though Je­sus was not an un­usual stu­dent, he was a dili­gent pupil and be­longed to the more pro­gres­sive third of the class, do­ing his work so well that he was ex­cused from at­ten­dance one week out of each month. This week he usu­ally spent ei­ther with his fish­er­man un­cle on the shores of the Sea of Gal­i­lee near Mag­dala or on the farm of an­other un­cle (his mother’s brother) five miles south of Naz­a­reth.

• never seriously ill

124:1.1Though it could hardly be said that Je­sus was ever se­ri­ously ill, he did have some of the mi­nor ail­ments of child­hood this year, along with his broth­ers and baby sis­ter.

• excused from school 1 week per month

124:1.2School went on and he was still a fa­vored pupil, hav­ing one week each month at lib­erty, and he con­tin­ued to di­vide his time about equally be­tween trips to neigh­bor­ing cities with his fa­ther, so­journs on his un­cle’s farm south of Naz­a­reth, and fish­ing ex­cur­sions out from Mag­dala.

• wept › on Mount Olivet

124:6.10They pressed on, soon stand­ing on the brink of Oli­vet, and Je­sus saw for the first time (in his mem­ory) the Holy City, the pre­ten­tious palaces, and the in­spir­ing tem­ple of his Fa­ther. At no time in his life did Je­sus ever ex­pe­ri­ence such a purely hu­man thrill as that which at this time so com­pletely en­thralled him as he stood there on this April af­ter­noon on the Mount of Olives, drink­ing in his first view of Je­ru­sa­lem. And in af­ter years, on this same spot he stood and wept over the city which was about to re­ject an­other prophet, the last and the great­est of her heav­enly teach­ers.

• told to be about Father’s business

124:6.15On the day be­fore the Pass­over Sab­bath, flood tides of spir­i­tual il­lu­mi­na­tion swept through the mor­tal mind of Je­sus and filled his hu­man heart to over­flow­ing with af­fec­tion­ate pity for the spir­i­tu­ally blind and morally ig­no­rant mul­ti­tudes as­sem­bled for the cel­e­bra­tion of the an­cient Pass­over com­mem­o­ra­tion. This was one of the most ex­traor­di­nary days that the Son of God spent in the flesh; and dur­ing the night, for the first time in his earth ca­reer, there ap­peared to him an as­signed mes­sen­ger from Sal­ving­ton, com­mis­sioned by Im­manuel, who said: “The hour has come. It is time that you be­gan to be about your Fa­ther’s busi­ness.”

• wept › on Mount Olivet

125:4.2Early next day Je­sus was up and on his way to the tem­ple. On the brow of Oli­vet he paused and wept over the sight his eyes be­held—a spir­i­tu­ally im­pov­er­ished peo­ple, tra­di­tion bound and liv­ing un­der the surveil­lance of the Ro­man le­gions. Early forenoon found him in the tem­ple with his mind made up to take part in the dis­cus­sions. Mean­while, Joseph and Mary also had arisen with the early dawn with the in­ten­tion of re­trac­ing their steps to Je­ru­sa­lem. First, they has­tened to the house of their rel­a­tives, where they had lodged as a fam­ily dur­ing the Pass­over week, but in­quiry elicited the fact that no one had seen Je­sus. Af­ter search­ing all day and find­ing no trace of him, they re­turned to their rel­a­tives for the night.

• told to be about Father’s business

126:3.5This year Je­sus was much trou­bled with con­fused think­ing. Fam­ily re­spon­si­bil­ity had quite ef­fec­tively re­moved all thought of im­me­di­ately car­ry­ing out any plan for re­spond­ing to the Je­ru­sa­lem vis­i­ta­tion di­rect­ing him to “be about his Fa­ther’s busi­ness.” Je­sus rightly rea­soned that the watch­care of his earthly fa­ther’s fam­ily must take prece­dence of all du­ties; that the sup­port of his fam­ily must be­come his first obli­ga­tion.

126:5.1Grad­u­ally Je­sus and his fam­ily re­turned to the sim­ple life of their ear­lier years. Their clothes and even their food be­came sim­pler. They had plenty of milk, but­ter, and cheese. In sea­son they en­joyed the pro­duce of their gar­den, but each pass­ing month ne­ces­si­tated the prac­tice of greater fru­gal­ity. Their break­fasts were very plain; they saved their best food for the evening meal. How­ever, among these Jews lack of wealth did not im­ply so­cial in­fe­ri­or­ity.

126:5.3The Naz­a­reth chazan con­tin­ued to cling to the be­lief that Je­sus was to be­come a great teacher, prob­a­bly the suc­ces­sor of the renowned Gamaliel at Je­ru­sa­lem.

126:5.4Ap­par­ently all Je­sus’ plans for a ca­reer were thwarted. The fu­ture did not look bright as mat­ters now de­vel­oped. But he did not fal­ter; he was not dis­cour­aged. He lived on, day by day, do­ing well the pres­ent duty and faith­fully dis­charg­ing the im­me­di­ate re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of his sta­tion in life. Je­sus’ life is the ev­er­last­ing com­fort of all dis­ap­pointed ide­al­ists.

126:5.5The pay of a com­mon day-la­bor­ing car­pen­ter was slowly di­min­ish­ing. By the end of this year Je­sus could earn, by work­ing early and late, only the equiv­a­lent of about twenty-five cents a day. By the next year they found it dif­fi­cult to pay the civil taxes, not to men­tion the syn­a­gogue as­sess­ments and the tem­ple tax of one-half shekel. Dur­ing this year the tax col­lec­tor tried to squeeze ex­tra rev­enue out of Je­sus, even threat­en­ing to take his harp.

126:5.6Fear­ing that the copy of the Greek scrip­tures might be dis­cov­ered and con­fis­cated by the tax col­lec­tors, Je­sus, on his fif­teenth birth­day, pre­sented it to the Naz­a­reth syn­a­gogue li­brary as his ma­tu­rity of­fer­ing to the Lord.

126:5.7The great shock of his fif­teenth year came when Je­sus went over to Sep­pho­ris to re­ceive the de­ci­sion of Herod re­gard­ing the ap­peal taken to him in the dis­pute about the amount of money due Joseph at the time of his ac­ci­den­tal death. Je­sus and Mary had hoped for the re­ceipt of a con­sid­er­able sum of money when the trea­surer at Sep­pho­ris had of­fered them a pal­try amount. Joseph’s broth­ers had taken an ap­peal to Herod him­self, and now Je­sus stood in the palace and heard Herod de­cree that his fa­ther had noth­ing due him at the time of his death. And for such an un­just de­ci­sion Je­sus never again trusted Herod An­tipas. It is not sur­pris­ing that he once al­luded to Herod as “that fox.”

126:5.8The close work at the car­pen­ter’s bench dur­ing this and sub­se­quent years de­prived Je­sus of the op­por­tu­nity of min­gling with the car­a­van pas­sen­gers. The fam­ily sup­ply shop had al­ready been taken over by his un­cle, and Je­sus worked al­to­gether in the home shop, where he was near to help Mary with the fam­ily. About this time he be­gan send­ing James up to the camel lot to gather in­for­ma­tion about world events, and thus he sought to keep in touch with the news of the day.

126:5.9As he grew up to man­hood, he passed through all those con­flicts and con­fu­sions which the av­er­age young per­sons of pre­vi­ous and sub­se­quent ages have un­der­gone. And the rig­or­ous ex­pe­ri­ence of sup­port­ing his fam­ily was a sure safe­guard against his hav­ing over­much time for idle med­i­ta­tion or the in­dul­gence of mys­tic ten­den­cies.

126:5.10This was the year that Je­sus rented a con­sid­er­able piece of land just to the north of their home, which was di­vided up as a fam­ily gar­den plot. Each of the older chil­dren had an in­di­vid­ual gar­den, and they en­tered into keen com­pe­ti­tion in their ag­ri­cul­tural ef­forts. Their el­dest brother spent some time with them in the gar­den each day dur­ing the sea­son of veg­etable cul­ti­va­tion. As Je­sus worked with his younger broth­ers and sis­ters in the gar­den, he many times en­ter­tained the wish that they were all lo­cated on a farm out in the coun­try where they could en­joy the lib­erty and free­dom of an un­ham­pered life. But they did not find them­selves grow­ing up in the coun­try; and Je­sus, be­ing a thor­oughly prac­ti­cal youth as well as an ide­al­ist, in­tel­li­gently and vig­or­ously at­tacked his prob­lem just as he found it, and did ev­ery­thing within his power to ad­just him­self and his fam­ily to the re­al­i­ties of their sit­u­a­tion and to adapt their con­di­tion to the high­est pos­si­ble sat­is­fac­tion of their in­di­vid­ual and col­lec­tive long­ings.

126:5.11At one time Je­sus faintly hoped that he might be able to gather up suf­fi­cient means, pro­vided they could col­lect the con­sid­er­able sum of money due his fa­ther for work on Herod’s palace, to war­rant un­der­tak­ing the pur­chase of a small farm. He had re­ally given se­ri­ous thought to this plan of mov­ing his fam­ily out into the coun­try. But when Herod re­fused to pay them any of the funds due Joseph, they gave up the am­bi­tion of own­ing a home in the coun­try. As it was, they con­trived to en­joy much of the ex­pe­ri­ence of farm life as they now had three cows, four sheep, a flock of chick­ens, a don­key, and a dog, in ad­di­tion to the doves. Even the lit­tle tots had their reg­u­lar du­ties to per­form in the well-reg­u­lated scheme of man­age­ment which char­ac­ter­ized the home life of this Naz­a­reth fam­ily.

126:5.12With the close of this fif­teenth year Je­sus com­pleted the traver­sal of that dan­ger­ous and dif­fi­cult pe­riod in hu­man ex­is­tence, that time of tran­si­tion be­tween the more com­pla­cent years of child­hood and the con­scious­ness of ap­proach­ing man­hood with its in­creased re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and op­por­tu­ni­ties for the ac­quire­ment of ad­vanced ex­pe­ri­ence in the de­vel­op­ment of a no­ble char­ac­ter. The growth pe­riod for mind and body had ended, and now be­gan the real ca­reer of this young man of Naz­a­reth.

127:2.1At about this time there was con­sid­er­able ag­i­ta­tion, es­pe­cially at Je­ru­sa­lem and in Judea, in fa­vor of re­bel­lion against the pay­ment of taxes to Rome. There was com­ing into ex­is­tence a strong na­tion­al­ist party, pres­ently to be called the Zealots. The Zealots, un­like the Phar­isees, were not will­ing to await the com­ing of the Mes­siah. They pro­posed to bring things to a head through po­lit­i­cal re­volt.

127:2.2A group of or­ga­niz­ers from Je­ru­sa­lem ar­rived in Gal­i­lee and were mak­ing good head­way un­til they reached Naz­a­reth. When they came to see Je­sus, he lis­tened care­fully to them and asked many ques­tions but re­fused to join the party. He de­clined fully to dis­close his rea­sons for not en­list­ing, and his re­fusal had the ef­fect of keep­ing out many of his youth­ful fel­lows in Naz­a­reth.

127:2.3Mary did her best to in­duce him to en­list, but she could not budge him. She went so far as to in­ti­mate that his re­fusal to es­pouse the na­tion­al­ist cause at her be­hest was in­sub­or­di­na­tion, a vi­o­la­tion of his pledge made upon their re­turn from Je­ru­sa­lem that he would be sub­ject to his par­ents; but in an­swer to this in­sin­u­a­tion he only laid a kindly hand on her shoul­der and, look­ing into her face, said: “My mother, how could you?” And Mary with­drew her state­ment.

127:2.4One of Je­sus’ un­cles (Mary’s brother Si­mon) had al­ready joined this group, sub­se­quently be­com­ing an of­fi­cer in the Galilean di­vi­sion. And for sev­eral years there was some­thing of an es­trange­ment be­tween Je­sus and his un­cle.

127:2.5But trou­ble be­gan to brew in Naz­a­reth. Je­sus’ at­ti­tude in these mat­ters had re­sulted in cre­at­ing a di­vi­sion among the Jew­ish youths of the city. About half had joined the na­tion­al­ist or­ga­ni­za­tion, and the other half be­gan the for­ma­tion of an op­pos­ing group of more mod­er­ate pa­tri­ots, ex­pect­ing Je­sus to as­sume the lead­er­ship. They were amazed when he re­fused the honor of­fered him, plead­ing as an ex­cuse his heavy fam­ily re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, which they all al­lowed. But the sit­u­a­tion was still fur­ther com­pli­cated when, pres­ently, a wealthy Jew, Isaac, a mon­eylen­der to the gen­tiles, came for­ward agree­ing to sup­port Je­sus’ fam­ily if he would lay down his tools and as­sume lead­er­ship of these Naz­a­reth pa­tri­ots.

127:2.6Je­sus, then scarcely sev­en­teen years of age, was con­fronted with one of the most del­i­cate and dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions of his early life. Pa­tri­otic is­sues, es­pe­cially when com­pli­cated by tax-gath­er­ing for­eign op­pres­sors, are al­ways dif­fi­cult for spir­i­tual lead­ers to re­late them­selves to, and it was dou­bly so in this case since the Jew­ish re­li­gion was in­volved in all this ag­i­ta­tion against Rome.

127:2.8Some­thing had to be done. He must state his po­si­tion, and this he did bravely and diplo­mat­i­cally to the sat­is­fac­tion of many, but not all. He ad­hered to the terms of his orig­i­nal plea, main­tain­ing that his first duty was to his fam­ily, that a wid­owed mother and eight broth­ers and sis­ters needed some­thing more than mere money could buy—the phys­i­cal ne­ces­si­ties of life—that they were en­ti­tled to a fa­ther’s watch­care and guid­ance, and that he could not in clear con­science re­lease him­self from the obli­ga­tion which a cruel ac­ci­dent had thrust upon him. He paid com­pli­ment to his mother and el­dest brother for be­ing will­ing to re­lease him but re­it­er­ated that loy­alty to a dead fa­ther for­bade his leav­ing the fam­ily no mat­ter how much money was forth­com­ing for their ma­te­rial sup­port, mak­ing his never-to-be-for­got­ten state­ment that “money can­not love.” In the course of this ad­dress Je­sus made sev­eral veiled ref­er­ences to his “life mis­sion” but ex­plained that, re­gard­less of whether or not it might be in­con­sis­tent with the mil­i­tary idea, it, along with ev­ery­thing else in his life, had been given up in or­der that he might be able to dis­charge faith­fully his obli­ga­tion to his fam­ily. Ev­ery­one in Naz­a­reth well knew he was a good fa­ther to his fam­ily, and this was a mat­ter so near the heart of ev­ery no­ble Jew that Je­sus’ plea found an ap­pre­cia­tive re­sponse in the hearts of many of his hear­ers; and some of those who were not thus minded were dis­armed by a speech made by James, which, while not on the pro­gram, was de­liv­ered at this time. That very day the chazan had re­hearsed James in his speech, but that was their se­cret.

127:2.9James stated that he was sure Je­sus would help to lib­er­ate his peo­ple if he (James) were only old enough to as­sume re­spon­si­bil­ity for the fam­ily, and that, if they would only con­sent to al­low Je­sus to re­main “with us, to be our fa­ther and teacher, then you will have not just one leader from Joseph’s fam­ily, but pres­ently you will have five loyal na­tion­al­ists, for are there not five of us boys to grow up and come forth from our brother-fa­ther’s guid­ance to serve our na­tion?” And thus did the lad bring to a fairly happy end­ing a very tense and threat­en­ing sit­u­a­tion.

127:2.10The cri­sis for the time be­ing was over, but never was this in­ci­dent for­got­ten in Naz­a­reth. The ag­i­ta­tion per­sisted; not again was Je­sus in uni­ver­sal fa­vor; the di­vi­sion of sen­ti­ment was never fully over­come. And this, aug­mented by other and sub­se­quent oc­cur­rences, was one of the chief rea­sons why he moved to Ca­per­naum in later years. Hence­forth Naz­a­reth main­tained a di­vi­sion of sen­ti­ment re­gard­ing the Son of Man.

127:2.11James grad­u­ated at school this year and be­gan full-time work at home in the car­pen­ter shop. He had be­come a clever worker with tools and now took over the mak­ing of yokes and plows while Je­sus be­gan to do more house fin­ish­ing and ex­pert cab­i­net work.

127:2.12This year Je­sus made great prog­ress in the or­ga­ni­za­tion of his mind. Grad­u­ally he had brought his di­vine and hu­man na­tures to­gether, and he ac­com­plished all this or­ga­ni­za­tion of in­tel­lect by the force of his own de­ci­sions and with only the aid of his in­dwelling Mon­i­tor, just such a Mon­i­tor as all nor­mal mor­tals on all postbestowal-Son worlds have within their minds. So far, noth­ing super­nat­u­ral had hap­pened in this young man’s ca­reer ex­cept the visit of a mes­sen­ger, dis­patched by his el­der brother Im­manuel, who once ap­peared to him dur­ing the night at Je­ru­sa­lem.

• financial struggle

127:3.1In the course of this year all the fam­ily prop­erty, ex­cept the home and gar­den, was dis­posed of. The last piece of Ca­per­naum prop­erty (ex­cept an eq­uity in one other), al­ready mort­gaged, was sold. The pro­ceeds were used for taxes, to buy some new tools for James, and to make a pay­ment on the old fam­ily sup­ply and re­pair shop near the car­a­van lot, which Je­sus now pro­posed to buy back since James was old enough to work at the house shop and help Mary about the home. With the fi­nan­cial pres­sure thus eased for the time be­ing, Je­sus de­cided to take James to the Pass­over. They went up to Je­ru­sa­lem a day early, to be alone, go­ing by way of Samaria. They walked, and Je­sus told James about the his­toric places en route as his fa­ther had taught him on a sim­i­lar jour­ney five years be­fore.

• spent time with children

127:3.8Sev­eral times a year, when vis­i­tors were not pres­ent thus to func­tion, Je­sus con­tin­ued to read the Sab­bath scrip­tures at the syn­a­gogue and many times of­fered com­ments on the les­son, but usu­ally he so se­lected the pas­sages that com­ment was un­nec­es­sary. He was skill­ful, so ar­rang­ing the or­der of the read­ing of the var­i­ous pas­sages that the one would il­lu­mi­nate the other. He never failed, weather per­mit­ting, to take his broth­ers and sis­ters out on Sab­bath af­ter­noons for their na­ture strolls.

• social life not wholly neglected

127:3.10His so­cial life, while re­stricted, was not wholly ne­glected. He had many warm friends and stanch ad­mir­ers among both the young men and the young women of Naz­a­reth.

• financial struggle

127:3.11In Septem­ber, Eliz­a­beth and John came to visit the Naz­a­reth fam­ily. John, hav­ing lost his fa­ther, in­tended to re­turn to the Judean hills to en­gage in agri­cul­ture and sheep rais­ing un­less Je­sus ad­vised him to re­main in Naz­a­reth to take up car­pen­try or some other line of work. They did not know that the Naz­a­reth fam­ily was prac­ti­cally pen­ni­less. The more Mary and Eliz­a­beth talked about their sons, the more they be­came con­vinced that it would be good for the two young men to work to­gether and see more of each other.

• crucifixion › those who witnessed

127:5.6Re­becca was heart­bro­ken. She re­fused to be com­forted and im­por­tuned her fa­ther to leave Naz­a­reth un­til he fi­nally con­sented to move to Sep­pho­ris. In af­ter years, to the many men who sought her hand in mar­riage, Re­becca had but one an­swer. She lived for only one pur­pose—to await the hour when this, to her, the great­est man who ever lived would be­gin his ca­reer as a teacher of liv­ing truth. And she fol­lowed him de­vot­edly through his event­ful years of pub­lic la­bor, be­ing pres­ent (un­ob­served by Je­sus) that day when he rode tri­umphantly into Je­ru­sa­lem; and she stood “among the other women” by the side of Mary on that fate­ful and tragic af­ter­noon when the Son of Man hung upon the cross, to her, as well as to count­less worlds on high, “the one al­to­gether lovely and the great­est among ten thou­sand.”

• financial struggle

127:6.10Al­though all their Naz­a­reth prop­erty (ex­cept their home) was gone, this year they re­ceived a lit­tle fi­nan­cial help from the sale of an eq­uity in a piece of prop­erty in Ca­per­naum. This was the last of Joseph’s en­tire es­tate. This real es­tate deal in Ca­per­naum was with a boat­builder named Zeb­e­dee.

• offered assistant chazanship in Alexandria

128:5.2The week fol­low­ing the Pass­over of this year a young man from Alexan­dria came down to Naz­a­reth to ar­range for a meet­ing, later in the year, be­tween Je­sus and a group of Alexan­drian Jews at some point on the Pales­tinian coast. This con­fer­ence was set for the mid­dle of June, and Je­sus went over to Cae­sarea to meet with five promi­nent Jews of Alexan­dria, who be­sought him to es­tab­lish him­self in their city as a re­li­gious teacher, of­fer­ing as an in­duce­ment to be­gin with, the po­si­tion of as­sis­tant to the chazan in their chief syn­a­gogue.

128:5.3The spokes­men for this com­mit­tee ex­plained to Je­sus that Alexan­dria was des­tined to be­come the head­quar­ters of Jew­ish cul­ture for the en­tire world; that the Hel­lenis­tic trend of Jew­ish af­fairs had vir­tu­ally out­dis­tanced the Baby­lo­nian school of thought. They re­minded Je­sus of the omi­nous rum­blings of re­bel­lion in Je­ru­sa­lem and through­out Pales­tine and as­sured him that any up­ris­ing of the Pales­tinian Jews would be equiv­a­lent to na­tional sui­cide, that the iron hand of Rome would crush the re­bel­lion in three months, and that Je­ru­sa­lem would be de­stroyed and the tem­ple de­mol­ished, that not one stone would be left upon an­other.

128:5.4Je­sus lis­tened to all they had to say, thanked them for their con­fi­dence, and, in de­clin­ing to go to Alexan­dria, in sub­stance said, “My hour has not yet come.” They were non­plused by his ap­par­ent in­dif­fer­ence to the honor they had sought to con­fer upon him. Be­fore tak­ing leave of Je­sus, they pre­sented him with a purse in to­ken of the es­teem of his Alexan­drian friends and in com­pen­sa­tion for the time and ex­pense of com­ing over to Cae­sarea to con­fer with them. But he like­wise re­fused the money, say­ing: “The house of Joseph has never re­ceived alms, and we can­not eat an­other’s bread as long as I have strong arms and my broth­ers can la­bor.”

128:5.5His friends from Egypt set sail for home, and in sub­se­quent years, when they heard ru­mors of the Ca­per­naum boat­builder who was cre­at­ing such a com­mo­tion in Pales­tine, few of them sur­mised that he was the babe of Beth­le­hem grown up and the same strange-act­ing Galilean who had so un­cer­e­mo­ni­ously de­clined the in­vi­ta­tion to be­come a great teacher in Alexan­dria.

• spent time with children

128:6.10This year his sea­sons of deep med­i­ta­tion were of­ten bro­ken into by Ruth and her play­mates. And al­ways was Je­sus ready to post­pone the con­tem­pla­tion of his fu­ture work for the world and the uni­verse that he might share in the child­ish joy and youth­ful glad­ness of these young­sters, who never tired of lis­ten­ing to Je­sus re­late the ex­pe­ri­ences of his var­i­ous trips to Je­ru­sa­lem. They also greatly en­joyed his sto­ries about an­i­mals and na­ture.

128:6.11The chil­dren were al­ways wel­come at the re­pair shop. Je­sus pro­vided sand, blocks, and stones by the side of the shop, and be­vies of young­sters flocked there to amuse them­selves. When they tired of their play, the more in­trepid ones would peek into the shop, and if its keeper were not busy, they would make bold to go in and say, “Un­cle Joshua, come out and tell us a big story.” Then they would lead him out by tug­ging at his hands un­til he was seated on the fa­vorite rock by the cor­ner of the shop, with the chil­dren on the ground in a semi­cir­cle be­fore him. And how the lit­tle folks did en­joy their Un­cle Joshua. They were learn­ing to laugh, and to laugh heart­ily. It was cus­tom­ary for one or two of the small­est of the chil­dren to climb upon his knees and sit there, look­ing up in won­der­ment at his ex­pres­sive fea­tures as he told his sto­ries. The chil­dren loved Je­sus, and Je­sus loved the chil­dren.

128:6.12It was dif­fi­cult for his friends to com­pre­hend the range of his in­tel­lec­tual ac­tiv­i­ties, how he could so sud­denly and so com­pletely swing from the pro­found dis­cus­sion of pol­i­tics, phi­los­o­phy, or re­li­gion to the light­hearted and joy­ous play­ful­ness of these tots of from five to ten years of age. As his own broth­ers and sis­ters grew up, as he gained more leisure, and be­fore the grand­chil­dren ar­rived, he paid a great deal of at­ten­tion to these lit­tle ones. But he did not live on earth long enough to en­joy the grand­chil­dren very much.

• baptism › J.’ human and divine minds became one at

129:4.2The purely hu­man re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence—the per­sonal spir­i­tual growth—of the Son of Man well-nigh reached the apex of at­tain­ment dur­ing this, the twenty-ninth year. This ex­pe­ri­ence of spir­i­tual de­vel­op­ment was a con­sis­tently grad­ual growth from the mo­ment of the ar­rival of his Thought Ad­juster un­til the day of the com­ple­tion and con­fir­ma­tion of that nat­u­ral and nor­mal hu­man re­la­tion­ship be­tween the ma­te­rial mind of man and the mind-en­dow­ment of the spirit—the phe­nom­e­non of the mak­ing of these two minds one, the ex­pe­ri­ence which the Son of Man at­tained in com­ple­tion and fi­nal­ity, as an in­car­nated mor­tal of the realm, on the day of his bap­tism in the Jor­dan.

• sought out Roman religious leaders

132:0.4Je­sus learned much about men while in Rome, but the most valu­able of all the man­i­fold ex­pe­ri­ences of his six months’ so­journ in that city was his con­tact with, and in­flu­ence upon, the re­li­gious lead­ers of the em­pire’s cap­i­tal. Be­fore the end of the first week in Rome Je­sus had sought out, and had made the ac­quain­tance of, the worth-while lead­ers of the Cyn­ics, the Sto­ics, and the mys­tery cults, in par­tic­u­lar the Mith­raic group. Whether or not it was ap­par­ent to Je­sus that the Jews were go­ing to re­ject his mis­sion, he most cer­tainly fore­saw that his mes­sen­gers were pres­ently com­ing to Rome to pro­claim the king­dom of heaven; and he there­fore set about, in the most amaz­ing man­ner, to pre­pare the way for the bet­ter and more cer­tain re­cep­tion of their mes­sage. He se­lected five of the lead­ing Sto­ics, eleven of the Cyn­ics, and six­teen of the mys­tery-cult lead­ers and spent much of his spare time for al­most six months in in­ti­mate as­so­ci­a­tion with these re­li­gious teach­ers. And this was his method of in­struc­tion: Never once did he at­tack their er­rors or even men­tion the flaws in their teach­ings. In each case he would se­lect the truth in what they taught and then pro­ceed so to em­bel­lish and il­lu­mi­nate this truth in their minds that in a very short time this en­hance­ment of the truth ef­fec­tively crowded out the as­so­ci­ated er­ror; and thus were these Je­sus-taught men and women pre­pared for the sub­se­quent rec­og­ni­tion of ad­di­tional and sim­i­lar truths in the teach­ings of the early Chris­tian mis­sion­ar­ies. It was this early ac­cep­tance of the teach­ings of the gospel preach­ers which gave that pow­er­ful im­pe­tus to the rapid spread of Chris­tian­ity in Rome and from there through­out the em­pire.

• 6 weeks alone with God on Mount Hermon
• Mount Hermon marked end of J.’ purely human career

134:7.7This was one of those un­usual and ex­traor­di­nary epochs in the Mas­ter’s earth life on Uran­tia. An­other and very sim­i­lar one was the ex­pe­ri­ence he passed through when alone in the hills near Pella just sub­se­quent to his bap­tism. This pe­riod of iso­la­tion on Mount Her­mon marked the ter­mi­na­tion of his purely hu­man ca­reer, that is, the tech­ni­cal ter­mi­na­tion of the mor­tal be­stowal, while the later iso­la­tion marked the be­gin­ning of the more di­vine phase of the be­stowal. And Je­sus lived alone with God for six weeks on the slopes of Mount Her­mon.

• baptism › January 14, A.D. 26

135:8.6There was a tone of fi­nal­ity and au­thor­ity in Je­sus’ voice. John was atrem­ble with emo­tion as he made ready to bap­tize Je­sus of Naz­a­reth in the Jor­dan at noon on Mon­day, Jan­uary 14, A.D. 26. Thus did John bap­tize Je­sus and his two broth­ers James and Jude. And when John had bap­tized these three, he dis­missed the oth­ers for the day, an­nounc­ing that he would re­sume bap­tisms at noon the next day. As the peo­ple were de­part­ing, the four men still stand­ing in the wa­ter heard a strange sound, and pres­ently there ap­peared for a mo­ment an ap­pari­tion im­me­di­ately over the head of Je­sus, and they heard a voice say­ing, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” A great change came over the coun­te­nance of Je­sus, and com­ing up out of the wa­ter in si­lence he took leave of them, go­ing to­ward the hills to the east. And no man saw Je­sus again for forty days.

135:9.1When John re­turned to his dis­ci­ples (he now had some twenty-five or thirty who abode with him con­stantly), he found them in earnest con­fer­ence, dis­cussing what had just hap­pened in con­nec­tion with Je­sus’ bap­tism. They were all the more as­ton­ished when John now made known to them the story of the Ga­briel vis­i­ta­tion to Mary be­fore Je­sus was born, and also that Je­sus spoke no word to him even af­ter he had told him about this. There was no rain that evening, and this group of thirty or more talked long into the star­lit night. They won­dered where Je­sus had gone, and when they would see him again.

135:9.2Af­ter the ex­pe­ri­ence of this day the preach­ing of John took on new and cer­tain notes of procla­ma­tion con­cern­ing the com­ing king­dom and the ex­pected Mes­siah. It was a tense time, these forty days of tar­ry­ing, wait­ing for the re­turn of Je­sus. But John con­tin­ued to preach with great power, and his dis­ci­ples be­gan at about this time to preach to the over­flow­ing throngs which gath­ered around John at the Jor­dan.

135:9.3In the course of these forty days of wait­ing, many ru­mors spread about the coun­try­side and even to Tiberias and Je­ru­sa­lem. Thou­sands came over to see the new at­trac­tion in John’s camp, the re­puted Mes­siah, but Je­sus was not to be seen. When the dis­ci­ples of John as­serted that the strange man of God had gone to the hills, many doubted the en­tire story.

135:9.4About three weeks af­ter Je­sus had left them, there ar­rived on the scene at Pella a new dep­u­ta­tion from the priests and Phar­isees at Je­ru­sa­lem. They asked John di­rectly if he was Eli­jah or the prophet that Moses prom­ised; and when John said, “I am not,” they made bold to ask, “Are you the Mes­siah?” and John an­swered, “I am not.” Then said these men from Je­ru­sa­lem: “If you are not Eli­jah, nor the prophet, nor the Mes­siah, then why do you bap­tize the peo­ple and cre­ate all this stir?” And John replied: “It should be for those who have heard me and re­ceived my bap­tism to say who I am, but I de­clare to you that, while I bap­tize with wa­ter, there has been among us one who will re­turn to bap­tize you with the Holy Spirit.”

135:9.5These forty days were a dif­fi­cult pe­riod for John and his dis­ci­ples. What was to be the re­la­tion of John to Je­sus? A hun­dred ques­tions came up for dis­cus­sion. Pol­i­tics and self­ish prefer­ment be­gan to make their ap­pear­ance. In­tense dis­cus­sions grew up around the var­i­ous ideas and con­cepts of the Mes­siah. Would he be­come a mil­i­tary leader and a Da­vidic king? Would he smite the Ro­man armies as Joshua had the Ca­naan­ites? Or would he come to es­tab­lish a spir­i­tual king­dom? John rather de­cided, with the mi­nor­ity, that Je­sus had come to es­tab­lish the king­dom of heaven, al­though he was not al­to­gether clear in his own mind as to just what was to be em­braced within this mis­sion of the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom of heaven.

135:9.6These were stren­u­ous days in John’s ex­pe­ri­ence, and he prayed for the re­turn of Je­sus. Some of John’s dis­ci­ples or­ga­nized scout­ing par­ties to go in search of Je­sus, but John for­bade, say­ing: “Our times are in the hands of the God of heaven; he will di­rect his cho­sen Son.”

135:9.7It was early on the morn­ing of Sab­bath, Febru­ary 23, that the com­pany of John, en­gaged in eat­ing their morn­ing meal, looked up to­ward the north and be­held Je­sus com­ing to them. As he ap­proached them, John stood upon a large rock and, lift­ing up his sonorous voice, said: “Be­hold the Son of God, the de­liv­erer of the world! This is he of whom I have said, ‘Af­ter me there will come one who is pre­ferred be­fore me be­cause he was be­fore me.’ For this cause came I out of the wilder­ness to preach re­pen­tance and to bap­tize with wa­ter, pro­claim­ing that the king­dom of heaven is at hand. And now comes one who shall bap­tize you with the Holy Spirit. And I be­held the di­vine spirit de­scend­ing upon this man, and I heard the voice of God de­clare, ‘This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’”

135:9.8Je­sus bade them re­turn to their food while he sat down to eat with John, his broth­ers James and Jude hav­ing re­turned to Ca­per­naum.

135:9.9Early in the morn­ing of the next day he took leave of John and his dis­ci­ples, go­ing back to Gal­i­lee. He gave them no word as to when they would again see him. To John’s in­quiries about his own preach­ing and mis­sion Je­sus only said, “My Fa­ther will guide you now and in the fu­ture as he has in the past.” And these two great men sep­a­rated that morn­ing on the banks of the Jor­dan, never again to greet each other in the flesh.

• baptism › not received as rite of repentance

136:2.1Je­sus was bap­tized at the very height of John’s preach­ing when Pales­tine was aflame with the ex­pectancy of his mes­sage—“the king­dom of God is at hand”—when all Jewry was en­gaged in se­ri­ous and solemn self-ex­am­i­na­tion. The Jew­ish sense of racial sol­i­dar­ity was very pro­found. The Jews not only be­lieved that the sins of the fa­ther might af­flict his chil­dren, but they firmly be­lieved that the sin of one in­di­vid­ual might curse the na­tion. Ac­cord­ingly, not all who sub­mit­ted to John’s bap­tism re­garded them­selves as be­ing guilty of the spe­cific sins which John de­nounced. Many de­vout souls were bap­tized by John for the good of Is­rael. They feared lest some sin of ig­no­rance on their part might de­lay the com­ing of the Mes­siah. They felt them­selves to be­long to a guilty and sin-cursed na­tion, and they pre­sented them­selves for bap­tism that they might by so do­ing man­i­fest fruits of race pen­i­tence. It is there­fore ev­i­dent that Je­sus in no sense re­ceived John’s bap­tism as a rite of re­pen­tance or for the re­mis­sion of sins. In ac­cept­ing bap­tism at the hands of John, Je­sus was only fol­low­ing the ex­am­ple of many pi­ous Is­raelites.

• 40 days in wilderness
• baptism › not received as rite of repentance

136:2.6When Je­sus was bap­tized, he re­pented of no mis­deeds; he made no con­fes­sion of sin. His was the bap­tism of con­se­cra­tion to the per­for­mance of the will of the heav­enly Fa­ther. At his bap­tism he heard the un­mis­tak­able call of his Fa­ther, the fi­nal sum­mons to be about his Fa­ther’s busi­ness, and he went away into pri­vate seclu­sion for forty days to think over these man­i­fold prob­lems. In thus re­tir­ing for a sea­son from ac­tive per­son­al­ity con­tact with his earthly as­so­ciates, Je­sus, as he was and on Uran­tia, was fol­low­ing the very pro­ce­dure that ob­tains on the mor­ontia worlds when­ever an as­cend­ing mor­tal fuses with the in­ner pres­ence of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• baptism › ended J.’ purely human life

136:2.7This day of bap­tism ended the purely hu­man life of Je­sus. The di­vine Son has found his Fa­ther, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has found his in­car­nated Son, and they speak the one to the other.

136:3.1Je­sus had en­dured the great temp­ta­tion of his mor­tal be­stowal be­fore his bap­tism when he had been wet with the dews of Mount Her­mon for six weeks. There on Mount Her­mon, as an un­aided mor­tal of the realm, he had met and de­feated the Uran­tia pre­tender, Cali­gas­tia, the prince of this world. That event­ful day, on the uni­verse rec­ords, Je­sus of Naz­a­reth had be­come the Plan­e­tary Prince of Uran­tia. And this Prince of Uran­tia, so soon to be pro­claimed su­preme Sov­er­eign of Neb­a­don, now went into forty days of re­tire­ment to for­mu­late the plans and de­ter­mine upon the tech­nique of pro­claim­ing the new king­dom of God in the hearts of men.

136:3.2Af­ter his bap­tism he en­tered upon the forty days of ad­just­ing him­self to the changed re­la­tion­ships of the world and the uni­verse oc­ca­sioned by the per­son­al­iza­tion of his Ad­juster. Dur­ing this iso­la­tion in the Perean hills he de­ter­mined upon the pol­icy to be pur­sued and the meth­ods to be em­ployed in the new and changed phase of earth life which he was about to in­au­gu­rate.

136:3.3Je­sus did not go into re­tire­ment for the pur­pose of fast­ing and for the af­flic­tion of his soul. He was not an as­cetic, and he came for­ever to de­stroy all such no­tions re­gard­ing the ap­proach to God. His rea­sons for seek­ing this re­tire­ment were en­tirely dif­fer­ent from those which had ac­tu­ated Moses and Eli­jah, and even John the Bap­tist. Je­sus was then wholly self-con­scious con­cern­ing his re­la­tion to the uni­verse of his mak­ing and also to the uni­verse of uni­verses, super­vised by the Par­a­dise Fa­ther, his Fa­ther in heaven. He now fully re­called the be­stowal charge and its in­struc­tions ad­min­is­tered by his el­der brother, Im­manuel, ere he en­tered upon his Uran­tia in­car­na­tion. He now clearly and fully com­pre­hended all these far-flung re­la­tion­ships, and he de­sired to be away for a sea­son of quiet med­i­ta­tion so that he could think out the plans and de­cide upon the pro­ce­dures for the pros­e­cu­tion of his pub­lic labors in be­half of this world and for all other worlds in his lo­cal uni­verse.

136:3.4While wan­der­ing about in the hills, seek­ing a suit­able shel­ter, Je­sus en­coun­tered his uni­verse chief ex­ec­u­tive, Ga­briel, the Bright and Morn­ing Star of Neb­a­don. Ga­briel now re-es­tab­lished per­sonal com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Cre­ator Son of the uni­verse; they met di­rectly for the first time since Mi­chael took leave of his as­so­ciates on Sal­ving­ton when he went to Eden­tia prepara­tory to en­ter­ing upon the Uran­tia be­stowal. Ga­briel, by di­rec­tion of Im­manuel and on au­thor­ity of the Uversa An­cients of Days, now laid be­fore Je­sus in­for­ma­tion in­di­cat­ing that his be­stowal ex­pe­ri­ence on Uran­tia was prac­ti­cally fin­ished so far as con­cerned the earn­ing of the per­fected sov­er­eignty of his uni­verse and the ter­mi­na­tion of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion. The for­mer was achieved on the day of his bap­tism when the per­son­al­iza­tion of his Ad­juster demon­strated the per­fec­tion and com­ple­tion of his be­stowal in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, and the lat­ter was a fact of his­tory on that day when he came down from Mount Her­mon to join the wait­ing lad, Tiglath. Je­sus was now in­formed, upon the high­est au­thor­ity of the lo­cal uni­verse and the super­uni­verse, that his be­stowal work was fin­ished in so far as it af­fected his per­sonal sta­tus in re­la­tion to sov­er­eignty and re­bel­lion. He had al­ready had this as­sur­ance di­rect from Par­a­dise in the bap­tismal vi­sion and in the phe­nom­e­non of the per­son­al­iza­tion of his in­dwelling Thought Ad­juster.

136:3.5While he tar­ried on the moun­tain, talk­ing with Ga­briel, the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther of Eden­tia ap­peared to Je­sus and Ga­briel in per­son, say­ing: “The rec­ords are com­pleted. The sov­er­eignty of Mi­chael num­ber 611,121 over his uni­verse of Neb­a­don rests in com­ple­tion at the right hand of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. I bring to you the be­stowal re­lease of Im­manuel, your spon­sor-brother for the Uran­tia in­car­na­tion. You are at lib­erty now or at any sub­se­quent time, in the man­ner of your own choos­ing, to ter­mi­nate your in­car­na­tion be­stowal, as­cend to the right hand of your Fa­ther, re­ceive your sov­er­eignty, and as­sume your well-earned un­con­di­tional ruler­ship of all Neb­a­don. I also tes­tify to the com­ple­tion of the rec­ords of the super­uni­verse, by au­tho­riza­tion of the An­cients of Days, hav­ing to do with the ter­mi­na­tion of all sin-re­bel­lion in your uni­verse and en­dow­ing you with full and un­lim­ited au­thor­ity to deal with any and all such pos­si­ble up­heavals in the fu­ture. Tech­ni­cally, your work on Uran­tia and in the flesh of the mor­tal crea­ture is fin­ished. Your course from now on is a mat­ter of your own choos­ing.”

136:3.6When the Most High Fa­ther of Eden­tia had taken leave, Je­sus held long con­verse with Ga­briel re­gard­ing the wel­fare of the uni­verse and, send­ing greet­ings to Im­manuel, prof­fered his as­sur­ance that, in the work which he was about to un­der­take on Uran­tia, he would be ever mind­ful of the coun­sel he had re­ceived in con­nec­tion with the pre­be­stowal charge ad­min­is­tered on Sal­ving­ton.

136:3.7Through­out all of these forty days of iso­la­tion James and John the sons of Zeb­e­dee were en­gaged in search­ing for Je­sus. Many times they were not far from his abid­ing place, but never did they find him.

136:4.1Day by day, up in the hills, Je­sus for­mu­lated the plans for the re­main­der of his Uran­tia be­stowal. He first de­cided not to teach con­tem­po­ra­ne­ously with John. He planned to re­main in com­par­a­tive re­tire­ment un­til the work of John achieved its pur­pose, or un­til John was sud­denly stopped by im­pris­on­ment. Je­sus well knew that John’s fear­less and tact­less preach­ing would pres­ently arouse the fears and en­mity of the civil rulers. In view of John’s pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion, Je­sus be­gan def­i­nitely to plan his pro­gram of pub­lic labors in be­half of his peo­ple and the world, in be­half of ev­ery in­hab­ited world through­out his vast uni­verse. Mi­chael’s mor­tal be­stowal was on Uran­tia but for all worlds of Neb­a­don.

136:4.2The first thing Je­sus did, af­ter think­ing through the gen­eral plan of co-or­di­nat­ing his pro­gram with John’s move­ment, was to re­view in his mind the in­struc­tions of Im­manuel. Care­fully he thought over the ad­vice given him con­cern­ing his meth­ods of la­bor, and that he was to leave no per­ma­nent writ­ing on the planet. Never again did Je­sus write on any­thing ex­cept sand. On his next visit to Naz­a­reth, much to the sor­row of his brother Joseph, Je­sus de­stroyed all of his writ­ing that was pre­served on the boards about the car­pen­ter shop, and which hung upon the walls of the old home. And Je­sus pon­dered well over Im­manuel’s ad­vice per­tain­ing to his eco­nomic, so­cial, and po­lit­i­cal at­ti­tude to­ward the world as he should find it.

136:4.3Je­sus did not fast dur­ing this forty days’ iso­la­tion. The longest pe­riod he went with­out food was his first two days in the hills when he was so en­grossed with his think­ing that he for­got all about eat­ing. But on the third day he went in search of food. Nei­ther was he tempted dur­ing this time by any evil spir­its or rebel per­son­al­i­ties of sta­tion on this world or from any other world.

136:4.4These forty days were the oc­ca­sion of the fi­nal con­fer­ence be­tween the hu­man and the di­vine minds, or rather the first real func­tion­ing of these two minds as now made one. The re­sults of this mo­men­tous sea­son of med­i­ta­tion demon­strated con­clu­sively that the di­vine mind has tri­umphantly and spir­i­tu­ally dom­i­nated the hu­man in­tel­lect. The mind of man has be­come the mind of God from this time on, and though the self­hood of the mind of man is ever pres­ent, al­ways does this spir­i­tu­al­ized hu­man mind say, “Not my will but yours be done.”

136:4.5The trans­ac­tions of this event­ful time were not the fan­tas­tic vi­sions of a starved and weak­ened mind, nei­ther were they the con­fused and puerile sym­bol­isms which af­ter­ward gained rec­ord as the “temp­ta­tions of Je­sus in the wilder­ness.” Rather was this a sea­son for think­ing over the whole event­ful and var­ied ca­reer of the Uran­tia be­stowal and for the care­ful lay­ing of those plans for fur­ther min­istry which would best serve this world while also con­tribut­ing some­thing to the bet­ter­ment of all other re­bel­lion-iso­lated spheres. Je­sus thought over the whole span of hu­man life on Uran­tia, from the days of An­don and Fonta, down through Adam’s de­fault, and on to the min­istry of the Mel­chiz­e­dek of Salem.

136:4.6Ga­briel had re­minded Je­sus that there were two ways in which he might man­i­fest him­self to the world in case he should choose to tarry on Uran­tia for a time. And it was made clear to Je­sus that his choice in this mat­ter would have noth­ing to do with ei­ther his uni­verse sov­er­eignty or the ter­mi­na­tion of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion. These two ways of world min­istry were:

136:4.71. His own way—the way that might seem most pleas­ant and prof­itable from the stand­point of the im­me­di­ate needs of this world and the pres­ent ed­i­fi­ca­tion of his own uni­verse.

136:4.82. The Fa­ther’s way—the ex­em­pli­fi­ca­tion of a farsee­ing ideal of crea­ture life vi­su­al­ized by the high per­son­al­i­ties of the Par­a­dise ad­min­is­tra­tion of the uni­verse of uni­verses.

136:4.9It was thus made clear to Je­sus that there were two ways in which he could or­der the re­main­der of his earth life. Each of these ways had some­thing to be said in its fa­vor as it might be re­garded in the light of the im­me­di­ate sit­u­a­tion. The Son of Man clearly saw that his choice be­tween these two modes of con­duct would have noth­ing to do with his re­cep­tion of uni­verse sov­er­eignty; that was a mat­ter al­ready set­tled and sealed on the rec­ords of the uni­verse of uni­verses and only awaited his de­mand in per­son. But it was in­di­cated to Je­sus that it would af­ford his Par­a­dise brother, Im­manuel, great sat­is­fac­tion if he, Je­sus, should see fit to fin­ish up his earth ca­reer of in­car­na­tion as he had so nobly be­gun it, al­ways sub­ject to the Fa­ther’s will. On the third day of this iso­la­tion Je­sus prom­ised him­self he would go back to the world to fin­ish his earth ca­reer, and that in a sit­u­a­tion in­volv­ing any two ways he would al­ways choose the Fa­ther’s will. And he lived out the re­main­der of his earth life al­ways true to that re­solve. Even to the bit­ter end he in­vari­ably sub­or­di­nated his sov­er­eign will to that of his heav­enly Fa­ther.

136:4.11In all this plan­ning for the re­main­der of his earth life, Je­sus was al­ways torn in his hu­man heart by two op­pos­ing courses of con­duct:

136:4.121. He en­ter­tained a strong de­sire to win his peo­ple—and the whole world—to be­lieve in him and to ac­cept his new spir­i­tual king­dom. And he well knew their ideas con­cern­ing the com­ing Mes­siah.

136:4.132. To live and work as he knew his Fa­ther would ap­prove, to con­duct his work in be­half of other worlds in need, and to con­tinue, in the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom, to re­veal the Fa­ther and show forth his di­vine char­ac­ter of love.

136:4.14Through­out these event­ful days Je­sus lived in an an­cient rock cav­ern, a shel­ter in the side of the hills near a vil­lage some­time called Beit Adis. He drank from the small spring which came from the side of the hill near this rock shel­ter.

136:5.1On the third day af­ter be­gin­ning this con­fer­ence with him­self and his Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster, Je­sus was pre­sented with the vi­sion of the as­sem­bled ce­les­tial hosts of Neb­a­don sent by their com­man­ders to wait upon the will of their beloved Sov­er­eign. This mighty host em­braced twelve le­gions of ser­a­phim and pro­por­tion­ate num­bers of ev­ery or­der of uni­verse in­tel­li­gence. And the first great de­ci­sion of Je­sus’ iso­la­tion had to do with whether or not he would make use of these mighty per­son­al­i­ties in con­nec­tion with the en­su­ing pro­gram of his pub­lic work on Uran­tia.

136:5.2Je­sus de­cided that he would not uti­lize a sin­gle per­son­al­ity of this vast as­sem­blage un­less it should be­come ev­i­dent that this was his Fa­ther’s will. Not­with­stand­ing this gen­eral de­ci­sion, this vast host re­mained with him through­out the bal­ance of his earth life, al­ways in readi­ness to obey the least ex­pres­sion of their Sov­er­eign’s will. Al­though Je­sus did not con­stantly be­hold these at­ten­dant per­son­al­i­ties with his hu­man eyes, his as­so­ci­ated Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster did con­stantly be­hold, and could com­mu­ni­cate with, all of them.

136:5.3Be­fore com­ing down from the forty days’ re­treat in the hills, Je­sus as­signed the im­me­di­ate com­mand of this at­ten­dant host of uni­verse per­son­al­i­ties to his re­cently Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster, and for more than four years of Uran­tia time did these se­lected per­son­al­i­ties from ev­ery di­vi­sion of uni­verse in­tel­li­gences obe­di­ently and re­spect­fully func­tion un­der the wise guid­ance of this ex­alted and ex­pe­ri­enced Per­son­al­ized Mys­tery Mon­i­tor. In as­sum­ing com­mand of this mighty as­sem­bly, the Ad­juster, be­ing a one­time part and essence of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther, as­sured Je­sus that in no case would these super­hu­man agen­cies be per­mit­ted to serve, or man­i­fest them­selves in con­nec­tion with, or in be­half of, his earth ca­reer un­less it should de­velop that the Fa­ther willed such in­ter­ven­tion. Thus by one great de­ci­sion Je­sus vol­un­tar­ily de­prived him­self of all super­hu­man co-op­er­a­tion in all mat­ters hav­ing to do with the re­main­der of his mor­tal ca­reer un­less the Fa­ther might in­de­pen­dently choose to par­tic­i­pate in some cer­tain act or episode of the Son’s earth labors.

136:5.4In ac­cept­ing this com­mand of the uni­verse hosts in at­ten­dance upon Christ Mi­chael, the Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster took great pains to point out to Je­sus that, while such an as­sem­bly of uni­verse crea­tures could be lim­ited in their space ac­tiv­i­ties by the del­e­gated au­thor­ity of their Cre­ator, such lim­i­ta­tions were not op­er­a­tive in con­nec­tion with their func­tion in time. And this lim­i­ta­tion was de­pen­dent on the fact that Ad­justers are non­time be­ings when once they are per­son­al­ized. Ac­cord­ingly was Je­sus ad­mon­ished that, while the Ad­juster’s con­trol of the liv­ing in­tel­li­gences placed un­der his com­mand would be com­plete and per­fect as to all mat­ters in­volv­ing space, there could be no such per­fect lim­i­ta­tions im­posed re­gard­ing time. Said the Ad­juster: “I will, as you have di­rected, en­join the em­ploy­ment of this at­ten­dant host of uni­verse in­tel­li­gences in any man­ner in con­nec­tion with your earth ca­reer ex­cept in those cases where the Par­a­dise Fa­ther di­rects me to re­lease such agen­cies in or­der that his di­vine will of your choos­ing may be ac­com­plished, and in those in­stances where you may en­gage in any choice or act of your di­vine-hu­man will which shall only in­volve de­par­tures from the nat­u­ral earth or­der as to time. In all such events I am pow­er­less, and your crea­tures here as­sem­bled in per­fec­tion and unity of power are like­wise help­less. If your united na­tures once en­ter­tain such de­sires, these man­dates of your choice will be forth­with ex­e­cuted. Your wish in all such mat­ters will con­sti­tute the abridg­ment of time, and the thing pro­jected is ex­is­tent. Un­der my com­mand this con­sti­tutes the fullest pos­si­ble lim­i­ta­tion which can be im­posed upon your po­ten­tial sov­er­eignty. In my self-con­scious­ness time is nonex­is­tent, and there­fore I can­not limit your crea­tures in any­thing re­lated thereto.”

136:5.5Thus did Je­sus be­come ap­prised of the work­ing out of his de­ci­sion to go on liv­ing as a man among men. He had by a sin­gle de­ci­sion ex­cluded all of his at­ten­dant uni­verse hosts of var­ied in­tel­li­gences from par­tic­i­pat­ing in his en­su­ing pub­lic min­istry ex­cept in such mat­ters as con­cerned time only. It there­fore be­comes ev­i­dent that any pos­si­ble super­nat­u­ral or sup­pos­edly super­hu­man ac­com­pa­ni­ments of Je­sus’ min­istry per­tained wholly to the elim­i­na­tion of time un­less the Fa­ther in heaven specif­i­cally ruled oth­er­wise. No mir­a­cle, min­istry of mercy, or any other pos­si­ble event oc­cur­ring in con­nec­tion with Je­sus’ re­main­ing earth labors could pos­si­bly be of the na­ture or char­ac­ter of an act tran­scend­ing the nat­u­ral laws es­tab­lished and reg­u­larly work­ing in the af­fairs of man as he lives on Uran­tia ex­cept in this ex­pressly stated mat­ter of time. No lim­its, of course, could be placed upon the man­i­fes­ta­tions of “the Fa­ther’s will.” The elim­i­na­tion of time in con­nec­tion with the ex­pressed de­sire of this po­ten­tial Sov­er­eign of a uni­verse could only be avoided by the di­rect and ex­plicit act of the will of this God-man to the ef­fect that time, as re­lated to the act or event in ques­tion, should not be short­ened or elim­i­nated. In or­der to pre­vent the ap­pear­ance of ap­par­ent time mir­a­cles, it was nec­es­sary for Je­sus to re­main con­stantly time con­scious. Any lapse of time con­scious­ness on his part, in con­nec­tion with the en­ter­tain­ment of def­i­nite de­sire, was equiv­a­lent to the en­act­ment of the thing con­ceived in the mind of this Cre­ator Son, and with­out the in­ter­ven­tion of time.

136:5.6Through the super­vis­ing con­trol of his as­so­ci­ated and Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster it was pos­si­ble for Mi­chael per­fectly to limit his per­sonal earth ac­tiv­i­ties with ref­er­ence to space, but it was not pos­si­ble for the Son of Man thus to limit his new earth sta­tus as po­ten­tial Sov­er­eign of Neb­a­don as re­gards time. And this was the ac­tual sta­tus of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth as he went forth to be­gin his pub­lic min­istry on Uran­tia.

136:6.2Je­sus thus set­tled upon an­other and con­sis­tent pol­icy for the re­main­der of his earth labors. As far as his per­sonal ne­ces­si­ties were con­cerned, and in gen­eral even in his re­la­tions with other per­son­al­i­ties, he now de­lib­er­ately chose to pur­sue the path of nor­mal earthly ex­is­tence; he def­i­nitely de­cided against a pol­icy which would tran­scend, vi­o­late, or out­rage his own es­tab­lished nat­u­ral laws. But he could not prom­ise him­self, as he had al­ready been warned by his Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster, that these nat­u­ral laws might not, in cer­tain con­ceiv­able cir­cum­stances, be greatly ac­cel­er­ated. In prin­ci­ple, Je­sus de­cided that his life­work should be or­ga­nized and pros­e­cuted in ac­cor­dance with nat­u­ral law and in har­mony with the ex­ist­ing so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion. The Mas­ter thereby chose a pro­gram of liv­ing which was the equiv­a­lent of de­cid­ing against mir­a­cles and won­ders. Again he de­cided in fa­vor of “the Fa­ther’s will”; again he sur­ren­dered ev­ery­thing into the hands of his Par­a­dise Fa­ther.

136:6.3Je­sus’ hu­man na­ture dic­tated that the first duty was self-preser­va­tion; that is the nor­mal at­ti­tude of the nat­u­ral man on the worlds of time and space, and it is, there­fore, a le­git­i­mate re­ac­tion of a Uran­tia mor­tal. But Je­sus was not con­cerned merely with this world and its crea­tures; he was liv­ing a life de­signed to in­struct and in­spire the man­i­fold crea­tures of a far-flung uni­verse.

136:6.4Be­fore his bap­tismal il­lu­mi­na­tion he had lived in per­fect sub­mis­sion to the will and guid­ance of his heav­enly Fa­ther. He em­phat­i­cally de­cided to con­tinue on in just such im­plicit mor­tal de­pen­dence on the Fa­ther’s will. He pur­posed to fol­low the un­nat­u­ral course—he de­cided not to seek self-preser­va­tion. He chose to go on pur­su­ing the pol­icy of re­fus­ing to de­fend him­self. He for­mu­lated his con­clu­sions in the words of Scrip­ture fa­mil­iar to his hu­man mind: “Man shall not live by bread alone but by ev­ery word that pro­ceeds from the mouth of God.” In reach­ing this con­clu­sion in re­gard to the ap­petite of the phys­i­cal na­ture as ex­pressed in hunger for food, the Son of Man made his fi­nal dec­la­ra­tion con­cern­ing all other urges of the flesh and the nat­u­ral im­pulses of hu­man na­ture.

136:6.5His super­hu­man power he might pos­si­bly use for oth­ers, but for him­self, never. And he pur­sued this pol­icy con­sis­tently to the very end, when it was jeer­ingly said of him: “He saved oth­ers; him­self he can­not save”—be­cause he would not.

136:6.6The Jews were ex­pect­ing a Mes­siah who would do even greater won­ders than Moses, who was re­puted to have brought forth wa­ter from the rock in a desert place and to have fed their fore­fa­thers with manna in the wilder­ness. Je­sus knew the sort of Mes­siah his com­pa­tri­ots ex­pected, and he had all the pow­ers and pre­rog­a­tives to mea­sure up to their most san­guine ex­pec­ta­tions, but he de­cided against such a mag­nif­i­cent pro­gram of power and glory. Je­sus looked upon such a course of ex­pected mir­a­cle work­ing as a hark­ing back to the olden days of ig­no­rant magic and the de­graded prac­tices of the sav­age med­i­cine men. Pos­si­bly, for the sal­va­tion of his crea­tures, he might ac­cel­er­ate nat­u­ral law, but to tran­scend his own laws, ei­ther for the ben­e­fit of him­self or the over­aw­ing of his fel­low men, that he would not do. And the Mas­ter’s de­ci­sion was fi­nal.

136:6.7Je­sus sor­rowed for his peo­ple; he fully un­der­stood how they had been led up to the ex­pec­ta­tion of the com­ing Mes­siah, the time when “the earth will yield its fruits ten thou­sand­fold, and on one vine there will be a thou­sand branches, and each branch will pro­duce a thou­sand clus­ters, and each clus­ter will pro­duce a thou­sand grapes, and each grape will pro­duce a gal­lon of wine.” The Jews be­lieved the Mes­siah would usher in an era of mirac­u­lous plenty. The He­brews had long been nur­tured on tra­di­tions of mir­a­cles and leg­ends of won­ders.

136:6.8He was not a Mes­siah com­ing to mul­ti­ply bread and wine. He came not to min­is­ter to tem­po­ral needs only; he came to re­veal his Fa­ther in heaven to his chil­dren on earth, while he sought to lead his earth chil­dren to join him in a sin­cere ef­fort so to live as to do the will of the Fa­ther in heaven.

136:6.9In this de­ci­sion Je­sus of Naz­a­reth por­trayed to an on­look­ing uni­verse the folly and sin of pros­ti­tut­ing di­vine tal­ents and God-given abil­i­ties for per­sonal ag­gran­dize­ment or for purely self­ish gain and glo­ri­fi­ca­tion. That was the sin of Lu­cifer and Cali­gas­tia.

136:6.10This great de­ci­sion of Je­sus por­trays dra­mat­i­cally the truth that self­ish sat­is­fac­tion and sen­su­ous grat­i­fi­ca­tion, alone and of them­selves, are not able to con­fer hap­pi­ness upon evolv­ing hu­man be­ings. There are higher val­ues in mor­tal ex­is­tence—in­tel­lec­tual mas­tery and spir­i­tual achieve­ment—which far tran­scend the nec­es­sary grat­i­fi­ca­tion of man’s purely phys­i­cal ap­petites and urges. Man’s nat­u­ral en­dow­ment of tal­ent and abil­ity should be chiefly de­voted to the de­vel­op­ment and en­no­ble­ment of his higher pow­ers of mind and spirit.

136:6.11Je­sus thus re­vealed to the crea­tures of his uni­verse the tech­nique of the new and bet­ter way, the higher moral val­ues of liv­ing and the deeper spir­i­tual sat­is­fac­tions of evo­lu­tion­ary hu­man ex­is­tence on the worlds of space.

136:7.1Hav­ing made his de­ci­sions re­gard­ing such mat­ters as food and phys­i­cal min­is­tra­tion to the needs of his ma­te­rial body, the care of the health of him­self and his as­so­ciates, there re­mained yet other prob­lems to solve. What would be his at­ti­tude when con­fronted by per­sonal dan­ger? He de­cided to ex­er­cise nor­mal watch­care over his hu­man safety and to take rea­son­able pre­cau­tion to pre­vent the un­timely ter­mi­na­tion of his ca­reer in the flesh but to re­frain from all super­hu­man in­ter­ven­tion when the cri­sis of his life in the flesh should come. As he was for­mu­lat­ing this de­ci­sion, Je­sus was seated un­der the shade of a tree on an over­hang­ing ledge of rock with a precipice right there be­fore him. He fully re­al­ized that he could cast him­self off the ledge and out into space, and that noth­ing could hap­pen to harm him pro­vided he would re­scind his first great de­ci­sion not to in­voke the in­ter­po­si­tion of his ce­les­tial in­tel­li­gences in the pros­e­cu­tion of his life­work on Uran­tia, and pro­vided he would ab­ro­gate his sec­ond de­ci­sion con­cern­ing his at­ti­tude to­ward self-preser­va­tion.

136:7.2Je­sus knew his fel­low coun­try­men were ex­pect­ing a Mes­siah who would be above nat­u­ral law. Well had he been taught that Scrip­ture: “There shall no evil be­fall you, nei­ther shall any plague come near your dwell­ing. For he shall give his an­gels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you up in their hands lest you dash your foot against a stone.” Would this sort of pre­sump­tion, this de­fi­ance of his Fa­ther’s laws of grav­ity, be jus­ti­fied in or­der to pro­tect him­self from pos­si­ble harm or, per­chance, to win the con­fi­dence of his mis­taught and dis­tracted peo­ple? But such a course, how­ever grat­i­fy­ing to the sign-seek­ing Jews, would be, not a rev­e­la­tion of his Fa­ther, but a ques­tion­able tri­fling with the es­tab­lished laws of the uni­verse of uni­verses.

136:7.3Un­der­stand­ing all of this and know­ing that the Mas­ter re­fused to work in de­fi­ance of his es­tab­lished laws of na­ture in so far as his per­sonal con­duct was con­cerned, you know of a cer­tainty that he never walked on the wa­ter nor did any­thing else which was an out­rage to his ma­te­rial or­der of ad­min­is­ter­ing the world; al­ways, of course, bear­ing in mind that there had, as yet, been found no way whereby he could be wholly de­liv­ered from the lack of con­trol over the el­e­ment of time in con­nec­tion with those mat­ters put un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster.

136:7.4Through­out his en­tire earth life Je­sus was con­sis­tently loyal to this de­ci­sion. No mat­ter whether the Phar­isees taunted him for a sign, or the watch­ers at Cal­vary dared him to come down from the cross, he stead­fastly ad­hered to the de­ci­sion of this hour on the hill­side.

136:8.2Je­sus very wisely fore­saw that the work­ing of mir­a­cles and the ex­e­cu­tion of won­ders would call forth only out­ward al­le­giance by over­aw­ing the ma­te­rial mind; such per­for­mances would not re­veal God nor save men. He re­fused to be­come a mere won­der-worker. He re­solved to be­come oc­cu­pied with but a sin­gle task—the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom of heaven.

136:8.3Through­out all this mo­men­tous di­a­logue of Je­sus’ com­muning with him­self, there was pres­ent the hu­man el­e­ment of ques­tion­ing and near-doubt­ing, for Je­sus was man as well as God. It was ev­i­dent he would never be re­ceived by the Jews as the Mes­siah if he did not work won­ders. Be­sides, if he would con­sent to do just one un­nat­u­ral thing, the hu­man mind would know of a cer­tainty that it was in sub­servience to a truly di­vine mind. Would it be con­sis­tent with “the Fa­ther’s will” for the di­vine mind to make this con­ces­sion to the doubt­ing na­ture of the hu­man mind? Je­sus de­cided that it would not and cited the pres­ence of the Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster as suf­fi­cient proof of di­vin­ity in part­ner­ship with hu­man­ity.

136:8.5Je­sus was fully aware of the short cuts open to one of his pow­ers. He knew many ways in which the at­ten­tion of the na­tion, and the whole world, could be im­me­di­ately fo­cused upon him­self. Soon the Pass­over would be cel­e­brated at Je­ru­sa­lem; the city would be thronged with vis­i­tors. He could as­cend the pin­na­cle of the tem­ple and be­fore the be­wil­dered mul­ti­tude walk out on the air; that would be the kind of a Mes­siah they were look­ing for. But he would sub­se­quently dis­ap­point them since he had not come to re-es­tab­lish David’s throne. And he knew the fu­til­ity of the Cali­gas­tia method of try­ing to get ahead of the nat­u­ral, slow, and sure way of ac­com­plish­ing the di­vine pur­pose. Again the Son of Man bowed obe­di­ently to the Fa­ther’s way, the Fa­ther’s will.

136:8.6Je­sus chose to es­tab­lish the king­dom of heaven in the hearts of man­kind by nat­u­ral, or­di­nary, dif­fi­cult, and try­ing meth­ods, just such pro­ce­dures as his earth chil­dren must sub­se­quently fol­low in their work of en­larg­ing and ex­tend­ing that heav­enly king­dom. For well did the Son of Man know that it would be “through much tribu­la­tion that many of the chil­dren of all ages would en­ter into the king­dom.” Je­sus was now pass­ing through the great test of civ­i­lized man, to have power and stead­fastly refuse to use it for purely self­ish or per­sonal pur­poses.

136:8.7In your con­sid­er­a­tion of the life and ex­pe­ri­ence of the Son of Man, it should be ever borne in mind that the Son of God was in­car­nate in the mind of a first-cen­tury hu­man be­ing, not in the mind of a twen­ti­eth-cen­tury or other-cen­tury mor­tal. By this we mean to con­vey the idea that the hu­man en­dow­ments of Je­sus were of nat­u­ral ac­quire­ment. He was the prod­uct of the hered­i­tary and en­vi­ron­men­tal fac­tors of his time, plus the in­flu­ence of his train­ing and ed­u­ca­tion. His hu­man­ity was gen­uine, nat­u­ral, wholly de­rived from the an­tecedents of, and fos­tered by, the ac­tual in­tel­lec­tual sta­tus and so­cial and eco­nomic con­di­tions of that day and gen­er­a­tion. While in the ex­pe­ri­ence of this God-man there was al­ways the pos­si­bil­ity that the di­vine mind would tran­scend the hu­man in­tel­lect, nonethe­less, when, and as, his hu­man mind func­tioned, it did per­form as would a true mor­tal mind un­der the con­di­tions of the hu­man en­vi­ron­ment of that day.

136:8.8Je­sus por­trayed to all the worlds of his vast uni­verse the folly of cre­at­ing ar­ti­fi­cial sit­u­a­tions for the pur­pose of ex­hibit­ing ar­bi­trary au­thor­ity or of in­dulging ex­cep­tional power for the pur­pose of en­hanc­ing moral val­ues or ac­cel­er­at­ing spir­i­tual prog­ress. Je­sus de­cided that he would not lend his mis­sion on earth to a rep­e­ti­tion of the dis­ap­point­ment of the reign of the Mac­cabees. He re­fused to pros­ti­tute his di­vine at­tri­butes for the pur­pose of ac­quir­ing un­earned pop­u­lar­ity or for gain­ing po­lit­i­cal pres­tige. He would not coun­te­nance the trans­mu­ta­tion of di­vine and cre­ative en­ergy into na­tional power or in­ter­na­tional pres­tige. Je­sus of Naz­a­reth re­fused to com­pro­mise with evil, much less to con­sort with sin. The Mas­ter tri­umphantly put loy­alty to his Fa­ther’s will above ev­ery other earthly and tem­po­ral con­sid­er­a­tion.

136:9.1Hav­ing set­tled such ques­tions of pol­icy as per­tained to his in­di­vid­ual re­la­tions to nat­u­ral law and spir­i­tual power, he turned his at­ten­tion to the choice of meth­ods to be em­ployed in the procla­ma­tion and es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom of God. John had al­ready be­gun this work; how might he con­tinue the mes­sage? How should he take over John’s mis­sion? How should he or­ga­nize his fol­low­ers for ef­fec­tive ef­fort and in­tel­li­gent co-op­er­a­tion? Je­sus was now reach­ing the fi­nal de­ci­sion which would for­bid that he fur­ther re­gard him­self as the Jew­ish Mes­siah, at least as the Mes­siah was pop­u­larly con­ceived in that day.

136:9.2The Jews en­vis­aged a de­liv­erer who would come in mirac­u­lous power to cast down Is­rael’s en­e­mies and es­tab­lish the Jews as world rulers, free from want and op­pres­sion. Je­sus knew that this hope would never be re­al­ized. He knew that the king­dom of heaven had to do with the over­throw of evil in the hearts of men, and that it was purely a mat­ter of spir­i­tual con­cern. He thought out the ad­vis­abil­ity of in­au­gu­rat­ing the spir­i­tual king­dom with a bril­liant and daz­zling dis­play of power—and such a course would have been per­mis­si­ble and wholly within the ju­ris­dic­tion of Mi­chael—but he fully de­cided against such a plan. He would not com­pro­mise with the rev­o­lu­tion­ary tech­niques of Cali­gas­tia. He had won the world in po­ten­tial by sub­mis­sion to the Fa­ther’s will, and he pro­posed to fin­ish his work as he had be­gun it, and as the Son of Man.

136:9.4As the days passed, with ever-in­creas­ing clear­ness Je­sus per­ceived what kind of a truth-re­vealer he was to be­come. He dis­cerned that God’s way was not go­ing to be the easy way. He be­gan to re­al­ize that the cup of the re­main­der of his hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence might pos­si­bly be bit­ter, but he de­cided to drink it.

136:9.5Even his hu­man mind is say­ing good-bye to the throne of David. Step by step this hu­man mind fol­lows in the path of the di­vine. The hu­man mind still asks ques­tions but un­fail­ingly ac­cepts the di­vine an­swers as fi­nal rul­ings in this com­bined life of liv­ing as a man in the world while all the time sub­mit­ting un­qual­i­fiedly to the do­ing of the Fa­ther’s eter­nal and di­vine will.

136:9.6Rome was mis­tress of the West­ern world. The Son of Man, now in iso­la­tion and achiev­ing these mo­men­tous de­ci­sions, with the hosts of heaven at his com­mand, rep­re­sented the last chance of the Jews to at­tain world do­min­ion; but this earth­born Jew, who pos­sessed such tremen­dous wis­dom and power, de­clined to use his uni­verse en­dow­ments ei­ther for the ag­gran­dize­ment of him­self or for the en­throne­ment of his peo­ple. He saw, as it were, “the king­doms of this world,” and he pos­sessed the power to take them. The Most Highs of Eden­tia had re­signed all these pow­ers into his hands, but he did not want them. The king­doms of earth were pal­try things to in­ter­est the Cre­ator and Ruler of a uni­verse. He had only one ob­jec­tive, the fur­ther rev­e­la­tion of God to man, the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom, the rule of the heav­enly Fa­ther in the hearts of man­kind.

136:9.7The idea of bat­tle, con­tention, and slaugh­ter was re­pug­nant to Je­sus; he would have none of it. He would ap­pear on earth as the Prince of Peace to re­veal a God of love. Be­fore his bap­tism he had again re­fused the of­fer of the Zealots to lead them in re­bel­lion against the Ro­man op­pres­sors. And now he made his fi­nal de­ci­sion re­gard­ing those Scrip­tures which his mother had taught him, such as: “The Lord has said to me, ‘You are my Son; this day have I be­got­ten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the hea­then for your in­her­i­tance and the ut­ter­most parts of the earth for your pos­ses­sion. You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them in pieces like a pot­ter’s ves­sel.’”

136:9.8Je­sus of Naz­a­reth reached the con­clu­sion that such ut­ter­ances did not re­fer to him. At last, and fi­nally, the hu­man mind of the Son of Man made a clean sweep of all these Mes­sianic dif­fi­cul­ties and con­tra­dic­tions—He­brew scrip­tures, pa­ren­tal train­ing, chazan teach­ing, Jew­ish ex­pec­ta­tions, and hu­man am­bi­tious long­ings; once and for all he de­cided upon his course. He would re­turn to Gal­i­lee and qui­etly be­gin the procla­ma­tion of the king­dom and trust his Fa­ther (the Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster) to work out the de­tails of pro­ce­dure day by day.

136:9.9By these de­ci­sions Je­sus set a wor­thy ex­am­ple for ev­ery per­son on ev­ery world through­out a vast uni­verse when he re­fused to ap­ply ma­te­rial tests to prove spir­i­tual prob­lems, when he re­fused pre­sump­tu­ously to defy nat­u­ral laws. And he set an in­spir­ing ex­am­ple of uni­verse loy­alty and moral no­bil­ity when he re­fused to grasp tem­po­ral power as the pre­lude to spir­i­tual glory.

136:9.10If the Son of Man had any doubts about his mis­sion and its na­ture when he went up in the hills af­ter his bap­tism, he had none when he came back to his fel­lows fol­low­ing the forty days of iso­la­tion and de­ci­sions.

136:9.11Je­sus has for­mu­lated a pro­gram for the es­tab­lish­ment of the Fa­ther’s king­dom. He will not cater to the phys­i­cal grat­i­fi­ca­tion of the peo­ple. He will not deal out bread to the mul­ti­tudes as he has so re­cently seen it be­ing done in Rome. He will not at­tract at­ten­tion to him­self by won­der-work­ing, even though the Jews are ex­pect­ing just that sort of a de­liv­erer. Nei­ther will he seek to win ac­cep­tance of a spir­i­tual mes­sage by a show of po­lit­i­cal au­thor­ity or tem­po­ral power.

136:9.12In re­ject­ing these meth­ods of en­hanc­ing the com­ing king­dom in the eyes of the ex­pec­tant Jews, Je­sus made sure that these same Jews would cer­tainly and fi­nally re­ject all of his claims to au­thor­ity and di­vin­ity. Know­ing all this, Je­sus long sought to pre­vent his early fol­low­ers al­lud­ing to him as the Mes­siah.

136:9.13Through­out his pub­lic min­istry he was con­fronted with the ne­ces­sity of deal­ing with three con­stantly re­cur­ring sit­u­a­tions: the clamor to be fed, the in­sis­tence on mir­a­cles, and the fi­nal re­quest that he al­low his fol­low­ers to make him king. But Je­sus never de­parted from the de­ci­sions which he made dur­ing these days of his iso­la­tion in the Perean hills.

136:10.1On the last day of this mem­o­rable iso­la­tion, be­fore start­ing down the moun­tain to join John and his dis­ci­ples, the Son of Man made his fi­nal de­ci­sion. And this de­ci­sion he com­mu­ni­cated to the Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster in these words, “And in all other mat­ters, as in these now of de­ci­sion-rec­ord, I pledge you I will be sub­ject to the will of my Fa­ther.” And when he had thus spo­ken, he jour­neyed down the moun­tain. And his face shone with the glory of spir­i­tual vic­tory and moral achieve­ment.

• wept › over family in boat

141:0.2Just be­fore leav­ing, the apos­tles missed the Mas­ter, and An­drew went out to find him. Af­ter a brief search he found Je­sus sit­ting in a boat down the beach, and he was weep­ing. The twelve had of­ten seen their Mas­ter when he seemed to grieve, and they had be­held his brief sea­sons of se­ri­ous pre­oc­cu­pa­tion of mind, but none of them had ever seen him weep. An­drew was some­what star­tled to see the Mas­ter thus af­fected on the eve of their de­par­ture for Je­ru­sa­lem, and he ven­tured to ap­proach Je­sus and ask: “On this great day, Mas­ter, when we are to de­part for Je­ru­sa­lem to pro­claim the Fa­ther’s king­dom, why is it that you weep? Which of us has of­fended you?” And Je­sus, go­ing back with An­drew to join the twelve, an­swered him: “No one of you has grieved me. I am sad­dened only be­cause none of my fa­ther Joseph’s fam­ily have re­mem­bered to come over to bid us God­speed.” At this time Ruth was on a visit to her brother Joseph at Naz­a­reth. Other mem­bers of his fam­ily were kept away by pride, dis­ap­point­ment, mis­un­der­stand­ing, and petty re­sent­ment in­dulged as a re­sult of hurt feel­ings.

• first pronouncement of divine nature to Nalda

143:5.8This was the first di­rect, pos­i­tive, and undis­guised pro­nounce­ment of his di­vine na­ture and son­ship which Je­sus had made on earth; and it was made to a woman, a Samar­i­tan woman, and a woman of ques­tion­able char­ac­ter in the eyes of men up to this mo­ment, but a woman whom the di­vine eye be­held as hav­ing been sinned against more than as sin­ning of her own de­sire and as now be­ing a hu­man soul who de­sired sal­va­tion, de­sired it sin­cerely and whole­heart­edly, and that was enough.

152:3.1The feed­ing of the five thou­sand by super­nat­u­ral en­ergy was an­other of those cases where hu­man pity plus cre­ative power equaled that which hap­pened. Now that the mul­ti­tude had been fed to the full, and since Je­sus’ fame was then and there aug­mented by this stu­pen­dous won­der, the project to seize the Mas­ter and pro­claim him king re­quired no fur­ther per­sonal di­rec­tion. The idea seemed to spread through the crowd like a con­ta­gion. The re­ac­tion of the mul­ti­tude to this sud­den and spec­tac­u­lar sup­ply­ing of their phys­i­cal needs was pro­found and over­whelm­ing. For a long time the Jews had been taught that the Mes­siah, the son of David, when he should come, would cause the land again to flow with milk and honey, and that the bread of life would be be­stowed upon them as manna from heaven was sup­posed to have fallen upon their fore­fa­thers in the wilder­ness. And was not all of this ex­pec­ta­tion now ful­filled right be­fore their eyes? When this hun­gry, un­der­nour­ished mul­ti­tude had fin­ished gorg­ing it­self with the won­der-food, there was but one unan­i­mous re­ac­tion: “Here is our king.” The won­der-work­ing de­liv­erer of Is­rael had come. In the eyes of these sim­ple-minded peo­ple the power to feed car­ried with it the right to rule. No won­der, then, that the mul­ti­tude, when it had fin­ished feast­ing, rose as one man and shouted, “Make him king!”

152:3.2This mighty shout en­thused Pe­ter and those of the apos­tles who still re­tained the hope of see­ing Je­sus as­sert his right to rule. But these false hopes were not to live for long. This mighty shout of the mul­ti­tude had hardly ceased to re­ver­ber­ate from the near-by rocks when Je­sus stepped upon a huge stone and, lift­ing up his right hand to com­mand their at­ten­tion, said: “My chil­dren, you mean well, but you are short­sighted and ma­te­rial-minded.” There was a brief pause; this stal­wart Galilean was there ma­jes­ti­cally posed in the en­chant­ing glow of that east­ern twi­light. Ev­ery inch he looked a king as he con­tin­ued to speak to this breath­less mul­ti­tude: “You would make me king, not be­cause your souls have been lighted with a great truth, but be­cause your stom­achs have been filled with bread. How many times have I told you that my king­dom is not of this world? This king­dom of heaven which we pro­claim is a spir­i­tual broth­er­hood, and no man rules over it seated upon a ma­te­rial throne. My Fa­ther in heaven is the all-wise and the all-pow­er­ful Ruler over this spir­i­tual broth­er­hood of the sons of God on earth. Have I so failed in re­veal­ing to you the Fa­ther of spir­its that you would make a king of his Son in the flesh! Now all of you go hence to your own homes. If you must have a king, let the Fa­ther of lights be en­throned in the heart of each of you as the spirit Ruler of all things.”

152:3.3These words of Je­sus sent the mul­ti­tude away stunned and dis­heart­ened. Many who had be­lieved in him turned back and fol­lowed him no more from that day. The apos­tles were speech­less; they stood in si­lence gath­ered about the twelve bas­kets of the frag­ments of food; only the chore boy, the Mark lad, spoke, “And he re­fused to be our king.” Je­sus, be­fore go­ing off to be alone in the hills, turned to An­drew and said: “Take your breth­ren back to Zeb­e­dee’s house and pray with them, es­pe­cially for your brother, Si­mon Pe­ter.”

158:0.1It was near sun­down on Fri­day af­ter­noon, Au­gust 12, A.D. 29, when Je­sus and his as­so­ciates reached the foot of Mount Her­mon, near the very place where the lad Tiglath once waited while the Mas­ter as­cended the moun­tain alone to set­tle the spir­i­tual des­tinies of Uran­tia and tech­ni­cally to ter­mi­nate the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion. And here they so­journed for two days in spir­i­tual prepa­ra­tion for the events so soon to fol­low.

158:0.2In a gen­eral way, Je­sus knew be­fore­hand what was to tran­spire on the moun­tain, and he much de­sired that all his apos­tles might share this ex­pe­ri­ence. It was to fit them for this rev­e­la­tion of him­self that he tar­ried with them at the foot of the moun­tain. But they could not at­tain those spir­i­tual lev­els which would jus­tify their ex­po­sure to the full ex­pe­ri­ence of the vis­i­ta­tion of the ce­les­tial be­ings so soon to ap­pear on earth. And since he could not take all of his as­so­ciates with him, he de­cided to take only the three who were in the habit of ac­com­pa­ny­ing him on such spe­cial vig­ils. Ac­cord­ingly, only Pe­ter, James, and John shared even a part of this unique ex­pe­ri­ence with the Mas­ter.

158:1.1Early on the morn­ing of Mon­day, Au­gust 15, Je­sus and the three apos­tles be­gan the as­cent of Mount Her­mon, and this was six days af­ter the mem­o­rable noon­tide con­fes­sion of Pe­ter by the road­side un­der the mul­berry trees.

158:1.2Je­sus had been sum­moned to go up on the moun­tain, apart by him­self, for the trans­ac­tion of im­por­tant mat­ters hav­ing to do with the prog­ress of his be­stowal in the flesh as this ex­pe­ri­ence was re­lated to the uni­verse of his own cre­ation. It is sig­nif­i­cant that this ex­traor­di­nary event was timed to oc­cur while Je­sus and the apos­tles were in the lands of the gen­tiles, and that it ac­tu­ally tran­spired on a moun­tain of the gen­tiles.

158:1.3They reached their des­ti­na­tion, about half­way up the moun­tain, shortly be­fore noon, and while eat­ing lunch, Je­sus told the three apos­tles some­thing of his ex­pe­ri­ence in the hills to the east of Jor­dan shortly af­ter his bap­tism and also some more of his ex­pe­ri­ence on Mount Her­mon in con­nec­tion with his for­mer visit to this lonely re­treat.

• transfiguration › J. declined to be invested with full authority at

158:1.4When a boy, Je­sus used to as­cend the hill near his home and dream of the bat­tles which had been fought by the armies of em­pires on the plain of Es­draelon; now he as­cended Mount Her­mon to re­ceive the en­dow­ment which was to pre­pare him to de­scend upon the plains of the Jor­dan to en­act the clos­ing scenes of the drama of his be­stowal on Uran­tia. The Mas­ter could have re­lin­quished the strug­gle this day on Mount Her­mon and re­turned to his rule of the uni­verse do­mains, but he not only chose to meet the re­quire­ments of his or­der of di­vine son­ship em­braced in the man­date of the Eter­nal Son on Par­a­dise, but he also elected to meet the last and full mea­sure of the pres­ent will of his Par­a­dise Fa­ther. On this day in Au­gust three of his apos­tles saw him de­cline to be in­vested with full uni­verse au­thor­ity. They looked on in amaze­ment as the ce­les­tial mes­sen­gers de­parted, leav­ing him alone to fin­ish out his earth life as the Son of Man and the Son of God.

158:1.5The faith of the apos­tles was at a high point at the time of the feed­ing of the five thou­sand, and then it rapidly fell al­most to zero. Now, as a re­sult of the Mas­ter’s ad­mis­sion of his di­vin­ity, the lag­ging faith of the twelve arose in the next few weeks to its high­est pitch, only to un­dergo a pro­gres­sive de­cline. The third re­vival of their faith did not oc­cur un­til af­ter the Mas­ter’s res­ur­rec­tion.

158:1.7As they par­took of their mea­ger evening meal, Pe­ter asked the Mas­ter, “How long do we re­main on this moun­tain away from our breth­ren?” And Je­sus an­swered: “Un­til you shall see the glory of the Son of Man and know that what­so­ever I have de­clared to you is true.” And they talked over the af­fairs of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion while seated about the glow­ing em­bers of their fire un­til dark­ness drew on and the apos­tles’ eyes grew heavy, for they had be­gun their jour­ney very early that morn­ing.

158:1.8When the three had been fast asleep for about half an hour, they were sud­denly awak­ened by a near-by crack­ling sound, and much to their amaze­ment and con­ster­na­tion, on look­ing about them, they be­held Je­sus in in­ti­mate con­verse with two bril­liant be­ings clothed in the ha­bil­i­ments of the light of the ce­les­tial world. And Je­sus’ face and form shone with the lu­mi­nos­ity of a heav­enly light. These three con­versed in a strange lan­guage, but from cer­tain things said, Pe­ter er­ro­neously con­jec­tured that the be­ings with Je­sus were Moses and Eli­jah; in re­al­ity, they were Ga­briel and the Fa­ther Mel­chiz­e­dek. The phys­i­cal con­trol­lers had ar­ranged for the apos­tles to wit­ness this scene be­cause of Je­sus’ re­quest.

158:1.9The three apos­tles were so badly fright­ened that they were slow in col­lect­ing their wits, but Pe­ter, who was first to re­cover him­self, said, as the daz­zling vi­sion faded from be­fore them and they ob­served Je­sus stand­ing alone: “Je­sus, Mas­ter, it is good to have been here. We re­joice to see this glory. We are loath to go back down to the in­glo­ri­ous world. If you are will­ing, let us abide here, and we will erect three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Eli­jah.” And Pe­ter said this be­cause of his con­fu­sion, and be­cause noth­ing else came into his mind at just that mo­ment.

158:1.10While Pe­ter was yet speak­ing, a sil­very cloud drew near and over­shad­owed the four of them. The apos­tles now be­came greatly fright­ened, and as they fell down on their faces to wor­ship, they heard a voice, the same that had spo­ken on the oc­ca­sion of Je­sus’ bap­tism, say: “This is my beloved Son; give heed to him.” And when the cloud van­ished, again was Je­sus alone with the three, and he reached down and touched them, say­ing: “Arise and be not afraid; you shall see greater things than this.” But the apos­tles were truly afraid; they were a silent and thought­ful trio as they made ready to de­scend the moun­tain shortly be­fore mid­night.

• resurrection › Jesus foretold

158:2.1For about half the dis­tance down the moun­tain not a word was spo­ken. Je­sus then be­gan the con­ver­sa­tion by re­mark­ing: “Make cer­tain that you tell no man, not even your breth­ren, what you have seen and heard on this moun­tain un­til the Son of Man has risen from the dead.” The three apos­tles were shocked and be­wil­dered by the Mas­ter’s words, “un­til the Son of Man has risen from the dead.” They had so re­cently reaf­firmed their faith in him as the De­liv­erer, the Son of God, and they had just be­held him trans­fig­ured in glory be­fore their very eyes, and now he be­gan to talk about “ris­ing from the dead”!

158:2.2Pe­ter shud­dered at the thought of the Mas­ter’s dy­ing—it was too dis­agree­able an idea to en­ter­tain—and fear­ing that James or John might ask some ques­tion rel­a­tive to this state­ment, he thought best to start up a di­vert­ing con­ver­sa­tion and, not know­ing what else to talk about, gave ex­pres­sion to the first thought com­ing into his mind, which was: “Mas­ter, why is it that the scribes say that Eli­jah must first come be­fore the Mes­siah shall ap­pear?” And Je­sus, know­ing that Pe­ter sought to avoid ref­er­ence to his death and res­ur­rec­tion, an­swered: “Eli­jah in­deed comes first to pre­pare the way for the Son of Man, who must suf­fer many things and fi­nally be re­jected. But I tell you that Eli­jah has al­ready come, and they re­ceived him not but did to him what­so­ever they willed.” And then did the three apos­tles per­ceive that he re­ferred to John the Bap­tist as Eli­jah. Je­sus knew that, if they in­sisted on re­gard­ing him as the Mes­siah, then must John be the Eli­jah of the prophecy.

158:2.3Je­sus en­joined si­lence about their ob­ser­va­tion of the fore­taste of his postres­ur­rec­tion glory be­cause he did not want to fos­ter the no­tion that, be­ing now re­ceived as the Mes­siah, he would in any de­gree ful­fill their er­ro­neous con­cepts of a won­der-work­ing de­liv­erer. Al­though Pe­ter, James, and John pon­dered all this in their minds, they spoke not of it to any man un­til af­ter the Mas­ter’s res­ur­rec­tion.

158:2.4As they con­tin­ued to de­scend the moun­tain, Je­sus said to them: “You would not re­ceive me as the Son of Man; there­fore have I con­sented to be re­ceived in ac­cor­dance with your set­tled de­ter­mi­na­tion, but, mis­take not, the will of my Fa­ther must pre­vail. If you thus choose to fol­low the in­cli­na­tion of your own wills, you must pre­pare to suf­fer many dis­ap­point­ments and ex­pe­ri­ence many tri­als, but the train­ing which I have given you should suf­fice to bring you tri­umphantly through even these sor­rows of your own choos­ing.”

158:2.5Je­sus did not take Pe­ter, James, and John with him up to the mount of the trans­fig­u­ra­tion be­cause they were in any sense bet­ter pre­pared than the other apos­tles to wit­ness what hap­pened, or be­cause they were spir­i­tu­ally more fit to en­joy such a rare priv­i­lege. Not at all. He well knew that none of the twelve were spir­i­tu­ally qual­i­fied for this ex­pe­ri­ence; there­fore did he take with him only the three apos­tles who were as­signed to ac­com­pany him at those times when he de­sired to be alone to en­joy soli­tary com­mu­nion.

158:3.1That which Pe­ter, James, and John wit­nessed on the mount of trans­fig­u­ra­tion was a fleet­ing glimpse of a ce­les­tial pageant which tran­spired that event­ful day on Mount Her­mon. The trans­fig­u­ra­tion was the oc­ca­sion of:

158:3.21. The ac­cep­tance of the full­ness of the be­stowal of the in­car­nated life of Mi­chael on Uran­tia by the Eter­nal Mother-Son of Par­a­dise. As far as con­cerned the re­quire­ments of the Eter­nal Son, Je­sus had now re­ceived as­sur­ance of their ful­fill­ment. And Ga­briel brought Je­sus that as­sur­ance.

158:3.32. The tes­ti­mony of the sat­is­fac­tion of the In­fi­nite Spirit as to the full­ness of the Uran­tia be­stowal in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh. The uni­verse rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the In­fi­nite Spirit, the im­me­di­ate as­so­ciate of Mi­chael on Sal­ving­ton and his ever-pres­ent coworker, on this oc­ca­sion spoke through the Fa­ther Mel­chiz­e­dek.

158:3.4Je­sus wel­comed this tes­ti­mony re­gard­ing the suc­cess of his earth mis­sion pre­sented by the mes­sen­gers of the Eter­nal Son and the In­fi­nite Spirit, but he noted that his Fa­ther did not in­di­cate that the Uran­tia be­stowal was fin­ished; only did the un­seen pres­ence of the Fa­ther bear wit­ness through Je­sus’ Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster, say­ing, “This is my beloved Son; give heed to him.” And this was spo­ken in words to be heard also by the three apos­tles.

158:3.5Af­ter this ce­les­tial vis­i­ta­tion Je­sus sought to know his Fa­ther’s will and de­cided to pur­sue the mor­tal be­stowal to its nat­u­ral end. This was the sig­nif­i­cance of the trans­fig­u­ra­tion to Je­sus. To the three apos­tles it was an event mark­ing the en­trance of the Mas­ter upon the fi­nal phase of his earth ca­reer as the Son of God and the Son of Man.

158:3.6Af­ter the for­mal vis­i­ta­tion of Ga­briel and the Fa­ther Mel­chiz­e­dek, Je­sus held in­for­mal con­verse with these, his Sons of min­istry, and com­muned with them con­cern­ing the af­fairs of the uni­verse.

• resurrection › Jesus foretold

158:6.5When Je­sus had thus spo­ken to the twelve, he added: “And now go to your rest, for on the mor­row we re­turn to Ma­g­a­dan and there take coun­sel con­cern­ing our mis­sion to the cities and vil­lages of the De­capo­lis. And in the con­clu­sion of this day’s ex­pe­ri­ence, let me de­clare to each of you that which I spoke to your breth­ren on the moun­tain, and let these words find a deep lodg­ment in your hearts: The Son of Man now en­ters upon the last phase of the be­stowal. We are about to be­gin those labors which shall pres­ently lead to the great and fi­nal test­ing of your faith and de­vo­tion when I shall be de­liv­ered into the hands of the men who seek my de­struc­tion. And re­mem­ber what I am say­ing to you: The Son of Man will be put to death, but he shall rise again.”

• resurrection › Jesus foretold

158:7.3In an­swer to An­drew, Je­sus said: “My breth­ren, it is be­cause you have con­fessed that I am the Son of God that I am con­strained to be­gin to un­fold to you the truth about the end of the be­stowal of the Son of Man on earth. You in­sist on cling­ing to the be­lief that I am the Mes­siah, and you will not aban­don the idea that the Mes­siah must sit upon a throne in Je­ru­sa­lem; where­fore do I per­sist in telling you that the Son of Man must pres­ently go to Je­ru­sa­lem, suf­fer many things, be re­jected by the scribes, the el­ders, and the chief priests, and af­ter all this be killed and raised from the dead. And I speak not a para­ble to you; I speak the truth to you that you may be pre­pared for these events when they sud­denly come upon us.” And while he was yet speak­ing, Si­mon Pe­ter, rush­ing im­petu­ously to­ward him, laid his hand upon the Mas­ter’s shoul­der and said: “Mas­ter, be it far from us to con­tend with you, but I de­clare that these things shall never hap­pen to you.”

• resurrection › Jesus foretold

158:7.7Slowly the twelve were grasp­ing the idea that Je­sus was telling them some­thing about the pos­si­bil­ity of his dy­ing. They only vaguely com­pre­hended what he said about his death, while his state­ment about ris­ing from the dead ut­terly failed to reg­is­ter in their minds. As the days passed, Pe­ter, James, and John, re­call­ing their ex­pe­ri­ence upon the mount of the trans­fig­u­ra­tion, ar­rived at a fuller un­der­stand­ing of cer­tain of these mat­ters.

• resurrection › Jesus foretold

165:2.10“And so shall you know why the Fa­ther loves me and has put all of his flocks in this do­main in my hands for keep­ing; it is be­cause the Fa­ther knows that I will not fal­ter in the safe­guard­ing of the sheep­fold, that I will not desert my sheep, and that, if it shall be re­quired, I will not hes­i­tate to lay down my life in the ser­vice of his man­i­fold flocks. But, mind you, if I lay down my life, I will take it up again. No man nor any other crea­ture can take away my life. I have the right and the power to lay down my life, and I have the same power and right to take it up again. You can­not un­der­stand this, but I re­ceived such au­thor­ity from my Fa­ther even be­fore this world was.”

• wept › at Lazarus’ tomb

168:1.1Af­ter Je­sus had spent a few mo­ments in com­fort­ing Martha and Mary, apart from the mourn­ers, he asked them, “Where have you laid him?” Then Martha said, “Come and see.” And as the Mas­ter fol­lowed on in si­lence with the two sor­row­ing sis­ters, he wept. When the friendly Jews who fol­lowed af­ter them saw his tears, one of them said: “Be­hold how he loved him. Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind have kept this man from dy­ing?” By this time they were stand­ing be­fore the fam­ily tomb, a small nat­u­ral cave, or de­cliv­ity, in the ledge of rock which rose up some thirty feet at the far end of the gar­den plot.

168:1.2It is dif­fi­cult to ex­plain to hu­man minds just why Je­sus wept. While we have ac­cess to the reg­is­tra­tion of the com­bined hu­man emo­tions and di­vine thoughts, as of rec­ord in the mind of the Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster, we are not al­to­gether cer­tain about the real cause of these emo­tional man­i­fes­ta­tions. We are in­clined to be­lieve that Je­sus wept be­cause of a num­ber of thoughts and feel­ings which were go­ing through his mind at this time, such as:

168:1.31. He felt a gen­uine and sor­row­ful sym­pa­thy for Martha and Mary; he had a real and deep hu­man af­fec­tion for these sis­ters who had lost their brother.

168:1.42. He was per­turbed in his mind by the pres­ence of the crowd of mourn­ers, some sin­cere and some merely pre­tenders. He al­ways re­sented these out­ward ex­hi­bi­tions of mourn­ing. He knew the sis­ters loved their brother and had faith in the sur­vival of be­liev­ers. These con­flict­ing emo­tions may pos­si­bly ex­plain why he groaned as they came near the tomb.

168:1.53. He truly hes­i­tated about bring­ing Laz­a­rus back to the mor­tal life. His sis­ters re­ally needed him, but Je­sus re­gret­ted hav­ing to sum­mon his friend back to ex­pe­ri­ence the bit­ter per­se­cu­tion which he well knew Laz­a­rus would have to en­dure as a re­sult of be­ing the sub­ject of the great­est of all demon­stra­tions of the di­vine power of the Son of Man.

• spent time with children

172:1.4The ban­quet went along in a very cheer­ful and nor­mal man­ner ex­cept that all the apos­tles were un­usu­ally sober. Je­sus was ex­cep­tion­ally cheer­ful and had been play­ing with the chil­dren up to the time of com­ing to the ta­ble.

175:1.1“This long time have I been with you, go­ing up and down in the land pro­claim­ing the Fa­ther’s love for the chil­dren of men, and many have seen the light and, by faith, have en­tered into the king­dom of heaven. In con­nec­tion with this teach­ing and preach­ing the Fa­ther has done many won­der­ful works, even to the res­ur­rec­tion of the dead. Many sick and af­flicted have been made whole be­cause they be­lieved; but all of this procla­ma­tion of truth and heal­ing of dis­ease has not opened the eyes of those who refuse to see light, those who are de­ter­mined to re­ject this gospel of the king­dom.

175:1.2“In ev­ery man­ner con­sis­tent with do­ing my Fa­ther’s will, I and my apos­tles have done our ut­most to live in peace with our breth­ren, to con­form with the rea­son­able re­quire­ments of the laws of Moses and the tra­di­tions of Is­rael. We have per­sis­tently sought peace, but the lead­ers of Is­rael will not have it. By re­ject­ing the truth of God and the light of heaven, they are align­ing them­selves on the side of er­ror and dark­ness. There can­not be peace be­tween light and dark­ness, be­tween life and death, be­tween truth and er­ror.

175:1.3“Many of you have dared to be­lieve my teach­ings and have al­ready en­tered into the joy and lib­erty of the con­scious­ness of son­ship with God. And you will bear me wit­ness that I have of­fered this same son­ship with God to all the Jew­ish na­tion, even to these very men who now seek my de­struc­tion. And even now would my Fa­ther re­ceive these blinded teach­ers and these hyp­o­crit­i­cal lead­ers if they would only turn to him and ac­cept his mercy. Even now it is not too late for this peo­ple to re­ceive the word of heaven and to wel­come the Son of Man.

175:1.5“As long as there is a chance that the Jews will turn to my Fa­ther and seek sal­va­tion, the God of Abra­ham, Isaac, and Ja­cob will keep his hands of mercy out­stretched to­ward you; but when you have once filled up your cup of im­pen­i­tence, and when once you have fi­nally re­jected my Fa­ther’s mercy, this na­tion will be left to its own coun­sels, and it shall speed­ily come to an in­glo­ri­ous end. This peo­ple was called to be­come the light of the world, to show forth the spir­i­tual glory of a God-know­ing race, but you have so far de­parted from the ful­fill­ment of your di­vine priv­i­leges that your lead­ers are about to com­mit the su­preme folly of all the ages in that they are on the verge of fi­nally re­ject­ing the gift of God to all men and for all ages—the rev­e­la­tion of the love of the Fa­ther in heaven for all his crea­tures on earth.

175:1.6“And when you do once re­ject this rev­e­la­tion of God to man, the king­dom of heaven shall be given to other peo­ples, to those who will re­ceive it with joy and glad­ness. In the name of the Fa­ther who sent me, I solemnly warn you that you are about to lose your po­si­tion in the world as the stan­dard-bear­ers of eter­nal truth and the cus­to­di­ans of the di­vine law. I am just now of­fer­ing you your last chance to come for­ward and re­pent, to sig­nify your in­ten­tion to seek God with all your hearts and to en­ter, like lit­tle chil­dren and by sin­cere faith, into the se­cu­rity and sal­va­tion of the king­dom of heaven.

175:1.7“My Fa­ther has long worked for your sal­va­tion, and I came down to live among you and per­son­ally show you the way. Many of both the Jews and the Samar­i­tans, and even the gen­tiles, have be­lieved the gospel of the king­dom, but those who should be first to come for­ward and ac­cept the light of heaven have stead­fastly re­fused to be­lieve the rev­e­la­tion of the truth of God—God re­vealed in man and man up­lifted to God.

175:1.8“This af­ter­noon my apos­tles stand here be­fore you in si­lence, but you shall soon hear their voices ring­ing out with the call to sal­va­tion and with the urge to unite with the heav­enly king­dom as the sons of the liv­ing God. And now I call to wit­ness these, my dis­ci­ples and be­liev­ers in the gospel of the king­dom, as well as the un­seen mes­sen­gers by their sides, that I have once more of­fered Is­rael and her rulers de­liv­er­ance and sal­va­tion. But you all be­hold how the Fa­ther’s mercy is slighted and how the mes­sen­gers of truth are re­jected. Nev­er­the­less, I ad­mon­ish you that these scribes and Phar­isees still sit in Moses’ seat, and there­fore, un­til the Most Highs who rule in the king­doms of men shall fi­nally over­throw this na­tion and de­stroy the place of these rulers, I bid you co-op­er­ate with these el­ders in Is­rael. You are not re­quired to unite with them in their plans to de­stroy the Son of Man, but in ev­ery­thing re­lated to the peace of Is­rael you are to be sub­ject to them. In all these mat­ters do what­so­ever they bid you and ob­serve the es­sen­tials of the law but do not pat­tern af­ter their evil works. Re­mem­ber, this is the sin of these rulers: They say that which is good, but they do it not. You well know how these lead­ers bind heavy bur­dens on your shoul­ders, bur­dens griev­ous to bear, and that they will not lift as much as one fin­ger to help you bear these weighty bur­dens. They have op­pressed you with cer­e­monies and en­slaved you by tra­di­tions.

175:1.9“Fur­ther­more, these self-cen­tered rulers de­light in do­ing their good works so that they will be seen by men. They make broad their phy­lac­ter­ies and en­large the bor­ders of their of­fi­cial robes. They crave the chief places at the feasts and de­mand the chief seats in the syn­a­gogues. They covet lauda­tory salu­ta­tions in the mar­ket places and de­sire to be called rabbi by all men. And even while they seek all this honor from men, they se­cretly lay hold of wid­ows’ houses and take profit from the ser­vices of the sa­cred tem­ple. For a pre­tense these hyp­ocrites make long prayers in pub­lic and give alms to at­tract the no­tice of their fel­lows.

175:1.10“While you should honor your rulers and rev­er­ence your teach­ers, you should call no man Fa­ther in the spir­i­tual sense, for there is one who is your Fa­ther, even God. Nei­ther should you seek to lord it over your breth­ren in the king­dom. Re­mem­ber, I have taught you that he who would be great­est among you should be­come the server of all. If you pre­sume to ex­alt your­selves be­fore God, you will cer­tainly be hum­bled; but whoso truly hum­bles him­self will surely be ex­alted. Seek in your daily lives, not self-glo­ri­fi­ca­tion, but the glory of God. In­tel­li­gently sub­or­di­nate your own wills to the will of the Fa­ther in heaven.

175:1.11“Mis­take not my words. I bear no mal­ice to­ward these chief priests and rulers who even now seek my de­struc­tion; I have no ill will for these scribes and Phar­isees who re­ject my teach­ings. I know that many of you be­lieve in se­cret, and I know you will openly pro­fess your al­le­giance to the king­dom when my hour comes. But how will your rab­bis jus­tify them­selves since they pro­fess to talk with God and then pre­sume to re­ject and de­stroy him who comes to re­veal the Fa­ther to the worlds?

175:1.12“Woe upon you, scribes and Phar­isees, hyp­ocrites! You would shut the doors of the king­dom of heaven against sin­cere men be­cause they hap­pen to be un­learned in the ways of your teach­ing. You refuse to en­ter the king­dom and at the same time do ev­ery­thing within your power to pre­vent all oth­ers from en­ter­ing. You stand with your backs to the doors of sal­va­tion and fight with all who would en­ter therein.

175:1.13“Woe upon you, scribes and Phar­isees, hyp­ocrites that you are! for you do in­deed en­com­pass land and sea to make one pros­e­lyte, and when you have suc­ceeded, you are not con­tent un­til you have made him two­fold worse than he was as a child of the hea­then.

175:1.14“Woe upon you, chief priests and rulers who lay hold of the prop­erty of the poor and de­mand heavy dues of those who would serve God as they think Moses or­dained! You who refuse to show mercy, can you hope for mercy in the worlds to come?

175:1.15“Woe upon you, false teach­ers, blind guides! What can be ex­pected of a na­tion when the blind lead the blind? They both shall stum­ble into the pit of de­struc­tion.

175:1.16“Woe upon you who dis­sim­u­late when you take an oath! You are trick­sters since you teach that a man may swear by the tem­ple and break his oath, but that whoso swears by the gold in the tem­ple must re­main bound. You are all fools and blind. You are not even con­sis­tent in your dis­hon­esty, for which is the greater, the gold or the tem­ple which has sup­pos­edly sanc­ti­fied the gold? You also teach that, if a man swears by the al­tar, it is noth­ing; but that, if one swears by the gift that is upon the al­tar, then shall he be held as a debtor. Again are you blind to the truth, for which is the greater, the gift or the al­tar which sanc­ti­fies the gift? How can you jus­tify such hypocrisy and dis­hon­esty in the sight of the God of heaven?

175:1.17“Woe upon you, scribes and Phar­isees and all other hyp­ocrites who make sure that they tithe mint, anise, and cumin and at the same time dis­re­gard the weight­ier mat­ters of the law—faith, mercy, and judg­ment! Within rea­son, the one you ought to have done but not to have left the other un­done. You are truly blind guides and dumb teach­ers; you strain out the gnat and swal­low the camel.

175:1.18“Woe upon you, scribes, Phar­isees, and hyp­ocrites! for you are scrupu­lous to cleanse the out­side of the cup and the plat­ter, but within there re­mains the filth of ex­tor­tion, ex­cesses, and de­cep­tion. You are spir­i­tu­ally blind. Do you not rec­og­nize how much bet­ter it would be first to cleanse the in­side of the cup, and then that which spills over would of it­self cleanse the out­side? You wicked repro­bates! you make the out­ward per­for­mances of your re­li­gion to con­form with the let­ter of your in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Moses’ law while your souls are steeped in in­iq­uity and filled with mur­der.

175:1.19“Woe upon all of you who re­ject truth and spurn mercy! Many of you are like whited sepul­chres, which out­wardly ap­pear beau­ti­ful but within are full of dead men’s bones and all sorts of un­clean­ness. Even so do you who know­ingly re­ject the coun­sel of God ap­pear out­wardly to men as holy and righ­teous, but in­wardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and in­iq­uity.

175:1.21“Woe upon you, chil­dren of evil! John did truly call you the off­spring of vipers, and I ask how can you es­cape the judg­ment that John pro­nounced upon you?

175:1.22“But even now I of­fer you in my Fa­ther’s name mercy and for­give­ness; even now I prof­fer the lov­ing hand of eter­nal fel­low­ship. My Fa­ther has sent you the wise men and the proph­ets; some you have per­se­cuted and oth­ers you have killed. Then ap­peared John pro­claim­ing the com­ing of the Son of Man, and him you de­stroyed af­ter many had be­lieved his teach­ing. And now you make ready to shed more in­no­cent blood. Do you not com­pre­hend that a ter­ri­ble day of reck­on­ing will come when the Judge of all the earth shall re­quire of this peo­ple an ac­count­ing for the way they have re­jected, per­se­cuted, and de­stroyed these mes­sen­gers of heaven? Do you not un­der­stand that you must ac­count for all of this righ­teous blood, from the first prophet killed down to the times of Zechariah, who was slain be­tween the sanc­tu­ary and the al­tar? And if you go on in your evil ways, this ac­count­ing may be re­quired of this very gen­er­a­tion.

175:1.23“O Je­ru­sa­lem and the chil­dren of Abra­ham, you who have stoned the proph­ets and killed the teach­ers that were sent to you, even now would I gather your chil­dren to­gether as a hen gath­ers her chick­ens un­der her wings, but you will not!

175:1.24“And now I take leave of you. You have heard my mes­sage and have made your de­ci­sion. Those who have be­lieved my gospel are even now safe within the king­dom of God. To you who have cho­sen to re­ject the gift of God, I say that you will no more see me teach­ing in the tem­ple. My work for you is done. Be­hold, I now go forth with my chil­dren, and your house is left to you des­o­late!”

175:1.25And then the Mas­ter beck­oned his fol­low­ers to de­part from the tem­ple.

• crucifixion › greatest evidence of Jesus’ humanity
• resurrection › greatest revelation of J.’ divinity

182:3.5Dur­ing the years that Je­sus lived among his fol­low­ers, they did, in­deed, have much proof of his di­vine na­ture, but just now are they about to wit­ness new ev­i­dences of his hu­man­ity. Just be­fore the great­est of all the rev­e­la­tions of his di­vin­ity, his res­ur­rec­tion, must now come the great­est proofs of his mor­tal na­ture, his hu­mil­i­a­tion and cru­ci­fix­ion.

182:3.6Each time he prayed in the gar­den, his hu­man­ity laid a firmer faith-hold upon his di­vin­ity; his hu­man will more com­pletely be­came one with the di­vine will of his Fa­ther. Among other words spo­ken to him by the mighty an­gel was the mes­sage that the Fa­ther de­sired his Son to fin­ish his earth be­stowal by pass­ing through the crea­ture ex­pe­ri­ence of death just as all mor­tal crea­tures must ex­pe­ri­ence ma­te­rial dis­so­lu­tion in pass­ing from the ex­is­tence of time into the pro­gres­sion of eter­nity.

183:3.1As this com­pany of armed sol­diers and guards, car­ry­ing torches and lanterns, ap­proached the gar­den, Ju­das stepped well out in front of the band that he might be ready quickly to iden­tify Je­sus so that the ap­pre­hend­ers could eas­ily lay hands on him be­fore his as­so­ciates could rally to his de­fense. And there was yet an­other rea­son why Ju­das chose to be ahead of the Mas­ter’s en­e­mies: He thought it would ap­pear that he had ar­rived on the scene ahead of the sol­diers so that the apos­tles and oth­ers gath­ered about Je­sus might not di­rectly con­nect him with the armed guards fol­low­ing so closely upon his heels. Ju­das had even thought to pose as hav­ing has­tened out to warn them of the com­ing of the ap­pre­hend­ers, but this plan was thwarted by Je­sus’ blight­ing greet­ing of the be­trayer. Though the Mas­ter spoke to Ju­das kindly, he greeted him as a traitor.

183:3.2As soon as Pe­ter, James, and John, with some thirty of their fel­low campers, saw the armed band with torches swing around the brow of the hill, they knew that these sol­diers were com­ing to ar­rest Je­sus, and they all rushed down to near the olive press where the Mas­ter was sit­ting in moon­lit soli­tude. As the com­pany of sol­diers ap­proached on one side, the three apos­tles and their as­so­ciates ap­proached on the other. As Ju­das strode for­ward to ac­cost the Mas­ter, there the two groups stood, mo­tion­less, with the Mas­ter be­tween them and Ju­das mak­ing ready to im­press the traitorous kiss upon his brow.

183:3.3It had been the hope of the be­trayer that he could, af­ter lead­ing the guards to Geth­sem­ane, sim­ply point Je­sus out to the sol­diers, or at most carry out the prom­ise to greet him with a kiss, and then quickly re­tire from the scene. Ju­das greatly feared that the apos­tles would all be pres­ent, and that they would con­cen­trate their at­tack upon him in ret­ri­bu­tion for his dar­ing to be­tray their beloved teacher. But when the Mas­ter greeted him as a be­trayer, he was so con­fused that he made no at­tempt to flee.

183:3.5As the guards ral­lied from their first fal­ter­ing at the sight of Je­sus and at the sound of his un­usual voice, and as the apos­tles and dis­ci­ples drew nearer, Ju­das stepped up to Je­sus and, plac­ing a kiss upon his brow, said, “Hail, Mas­ter and Teacher.” And as Ju­das thus em­braced his Mas­ter, Je­sus said, “Friend, is it not enough to do this! Would you even be­tray the Son of Man with a kiss?”

183:3.6The apos­tles and dis­ci­ples were lit­er­ally stunned by what they saw. For a mo­ment no one moved. Then Je­sus, dis­en­gag­ing him­self from the traitorous em­brace of Ju­das, stepped up to the guards and sol­diers and again asked, “Whom do you seek?” And again the cap­tain said, “Je­sus of Naz­a­reth.” And again an­swered Je­sus: “I have told you that I am he. If, there­fore, you seek me, let these oth­ers go their way. I am ready to go with you.”

183:3.8While Je­sus thus ef­fec­tively put a stop to this show of phys­i­cal re­sis­tance by his fol­low­ers, it was enough to arouse the fear of the cap­tain of the guards, who now, with the help of his sol­diers, laid heavy hands on Je­sus and quickly bound him. And as they tied his hands with heavy cords, Je­sus said to them: “Why do you come out against me with swords and with staves as if to seize a rob­ber? I was daily with you in the tem­ple, pub­licly teach­ing the peo­ple, and you made no ef­fort to take me.”

183:3.9When Je­sus had been bound, the cap­tain, fear­ing that the fol­low­ers of the Mas­ter might at­tempt to res­cue him, gave or­ders that they be seized; but the sol­diers were not quick enough since, hav­ing over­heard the cap­tain’s or­ders to ar­rest them, Je­sus’ fol­low­ers fled in haste back into the ravine. All this time John Mark had re­mained se­cluded in the near-by shed. When the guards started back to Je­ru­sa­lem with Je­sus, John Mark at­tempted to steal out of the shed in or­der to catch up with the flee­ing apos­tles and dis­ci­ples; but just as he emerged, one of the last of the re­turn­ing sol­diers who had pur­sued the flee­ing dis­ci­ples was pass­ing near and, see­ing this young man in his linen coat, gave chase, al­most over­tak­ing him. In fact, the sol­dier got near enough to John to lay hold upon his coat, but the young man freed him­self from the gar­ment, es­cap­ing naked while the sol­dier held the empty coat. John Mark made his way in all haste to David Zeb­e­dee on the up­per trail. When he had told David what had hap­pened, they both has­tened back to the tents of the sleep­ing apos­tles and in­formed all eight of the Mas­ter’s be­trayal and ar­rest.

183:3.10At about the time the eight apos­tles were be­ing awak­ened, those who had fled up the ravine were re­turn­ing, and they all gath­ered to­gether near the olive press to de­bate what should be done. In the mean­time, Si­mon Pe­ter and John Zeb­e­dee, who had hid­den among the olive trees, had al­ready gone on af­ter the mob of sol­diers, guards, and ser­vants, who were now lead­ing Je­sus back to Je­ru­sa­lem as they would have led a des­per­ate crim­i­nal. John fol­lowed close be­hind the mob, but Pe­ter fol­lowed afar off. Af­ter John Mark’s es­cape from the clutch of the sol­dier, he pro­vided him­self with a cloak which he found in the tent of Si­mon Pe­ter and John Zeb­e­dee. He sus­pected the guards were go­ing to take Je­sus to the home of An­nas, the high priest emer­i­tus; so he skirted around through the olive or­chards and was there ahead of the mob, hid­ing near the en­trance to the gate of the high priest’s palace.

• spat upon
• struck by enemies

184:3.18But An­nas did not suc­ceed in keep­ing con­trol of the court. Af­ter Je­sus had so un­ex­pect­edly an­swered Cai­a­phas, the high priest stepped for­ward and smote him in the face with his hand. An­nas was truly shocked as the other mem­bers of the court, in pass­ing out of the room, spit in Je­sus’ face, and many of them mock­ingly slapped him with the palms of their hands. And thus in dis­or­der and with such un­heard-of con­fu­sion this first ses­sion of the San­hedrist trial of Je­sus ended at half past four o’clock.

• struck by enemies

184:4.1The Jew­ish law re­quired that, in the mat­ter of pass­ing the death sen­tence, there should be two ses­sions of the court. This sec­ond ses­sion was to be held on the day fol­low­ing the first, and the in­ter­ven­ing time was to be spent in fast­ing and mourn­ing by the mem­bers of the court. But these men could not await the next day for the con­fir­ma­tion of their de­ci­sion that Je­sus must die. They waited only one hour. In the mean­time Je­sus was left in the au­di­ence cham­ber in the cus­tody of the tem­ple guards, who, with the ser­vants of the high priest, amused them­selves by heap­ing ev­ery sort of in­dig­nity upon the Son of Man. They mocked him, spit upon him, and cru­elly buf­feted him. They would strike him in the face with a rod and then say, “Proph­esy to us, you the De­liv­erer, who it was that struck you.” And thus they went on for one full hour, re­vil­ing and mis­treat­ing this un­re­sist­ing man of Gal­i­lee.

• trial › not legally convicted on any charges

185:2.14Je­sus had not been reg­u­larly tried nor legally con­victed on any of these charges. He did not even hear these charges when first stated, but Pi­late had him brought from the prae­to­rium, where he was in the keep­ing of the guards, and he in­sisted that these charges be re­peated in Je­sus’ hear­ing.