spiritual unity

• omnipresence of Eternal Son constitutes

6:4.3The om­nipres­ence of the Orig­i­nal Son con­sti­tutes the spir­i­tual unity of the uni­verse of uni­verses. The spir­i­tual co­he­sion of all cre­ation rests upon the ev­ery­where ac­tive pres­ence of the di­vine spirit of the Eter­nal Son. When we con­ceive of the Fa­ther’s spir­i­tual pres­ence, we find it dif­fi­cult to dif­fer­en­ti­ate it in our think­ing from the spir­i­tual pres­ence of the Eter­nal Son. The spirit of the Fa­ther is eter­nally res­i­dent in the spirit of the Son.

56:3.1As the uni­ver­sal mind grav­ity is cen­tered in the Par­a­dise per­sonal pres­ence of the In­fi­nite Spirit, so does the uni­ver­sal spirit grav­ity cen­ter in the Par­a­dise per­sonal pres­ence of the Eter­nal Son. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is one, but to time-space he is re­vealed in the dual phe­nom­ena of pure en­ergy and pure spirit.

56:3.2Par­a­dise spirit re­al­i­ties are like­wise one, but in all time-space sit­u­a­tions and re­la­tions this sin­gle spirit is re­vealed in the dual phe­nom­ena of the spirit per­son­al­i­ties and em­a­na­tions of the Eter­nal Son and the spirit per­son­al­i­ties and in­flu­ences of the In­fi­nite Spirit and as­so­ci­ated cre­ations; and there is yet a third—pure-spirit frag­men­ta­tions—the Fa­ther’s be­stowal of the Thought Ad­justers and other spirit en­ti­ties which are preper­sonal.

56:3.3No mat­ter on what level of uni­verse ac­tiv­i­ties you may en­counter spir­i­tual phe­nom­ena or con­tact with spirit be­ings, you may know that they are all de­rived from the God who is spirit by the min­istry of the Spirit Son and the In­fi­nite Mind Spirit. And this far-flung spirit func­tions as a phe­nom­e­non on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds of time as it is di­rected from the head­quar­ters of the lo­cal uni­verses. From these cap­i­tals of the Cre­ator Sons come the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Truth, to­gether with the min­istry of the ad­ju­tant mind-spir­its, to the lower and evolv­ing lev­els of ma­te­rial minds.

56:3.4While mind is more uni­fied on the level of the Mas­ter Spir­its in as­so­ci­a­tion with the Su­preme Be­ing and as the cos­mic mind in sub­or­di­na­tion to the Ab­so­lute Mind, the spirit min­istry to the evolv­ing worlds is more di­rectly uni­fied in the per­son­al­i­ties res­i­dent on the head­quar­ters of the lo­cal uni­verses and in the per­sons of the pre­sid­ing Di­vine Min­is­ters, who are in turn well-nigh per­fectly cor­re­lated with the Par­a­dise grav­ity cir­cuit of the Eter­nal Son, wherein oc­curs fi­nal uni­fi­ca­tion of all time-space spirit man­i­fes­ta­tions.

56:3.5Per­fected crea­ture ex­is­tence can be at­tained, sus­tained, and eter­nal­ized by the fu­sion of self-con­scious mind with a frag­ment of the pre-Trin­ity spirit en­dow­ment of some one of the per­sons of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity. The mor­tal mind is the cre­ation of the Sons and Daugh­ters of the Eter­nal Son and the In­fi­nite Spirit and, when fused with the Thought Ad­juster from the Fa­ther, par­takes of the three­fold spirit en­dow­ment of the evo­lu­tion­ary realms. But these three spirit ex­pres­sions be­come per­fectly uni­fied in the fi­nal­i­ters, even as they were in eter­nity so uni­fied in the Uni­ver­sal I AM ere he ever be­came the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther of the Eter­nal Son and the In­fi­nite Spirit.

56:3.6Spirit must al­ways and ul­ti­mately be­come three­fold in ex­pres­sion and Trin­ity-uni­fied in fi­nal re­al­iza­tion. Spirit orig­i­nates from one source through a three­fold ex­pres­sion; and in fi­nal­ity it must and does at­tain its full re­al­iza­tion in that di­vine uni­fi­ca­tion which is ex­pe­ri­enced in find­ing God—one­ness with di­vin­ity—in eter­nity, and by means of the min­istry of the cos­mic mind of the in­fi­nite ex­pres­sion of the eter­nal word of the Fa­ther’s uni­ver­sal thought.

• achieved › on basis of common ideals, not theologic beliefs

99:5.7Just as cer­tainly as men share their re­li­gious be­liefs, they cre­ate a re­li­gious group of some sort which even­tu­ally cre­ates com­mon goals. Some­day re­li­gion­ists will get to­gether and ac­tu­ally ef­fect co-op­er­a­tion on the ba­sis of unity of ide­als and pur­poses rather than at­tempt­ing to do so on the ba­sis of psy­cho­log­i­cal opin­ions and the­o­log­i­cal be­liefs. Goals rather than creeds should unify re­li­gion­ists. Since true re­li­gion is a mat­ter of per­sonal spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence, it is in­ev­i­ta­ble that each in­di­vid­ual re­li­gion­ist must have his own and per­sonal in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the re­al­iza­tion of that spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. Let the term “faith” stand for the in­di­vid­ual’s re­la­tion to God rather than for the creedal for­mu­la­tion of what some group of mor­tals have been able to agree upon as a com­mon re­li­gious at­ti­tude. “Have you faith? Then have it to your­self.”

• derives from identical indwelling God fragments

103:1.1The unity of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence among a so­cial or racial group de­rives from the iden­ti­cal na­ture of the God frag­ment in­dwelling the in­di­vid­ual. It is this di­vine in man that gives ori­gin to his un­selfish in­ter­est in the wel­fare of other men. But since per­son­al­ity is unique—no two mor­tals be­ing alike—it in­evitably fol­lows that no two hu­man be­ings can sim­i­larly in­ter­pret the lead­ings and urges of the spirit of di­vin­ity which lives within their minds. A group of mor­tals can ex­pe­ri­ence spir­i­tual unity, but they can never at­tain philo­sophic uni­for­mity. And this di­ver­sity of the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of re­li­gious thought and ex­pe­ri­ence is shown by the fact that twen­ti­eth-cen­tury the­olo­gians and philoso­phers have for­mu­lated up­ward of five hun­dred dif­fer­ent def­i­ni­tions of re­li­gion. In re­al­ity, ev­ery hu­man be­ing de­fines re­li­gion in the terms of his own ex­pe­ri­en­tial in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the di­vine im­pulses em­a­nat­ing from the God spirit that in­dwells him, and there­fore must such an in­ter­pre­ta­tion be unique and wholly dif­fer­ent from the re­li­gious phi­los­o­phy of all other hu­man be­ings.

• achieved › on basis of unity, not uniformity

103:5.12When a mem­ber of a so­cial re­li­gious group has com­plied with the re­quire­ments of such a group, he should be en­cour­aged to en­joy re­li­gious lib­erty in the full ex­pres­sion of his own per­sonal in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the truths of re­li­gious be­lief and the facts of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. The se­cu­rity of a re­li­gious group de­pends on spir­i­tual unity, not on the­o­log­i­cal uni­for­mity. A re­li­gious group should be able to en­joy the lib­erty of free­think­ing with­out hav­ing to be­come “free­thinkers.” There is great hope for any church that wor­ships the liv­ing God, val­i­dates the broth­er­hood of man, and dares to re­move all creedal pres­sure from its mem­bers.

• achieved › on basis of unity, not uniformity

134:4.6The king­dom of heaven in the hearts of men will cre­ate re­li­gious unity (not nec­es­sar­ily uni­for­mity) be­cause any and all re­li­gious groups com­posed of such re­li­gious be­liev­ers will be free from all no­tions of ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal au­thor­ity—re­li­gious sov­er­eignty.

141:5.1One of the most event­ful of all the evening con­fer­ences at Am­athus was the ses­sion hav­ing to do with the dis­cus­sion of spir­i­tual unity. James Zeb­e­dee had asked, “Mas­ter, how shall we learn to see alike and thereby en­joy more har­mony among our­selves?” When Je­sus heard this ques­tion, he was stirred within his spirit, so much so that he replied: “James, James, when did I teach you that you should all see alike? I have come into the world to pro­claim spir­i­tual lib­erty to the end that mor­tals may be em­pow­ered to live in­di­vid­ual lives of orig­i­nal­ity and free­dom be­fore God. I do not de­sire that so­cial har­mony and fra­ter­nal peace shall be pur­chased by the sac­ri­fice of free per­son­al­ity and spir­i­tual orig­i­nal­ity. What I re­quire of you, my apos­tles, is spirit unity—and that you can ex­pe­ri­ence in the joy of your united ded­i­ca­tion to the whole­hearted do­ing of the will of my Fa­ther in heaven. You do not have to see alike or feel alike or even think alike in or­der spir­i­tu­ally to be alike. Spir­i­tual unity is de­rived from the con­scious­ness that each of you is in­dwelt, and in­creas­ingly dom­i­nated, by the spirit gift of the heav­enly Fa­ther. Your apos­tolic har­mony must grow out of the fact that the spirit hope of each of you is iden­ti­cal in ori­gin, na­ture, and des­tiny.

141:5.2“In this way you may ex­pe­ri­ence a per­fected unity of spirit pur­pose and spirit un­der­stand­ing grow­ing out of the mu­tual con­scious­ness of the iden­tity of each of your in­dwelling Par­a­dise spir­its; and you may en­joy all of this pro­found spir­i­tual unity in the very face of the ut­most di­ver­sity of your in­di­vid­ual at­ti­tudes of in­tel­lec­tual think­ing, tem­per­a­men­tal feel­ing, and so­cial con­duct. Your per­son­al­i­ties may be re­fresh­ingly di­verse and markedly dif­fer­ent, while your spir­i­tual na­tures and spirit fruits of di­vine wor­ship and broth­erly love may be so uni­fied that all who be­hold your lives will of a surety take cog­nizance of this spirit iden­tity and soul unity; they will rec­og­nize that you have been with me and have thereby learned, and ac­cept­ably, how to do the will of the Fa­ther in heaven. You can achieve the unity of the ser­vice of God even while you ren­der such ser­vice in ac­cor­dance with the tech­nique of your own orig­i­nal en­dow­ments of mind, body, and soul.

141:5.3“Your spirit unity im­plies two things, which al­ways will be found to har­mo­nize in the lives of in­di­vid­ual be­liev­ers: First, you are pos­sessed with a com­mon mo­tive for life ser­vice; you all de­sire above ev­ery­thing to do the will of the Fa­ther in heaven. Sec­ond, you all have a com­mon goal of ex­is­tence; you all pur­pose to find the Fa­ther in heaven, thereby prov­ing to the uni­verse that you have be­come like him.”

141:5.4Many times dur­ing the train­ing of the twelve Je­sus re­verted to this theme. Re­peat­edly he told them it was not his de­sire that those who be­lieved in him should be­come dog­ma­tized and stan­dard­ized in ac­cor­dance with the re­li­gious in­ter­pre­ta­tions of even good men. Again and again he warned his apos­tles against the for­mu­la­tion of creeds and the es­tab­lish­ment of tra­di­tions as a means of guid­ing and con­trol­ling be­liev­ers in the gospel of the king­dom.

• each apostle taught his own view of gospel

148:1.2Each of the apos­tolic teach­ers taught his own view of the gospel of the king­dom. They made no ef­fort to teach just alike; there was no stan­dard­ized or dog­matic for­mu­la­tion of the­o­logic doc­trines. Though they all taught the same truth, each apos­tle pre­sented his own per­sonal in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Mas­ter’s teach­ing. And Je­sus up­held this pre­sen­ta­tion of the di­ver­sity of per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence in the things of the king­dom, un­fail­ingly har­mo­niz­ing and co-or­di­nat­ing these many and di­ver­gent views of the gospel at his weekly ques­tion hours. Not­with­stand­ing this great de­gree of per­sonal lib­erty in mat­ters of teach­ing, Si­mon Pe­ter tended to dom­i­nate the the­ol­ogy of the school of evan­ge­lists. Next to Pe­ter, James Zeb­e­dee ex­erted the great­est per­sonal in­flu­ence.

• achieved › only by appeal to Adjuster

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.

• achieved › only by religion of spirit

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.

• cf: time for open break with religious rulers

163:4.76. Make clear to all faith­ful be­liev­ers that the time for an open break with the re­li­gious lead­ers of the Jews at Je­ru­sa­lem has now come.

• cf: woe upon you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites!

163:6.5Then, speak­ing to all the dis­ci­ples, he said: “You have heard how many cities and vil­lages have re­ceived the good news of the king­dom, and how my min­is­ters and teach­ers have been re­ceived by both the Jew and the gen­tile. And blessed in­deed are these com­mu­ni­ties which have elected to be­lieve the gospel of the king­dom. But woe upon the light-re­ject­ing in­hab­i­tants of Cho­ra­zin, Beth­saida-Ju­lias, and Ca­per­naum, the cities which did not well re­ceive these mes­sen­gers. I de­clare that, if the mighty works done in these places had been done in Tyre and Sidon, the peo­ple of these so-called hea­then cities would have long since re­pented in sack­cloth and ashes. It shall in­deed be more tol­er­a­ble for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judg­ment.”

• cf: time for open break with religious rulers

164:3.16Je­sus gave this man his sight by mirac­u­lous work­ing, on this Sab­bath morn­ing and in Je­ru­sa­lem near the tem­ple, for the prime pur­pose of mak­ing this act an open chal­lenge to the San­hedrin and all the Jew­ish teach­ers and re­li­gious lead­ers. This was his way of pro­claim­ing an open break with the Phar­isees. He was al­ways pos­i­tive in ev­ery­thing he did. And it was for the pur­pose of bring­ing these mat­ters be­fore the San­hedrin that Je­sus brought his two apos­tles to this man early in the af­ter­noon of this Sab­bath day and de­lib­er­ately pro­voked those dis­cus­sions which com­pelled the Phar­isees to take no­tice of the mir­a­cle.

• cf: woe upon you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites!

166:1.4When the Mas­ter had thus spo­ken, they cast their eyes upon the ta­ble and re­mained silent. And since no one spoke, Je­sus con­tin­ued: “Many of you Phar­isees are here with me as friends, some are even my dis­ci­ples, but the ma­jor­ity of the Phar­isees are per­sis­tent in their re­fusal to see the light and ac­knowl­edge the truth, even when the work of the gospel is brought be­fore them in great power. How care­fully you cleanse the out­side of the cups and the plat­ters while the spir­i­tual-food ves­sels are filthy and pol­luted! You make sure to pre­sent a pi­ous and holy ap­pear­ance to the peo­ple, but your in­ner souls are filled with self-righ­teous­ness, cov­etous­ness, ex­tor­tion, and all man­ner of spir­i­tual wicked­ness. Your lead­ers even dare to plot and plan the mur­der of the Son of Man. Do not you fool­ish men un­der­stand that the God of heaven looks at the in­ner mo­tives of the soul as well as on your outer pre­tenses and your pi­ous pro­fes­sions? Think not that the giv­ing of alms and the pay­ing of tithes will cleanse you from un­righ­teous­ness and en­able you to stand clean in the pres­ence of the Judge of all men. Woe upon you Phar­isees who have per­sisted in re­ject­ing the light of life! You are metic­u­lous in tithing and os­ten­ta­tious in alms­giv­ing, but you know­ingly spurn the vis­i­ta­tion of God and re­ject the rev­e­la­tion of his love. Though it is all right for you to give at­ten­tion to these mi­nor du­ties, you should not have left these weight­ier re­quire­ments un­done. Woe upon all who shun jus­tice, spurn mercy, and re­ject truth! Woe upon all those who de­spise the rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther while they seek the chief seats in the syn­a­gogue and crave flat­ter­ing salu­ta­tions in the mar­ket places!”

166:1.5When Je­sus would have risen to de­part, one of the lawyers who was at the ta­ble, ad­dress­ing him, said: “But, Mas­ter, in some of your state­ments you re­proach us also. Is there noth­ing good in the scribes, the Phar­isees, or the lawyers?” And Je­sus, stand­ing, replied to the lawyer: “You, like the Phar­isees, de­light in the first places at the feasts and in wear­ing long robes while you put heavy bur­dens, griev­ous to be borne, on men’s shoul­ders. And when the souls of men stag­ger un­der these heavy bur­dens, you will not so much as lift with one of your fin­gers. Woe upon you who take your great­est de­light in build­ing tombs for the proph­ets your fa­thers killed! And that you con­sent to what your fa­thers did is made man­i­fest when you now plan to kill those who come in this day do­ing what the proph­ets did in their day—pro­claim­ing the righ­teous­ness of God and re­veal­ing the mercy of the heav­enly Fa­ther. But of all the gen­er­a­tions that are past, the blood of the proph­ets and the apos­tles shall be re­quired of this per­verse and self-righ­teous gen­er­a­tion. Woe upon all of you lawyers who have taken away the key of knowl­edge from the com­mon peo­ple! You your­selves refuse to en­ter into the way of truth, and at the same time you would hin­der all oth­ers who seek to en­ter therein. But you can­not thus shut up the doors of the king­dom of heaven; these we have opened to all who have the faith to en­ter, and these por­tals of mercy shall not be closed by the prej­u­dice and ar­ro­gance of false teach­ers and un­true shep­herds who are like whited sepul­chres which, while out­wardly they ap­pear beau­ti­ful, are in­wardly full of dead men’s bones and all man­ner of spir­i­tual un­clean­ness.”

• lack of spiritual brotherhood inexcusable

170:5.20It is just be­cause the gospel of Je­sus was so many-sided that within a few cen­turies stu­dents of the rec­ords of his teach­ings be­came di­vided up into so many cults and sects. This piti­ful sub­di­vi­sion of Chris­tian be­liev­ers re­sults from fail­ure to dis­cern in the Mas­ter’s man­i­fold teach­ings the di­vine one­ness of his match­less life. But some­day the true be­liev­ers in Je­sus will not be thus spir­i­tu­ally di­vided in their at­ti­tude be­fore un­be­liev­ers. Al­ways we may have di­ver­sity of in­tel­lec­tual com­pre­hen­sion and in­ter­pre­ta­tion, even vary­ing de­grees of so­cial­iza­tion, but lack of spir­i­tual broth­er­hood is both in­ex­cus­able and rep­re­hen­si­ble.

• cf: inevitable clash between religion of spirit and of authority

173:3.3Je­sus did not de­spise the Phar­isees and Sad­ducees per­son­ally. It was their sys­tems of teach­ing and prac­tice which he sought to dis­credit. He was hos­tile to no man, but here was oc­cur­ring the in­ev­i­ta­ble clash be­tween a new and liv­ing re­li­gion of the spirit and the older re­li­gion of cer­e­mony, tra­di­tion, and au­thor­ity.

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.

• cf: peace cannot exist between light and darkness, truth and error

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.

175:1.4“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.

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.

175:1.20“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!

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.

• cf: woe upon you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites!

175:4.2The mul­ti­tude who heard Je­sus swing from his mer­ci­ful ap­peal to the Jew­ish lead­ers into that sud­den and scathing re­buke which bor­dered on ruth­less de­nun­ci­a­tion, were stunned and be­wil­dered. That night, while the San­hedrin sat in death judg­ment upon Je­sus, and while the Mas­ter sat with his apos­tles and cer­tain of his dis­ci­ples out on the Mount of Olives fore­telling the death of the Jew­ish na­tion, all Je­ru­sa­lem was given over to the se­ri­ous and sup­pressed dis­cus­sion of just one ques­tion: “What will they do with Je­sus?”

• achieved › on basis of unity, not uniformity

182:1.6“And now, my Fa­ther, I would pray not only for these eleven men but also for all oth­ers who now be­lieve, or who may here­after be­lieve the gospel of the king­dom through the word of their fu­ture min­istry. I want them all to be one, even as you and I are one. You are in me and I am in you, and I de­sire that these be­liev­ers like­wise be in us; that both of our spir­its in­dwell them. If my chil­dren are one as we are one, and if they love one an­other as I have loved them, all men will then be­lieve that I came forth from you and be will­ing to re­ceive the rev­e­la­tion of truth and glory which I have made. The glory which you gave me I have re­vealed to these be­liev­ers. As you have lived with me in spirit, so have I lived with them in the flesh. As you have been one with me, so have I been one with them, and so will the new teacher ever be one with them and in them. And all this have I done that my breth­ren in the flesh may know that the Fa­ther loves them even as does the Son, and that you love them even as you love me. Fa­ther, work with me to save these be­liev­ers that they may pres­ently come to be with me in glory and then go on to join you in the Par­a­dise em­brace. Those who serve with me in hu­mil­i­a­tion, I would have with me in glory so that they may see all you have given into my hands as the eter­nal har­vest of the seed sow­ing of time in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh. I long to show my earthly breth­ren the glory I had with you be­fore the found­ing of this world. This world knows very lit­tle of you, righ­teous Fa­ther, but I know you, and I have made you known to these be­liev­ers, and they will make known your name to other gen­er­a­tions. And now I prom­ise them that you will be with them in the world even as you have been with me—even so.”

• achieved › on basis of unity, not uniformity

182:1.8Je­sus prayed for unity among his fol­low­ers, but he did not de­sire uni­for­mity. Sin cre­ates a dead level of evil in­er­tia, but righ­teous­ness nour­ishes the cre­ative spirit of in­di­vid­ual ex­pe­ri­ence in the liv­ing re­al­i­ties of eter­nal truth and in the pro­gres­sive com­mu­nion of the di­vine spir­its of the Fa­ther and the Son. In the spir­i­tual fel­low­ship of the be­liever-son with the di­vine Fa­ther there can never be doc­tri­nal fi­nal­ity and sec­tar­ian su­pe­ri­or­ity of group con­scious­ness.

• Pentecost was call to

194:3.17Pen­te­cost was the call to spir­i­tual unity among gospel be­liev­ers. When the spirit de­scended on the dis­ci­ples at Je­ru­sa­lem, the same thing hap­pened in Phil­a­del­phia, Alexan­dria, and at all other places where true be­liev­ers dwelt. It was lit­er­ally true that “there was but one heart and soul among the mul­ti­tude of the be­liev­ers.” The re­li­gion of Je­sus is the most pow­er­ful uni­fy­ing in­flu­ence the world has ever known.

• cf: early believers separated themselves from unbelievers

194:4.12Stephen, the leader of the Greek colony of Je­sus’ be­liev­ers in Je­ru­sa­lem, thus be­came the first mar­tyr to the new faith and the spe­cific cause for the for­mal or­ga­ni­za­tion of the early Chris­tian church. This new cri­sis was met by the rec­og­ni­tion that be­liev­ers could not longer go on as a sect within the Jew­ish faith. They all agreed that they must sep­a­rate them­selves from un­be­liev­ers; and within one month from the death of Stephen the church at Je­ru­sa­lem had been or­ga­nized un­der the lead­er­ship of Pe­ter, and James the brother of Je­sus had been in­stalled as its tit­u­lar head.

• achieved › on basis of unity, not uniformity
• fruit of faith union with living Jesus

195:10.11Chris­tian­ity is se­ri­ously con­fronted with the doom em­bod­ied in one of its own slo­gans: “A house di­vided against it­self can­not stand.” The non-Chris­tian world will hardly ca­pit­u­late to a sect-di­vided Chris­ten­dom. The liv­ing Je­sus is the only hope of a pos­si­ble uni­fi­ca­tion of Chris­tian­ity. The true church—the Je­sus broth­er­hood—is in­vis­i­ble, spir­i­tual, and is char­ac­ter­ized by unity, not nec­es­sar­ily by uni­for­mity. Uni­for­mity is the ear­mark of the phys­i­cal world of mech­a­nis­tic na­ture. Spir­i­tual unity is the fruit of faith union with the liv­ing Je­sus. The vis­i­ble church should refuse longer to hand­i­cap the prog­ress of the in­vis­i­ble and spir­i­tual broth­er­hood of the king­dom of God. And this broth­er­hood is des­tined to be­come a liv­ing or­gan­ism in con­trast to an in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion. It may well uti­lize such so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tions, but it must not be sup­planted by them.