^169:4.10 He was, indeed, the Son of even the Elohim God; but in the likeness of mortal flesh and to the mortal sons of God, he chose to limit his life revelation to the portrayal of his Father’s character in so far as such a revelation might be comprehensible to mortal man. As regards the character of the other persons of the Paradise Trinity, we shall have to be content with the teaching that they are altogether like the Father, who has been revealed in personal portraiture in the life of his incarnated Son, Jesus of Nazareth.

^169:4.11 ¶ Although Jesus revealed the true nature of the heavenly Father in his earth life, he taught little about him. In fact, he taught only two things: that God in himself is spirit, and that, in all matters of relationship with his creatures, he is a Father. On this evening Jesus made the final pronouncement of his relationship with God when he declared: “I have come out from the Father, and I have come into the world; again, I will leave the world and go to the Father.”

^169:4.12 But mark you! never did Jesus say, “Whoso has heard me has heard God.” But he did say, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” To hear Jesus’ teaching is not equivalent to knowing God, but to see Jesus is an experience which in itself is a revelation of the Father to the soul. The God of universes rules the far-flung creation, but it is the Father in heaven who sends forth his spirit to dwell within your minds.

^169:4.13 Jesus is the spiritual lens in human likeness which makes visible to the material creature Him who is invisible. He is your elder brother who, in the flesh, makes known to you a Being of infinite attributes whom not even the celestial hosts can presume fully to understand. But all of this must consist in the personal experience of the individual believer. God who is spirit can be known only as a spiritual experience. God can be revealed to the finite sons of the material worlds, by the divine Son of the spiritual realms, only as a Father. You can know the Eternal as a Father; you can worship him as the God of universes, the infinite Creator of all existences.

PAPER № 170

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

^170:0.1 Saturday afternoon, March 11, Jesus preached his last sermon at Pella. This was among the notable addresses of his public ministry, embracing a full and complete discussion of the kingdom of heaven. He was aware of the confusion which existed in the minds of his apostles and disciples regarding the meaning and significance of the terms “kingdom of heaven” and “kingdom of God,” which he used as interchangeable designations of his bestowal mission. Although the very term kingdom of heaven should have been enough to separate what it stood for from all connection with earthly kingdoms and temporal governments, it was not. The idea of a temporal king was too deep-rooted in the Jewish mind thus to be dislodged in a single generation. Therefore Jesus did not at first openly oppose this long-nourished concept of the kingdom.

^170:0.2 This Sabbath afternoon the Master sought to clarify the teaching about the kingdom of heaven; he discussed the subject from every viewpoint and endeavoured to make clear the many different senses in which the term had been used. In this narrative we will amplify the address by adding numerous statements made by Jesus on previous occasions and by including some remarks made only to the apostles during the evening discussions of this same day. We will also make certain comments dealing with the subsequent outworking of the kingdom idea as it is related to the later Christian church.

1. CONCEPTS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

^170:1.1 In connection with the recital of Jesus’ sermon it should be noted that throughout the Hebrew scriptures there was a dual concept of the kingdom of heaven. The prophets presented the kingdom of God as:

^170:1.2 1. A present reality; and as

^170:1.3 2. A future hope — when the kingdom would be realized in fullness upon the appearance of the Messiah. This is the kingdom concept which John the Baptist taught.

^170:1.4 From the very first Jesus and the apostles taught both of these concepts. There were two other ideas of the kingdom which should be borne in mind:

^170:1.5 3. The later Jewish concept of a world-wide and transcendental kingdom of supernatural origin and miraculous inauguration.

^170:1.6 4. The Persian teachings portraying the establishment of a divine kingdom as the achievement of the triumph of good over evil at the end of the world.

^170:1.7 ¶ Just before the advent of Jesus on earth, the Jews combined and confused all of these ideas of the kingdom into their apocalyptic concept of the Messiah’s coming to establish the age of the Jewish triumph, the eternal age of God’s supreme rule on earth, the new world, the era in which all mankind would worship Yahweh. In choosing to utilize this concept of the kingdom of heaven, Jesus elected to appropriate the most vital and culminating heritage of both the Jewish and Persian religions.

^170:1.8 The kingdom of heaven, as it has been understood and misunderstood down through the centuries of the Christian era, embraced four distinct groups of ideas:

^170:1.9 1. The concept of the Jews.

^170:1.10 2. The concept of the Persians.

^170:1.11 3. The personal-experience concept of Jesus — “the kingdom of heaven within you.”

^170:1.12 4. The composite and confused concepts which the founders and promulgators of Christianity have sought to impress upon the world.

^170:1.13 ¶ At different times and in varying circumstances it appears that Jesus may have presented numerous concepts of the “kingdom” in his public teachings, but to his apostles he always taught the kingdom as embracing man’s personal experience in relation to his fellows on earth and to the Father in heaven. Concerning the kingdom, his last word always was, “The kingdom is within you.”

^170:1.14 Centuries of confusion regarding the meaning of the term “kingdom of heaven” have been due to three factors:

^170:1.15 1. The confusion occasioned by observing the idea of the “kingdom” as it passed through the various progressive phases of its recasting by Jesus and his apostles.

^170:1.16 2. The confusion which was inevitably associated with the transplantation of early Christianity from a Jewish to a gentile soil.

^170:1.17 3. The confusion which was inherent in the fact that Christianity became a religion which was organized about the central idea of Jesus’ person; the gospel of the kingdom became more and more a religion about him.

2. JESUS’ CONCEPT OF THE KINGDOM

^170:2.1 The Master made it clear that the kingdom of heaven must begin with, and be centred in, the dual concept of the truth of the fatherhood of God and the correlated fact of the brotherhood of man. The acceptance of such a teaching, Jesus declared, would liberate man from the age-long bondage of animal fear and at the same time enrich human living with the following endowments of the new life of spiritual liberty:

^170:2.2 1. The possession of new courage and augmented spiritual power. The gospel of the kingdom was to set man free and inspire him to dare to hope for eternal life.

^170:2.3 2. The gospel carried a message of new confidence and true consolation for all men, even for the poor.

^170:2.4 3. It was in itself a new standard of moral values, a new ethical yardstick wherewith to measure human conduct. It portrayed the ideal of a resultant new order of human society.