The Gospel in Brief

Chapter Three THE SOURCE OF KNOWLEDGE

Every person’s life sprang from the spirit of the father.

HALLOWED BE THY NAME

Jesus’s students ask him to explain the nature of the kingdom of God, which he has been preaching, and he explains, “The kingdom of God that I preach is the same one that John preached. It is based on the fact that all people can be blessed, no matter what their troubles may be in the flesh.”

And Jesus says to the people, “John was the first to preach to the people that the kingdom of God is not in the external world but in the souls of people, and because of this he did more than anyone else. He made it so that from this time forward the law and the prophets and all external worship of God should be unnecessary. From his time it has been revealed that every person, depending on their effort, can be in the kingdom, within the will of God the father.”

To the question of when the kingdom of God would arrive, Jesus says that the kingdom of God is invisible and that it is not to be found in anything external, but that it is only within people’s souls. The beginning and the end of everything is within a person’s soul.

To explain the meaning of the kingdom of God, Jesus says that every man, apart from his mortal life and his own conception in the flesh by an earthly father in the womb of an earthly mother, which he understands, will come to know in himself a spirit that is free, intelligent and independent from the flesh. This spirit is eternal, and since it emanates from the Eternal, it is the source of all and is what we refer to as God. We know God only within ourselves. This spirit is the source of our lives and it needs to be placed higher than all else; we must live off of it. When we have made this spirit the basis of life, we receive true, eternal life. That father spirit who planted this spirit in people could not have done so with the goal of deceiving people, intending for people to recognize this eternal spirit in themselves but then to lose it. If this eternal spirit exists inside a person, then it should give eternal life. So therefore, a man who bases his life on this spirit will have eternal life, while the man who does not base his life on this spirit will not have eternal life. People can choose for themselves life and death. Life is in the spirit, death is in the flesh. The life of the spirit is goodness and light; the mortal life of flesh is evil and darkness. To believe in the spirit means to perform acts of goodness; to not believe means to perform acts of evil. Goodness is life, evil is death. Only the spirit gives people life, it is up to the people to either keep it or lose it. Evil does not exist for the spirit. Evil is the imitation of life; it is non-living.

We do not know God, the external creator, the source of all sources. All that we can comprehend of him is that he planted spirit in people and planted, as does a sower, everywhere, not upturning the earth, and the seed that falls on good earth grows, and the one that falls on undesirable ground will die.

After this, the students of John came to ask Jesus whether he was the one about whom John spoke, whether he would reveal the kingdom of God and renew the people in spirit.

Jesus answered and said, “Look and listen, and then tell John whether the kingdom of God has arrived and whether people are being renewed in spirit. Tell him how I preach the kingdom of God.

“In the prophecies, it is said that when the kingdom of God comes, all people will be blessed. Well, then tell him that my kingdom of God is such that the poor are blessed. And that everyone who understands me will be blessed.”

And having let John’s students go, Jesus began to speak to the people about what sort of kingdom of God it was that John had proclaimed.

He said, “When you went to be baptized by John in the wilderness, what did you go to see? The orthodox legalists also went but did not understand what John was proclaiming. And they considered him worthless. This species, the orthodox legalists, only consider what they invent themselves and hear from each other to be truth and the only law they regard is the one that they invent themselves. But they do not hear and do not comprehend what John said, and what I am saying. From what John said, they only comprehend that he fasted in the wilderness, and so they say, ‘He has a devil in him.’

“From what I am saying they have only comprehended that I do not fast and so they say, ‘He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners, and he is friendly with them.’ Like little children on the street, they chatter with one another and are amazed that nobody listens to them. And their wisdom is visible in their actions. If you wanted to see a man dressed up in expensive clothes, well then many people like that are living in the palaces right here.

“What, did you not see this in the wilderness? You think you went there because John was a prophet like the others? Do not think that. John was not a prophet like the others; he was greater than all the prophets. They prophesied what could happen. He proclaimed to people what is: namely, that the kingdom of God has been and is on the earth. I tell you truly: no one greater than John has ever been born. He announced the kingdom of God on earth and is therefore greater than all.

“The law and the prophets—all of it was necessary to John. And from the time of John until now, it has been proclaimed that the kingdom of God is on the earth and that he who makes the effort will enter it.”

And the orthodox came to Jesus and began to ask him how and when the kingdom of God would come.

He answered them, “The kingdom of God that I preach is not the one that previous prophets preached. They said that God would come with various types of visible appearances and I am talking about such a kingdom of God, the coming of which will be impossible to see with the eyes.

“And if they tell you, ‘Look, it came or is coming,’ or, ‘Look, here it is,’ do not believe them. The kingdom of God is not in a time or in any place. It is like lightning—it is here, there and everywhere. And it has no time, and no place because the kingdom of God that I preach is within you.”

After this, one of the orthodox, from among the leaders of the Jews, Nicodemus, came to Jesus at night and said, “You do not command us to observe the Sabbath, you do not command us to observe the purification law, you do not command us to make sacrifices or to fast; you destroyed the temple, you say of God that he is a spirit and that the kingdom of God is within us. What kind of kingdom of God is that?”

And Jesus answered him, “You must understand that if a person is conceived from heaven, then within him there ought to be something of heaven.”

Nicodemus did not understand this and said, “How can a person, if he was conceived from the flesh of a father, then grows old, crawl back into his mother’s belly and be conceived again?”

And Jesus answered him, “Understand what I am saying. I am saying that, apart from the flesh, a person is also conceived in the spirit, that therefore each person is conceived in both flesh and spirit and that therefore the kingdom of heaven can exist within him. Flesh comes from flesh. Spirit cannot be born from flesh; only spirit can come from spirit. The spirit is what lives within you, living freely and intelligently and of which you can know no end and no beginning. Every person feels it within themselves. And so, why were you so amazed that I told you that you must be conceived from heaven?”

Nicodemus said, “All the same, I do not believe that it could be so.”

Then Jesus said to him, “What kind of teacher are you if you do not understand this! You must understand that I do not base this on any kind of special wisdom; I interpret only that which we all know, and confirm it with what we can all see. How can you believe in what is in heaven if you do not believe in what is on earth, in what is inside yourself?

“No one has ever been to heaven and man is earth’s only resident, having come down from heaven, being of heaven himself. Here, we must elevate this heavenly son that exists within man, so that everyone can believe in him and not perish, but have heavenly life instead.

“It was not, after all, to ruin people, but for their benefit that God gave people his son, who is just like him. He offered him, after all, so that everyone would believe in him and not perish but have eternal life instead. It was not, after all, to destroy the people of the world that he delivered his son, life, into the world of people; he delivered his son, life, so that the world would live by means of him. Whoever trusts their life to him will not die, and whoever does not trust their life to him will destroy themselves because they did not trust that there can be life.

“Separation (death) occurs since, when life comes into the world, people themselves move away from it. Life is people’s light. Light came into the world, but people prefer darkness to light and do not move toward the light. So whoever does wrong does not move toward the light; therefore his acts are invisible and he deprives himself of life. And whoever lives in truth moves toward the light, therefore his actions are in the light and he has life and unites himself with God.

“The kingdom of God must be understood differently than you have thought, for example, that for all people, at some certain time and in some certain place the kingdom of God will come. Understand it in this way: that in all the world, certain people, those who rely on the heavenly son of mankind, always make themselves sons of the kingdom while the others who do not rely on him are destroyed. The father of that spirit within a person is the father only of those who recognize themselves to be his sons. And therefore, only those that retain within themselves what he gave them can exist in his eyes.”

And after that Jesus began to explain to the people what the kingdom of God was and he explained this in parables.

He said, “The spirit father plants the life of knowledge in the world, completely the same as how a farmer sows seeds in his field. He sows over the whole field, not distinguishing where each one may land. And now, some seeds land on the road, and birds fly down and peck at them. And others fall onto the rocks. And they will scarcely grow on the rocks, but will wither because there is nowhere to take root. And still others fall into the brush and the brush chokes the grain, so the stalks rise up, but do not flourish. And others fall onto good earth, those spring up and compensate for the lost seeds and offer up their grain and flourish; some multiplied one hundred times, some sixty and some thirty.

“And just so, God planted the spirit within people, in some it disappears, and in some it returns, multiplied one hundred times. These are the people that make up the kingdom of God.

“So the kingdom of God is not like you think it is, that God will come to reign over you. God only planted the spirit, and the kingdom of God will only be within those who preserve that. God does not control people and, like a farmer, tosses seeds to the earth and does not think of them himself. The seeds swell on their own, sprout, grow into a plant, a stalk, a head of grain, and then produce a kernel. And only when it is ripe does the farmer send the reapers to mow the field. Just so, God gave the world his son, a spirit, and the spirit will grow in the world and the sons of the spirit will make up the kingdom of God.

“Like a woman who adds yeast to the dough, she mixes it with the flour and then stops kneading it, and waits for it to ferment on its own and rise. While people are still living, God does not enter into their lives; he gave the world the spirit and the spirit itself lives within people, forming the kingdom of God. For the spirit there is no death and no evil. Death and evil are for the flesh and not for the spirit.

“This is what the kingdom of God can be compared to: A farmer sowed good seeds in his field. The farmer is the spirit father; the field is the earth; the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom of God.

“Now, the farmer lay down to sleep and an enemy came to plant weeds in the field. The enemy is temptation, the weeds are the sons of temptation. Then, workers came to the master and said, ‘Did you plant bad seeds? Many weeds have turned up in your field. Send us and we will go and clear the field.’

“And the farmer said, ‘There is no need; you might begin pulling out the weeds and trample the wheat while doing so. Let them grow together. The harvest will come, then I’ll command the reapers to pull out the weeds and will burn them up and will gather the wheat into my shed.’

“The harvest is the end of human life, and the reapers are the powers of heaven. They burn the weeds and the wheat will be cleaned and gathered. Just so, at the end of life, all that was a trick of time will fall away, and only the true life will remain—life in the spirit. For the spirit father there is no evil. The spirit guards what he needs and that which does not come from him, does not exist for him.

“The kingdom of God is like a fishing net. They stretch fishing nets along the sea and catch all kinds of fish. And then, when they pull it out, they separate the rubbish and throw it back into the sea. And so it will be at the end of time: the power of heaven will pick out the good, and the bad will be thrown away.”

And as he finished talking, his students began to ask him, “How should we understand these parables?”

And he said to them, “These parables must be understood in two ways. After all, I tell all of these parables because there are some, like you, my students, who partially understand the nature of the kingdom of God, who understand that the kingdom of God is within every person, and understand how to enter into it; and then there are others who do not understand it. Others look, but do not see, and they hear but do not understand, because their hearts have grown fat. Now I tell these parables on two levels, to the one group as well as to the other. To some, I speak of God, of what God considers his kingdom to be, and they can understand that. To you, though, I speak of what the kingdom of God is for you, the one that is within you.

“And pay attention. Understand the parable of the sower as you should. For you, this is what the parable means: Evil comes to everyone who has understood the meaning of the kingdom of God but has not accepted it into his heart: it snatches up what has been sown. This is the seed that fell on the road. The one that was sown on the stones, that is he who immediately accepts with joy. But there is no root within him, and so he only accepts it for a time and then finds restriction and persecution because of the meaning of the kingdom and so he turns away from it. The one sown in the brush, that is he who has understood the meaning of the kingdom, but his worldly cares and greed for riches snuff out the meaning in him and he bears no fruit. And the one sown on good land, that is the one who has understood the meaning of the kingdom and accepted it into his heart. This one bears fruit, some multiplied one hundred times, some sixty, and some thirty. And whoever holds on will be given much; but whoever does not hold on will have everything taken away from him.

“And therefore, be careful how you understand these parables. Understand them so that you do not become ensnared in error, offenses or concerns, but bear fruit thirty times, sixty times, or one hundred times more. In the soul, the kingdom of heaven flourishes out of nothing, but it gives everything. Like a birch seed, the smallest of all seeds, when it grows up, it is larger than all the other trees and the birds of the heavens build their nests in it.”