During Jesus' bestowal on earth, he quoted extensively from several of the Prophets, especially Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.
One evening Nathaniel asked Jesus a question regarding the accuracy of the Scriptures. Jesus' detailed reply is given at the end of this paper. ["How accurate are the Scriptures?"]
Jesus Quotes The Prophets With the coming of Jesus' fifteenth birthday, he could officially occupy the synagogue pulpit on the Sabbath day. On the first Sabbath after his fifteenth birthday (August 21, 8 A.D.) the chazan arranged for Jesus to conduct the morning service of the synagogue. Having made his selection of Scriptures, Jesus stood up and began to read.
Jesus quotes 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; to proclaim the year of God's favor and the day of our God's reckoning; to comfort all mourners, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy in the place of mourning, a song of praise instead of the spirit of sorrow, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, wherewith he may be glorified.Seek good and not evil that you may live, and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you. Hate the evil and love the good; establish judgment in the gate. Perhaps the Lord God will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil and learn to do good; seek justice, relieve the oppressed. Defend the fatherless and plead for the widow.
Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, to bow myself before the Lord of all the earth? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousands of sheep, or with rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? No! for the Lord has showed us, O men, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to deal justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?
To whom, then, will you liken God who sits upon the circle of the earth? Lift up your eyes and behold who has created all these worlds, who brings forth their host by number and calls them all by their names. He does all these things by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one fails. He gives power to the weak, and to those who are weary he increases strength. Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness, for I am the Lord your God. And I will hold your right hand, saying to you, fear not, for I will help you.
And you are my witness, says the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen that all may know and believe me and understand that I am the Eternal. I, even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no savior. [126:4:1-7]
Jesus again quotes from the Prophet Isaiah.
[The Sabbath March 2, 26 was the first public appearance of Jesus following his baptism by John the Baptist and the miracle of the water and the wine.]
Thus says the Lord: "The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house that you built for me? And where is the place of my dwelling? All these things have my hands made," says the Lord. "But to this man will I look, even to him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word."
Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble and fear: "Your brethren hated you and cast you out for my name's sake." But let the Lord be glorified. He shall appear to you in joy, and all others shall be ashamed. A voice from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice from the Lord says: "Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child."
Who has heard such a thing? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? Or can a nation be born at once? But thus says the Lord: "Behold I will extend peace like a river, and the glory of even the gentiles shall be like a flowing stream. As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you. And you shall be comforted even in Jerusalem. And when you see these things, your heart shall rejoice."
Said Jesus before sitting down:
Be patient and you shall see the glory of God; even so shall it be with all those who tarry with me and thus learn to do the will of my Father who is in heaven. [137:6:1-3]Prayer, Thanksgiving, and Worship.
While the Apostles and Jesus were in Jotapata in January, 28 A.D. Nathaniel was confused in his mind about the Master's teachings concerning prayer, thanksgiving, and worship. Jesus answered Nathaniel in considerable detail. Following are some of his comments.On Prayer.
That prayer which is inconsistent with the known and established laws of God is an abomination to the Paradise Deities. Jesus then quoted Zechariah:
But they refused to hearken and pulled away the should and stopped their ears that they should not hear. Yes, they made their hearts adamant like a stone, lest they should hear my law and the words which I sent by my spirit through the prophets; therefore did the results of their evil thinking come as a great wrath upon their guilty heads. And so it came to pass that they cried for mercy, but there was no ear open to hear. [146:2:3]
Jesus also quoted the proverb of the wise man who said: He who turns away his ear from hearing the divine law, even his prayer shall be an abomination. [146:2:3]
Said Jesus: Prayer is not designed as a technique for aggrandizing self or for gaining unfair advantage over one's fellows. A thoroughly selfish soul cannot pray in the true sense of the word:
Let your supreme delight be in the character of God, and he shall surely give you the sincere desires of your heart. Also: Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. And: For the Lord hears the cry of the needy, and he will regard the prayer of the destitute. [146:2:9]
Of all the prayers of the Hebrew scriptures he commented most approvingly on the petition of the Psalmist:
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Purge me from secret sins and keep back your servant from presumptuous transgression.
Jesus commented at great length on the relation of prayer to careless and offending speech, quoting:
Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.
Said Jesus: The human tongue is a member which few men can tame, but the spirit within can transform this unruly member into a kindly voice of tolerance and an inspiring minister of mercy. [146:2:13]In all praying, remember that sonship is a gift. You earn righteousness--progressive character development--but you receive sonship by grace and through faith. [144:4:3]
On Giving Thanks to God.
Jesus deplored that so little of the spirit of thanksgiving was to be found in the prayers and worship of his followers. He quoted from the Scriptures on this occasion, saying:
It is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to the name of the Most High, to acknowledge his loving-kindness every morning and his faithfulness every night, for God has made me glad through his work. In everything I will give thanks according to the will of God.
Said Jesus: Be not constantly overanxious about your common needs. Be not apprehensive concerning the problems of your earthly existence, but in all these things by prayer and supplication, with the spirit of sincere thanksgiving, let your needs be spread out before your Father who is in heaven.
Then Jesus quoted from the Scriptures: I will praise the name of God with a song and will magnify him with thanksgiving. And this will please the Lord better than the sacrifice of an ox or bullock with horns and hoofs. [146:2:16]On Justice and Mercy.
There is a basic law of justice in the universe which mercy is powerless to circumvent. The unselfish glories of Paradise are not possible of reception by a thoroughly selfish creature of the realms of time and space. Even the infinite love of God cannot force the salvation of eternal survival upon any mortal creature who does not choose to survive. Mercy has great latitude of bestowal, but, after all, there are mandates of justice which even love combined with mercy cannot effectively abrogate. [146:2:5]
Again Jesus quoted from the Hebrew scriptures:
I have called and you refused to hear; I stretched out my hand, but no man regarded. You have set at naught all my counsel, and you have rejected my reproof, and because of this rebellious attitude it becomes inevitable that you shall call upon me and fail to receive an answer. Having rejected the way of life, you may seek me diligently in your times of suffering, but you will not find me. [146:2:5]
Said Jesus: They who would receive mercy must show mercy; judge not that you be not judged. With the spirit with which you judge others you also shall be judged. Mercy does not wholly abrogate universe fairness. In the end it will prove true:
Whoso stops his ears to the cry of the poor, he also shall some day cry for help, and no one will hear him. [146:2:6]On Worship.
Jesus taught his followers that, when they had made their prayers to the Father, they should remain for a time in silent receptivity to afford the indwelling spirit the better opportunity to speak to the listening soul. The spirit of the Father speaks best to man when the human mind is in an attitude of true worship. We worship God by the aid of the Father's indwelling spirit and by the illumination of the human mind through the ministry of truth. Worship, taught Jesus, makes one increasingly like the being who is worshiped. Worship is a transforming experience whereby the finite gradually approaches and ultimately attains the presence of the Infinite.
And many other truths did Jesus tell his Apostles on this night. [146:2]More Teachings About Worship.
In August 27 A.D. Jesus and the twelve camped on Mount Gerizim. One evening Jesus made the following statements about worship.
Worship--contemplation of the spiritual--must alternate with service, contact with material reality. Work should alternate with play; religion should be balanced by humor. Worship is intended to anticipate the better life ahead and then to reflect these new spiritual significances back onto the life which now is. Prayer is spiritually sustaining, but worship is divinely creative.
Worship is the technique of looking to the One for the inspiration of service to the many. Worship is the yardstick which measures the extent of the soul's detachment from the material universe and its simultaneous and secure attachment to the realities of all creation. [143:7] [144:2, 3, 4, 5]Jesus quotes Isaiah on the question of fasting.
On the evening of May 4, 28 during a session of questions and answers, one of the six spies asked Jesus: . . . Why do you never command your disciples to fast and pray as we Pharisees fast and as John bade his followers.
Among other comments said Jesus: To pray is natural for the children of light, but fasting is not a part of the gospel of the kingdom of heaven.
Later that night Jesus quoted the Prophet Isaiah regarding the practice of fasting:
Why have you fasted? For what reason do you afflict your souls while you continue to find pleasure in oppression and to take delight in injustice? Behold, you fast for the sake of strife and contention and to smite with the fist of wickedness. But you shall not fast in this way to make your voices heard on high.
Is it such a fast that I have chosen--a day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush, to grovel in sackcloth and ashes? Will you dare to call this a fast and an acceptable day in the sight of the Lord? Is not this the fast I should choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the knots of heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share my bread with the hungry and to bring those who are homeless and poor to my house? And when I see those who are naked, I will clothe them.
Then shall your light break forth as the morning while your health springs forth speedily. Your righteousness shall go before you while the glory of the Lord shall be your read guard. Then will you call upon the Lord, and he shall answer; you will cry out, and he shall say--Here am I. And all this he will do if you refrain from oppression, condemnation, and vanity. The Father rather desires that you draw out your heart to the hungry, and that you minister to the afflicted souls; then shall your light shine in obscurity, and even your darkness shall be as the noonday. Then shall the Lord guide you continually, satisfying your soul and renewing your strength. You shall become like a watered garden, like a spring whose waters fail not. And they who do these things shall restore the wasted glories; they shall raise up the foundations of many generations; they shall be called the rebuilders of broken walls, the restorers of safe paths in which to dwell. [147:8:2-4]Jesus then emphasized that it was their faith that made them secure in the kingdom of the present and the future, and not their affliction of soul nor fasting of body. He also warned them against entertaining the notion that all olden teaching should be replaced entirely by new doctrines. Said Jesus: That which is old and also true must abide. Likewise, that which is new but false must be rejected. But that which is new and also true, have the faith and courage to accept. [147:7:3] [147:8:5]
Jesus quotes from Isaiah and Deuteronomy.
On a Sabbath during the latter part of January, 29 A.D., Jesus discoursed in the synagogue in Nazareth. All Nazareth, friends and foes, turned out to hear this former citizen of their town. Many of the citizens were angry because he had done none of his great works in the city of his youth. Further, his enemies, knowing that he was to spend this Sabbath day in Nazareth, had hired numerous rough and uncouth men to harass him and in every way possible make trouble.Jesus read first from Deuteronomy, one of the books of law:
For this commandment which I give you this day is not hidden from you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it down to us that we may hear and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, who will go over the sea for us to bring the commandment to us that we may hear and do it? No, the word of life is very near to you, even in your presence and in your heart, that you may know and obey it.
Jesus then read from Isaiah:
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.
Jesus then sat down and began to discourse to the people. He began by saying: Today are these Scriptures fulfilled. He then spoke for almost fifteen minutes on The Sons and Daughters of God.
After the service, Jesus stepped down into the crowd which pressed forward to ask questions. He found himself surrounded in the synagogue by a great throng of his enemies and a few of his followers. The situation became more tense. Then, the ruffians laid hold upon Jesus and rushed him out of the synagogue to the brow of a near-by precipitous hill, where they were minded to shove him over the edge to his death below. Only the courageous action by Jesus prevented his death. [150:7,8,9]Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy
and the Prophet Jeremiah.
The Crisis leading up to the Epochal Sermon.
The feeding of the five thousand occurred late Wednesday, March 30, 29 A.D. At this point, Jesus' fame plus the stupendous wonder of his "miraculously" feeding the five thousand, the crowd, with one accord, proclaimed: Here is our king! Make him king! But of course, Jesus refused to be made their king. The crowd departed stunned and disheartened. Many who had believed in him turned back and followed him no more from that day. [152:2,3]
The news of the feeding of the five thousand and the attempt to make Jesus king aroused widespread curiosity and stirred up the fears of both the religious leaders and the civil rulers throughout all Galilee and Judea. Jesus well knew that he was facing a great crisis of his life on earth. Even the apostles believed that a crisis was impending. While in Jerusalem for the Passover in April 29 A.D. the twelve learned how bitter the feeling was becoming toward their Master. [152:5:6,7]
Andrew arranged for Jesus to speak on the Sabbath, April 30, 29 A.D. in the synagogue in Capernaum. And Jesus knew that this would be the last time that he would be permitted to speak in the Capernaum synagogue.
A distinguished congregation awaited Jesus in the synagogue. Among those attending were fifty-three Pharisees and Sadducees from Jerusalem; more than thirty of the leaders and rulers of nearby synagogues were present. These leaders and rulers had come to inaugurate open warfare on Jesus and his disciples. Additionally, in the synagogue seats of honor were the official observers of Herod Antipas who had been directed to ascertain the truth concerning the disturbing reports that an attempt had been made by the populace to proclaim Jesus the king of the Jews.
Jesus comprehended that he faced the immediate declaration of avowed and open warfare by his increasing enemies, and he elected boldly to assume the offensive. As at the feeding of the five thousand, he chose again openly to attack their concept of the Jewish deliverer. Jesus knew that many of his followers were slowly but surely preparing their minds finally to reject him. The epochal sermon on this Sabbath 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. [153:1]The Sermon.
Jesus introduced this sermon by reading from the law as found in Deuteronomy:
But is 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.
After quoting further from Deuteronomy, Jesus turned to the Prophet 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 being 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.
[Jeremiah was not killed but they did let him down by cords in a filthy dungeon until he sank in mire up to his armpits.]
Said Jesus: 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?
Jesus asked more questions of those present and made more comments during the three hours in the synagogue. At one point Jesus said: 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.
At one time there was much murmuring and such a tumult was threatened that Jesus said: Let us be patient; the truth never suffers from honest examination. At one point he also said: You cannot compel men to love the truth. Many of these teachers are blind guides. And you know that, if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the pit. A Pharisee said: Have nothing to do with this man; he is in partnership with Satan. Jesus answered: How can Satan cast out Satan? A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand; if a house be divided against itself, it is soon brought to desolation.
During the after meeting, Jesus spoke out with less reserve because he knew the hour had come when he could do nothing more to prevent an open rupture of relations with the religious leaders. It was well past seven o'clock before the audience finally dispersed. [153:2, 3, 4]Jesus quotes the Prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
On the Sabbath of January 17, 28 A.D. Jesus preached his sermon on "The Will of the Father in Heaven." According to custom, he took the first text from the law, reading from the Book of Exodus: And you shall serve the Lord, your God, and he shall bless your bread and your water, and all sickness shall be taken away from you.
He next read from the Prophet Isaiah: Arise and shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. Darkness may cover the earth and gross darkness the people, but the spirit of the Lord shall arise upon you, and the divine glory shall be seen with you. Even the gentiles shall come to this light, and many great minds shall surrender to the brightness of this light.
This sermon was an effort on Jesus' part to make clear the fact that religion is a personal experience. No longer need a believer approach the Father as a child of Israel but as a child of God. Jesus came to replace their national or racial religion with a personal religion.
Jesus then quoted from the Prophet Jeremiah: In those days they shall no more say, the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. Every man shall die for his own iniquity; every man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. Behold, the days shall come when I will make a new covenant with my people, not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, but according to the new way. I will even write my law in their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall not say, one man to his neighbor, do you know the Lord? Nay! For they shall all know me personally, from the least to the greatest.
Then said Jesus: Have you not read these promises? Do you not believe the Scriptures? Do you not understand that the prophet's words are fulfilled in what you behold this very day? And did not Jeremiah exhort you to make religion an affair of the heart, to relate yourselves to God as individuals? Did not the prophet tell you that the God of heaven would search your individual hearts? And were you not warned that the natural human heart is deceitful above all things and oftentimes desperately wicked?
Jesus continued: Have you not read also where Ezekiel taught even your fathers that religion must become a reality in your individual experiences? No more shall you use the proverb which says, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge."
As I live, says the Lord God, behold all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son. Only the soul that sins shall die.
Said Jesus: And then Ezekiel foresaw even this day when he spoke in behalf of God, saying: A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.
Jesus continued: No more should you fear that God will punish a nation for the sin of an individual; neither will the Father in heaven punish one of his believing children for the sins of a nation, albeit the individual member of any family must often suffer the material consequences of family mistakes and group transgressions. Do you not realize that the hope of a better nation--or a better world--is bound up in the progress and enlightenment of the individual? [145:2]Jesus quotes Jeremiah.
Jesus' tour of the Roman world consumed most of the twenty-eighth and the entire twenty-ninth year of his life on earth.
While in Syracuse, Ezra, a backslidden Jew, asked Jesus to help him come back to the faith of Israel. Ezra expressed his hopelessness by saying: I want to be a true son of Abraham, but I cannot find God.
Among other things, said Jesus: Have you not read in the Prophet Jeremiah, "You shall seek me and find me when you shall search for me with all your heart?" And again, did not Jeremiah say: "And I will give you a heart to know me, that I am the Lord, and you shall belong to my people, and I will be your God?"
Jesus continued: And have you not also read in the Scriptures where it says: "He looks down upon men, and if any will say: I have sinned and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not, then will God deliver that man's soul from darkness, and he shall see the light?" [Ezra found God and to the satisfaction of his soul.] [130:0:1] [130:8:2]How accurate are the Scriptures?
The talk with Nathaniel.
One night in August, 29 A.D. Nathaniel took Jesus to one side and asked him: Master, could you trust me to know the truth about the Scriptures? I observe that you teach us only a portion of the sacred writings--the best as I view it--and I infer that you reject the teachings of the rabbis to the effect that the words of the law are the very words of God. I know you were in heaven with God even before the times of Abraham and Moses. What is the truth about the Scriptures?
Jesus answered Nathaniel's question in great detail.
Nathaniel, you have rightly judged; I do not regard the Scriptures as do the rabbis. The words of the law of Moses and the teachings of the Scriptures were not in existence before Abraham. Only in recent times have the Scriptures been gathered together as we now have them. While they contain the best of the higher thoughts and longings of the Jewish people, they also contain much that is far from being representative of the character and teachings of the Father in heaven; wherefore must I choose from among the better teachings those truths which are to be gleaned for the gospel of the kingdom.These writings are the work of men, some of them holy men, others not so holy. The teachings of these books represent the views and extent of enlightenment of the times in which they had their origin. As a revelation of truth, the last are more dependable than the first. The Scriptures are faulty and altogether human in origin, but mistake not, they do constitute the best collection of religious wisdom and spiritual truth to be found in all the world at this time.
Many of these books were not written by the persons whose names they bear, but that in no way detracts from the value of the truths which they contain. If the story of Jonah should not be a fact, even if Jonah had never lived, still would the profound truth of this narrative, the love of God for Nineveh and the so-called heathen, be none the less precious in the eyes of all those who love their fellow men. The Scriptures are sacred because they present the thoughts and acts of men who were searching for God, and who in these writings left on record their highest concepts of righteousness, truth, and holiness. The Scriptures contain much that is true, very much, but in the light of your present teaching, you know that these writings also contain much that is misrepresentative of the Father in heaven, the loving God I have come to reveal to all the worlds.Nathaniel, never permit yourself for one moment to believe the Scripture records which tell you that the God of love directed your forefathers to go forth in battle to slay all their enemies--men, women, and children. Such records are the words of men, not very holy men, and they are not the word of God. The Scriptures always have, and always will, reflect the intellectual, moral, and spiritual status of those who create them. Have you not noted that the concepts of Yahweh grow in beauty and glory as the prophets make their records from Samuel to Isaiah? And you should remember that the Scriptures are intended for religious instruction and spiritual guidance. They are not the works of either historians or philosophers.
The thing most deplorable is not merely this erroneous idea of the absolute perfection of the Scripture record and the infallibility of its teachings, but rather the confusing misinterpretation of these sacred writings by the tradition-enslaved scribes and Pharisees at Jerusalem. And now will they employ both the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures and their misinterpretations thereof in their determined effort to withstand these newer teachings of the gospel of the kingdom. Nathaniel, never forget, the Father does not limit the revelation of truth to any one generation or to any one people. Many earnest seekers after the truth have been, and will continue to be, confused and disheartened by these doctrines of the perfection of the Scriptures.The authority of truth is the very spirit that indwells its living manifestations, and not the dead words of the less illuminated and supposedly inspired men of another generation. And if these holy men of old lived inspired and spirit-filled lives, that does not mean that their words were similarly spiritually inspired. Today we make no record of the teachings of this gospel of the kingdom lest, when I have gone, you speedily become divided up into sundry groups of truth contenders as a result of the diversity of your interpretation of my teachings. For this generation it is best that we live these truths while we shun the making of records.
Mark you well my words, Nathaniel, nothing which human nature has touched can be regarded as infallible. Through the mind of man divine truth may indeed shine forth, but always of relative purity and partial divinity. The creature may crave infallibility, but only the Creators possess it.
But the greatest error of the teaching about the Scriptures is the doctrine of their being sealed books of mystery and wisdom which only the wise minds of the nation dare to interpret. The revelations of divine truth are not sealed except by human ignorance, bigotry, and narrow-minded intolerance. The light of the Scriptures is only dimmed by prejudice and darkened by superstition. A false fear of sacredness has prevented religion from being safeguarded by common sense. The fear of authority of the sacred writings of the past effectively prevents the honest souls of today from accepting the new light of the gospel, the light which these very God-knowing men of another generation so intensely longed to see.But the saddest feature of all is the fact that some of the teachers of the sanctity of this traditionalism know this very truth. They more or less fully understand these limitations of Scripture, but they are moral cowards, intellectually dishonest. They know the truth regarding the sacred writings, but they prefer to withhold such disturbing facts from the people. And thus do they pervert and distort the Scriptures, making them the guide to slavish details of the daily life and an authority in things nonspiritual instead of appealing to the sacred writings as the repository of the moral wisdom, religious inspiration, and the spiritual teaching of the God-knowing men of other generations.
Nathaniel was enlightened, and shocked, by the Master's pronouncement. Even in later years, he feared to tell his fellow Apostles and disciples all that Jesus revealed to him about the Scriptures. [159:4]
Note: The Urantia Book provides a detailed discussion of the events described in this paper.
SOURCE: The Urantia Book, published by Uversa Press, a subsidiary of Urantia Book Fellowship.
Revised May 29 2005
http:// www.urantiabook.org
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Note:Numerous statements in this paper were quoted verbatim from The Urantia Book.