Jesus guessed at this, turned to him and said, “Should I tell you what I think?”
“Tell me,” the man said.
And Jesus said, “Here’s what: Two men counted themselves among the debtors of a certain master, one by five hundred pieces of money and the other by fifty pieces. And neither the one nor the other had anything with which to repay the debt. The master pardoned both. So then, according to your thinking, who will love the master more and care for him more?”
And the man said, “Everyone knows that it would be the one who had the larger debt.”
Jesus gestured toward the woman and said, “So it is with you and this woman. You consider yourself orthodox and therefore a minor debtor, she considers herself unfaithful and therefore a major debtor. I came to you, into your home, and you did not offer me water for washing my feet; she washes my feet with tears and dries them with her hair. You did not kiss me, but she is kissing my feet. You did not offer me oil to anoint my head, but she is anointing my feet with expensive perfumes.
“He who considers himself orthodox will not perform any acts of love. And he who considers himself unfaithful will perform acts of love. And acts of love will deliver you out of all error.”
And he said to her, “Yes, you have delivered yourself from your errors.”
Jesus said, “The whole matter with faith is who one considers oneself to be. Whoever considers himself to be good in his faith will not be good; and whoever considers himself to be bad in his faith will be good.”
And Jesus said further, “Once two men went into the temple to pray; one was orthodox, the other an unfaithful tax collector. The orthodox believer prayed like this, ‘I thank you, Lord, that I am not like others: I am not a miser, not a cheat, not a libertine and not such a scoundrel as this tax collector here. I fast two days a week and I pay a tithe on all my holdings.’
“But the tax collector stood a ways off and didn’t dare to look at the heavens, but simply beat himself on the chest and murmured, ‘Lord! Look at me, a worthless man.’
“And so? This one was better than the orthodox because he who elevates himself will be lowered and he who lowers himself will be elevated.”
And after this, some students of John came to Jesus and said, “Why is it that, along with the orthodox, we fast so much and your students do not fast at all? Because according to the orthodox law, God has commanded us to fast.”
And Jesus said to them, “As long as the groom is at the wedding, no one can be sad. It is only when there is no groom that they are sad. If there is life, then there is no need to be sad.
“It is impossible to combine external worship with acts of love. It is impossible to combine the old teaching of external worship with my teaching of performing acts of love toward one’s neighbor. To combine my teaching with the old one is the same as tearing a piece of fabric from a new garment and sewing it onto an old one. So you tear apart the new one and fail to repair the old one. One must accept mine in its entirety or the old one in its entirety. And having accepted my teaching, it is impossible to hold on to the old one of purification, fasts, and Sabbaths. Likewise, it is impossible to pour new wine into old skins, because the skins will burst and the new wine will leak out. But new wine must be poured into new skins, and both the one and the other will remain whole.”
The following prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled in Jesus: “The people were in darkness and suddenly they saw the light. People lived in death’s gloom and for them, a light suddenly shined out.”
And yet another of Isaiah’s prophecies came to fruition: “Behold here is my beloved child. My soul delights in him. Because my spirit is within him and he will proclaim truth to all the nations. He does not argue and does not scream and his voice is not to be heard in the streets. In order for the truth to triumph over the lie, he will not tear up the straw and will not blow out the night lights. In his teachings the people will have hope.”
And many people followed after him as he walked from city to village proclaiming true goodness.
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.”