And Jesus answered them, “I already told you who I am, but you do not believe me. If you do not believe my words, then believe my actions. Through them, you will understand who I am and for what purpose I have come. But you do not believe, because you do not follow me. Whoever follows after me and does what I say will understand me. And whoever understands my teaching and fulfills it will receive actual life.
“My father has united them with me and no one can divide us. The father and I are one.”
And the Jews were offended by this and picked up stones to beat him.
But he said to them, “I have shown you many good works, revealing to you teachings about my father; for which of these good works do you want to beat me?”
They said, “It is not for goodness that we want to beat you, but because you, a man, are making yourself God.”
And Jesus answered them, “Well, this very claim is made in your own scripture, after all. It is said that God himself told the evil rulers, ‘You are gods.’ If he called even the unholy ones Gods, then why do you consider it sacrilege to refer to something that God lovingly sent into the world as the son of God? Every person is a son of God in spirit. If I do not live in a godly way, then do not believe that I am a son of God. If, however, I do live in a godly way, then believe, based on my life, that I am from the father and then you will understand that the father is within me and I am within him.”
And Jesus said, “My teaching is an awakening of life. Whoever believes in my teaching, although he may die in the flesh, will remain living and everyone who lives and believes in me will not die.”
And the Jews began to argue. Some said that he was possessed.
Others said, “There’s no way a possessed man can enlighten people.”
The Jews did not know what to do with him, and they could not condemn him.
And he went again across the Jordan and remained there.
And many came to believe in his teaching and said that it was true, just as the teaching of John was true. And so, many people believed in his teaching.
Once, Jesus asked his students, “Tell me, how do people understand my teaching concerning the son of man?”
They said, “Some understand it like the teaching of John, others just like the prophecies of Isaiah, still others say that it resembles the teaching of Jeremiah; they understand that you are a prophet.”
He said, “And what do you understand of my teaching?”
And Simon Peter said to him, “In my opinion, your teaching is that you are the chosen son of the God of life. You teach that God is the life that exists within man.”
And Jesus said to him, “You are lucky, Simon, that you have understood that. A person could not have revealed that to you, but you understand it because the God within you has revealed it to you. It was not mortal reasoning, and it was not me with my words that revealed it to you, but God my father revealed it to you directly. And on that rests the foundation for the gathering of chosen people, for whom there is no death.”
Chapter Eight LIFE OUTSIDE OF TIME
And therefore only life in the present is true life.
THIS DAY
To the apostles’ doubts regarding the sort of reward they would have for renouncing mortal life, Jesus answers:
For a man who has understood the teaching, there can be no rewards. First of all, because the man who leaves behind his loved ones and his belongings in the name of this teaching obtains one hundred times more loved ones and more belongings. Second of all, because a man who seeks rewards is pursuing a situation in which he has more than another person does, and this practice is especially repellent to the fulfillment of the father’s will. For the kingdom of heaven there is no such thing as more or less: all are equal. Those who seek rewards for goodness are like workers who would demand more pay for themselves than for others paid by their master only because they consider themselves to be more worthy than others. Reward and punishment, debasement and exaltation, do not exist for someone who understands the teaching. No one can be higher or more important than someone else. Everyone can fulfill the fathers’ will, but in doing so, not one person will make himself more senior or important or better than another. Only kings and those who serve them can think this way.
According to my teaching, there can be no elders, because he who wants to be better should become the slave of all. This is the essence of the teaching: man is given life not to be served, but to offer his whole life in service of other people.
In order to not think about rewards and exaltation for yourself, you must understand that the meaning of life is in the fulfillment of the father’s will; that what the father has given away should return to him. Like a shepherd leaving the whole flock to go search for the one missing sheep and like the woman who tears apart everything to find the lost kopeck, likewise, the activity of the father manifests itself to us by pulling toward itself all that formerly belonged to it.
You must understand what true life is. True life always manifests itself in the phenomenon that what was lost returns to its place, that what has fallen into a sleep awakens. People who have true life return to their source; if they have true life, they are incapable of rating, as the custom is, who is better and who is worse, but as participants in the father’s life, they can only rejoice at returning what was lost to the father. If a son falls from the path and wanders from the father but then repents and returns to the father, then can the other sons really be envious of the father’s joy and refuse to rejoice at the brother’s return?
In order to believe the teaching, in order to change your life and fulfill the teaching, external proofs are unnecessary. One does not need the promise of rewards, but a clear understanding of what true life is. If people think they can be all-powerful masters of life, that life is given to them for the lusts of the flesh, then it is obvious that every act of sacrifice for another will seem to them a deed worthy of a reward and without reward they will not do anything. If the share croppers, who forgot that they were given a garden on the condition that they give the fruit to the master, were required to make their payment without any reward, they would chase out the payment collector. And if he were to keep reminding them about the payment, they would kill him. That is how the people who call themselves the masters of life see things and they do not understand that life is a gift of knowledge which requires the fulfillment of its will. One must understand that man can do nothing on his own and that if he gives away his mortal life for the good, then there should be no thanks or reward expected. You must understand that, in doing good, a man does only what he is obligated to do, what he cannot leave unfulfilled. Only by understanding his life in that way can a man have enough belief to do true acts of goodness.
The kingdom of heaven, which I preach, is based on this understanding of life. This kingdom of heaven is invisible, it is not the sort of kingdom that exists somewhere and could be pointed to. It is made up of people’s knowledge. The whole world has lived and still lives by old traditions: they eat, they drink, they work, they marry, they die and right alongside this, within people’s souls, the kingdom of heaven lives. The kingdom of heaven is people’s knowledge, like a tree in springtime, growing up out of itself.
The true life of fulfilling the father’s will is not the life that has passed or the life that will be, but life right now. And therefore, you must never become weak for living. People are positioned to preserve life—not the past, not the future, but the life that they are presently living—and in it to fulfill the will of the father. If they exit this life, not having fulfilled the father’s will, then they will not return. They are like the nightwatchman, positioned so as to watch through the entire night, who fails at his job if he falls asleep for even one minute, when a thief may approach. And therefore a man should bring all of his strength to the present hour, because only in that hour can he fulfill the father’s will. Fulfilling the father’s will is good for all people, since his will is the welfare of all. Only those who do good live.