Ch. 59, The Farewell Talk
“Son of Man: Urantia,” 2nd edition
The Farewell Talk
The apostles thought that they were going to leave John Mark’s house after they had sung the one hundred and eighteenth Psalm, but Jesus told them to sit back down and said “You well remember when I sent you out without money, and even advised that you take no extra clothes with you. You all recall that you lacked nothing. But now you have come on troubled times: you can no longer depend on the good will of the crowds. From now on if you have money take it with you. When you go out into the world to announce this gospel provide for your needs as seems best. I have come to bring peace, but it will not appear for a while.’
“It is now time for the Son of Man to be glorified and the Father will be glorified in me. My friends, I am only going to be with you a little longer. Soon you will look for me, but you will not find me because I am going to a place that you cannot yet come. But when you have finished your work on Earth as I have now finished mine, you will then come to me even as I now prepare to go to my Father. In just a short time I am going to leave you; you will see me no more on Earth, but you will all see me in the age to come when you ascend to the kingdom that my Father has gifted me.”
The New Commandment
After a few moments talking among themselves, Jesus stood up and said “When I enacted for you the parable showing how you should be willing to serve one another, I said that I wanted to give you a new commandment; I want to do this now, because I am about to leave you. You well know the commandment that tells you to love one another—that you love your neighbor like yourself. But I am not wholly satisfied with even that sincere devotion on the part of my children. I want you to perform still more impressive acts of love in the kingdom of the believing brotherhood. Your new commandment is that you love one another even as I have loved you, and in this way everyone will know that you are my disciples.’
“By giving you this new commandment I am not placing a new burden on your souls; instead, I bring you a new joy and make it possible for you to experience a new pleasure knowing your heart’s affection for others. I am about to experience the supreme joy—even though enduring outward sadness—in my love for you and your fellow mortals.’
“When I invite you to love one another even as I have loved you, I hold up before you the supreme measure of true affection, for people cannot show greater love than this: that they will lay down their lives for their friends. You are my friends; you will continue to be my friends if you are but willing to do what I have taught you. You have called me Master, but I do not call you servants. If you will only love one another as I am loving you, you will be my friends and I will ever speak to you of what the Father reveals to me.’
“You have not merely chosen me; I have also chosen you and I have ordained you to go forth into the world to yield the fruit of loving service to your fellows even as I have lived among you and revealed the Father to you. The Father and I will both work with you, and you will experience the divine fullness of joy if you will only obey my command to love one another even as I have loved you. If you would share the Master’s joy, you must share his love. To share his love means that you have shared his service. Such an experience of love does not create a new world or deliver you from the difficulties of this world, but it most certainly does make the old world new.’
“Keep in mind: it is loyalty, not sacrifice, that Jesus demands. The attitude of sacrifice implies the absence of that wholehearted care that would have made such a loving service a supreme joy. The idea of duty indicates that you are servant-minded, and hence you are missing the mighty thrill of doing your service as a friend and for a friend. The impulse of friendship transcends all convictions of duty, and the service of a friend for a friend can never be called a sacrifice. Jesus had taught the apostles that they were the sons of God: he had called them brothers, and now before he leaves he calls them friends.
The Vine and the Branches
Jesus continued, and said “I am the true vine and my Father is the keeper of the vineyard. I am the vine and you are the branches. The Father only requires of me that you will bear much fruit. The vine is pruned only to increase the fruitfulness of its branches. Every branch coming out of me that bears no fruit the Father will take away. Every branch that bears fruit the Father will cleanse that it may bear more fruit. Already are you clean through the word I have spoken, but you must continue to be clean. You must live in me and I in you; the branch will die if it is separated from the vine. As the branch cannot bear fruit except if it lives in the vine, neither can you yield the fruits of loving service except if you live in me. Remember, I am the real vine and you are the living branches. He who lives in me and I in him will bear much fruit of the spirit and experience the supreme joy of yielding this spiritual harvest. If you will maintain this living spiritual connection with me, you will bear abundant fruit. If you live in me and my words live in you, you will be able to talk freely with me; then can my living spirit so infuse you that you can ask whatever my spirit wills, and do all of this with the assurance that the Father will grant us our request. Here the Father is glorified: that the vine has many living branches and that every branch bears much fruit. And when the world sees these fruit-bearing branches—my friends who love one another even as I have loved them—all humanity will know that you are truly my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Live in my love even as I live in the Father’s love. If you do as I have taught you, you will live in my love even as I have kept the Father’s word and forever live in his love.” The Jews had long taught that the Messiah would be a stem rising out of the vine of David’s ancestors, and in honor of this old teaching a large emblem of the grape and its attached vine decorated the entrance to Herod’s temple. The apostles all remembered these things while Jesus spoke to them this night in the upper chamber.
But immense sadness later resulted from the misinterpretation of Jesus’ suggestions about prayer. There would have been little difficulty with these lessons if his exact words had been remembered and later truthfully recorded. But as the record was made, believers eventually regarded prayer in Jesus’ name as a sort of supreme magic granting anything asked of the Father. For centuries honest souls have continued to wreck their faith against this stumbling block. How long will it take the world of believers to understand that prayer is not a process of getting your way, but rather a process of learning to take God’s way—a process of learning how to recognize and then execute the Father’s will? It is entirely true that when your will has been completely aligned with his, that anything asked by the union of the two will be granted. Such a union is brought about by and through Jesus even as the life of the vine flows into and through the living branches.
When there exists this living connection between divinity and humanity, if the person should ignorantly pray for selfish ease and self-important accomplishments there can only be one divine answer—bearing more fruits of the spirit on the stem of the living branches. When the branch is alive there can only be one answer to all its requests: more grapes. In fact, the branch exists only for, and can do nothing except, bear grapes. So do true believers exist only for the purpose of bearing the fruits of the spirit: to love people as they themselves have been loved by God; that we should love one another even as Jesus has loved us. When the Father disciplines the vine, it is done in love so that the branches can bear much fruit: a wise gardener only cuts away the dead and fruitless branches.
The World’s Hostility
The eleven had just ended their talk about the vine and the branches when Jesus, indicating that he wanted to speak to them further and knowing that his time was short said “When I have left you, do not be discouraged by the animosity of the world. Do not get downcast when even fainthearted believers turn against you and join hands with the enemies of the kingdom. If the world hates you, recall that it hated me even before it hated you. If you were of this world then the world would love its own, but because you are not of this world the world refuses to love you. You are in this world, but your lives are not to be worldlike. I have chosen you out of the world to represent the spirit of another world to this world from where you have been chosen. But always remember the words I have spoken to you: the servant is not greater than the master. If they dare to persecute me, they will also persecute you. If my words offend the unbelievers, so will your words also offend the ungodly. All of this they will do to you because they do not believe in me or in him who sent me; you will suffer many things for the sake of my gospel. But when you endure these hardships remember that I also suffered before you for the sake of this gospel of the heavenly kingdom.’
“Many of those who will attack you do not know of the light of heaven, but this is not true of some of those who persecute us today. If we had not taught them the truth they could do many strange things without being guilty, but since they have known the light and they have dared to reject it they now have no excuse for their attitude. He who hates me, hates my Father: it cannot be otherwise. The light that would save you, if accepted, can only condemn you if it is knowingly rejected. What have I done to these people that they should hate me with such a terrible hatred? Nothing except to offer them fellowship on Earth and salvation in heaven. But have you not read in the scripture the saying, ‘And they hated me without a cause?’
“But I will not leave you alone in the world. Very soon after I have gone I will send you a spirit helper. You will have with you one who will take my place among you, one who will continue to teach you the way of truth and who will even comfort you.’
“Do not let your hearts get troubled. You believe in God: continue to also believe in me. Even though I must leave you I will not be far from you. I have already told you that in my Father’s universe there are many places that you will have to rest. If this was not true I would not have repeatedly told you about them. I am going to return to these worlds of light, stations in the Father’s heaven you will sometime reach. From these places I came into this world, and the hour is now at hand when I must return to my Father’s work in the spheres on high.’
“If I go before you into the Father’s heavenly kingdom, I will surely send for you so that you can be with me in the places that were prepared for the mortal sons of God before this world ever was. Even though I must leave you, I will be with you in spirit and eventually you will arise to me in my universe even as I am about to arise to my Father in his boundless universe. What I have told you is true and everlasting even though you may not understand it. I go to the Father, and although you cannot follow me now you will certainly follow me in the ages to come.”
After Jesus sat down, Thomas stood up and said “Master, we do not know where you are going so of course we do not know the way. But we will follow you tonight if you will show us.”
Jesus said “Thomas, I am the way, the life, and the truth. No one goes to the Father except through me: all who find the Father first find me. If you know me, you know the way to the Father. You do know me for you have lived with me and you now see me.”
This was a difficult lesson for many of the apostles, especially Philip, who after talking with Nathaniel stood up and said “Master, show us the Father, and everything you have said will be clear.”
Jesus said “Philip, have I been with you this long and still you do not know me? Again I am telling you, he who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you then say ‘show us the Father?’ Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? Have I not taught you that the words that I speak are not my words, but the Father’s words? I speak for the Father and not for myself. I am in this world to do the Father’s will and that I have done: my Father is in me and works through me. Believe me when I say that the Father is in me and that I am in the Father, or if nothing else, believe me for the sake of the life I have lived: for the work’s sake.”
The Promised Helper
After splashing water on his face, Jesus said “After I have gone to the Father and he has accepted the work I have done for you on Earth, and after I have received the final sovereignty of my own universe, I will say to my Father: ‘having left my children alone on Earth, my promise was to send them another teacher.’ When the Father agrees, I will pour out the Spirit of Truth on all flesh. Already my Father’s spirit is in your hearts, and when this day comes you will also have me with you even as you now have the Father. This new gift is the spirit of living truth. The unbelievers will not listen to the teachings of this spirit at first, but the sons of light will all gladly receive him with a whole heart. You will know this spirit when he comes even as you have known me, and you will receive this gift in your hearts and he will be with you. You can see that I am not going to leave you without help and guidance: I will not leave you desolate. Today I can only be with you in person. In the times to come I will be with you and all other people who desire my presence wherever you may be and with each of you at the same time. Do you not see that it is better for me to go away; that I leave you in the flesh so that I can better be with you in the spirit?’
“In just a few hours the world will see me no more, but you will continue to know me in your hearts even until I send you this new teacher, the Spirit of Truth. As I have lived with you in person, then will I live in you; I will be one with your personal experience in the spirit kingdom. When this has come to pass, you will surely know that I am in the Father and I am also in you. I have loved the Father and I have kept his word; you have loved me and you will keep my word. As my Father has given me his spirit so will I give you my spirit. And this Spirit of Truth that I will give you will guide and comfort you, and eventually lead you into all truth.’
“I am telling you these things while I am still with you so that you can be better prepared to endure the trials that are even right now on us. When this new day comes you will be indwelt by the Son as well as by the Father. These gifts of heaven will ever work the one with the other, even as the Father and I have created on Earth and before your eyes as one person, the Son of Man. This spirit friend will bring to your memory everything that I have taught you.”
As Jesus paused for a moment, Judas Alpheus gathered the courage to ask one of the few questions that either he or his brother ever asked Jesus in public. Judas said “Master, you have always lived among us as a friend; how will we know you when you no longer show yourself except by this spirit? If the world does not see you, how will we be certain about you? How will you show yourself to us?”
Jesus looked down on all of them, smiled, and said “My little children I am going away, going back to my Father. Soon you will not see me as you do here, as flesh and blood. In a very short time I am going to send you my spirit, just like me except for this material body. This new teacher is the Spirit of Truth who will live in each of your hearts, and so will all the children of light be made one and be drawn to one another. In this way my Father and I will be able to live in the souls of each one of you, and also in the hearts of all other people who love us and make that love real in their experiences by loving one another, even as I am now loving you.” Judas Alpheus did not understand what the Master said, but he grasped the promise of the new teacher and from the expression on Andrew’s face he assumed that his question had been answered.
The Spirit of Truth
The new helper that Jesus promised to send into the hearts of believers—to pour out on all flesh—is the Spirit of Truth. This divine gift is not the letter or law of truth, and it is not a form or expression of truth. The new teacher is the conviction of truth, the assurance and consciousness of true meanings on real spirit levels. This new teacher is the spirit of living and growing truth: unfolding, expanding, and adaptative truth.
Divine truth is a spirit known and living reality. Truth exists only at those high spiritual levels where divinity and conscious communion with God are realized. You can know the truth and you can live the truth; you can experience the growth of truth in your soul and enjoy its liberty as an enlightened mind. But you cannot imprison truth in codes, creeds, formulas, or intellectual patterns of human conduct. When you try to design divine truth in human ways it quickly dies. The post-mortem salvage of imprisoned truth, even at best, can only result in a peculiar form of glorified and intellectualized wisdom. Static truth is dead truth, and dead truth can only be held as a theory; living truth is dynamic, and can only be enjoyed as an experiential existence in the human mind.
Intelligence grows out of a material existence that is illuminated by the presence of the cosmic mind. Wisdom is comprised of knowledge that has reached new levels of meaning, and has been activated by the presence of the Spirit of Truth. Truth is a spiritual reality experienced only by spirit-endowed beings who operate on super-material levels of universe consciousness, and who after the realization of truth permit its active spirit to live and reign in their souls. The true child of universal insight looks for the living Spirit of Truth in every wise saying. The God-knowing individual is constantly elevating wisdom to the living truth of divine attainment, while the spiritually unprogressive soul drags the living truth down to the dead levels of wisdom and the domain of mere lofty knowledge.
The golden rule when stripped of the super-human insight we get from the Spirit of Truth becomes nothing more than a rule for high ethical conduct: when literally interpreted it can become the instrument of huge offense to others. Without a spiritual understanding of the golden rule, you could reason that since you want everyone to speak the full and frank truth to you that you should then speak frankly whatever is on your mind to your fellow beings. Such an unspiritual interpretation of the golden rule can result in untold sadness.
Some people see and interpret the golden rule as a purely intellectual affirmation of human friendship. Others experience this human relationship as an emotional gratification of a human personality’s tender feelings. Another person recognizes this same golden rule as the yardstick for measuring all social relations, the standard of social conduct. Still others look on it as being the positive command of an eminent moral teacher who embodied in this statement the highest concept of moral obligation in friendships: in the lives of such moral beings the golden rule becomes the wise center and circumference of all their philosophy.
In the kingdom of the believing brotherhood of God-knowing truth lovers, this golden rule takes on the living qualities of higher levels of spiritual realization: those levels of God consciousness that cause people to interact with others in such a way that the person receives the most benefit from the contact. This is the essence of true religion: that you love your neighbor as yourself.
But the highest realization and the truest interpretation of the golden rule is being conscious of the living and enduring reality of such a divine statement. The true cosmic meaning of this rule of universal relationships is only revealed in its spiritual realization: interpreting the law of conduct by the spirit of the Son to the spirit of the Father inside people’s souls. When such spirit-led people realize the true meaning of this golden rule they are filled with the assurance of citizenship in a friendly universe, and their ideals of spiritual reality are satisfied only when they love their fellows as Jesus loved us all: that is the realization of God’s love.
This same philosophy of living flexibility and cosmic adaptability of divine truth according to every person’s capacity and individual requirements must be recognized before you can hope to understand Jesus’ teaching and practice of not resisting evil.
Jesus’ teaching is basically a spiritual announcement. The material implications of his philosophy cannot be considered apart from their spiritual correlations. The spirit of Jesus’ rule consists in an unselfish reaction to universe events coupled with aggressively attaining higher levels of true spirit values—divine beauty, eternal truth, and infinite goodness—through the desire to know God and to increasingly become like him.
Love—unselfishness—must constantly be reinterpreted according to the leading of the Spirit of Truth. Love must grasp the enlarging and ever-changing concepts of the highest cosmic good for the individual who is being loved. Then love goes on to bring this same attitude to all other people that could possibly be influenced by that person’s increasing love for other universe citizens. This entire experience of progressively adapting to higher concepts of love has to happen surrounded by the present evil in the world on the one hand, and the eternal goal of perfecting our divine destiny on the other.
We must clearly recognize that neither the golden rule or the teaching of nonresistance to evil can ever be properly understood as a belief system. They can only be understood by living them: by realizing their meanings through the living interpretation of the Spirit of Truth who directs the loving contact of one human being with another.
All of this clearly shows the difference between the old religion and the new. The old religion taught self-sacrifice; the new religion teaches only self-forgetfulness: the enhanced self-realization of blending social service with universe understanding. The old religion was motivated by fear; the new gospel of the kingdom is dominated by a belief in the truth: the spirit of eternal and universal truth. No amount of loyalty or devotion to a creed can compensate for the absence of that sincere, generous, and spontaneous friendliness that characterizes the spirit-born sons of the living God. Neither tradition nor a ceremonial system of formal worship can make up for lacking genuine compassion for others.
The Need for Leaving
After John, James, Peter, and Matthew had asked more questions, Jesus said “I am telling you about all of this before I leave you so you will be prepared for what is coming, and so you will not stumble into serious error. The authorities will not be content with merely throwing you out of the synagogues; I warn you that the hour draws near when the people who want to kill you will think that they are doing a service to God. All of these things they will do to you and to those that you lead into the kingdom because they do not know the Father. They have refused to know the Father by refusing to receive me; and they refuse to receive me when they reject you, provided you have kept my new commandment that you love one another even as I have loved you. I am telling you in advance about these things so that when your hour comes as mine now has, you will be strengthened in the knowledge that all was known to me and that my spirit will be with you in all of your sufferings for my sake and the gospel’s. It was because of this that I have been speaking so plainly to you from the very beginning. I have even warned you that people’s foes may be those of their own household. Although this gospel of the kingdom never fails to bring profound peace to the soul of the individual believer, it will not bring peace on Earth until humanity is willing to believe my teaching wholeheartedly and to establish the practice of doing the Father’s will as the chief purpose in living the mortal life.’
“Now that the hour has come when I am about to go to the Father, I am surprised that none of you have asked me ‘Why do you leave us?’ Regardless, I know that you ask such questions in your hearts. I will speak to you plainly as one friend to another. It is best for you that I go away. If I do not go away, the new teacher cannot come into your hearts. I must be separated from this mortal body and restored to my place on high before I can send this spirit teacher to live in your souls and lead your spirits into the truth. When my spirit comes to indwell you he will illuminate the difference between sin and righteousness, and he will enable you to judge wisely in your hearts concerning them.’
“I still have much more to say to you, but you cannot take anymore right now. Just know that when the Spirit of Truth comes, he will eventually guide you into all truth as you pass through the many way stations in my Father’s universe.’
“This spirit will not speak of himself, but he will declare to you what the Father has revealed to the Son and he will even show you things to come; he will glorify me even as I have glorified my Father. This spirit comes forth from me and he will reveal my truth to you. Everything that the Father has in this domain is now mine; this new teacher will take what is mine and reveal it to you.’
“In just a little while I will leave you for a short time. Afterward, when you see me again I will already be on my way to the Father, so even then you will not see me for long.”
While Jesus paused for a moment, the apostles began to talk with each other saying “What is this he tells us? ‘In just a little while I will leave you,’ and ‘When you see me again, it will not be for long for I will be on my way to the Father.’ What can he mean by this ‘little while,’ and ‘not for long?’ We cannot understand what he is telling us.”
Jesus knew they asked these questions, and he said “Do you ask among yourselves what I meant when I said that in a little while I would not be with you, and that when you see me again I would be on my way to the Father? I have plainly told you that the Son of Man must die, but that he will arise again. Can you not then understand the meaning of my words? You will first be made sad, but later on you will rejoice with many who will understand these things after they have come to pass. A woman is indeed sad in the hour of her labor, but once she has delivered her child she immediately forgets her anguish in the joy of knowing that a person has been born into the world. You are about to be sad over my departure, but I will soon see you again and then your sadness will be turned into joy and there will come to you a new revelation of the salvation of God that no person can ever take away from you. All of the worlds will be blessed in this same revelation of life in effecting the overthrow of death. Up to now you have made all of your requests in my Father’s name: after you see me again you can also ask in my name, and I will hear you.’
“Down here I have taught you in proverbs and spoken to you in parables. I did so because you were only children in the spirit, but the time is coming when I will speak to you plainly concerning the Father and his kingdom. I will do this because the Father himself loves you and desires to be more revealed to you. Mortals cannot see the spirit Father, so have I come into the world to show the Father to your creature eyes. But when you have become perfected in spirit growth you will then see the Father himself.”
The apostles said to each other, “See, he does speak plainly to us. Surely the Master did come forth from God. But why does he say he must return to the Father?” Jesus saw that they still did not understand him. These eleven men could not get away from their long-nourished ideas of the Jewish concept of the Messiah. The more they believed in Jesus as the Messiah, the more troublesome were these deep-rooted notions regarding the glorious material triumph of the kingdom on Earth.