255 posts · 11 participants · started May 9, 2017, 12:04 PM
Isn’t the repentance of good works part of the temporal kingdom that is still after centuries putting the spiritual kingdom just out of reach?
You mean bargaining with God or buying his favor? Yeah I agree, it’s pretty primitive. But I don’t think the concept of repentance is primitive, just the way some people think about is primitive.
The kingdom of heaven is in the hearts of mankind. Jesus knew “. . . that it would be ‘through much tribulation that many of the children of all ages would enter into the kingdom.'”
36:8.6 Jesus chose to establish the kingdom of heaven in the hearts of mankind by natural, ordinary, difficult, and trying methods, just such procedures as his earth children must subsequently follow in their work of enlarging and extending that heavenly kingdom. For well did the Son of Man know that it would be “through much tribulation that many of the children of all ages would enter into the kingdom.” Jesus was now passing through the great test of civilized man, to have power and steadfastly refuse to use it for purely selfish or personal purposes.
Jesus’ “Sermon on the Kingdom” from Paper 134 for our mutual edifiction.
Before Jesus preached this memorable sermon on the kingdom of God, the first pretentious effort of his public career, he read from the Scriptures these passages: “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy people. Yahweh is our judge, Yahweh is our lawgiver, Yahweh is our king; he will save us. Yahweh is my king and my God. He is a great king over all the earth. Loving-kindness is upon Israel in this kingdom. Blessed be the glory of the Lord for he is our King.”.When he had finished reading, Jesus said: [. . . .]
“John asked Jesus, ‘Master, what is the kingdom of heaven?'”
140:10.9 John asked Jesus, “Master, what is the kingdom of heaven?” And Jesus answered: “The kingdom of heaven consists in these three essentials: first, recognition of the fact of the sovereignty of God; second, belief in the truth of sonship with God; and third, faith in the effectiveness of the supreme human desire to do the will of God — to be like God. And this is the good news of the gospel: that by faith every mortal may have all these essentials of salvation.”
The kingdom of heaven is:
Now we can add:
According to 140:10.9 the first essential to the kingdom of heaven is recognizing the sovereignty of God. Do you suppose this is also the first thing that must be done in order to enter the kingdom, and if so, is this part of faith? According to quotes 130:8.17; 140:1.4; 142:1.3; 156:1.8; 166:1.5; 175:1.1; 175:1.6; 178:3.4; 191:2.1 faith is the key to entering the kingdom; in fact, all you need.
I think quote 140:10.9 further explains that it is a specific kind of faith, faith in the sovereignty, or Fatherhood, of God that gets a person through the doors of the kingdom. It’s my opinion that the childlike, trusting attitude necessary to enter comes from the recognition of this quality of sovereignty or Fatherhood. Otherwise, it can be faith in a thing or an idea, rather than a person. A lot of people have faith in things or ideas which they believe are mystical or spiritual, but have nothing at all to do with the sovereignty or Fatherhood of God. I think that can lead to bitter disappointment and eventual derailment of the kingdom for them.
There’s a lot of bitterness in this world, and I think in part it is due to the failure to recognize God as Sovereign. Isn’t that part of our rebellion legacy, the notion that humans can do it just as good as God, or even better? No wonder the kingdom of heaven idea has never been seriously tried. And no wonder the brotherhood of man is such a distant dream.
Here is an answer to a question asked by Thomas.
141:4.2 In answer to Thomas’s question, “Who is this God of the kingdom?” Jesus replied: “God is your Father, and religion — my gospel — is nothing more nor less than the believing recognition of the truth that you are his son. And I am here among you in the flesh to make clear both of these ideas in my life and teachings.”
Mara wrote: Interesting comment about his gospel: “. . .is nothing more nor less than the believing recognition of the truth that you are his son.” . . . .I wonder what the difference is, if there is one, between faith and the believing-recognition-of-the-truth.
Yes, sonship is interesting. Just like faith, sonship is a gift. All we have to do is recognize that great big present sitting there in front of us and open it up. (Like opening the door to the knocking of the Spirit of Truth.) Like TUB says, it’s in our heads long before we realize it’s there.
That aside, we’re told that we recognize the truth of sonship by grace and through faith. Grace is also a gift, but grace is supposed to grow. I think recognition has to do with accepting the gifts and realizing that you can’t keep taking gifts without giving something back, which is how we grow in grace. More importantly, we’re told that the only gift with any value we can give to God is our will.
144:4.3 In all praying, remember that sonship is a gift. No child has aught to do with earning the status of son or daughter. The earth child comes into being by the will of its parents. Even so, the child of God comes into grace and the new life of the spirit by the will of the Father in heaven. Therefore must the kingdom of heaven—divine sonship—be received as by a little child. You earn righteousness—progressive character development—but you receive sonship by grace and through faith.
1.1.2 The Universal Father never imposes any form of arbitrary recognition, formal worship, or slavish service upon the intelligent will creatures of the universes. The evolutionary inhabitants of the worlds of time and space must of themselves — in their own hearts — recognize, love, and voluntarily worship him. The Creator refuses to coerce or compel the submission of the spiritual free wills of his material creatures. The affectionate dedication of the human will to the doing of the Father’s will is man’s choicest gift to God; in fact, such a consecration of creature will constitutes man’s only possible gift of true value to the Paradise Father.
I think recognition has to do with accepting the gifts and . . . .
Perhaps so. I was thinking along the lines of this: “. . . all that the human mind can do is to discover, recognize, interpret, and choose.” (196:3.10), as against not discovering, not recognizing, not interpreting, and not choosing, which in my mind amounts to the attempt to avoid God and evade the subject which ironic evasion is also a choice – the dead center of indecision. (91:9.5) Indecision is a choice.
Here is an example of believing-recognition-of-the-truth (maybe), wherein the individual wanted to believe and of Jesus he asked for help, “I pray you help my unbelief.”
158:5.2 When Jesus had listened to this recital, he touched the kneeling father and bade him rise while he gave the near-by apostles a searching survey. Then said Jesus to all those who stood before him: “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I bear with you? How long shall I be with you? How long ere you learn that the works of faith come not forth at the bidding of doubting unbelief?” And then, pointing to the bewildered father, Jesus said, “Bring hither your son.” And when James had brought the lad before Jesus, he asked, “How long has the boy been afflicted in this way?” The father answered, “Since he was a very young child.” And as they talked, the youth was seized with a violent attack and fell in their midst, gnashing his teeth and foaming at the mouth. After a succession of violent convulsions he lay there before them as one dead. Now did the father again kneel at Jesus’ feet while he implored the Master, saying: “If you can cure him, I beseech you to have compassion on us and deliver us from this affliction.” And when Jesus heard these words, he looked down into the father’s anxious face, saying: “Question not my Father’s power of love, only the sincerity and reach of your faith. All things are possible to him who really believes.” And then James of Safed spoke those long-to-be-remembered words of commingled faith and doubt, “Lord, I believe. I pray you help my unbelief.”
The process of discovery, recognition, interpretation and choice relates to spiritual insight, which is also a gift. We don’t earn any of these gifts. They are freely given to us to use. Either we use them or we don’t. And when we use them, we have the freedom to use them for good or for evil, for growth and progress or failure and decline. We are free to use them to construct or destruct, to organize or disorganize, to co-create stability or generate chaos. It’s totally up to us if we use these gifts and how we use them. And even when we misuse these gifts, like the prodigal son, we have mercy credits (another gift) and plenty of time to atone, rehabilitate and renew our loyalty relations and our commitment to truth, beauty and goodness, which is love manifested within our realm of choice. The only thing our free will has dominion over is the mind and what we choose to do with it. We can make it beautiful or ugly . . . our choice.
Here is a list of the gifts of God, there may be more:
Quotes describing the different ways we can use our gifts:
118:7.7 Personality endowment comes from the Father and imparts unique prerogatives of choice to the living system. But if personality has the prerogative of exercising volitional choice of reality identification, and if this is a true and free choice, then must evolving personality also have the possible choice of becoming self-confusing, self-disrupting, and self-destroying. The possibility of cosmic self-destruction cannot be avoided if the evolving personality is to be truly free in the exercise of finite will.
111:1.6 Mind is the cosmic instrument on which the human will can play the discords of destruction, or upon which this same human will can bring forth the exquisite melodies of God identification and consequent eternal survival. The Adjuster bestowed upon man is, in the last analysis, impervious to evil and incapable of sin, but mortal mind can actually be twisted, distorted, and rendered evil and ugly by the sinful machinations of a perverse and self-seeking human will. Likewise can this mind be made noble, beautiful, true, and good—actually great—in accordance with the spirit-illuminated will of a God-knowing human being.
111:4.11 This is the problem: If freewill man is endowed with the powers of creativity in the inner man, then must we recognize that freewill creativity embraces the potential of freewill destructivity. And when creativity is turned to destructivity, you are face to face with the devastation of evil and sin – oppression, war, and destruction. Evil is a partiality of creativity which tends toward disintegration and eventual destruction. All conflict is evil in that it inhibits the creative function of the inner life – it is a species of civil war in the personality.
176:3.8 In the next world you will be asked to give an account of the endowments and stewardships of this world. Whether inherent talents are few or many, a just and merciful reckoning must be faced. If endowments are used only in selfish pursuits and no thought is bestowed upon the higher duty of obtaining increased yield of the fruits of the spirit, as they are manifested in the ever-expanding service of men and the worship of God, such selfish stewards must accept the consequences of their deliberate choosing.
130:4.8 Misadaptation of self-conscious life to the universe results in cosmic disharmony. Final divergence of personality will from the trend of the universes terminates in intellectual isolation, personality segregation.
[To be thorough, I must add that although the spirit of wisdom, the 7th adjutant, is a gift, wisdom itself is not a gift. Wisdom is earned by utilizing this gift of mind ministry. (Which incidentally opens the gateway to the soul.) Also, all of the gifts, bestowals and endowments given to us to use during this life are the talents Jesus was referring to in his parable.]
With all the help we have, it is mind-boggling that anyone would out-and-out reject survival. Consider the ministry of guardian seraphim, as mind stimulators and spiritual helpers of mortal man.
(1245.1)113:4.1 The guardian seraphim are not mind, though they do spring from the same source that also gives origin to mortal mind, the Creative Spirit. Seraphim are mind stimulators; they continually seek to promote circle-making decisions in human mind. They do this, not as does the Adjuster, operating from within and through the soul, but rather from the outside inward, working through the social, ethical, and moral environment of human beings. Seraphim are not the divine Adjuster lure of the Universal Father, but they do function as the personal agency of the ministry of the Infinite Spirit.
Regarding some of the work they do:
(1244.2) 113:3.1 One of the most important things a destiny guardian does for her mortal subject is to effect a personal co-ordination of the numerous impersonal spirit influences which indwell, surround, and impinge upon the mind and soul of the evolving material creature. Human beings are personalities, and it is exceedingly difficult for nonpersonal spirits and prepersonal entities to make direct contact with such highly material and discretely personal minds. In the ministry of the guarding angel all of these influences are more or less unified and made more nearly appreciable by the expanding moral nature of the evolving human personality.
Also:
(1244.3)113:3.2 More especially can and does this seraphic guardian correlate the manifold agencies and influences of the Infinite Spirit, ranging from the domains of the physical controllers and the adjutant mind-spirits up to the Holy Spirit of the Divine Minister and to the Omnipresent Spirit presence of the Paradise Third Source and Center. Having thus unified and made more personal these vast ministries of the Infinite Spirit, the seraphim then undertakes to correlate this integrated influence of the Conjoint Actor with the spirit presences of the Father and the Son.
(1244.4)113:3.3 The Adjuster is the presence of the Father; the Spirit of Truth, the presence of the Sons. These divine endowments are unified and co-ordinated on the lower levels of human spiritual experience by the ministry of the guardian seraphim. The angelic servers are gifted in combining the love of the Father and the mercy of the Son in their ministry to mortal creatures.
Amazing!!!!!
In the study of the kingdom of heaven as Jesus taught it, I think it should be noted 1) that the kingdom of heaven is within, and 2) that the kingdom of heaven encompasses all faith-sons on our world – otherwise known as the spiritual brotherhood of mankind.
108:6.2 No matter what the previous status of the inhabitants of a world, subsequent to the bestowal of a divine Son and after the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth upon all humans, the Adjusters flock to such a world to indwell the minds of all normal will creatures. Following the completion of the mission of a Paradise bestowal Son, these Monitors truly become the “kingdom of heaven within you.” Through the bestowal of the divine gifts the Father makes the closest possible approach to sin and evil, for it is literally true that the Adjuster must coexist in the mortal mind even in the very midst of human unrighteousness. The indwelling Adjusters are particularly tormented by those thoughts which are purely sordid and selfish; they are distressed by irreverence for that which is beautiful and divine, and they are virtually thwarted in their work by many of man’s foolish animal fears and childish anxieties..140:1.5“Your message to the world shall be: Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and in finding these, all other things essential to eternal survival shall be secured therewith. And now would I make it plain to you that this kingdom of my Father will not come with an outward show of power or with unseemly demonstration. You are not to go hence in the proclamation of the kingdom, saying,’it is here’ or it is there,’ for this kingdom of which you preach is God within you.
152:3.2 “You would make me king, not because your souls have been lighted with a great truth, but because your stomachs have been filled with bread. How many times have I told you that my kingdom is not of this world? This kingdom of heaven which we proclaim is a spiritual brotherhood, and no man rules over it seated upon a material throne. My Father in heaven is the all-wise and the all-powerful Ruler over this spiritual brotherhood of the sons of God on earth. Have I so failed in revealing to you the Father of spirits that you would make a king of his Son in the flesh! Now all of you go hence to your own homes. If you must have a king, let the Father of lights be enthroned in the heart of each of you as the spirit Ruler of all things.”.
153:1.2 This crisis, which began with the feeding of the five thousand, and which terminated with this Sabbath afternoon sermon, was the outward turning of the tide of popular fame and acclaim. Henceforth, the work of the kingdom was to be increasingly concerned with the more important task of winning lasting spiritual converts for the truly religious brotherhood of mankind. This sermon 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.
Bradly wrote: 170:4.14 (1863.12) This world has never seriously or sincerely or honestly tried out these dynamic ideas and divine ideals of Jesus’ doctrine of the kingdom of heaven. But you should not become discouraged by the apparently slow progress of the kingdom idea on Urantia. Remember that the order of progressive evolution is subjected to sudden and unexpected periodical changes in both the material and the spiritual worlds. The bestowal of Jesus as an incarnated Son was just such a strange and unexpected event in the spiritual life of the world. Neither make the fatal mistake, in looking for the age manifestation of the kingdom, of failing to effect its establishment within your own souls. (170:4.14)
12:7.11 Brotherhood constitutes a fact of relationship between every personality in universal existence. No person can escape the benefits or the penalties that may come as a result of relationship to other persons. The part profits or suffers in measure with the whole. The good effort of each man benefits all men; the error or evil of each man augments the tribulation of all men. As moves the part, so moves the whole. As the progress of the whole, so the progress of the part. The relative velocities of part and whole determine whether the part is retarded by the inertia of the whole or is carried forward by the momentum of the cosmic brotherhood.
176:3.2 “And even you, Thomas, fail to comprehend what I have been saying. Have I not all this time taught you that your connection with the kingdom is spiritual and individual, wholly a matter of personal experience in the spirit by the faith-realization that you are a son of God? What more shall I say? The downfall of nations, the crash of empires, the destruction of the unbelieving Jews, the end of an age, even the end of the world, what have these things to do with one who believes this gospel, and who has hid his life in the surety of the eternal kingdom? You who are God-knowing and gospel-believing have already received the assurances of eternal life. Since your lives have been lived in the spirit and for the Father, nothing can be of serious concern to you. Kingdom builders, the accredited citizens of the heavenly worlds, are not to be disturbed by temporal upheavals or perturbed by terrestrial cataclysms. What does it matter to you who believe this gospel of the kingdom if nations overturn, the age ends, or all things visible crash, since you know that your life is the gift of the Son, and that it is eternally secure in the Father? Having lived the temporal life by faith and having yielded the fruits of the spirit as the righteousness of loving service for your fellows, you can confidently look forward to the next step in the eternal career with the same survival faith that has carried you through your first and earthly adventure in sonship with God.
142:2.2 “[. . . ] And now have I come in the flesh to reveal the Father in new glory and to show forth his love and mercy to all men on all worlds. As the gospel of this kingdom shall spread over the world with its message of good cheer and good will to all men, there will grow up improved and better relations among the families of all nations. As time passes, fathers and their children will love each other more, and thus will be brought about a better understanding of the love of the Father in heaven for his children on earth. Remember, Jacob, that a good and true father not only loves his family as a whole — as a family — but he also truly loves and affectionately cares for each individual member.”.150:4.3 “[. . .]I came to bring peace on earth, but when men reject my gift, division and turmoil result. When all of a family receive the gospel of the kingdom, truly peace abides in that house; but when some of the family enter the kingdom and others reject the gospel, such division can produce only sorrow and sadness. Labor earnestly to save the whole family lest a man’s foes become those of his own household. But, when you have done your utmost for all of every family, I declare to you that he who loves father or mother more than this gospel is not worthy of the kingdom.”.118:8.10 As man shakes off the shackles of fear, as he bridges continents and oceans with his machines, generations and centuries with his records, he must substitute for each transcended restraint a new and voluntarily assumed restraint in accordance with the moral dictates of expanding human wisdom. These self-imposed restraints are at once the most powerful and the most tenuous of all the factors of human civilization — concepts of justice and ideals of brotherhood. Man even qualifies himself for the restraining garments of mercy when he dares to love his fellow men, while he achieves the beginnings of spiritual brotherhood when he elects to mete out to them that treatment which he himself would be accorded, even that treatment which he conceives that God would accord them.
Is the kingdom of heaven easy of achievement, individually (part) and on earth (whole)?
As the part, so the whole.
149:3.3 “You should remember that in body and mind — emotionally — men react individually. The only uniform thing about men is the indwelling spirit. Though divine spirits may vary somewhat in the nature and extent of their experience, they react uniformly to all spiritual appeals. Only through, and by appeal to, this spirit can mankind ever attain unity and brotherhood.”
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134:6.13 The political sovereignty of representative mankind government will bring lasting peace on earth, and the spiritual brotherhood of man will forever insure good will among all men. And there is no other way whereby peace on earth and good will among men can be realized..155:6.8 Human unity and mortal brotherhood can be achieved only by and through the superendowment of the religion of the spirit. Racial minds may differ, but all mankind is indwelt by the same divine and eternal spirit. The hope of human brotherhood can only be realized when, and as, the divergent mind religions of authority become impregnated with, and overshadowed by, the unifying and ennobling religion of the spirit — the religion of personal spiritual experience..133:0.3 [In reference to the caste system in India] Said Jesus: “Though human beings differ in many ways, the one from another, before God and in the spiritual world all mortals stand on an equal footing. There are only two groups of mortals in the eyes of God: those who desire to do his will and those who do not. As the universe looks upon an inhabited world, it likewise discerns two great classes: those who know God and those who do not. Those who cannot know God are reckoned among the animals of any given realm. Mankind can appropriately be divided into many classes in accordance with differing qualifications, as they may be viewed physically, mentally, socially, vocationally, or morally, but as these different classes of mortals appear before the judgment bar of God, they stand on an equal footing; God is truly no respecter of persons. Although you cannot escape the recognition of differential human abilities and endowments in matters intellectual, social, and moral, you should make no such distinctions in the spiritual brotherhood of men when assembled for worship in the presence of God.”
Thanks Mara….great read! I’ve always found it interesting how one brief mortal life is long enough to give birth to soul, to consciously dedicate our will to God’s will and way and to blossom in the Spirit sufficiently to bear the delicious fruit of the vine and to become truly happy and confident in this friendly universe and our destiny….in other words, live within the kingdom and enjoy a personal time of L&L and do so rather quickly (depending on your time unit perspective). And yet…..it takes a world (every world) hundreds of thousands of generations for the planet to reach even the early phases of L&L. Urantia is unique in many ways but my suspicion is that the Most Highs will deliver our world to L&L in a fairly similar time frame to the ‘average’ worlds of time and space.
The kingdom within is reachable by the one but the all must reach the kingdom for a world to have fulfilled its progressive destiny – the spiritual brotherhood. As go the parts……….. = )
It is unfortunate for self proclaimed believers to demonstrate material urgencies and fears and to become so focused on the dark patches that some fail to ever shine the lights of hope, faith, trust, and fearless courage in the face of evil and its consequences. It is only the true fruit of the true branch attached to the true vine that will move others toward the light. Shrill voices who demand certain beliefs and acts will NEVER bring the light to another or our world. It requires a sublime peace and assurance to attract those who wish the same for themselves. Who will join the chicken littles except those who are moved by fear? The more fear mongers amongst us, the longer this process will take and the longer material suffering remains. Or so I think.
"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
Bradly wrote: The kingdom within is reachable by the one but the all must reach the kingdom for a world to have fulfilled its progressive destiny – the spiritual brotherhood.
So wait . . . are you talking about the epochs of light and life? Are you saying that the spiritual brotherhood cannot be obtained until everyone on the planet is reborn? Are you sure you’re not talking about the social brotherhood?
52:6.2 While Jesus has shown the way to the immediate attainment of spiritual brotherhood, the realization of social brotherhood on your world depends much on the achievement of the following personal transformations and planetary adjustments: . . .
Bonita….thanks for ungarbling me….again! Yes indeed, I used the wrong term. The Spiritual Brotherhood is the ‘second’ kingdom of the 5 used by Jesus…the kingdom of believers. And it exists throughout a planet’s epochal transformations. Those who find the kingdom within are immediately mustered into the kingdom of all believers on a world.
Do you think it takes cognitive recognition of the third kingdom to be a member of that one? Or does joining the first two kingdoms bring automatic entry into the kingdom of heaven (#3) too? And all 3 of those forms of the kingdom lead to the evolving kingdoms #4 & #5. Meaning that living in the kingdom of God delivers choices that serve all of God’s creation and children and helps the Supreme and the Most Highs in their upliftment of all time and space creation to progress toward destiny and into potential?
"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
Bradly wrote: Do you think it takes cognitive recognition of the third kingdom to be a member of that one?
I think #3 is about supermortal invisible beings. We are not members of that kingdom. However, our souls are superhuman and our souls are capable of performing on superhuman and invisible levels of reality. But that’s something I think we should be careful not to make assumptions about.
Bradly wrote: And all 3 of those forms of the kingdom lead to the evolving kingdoms #4 & #5.
170:4.1-6 In the course of this Sabbath afternoon’s sermon Jesus noted no less than five phases, or epochs, of the kingdom, and they were:
1. The personal and inward experience of the spiritual life of the fellowship of the individual believer with God the Father.
2. The enlarging brotherhood of gospel believers, the social aspects of the enhanced morals and quickened ethics resulting from the reign of God’s spirit in the hearts of individual believers.
3. The supermortal brotherhood of invisible spiritual beings which prevails on earth and in heaven, the superhuman kingdom of God.
4. The prospect of the more perfect fulfillment of the will of God, the advance toward the dawn of a new social order in connection with improved spiritual living – the next age of man.
5. The kingdom in its fullness, the future spiritual age of light and life on earth.
I notice that of the five phases or epochs of the kingdom as elucidated by Jesus only the first one pertains specifically to the personal, individual mortal. The other four have to do with various groupings of individuals: enlarging brotherhood of gospel believers on earth; the supermortal brotherhood of invisible spiritual beings on earth; the dawn of a new social order on earth; the kingdom in its fullness on earth. Which reminds me again: as the part, so the whole.
12:7.11 Brotherhood constitutes a fact of relationship between every personality in universal existence. No person can escape the benefits or the penalties that may come as a result of relationship to other persons. The part profits or suffers in measure with the whole. The good effort of each man benefits all men; the error or evil of each man augments the tribulation of all men. As moves the part, so moves the whole. As the progress of the whole, so the progress of the part. The relative velocities of part and whole determine whether the part is retarded by the inertia of the whole or is carried forward by the momentum of the cosmic brotherhood.
The enlarging brotherhood of gospel believers on earth is one of the five phases or epochs of the kingdom as elucidated by Jesus. Is this enlarging brotherhood of gospel believers the same group as those who desire to do God’s will? Does a person have to have a relationship with Jesus to be in the enlarging brotherhood?
133:0.3 Said Jesus: “Though human beings differ in many ways, the one from another, before God and in the spiritual world all mortals stand on an equal footing. There are only two groups of mortals in the eyes of God: those who desire to do his will and those who do not. As the universe looks upon an inhabited world, it likewise discerns two great classes: those who know God and those who do not.
170:5.11 The kingdom, to the Jews, was the Israelite community; to the gentiles it became the Christian church. To Jesus the kingdom was the sum of those individuals who had confessed their faith in the fatherhood of God, thereby declaring their wholehearted dedication to the doing of the will of God, thus becoming members of the spiritual brotherhood of man.
