Jesus' Teaching of Life JUDGE SEPTIMUS J. HANNA, CSD Extracts from a 1909 lecture titled, "Christian Science: Its Teachings, Methods, and Works."          ...I think I am correct in saying that a very prevalent religious view has been that Jesus taught mostly with reference to a future life, or the life beyond the grave, and that the great effort of the striving Christian, in order to be saved, should be to die rightly. This is partly true. But has not the necessity for right living, as a means of future happiness and salvation, been too much overshadowed by the idea of so dying as to pass directly from earth to heaven? I shall endeavor to show that Bible teaching relates largely to the necessity of right conditions in this world, and to such living here as will tend toward future safety and happiness; in other words, the establishment of God's kingdom upon earth is the great Scriptural theme. I shall be brief, and confine myself to the New Testament.          A significant lesson is taught in the account of Jesus' birth. If a far-away and future heaven had been in the mind of the sacred scribe, we would reasonably expect that an event which ushered into this world him who was to lead the people to heaven would have furnished the occasion for a full and glorious description of the heavenly kingdom. The time was most opportune. So wonderful and impressive were the accompanying signs, so celestial the setting of that mighty event, so near the angelic host to earth, that even now we almost wonder the veil had not been drawn and the very throne itself shown to the anxious vision of the watchful shepherds. But what sang the angel visitors? Only this: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."          They sang not of a great white throne, surrounded by the innumerable hosts of heaven, but of that heavenly condition to be established upon earth by the Saviour who that day had been born to them in the city of David. Only this! Only these few simple words! Yet words of fullest meaning and profoundest import to all mankind, words whose deep significance reached through all the cycles of time; nay, throughout eternity, for they foretold, in prophetic amplitude, the Messianic mission of the Bethlehem babe,—Christ the Lord. "On earth peace, good will toward men." Ah, were earthly peace now an established fact; were that good will today among men! Then indeed would be verified the mighty prayer: "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."          Another occasion on which a great discourse on the future kingdom, the New Jerusalem, might have been expected, was when Jesus himself was asked by some of the disciples sent of John the Baptist, if he really were the Messiah, or whether they should look for another. Jesus was engaged at the time in showing, in a very practical way, the actual presence of the kingdom of heaven which he was preaching. Hear the record: "And in that same hour he [Jesus] cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind he gave sight." He was thus engaged when he made answer to the momentous question as to the evidence of his Messiahship, the signs of the heavenly kingdom. Here surely was a great opportunity to descant upon the glories and grandeur of the heavenly country. Now for that mighty sermon on the New Jerusalem. Now for a brilliant description of the golden streets and pearly gates. Now for the flashings of heavenly wisdom. What was the reply? "Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached."          A mighty sermon, it is true; a most practical answer to the anxious question, for it pointed to actual works, to specific results, to those heavenly things which were transpiring upon this earth. This was the answer of the greatest heavenly visitant the world has known; this his conception of God's kingdom,—a kingdom reached not through death, but through righteous works,—right living. We remember, too, Jesus' repeated illustrations of the kingdom of heaven set forth in parables,—the parable of the sower, the parable of the grain of mustard-seed, the parable of the woman with three measures of meal,—all practical similes of this earthly life and experience. Not once did he undertake a description of a literal, material, or localized heaven.          One of Jesus' simplest yet most instructive lessons was the parable of the prodigal son. The bad boy who had strayed away from home and given himself up to dissipated and licentious living, and who had become so reduced in circumstances that he fain would have eaten of the husks which were fed to the swine, had no sooner turned his face toward his father's house than the father ran to meet him, and meeting, fell upon his neck and kissed him. The best robe was placed upon this wayward youth, a ring put on his finger, shoes on his feet, and the fatted calf killed. A commonplace but beautiful and touching illustration of the all-mercifulness, compassion, and forgiveness of divine Love; an overwhelmingly impressive evidence of the affluence of the Father's house; a severe rebuke to the spirit which condemns rather than reaches out to save the wayward; and an unsparing condemnation of the self-righteousness exhibited by the elder brother, whose jealousy was aroused by the bounteousness of the father's love toward the son who, notwithstanding his foolishness, was nevertheless a son.          Jesus distinctly taught the possibility of a present kingdom of heaven. When the Pharisees demanded of him to tell them when the kingdom of God should come, he answered that the kingdom of God was within; that is, that it was a state or condition of consciousness. All his teaching is to the effect that this condition of consciousness is possible of attainment here upon this earth; a possibility reached through true living, rather than through dying. If we fail to reach this heavenly consciousness this side the grave, we shall some time in the future attain to it; for sooner or later sin must be destroyed, and the destruction of sin in individual strife is the substitution of a heavenly state of mind for that opposite condition which indeed may be likened to hell. ...   Extracts from "Christian Science: Its Teachings, Methods, and Works" by Judge Septimus J. Hanna, CSD The Christian Science Journal, June, 1909

 

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