The leaders of the Jews were infuriated.
To think that one would even claim to be the Messiah and turn his back on their problems was too much for them. And for him to be gaining wide-spread support among the peasants added insult to injury. The Messiah would come to save and exalt his chosen people; to let some imposter change that glorious image in the people’s minds would be an unforgivable dereliction of duty. They were bound by their solemn responsibilities of leadership to put this pretender from Nazareth to death.
Thus it was that the rulers of the Jews plotted to destroy Jesus, the Christ, the Savior of mankind. With due rational justification, while dead to the Holy Spirit, they recounted his blasphemy.
- He recognized and countenanced the military occupation of Judea by Rome. It is one thing for the children of Abraham to have to have been vanquished militarily. As a matter of prudence one does not spit upon his captor when a sword is at one’s throat. But to teach that the subject people should pay their taxes honestly and willingly, and to blithely disregard the political plight of the chosen people, was an abandonment of heritage wholly unconscionable.
- He said nothing against the national traitor, Herod, that jackal who collaborated with Rome, whose power rested solely in the presence of the legions. Even John, who baptized at Jordan, had had the courage to speak boldly against this family, this blotch on the national escutcheon. The most that said Jesus could muster was to call him a fox.
- He spoke slightingly of the Law of Moses. The backbone of Judaism, the meticulous observation of the prescriptive details of the Torah, was said by him to be insufficient to save anyone. Dilution of the absolute allegiance to Moses that gave them their national unity threatened to give Rome and the Herodians even greater power over their people. This was not only blasphemous but traitorous.
- He personally attacked the rulers of the Jews. In calling them whited sepulchers and in instructing his followers not to do as the rulers did, he threatened to destroy the fabric of their society. How could they survive and fulfill their role as the chosen people if the common people lost their respect for their leaders?
- He was dividing the people. His doctrines were not only heretical but successful, for the people acclaimed him whenever he taught in the temple. The people, unlearned and easily swayed as they were, even threatened to destroy the processes of governance, and the guards could not take Jesus captive while the throngs were there. Even did they give him a triumphal entry into Jerusalem! His extremism bade well to destroy the Jews as a people.
So it was that the rulers of the Jews moved to rid their society of this Jesus. Because he ignored what they thought to be the real problems of their times and threatened to destroy what little success they saw themselves as having, it seemed only a matter of prudence and integrity to execute him.
Execution was difficult because they lacked legal power to do so. Their dilemma was that they needed to convince and please both the Roman governor, who had the power to execute, and their own people, whose continuing support they needed for the preservation of Judaism and passive resistance to Rome. The issue they picked was weak and almost failed. They accused Jesus of saying that he was the Son of God. This charge, both trumped up and true, was to convince the populace that for all of his goodness and popularity, he was a blasphemer. Being steeped in the Law of Moses, the people knew that no matter how they felt about it, a blasphemer must die.
The cause nearly failed, since both Pilate and Herod saw it was empty. Only the “righteous indignation” of the people saved the day. Long schooled in obeying their leaders, the people rose in wrath to sustain the charge leveled by those who ought to know, and cried out for the blood of the accused.
So the Son of God was taken, humiliated, crucified and slain in that low point of human social interaction.
It would be fatuous thus to review those well-known events of history were it not for the remarkable parallels in our own society today. The perspective of historical insight shows that the shadows of the cross darken our day as much as that one. First a word of explanation as to what this author thinks to be the mission of Jesus Christ.
The Savior came into a world that was sundered. Since the Fall of Adam, Satan had ruled the world, controlling every man to some degree and most men rather completely. The penultimate triumph of Satan would be to climax a life of misery and spiritual darkness with physical death. He ruled over the bodies of men, the god of the ungodly.
The Savior, though creator of the heavens and the earth and all things therein, came into this earth as the God of the spirits of men. Man, as a dual being, found himself part of two realms, and was enticed by two masters. This duality was the source of man’s freedom, and its essence. Man was free to reject either god in favor of the other. That rejection could not be complete for he would yet have to answer to each: to Satan in physical death, and to the Savior in a final judgment. But man could ignore and disobey one or the other sufficiently to establish a clear allegiance.
The mission of the Savior was then to invade the domain temporarily granted to Satan, the earth, and to do his work both in the flesh and in the spirit by influencing men’s spirits. He came with a body not subject to Satan, so that he needed not to die, but one having mortal attributes so that he could voluntarily give his body to the desires of the god of this world in temporal death. He came in the flesh to do work of the flesh. His principal work of the flesh was to resist Satan in every way, not submitting to any temptation—ever. This enabled him to wrest from Satan the keys of the flesh, thus to break the bands of death and make possible a post-death resurrection to glory in a realm where Satan’s power is banished forever.
But the Savior came also in the power of the Spirit to do works of the Spirit. He came to entice the spirit of each human being to choose the cause of righteousness, to love mercy and to walk uprightly upon the earth. That mission is a success insofar as any man begins to deny the lusts of the flesh and to channel the power of his heart, might, mind and strength into the cause of righteousness through submitting to the enticing of the Holy Spirit. Thus in the service of God, he relieves himself step by step from the dominion of the adversary. When that dominion has been broken, when allegiance to Christ has clearly and firmly been established, then the last claim of Satan loses any power it might have had. Death is no longer feared in any sense; rather is it seen as an honor by which one might walk in the footsteps of the Savior. This mission of our Savior to lead men to eternal life, to righteousness, is a mission for which he himself did not need flesh. Indeed, he carried out that mission to the spirits of men on earth through his Holy Spirit thousands of years before he came in the flesh, and has continued to do so since his ascension, though not with us in the flesh.
The point of all this is that the Savior’s mission was and is not to cure the problems of the fleshly or material aspect of man’s existence until the problems of his spirit are solved. This is in no way a blithe disregard of or unconcern for the physical problems of men. It is rather a full recognition that solving the spiritual problems of man makes possible the solution to every physical problem, whereas solving all the physical problems of any man or all mankind as a whole does nothing for solving the spiritual problems. Rather evincing a callous disregard for evil, our God strives to work out a permanent and eternal solution to that evil by turning men’s hearts and minds to truth and to the joy of righteousness.
The Jews rejection of Jesus was thus rather apt. He was, at that point, relatively unconcerned about the domination of Judea by Rome. His mission was to teach and show them how not to be of the world. He did say little about Herod, recognizing that unless men repent and serve God they will be ruled over by one evil man or another. He did value something more than the Law of Moses—the true Gospel of Jesus Christ which Moses had taught the children of Israel in hope, but which Moses sadly withdrew and gave the lesser, the Law of Moses, to his people in despair. The Savior did attack the leaders of the Jews, the blind guides of the blind, for the time had come to cease following them and to turn to the newly established kingdom among them. And he did divide the people, turning some to the paths of righteousness while others were confirmed in their captivity to their own flesh and to Satan.
The Jews rejected Jesus because he was not a king of this world, whereas the salvation they wanted was very much of this world. Their Messiah would be a god of power, of vengeance, of military victory and social stability. Naturally, he who sought first to rid men’s minds and hearts of greed, of dishonesty, of covetousness, of hardness, would seem to be an imposter. And quite naturally they destroyed him whom they saw not only as an impediment to their own social aims, but also as a very positive pain to their consciences.
Which brings to mind the present moment.
Not only was Jesus rejected in the day of his earthly ministry. He was also rejected by most persons both before and since that time. He is rejected today by two kinds of people: those who don’t understand his cause and those who do.
It is of course the great majority of rejectors who know of him but do not understand his cause. Many are the frames of mind of misunderstanding, but they have in common a missing of one or more of the following salients: 1) Since man is an eternal being, saving the part that is eternal (the spirit) is more important than saving the part that is temporal (his present mortal body); 2) the spirit of man is not saved by temporal means, but only by spiritual operations; 3) since men are agents, each can be saved only when he himself applies that agency with determined effort; 4) the process of saving men spiritually is a matter of helping each person to become free from the dominating power of his or her own flesh and also free from the dominating power of the natural social environment; 5) salvation of the spirit of man is attainable only as each voluntarily yields to the enticing of the Holy Spirit and gives himself wholly to be a servant of Jesus Christ. 6) Temporal salvation is an eternal blessing only to those who have become wholly servants of Jesus Christ. It is important to show the pertinence of each of these points.
1. Since man is an eternal being, saving the part that is eternal (the spirit) is more important than saving the part that is temporal (his present mortal body). The body of a man is both temporal and temporary, the tabernacle of the spirit of a man. The body is not the person; it is the spirit entity which is the personage. The physical body is a foil for the spirit, a thing to be conquered and controlled, and is ultimately expendable.
The goal of life in the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to achieve nobility of character, to be remade in the image of the Savior. A person’s character is a “natural” thing, a function of education and acculturation of the body, until a person is set free by the Gospel message and the witness of the Holy Spirit. The Gospel and the Holy Spirit give the spirit within the body a chance to assert itself and to be dominant over the body. The person may or may not change his character when free. But at least the spirit then may or may not change his character as a son or daughter of the Savior. The ultimate test that the person is free and has become like the Savior is that he is ready and willing to lay down the mortal body in death in any time, place or manner which the Savior prescribes. Thus, saving the spirit of man in attaining Christ-like character is important, whereas saving the body temporally may prove to be an insurmountable barrier to saving the spirit. “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it.” (Matt. 16:25)
2. The spirit of a man is not saved by temporal means, but only by spiritual operations.
The body of man is not of itself evil, but evil works upon the spirits of men through their bodies. The body is thus a source of evil, of distraction, of temptation, and is the only access Satan has by which to conquer mortals.
The eyes, ears and other senses of a man flood his mind with data about the world. React he must, and most reaction is that of habit acquired through acculturation. But the data from the world does not provide any clear evidence as to what is right and wrong, what leads to happiness and what to unhappiness. We often imagine as humans that we can look back and see clearly what we “ought to have done.” But that perception is the omniscience of never-never land, the irresponsible wishing for the fulfillment of desire. How do we know that had we made different choices in the past, that all other factors would have been as they appeared to be, and that we would have gained success? We do not. And neither do we know what is wise for the future by natural means.
The point is that the body of man does not have enough information to act wisely, to maximize decisions. Lacking that definitive rational ability, the mind lapses into the clutch of desire. Men do what they want to do, not what they think rationally is best, since there is no rational process to devise the “best.” Desire is doctored with evidence and presented as justification, but the more the claim for rationality, the more hypocritical the stance.
The mind of man is thus a neutral force in his rational approach to life. He yields either to the desires of his flesh, or he yields to the enticing of the Holy Spirit. There is no temporal, physical means by which a man can guide himself to righteousness or by which he can be guided to righteousness. If he will not hearken to the Holy Spirit, he cannot be saved or bettered.
The Holy Spirit is a spirit in order that it might be an unseen influence to work upon the spirits of men. It may indeed affect the bodies of men, but the work of turning men to righteousness is an operation on the spirit of man.
3. Since men are agents, each can be saved only when he applies his agency with determined effort.
It is common in the world today to suppose that men are but machines. A machine has no freedom, no agency. Man is seen to be an accident of nature, controlled by natural forces, soon to be swept into oblivion by the onward rush of natural processes. This belief is correlated with a monistic view of man which denies the existence of a spirit within each man.
The problem is, how do you demonstrate that man has a spirit so that we can even begin to discuss meaningfully the possibility of agency? The monistic threat of modern science is so powerful and persuasive that it seems to have won the issue. Social theory and practice everywhere lapse into the naturalistic contradiction. (The contradiction is that leaders who believe men are not free strive to control the environments and lives of others for one purpose or another without admitting to be unfree themselves.) The strength of the scientific postulate of monism is not that the point of monism has been proved or demonstrated. Neither monism or spiritual dualism can be proved or demonstrated scientifically. The strength of the position reacts with the obvious technical success of applied science in our culture.
The strength of the Gospel position of spiritual dualism rests upon success, also. For inasmuch as an individual believes in that dualism and lives the Gospel of Jesus Christ, his life is crowned with success, and eventually he is given sure knowledge of spiritual existence. But the knowledge does not come to convince him that the Gospel is true. Rather it comes as a reward for faithful acceptance of dualism as part of the Gospel as taught by the Holy Spirit.
Those who live the Gospel have ample testimony that man is an agent. Since man is free, only by his own choice and exertion does anything significant happen. The prize in the Gospel of Jesus Christ is sufficiently great that only by great personal exertion can we overcome the world and gain that prize.
4. The process of saving men spiritually is a matter of helping each person to become free from the dominating power of his or her own flesh and also free from the dominating power of the natural social environment.
The process that saves a man is yielding to the enticing of the Holy Spirit, and putting off the natural man and becoming a saint through the atonement of Christ, thus becoming a child of Christ. As his child then, being “submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.” (Mosiah 3:19)
By definition, the natural man is without God and Christ in the world, and is subject to the desires of the flesh and the pressure to conform exerted by the social environment. A person cannot become free from these influences unless given an independent alternative. That alternative is the Holy Spirit working upon the spirit being of a person.
5. Salvation of the spirit of man is attainable only as each voluntarily yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit and gives himself wholly to be a servant of Jesus Christ.
It is the Holy Spirit that sets man free. It can give each person an alternative to subjection to their own flesh. Thus man became free according to the flesh. (2 Nephi 2:26–29)
Men need not only to be free from the flesh, but to be free to do the work of righteousness, free to know the future, free to perfect their characters, free to control the elements, free to know the gods. These positive freedoms cannot be gained in any natural way. They can be only come to man as the gift of one who has them, of a god of righteousness, perfection, omniscience, omnipotence, of a god one with all the other gods. Such are the attributes of Jesus Christ, our God. As we yield to his enticings which come through his Holy Spirit and are obedient to his word, which is his law, we are able to qualify to receive his graces, his gifts. If we submit ourselves wholly to him, we can become holy persons, perfect even as he is perfect. This is the salvation of the spirit of man.
6. Temporal salvation is an eternal blessing only to those who have become wholly servants of Jesus Christ.
The natural man thinks he is well-off when his carnal desires and social wants are satisfied. He is likely to give credit to his religion as at least a partial cause of these beneficences. Thus he is lulled into carnal security, and the devil leads him carefully away down to hell. (2 Nephi 28:21)
But when men are in physical want and socially unfulfilled, they know something is wrong with their lives, and they are generally more amenable than the sated to a change of religion. But being undiscerning, they may readily exchange the frying pan for the fire, as the people of Cuba and Chile have so amply demonstrated.
Some men have another hunger, an intense desire for righteousness. Whatever their material circumstances, be they rich or poor, accepted or unaccepted, they feel a desperate need to serve a god of righteousness, to bless others. That hunger tells them that something is indeed wrong with their lives, and they are very amenable to a change of religion if only they can find one that satisfies that hunger. When they finally encounter the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, they hunger no more.
Thus, temporal salvation does not help men to become righteous. If they are not righteous, they will misuse their opportunities and be worse off in an eternal sense. But lack of temporal salvation may at least jar many to examine alternative ways of life. It was the poor and the down-trodden who readily received Jesus of Nazareth. But some of them wanted only their bellies sated; Jesus would not be king for them. He reserved his reign of grace for those who hungered and thirsted after righteousness.
Temporal salvation is a blessing indeed to servants of Christ. Having their real hunger, for righteousness, already satisfied, they are able to be free with their material substance, to give temporal salvation to others as the Lord directs them. They will not only give temporal salvation, but will also be familiar with all, imparting freely of their testimony and radiating the Holy Spirit. Thus, temporal means become an eternal blessing to the true servants of Jesus Christ.
Now the sum of these six points is this: They build a framework in which the work of Jesus Christ as the Savior of mankind has great and overpowering significance. Far from being unconcerned with the welfare of his children, Christ has been and is doing all that is divinely possible for the salvation of his children.
There are those, of course, who understand all of this, more or less, but who reject the cause of Christ anyway. They are they who do not hunger after righteousness. They want the satisfaction of the flesh and social dominion. And they will have their eternal reward. But they will not enjoy it.