The Words of In Jin Moon from 2010
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The Words of In Jin Moon from 2010 |
The following sermon given by Rev. In Jin Moon on Easter Sunday, explores the tragedy of crucifixion in Jesus Christ's original mission 2000 years ago, and why it was given to be fulfilled to a young boy at the age of 16 during his praying on a hill in Korea on Easter Sunday.
Good morning, brothers and sisters. Happy Easter. Wasn't the band fantastic?
I am delighted to be with you once again here in Las Vegas. As you know, our True Parents started a wonderful event called the "Legacy of Peace", honoring the great men and women who have graced our lives and made significant contributions to the world in their lifetime. So in the tradition of our True Parents, truly living for the sake of others, our True Father and Mother have been honoring these great men and women through the Seunghwa ceremony, or the holy ascension ceremony, with a kick-off at the United Nations, the symbol of peace and unity.
It gave our True Parents an opportunity to give thanks to the late Gen. Alexander Haig, who was a dear friend of my parents. He was instrumental, as part of the allied forces, in liberating my father from Hungnam prison, the day before his scheduled execution. It's out of thanks to him and to the allied forces, in particular to the great country of America, that my father came here more than three decades ago in order to take care of this country's children and to raise them up to become the eternal sons and daughters that our Heavenly Father has been waiting for.
Father and Mother kicked off the "Legacy of Peace" holy ascension ceremony at the United Nations on March 18, and later they completed a ceremony in New York at the Manhattan Center, a place that was born out of my older brother's dream for truly using the power of media and entertainment to bring people to God, to bring them to an understanding that we belong to one family under God.
Then they went on to Washington, D.C., where they also had the same type of ceremony, honoring men and women who have gone before us and crossed the river from this life into eternal life. For me, somebody who loves my father and my mother not just as my own biological parents but as the True Parents of humankind, I could not help but be moved, over and over again. Through them, we come to understand what life is all about. Through them, we understand the three most important moments of a human being's life: birth, marriage, and death.
Through our True Parents we understand that at each of these transitional moments, these important moments that take us to another level, we need to invite God into our lives. After a child is born, through the eight-day ceremony we dedicate that child to God and to humanity. When we come to the time when God gives us a wonderful man or woman whom we can call our spouse, through our True Parents we are given the opportunity to not just celebrate our own union and be happy as an individual couple but to truly invite in both God and the world through this wonderful event called the Blessing Ceremony.
Not only do we voice our pledge, our conviction, and our commitment of wanting to live our lives for the sake of others -- loving our spouse more than we love ourselves and deciding to create an ideal family -- we do this in the presence of thousands of other couples in remembrance of and gratitude to God.
The holy ascension ceremony, the final phase of our life when we prepare to enter into the eternal world, to go back home into the embrace of our Heavenly Parent, is a time when the family, instead of being grief-stricken and sad at losing a loved one, can express gratitude for the opportunity to have known and to have experienced life with this precious person. Now we can be gloriously happy that this son or daughter will finally go back from where he or she came from, back into the embrace of our Heavenly Parent. How wonderful life can be when it's understood in the context of what our True Parents have been teaching us.
When I flew in last night and was preparing for this time of fellowship with all of you, I was thinking to myself, Here we are celebrating the first-year anniversary of Lovin' Life Ministry, so it's a kick-off Sunday for the second year. How profoundly intriguing that our True Parents have asked us to celebrate our anniversary on this Easter Sunday in the city known as Sin City.
This is a calling from our Heavenly Parent and our True Parents to really wake up Sin City and inject a little bit of heaven. Together with our True Parents, we can inherit the true love of God and share it with the rest of the world. Let's share it with Sin City and truly turn it into something beautiful, that shining city on a hill that we've been waiting for.
Easter has many images for me, growing up this country. In Korea we don't celebrate Easter with the Easter bunny, colored eggs, and so on. For children here, it's a joyous day of celebration, of Easter egg hunts when the parents can dress up as Easter bunnies and hide eggs, anticipating the delight of the little ones running around looking for these treasures. But when we remember the life of Jesus, we know that it is really a poignant day in that, yes, it is a day of resurrection, but resurrection implies that Jesus died and was crucified several days before.
When we think about the life of Jesus, we realize what a lonely life he had. Nobody fully understood that he was the Son of God; nobody fully understood that he came to substantiate the original ideal of creation that God had when God created his first son and daughter, Adam and Eve. Nobody understood that Jesus had a mission to fulfill here on earth, that he did not just come here to teach but to apply and substantiate the very principle that he came to share in the form of the good news.
Jesus was crucified because the people failed to unite with him and work together with him to wake up the world to the fact that he was the Son of God and the True Olive Tree. John the Baptist failed to proclaim who Jesus was. John failed to realize that he was the Elijah prophesied hundreds of years before, that it was his mission to make straight the way of the Lord, making clear that Jesus was the Son of God so that the sons and daughters of Israel could be prepared to honor this gift of God with their hearts, their lives, and their life of faith.
When we read John 1:19–23, we see that John denied he was Elijah. Without Elijah making straight the way of the Lord, the people of Israel were confused: "If Jesus is the Son of God, where is Elijah? Jesus tells us that John the Baptist is the Elijah, but here is John the Baptist denying that he is Elijah, so how can Jesus Christ be the Son of God?"
John the Baptist goes further, in John 1:29–34, saying, "I myself did not know him." How can John the Baptist, who was a second cousin to Jesus Christ, who grew up together with him, not know him? What John the Baptist was saying in these lines was that he did not know that his second cousin was the messiah. Had it not been for the sign of the dove descending on Jesus Christ, John the Baptist would not have known that his second cousin was meant to be the anointed one who was going to bring the message of true love, who was going to help substantiate the ideal of creation, who was going to teach the world how to build ideal families. These families would have been the cornerstone of each society, so that, centered on God, they could become glorious nations, not nations that saw themselves as ends in themselves but ones that realized that all great nations belong to the one family of God.
But because of the failure of John the Baptist and the failure of the people to truly unite with Jesus Christ and understand why he was given as a gift to this world, Jesus had to go the way of the cross. For the millions of Christians all around the world, the day of resurrection is the citadel of Christian faith. Christians understand Easter as a day when Jesus conquered death and that therefore in Jesus Christ they can have eternal life.
But if we understand that the crucifixion was not the goal of Jesus' mission but was the way that Jesus had to go because he had no foundation to stand on as the Son of God, then we realize that when the Bible says that there has to be a Second Coming, it means that the mission of Jesus Christ was left unfulfilled. Therefore, someone must stand in the position of the perfected Adam, as the True Parent, having found and raised up a perfected Eve, to fulfill Jesus' mission.
So fast-forward 2,000 years from the day that Jesus was crucified. In the lonely hills of North Korea, there was a very fervent Christian child of God, 16 years old, crying and praying fervently to God on Easter Sunday morning. This young boy of 16 beseeched God, "How can I as your humble servant truly inherit the heart of Jesus Christ and be an instrument of your work? How can I play a part in bringing your words and your love to the people? How can I help raise up this world to be your world?"
It was during this prayer that Jesus Christ appeared to him. He asked this young boy, 16 years old, to take up his mantle and fulfill his mission. Jesus went on to tell the very sad story of not being able to fulfill his mission. Jesus explained to this young boy that he did not come to die, that he came as the Son of God to substantiate the four-position foundation, or the building block that would ultimately yield an ideal family.
Jesus told the story that his mission was to find a beautiful daughter of God that he could stand together with and as a couple inherit the love of God and share the good news that God intends for all of humanity, the three great blessings promised when he first created Adam and Eve: "Be fruitful, multiply, and have dominion over the earth."
Those three blessings were not realized because Jesus was crucified. He never had a chance to find that beautiful woman. He never had a chance to build that beautiful family that would be the paradigm of true love for the world. So Jesus asked this boy, "Please, perfect yourself; go through the process of restoration and indemnity and be that perfected Adam. Then find a true woman and help raise up the woman to be in the position of the perfected Eve, restoring all the misconceptions that women have had to bear for thousands of years because they have been blamed for the Fall."
Eve was the one who fornicated with Lucifer and tempted Adam, so history has not been kind to women. But the incredible thing about True Parents is, once this victorious position of perfected Eve could be accomplished by a beautiful woman standing together with her husband, a proud son of God, then she would be restoring this misunderstanding of a woman as a second-class citizen, someone who needs to relegated to the position of a servant because she's done wrong.
In our True Parents, we have the liberation of women. Two thousand years ago, Jesus would have done the same, had he found that beautiful wife. His wife would have played an active role in his ministry. His wife would not have just sat in the background; she would have nurtured and empowered the congregation, not just with her actions but with her words, together with Jesus. For 2,000 years until now, we would have had a different understanding of women and their place in the life of faith and in the life of society. Had Jesus established himself and stood in the position of the True Parents, then he would have started blessing people in a holy matrimony ceremony, just like what my father and mother are famous for. My father is famous for mass weddings; these very same mass weddings would have taken place 2,000 years ago had Jesus not been crucified.
Jesus, together with his lovely bride, would have encouraged the different nations of the world to see beyond the national barriers. Jesus would have preached the importance of international marriage, of breaking down the barriers of culture, race, and religion that divide our societies and nations today. Jesus would have encouraged the men and women of his time to recognize the time of the good news, the time when people could graft onto the true lineage of the Heavenly Parent, not just celebrating true life and true love but substantiating it in the form of true lineage.
If Jesus had had a wife and children, then he would have more fully understood the parental heart of God and would have encouraged all his followers to experience this heart of God. We can really understand how much God truly loves us when we think about the fact that we are his children.
When our True Parents talk about the four-position foundation, what they are talking about is the fulfillment of the Trinity. How do we inherit the parental heart of God? When we realize that Jesus came not just to be part of the Godhead but to actually be a parent, have children, and build a great family that would be the cornerstone of societies, nations, and the world, we can appreciate the value of the Four-Position Foundation.
In the Four-Position Foundation, centered on God, we have a man and a woman united together in the love and heart of God and with the blessing of God. Then we can participate in creating children and for the first time in history fully understand how much God loves his children.
When Jesus was telling my father, "You have to fulfill my mission," what he was asking my father to do was to finish the story: To teach the people, to share in the breaking news that Jesus did not come to die. The model of Christian piety that thousands of people have followed over the years -- being an ascetic, living a life of celibacy, a life of poverty, a life in which you cannot fully experience the true beauty of a family if you really want to be a pious person -- is not the complete picture. That model is a snapshot of Jesus in the process of fulfilling his mission. But because he was crucified, that picture was never finished.
True Parents came to finish that process, saying, Let's look at Jesus not just as that type of snapshot; Jesus' real mission was to find a wife and build an ideal family. Therefore, instead of an ascetic life, shunning the world in order to have true piety and a life of devotion, dignified and proud sons and daughters of God should immerse themselves in the world as those agents of change that can spark the imagination of the ideal family that our Heavenly Parent has been waiting for.
Instead of thinking that our life has to be one of denial, suffering, misery, and poverty in order to live a true life of Christian piety, our True Parents are here to teach us that, yes, we must understand the sufferings of Jesus Christ and the suffering heart of God, but that is not an end in and of itself.
God did not create his children for the purpose of making them suffer. God created his children so that they could be fruitful, multiply, and have dominion. God intended his children to reach their fullest potential, to reach their fullest destiny and become those confident, proud sons and daughters of God who are not just excellent internally in our life of faith, but also externally excellent in how we live our lives, in different professions and in serving each other.
Our True Parents came to teach us that instead of just thinking about our own individual salvation, living a life of Christian piety, the true goal of every Christian and the true goal of every faithful believer is to be married and to fulfill and to understand love -- but not as something dirty or to be shunned. In fact, in the early 19th century the good wives of Christian faith advised newly married women to basically put up with their husbands -- to give grudgingly and sparingly and not give in to pleasure. That was the understanding of how Christians should live in their married lives.
Our True Parents have come to say that love is not supposed to be something shunned or denied. In fact, love is one of God's greatest gifts. It is a medium through which new life can come about. It is a way to experience the beauty of children and the beauty of a husband–wife relationship. Instead of the Christian life requiring that we be grave, serious, and sour-faced in the bedroom, it should free our bedroom intimacy to be a joyous occasion to love in honor of God and in honor of each other. Having this opportunity to love your spouse is a celebration, not a cause for misery.
Our True Parents have come to teach us that we have to honor our dear elder brother Jesus by understanding his life in full, not just the life that he led but what he was all about. As we graft onto this Original Olive Tree, which is our True Parents, and inherit the true love, true life and true lineage of God, we have to remember that we have been given an opportunity to do something that even our dearest elder brother Jesus Christ did not have a chance to do.
So how much more grateful should we be about this life that God has given to us? We have a chance to make Jesus proud of our lives. We have a chance to honor him properly in what he was meant to be for the rest of the world.
Brothers and sisters, can you imagine on this Easter Sunday if the doors in the back suddenly were flung open and Jesus Christ, our beloved older brother, started walking down the aisle? What would we do? How would we receive him? How would we embrace him, and how would we honor him?
I often like to mention to our congregations across the nation that the time we're living in is not business as usual. We are living in the time of the breaking news, when our True Parents are here together with us. What Jesus Christ would be like if he walked down this aisle has been made flesh in the form of our True Parents. Our True Parents walk with us, brothers and sisters. They breathe the same air we breathe; they live in the same time that we are living in.
Can you imagine what the millions of Christians all across the world would do if there were a time traveling machine that could take them back to the time when Jesus was ministering to his congregation and they could have a taste of what Jesus was really like? What would they give for such an opportunity? We know that only a select few at that time had that gift given to them because not everybody could see that he was the son of God. Not everybody realized that he came with the mission to revive the world with a new understanding of our divine purpose in life. Can you imagine what Christians would do just to have that moment in time with Jesus Christ?
Think about the millions of people who came after Jesus was crucified and resurrected. We know that even though Jesus' resurrection was spiritual, the words he preached about love and forgiveness were like an oasis in the desert, the spring rain in the fields of the Nevada desert. It was a way that many people could be reawakened to experience true love and true life.
But our True Parents are here, brothers and sisters. They have been anointed by our elder brother Jesus Christ, who said, "Finish my mission. Finish the last component. I have shared with the world the profundity of true love and true life; I have conveyed an understanding of the love of our Heavenly Parent and of each other as brothers and sisters living our lives as sons and daughters of God." But Jesus Christ asked our True Parents to substantiate the true lineage by building a family, the cornerstone of society.
So here we have the story completed. In our True Parents we have a chance for the first time in history to make the world right, to raise our kids right. When our True Parents came to this great and prepared country, they urged Americans not to waste their precious lives in drugs, aimless sex, and purposelessness. Our True Parents basically said, "You Americans have been prepared to play a crucial role in the world as that agent of change," because as a great superpower we do have the ability to influence the world. If this great country of America can be reawakened to the providential spiritual heritage that God blessed it with, it can be an incredible servant of God.
This is what my father came to preach, and this is the work that he has tirelessly carried out in the course of his 90 years. Ever since he was anointed by Jesus Christ at the age of 16, this man has never wavered, enduring six prison terms, even surviving the notorious Hungnam concentration camp in North Korea, which his dear late friend Gen. Alexander Haig had a hand in liberating him from.
This man has never wavered in the conviction that, with the spirit of God, the world does not have to end in destruction. Humanity now possesses the capability to blow up ourselves and our world 100 times over. The messiah and True Parents come here to say, This is not the final picture of the world that God would like to see. Here we have embarked on a new millennium, and Nostradamus has prophesied that this would be the new millennium of peace. He prophesied that a great teacher would come from the East with Moon somewhere in his name. How can it be made any clearer?
True Parents come from the East carrying the last name Moon that had been prophesied. They want to declare the new millennium as a new generation of peace. They are the Prince and Princess of Peace that the world has been waiting for. So should we not honor them with our lives? Should we not honor them with our faith? Should we honor them just in prayer? Should we honor them just in the context of our own individual families? Should we honor them just in the context of our own congregation?
Turning to the Bible, we find James 2:17 teaching us that faith without action is dead. In order to exercise our faith, we as true believers must put that faith into action, or our faith is dead. What good is our faith if it seeks only individual salvation? We have to be inspired by this understanding of our Heavenly Parent to want to live a faithful life in the philosophy of our True Parents, which is living for the sake of others. We must practice living for the sake of others not just in what we do but also in what we say.
This is the time when the breaking news of our True Parents being here with us must be put into action. It must be articulated. It must be shared. It must be proclaimed to the rest of the world. Let us as the special, chosen people, hand-picked by God to be living at this crucial time, not make the same mistake that John the Baptist made many years ago. Let us not be the ones to deny who our True Parents are. Let us not be the ones who do not know exactly who our True Parents are, but let us honor John the Baptist, too, fulfilling what he could not fulfill himself. Let us play the John the Baptist role to the world, sharing the breaking news that our True Parents are here and that this is a time when we need to graft onto the original olive tree.
We need to realize that God wants us to be great. God wants us to be happy. God wants us to celebrate life together with him and her. God wants us to shine forth the divine light that is within each and every one of us. We are holy vessels that contain a reservoir of true love that needs to be shared, that needs to be experienced, that needs to be substantiated.
On this Easter Sunday morning, let us remind ourselves of how tragic was the life of our elder brother Jesus. Let us honor his memory by being grateful for our lives so that we can truly honor him in the proper way, by fulfilling the things that he never had a chance to do. Let us be grateful that we have our True Parents here with us, lighting the way.
Should we not give everything of ourselves to our True Parents? Should we not unite and become pure and one in spirit, as our True Father's motto for this year is? Should we not harvest all the blessings of this White Tiger Year that God, our Heavenly Parent, is sharing with all of us? And should we not, as proud Unificationists and proud Americans, really help this country to be an agent of change for the rest of the world? Should we not help the world realize that we must not fight over doctrinal differences, we must not fight over racial differences, and we must not fight over cultural differences?
We need to create a world where a mother sending a child to school does not have to fear school shootings, or suicide bombings, or violence that destroys the world. Even on the shores of American soil we saw on September 11 what terrorism does. We saw the Twin Towers destroyed. We saw what hatred can do in this world. Should we not, as proud Americans, work hard to leave a better world for our children, a world that is safe -- the kind of a world that I grew up in, where I had no idea that Japan and Korea were enemy nations? I only learned this in college when my classmates scolded me, as a Korean, for having a Japanese nanny caring for my children. I was raised in our worldwide community, where I saw no enemies, where I didn't look at the Japanese people as being from a nation that tyrannized the nation of Korea. I saw them as fellow brothers and sisters.
Let's raise up a young generation that does not seek to live its life proclaiming the motto of the Millennials, which is "Show me the money," but instead calls itself the Generation of Peace, which understands that God is our common denominator and Heavenly Parent, and that we are God's sons and daughters who realize life is a gift, an opportunity to practice altruism by living for the sake of others. Such lives would be lived in the spirit of compassion that the great Buddha has taught for centuries, practicing kindness in the world. Following such a pattern, we can inject the world with a little bit of love and understanding, and inspire our children to live lives filled with purpose in wanting to be that divine light, divine sons and daughters, and excellent human beings, inside and out.
We can raise our daughters not to be in the shadows of the human Fall. We can raise our daughters knowing that the true Eve in the form of the True Mother has restored the position of true daughter and that our daughters no longer need see themselves as second-class citizens but can look out into the world as proud daughters, proud mothers, and as proud servants of God. In that way our daughters can change the world, little by little, toward the realization that we belong to one family after all.
Brothers and sisters, today my father and mother have come to grace Las Vegas with the Legacy of Peace event, honoring the great men and women of the West Coast who have gone before us, who have crossed the river into eternal life. This is an incredible time when the most important conversations we have with ourselves when we contemplate the words "life and death" are made flesh in that here we are celebrating the day of resurrection. Here we are celebrating Easter Sunday, when Jesus victoriously completed spiritual resurrection and was able to anoint a 16-year-old boy to fulfill his mission. Here we have our True Parents in the flesh, ushering in the new millennium, helping the Lovin' Life Ministries to embark on the second year of its work and at the same time, helping us to realize that death is not an end goal but is a way that we prepare for eternal life.
Our True Parents are conquering death by helping us understand that it is a transition time, a time when we take a voyage to the next world. Just as each baby is prepared in the mother's womb for nine months before it goes through the pangs of childbirth and comes into the light, so, too, will we go through the pangs of being reborn but ultimately into a time when we're going back home to God.
Here is life and death coming full circle. That's what the Easter egg symbolizes. It symbolizes the perfection of the circle of life, life in everything that it can be. Here are our True Parents, together celebrating with us the importance of Easter morning but also reminding us that death is just a continuation into another life. That's our True Parents' way of saying that our lives are wonderful and beautiful circles of harmony, of love, and of celebration.
It is with this spirit that I hope that our congregation and guests here in Las Vegas can really welcome our True Parents and give them the kind of spirit that the true Americans, the specially prepared people, would have done had they met Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago. Let True Parents know that we understand what it means to have them in our lives.
God bless. I wish you a wonderful Sunday and many more to come. I do look forward to seeing you again. Please have a beautiful Easter Sunday.
1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2: He was in the beginning with God;
3: all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
4: In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
5: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
6: There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
7: He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him.
8: He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.
9: The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world.
10: He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not.
11: He came to his own home, and his own people received him not.
12: But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God;
13: who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
14: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.
15: (John bore witness to him, and cried, "This was he of whom I said, `He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.'")
16: And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace.
17: For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
18: No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.
19: And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?"
20: He confessed, he did not deny, but confessed, "I am not the Christ."
21: And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the prophet?" And he answered, "No."
22: They said to him then, "Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?"
23: He said, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, `Make straight the way of the Lord,' as the prophet Isaiah said."
24: Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.
25: They asked him, "Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?"
26: John answered them, "I baptize with water; but among you stands one whom you do not know,
27: even he who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie."
28: This took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
29: The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
30: This is he of whom I said, `After me comes a man who ranks before me, for he was before me.'
31: I myself did not know him; but for this I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel."
32: And John bore witness, "I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven, and it remained on him.
33: I myself did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, `He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.'
34: And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God."
35: The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples;
36: and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!"
37: The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.
38: Jesus turned, and saw them following, and said to them, "What do you seek?" And they said to him, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"
39: He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where he was staying; and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.
40: One of the two who heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.
41: He first found his brother Simon, and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which means Christ).
42: He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him, and said, "So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas" (which means Peter).
43: The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. And he found Philip and said to him, "Follow me."
44: Now Philip was from Beth-sa'ida, the city of Andrew and Peter.
45: Philip found Nathan'a-el, and said to him, "We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."
46: Nathan'a-el said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see."
47: Jesus saw Nathan'a-el coming to him, and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!"
48: Nathan'a-el said to him, "How do you know me?" Jesus answered him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you."
49: Nathan'a-el answered him, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"
50: Jesus answered him, "Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You shall see greater things than these."
51: And he said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man."
1: My brethren, show no partiality as you hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.
2: For if a man with gold rings and in fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in,
3: and you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, "Have a seat here, please," while you say to the poor man, "Stand there," or, "Sit at my feet,"
4: have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?
5: Listen, my beloved brethren. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him?
6: But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you, is it not they who drag you into court?
7: Is it not they who blaspheme that honorable name which was invoked over you?
8: If you really fulfil the royal law, according to the scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you do well.
9: But if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
10: For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.
11: For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," said also, "Do not kill." If you do not commit adultery but do kill, you have become a transgressor of the law.
12: So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.
13: For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy; yet mercy triumphs over judgment.
14: What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?
15: If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food,
16: and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?
17: So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
18: But some one will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.
19: You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe -- and shudder.
20: Do you want to be shown, you shallow man, that faith apart from works is barren?
21: Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?
22: You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works,
23: and the scripture was fulfilled which says, "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness"; and he was called the friend of God.
You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.
25: And in the same way was not also Rahab the harlot justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?
26: For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead.