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A New Vision of Jesus: His Significance for Our Time
What Jesus was like is as much of a challenge to both church and culture in the 21st century as it was in his own time. This "new vision" of Jesus--an image of what can be known about him--radically calls into question our most common way of "being" and invites us to see differently.
Mistake not! there is in the teachings of Jesus an eternal nature which will not permit them forever to remain unfruitful in the hearts of thinking men. The kingdom as Jesus conceived it has to a large extent failed on earth; for the time being, an outward church has taken its place; but you should comprehend that this church is only the larval stage of the thwarted spiritual kingdom, which will carry it through this material age and over into a more spiritual dispensation where the Master's teachings may enjoy a fuller opportunity for development. Thus does the so-called Christian church become the cocoon in which the kingdom of Jesus' concept now slumbers. The kingdom of the divine brotherhood is still alive and will eventually and certainly come forth from this long submergence, just as surely as the butterfly eventually emerges as the beautiful unfolding of its less attractive creature of metamorphic development. (TUB 170:5.21)
For both Christians and non-Christians, what can be known about the real, historical Jesus is a vivid witness to the reality of the Spirit and a Spirit world. Most generations have not needed to hear this, simply because most generations took the reality of the Spirit world for granted.
Today, for many, faith becomes the struggle to believe the church's teaching despite the fact that it does not make very good sense. As a set of beliefs to be believed, Christianity (and all other religions which affirm "another world") is radically challenged by the modern one dimensional image of reality that has shaped our 20th century minds.
The false science of materialism would sentence mortal man to become an outcast in the universe. Such partial knowledge is potentially evil; it is knowledge composed of both good and evil. Truth is beautiful because it is both replete and symmetrical. When man searches for truth, he pursues the divinely real. (TUB 2:7.4)
In precisely this situation, the historical Jesus as a Spirit-filled figure can address us. Jesus' experience of a world of Spirit challenges the modern worldview in that what he was like reminds us that there have been figures in every culture who experienced the "other world," and that it is only we in the modern period who have grown to doubt its reality. The intense experiential relationship with the Spirit reported of Jesus invites us to consider that reality might be other that we in the modern world image it to be. His life powerfully suggested that the Spirit is "real." (Note: the reality of another dimension distinct from our space-time, having properties akin to consciousness, has recently been uncovered by empirical findings in quantum physics. See Innerface Vol. 11, No.5)
Even as the historical Jesus is a testimony to the reality of the Spirit, he also provides a vivid picture of what life in the Spirit is like. It is an impressive picture. There are, of course, the spectacular powers of the Spirit flowing through him in his mighty deeds. But we should not think only of the spectacular. The historical records about him suggest other exceptional qualities. He was a remarkably free person. (TUB 100:7)
From The Urantia Book: "The unfailing kindness of Jesus touched the hearts of men, but his stalwart strength of character amazed his followers. He was truly sincere; there was nothing of the hypocrite in him. He was free from affectation; he was always so refreshingly genuine. He never stooped to pretense, and he never resorted to shamming. He lived the truth, even as he taught it. He was the truth. He was constrained to proclaim saving truth to his generation, even though such sincerity sometimes caused pain. He was unquestioningly loyal to all truth." ( 100:7.2)
Free from fear and anxious preoccupation, he was free to see clearly and to love. His freedom was grounded in the Spirit, from which flowed the other central qualities of his life--incredible courage, insight, joy, and above all, compassion. All are products of the Spirit--"fruits of the Spirit," as St. Paul called them. Thus, what we can know about Jesus invites us to see "life in the Spirit" as a striking alternative to the way we typically live our lives. (TUB 161:2)
For Christians in particular, what Jesus was like as a historical figure is significant because of the special status he has in the tradition of the church. Within that tradition, two things have consistently been said about him--he was "true God" and "true man," the incarnation of the truly divine and the truly human. As God, a "disclosure" or "revelation" of God; as "true man," he is a model for human life, specifically for the life of discipleship. This twofold status of Jesus within the tradition of orthodox Christian theology enables us to see his significance for those who would, today, be his followers and disciples.
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