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The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah Vol 1 - Predestination

The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah Vol 1 - Predestination

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passed alike his experience <strong>and</strong> his Jewish<br />

learning. Only one possibility <strong>of</strong> being occurred to<br />

him: that given him in his natural disposition, or,<br />

as a Jew would have put it, in his original<br />

innocency when he first entered i <strong>the</strong> world. And<br />

this—so to express ourselves—he thought aloud.*<br />

But <strong>the</strong>re was ano<strong>the</strong>r world <strong>of</strong> being than that <strong>of</strong><br />

which Nicodemus thought. That world was <strong>the</strong> ^<br />

Kingdom <strong>of</strong> God' in its essential contrariety to <strong>the</strong><br />

kingdom <strong>of</strong> this world, whe<strong>the</strong>r in <strong>the</strong> general<br />

sense <strong>of</strong> that expression, or even in <strong>the</strong> special<br />

Judaistic sense attaching to <strong>the</strong> * Kingdom' <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />

<strong>Messiah</strong>. <strong>The</strong>re was only one gate by which a man<br />

could pass into that Kingdom <strong>of</strong> God—^for that<br />

which was <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> flesh could ever be only fleshly.<br />

Here a man might strive, as did <strong>the</strong> Jews, by<br />

outward conformity to become^ but he would<br />

never attain to being. But that' Kingdom' was<br />

epirittudy <strong>and</strong> here a man must be in order to<br />

become. How was he to attain that new being ?<br />

<strong>The</strong> Baptist had pointed it out in its negative aspect<br />

<strong>of</strong> repentance <strong>and</strong> putting away <strong>the</strong> old by his<br />

Baptism <strong>of</strong> water; <strong>and</strong> as regarded its positive

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