Chapter 14 — The Boy Jesus Bears Witness to Himself

DTT.01_014,01 I said, “Here before you, in Me, stands the true ‘Swift to Plunder, Quick to the Spoil’, the name given in Isaiah to the son of a prophetess. Yesterday we spoke of the coming Messiah. I Myself was presented to you as that Messiah, on the strength of passages in Isaiah that apply to Me precisely. But you rejected it.

DTT.01_014,02 “Yesterday I spoke of Myself as if I were another. Today I stand before you in person, without the least fear of you or anyone else in the world, for I know the power within Me that can never be overcome. It is truly My very own and no one else’s. I return to the same subject and ask you in particular, Joram, what you make of it. Speak freely and without fear. Truly, not a hair of your head shall be harmed on that account!”

DTT.01_014,03 Joram said, “Yes, my dear and beloved cousin, I hope you will not take offence at my calling you that, for I am indeed closely related to your father. It is and remains a very delicate matter to say, ‘You are the One who was promised.’ Under the circumstances it would be a bold thing to say even now. We know of children who showed such extraordinary talents and abilities at a tender age that crowds were astonished, yet in later years they became quite ordinary people and no trace of those early gifts could be found.

DTT.01_014,04 “We human beings must allow that this could happen even in your case, however unlikely it may be. It would therefore be premature to accept without reserve that the promised Messiah is hidden in you. As a boy remarkably wise for his years, you will not deny that. Yet in view of your birth, descent and unprecedented abilities, it would be just as foolish to deny outright that you are the One who was promised. You might be, and you might not. In my view, you and we must wait and see what time brings. Tell me now whether I am right!”

DTT.01_014,05 I said, “By worldly standards and earthly reasoning you are plainly right. But in the human heart there is a deeper and brighter standard. It could tell you whether I am the sort of boy who might lose his powers in later years. If I have the power to create and destroy entirely at My own will, why should I want to destroy Myself?

DTT.01_014,06 “I tell you that the existence of all things depends on My inner spirit alone. I can therefore will what I will, and what I will must come to pass. You have heard this about Me from other witnesses as well as from My own lips. If this is so, how can you imagine that I might ever lose the qualities and abilities you have heard of? And if I cannot lose them, what am I?”

DTT.01_014,07 Joram said, “Well now, that is still an assumption, far from a proof! I could say exactly the same thing about myself. But it would be rather too bold and so unlike me that people would either laugh me to scorn or lock me up as a madman. You are a bright boy at an age when one is not yet held accountable, and you seem to have had a great gift for poetry from your mother’s womb. So people merely smile at your bursts of native wit.

DTT.01_014,08 “Now look, my dear boy. What human being could ever say, ‘All that exists was created through my inner spirit’? Only the eternal and infinite Spirit of God, whose being is present everywhere, could say that. You have carried your idea about being the Messiah a little too far! Let us keep our feet on the ground and till the soil with due diligence so that it gives us enough food. We shall fare better than if we try to make ourselves something impossible, something we can never become.

DTT.01_014,09 “If the Messiah comes one day, He will come to us as a perfect human being and never as a god. But among you half-Greek Jews, who are therefore half Gentiles as well, it is customary to count exceptionally gifted people as gods at once, or to regard yourselves as such. That should not be and goes gravely against God’s commandment: ‘I alone am your God and your Lord. You shall have no other gods beside Me.’ In Galilee, however, people seem to take that commandment none too strictly. Otherwise it would never occur to you to imagine yourself a god.

DTT.01_014,10 “Refrain from that in future. With all your extraordinary talents and abilities, remain faithful to the God of old, the one God, and leave the Gentiles to be Gentiles. Then it will go well with you on earth. What is even a giant’s greatest strength against the combined strength of thousands, let alone the strength of a boy? And if David says, ‘Oh, how utterly insignificant all people are before You, O Lord!’, how can a boy think of saying that in his spirit he is a god through whom all things were created? Do you see how far you have overstepped the mark?”

DTT.01_014,11 The chief priest then said, “Now that was a sound lesson, delivered with uncommon restraint! This much is true: since it is written of the Galileans that no prophet can arise in their land, those half Gentiles prefer to make gods of themselves at once! This boy seems particularly well suited to it. Yes, my dear Messiah-boy, you will not so easily pass an Alpha off on us as an Omega. That may work in Nazareth, but it will not work here in Jerusalem!”