Chapter 5 — The Old Pharisee’s Failed Attempt to Interrupt

DTT.01_005,01 Then the synagogue leader turned to Me and said, “You want us to tell you in exact detail all the circumstances and events of that memorable birth in Bethlehem, do you not?”

DTT.01_005,02 I said, “Oh, you can spare yourself the trouble and effort, for I know the whole matter more accurately than any of you. What I want to know is whether you see any connection between all that happened in Bethlehem at the time and what the prophets said, especially Isaiah, and if so, what connection you see. That is the whole matter, My elders, and nothing else!”

DTT.01_005,03 The synagogue leader from Bethlehem said, “Well, my dear boy, you are asking things of us that we can scarcely give you, if we can give them at all.

DTT.01_005,04 “It is true that one must look for some connection, and it is not particularly hard to find one, between what the prophet Isaiah said and the birth that took place twelve years ago in a stable at Bethlehem, a place also named by a prophet. But, my dear boy, how often might similar things have happened since Isaiah’s time? And still there is no sign of an Immanuel in the flesh!

DTT.01_005,05 “Judaea has, so to speak, been without a king several times already, and many a virgin has given birth to a little boy in some stable near Bethlehem. Sometimes it even happened amid great ceremony, though only by chance, and remained in itself a purely natural event.

DTT.01_005,06 “Weak and superstitious people, joined by profit-seeking magicians from India and Persia and by astrologers, of whom there has never been a shortage here, have known how to take advantage of such things. Familiar with the sayings of the prophets, they invariably seized on such occasions and proclaimed with the solemn air of prophets to the blind Jews that the Messiah they hoped for had surely been born into the world.

DTT.01_005,07 “But time, the inexorable destroyer of all human works, legends and poetry, has always taught later generations otherwise and taught them better. Everything sank into the bottomless depths of ever greater oblivion, and nothing reached us but an empty legend in the greatest possible confusion. What the prophets said consists of mystical images that people will puzzle over for centuries to come. Yet scarcely any nation on earth will arrive at an answer.

DTT.01_005,08 “And you see, my dear boy, the same is true of the marvellous birth twelve years ago at Bethlehem, a place I know only too well. Precisely because the prophets made so much of it, it is always thronged with magicians, seers and astrologers of every kind, watching for anything they can turn to their own advantage. That birth twelve years ago was like a great rush of water onto their parched fields.

DTT.01_005,09 “As I know well, the shepherds gave the three magicians from Persia a great many sheep, calves, cows and oxen in return for the gifts they had brought the virgin. They certainly did not make the journey for nothing. Yet only twelve years have passed since then, and already no one remembers the story!

DTT.01_005,10 “It does not surprise me in the least that you should bring this story back to us from Galilee, the land of religious enthusiasts. Galilee has always been a land of such enthusiasms, which is why even the ancients called it a country from which no true prophet could ever come.

DTT.01_005,11 “With that, my dear boy, I believe I have answered your so-called opening question in full. Perhaps Jehovah will one day raise up a hero for the Jews, who are now so sorely oppressed, and make them a free people again. But in the ordinary course of things there is not the slightest prospect of that just now.

DTT.01_005,12 “What sort of hero would it take to confront the tremendous power of Rome, and where could he possibly come from? Perhaps it could happen in a thousand years, if Rome should happen to grow unstable and weak like all the other great powers of the world. But there is no prospect of that for a long time to come, and the opening question you raised plainly vanishes into thin air. In other words, it concerns nothing and comes to nothing at all. Is your opening question clear to you at last?”

DTT.01_005,13 I said, “Yes, if you measure everything by the standards of this world, you may well be right. But only a spiritual measure applies here, and you seem to have no conception of one. So in the end, for all the experience your speech is supposed to show, you have told Me practically nothing about My opening question.

DTT.01_005,14 “For when the Messiah comes, He will establish a spiritual kingdom on earth rather than a material one. That kingdom will never end, just as the prophet Isaiah foretold concerning the coming Messiah.

DTT.01_005,15 “But what is a spiritual kingdom on earth? It must reveal itself inwardly in a person, without outward display or pomp. Whoever enters this true kingdom of God here on earth, among other people, will be truly alive and will never see, feel or taste death, as David, Daniel and Isaiah foretold.

DTT.01_005,16 “If this is how it is and must be with the promised Messiah, on what grounds could that exceedingly marvellous birth in Bethlehem be considered entirely without significance?

DTT.01_005,17 “God wondrously protected that child from the murderous hand of Herod. He is alive today, though He lives in great seclusion, and stands where He must, with a power that commands all the elements, such as is possible only for God. No one can hide from Him. If He conceals Himself from other people, however, no one can find Him before He freely lets Himself be found.

DTT.01_005,18 “He has never learnt to read or write, yet there is no writing in the world He cannot read. He writes in every tongue and is versed in every art that can be found in the world. He has a power before which mountains tremble and the mightiest cedars bow their heads to the ground. Even the sun, moon and stars seem to obey His will! What I am saying is no exaggeration. It is the literal truth.

DTT.01_005,19 “If that is precisely how matters stand, I should think it worth your while to inquire more closely and search the prophets to see whether Isaiah’s prophecy agrees with the parents in question, the child Himself, His birth, the place and time of His birth, His present whereabouts and the many signs He has already given.

DTT.01_005,20 “Surely a matter of such importance ought not to be passed over by you priests, wise men, scribes and elders of the people. You hold offices from which the people, quite rightly, expect an open announcement of the arrival of the Messiah promised to them. I speak by virtue of the right for which I paid dearly, and no one has the right to tell Me to be silent. There stands the Roman judge. He alone has such a right!”

DTT.01_005,21 I would not have appealed to the judge had an old and very proud Pharisee not told Me to be silent in the middle of My speech, saying that a presumptuous Galilean swineherd was in no position to judge such things.

DTT.01_005,22 But the judge, who was entirely on My side, sternly reproved the Pharisee for his rudeness and ordered him never again to speak in such a vulgar, domineering manner in his presence. He said that what I had told them about the wonder-working boy living near Nazareth mattered more to the Romans too than all their worn-out, threadbare Jewish nonsense. He said bluntly to the Pharisees:

DTT.01_005,23 “Your teaching needs a complete reform more than any other teaching on earth, or it will truly not last another fifty years! As your teaching about God and your worship now stand, Rome’s Bacchanalia are like the sun beside them, even though as worship of a higher divine being they are a grotesque offspring of human reason.

DTT.01_005,24 “But you, dear boy, speak on with courage! No harm must come to you, for there seems to be more understanding in you than in this whole Temple. So go on speaking, my dear boy!”