Notes for this keyword
Reading comfort
GRM 50.9
«We will now pray and then each of us will go and perform his duties.»
«What will You do, Master?»
«I will continue to pray. I am the Light of the world, but I am also the Son of man. I must, therefore, draw from the Light, to become the Man Who redeems man. Let us pray.»
Jesus declares to the disciples:
GRM 54.5
«Oh! My friends! And who is perfect but God?»
«You are!»
«I solemnly tell you that I am not perfect by Myself, if you think I am prophet. No man is perfect. But I am perfect because He Who is speaking to you is the Word of the Father: part of God. His thought that becomes Word. I have Perfection in Myself. And you must believe Me to be such if you believe that I am the Word of the Father. And yet, see, My friends, I want to be called the Son of man because I lower Myself taking upon Myself all the miseries of man, to bear them as My first scaffold, and cancel them, after bearing them, without suffering from them Myself. What a burden, My friends! But I bear it with joy. It is a joy for Me to bear it, because, since I am the Son of mankind, I will make mankind once again the child of God. As it was on the first day.»
Being a part of God, his Thought made Word, I have perfection in me. In a note to the second edition, it is written: "part is not to be understood as "portion" but as "belonging". Unlike man, who belongs to God not by nature, but by likeness (note 167.9), Jesus belongs to God by nature: in other words, he is God like the Father (he will say in 487.4: "I am his, both part and all with him"). This is why his perfection does not lie in the fact that he is a prophet (as he said above), but that he is God-Man. The human part of the God-Man was exhaustively completed by his victory over temptation (as he himself will say in 80.10 and as is clear from the end of the note to 174.9). Jesus' discourses in chapters 487 and 506 on the two natures, divine and human, are fundamental.
Son of man is the most frequent title given to Jesus and by Jesus to himself. Its general meaning is given in 343.4; but its messianic meaning is found here as well as, for example, in 126.3 and 603.1.
GRM 61.2
Woe to those men who lower themselves to a lower degree than animals! But if it was possible to excuse those who committed sin up to the present time — because too long a time has elapsed since the Law was given and too much worldly dust has settled on the Law — now it is no longer so. I have come to bring the word of God once again. The Son of man is amongst men to lead them back to God. Follow Me. I am the Way, the Truth, the Life.
GRM 62.3
62.3 Why were you looking for Me, is there anything you want of Me?»
«No, Master. But there are many who want so much from You. There were already people coming from Capernaum, and they were poor, sick, depressed people, people of goodwill and anxious to be taught. When they inquired about You, we said: “The Master is tired and is sleeping. Go away and come back next Sabbath”.»
«No, Simon. You must not say that. There is not one day only for mercy. I am Love, Light and Health every day of the week.»
«But… so far You have spoken only on Sabbaths.»
«Because I was still unknown. But as I become known, every day there will be effusions of Grace and graces. I tell you solemnly that the time will come when even the moment of time which is granted to a sparrow to rest on a branch and eat some little grains will not be granted to the Son of man for His rest and meals.»
«But You will be taken ill! We will not allow that. Your kindness must not make You unhappy.»
«And do you think that could make Me unhappy? Oh! If all the world came to Me to listen to Me, to bewail its sins and sorrow on My heart, to be healed in its bodies and souls, and I were worn out speaking and forgiving and pouring forth My power, I would be so happy, Peter, that I would not even regret Heaven, where I was in the Father!…
GRM 64.4
“My Beloved went down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to pasture his flocks in the gardens, and gather lilies… He pastures his flock among the lilies”, says Solomon, the son of David, from whom I descend, I, the Messiah of Israel.
My garden! Which garden is more beautiful and worthy of God than Heaven, where the flowers are the angels created by the Father? And yet, it is not so. The Only Begotten Son of the Father, the Son of man wanted another garden, because it is for the sake of man that I took flesh, without which I would not be able to redeem the faults of the flesh of man. A garden which might have been but little inferior to the heavenly one, if from the earthly Paradise the children of Adam, the children of God, had spread about, like sweet bees from a beehive, to populate the earth with holiness destined entirely for Heaven. But the enemy sowed brambles and thorns in Adam’s heart, and brambles and thorns have overflown from his heart on to the earth. It is no longer a garden, but a wild cruel forest in which fever stagnates and snakes nestle.
And yet the Beloved of the Father still has a garden in this world which is domineered by Mammon. The garden in which He feeds on His celestial food: love and purity; the bed where He picks the flowers dear to Him, flowers not stained with sensuality, greed, pride. These ones. (Jesus caresses as many of the children as He can, patting with His hand the little attentive heads, one big caress that touches them lightly and makes them smile happily). Here are My lilies.
Solomon in all his wealth, did not have a robe more beautiful than the lily that scents the valley, neither did he possess a diadem of a more splendid gracefulness than the one in the pearl chalice of a lily. And yet, for My heart, there is no lily worth one of these. There is no flower-bed, no garden of wealthly people, all cultivated with lilies, that I consider worth only one of these pure, innocent, sincere, simple, little children.
GRM 64.4
It is for the sake of man that I took flesh, without which I would not be able to redeem the faults of the flesh of man.
GRM 64.5
64.5 «Master!» shouts Peter amidst the crowd, «the sick people are here. Two of them can wait until You come out, but this one is crushed amongst the crowd and… he cannot stay here any longer. It is impossible for us to come in. Shall I send him back?»
«No, lower him down through the roof.»
«You are right. We will do that at once.»
I can hear them shuffling on the low roof of the big room, the terrace of which is not built of cement, as the store-room is not really part of the house. The roof is formed with branches covered by chips of stone like slate. I do not know what stone it is. They make an opening through which, by means of ropes, they lower down the little stretcher on which the patient is lying. It is lowered in front of Jesus. The crowds throng closer to see.
«Both you and who brought you have great faith.»
«Oh! Lord! How could we have no faith in You?»
«Well, I say to you: son (he is a very young man) your sins are forgiven.»
The man looks at him, crying… perhaps he is somewhat disappointed because he was hoping to be healed in his body. The Pharisees and doctors whisper something to one another turning up their noses, foreheads and mouths in disdain.
«Why are you muttering, more in your hearts than with your lips? According to you, it is easier to say to the paralytic: “Your sins are forgiven” or “Get up, take your little bed and walk away”? You think that only God can forgive sins. But you cannot answer which of these things is greater, because this man, whose whole body is lost to him, has spent a lot of money without being healed. And he can only be healed by God. Now, that you may learn that I can do everything, that you may learn that the Son of man has authority both over bodies and souls, on the earth and in Heaven, I say to him: “Get up. Pick up your bed and walk. Go home and be holy”.»
The man jerks, he shouts, stands up, he throws himself at Jesus’ feet, kisses and caresses them, he cries and laughs, and his relatives and the crowd do likewise. The crowd divides into two to let him pass, as if he were triumphant, and they follow him rejoicing. The five resentful men go away, conceited and as stiff as sticks.
GRM 67.3
The Word of God speaks to all the sons of man, and the Son of man will not reject the Gentiles.
GRM 69.5
69.5 I have real flesh, so that through the experience of the flesh, I might learn which are the temptations of man.»
«And what about sins?»
«Everyone can be tempted. Sinners are only those who want to be such.»
«Have You ever sinned, Jesus?»
«No, I never wanted to sin. Not because I am the Son of the Father. But because I wanted and I want to prove to man that the Son of man did not sin because He did not want to sin, and that man can, if he wants, not sin.»
«Have You ever been tempted?»
«I am thirty years old, Judas. And I did not live in a cave upon a mountain. I lived amongst men. And if I had been in the loneliest place in the world, do you think temptations would not have come to Me? We have everything in us: good and evil. We carry everything with us. And the breath of God blows on the good and vivifies it like a thurible of sweet-smelling holy incense. And Satan blows on evil, thus kindling a furious blazing fire. But diligent goodwill and constant prayer are like damp sand on the hellish fire: they suffocate it and put it out.»
«But if You have never sinned, how can You judge sinners?»
«I am a man and the Son of God. What I might ignore as a man and judge wrongly, I know and judge as the Son of God. After all!… Judas, answer this question of Mine. Will one who is hungry, suffer more by saying: “I will now sit down at the table” or by saying: “There is no food for me”?»
«He suffers more in the latter case, because the simple thought that he is without food, will bring back to him the pleasant smell of food and his bowels will be tortured by biting desire.»
«Right: temptation is as biting as that desire, Judas. Satan makes it more intense, more real, more alluring than any accomplished act. Further, the act satisfies, and at times nauseates; whereas temptations do not subside, but like pruned trees, they grow stronger and stronger.»
«And have You never yielded?»
«No, never.»
«How did You manage?»
«I said: “Father. lead Me not into temptation”.»
«What? You, the Messiah, You work miracles and You ask Your Father for help?»
«Not only for help: I ask Him not to lead Me into temptation. Do you think that I, simply because I am I, can do without the Father? Oh! no! I solemnly tell you that the Father grants everything to His Son, and that the Son receives everything from the Father. And I tell you that everything the Father will be asked for in My name will be granted.»
GRM 78.5
«Thanks to these citizens whose hearts have honoured the Word of the Father, and the Father Whose Word I am. Because You must understand that thanks and honour are due not to the Son of man, Who is speaking to you, but to the Most High Lord, for this time of peace during which He re-establishes the broken paternity with the sons of man. Let us praise the true Lord, the God of Abraham Who had mercy on and loved His people and granted them the promised Redeemer. Glory and praise not to Jesus, the servant of the Eternal Will, but to the loving Will.»
Jesus spoke to the ruler of the Kerioth synagogue and said: