The Jews kept asking who Jesus really was. Their views on this differed. The apostles were told by Jesus in the course of three years of instruction that he was the Son of God. Judas was the exception, for he was often away and also was not supposed to know. Jesus had, however, forbidden his disciples to speak of
this in public (Gr I 51, 15 and I 89, 5). It was only within this inner circle that he spoke about his relationship to the Father in Heaven: "My body has been begotten of an earthly mother, thaugh not by an earthly father in the usual way, but only through the powerful Will-Spirit of God." "I as a man, as I now stand before you, am no god, but am indeed God's Son, as every human being really should be, for the people of this earth are destined to become and be Children of God, if they live according to the known will of God.
"One of them, however, was intended, out of God and from eternity, to be the First, to have Life within him and give it to everyone who believes in Him and lives according to His teaching. And I am this First One.
"I did not bring this Life out of God into the world from the womb. The seed of it lay within Me, but it had first to be developed, and this took almost thirty years of time and effort. Now I do indeed stand before you as one who is perfect and am able to tell you that I am given all power and might in heaven and on earth, and that the spirit within Me is wholly one with the Spirit of God, which is also why I am able to work signs the like of which no man has worked before Me.
"This Spirit who dwells within Me is indeed God, but I as a pure Son of Man am not, for, as I said already, as such I, too, have had to attain the rank of a God with much effort and exercise, like any other person, and was only able to unite with God when that was done. Now I am one with Him in spirit, but not yet in body. Yet I shall be one also in that respect, but only after a great passion and utter and most deeply humbling self-denial of My soul." (Gr VI 90, 8-12)
"My flesh is not My real I, only My spirit is my most true I. With My God, however, I am all-present and continue to work on through the whole of infinity." (Gr VI 142, 14)
"How could Jesus, as the only eternal divine being, advance in wisdom and in favor with God and men, seeing that He was God of all eternitiy? And how particularly with men, since He was from eternitiy the infinitely most perfect being?
"To understand this rightly, we must regard Jesus not as the sole God complete in Himself, but as a human being in whom the only and eternal godhead incarcerated itself, seeming inactive, just as the spirit is incarcerated in the nature of every human being.
"And what every human being has to do, according to God's ordinance, to free the spirit within him, this Jesus, too, had to do in all seriousness, to free the divine essence within him, in order to become one with Him. Yet every human being has to have certain weakness within himself, and these are the common fetters of the spirit that enclose him as in a solid shell. The fetters can only be burst open when the soul, which is mingled with the flesh, has gained in strength through rightful selfdenial and become firm enough to take and to hold the free spirit." (Jug 298, 2-9)
"Jesus's soul also had to pass the greatest trials, denying itself, in order to remove from its divine spirit the bonds, to gain strength through this for the most infinite freedom of the Spirit of all Spirits, and thus become wholly one with Him. This is what is meant with Jesus's soul gaining in wisdom and favor with God and men, to the extent in which the Spirit of God gradually united more and more with his soul, which indeed was divine, which was indeed the Son." (Jug 288, 18-19)
"Jesus always felt the almighty godhead to be very much alive within him. He knew in his soul that everything encompassed in infinity does and always shall obey his slightest beckoning. And he had the greatest urge in his soul to rule over everything. Pride, lust for power, fullest freedom, a sense for the rich life, desire for women and so forth, and also anger, were the main weaknesses in his soul. But out of the will of his soul he fought against all these most powerful and deadly impulses in his soul. He exercised his life through nothing but the most severe of selfdenials, thus to restore the eternal order that had become disrupted." (Jug 299, 2-5 and 17)
Peter on one occasion asked a question of the Lord that still exercises many minds today, particularly the scholars. The issue is much discussed in studies on the life of Jesus, and with different results. Peter said: "Something I am not quite clear about yet is that I still do not see why on the one hand you say of yourself that you are the Son of Man, and then that you are God's Son and yet another time Jehovah himself." (Gr V 246, 15)
The answer he received was: "Neither Jehovah within Me, nor My soul as his eternal Son will be killed in Jerusalem, but solely this body as the Son of Man. But on the third day it shall rise again, wholly transfigured, and then for ever be one with Him Who is within Me and reveals to Me everything I have to do and say as Son of Man, and Whom you still do not wholly know, although He has been speaking and working among you for quite some time." (Gr V 246, 17)
Another question put by one of the disciples: "How could you, being Jehovah and therefore infinite, leave your infinite nature and equeeze yourself into this severely limited form?" - is also asked again and again to this day - by millions of people.
The answer Jesus gave was: "I am everywhere the eternal I, but here, with you, I am now at the center of My eternal Being, from where the whole of infinity is maintained forever and ever onwards unchangeable and the same, in its most endless eternal expansion." (Gr IV 122, 3 and 7)
"If the Son was of eternitiy, how could he be begotten? And if the Holy Spirit also was of eternitiy, how could it come forth from Father and Son and thus take origin? If in your minds and understanding the three divine persons you object to and whom later generations may easily make into three gods, are altogether eternal, i.e., having no beginning, then one of them could not bring another into existence!
"I, now before you in the flesh as a man, am the Son, and have never been begotten by any but Myself and am for that very reason My very own Father, of eternitiy. Where else could the Father be but in the Son, and where else the Son but only in the Father, and therefore only one God and Father in one person?
"This body of Mine is therefore the glorified form of the Father, for the sake of men and of angels, that I shall be a god they can grasp and see, and you are now able to see, hear and speak with Me and yet live; for formerly it was said that none could see God and live. I am God through and through; in Me is the Father; and the power arising from me due to My love, wisdom and My all-powerful will, a power that fills the whole of eternal unending space and also is active everywhere, is the Holy Spirit.
I, now among you as a divine man, am here with you in this room where we eat on the Mount of Olives, complete and undivided in My whole original and central essence, and am therefor nowhere else at the same time as the most true God and Man, not on this earth, and even less so on any other. But with the power that arises from Me, which is the Holy Spirit, I nevertheless fill with my activitiy all heavens and both earthly material and infinite space. I see everything there, from the largest to the smallest, know everything, am aware of everything, prescribe everything, and contrive, guide and rule everything.
"Now that you know this from My own lips, you will also understand the reason why you are to lay your hands upon all men who believe in Me and also act according to My teaching when it has been made known to them, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, to strengthen them. "Perceiving the reason you will also see that men who have been truly and rightly instructed by you will not easily become subject to the notion of three gods that have individual existence when they hear the three attribute names. But I do most seriously charge you always to give to men everywhere a truthful and rightful light; for where this is lacking, men will easily and soon go to ruin and enter into all kinds of false doctrines, and it will then be difficult to bring them back into the path of the full truth. On the other hand, you also will not be able to prevent false teachers and prophets from coming and leading astray many people, however faithful you may be." (Gr VIII 27, 1-7)
"As a man, I also can do nothing of My own accord. I do, however, always hear within Me the voice of the Father, and as I hear, so I also act, speak and judge." (Schriftt. 3, 5)
"The godhead only appeared active in Jesus the man on occasion to the extent to which He as man got it going within himself. But the godhead did not make its appearance without deeds (miracles, author)." (Schriftt. 8, 9)
New Revelation also gives some details as to the external appearance of Jesus the man. "In external appearance he is not a handsome man. He is rather short of stature, and his hands are rough and work-scarred, yet his head is full of dignity and his eye no doubt the most beautiful I have ever seen. Around the mouth, too, he is most kindly in appearance, though also sober and serious. The voice of his tongue, however, one can call utterly captivating in a man." (Gr II 240, 12)
It should be noted that Jesus was not called or addressed by the name we use for him in our language. He was in fact called Jeshua. This derives from Joshua, a name that from the 4th century B.C. "was no loner pronounced Jehosua, as formerly, but Jesua (i.e., Jeshua)". 42 Many bore this name in those days. Jesus's mother also was not called Mary but Miriam.