Key of Knowledge

SR No.: 006702
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 1204
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 300

THE KINGDOM OF GOD).
279
must try it in actual practice; and if he would but persevere a little, he would not be spending his time in vain. Meanwhile, let us proceed with the sayings of Jesus.
The Master often declared that if any one would keep his teaching and live according to his doctrine he would enjoy eternal life. This was the main cause of difference between him and the Pharisees. The latter could never conceive how any one could be greater in knowledge and power than their late lamented ancestors, and they forthwith told him what they thought of him :
“Art thou greater than our father, Abraham, who is dead and the prophets are dead, whom makest thoa thyself ?"--(John, VIII. 53).
How could this son of a common carpenter talk to them of the conquest of death when their great ancestors, who had never been surpassed, were unable to resist it ? Jesus threw them into greater convulsions by telling them that he was honoured by his Father who was their God; and as to Abraham's supposed supremacy, he added :
“ Your father, Abraham, rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad” (John, VIII. 56).
This appeared to be downright madness to the Pharisees, as it no doubt did to some of the later biographers of Jesus; for how could a man who was not even fifty years of age be said to have existed in the time of Abraham ? But Jesus coolly threw another mystic bomb into the ranks of his opponents by saying : "Before Abraham was I am" (John, VIII. 58). The Pharisees now completely lost control over themselves, and took up stones to cast at him, at which stage Jesus thought it wise to hide him