The Childhood of Jesus
The Gospel of James
Biographical Gospel of the Lord
THE LORD'S FOREWORD
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1. I LIVED IN THAT WELL-KNOWN TIME up to My thirtieth year just like any other properly raised boy, then young man and then man, and first had to awaken the Deity within Me - just as every man must awaken Me within himself - by conforming My earthly way of life to the Law of Moses.
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Just like any other responsible person, I first had to awaken My faith in the existence of God and comprehend Him ever more and more through all manner of self-denial as well as ever increasing love until by degrees I finally achieved complete control of the divine Power.
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Thus I, as the Lord Myself, was a living example for every man, wherefore every man can now draw Me to himself just as I Myself put on the divine Nature within Me, and of his own free will can become just as wholly one with Me by his love and by his faith as I Myself as part man and part God am wholly one with the divine Essence in all infinite fullness.
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2. TO THE QUESTION as to how the Child-wonders of Jesus and His divinely-spiritual activity as a Child may be correlated to His as it were isolated human nature during adolescence and manhood and again to His at that time performed wonders - if one is to think of Him in these (isolated) years as only a human being - a look at a tree from spring to fall serves as an answer.
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In the springtime the tree blossoms wondrously and is alive with activity. After the blossoms have fallen the tree again seems to be inactive. But towards fall the tree reemerges in its greatest activity: the fruits, the surely wondrous, are flavored - and colored more beautifully than formerly the blossoms - and thus ripened, and the blessing bestowed on them is freed of its bonds and falls as such into the lap of the hungry little children.
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This parable may be discerned with the eye of the heart, but never with the eye of worldly wisdom. The passages open to question are quite readily discerned - if the Deity of Jesus is not denied but is upheld by the faith of the heart, which is a light of love toward God ... For as soon as the heart of man becomes pure it easily understands that the complete union of the fullness of the Deity with the man Jesus was not consummated at one time, as if in an instant but, like all things under the guidance of God, only progressively, like the gradual (successive) awakening of the divine spirit in the human heart. And this consummation was fully achieved only through His death on the cross - although the Deity in all Its fullness already dwelt in the Child Jesus, but made Itself manifest in wondrous works only in time of need.
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3. THE TEMPORAL DEATH OF JESUS is the utmost condescension of the Deity into the judgment of all matter and therewith makes possible an entirely new establishment of relations between Creator and creature.
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Only through the death of Jesus does God Himself become altogether man and created man by means of this divine, supreme grace a newly conceived child of God - that is, a God - and only thus as the Creator's perfected likeness can the created being stand face to face with Him and see, speak, recognize and beyond measure love Him as its God, Creator and Father, and only thus gain the perfect eternal, indestructible life in God, from God and beside God ... And therewith the power (that is: will) of Satan is broken to the extent that he no longer can prevent the full approach of the Deity to the children of men, and conversely their approach to the Deity.
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To say it more briefly: Through the death of Jesus every man now can fraternize with God in fullest measure, and never again can Satan intervene - for which reason the word to the women visiting the grave states: Go and tell it to My brothers! - The rule of Satan in the outer form may well be constantly discerned, but eternally never again can he restore the once torn curtain between the Deity and mankind and thus rebuild the old impassable gulf between God and mankind.
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And from this brief exposition of the subject every man who thinks and sees with his heart can very easily and clearly appreciate the boundless gain inherent in the temporal death of Jesus. Amen.
From the Time that Joseph Took Mary into His House
JAMES, A SON OF JOSEPH, originally made this record, which in time was so greatly distorted that it could not be accepted as authentic for the Scripture. I will now give you the original Gospel of James, but beginning only with the above-mentioned time, for James had also included Mary's biography from her birth as well as that of Joseph. So then write as the first chapter: