the kind of people that we are. And,
note, he said, This kingdom of God does not come by observation. You
are not to say, Lo here, Lo there, look for wonders. He says, The
kingdom of God is within you, or among you. It is translated both ways;
and, I suppose, nobody knows which way it ought to be. I believe both.
The kingdom of God that Jesus preached is essentially in us. It is
also, after it is in a few of us, among us, right here already, so far
as it extends, and reaching out its limits and growing as rapidly as
men discern it and become obedient to its laws.

Now I have been asked a great many times how I can be sure, or
practically sure, as to what sayings in the Gospels are really those of
Jesus and what are traditional in their authority, what are doubtfully
his. I cannot go into a long explanation this morning; but I want to
suggest one line of thought. And I do this because I wish it to be the
basis of a statement that Jesus has not made any of these things that
are to-day labelled "Evangelical" any essential part of his gospel at
all. Jesus, for example, does not preach any Garden of Eden or any Fall
of Man. Jesus says nothing about any infallible book. Jesus says not a
word about any Trinity. He nowhere makes any claim to be God. His
doctrine concerning the future is doubtful. But one thing which I wish
to insist upon is perfectly clear: the conditions of citizenship in the
kingdom of God are the simplest conceivable. He says, Not those that
say, Lord, Lord, not those that multiply their services and ceremonies,
but those that do the will of my Father shall enter the kingdom. The
only condition that Jesus ever established for membership in the
kingdom of heaven is simple human goodness, never anything else.

I am perfectly well aware that somebody may quote to me, "He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved; and he that believeth not
shall be damned." But the reply to that would be, The acknowledged
statement to-day on the part of all competent scholars is that Jesus
never uttered those words. They are left out of the Revised Version of
the New Testament: they are no authentic part of the story of his life
or his teaching.

How can we find his words? In the first place there are the great
central, luminous truths which Jesus uttered, the fatherhood of God,
the brotherhood of men, goodness as the condition of acceptance on the
part of God. And, on the theory that he did not contradict himself, we
ar