The twenty-first passage of the Sefer Yeshua is based solely on Thomas 3:1-3. It has one verse in common with Lk 17.20-21, but that has been dealt with in my commentary on the previous S.Y. passage.
21. 1Yeshua said, ‘If people say to you, “Look, the kingdom of God is in the sky,” then the birds will have gotten there before you. 2If they say, “It’s in the sea,” then the fish will have gotten there before you. 3Rather, the kingdom of God is within you, and all around you.’
Parallels
If Yeshua did indeed say this, the ideas were not unique to him – they are found in Torah and elsewhere in Jewish literature. The concept of not having to go far or do something difficult in order to find God’s Message, was already part of Israelite thought and culture.
The most obvious biblical parallel to this saying is Dt. 30:11-14 –
This [body of] commandments which I enjoin upon you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it far beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us and bring it back to us, so that we may hear it and observe it?” Nor is it across the ocean, so that you should say, “Who will go over the seas for us and bring it back to us, so that we may hear it and observe it?” Rather, the Message is very near to you – in your mouth, in your heart, and in your hands – so that you may put it into practice.
The apocryphal Book of Baruch (3:29-30) has a similar passage:
“Has anyone climbed up to heaven and found wisdom? Has anyone returned with it from the clouds? Has anyone crossed the sea and discovered it? Has anyone purchased it with gold?”
Looking for the Intangible
The witticism in this teaching of Yeshua is that if the Kingdom of God is in the sky, then the birds have the advantage over us; if the Kingdom of God is in the sea, then the fish have an advantage over us (‘The Five Gospels’, p. 472). This humorous cynicism is also expressed in Job 28:12-14 and Job 28:20-22 (where the birds in the sky are mentioned).
Yeshua’s teaching, Moses’s teaching in Deuteronomy, and the teaching in Baruch and Job, all imply that something which is intangible and unseen – the Message of God, the Wisdom of God and the Kingdom of God – are all things which are not confined to heaven; they are not available only to mystics and prophets focussed on the heavenly.
The Aramaic word for ‘sky’ and ‘heaven’ are the same – shmáyyā. This is the reason why Yeshua’s assertion that, ‘the birds will have gotten there before you’ works. While in Deuteronomy and Baruch, it is more appropriate to translate the Hebrew shamáyim as ‘heaven’, in Yeshua’s saying, ‘heaven’ would not work, so the rendering as ‘sky’ is the more apt.
There is a tendency for people brought up in the Christian tradition to translate the Hebrew davar, wherever it appears in the Hebrew text of the Bible, as ‘word’. This causes people to think that ‘the Word of God’ is the written text of the Bible, but this is not what it means. As I mentioned in my commentary for SY 20, biblical Hebrew and ancient Aramaic had a much smaller range of vocabulary, and so each word had a much wider range of meanings than they do today, with the appropriate meaning gleaned from context. The most appropriate meaning for davar in Dt 30:14 is ‘Message’.
There are various aspects of YHVH which are as inseparable from God as God’s own divinity. In ancient Israelite mysticism, things like goodness, holiness, wisdom and love were inseparable aspects of YHVH – just as YHVH was goodness, so too, goodness was YHVH; you cannot separate goodness from YHVH. So too with the Message – the Message was YHVH, and YHVH was the Message.
The Message of YHVH is not the written text of the Miqra. The Message is the entire corpus of teachings, ethics, ethos, mindset, outlook, values, principles and philosophy of YHVH. YHVH is the entirety of all these things, and all these things are YHVH. You cannot separate the Message from YHVH. However, the Message does not remain solely in heaven. Dt 32:2 says,
Let my teachings drop like rain,
and my sayings condense like dew –
like droplets onto fresh grass,
and light showers onto vegetation.
If this is true of Moses’s message, how much more so are they true of God’s Message! The prophet Isaiah (55:11) says that the Message of YHVH, once it has gone out, shall not return before it has completed its work. The Message of YHVH is meant to be something transformative; it is sent out into the world to reform, heal, and make anew.
Unfortunately, due to the influence of Greek philosophy, ‘the Word’ became the son of God, and ‘Wisdom’ became the daughter of God (in both Greek and Hebrew, the words are masculine and feminine nouns respectively). However, in Yahwist philosophy, you cannot separate Wisdom from YHVH; wisdom cannot be a separate creation of YHVH, because that would mean that there was a time when God had no wisdom!
All these things – God’s Message, God’s Wisdom and God’s Kingdom – are all things which YHVH sends out into the world, and are received by those who love YHVH, those who are enthused by that love to remain faithful and take on board what YHVH gives us. YHVH sends out in order for us to receive, and in receiving, be transformed.
God’s Kingdom is something that is meant to live within us, it is meant to transform and strengthen us, make the individual into an ambassador for YHVH, and mould any Yahwist society into something that stands as a monument for YHVH, visible to the whole world, one that cannot be shaken or swept away.
The Kingdom all around us
The Kingdom within us is the Kingdom that is lived by the individual, which ennobles us and makes us more than mere DNA and brain cells. The Kingdom all around us is the reign of God that is eternal, and if accepted by a society, can transform it too.
There are certain Christians who genuinely believe that the teachings of ‘Christ’ are only about the salvation of the individual; they are irrelevant to society as a whole, and certainly nothing to do with the ethics of government. They believe that ‘Christ’ only saves individuals, because society is destined only to fall and be swept away in apocalypse. Religious faith is only there to support the individual while society implodes; there is no thought to having a stable society as something that can help the individual. This belief in such a limited god, who forbids making society into something better, and teaches that good ethics is not the concern of government, suggests that such a god is not strong enough or powerful enough to transform society. To quote the title of a book by JB Phillips, ‘Your God is too Small’.
In contrast, as a Yahwist I believe that YHVH is everywhere, and is powerful enough to affect things small and great. The Kingdom of God is all around us!
If you read the words of Torah and the Prophets, time after time, they speak about the laws of Israelite society that are meant to safeguard it as something that stands as a light for the Nations. The individual, in Yeshua’s teaching, is meant to be a light to others, but Torah hopes for Israel as a society to act as a light to the Nations. YHVH is the great and mighty God who transforms not only individual hearts, but whole societies.
The Kingdom which is all around us, is the eternal reign of God which has been with us forever, and will be with us forever. It is also the rule that can permeate society as a whole, and make it into something that works for everyone, and brings peace to everyone, both Jew and Gentile. Thus the Kingdom of God is within us, and all around us.