As a Spirit person who knew the nature of the sacred, the “numinous,” from his own experience, Jesus proclaimed the acceptance of the outcasts in both his teaching and actions. Moreover, his articulation of inclusive compassion as the paradigm for Israel to follow was similarly grounded in his own experience. Thus Jesus’s basic “program” for the internal reform of Israel—“Be compassionate as God is compassionate” (Luke 6:36)—flowed out of knowledge of God that he, as a Spirit person, was given in his own internal experience.
