So yes, it is understandable that Jesus should have thought he was immortal; but probably he was correct only in a metaphorical sense. The genetic engineers may find the elixir of life, or the philosopher’s stone, as they scour the structure of DNA; but the likelihood is that they will not. No blood supply to the cartilages to renew them, and other similar problems, will probably thwart them. Jesus never reached an age to find out if his belief in his own immortality was correct literally, or only metaphorically.

What would the Creator have thought about a Kingdom of Immortal People inside the Roman Empire? If He was pleased with Evolution so far, and particularly pleased that Jesus had had the faith to ennoble Nature’s Evolution, He would probably have wanted the consummation of all things to come about through Evolution, rather than having to interrupt it all by divinely intervening. At any rate, that was His decision, even if it bitterly disappointed Jesus hanging on the cross.

And so we are here, wondering what we have to do about the present situation; trying on the one hand to understand sufficient of the divine purposes to decide what we ought to do, and on the other whether we can possibly summon up the courage to do it? Whereas, if the dream I attribute to Jesus had come true, then we would simply be “might-have-beens”. Few people think it would have been better if they had never been born.