The Great Gospel of John
Volume 2
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus in the Vicinity of Caesara Philippi (Matthew 16)
- Chapter 210 -
The nature of matter and soul.
1
(The Lord:) "Behold, the body is matter and consists of the coarsest primeval soul-substances which, through the might and wisdom of God's eternal Spirit, are forced into yonder organic form corresponding to the shape of the freer soul indwelling such physical body.
2
The soul indwelling such body initially is of course not much more pure than the body, because it derives from the unclean, arch-primeval soul of the fallen Satan. Actually the body is for the as yet unclean soul nothing more than an exceedingly wise and well-attuned purification machine.
3
Within the soul there nevertheless already resides the pure sparks of God's Spirit, with which she receives a proper self-consciousness and the divine order in the voice of conscience.
4
Besides that, the body is outwardly provided with all kinds of senses, being able to hear, see, feel small and taste, whereby the soul is diversely informed about the external world, good and true as well as bad and false.
5
Through the discernment of the indwelling spirit she soon feels within herself what is good or bad; on the other hand, through the external bodily senses she obtains experience of good and bad, what is pleasing and what is painful, and other impressions, and on top of that, by way of extrasensory revelation from within and from without, the soul is through the Word shown the path of divine order.
6
Thus equipped, the soul indeed is capable of free self-determination within the easily recognizable divine order, which of course cannot be otherwise, or the soul could not possibly attain to an enduring, self-contained free existence.
7
For every soul desiring to continue to exist, must through means put at her disposal shape itself to become capable of enduring existence and, as it were, extend itself, or she could either share the body's fate, or as three quarter undeveloped, leave the body; where the latter, as fully spoilt, is entirely not conducive to the soul's further and completing development anymore; after which the soul will be forced to continue its perfecting development in a much more uncomfortable machine, usually under very sad and painful circumstances.
8
The body however, in the narrowest sense, because consisting of particles still under deepest judgment and therefore capable of dying, is every person's hell; matter of all the worlds is hell in its broadest sense, into which man is placed through his body.
9
Hence he who cares much for his body obviously also looks after his personal hell, feeding and fattening his judgement and death for his most personal demise.
10
The body indeed has to receive a certain degree of nourishment in order to be constantly capable of serving the soul for its lofty life-purpose; but he who is too anxious about the body, wrangling and working and bartering for it nearly all day and night, obviously looks after his hell and death.
11
When the body stimulates the soul into throwing itself headlong into hedonism, than this always stems from the many impure nature or matter spirits under judgement, which actually in effect make up the body itself. If the soul pays too much heed to the desires of the body, acting accordingly, then it unites with them and therewith descends into its very own hell and its very own death. In doing so the soul commits a sin against the divine order within her.
12
If the soul persist therein with exquisite contentment, then her uncleanness rivals that of her body's most unclean and judged spirits, continuing therewith in sin and therewith hell and death. Notwithstanding her continued life in the world, like that of her body, she is as good as dead, feeling also the death within her and in much fear of same. For whatever the soul is doing in its sin and hell, she nevertheless can not find life, notwithstanding her love for it beyond all measure.
13
Behold, this is also the reason why many thousand times thousands of people know no more about the life of the soul after death than a stone by the roadside; and if anything is said to them about it they only laugh or even turn wild, driving the sage out the door, telling him to preach such foolishness to wild boars!
14
And yet every person by their thirtieth year should be as sufficiently mature for the fullest awareness of the soul's life after physical death of the body as flight is to the eagle in free air high above.
15
But how far removed therefrom are people who are only just beginning to ask about it! And how much further still those who wish to hear nothing about it, even holding such belief as foolishness not worth a laugh! Such people find themselves in fullest hell and death their whole earth-lives long!
16
A soul nonetheless may have already completely cleansed itself and yet be granted often a lengthy period of earth-time for simultaneous cleansing of its still unclean body and the latter's spirits, whereby the more noble parts of the body also attracts to itself the soul's immortality and shortly after death awakens the coarsest particles of its being for fullest augmentation of the soul.
17
With such cleansed soul it can occasionally still happen, - if its hell, i.e. if the body asserts itself hedonistically, thus it enters into its own hell, so-to-speak entering into the lusts of the body and its spirits. Such souls can no longer be made completely unclean, being unclean only for as long as indwelling the mire of her bodily spirits; but they are no longer able to tolerate it therein for much longer, returning soon into their completely pure state, whereupon they are again as pure as if they had never been unclean. Therewith they had for a time restored peace and order within their hell, being afterwards capable the more to move about and fortify themselves within the light of their spirit.
18
Whosoever among you has good comprehension, will have understood the just spoken; and you friend Cyrenius sincerely say whether you fully understood Me!"