The Great Gospel of John
Volume 2
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
First journey of the Lord: Kis - landing place at Sibarah - Nazareth
- Chapter 28 -
The need for spiritual freedom and a free will.
The Lord: "In spiritual matters of life do beware above all of the Roman "must" for that is at all times damaging rather than useful to man. For every "must" is a judgement and does not allow any freedom which in purely divine matters of life is the only well-fertilised field in which the seed of life can germinate, sprout and finally develop into a blessed and mature fruit of life.
2
If you take a recently hatched bird to feed it for strength and rapid flying yet, good feeding not withstanding, keep trimming its wings, - say, will even the best feeding help him? The bird shall be subsisting for sure, but there shall be a problem with free flying until you stop trimming its wings!
3
Just as the bird is incapable of flying without flying feathers, so also man's spirit cannot attain to a free life-activity, when his free cognition is trimmed by the sanctioned "must". A spirit without freedom of action is dead because he does not have what fundamentally conditions and comprises his life.
4
For his mere terrestrial life-sphere you can give man a thousand laws sanctioned under "must", and you will harm man's spirit therewith far less than if you sanction him even one divine Commandment terrestrially.
5
The spiritual must remain free and has to determine the sanction freely within itself, as also the judgment associated therewith; only thus can it gain life's perfection in and out of itself.
6
Free cognition of the good and true are the spirit's life-light; out of these he then himself determines laws that appeal to him. These are then free laws and the only ones harmonious to free life. The spirit's violation in accordance with his cognition is the free law within the spirit, and the necessity to eternally act in free will is the everlasting sanction in accordance with which no spirit surely shall act otherwise than in free volition.
7
And behold, this also is the everlasting self-determining order in God, who surely has no law-giver above Himself.
8
God's freest will itself, in accordance with the most perfect cognition and wisest insights within Himself determines the law, sanctioning it out of its very own, although admittedly free necessity. And this then is the basis of all created, terrestrial things and continuance, in so far as this essential for the development, solidification and ultimate isolation of the spirit.
9
The human spirit should however become perfect in himself and by himself like the primordial spirit of God is in Himself and by Himself perfect, otherwise the spirit is no spirit but a judged death.
10
So that the human spirit can become this, the opportunity must be offered to him, to develop himself with time, just like the divine spirit in God Himself has developed Himself from eternity!
11
Behold, since eternity I surely would have sufficient power, to coerce all people with compellingly inner power, to precisely act according to any given law, so that they are not able to deviate one hair's breath from it; but then man would cease to be man and he would be an animal just like any other in the large kingdom of animals. He would of course very precisely conduct his work but regarding the work itself you would discover just as little difference as with the work of cell building bees and countless many other large and smaller animals.
12
If you then wanted to develop such animal-humans to something higher with your free recognition, you would achieve just as little with them as when it occurred to you to send the bees to a school, where they finally should learn to start building their cells in a better and more effective manner.
13
Therefore you should not judge the ability of man to sin so low and not as too felonious; since without this ability to act against such given laws, man would be an animal and not a person!
14
And I say to you: Sin gives man the testimonial that he is human; without it he would be an animal!"