THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN
VOLUME 5
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus in the region of Capernaum. Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 17
- Chapter 238 -
The resurrection of the flesh.
1
"By the resurrection of the flesh do understand the charitable works of true neighborly love. These will be the flesh of the soul and will rise, simultaneously with the soul, on the soul's youngest day in the spirit world upon the true trumpet call of this My teaching as a superior ether body destined for eternal life. Even if you had a hundred times carried a body on the earth, you will have only one body in the beyond, namely, the one we have discussed. - Do you now understand this?"
2
Peter said, "Yes, Lord and Master, it is now clearer to me than ever! But I can still remember a text by a prophet which said something like this: You will meet your God one day in your flesh, therefore keep it pure and do not make it unclean by all sorts of sins! You will never see the face of God in a sinful body! That is approximately how the text goes, and it is hard for human reason to interpret it differently. How, then, is this to be understood in its true sense?"
3
I said, "Just like the previous one! 'You will never see God in your body' means as much as : In your good works according to the well-known will of God you will see your God, because it is only the works which the soul performs with its body, which has simply been given to it as a tool, which give a soul either honor before God or also the opposite. Pure works give purity, unclean works impurity. Pure thinking in compliance with pure knowledge and otherwise chaste and clean behavior alone without works of neighborly love are by far not sufficient to provide the soul with a spirit body and, therefore, with a contemplation of God.
4
For he whose soul is still so blind that he fails to understand that it is not just knowledge but chiefly the works done in compliance with pure knowledge and faith that give true permanency to the soul, is still in a pitiful condition and like a man who is quite capable of building a house but cannot decide to set to work, although he has great quantities of the best building materials on hand. Say, will he ever own a house in which he can find shelter from the uncontrollable forces of the raging elements when the winter storms come?
5
What use to you in a storm are all the best-founded knowledge and understanding about what well-built walls of a house can offer as resistance to a storm, as a result of which those living in the house are fully secure from its power, if you do not own a house and on your travels across the harsh desert of your life you cannot reach any other one anymore?
6
Yes, My dears, knowledge and faith however pure has no firm walls which can protect you in times of storm; but the works of true love for one's neighbor can indeed. They are the true, enduring body of the soul, its house, its land and its true world. Remember this well, not alone for your own sakes, but also above all for the sake of those to whom you will preach the gospel after Me! If they will ever know and believe the word of salvation, admonish them to do the true works of neighborly love that I so often bid you do.
7
For truly I tell you: If someone says he loves God but does not heed the misery of his poor brother, he will not ever behold God in his flesh! For the Pharisees and doctors of the law also say that they serve God in the fullest measure and sense and that they continually reconcile sinful mankind with God through their prayers and sacrifices. On the other hand, they rob the people, and neighborly love is far from them. Of what benefit is this? It benefits neither the Pharisees nor the people.
8
For one thing, God has never needed any human service, much less any burnt offerings of slaughtered animals. However, God looks kindly on the sacrifice offered Him in good works of love by true neighborly love and always gives His blessing in such a case. - Do you now understand, Peter, what it means to 'see God in your flesh'?"
9
Peter says, "Yes, Lord, now I am perfectly clear; for You, oh Lord, have now shown it to us so clearly that we have seized it already with our hands and feet. We thank You for it! But now we are back at the place again "yet instead of midday it will already be closer to evening!"
10
I say, "That matters nothing! We will take some bread and wine and then head on our way immediately! Therefore let's go the little path only very quickly!"