THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN
VOLUME 5
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord in the house of Simon Peter. Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 18
- Chapter 246 -
The children as role models for the disciples. God and man in the Lord.
Now Peter said, "Yes, Lord and Master, now we are quite perfectly in the clear about this; but therefore I ask You for the future to immediately give us the explanation at other similar lessons so that we do not have to become annoyed at our own lack of understanding!"
2
Said I : "I will do that where it is necessary; but where I want to strengthen your own ability to think and make your soul more active, then I will not reveal the images immediately. For whoever wants to be a correct teacher must give his lessons so that his disciples always have much to think about and to seek, otherwise he makes them into lazy and idle researchers of all sorts of truths.
3
"I also say unto you all: The Master who teaches must always be a wise man and must understand himself indeed from the deepest foundations what he is teaching. But the disciples should, as long as they are disciples, from now on be like these little ones here, who accept and follow a lesson given to them even if they have by no means seen the inner meaning of it; the correct insight will come to them in their more mature years."
4
But at this some of the disciples were still thinking to themselves silently that it would take a very long time before they would be wise and understanding themselves, if they should now behave as foolish and uncomprehending as the foolish, uncomprehending and inexperienced scruffy children, among whom none had ever yet learnt in any school the alpha and even less the omega!
5
But I said, "See that you do not despise one of these little ones! For I say to you that their angels in heaven continually behold the face of My Father who is in heaven!" (Matt. 18:10)
6
Says Peter: "Have we no longer any angels in heaven, who also at all times look on the face of Your Heavenly Father? Also, You have said that Your Father dwells in You and is fully at one with You, and then again You transfer Him to the endlessly remote heaven. Well, this is something we again cannot fathom. How are we to understand that? Does Your Father take turns between dwelling in You and dwelling in the heavens? And how come that You are sometimes the Father Himself and at other times only His Son? - Kindly give us a little more enlightenment than we had before on this point."
7
Said I: "You certainly also have your guardian angels in heaven and would not be My disciples without them. But the little ones have them, too, and for this reason you shall not look down upon them, for they are fully your equals. I told you this because I know you do not like children.
8
If you cannot love these tender, dear and angel-pure little children, how will you then love your neighbor and how will you love your God?
9
If you want to educate human beings after My heart, you must already begin with the children, for truly I tell you: The instruction in the cradle is worth more than all the learned institutes of the world. Whoever wants to form children into human beings must love them and be patient with them. Such a child is by nature poorer than a hundred beggars; for it is poor in spirit, poor in physical strength and poor in possessions.
10
Therefore, I tell you and through you all the people to whom this gospel will be preached once again: Whoever receives such a child in My name receives Me. Once he has thus, full of love, received Me, he has also received the Father in Heaven and his household will be richly blessed. For such children are themselves a genuine and true blessing of God in the house where they live and where they are cared for, nurtured and formed into true human beings. And it does not matter of what sex they are, male or female, in their youth they are like the angels of heaven.
11
Now that you, Peter, ask about My Father in Heaven and why I sometimes say that He is in heaven and at other times that He is in Me and at one with Me, all I need is patience with your memory, otherwise I could in the end be angry with you.
12
What heaven is and where it is I have only recently shown and explained to you all, and in particular to you, in every detail and the clearest light, up on the mountain. Moreover, I have spoken almost too much and too often on the indivisible and inseparable relationship between Me and My Father, and behold, now again you know nothing about it!
13
Is not the Father the eternal love within Me? But where it is and lives, is that not heaven and the true kingdom of God?
14
Am I, as a man, not the Son of that same love that dwells in Me and that has created from eternity all there is and fills infinity? And since this eternal and almighty love of God is within Me, am I not, then, completely at one with it? - Now say whether you still cannot grasp this."
15
Peter says, "Yes, I now quite certainly see it better than I saw it previously. But nonetheless there are still some things in it which, to be honest, are still not fully clear to me! And what is still not so clear to me consists of the fact that I still do not see why You said once about Yourself that You are the Son of man, another time the Son of God and once again Jehovah Himself! If You will give me another little light about it then You will do good to us all; for I believe that none of us has the correct insight in this yet!"
16
Say I: "I have also quite clearly explained this to you at occasions when I spoke about My impending suffering; but if such a thing is not explained at least ten times so that you can touch it with your hands and feet, you do not understand it! I will tell you then one more time:
17
Neither Jehovah in Me, nor I as the soul of His eternal Son, but only in the flesh as the Son of man will be killed in Jerusalem, but on the third day will rise again as fully transfigured and then for eternity be one with Him who is in Me and reveals everything in Me that I as a son of man have to do and to say, and whom you still do not fully know although He has been speaking and working among you for a good time already. And now, Simon of Judah, you speak again!"