The Great Gospel of John
Volume 1
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Second day in Sychar
- Chapter 71 -
At Sychar. The Lord heals the chief's wife. Vital hints on arriving at full truth and power action. The Lord witnesses of the Father. Core of the teaching.
Following this counsel I ask the commander whether there are no sick in this place. Says the chief, 'Friend, if you are also conversant with the art of healing, then heal my wife! Because she has suffered some secret malady for a year already, which no physician could identify. Perhaps the depth of your wisdom could identify this sickness and help my wife out of it?
2
Say I, 'I say unto you that your wife is well! Send for her!
3
The commander immediately dispatches one of his servants, whom the cheerful wife already meets at the doorstep, betaking herself with him to the chief. The latter is astonished beyond all measure and says to Me, 'Friend, you are a God!'
4
Say I, 'You people then are all the same! When you see no signs, you don't believe. Yet you are blessed that you believe, although on account of the signs; he who nevertheless does not believe in spite of the signs which I work has sunk into death.
5
But in future only those men shall attain bliss who believe just on account of the truth of My Word, without signs, living in accordance with it! These shall then discover the only living sign within themselves, called life eternal, and this no one shall be able to take from them.
6
You are now joyful that I have made your wife whole, just through the will of My heart, and ask yourself unceasingly: how is this possible? But I say unto you: if a man were to live in accordance with inner pure love and then came upon such truth, having no more doubt in his truth, he then could say unto one of those surrounding mountains: Arise and cast thyself into the sea! And the mountain would rise and cast itself into the sea!
7
But since no such truth resides in you or many others, you not only cannot work such deeds but on top of that have to wonder many times head over heels that I, who am imbued with such truth in all fullness, perform deeds before you which can be accomplished only through the might of the innermost living truth!
8
Only within such truth does faith, which in man is the right hand of the spirit, become living in power-action, and the arm of the spirit reaches far and performs great things!
9
If through such truth you shall have sufficiently strengthened your spiritual arms, then you shall be doing what I have now done before you, and besides that you shall see that this is much easier than to lift a stone off the ground with the hand of your body, and cast it several paces before you!
10
Hence live in accordance with such My teaching! Be doers and not just idle hearers and admirers of My Words, teachings and deeds, and you shall receive within yourselves that which now you so highly admire in Me!
11
But this I show you as not of Myself but of Him Who taught Me so before the world. And of Him it is you say that He is your Father, - yet know Him not and never have recognised Him! He however of Whom ye say that He is your Father, the Same it is of Whom all things are, such as angels, sun, moon and stars and this earth with everything in and on it!
12
As this Father has taught Me before all the world however, even so teach I you, so that the Father, Who now lives in the world, would dwell and witness in you as in Me of the arch-primordial pure truth, out of the eternal arch-foundation, which is called the love in God, which is actually the very Being of God Himself!
13
Hence do not be overly carried away by the signs that I work before your eyes, that you may not beget a dead faith under judgment profiting nothing; but live and act in accordance with what I teach you, and you shall then come by that which now you admire in Me and wonder at beyond measure; because you all are called to be perfect! Now you know all; do thus, and you shall come to discern from within whether I told you the truth or not! Prove My teaching through the deed therefore, with all diligence and remote from half-heartedness, and only then shall you find out whether this teaching is of man or of God!'
14
After this important instruction the commander says, 'Now it begins to dawn in me! Notwithstanding the incalculable depths of wisdom in all this, which for us ordinary people is at first hard to grasp, there yet is in the end not that much to it. For if insight can be gained only through the deed, then I leave all further brooding over it, after first getting initiated into the entire teaching by Jonael, then moving earnestly into full action. And this resolution stands!'
15
Say I, 'Good so, My friend; if you attain to the light in this way however, then let this light shine also for your brethren, then you shall prepare a reward in heaven therewith! - Now I have to attend to sundries. And so let us move on!'