The Great Gospel of John
Volume 1
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Second day in Sychar
- Chapter 83 -
At Sychar. Important missionary hints. The power of truth. About the essence of the Lord's Word. The grace of man's calling to the childhood of God. The Lord wants no pessimists or condemners of the world. Life-hints. What the world is, and how it is to be utilised. Departure from Sychar.
1
(I continue), 'The teaching itself must justify the truth. Whoever will henceforth fail to live according to the Word will die in the judgement of the same Word that was spoken to him and which he had not believed and trusted.
2
For just as I, out of Myself, have received the power from the Father to give eternal life to everyone who is capable (of receiving it) through his will, or take it from him, the same can be done also by My Word. For My Word is invariably the almighty and everlasting expression of My will.
3
He who fully absorbs My Word and unfailingly acts and lives according to it, thereby absorbs Me with all My love, wisdom, might and power and has thus become a true child of God from whom the Father in heaven will not withhold anything He has.
4
The Holy Father cannot do any more than reveal Himself in person in Me, His Son, making of you, created beings under judgement, absolutely free gods and calling you His friends and brothers.
5
Do consider at all times who He is who is now revealing this to you and what you are receiving with this revelation, then the material world will no longer tempt you and you will easily overcome it. This is all the more necessary since you cannot become children of the Father in heaven unless you have completely conquered the world within yourselves
6
I do not intend thereby to make of you low-spirited condemners of the world, but only wise users of it.
7
Would you not call him a fool who became so attached to some well serviceable tool he needs for his trade, that he does not want to use it for the purpose for which it is intended, but only keeps gaping at it with intense pleasure, keeping it in a cabinet to prevent it from rusting and thereby becoming less beautiful which would lessen his empty pleasure in it?
8
The world is also a tool for you with which, if appropriately used, you could produce much that is good and magnificent. But being My disciples now you must use this tool in the way I, as your sole and truest Master, have taught you during three and a half days.
9
Used and applied thus, this tool will prepare and secure for you eternal life, But if you use it in a different way, this tool will become like a very sharp knife in the hands of small children who could only too easily deal themselves a deadly wound with it which hardly any physician will be able to heal.
10
Receive also My full blessing with these words and do pass them on to all those who have not been able to hear them, so that in the end no one will be able to plead ignorance of My teaching.
11
And now, those few disciples of Mine, and also those of you who followed Me here from Galilee and Jerusalem, make ready for the journey and namely Galilee, where you can once again attend to the tilling of your fields!'
12
With this exhortation I arise, giving also the remaining angels a sign which only they can understand, whereupon all but the one assigned to Jonael disappear. The visible portals of heaven also close, but Irhael and Joram's house remains with all its heavenly outfit, as does Jairuth's castle. All the awoken ones see us out to the gate. The chief commander however would not miss out on escorting Me to the town's precincts, then turning back to Sychar.