The Great Gospel of John
Volume 10
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Der Herr in der Stadt am Nebo
- Chapter 199 -
The activities of the angels.
But Raphael stayed and he suddenly dressed himself in a dark grey coat, and his feet were clothed with shoes. His head was covered with a Jewish hat that was made as usual of silk or camel hair in an arbitrary but typically somewhat light color. And so he was not a noticeable figure anymore to anyone.
2
I said to the supreme judicial city officer: "Go to him, shake hands and greet him as a friend and brother, and convince yourself that also he has now flesh, skin and bones."
3
The supreme judicial city officer did immediately what I had advised him and he was greatly surprised that this angel spirit was now entirely as an earthly human being among them. He asked Raphael to come very close to him, which Raphael did at once and he took place next to him on a lawn.
4
Now also the Apollo priest went to Raphael, greeted him and said: "You will not be able to greatly rejoice in me, for I have been an idol worshipper as priest for a long time. Now I have also recognized the one and only true God and Lord, and as far as it will be in my power I will strive in the future to wipe away the whole worship of idols."
5
Raphael said to him: "And I will help you, and if you lack power, I will support you with mine. You can trust on that, for I was already with you before you recognized the Lord, and I made your heart receptive. Later I will be with you again and do the preliminary work among you gentiles. For you can believe me that we are not inactive when the Lord Himself put His hands to the work. And we, perfected angel spirits, are so-called as if the fingers on the hand of the Lord, and those fingers are active with everyone at each moment as long as he undertakes a work with his hands. So trust the promise of the Lord and I will not forsake you. Do you believe that?"
6
Then the supreme judicial city officer said: "Can you also do what the Lord Himself can do? But of course with permission of the Lord."
7
Raphael said: "My dear friend and brother, this was still a very human question from your mouth. None of us angels from the Heavens are capable, just as little as you men on Earth, to accomplish anything out of ourselves. But I already told you that we are in a certain way the fingers on His hand and the executioners of His will. Therefore, we are free beings, as if not limited by anything, being an outflow ourselves of the divine power and we can therefore accomplish all that this power reveals and wills in us, and what we then accomplish is not our work but only that of the Lord.
8
We are completely independent and also completely free in every respect, but since the greatest completeness exists only and solely in the wisdom and the will of the Lord, it is obvious that not only a human being but especially an angel spirit - who is actually also only a human being - will be more and more independent and free according to the measure that he made the wisdom and the will of the Lord as his own. I can even give you an earthly example of this. And so look:
9
You are here a prominent supreme judicial city officer and you not only have authority over this one city but also over 14 other cities. That power over the life and death of people was given to you by the emperor, completely free and without having to give an account. But how did you actually receive this significant earthly power?
10
Look, I will explain to you. By your studies of law you clearly showed at the severe exams in Rome that you made the will of the emperor as your own, in such a way that you made your own will completely subordinate to the emperor's will that you came to know through the laws by which you then became a totally new man whom you were not at the beginning of your studies. Since you deeply absorbed the law of the emperor, and so also his will, so much so that your old, apparently free will was bound with fixed shackles and chains by the emperor's new will in you, you did not lose anything, but on the contrary you won a lot more, for with your own old will, you always would have remained a slave of the imperial will, but since you made the will of the emperor as your own, you yourself became completely free, can do what you want and you do not have to give an account to anyone. And if someone would not follow your will, you have from the emperor the ius gladii in your hand, and by the power and authority of the emperor you can force the stubborn ones to be obedient.
11
And look, the more you strive to fulfill the will of the emperor as accurately as possible, about which the emperor can be informed in a very short time, the emperor will give you a higher, and qua sphere of influence, a more extensive office in which you will be able to act even more freely than now. And so you constantly can work yourself up till you finally will be called to the palace of the emperor and will order and act from there as if you were almost the emperor himself. Now ask yourself how you received such great power - and the answer in yourself can impossibly be a different one than: 'I entirely denied my old human will, so much so that nothing is left of it, except that by that old will I very zealously strived to make the will of the emperor completely as my own.'
12
And look now, it is exactly the same with us, perfected angel spirits. We also have our own, completely free will, yet it is infinitely more limited than the completely free will of the Lord Himself.
13
And the more we make the will of the Lord as our own, as if it is our own will itself, the more free might, power and authority will be our own, and we can then also accomplish everything and bring forth what the Lord Himself can accomplish and bring forth.
14
But now you will also realize yourself that we are not the ones who can do that, but only the Lord in and through us.
15
If someone in your district has robbed and killed, and was then caught and brought before you, you will sentence him and also let him be killed. With this, you have acted rightly because you acted according to the will of the emperor, and by that you are just like the emperor ex lege . However, the robber and murderer acted according to his own will and by that he perished.
16
Do you now understand how we also, angel spirits, possess the might and authority to do everything what the Lord Himself does, freely and without giving an account?"