The Great Gospel of John
Volume 10
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord in Aphek
- Chapter 96 -
The Lord teaches about the downfall of mankind.
On this I said to the pagan priest: "It was not totally incorrect in your speech to Me to say that certain deities only existed from the fantasy of men who wanted to rule over their fellowmen, and these had to work and fight for them so that such rulers could have a very good life and enjoy themselves.
2
But look, in the beginning of time when men lived on Earth it was not so. Then everyone knew the one, only true God, and many thousand times thousands were instructed, guided and protected by Him. It was profoundly and thoroughly shown to everyone that of their own free will they should not let themselves be captured by all the enticements, because these would draw the soul in the judgment of matter and its death, and would make them deaf, blind and insensible for all that is divine and purely spiritual.
3
But since God gave the greatest possible freedom of will to everyone to follow His advice or the attraction of the world, very soon many people let themselves be seduced and blinded by the world. By that they lost contact with God, because their inner sight became completely blinded by the bad love for the world.
4
And look, only when a great part of the people were blinded by the world and forgot by that the only true God completely, the blind people began to make all kinds of gods for themselves that had to help these blind worldly people out of their great need - because they were visited by God with all kinds of afflictions in order to turn them away from the world - and this was done by payment of all kinds of offerings and by the prayers of the priests, out of which all too soon proud rulers came up.
5
But they were not helped, because the one, only true God could not and might not help them, so that they would not have become even more blind and godless. For if God would have given them the help they wanted after they called upon their false and totally non-existing gods, that would really have been a true triumph for the greedy and extremely imperious priests, and the one who would have been helped would wear himself out in bringing offerings to make the priests and gods never become hostile to him again.
6
And look, the Jews, who are the chosen people of God - because out of love for Him their fathers resisted the longest not to let themselves be seduced and blinded by the world - have in the course of time also turned away from God and turned to the world just like the gentiles, and that is why they also became deaf and blind, and now worse than the gentiles, because these are again beginning to search for what was lost, and many of them have found it again completely.
7
But for most of the leading Jews it still did not come into their mind to search for what was lost - the eternal truth. They feel very comfortable in their life of night. Although they feel within themselves that they are godless, they do not want to show anything to the people about this because of the rich offerings, and they are the most bitter enemies of the one who wants to give a true light to the people, show them the right way to God and who would truly help them to search and surely find Him.
8
Therefore, the little light that those Jews still have, who are completely pining away, will also be taken away from them and given to the gentiles who are really longing for it."