The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 204 -
The nature of true revelation.
I say, "Oh, not at all! Goodness and truth are the same, whether a man discovers it by active searching or whether it is revealed to him directly by God; for finding the truth oneself is also a revelation from above, but an indirect one, and the means for it was active searching.
2
Through such research the soul frees itself from the rough bond of matter and awakens thereby for moments the divine spirit in itself, or it comes more into the living centre of its heart, to there flows God's light and compassion constantly and ceaselessly and likewise creates for the soul life and spiritual growth, as the sun fills the furrows of the earth with light and warmth and thereby awakes, maintains and encourages the life and flourishing of the plants until a free, independent and fully ripe fruit is created from the plant, whose own life is no longer dependent on the plant, but persists on itself.
3
When the soul comes into the mentioned living centre of the heart in true, lively moments, it has also reached the revelation of the spirit of God in every human heart and can do nothing else but find the eternally unchanged truth from God in itself. And that is an indirect revelation and differs from the direct revelation only in that God, at the occasion of great darkness of nations, awakens suitable people without their own initiative and leads their soul into the centre of life in order to create eye-opening light again for the other blind people.
4
And there is another difference between the indirect and direct revelation, and this consists of this: The indirect revelation gives the seeker only a correct light on a matter which he particularly wants to understand. It is like a lamp with which one can illuminate dark room quite brightly; but the direct one is like the sun on the brightest midday, whose powerful light illuminates the whole world in all its great and little trenches, so also the direct revelation.
5
This one (the direct revelation compared to the sun) is not only valid for the people to whom it is given, but for all people, and immediately for the nation to which the prophet belongs; but because there are genuine and true prophets called by God, we can also easily imagine that there will also be false ones, and for the following reasons which are easy to understand:
6
A true prophet must come to a sort of esteem among his fellow people; for his prophecies and also his deeds as proof of the divinity of his awakening must create a certain respect among the ordinary everyday person - whether he likes the prophecies or not, and whether they correspond with his earthly interests or not.
7
A prophet, however, grows among people of better sense without his will into an unreachable giant and can never escape the certain pious respect and reverence, no matter how humble he is and must be otherwise.
8
Now, other worldly people see that, whose reason is often very inventive; for there has never been a lack of snake like cleverness among the children of the world. These worldly people also want a reputation and an easily visible earthly gain.
9
They begin to study and often invent things with the help of Satan and make seemingly wise statements so that the lay people do not know how to distinguish in the end between what is true and genuine and what is false and evil.
10
But how can one nevertheless tell a false prophet from a genuine one? Quite easily: in their fruit!
11
For one cannot gather grapes and figs from thorns and thistles!
12
The genuine prophet will never and impossibly be selfish, and any arrogance will be foreign to him. He will probably gratefully accept whatever good and noble hearts give him; but he will never demand fees of anyone because he knows that this is an abomination to God, and because God can keep His servants very well!
13
But the false prophet will allow himself to be paid for every step and deed and for every so-called divine act for the simulated and lied good of humanity. The false prophet will thunder on about the judgment of God and even judge in the name of God with fire and sword; but the genuine prophet will judge no-one, but only advise the sinner to repent and will make no difference between large and small and between respected and non-respected people. For only God means anything to him and God's word - everything else is a vain madness for him.
14
There will never be a contradiction in the true prophet's speech; but bring speech of the false prophet into the light and it will be crawling with contradictions. No-one can ever offend the true prophet, he will bear everything like a lamb, whatever the world may do to him; he will only rise up in fiery anger against lies and arrogance and beat them down.
15
The false prophet is constantly a deadly enemy of every truth and every better progress in thought and in deed; no-one but he should know anything or have any experience so that everyone is always and in all things forced to seek expensive advice from him for money.
16
The false prophet thinks only about himself; God and His order are annoying and laughable things in which he has not even the smallest spark of faith, therefore he can make a god out of wood and stone with the lightest conscience in the world, however he likes. That then such a god can easily work wonders for the thoroughly blind people through the hands of the false prophet will be very easily understood!"
17
Shabbi says, "Oh, eminent friend, I know, and all of us know, how the false fellows present themselves and how they perform miracles; for me they are beasts and no longer people! For I find in the world no greater shame than if such a spiritual deceiver of the people demands that his unknowing brothers believe something which he laughs about, and personally hardly understands how humans can be so terribly stupid as to accept such a terrible nonsense as pure gold.
18
Oh, eminent friend, what you have said just now, I know very well! But I could not tell the difference between an indirect and direct revelation; but I am glad that what the will of a person has found and discovered through his active investigation is finally also a revelation from above. Naturally not every person can be a prophet for all the people; but if the indirect prophet has found and discovered something very useful in a specifically personal sphere, even if only for the purpose of physical advantage, with time this will also come into use for the benefit of a whole nation, and then the indirect exceptional prophet can be and become a general one!
19
Let's take the certainly pre-flood invention of the plough! This invaluably useful agricultural tool was certainly invented by an active and thinking person on the way of indirect revelation. His name has not been written down through history, it is true, but what an incalculable use his invention has brought to humanity! And so there are a large number of such generally useful inventions of hundreds of tools and implements which have an infinite value. But their inventors were certainly very active, modest and undemanding people, otherwise the scribes would certainly have written down their names just like the names of those who ruled over the people and in general brought them very little use.
20
I am of the opinion that those people are the greatest benefactors of a nation, who they taught to think according to the truth and enriched them with useful inventions!
21
The use of the general, purely spiritual prophets is still very much up in the air these days. They certainly rebuked wild afflictions of the nation and tamed the terrible mischievous wrong-doers. They mostly announced God and His rule and His desire and His intentions in strongly enwrapped words; but the people did not understand them in the clearest sense and therefore still did what they wanted according to their worldly desires and let God and His eminent prophets be good men.
22
This way the obscure paganism was created and with it, all imaginable variations of darkest superstition, but the plough remained plough and the saw a saw, and the axe an axe - and the heathen, just as the arch-Jew, make equal use of such useful inventions!
23
There is finally the big question of what sort of genuine prophet finally has a more general value for humanity!
24
People think very much, it is true, and understand quite a few things, but to understand a Daniel, or an Isaiah, or a Jeremiah, or even a Song of Solomon - human thought is of no use - it is all in vain! Only God or some spirit of an angel can understand it, or a prophet specially awakened to this purpose. Only these three types of spirits can possibly understand this; for every other spirit it is purely impossible. But now begs the question what a high wisdom is good for if no mortal can understand it!?"