The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 35 -
Jesus, the hero in the battle against death.
A second of the five says, "Yes, brothers, our hopes are based on this alone! He Himself will have to face a powerful battle with the power of death; but we no longer doubt in the certain victory! For He knows the swoon of death and knows all his limits and also knows that the only power which death still has is only a bound urge to live; and this single power cannot go against him, but only for Him and with Him into battle against it, to prevent to render itself unconscious and therefore fully dead!
2
The fighting life which He is Himself, must remain in eternal advantage against the power of death because the actual perfect death is every power and it is a pebble in the powerful hand of a flinger who can do whatever he wants with it.
3
But if there is power in death or in the physically animated flesh of man, it is also a life, if on a very low level; but this life will not wage war with true life for fear of its own destruction, instead it will hang on to life and fight against the power of death, just as a fatally ill flesh grabs onto its cup of health with greed and brings it to its mouth to live a little longer and to be taken up in the end by the same.
4
If life has found itself, as in our savior who we have not yet personally recognized, since it is perfectly divine and there cannot be another power besides him which could succeed because there can be no other power besides this!
5
We know what this Earth is, what the sun, moon and countless stars are; they are mostly incredibly great celestial bodies, some even indescribably greater than this Earth of ours. They are probably dead, depending on their great body; but the power of the life of God nevertheless enters all the countless bodies in one necessary movement, and that is not simple, but very varied.
6
What can all these countless giants do against the immediate urgent power of free godly life? Nothing! Like a dust from a storm they will be driven by the power of the life of God in immeasurably great paths and all uncountable many can never resist the freest power of life, as little as the myriads of grains of dust can resist the storm which lifts them from a barren heath driving them into the wind in great distances!
7
Thus He will win and has actually won a long time ago! But for the sake of people, so that they have part of the victory of life against death in them, a new and final battle will be waged!
8
And so I see then over the whole infinity with eternally shining words, and the words say (listen!) "He, the life itself from eternity, has fully vanquished death with the weapons of death itself; and death must destroy itself so that all life will be free through Him alone, the fighter of eternity! Therefore all holiness be to You alone, You eternally great One!"
9
These words shocked all those present so that they through themselves on the ground and exclaimed with all power, "Yes, yes, yes, to You alone, You eternally great One, all bliss be with You!"
10
Through this act the five finally recognized Me, and Mathael, in tears of thanks, finally said with the greatest emotion, "So You - You - are the eternally great One! Oh, what a sight for us dead, to see the only living One!" - At this he was silent, sunk, as all the others present, into deep contemplation.