The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 9 -
The advantages of renunciation.
I say, "But that matters not; I force no one! Whoever wants to follow Me, he should follow; but whoever does not want to and cannot, he should stay at home!
2
But in these days the Kingdom of God suffers violence; and those who do not seize hold of it with violence, they will not possess it.(Matt. 11:12)
3
But in view of My rather difficult conditions that I have set you I say: If you have an old and tattered tunic, in which it is an embarrassment to walk amongst people, and a person comes to you with a new, good tunic and says to you, Friend, take off your old tunic and destroy it, because it cannot be used any more in future, and I will give you here a new one for it which will last for all time because it is woven from a material which no storm can ever destroy! - will you be an idiot at such a request and keep the old, rotten tattered tunic?
4
Further you know as well as your companions that this earthly schooling and time of testing lasts only an extremely short time and after it the endless eternity begins. Do you really know how and whether you will have any sort of afterlife following the death of this body? I alone am in the position to give you and any man the eternal, most perfect life of an angel in return for this short and pitiful life.
5
Will you really have some doubt to accept my offer, when I am the only one who can prepare for you eternal life and give it to you as yours? Truly, I ask very little - and in return give very much!
6
Do you think then, the Earth would be barren and empty if with time all people accepted the demands of My teaching, as will happen one day? Oh, you short-sighted Pharisee!
7
Here, look at my angel! He alone has so much power and strength from Me, that he, if I wanted, could destroy in one moment, as he destroyed the stone earlier, this whole Earth, the great sun, the moon and all the other visible stars in comparison with whose size this whole Earth can hardly be called a grain of sand. But if you believe that the cultivation of the Earth depends only on people, then you are severely mistaken!
8
I will give you a piece of land, but set My curse on it beforehand, and you may work in it as you will and it will never even bring you thorns to feed the worms! The sower may well lay the seed in the tilled ground; but My angels must work at the sowing and so bless the field, otherwise it will eternally bear no fruit for you! Do you understand that?
9
But if the head workers of the earth are also my angels, then they can take on the sowing in emergencies as they do in parts of the Earth which no man"s foot has yet touched.
10
But because the people suffer from an old curse and want to work themselves with all power for their own bodies, well, My angels can have the time off!"