The Great Gospel of John
Volume 4
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi (cont.)
- Chapter 141 -
The wrath of God.
Thereupon Cyrenius said, somewhat embarrassed: "Lord, no one but me has asked You anything, and it looks as if You, as God, as my Lord and my Creator, bear me a grudge because of this."
2
Says I: "How can you misunderstand My words to such a degree? How can I bear you a grudge when I show you in full earnest and forever truly what is most necessary for your life and that of every other human? Behold, how limited your power of judgment still is. When will it become of age? To whom can the purest original love of all love in God ever bear a grudge?
3
Whenever you read about a wrath of God you should thereby understand the eternally even and firm earnest of His will; and this earnest of will in God is the innermost heart of the very same purest and mightiest love from which infinity and all the works in it have gone forth like the chicks are hatched from the egg, - surely, this love can never bear anyone a grudge in eternity! Or does anyone of you think that God, like a foolish man, could be angry?"
4
Here the old senior priest Stahar comes to Me and says: "Lord, forgive me if I allow myself to make a remark regarding the point of the wrath of God!
5
If one, connected with a firm believe in God, looks at the old world history, one cannot completely deny it, that God at times when man became too unruly, let them feel His wrath and His revenge in a especially pitiless severity.
6
'The wrath is Mine and the revenge is Mine!', speaks the Lord through the mouth of the prophet. That it is like that, is demonstrated by the casting out of Adam from Paradise, the great flood during the times of Noah, the acceptance of the curse of Noah over one of his sons; later the destruction of Sodom, Gomorra and the surrounding ten cities at the locality which we today call the Dead Sea, still later the plagues befalling Egypt and the Israelites in the desert; then the most murdering wars against the Philistines, the Babylonian exile and, finally, the total subjugation of the People of God by the might of the heathens!
7
Lord, who looks a little at this behaviour of God against the sinners, who are nobody else than we the people, and takes this to heart, can impossibly come to no other conclusion than a real wrath and the most perfect revenge of Jehovah!
8
Of course one could say: This is how God raises in all seriousness His people and entire, large nations with the appropriate punishing stick in His hand! But the strikes and blows certainly does not look like coming from the hand of a most loving father, but everywhere a terrible furious judge on life and death and pestilence and fire is visible, even if in certain aspects quite justifiable!
9
This is just my opinion, this means if the world history is telling us the full truth; but if all the sad examples of this what God has done, is only fiction, than this what one calls wrath and fury of God, can indeed be the core of His everlasting and purest love. I only have brought this forward, since You, o Lord, have mentioned the topic regarding wrath and fury Yourself earlier on!
10
It will most likely be as You, o Lord, have told us earlier; but it is strange that always during historic times when the fury of God was announced and people dit not better themselves and did not repent their sins, the most material punishment without mercy followed, and this on a large scale but also localized, and in general but also specifically! Now, how this is harmonized with the most pure, wrathless and furyless love, it would surely be worth the trouble if we can be a little enlightened about it during this opportunity!"