The Great Gospel of John
Volume 6
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord on the Mount of Olives (John Chapter 8)
- Chapter 220 -
Renunciation of the world and the Kingdom of God.
Hereupon I said: "And blessed is also he, who is not annoyed about Me! You blind pharisees say: 'If the sky is red in the evening, tomorrow will be a nice day; however if the morning is red, the day will be murky!' These signs you can assess: How can you not see the signs of these great times, which are given to you by Me? But you also see these signs and understand them as well; but because of your love for the world, you do not want to accept them and also prevent the people from doing so. And as such you don't want yourself to enter the kingdom of heaven but also prevent anyone else from entering; and therefore one day you will be overcome by even more damnation!
2
if a blind bumps against a rock, nobody can accuse him of any mistake. But if someone seeing does so, it is obviously a coarse mistake, since he could see, that a stone lies on the path. And it is even more so with spiritual matters. Who, based on his soul blindness, cannot understand these signs and words which I do and speak, it will not be counted as a sin against him, however to him manifold, who sees and still stays an enemy of the truth!
3
This is the case now with you pharisees and scribes. You recognize it yourself quite well that I am the Promised; but at the same time you also recognize that your completely destroyed Judaism cannot exist alongside My teaching, because you have nearly abolished Moses and the prophets altogether and in stead have set up your own doctrine to suppress the people, the widows and the orphans rather than to uplift them. And because you do that and not convert to Me, your sin remains with you and together with it, judgement and death! Truly, with the same measure your are measuring, one day you will be repaid by My true Father!"
4
Said one of the pharisees who was previously a complete unbeliever: "Master, this is a strange speech from you! Can it then never happen that from now on we also can become your disciples?"
5
Said I: "You can become My disciples indeed, but not that easily as you might think; for who wants to become My disciple, must break from the world completely and may not look at its temptations; since all the world is a continual judgement and perpetual death! Who loves the world, is not suitable to become a true disciple of Mine; since the love for the world has no life as foundation, but only judgement and death. However I do not need dead disciples but totally free and living disciples. If you can become such, you can also stay with Me!
6
Since I did not come into this world, to judge all the blind and shortsighted people, but I have come to search for what is lost, to heal the sick, to uplift what is bend down and to redeem all the prisoners. Who is helped by Me, shall be helped forever; but who does not accept My help, nobody else will be able to help him, not in heaven nor on earth.
7
I do not mean here My personality, but My teaching; since this is the kingdom of God which has now come close to you and gives to everyone, who lives accordingly, the everlasting life. Verily, I Myself will not judge anybody; however the word, which I speak to you, will judge you, just as the truth judges and the lie kills!"
8
Said the scribe: "Master, you have now spoken well and wise, and it is so; but there is still something with which I can not get along so well, and this consists of the following: You said that one should not love the world because the world is the judgement and death. Now, this is quite true, - but now one should consider how large the earth is and how many people involuntary live on it! Who comes to them and bring them consolation and the gospel from heaven? They grow up wildly like weed on a pasture and know nothing. Should also such people, who were put totally blind by the almighty will of God on this earth which carries and feeds them, have no love for it?
9
Our Judaism is already more heathenism than a true Judaism; how does it then look like with other nations and people? Since according to our knowledge, thinking and memory, no person can help it that he is born without will into this truly bad and wretched world! Once he is there however, he is immediately plagued from birth to the edge of his grave by everything possible. This is then concluded with a painful and bitter death.
10
Yes, if one thinks this over a little, involuntary the very important question arises: Why I am a person in the first place? Who placed me in this vale of tears and why?
11
When man considers his whole misery, he cannot really be blamed, when starting to search in the world for a little place, where he can make his lot a little more tolerable. Now, after a lot of hard work and troubles he finally finds such a little place, where it goes a little better and more quietly for the remaining moments of his life, - then immediately prophets and messengers full of the spirit of God arrive and convey to him the rage of God, judgement, death and a lot of other truly not gratifying things, and this labouriously accomplished little place of rest is something of the past.
12
Yes, if man would have concluded a contract with God since birth, under which conditions he has to live on this earth, then this would be of course entirely different! But as it is now, one is born totally naked and blind and nearly completely unconscious into this world and immediately tormented by all kinds of suffering. And once one has finally become a man under all kinds of suffering and tribulations - say - with even a healthy body and could here and there steal a happy day from life, it already starts raining all kinds of laws from all sides, and the happy days are over! Since if I had used it, I had sinned against many of the laws, which afterwards fully activates the painful conscience; however, if I would have the laws before my eyes, now, then there would also be no happy day anymore! Yes, why is that so?
13
I believe now that you are him who can really help us; but what happens to the other countless many living people on this earth? Who helps them? And why are we Jews, and the Greeks and the Romans are not helped earlier?"