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 224 -
The Pharisee's objection.
After this My reply the scribe did not know what answer he should give to Me; since on the one hand he felt too much pointed at and on the other hand did the people rejoiced loudly about this My strong reply. And as such these seven clerics were like nailed to the ground, and not one was able to say one reasonable word against Me. In addition they were secretly quite cross with Me, because I told them without holding back, the full truth to their faces.
2
However, after a while the pharisee collected himself again and said: "But Lord and Master, what You tell us here now, we knew long ago! That we could not act differently, will also be clear to You! You could tell us all this and even a lot more, and we couldn't care less, - but only in a different way! But You bring this matter before us, as if we ourselves have rejected the last books of Moses and if it was us that have stoned the prophets! If you would have been personally with Your body among us, this matter would never have gotten so far; now You have suddenly arrived, and everything is above all heavens wrong, - and we cannot change all this from today to tomorrow! What are we five, counting against five-thousand of our colleagues?!
3
We ourselves will in future not have much to do in the temple; however, we are not guilty alone that things are as bad and evil as they currently are. Tell us, what should we do differently regarding the temple, other than turning our backs on it in a nice way? For if we start tomorrow to speak out for a good case, we will be stoned tomorrow, and Your case would not yield anything thereby; if we however turn forever our backs on Jerusalem and its false teachers under any pretext as suggested by the Roman, I am of the opinion that we under the acceptance of Your teaching are doing everything, what we in our current situation as weak mortal people are able to do, and more You Yourself, even as God, cannot ask from us! Give us Your wills-almightiness and we will soon be in order with the temple! However, that You accuse us of being indescribable bad, false and evil, while we want to believe in You, at least I do not find very praiseworthy!"
4
Said I: "My dear people, for the blind it is difficult to write and it is hard to preach to the deaf! If I put your case, which still clings quite strongly to your person, before your eyes for your betterment, do I then mean you personally?! What I present is the spirit of your temple matters, and this not only concerns you, but all the Jews.
5
The truth is the sun of the spirit, and it must shine to all people without any politeness clouds! The illuminated cloud however is not a sun, and a foolish politeness is as good as a smoothened lie, which can bring nobody to the true salvation of his soul. Therefore everybody should speak the truth openly, if he want to be useful; since nobody is served with only a half truth! With Me there is no holding back and clemency, but only love and light! And if I would not be as truthful as I am, where would be this heaven and this earth and where and what would be the people?! I have not come to flatter the people, but to teach them the truth and to give them the everlasting life through the truth. And for that any holding back and sparing is of no use. - Think about that and only then say, if I had been hard against you!"
6
Said the pharisee: "Yes, You are quite right in that, and the people are not worth Your love and therefore cannot thank you enough, that You have come in the flesh to them, to give them the right light and show them the true road to the everlasting life. But there is still one thing which we people can say to You and this consists therein: You have never been among the people like now and has taught them to recognize You, Your will and their destination. There always were very experienced and inspired people - called prophets -, who stated to be seized by Your spirit; and who not spoke themselves, but only Your spirit through their mouth. To support their message they also performed extraordinary signs, as it can be read in the books; but they were still people and had to die, although often speaking and writing about the everlasting life. Even Moses was not excluded from it. Only about Elias the scriptures say that he has ascended to heaven in a fiery carriage and only left his coat behind to his disciple Elisa. This story however still reaches a little into the unbelievable and cannot serve as a norm, because not before and also not afterwards did something similar happened to any other great wise.
7
But because all these prophets have died and after their death nobody could learn anything from them, and the people in time started more and more to doubt them, that after the death of the body a life of the soul in the beyond exists, and finally they created for themselves a more comfortable life norm than the one which the prophet introduced and arranged.
8
Even if then a prophet rose among the people again and stated that God speaks through him, they only became annoyed about him and said to him: 'Prove yourself as immortal just like Elias!' or 'Call the long gone fathers and prophets, that we can see them and that they can give us a living testimony - firstly that there really exists a life after death, and secondly, that you are a true prophet! If you cannot give us that proof, we believe you just as little as we have never ever believed the old prophets in the past and also will not ever believe them in future; since they have died, just as you will die, and nobody ever has heard anything from them. We have preserved their scriptures indeed, but the insatiable earth has devoured them all. To what use are all their scriptures full of teachings about the everlasting life, if they as teachers after their death cannot give us the most assuring proof, that they are their teaching's truth?!'
9
See, Lord and Master, this is how in time the people started to think and also to act and also have killed the prophets, if they as usual did not stop to announce all kinds of punishments to them! Why is it not allowed that a dead prophet at times comes back to earth, and provides with his appearance a testimony, what he taught on earth in the flesh? And why are always the people accused about their incredulity?
10
If only one time somebody would come - of course in a manner that one had to recognize him as he who was once on earth in the flesh, it would strengthen the believe and the people would surly live according to his teachings. But according to our good knowledge this never happened, and as such it is quite obvious that the people became doubting and disbelieving. That for the long time already the temple became completely anti-Moses, is mainly the result of what I already have said, as well as, that the Sadducees who separated from us, very openly do not believe in the immortality of the soul anymore. And who can, strictly speaking, blame them based on reasonable grounds? And as such the clerics are not the only ones to be blamed for the evilness which now rules the temple, but rather the old prooflessness for a life after the death of the body. If the tangible proof for that is lacking, the faith to a God falls away by itself; and even if one still believes in an existence of God, one still does not have a right respect and love for Him and regards His laws given to mankind as inventions of man, which might have been quite good for a certain time period for the life circumstances of the people at that stage, however for present times are not really applicable anymore. I do not say this here to beautify us and the temple; but it is also not really a lie that it was so and still remains so.
11
You, Lord and Master, equipped with all fullness of the spirit of God, are now of course the strongest proof and warranty for an everlasting life of the soul after death; but except for us there still exist countless many other people, who will have to live without this most strongest proof forever. Can they be regarded guilty if they do not believe in an everlasting life of the soul after the death of the body and worship rather the sun or fire as a Godhead? Would it not be possible that at least the deceased parents could come to their children and say, what they have to expect after leaving the body, what the soul is and how she looks like?
12
However, something like that does not take place, and therefore everything said about the beyond is a kind of fable, in which only an insane person can believe, which however a deep thinking person can never accept as an absolute truth! And we priests are doing actually something good, if we hold the people in the deepest possible blindness and present to them with great pomp and seriousness all kind of nice smelling spectacle about the beyond. For if we would give to the people our deeper mind education, the people soon would find themselves in an indescribable horrible state.
13
Only we priests keep the people in check, to diligently work the earth and conscientiously pay the tenth, - and they are content with it. But of course this contentment comes soon to and end, if uninvited prophets appear every now and then among the people and instigate them against us. I do not refer here to You, Lord and Master, since You are not a prophet, but the Lord Himself; I only refer to such prophets as I have described them earlier.
14
Did I now spoke correctly and presented our case of faith according to the truth as it is, or not? I will certainly be thankful to everyone who can give me a better and more true teaching; since it is surly no joke to think all the time about death and a certain destruction, to which in all the world one cannot find any counter proof. Since everything dies and passes and does not reappear again. Even stones weather and dissolve in volatile dust, out of which no hard rock forms anymore, just like no person will ever rise from the grave anymore on a day of judgement, although we teach such to the people! - I have spoken."