The Great Gospel of John
Volume 6
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and the Priests of the Temple (John 5)
- Chapter 39 -
A good end does not justify bad means.
I said: "Your art is in itself quite good, as far as the experiments with the forces of nature, mechanics and healings are concerned, and in time some earthly advantage can grow out of this for man. However everything that appears in the faces of people, who have an equal value before God, more of a profitable illusion, is bad and is not pleasing to God, the only Lord of all the world and creation, as I also have told and shown such already to the Essenes at a given opportunity, who do similar things. For even if the purpose was basically still so good, which could however only be achieved through a deceitful and thus very bad means, the actually good purpose thereby can never become blessed and never become good.
2
For example: There was a very painfully ill man, and the best doctors knew no further means to heal the person from his great pain. But then it occurred to someone, and he said to the other doctors: 'Since this person is no longer to be helped by any means, let us give him a quick fatal poison, and at once he will be free from all his suffering!' As fast as it is said, it is done, and the suffering man was gone in an instant. Yes, these doctors have indeed freed the ill man from all his pain; but they have killed him, without thinking why God allowed such suffering to come to him, and what might become of his soul in the beyond. And as such the means was bad, which therefore can never bring about an absolutely good and pure purpose.
3
And behold, this is how it is with all such false miracles! And even if they are accompanied by good, moral teaching for the good of mankind and declared to be divine effects, nonetheless they basically do not achieve anything good; for they awake in the minds of the people a coerced gullibility, from which arise all kinds of evil superstition and finally a fanatic hatred towards everyone believing something else. And if they finally get to the bottom of the deception by someone's clear spirit however, and learn how the miracle that they believed to be divine was actually a very natural one, they also let go of all the actually good lessons based on it, start to believe in nothing any more and become tigers and hyenas towards their teachers and miracle-workers.
4
But from this it can easily be seen how a good purpose can never be achieved through bad means; for if the support is bad and fragile, how can a complete firm building ever exist on it?!
5
A solid castle can never be built on a bad and loose foundation, and equally so can an education for truly bettering and enlivening man, never be achieved through deceptive means.
6
Even the greatest states of this world, before once half the globe trembled, in the end collapsed like loose chaff because the foundation on which they were built was itself nothing but a vain chaff-like illusion.
7
But this is why I came into this world from above, in order to show and to give man the full truth in everything. And whoever remains and lives in such truth will truly be free and have eternal life in himself, which never can be achieved through any illusions but only through the purest and most solid truth.
8
And this is actually the kingdom that I am now establishing. It is a kingdom of love, light and thus the purest and most solid truth. Its king will indeed never sit upon an earthly throne and will not take any golden sceptre into his hand and will carry no other weapon than the truth alone; but this weapon will nonetheless give him the most shining victory over all the nations of the earth and over all of its creatures for eternity, and salvation to him who allows himself to be conquered by this purest weapon from heaven!
9
And now I say to you all seriously that I am the same person whom you are seeking, and whom you honoured even as a new-born child.
10
But I also say to you all now that I do not take any honour from man now or in the future, but instead there is One who is One with Me, who is the only One who honours Me, and His name is called: Love, Light, Truth and Life. He is the primordial reason of all things and the eternal being and existence Himself, and everything that there is and exists, is and comes from Him. Do you now understand what is going on?"