The Great Gospel of John
Volume 6
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
At the Sea of Galilee (John 6)
- Chapter 55 -
On diseases and premature death.
Says a Greek Jew: "Lord and Master, this is now quite clear to us, but there is still something for which I have no true explanation. Why do so many children have to die at the most tender age while still undeveloped, and why must physical death almost always be preceded by a bad illness which weakens and kills the body? Once a man is mature, he could as a soul leave the body easily and painlessly, and children should never die before reaching a certain maturity. However, what happens all the time is this: Children die at any age, and the bad diseases are always there and are a continual plague for men. O Lord and Master, why must that be so on this earth?"
2
Said I: "This need not be so at all and was not the case in the deep past, for do you ever read in a chronicle of bad illnesses amongst the men who were devoted to God and living according to His commandments!? They all lived to a ripe old age and their passing was a gentle, painless going to sleep. Also, no child ever died, for it was begotten by very healthy parents and nourished and raised according to sound and simple natural principles.
3
Only later, when arrogance and with it a whole legion of the grossest sins against God's commandments and laws of nature gained entrance among people, did all sorts of bad ailments occur among them through their own fault. The thus weakened people could then no longer beget healthy children. Such children, already crippled from the womb, gradually became prone to more and more attacks from all kinds of diseases and began to die at all ages.
4
Because this is now happening you must not think that God had ordained this for men for some inexplicable, secret reason. He allowed it, firstly, so that the people be prevented from too much sinning through their ailments and, secondly, that they through their painful suffering distance themselves from the world, go into themselves, recognize their sins, detest them and in patient submission to God's will attain eternal bliss.
5
This is also the case with children. What is on this earth to become of a child that is physically completely stunted, particularly if the parents have already been born in sin? Who will educate them and who heal them from their ailments? Is it not better to take them away from this world so that they can be raised by the angels in the specially created realm of children?
6
I tell you: God knows about everything and He cares for everything! However, since most men nowadays no longer know about God and His existence, how can they be expected to know what God does and what He ordains for their possible redemption?
7
If God had not allowed the corresponding ailments to follow the sins of men, more than half of mankind would totally perish and the earth would turn into a complete hell and had to be destroyed, its dead wreckage wandering about in endless space, as this visible space of stars and worlds can testify with similar examples, about which My disciples can tell you more. - And now I ask you how you have understood this?"
8
Say the Greek Jews: "Yes, Lord and Master, now also this matter is clear to us, and we can no longer be upset at all, although we have been very ill quite a few times and probably in the end will be dispatched from this world into the next through some bad illness, for throughout our lives we have very often and badly sinned. But now we would like to hear from You one more thing, namely, what sins cause the most and worst diseases to come into this world, for there must be differences also in this."