The Great Gospel of John
Volume 7
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord on the Mount of Olives. (cont.) Gospel of John, Chapter 8
- Chapter 68 -
The nature of the angels.
Said Agrikola to Raphael: "Dearest servant of our God, Lord and Master! As a pure spirit what is your body made of here? Is this also as with me, made up of flesh and blood?"
2
Said Raphael: "Touch me and convince yourself!"
3
The Roman examined the hands and feet of the angel and found that it was made from flesh and blood as with any other human, and he said: "Yes, there is nothing spiritual to feel, - nevertheless, you are supposed to be a pure spirit, and as such nearly as old as mankind on this earth?"
4
Said the angel: "Examine me once more, and we shall see, how you will judge afterwards!"
5
Here the Roman examined the angel again; but now he no longer felt a body, and wherever he touched the angel, his fingers moved through as easily as through the air.
6
After he made this second experience, he said, highly amazed: "Ah, this can make even the most intelligent person to doubt himself! First everything was solid and now everything is air and therefore as good as absolutely nothing! Yes, but tell me - if you as such an airy phenomenon still can speak -, where have you put your former, quite tangible body?"
7
Said the angel: "Nowhere, I still have it precisely as before! That you felt it earlier as a solid body, was my free will; and that you didn't felt it the second time, was also my will. Since what we perfected spirits want, happens as we want it to happen, by our freedom and wisdom, either within a moment or in time according to a certain wise order.
8
Because through our love for God we are also completely in His for us endurable and recognizable wisdom and power, and as such God's love is also our love. His wisdom our wisdom, His will our will and His power also our power. Nevertheless, there still exist unfathomable depths in God, which no created spirit can ever fathom; and if he were able to do this, he would not be blessed, because then he could not expect any increasing bliss from God. - Do you Romans understand this?"
9
Said some of the Romans: "Well, friend - even if you are a spirit -, to understand and comprehend this properly, more is required than our Roman mind! Everything will be as you said it; but the actual how will have to wait until we ourselves have become more developed in our souls."
10
Said the angel: "Listen, I speak now only with Agrikola and not with all of you; since I know it already that you others do not have the same comprehension. Therefore everybody should listen and be attentive to what I have to say to the one among you most able to understand, and what I'm going to show him! And as such you can speak, Agrikola, but only you!"
11
Said Agrikola: "Yes, yes, my pure spiritual friend, basically I have more or less understood what you actually wanted to tell me: but just as the others, I have not understood it completely, - but will also wait according to the promise of the Lord for better times! But this I want to know from you - subject to the condition to fully waive certain other issues -, how can you rid yourself of your body through your will and still be present as before with your very tangible body? This is for me the most incomprehensible! In one moment you are actually something, but immediately afterwards you are, according to feeling, absolutely nothing, but the nothing is, nevertheless, very much the same perfected something. Yes, how can this be possible?"
12
Said the angel: "This is something quite clear! We spirits in our for you imponderable pure spiritual sphere, are the actual, only real and most original something. Everything else in all material world is a produced appearance by our will, so that for your souls a persistent medium exists, as a means so that you can just like us obtain the fullest and most true freedom of life.
13
But to show you this even more clearly, Agrikola, pick up a stone from the ground and hold it in your hand! - Good, now you have a very hard natural rock in your hand! You will say now: 'See, this rock, as it is, is a most basic reality!' Because you feel in your hand its weight and for you indestructible hardness and say by yourself: 'This is a real something!' But I say to you, that with this your real something it is the same as with my body of flesh and thereafter with this my still spiritual body. Because the hardness and weight of the rock which you are still holding in your hand, depends solely on the perseverance of our will. For as long as we want to keep it as a hard and heavy rock it will stay what it is.
14
But for example, if only I want, that this rock becomes - concerning the body - the same as I am, you will be able to reach through it, in the same way you have reached through my body. And if this is the case, only then has the matter of the rock, which is a product of our spirit will, reached its primeval reality, whereas without it by the perseverance of my own will, it appears to you as a hard and heavy rock. So that you can understand this even better, check the rock once more very thoroughly, if it is still the same rock!"
15
Said Agrikola: "It is still what it was!"
16
Said the angel: "How is it now?"
17
Said Agrikola: "Ah, I can still see it as a small cloud in my hand, but its hardness and weight is like nothing! No, this extremely strange! I could have imagined anything else, but that this could be possible! How was it possible for you to do this?"