The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 19 -
The powerlessness of man.
I said: "No matter what you do, do it always in My name, for without Me you do not have the power to do anything for the salvation of your souls. And when you finally have done everything that has been commanded and advised to attain to the true, eternal life, then say and acknowledge in yourself and also to the world that you have been lazy and useless helpers. For only God is everything in all and accomplishes all the good in man.
2
When a man discerns God's will and follows it, he does not act according to his own will, but according to the will of God. Whatever God's will does in man or in a pure angel, is certainly not a work that is purely of man or of an angel, but the work of the One according to whose will a work was accomplished.
3
By this, the work of man is only that he, out of love and true awe for God has made with his free will the recognized will of God completely as his own and acts then for his own salvation. But from that moment on it is no more the will of man but the will of God that accomplishes all the good in man, and so the good in man is then also only God's work, which real and true man has to recognize in his rightly humility. If however, a person attributes a good work to himself as his own merit, then by that he already shows that he does not know himself and has certainly never known God in truth, and therefore he is still far away from the Kingdom of God.
4
For this reason, give always in everything the honor to God and act always in His name, then you will have God's love in you. And he who has God's love in him has forever and always everything in him.
5
But remember also the following: when man does something bad against the will of God, that deed is not a work of God, but entirely a deed of man himself, because in that case man did not make his will subordinate to God's will that he knows, but is only continuously working against it. And of him can rightly be said that his evil deeds are completely his own deeds. But precisely by that, man has by the coarse use of his free will judged himself and by that he has in his blindness made himself unhappy.
6
Look, with these spiritual things it is more or less the same as with a wise general and his subordinate soldiers. The soldiers must indeed go with many thousands into the hot and bloody battle, but no one of them may fight differently than only according to the plan and the will of the general. He who acts like this will fight a successful battle. However if one of the many soldiers thinks by himself: 'Ha, I have courage, might and also the right insight myself. I will go into battle on my own and acquire a crown for my own head' and would draw out of the order of battle of his general, would be as good as lost because he soon will be captured by the enemy and will be treated very severely. And whose fault is that? Of nobody else except of himself. Why did he not make the will of the wise general forever as his own? Then he easily would have conquered the enemy together with the others. Since he wanted to be a general at the same time as a soldier, he easily became a prey of the enemies.
7
I however, am also a general over life - even the One and only - against everything that is hostile against life. He who will fight under My commandments and according to My plans will also easily be able to fight against the many enemies of life and will also easily conquer them. However, he who will start the fight against the many enemies of life without Me and relies on his own reason and will, will be captured and then be treated very severely. When he will be in hard imprisonment, who will then free him, since he has to search and fight his worst enemies of life only in himself?
8
If however, someone wins easily at My side over a lot of enemies, then the victory is indeed only My work, because he could only be victorious except by following up exactly My will, plan and counsel. If then however, the victory that was gained is My work, then also the glory and the merit will be My own.
9
You will now sufficiently perceive how and why you cannot do anything rewarding without Me for the eternal salvation of your soul, and why you then, if you have done everything that has been commanded as what is most wise, should openly recognize before Me that you were lazy and useless helpers at My side.
10
When a farmer cultivates his land, he fertilizes it, then he plows the soil up with the plow, sows the grains of wheat in the grooves and plows it down, and then until the harvest he does not have to do anything. Is the harvest now purely the merit and the work of the farmer or is it rather in all aspects My work and My merit? Who created for him the 2 strong oxen for his plow? Who gave him wood and iron, and the grain to sow with the living seed? Who has already laid into it numberless new seeds and grains? From who was the light of the sun that warms up everything and brings everything to life? Who sent the fertile dew and rain? Who gave the growing up and ripening stalks the successful growth, and finally who gave the farmer the life, the strength, the senses, the ability to evaluate and the reason?
11
When you will now think a little deeper about this image, it surely will become clear to you how extremely little can be credited to the farmer for the cultivation of the land. After all, actually nothing at all, and still he would like to say: 'Look, all this is thanks to my effort.' But he hardly thinks about it who the only most important Cultivator of the land of wheat was. Should he rather not acknowledge in his heart: 'Lord, great, good and holy Father in Heaven, I thank You for Your great care. For all this was and is only Your work and will also always be. By that I was only a lazy and totally useless helper'?
12
When this should already be said with material work, then how much more should this be said by man who I helped to cultivate his spiritual land of life with all sorts of things whereby he actually does not have to do anything else except to believe in Me and furthermore to make My godly will - as a pure present from Me - as his own in such a way as if it would be totally his, although it actually is only Mine. When such a person who is in full possession of My will is capable of doing everything and can perform great things and works, then whose merit is this mostly?"