The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 24 -
The trinity in God and man.
Now a Pharisee came to Me and said: "Lord and Master, in Your discussion You have said to us that Your disciples who will spread Your true teaching of life and by the laying on of hands will baptize those who have actually accepted Your teaching. That means to strengthen them in the name of the Father, who is the Love, in the name of the Word, that is the Son or the wisdom of the Father, and in the name of the Holy Spirit, that is the all-capable will of the Father and the Son.
2
I think however that by that, many different points of view can easily exist which can be prevented when all those who have become believers would be baptized by Your disciples only in Your name or only in the name of the Father, because in future times those three - although the highest and holiest - denominations will probably bring people who do not have such a good understanding to believe in three separate gods, as three divine personalities. So also, the old Egyptians have in the course of time made of the ancient pure belief in only one true God a great number of gods out of the many qualities of Jehovah. After that, the blind fantasy of the people has changed it in all kinds of individually existing and specific active divine beings. They constructed temples and after that they also honored them in a special way. But at the same time they sunk away so deeply in such an unprecedented materialism that one often attributed the most common human weaknesses and perverted passions to the imagined divine personalities.
3
This could also be the case in course of time, maybe after a few centuries when even more foolish and blinder people would start to imagine three gods, only on the basis of the denominations for the supreme conceptions that were heard during baptism. Then it would certainly not take long before one will greatly worship those three imagined gods in temples that will be specifically build for them. However, if this will happen, it will not take long before the people will also start to worship Your disciples - who they came to know by name - and also their successors in the same manner, and they will pray to them in the temples that will be build for them. According to my opinion this could be prevented in the easiest and permanent way when one should only make God known under one name to the people. What do You say about that?"
4
I said: "You have said that very well and correctly, but still I cannot omit to urge you to do it anyway because with those three denominations the being of God as a whole is explained and is clearly brought to the attention of the people.
5
It is true that by that in a certain way for someone who has a less good understanding a kind of threefold divine personality will come forth. But in order to reflect in all aspects the most inner truth, one cannot express it differently than how it is.
6
Look, man has been created totally in God's image, and whoever wants to know himself completely must realize that as one and the same human being he actually also consists of 3 personalities. You firstly have a body, provided of all the necessary sense organs and other parts of the body, from very big to hardly unimaginably small, which are necessary for a free and independent life. This body has, for the benefit of the development of the spiritual soul its own very natural life within that is different in every respect from the spiritual life of the soul. The body lives on material food of which the blood and the other nutritious juices are formed for the different parts of the body.
7
The heart has a special living mechanism of its own within by which it continuously has to expand and then contract again. By that, the blood that makes the body alive together with the other juices that are made from it, will be pumped to all parts of the body. And by its contracting movement the heart will assimilate the blood again to saturate it with new nutritious foods and then pump it out again in order to feed the most various parts of the body. In these numerous and most divergent parts of the body an equal number of different nature spirits are living within, which are extracting from the blood those substances that serve the purpose and which are necessary for the nutrition and the maintenance of that part of the body that is controlled by such a spirit. Then they are assimilated into the parts of the body that are controlled by them, that means by the very spirits. In this way they are making the body more powerful and stronger, and without this continuous activity of the heart, man - as far as his body is concerned - would not be able to stay alive for 1 hour.
8
Look, with this activity of life, the soul has nothing to do with it, because this activity has no connection with the free will of the soul, no more than with the very activity of the lungs, the liver, the spleen, the stomach, the intestines, the kidneys, and so much more countless parts of his body. The soul does not know these at all and he also cannot care for it. Nevertheless, the body is as a complete separate personality one and the same human being, and does and acts as if the two were totally the same personality. But then, who of you can say that the body and the soul are one and the same thing?
9
If we consider now only the soul, then we will see that also he is in himself entirely a complete human being who has substantially spiritually also in himself and for the benefit of himself precisely the same parts as the body, and in a higher, spiritual respect he is using them just like the body is using his material parts.
10
Now although the body on the one hand and the soul an the other hand represent two totally different human beings or persons, of who each has his own individual activity, they finally cannot even understand the how and why of those activities, and they are in the light of the actual purpose of life nevertheless only one human being. Consequently, nobody can claim neither of himself nor of anybody else that he is not an individual but a twofold human being, because the body must serve the soul, and this one, with his reason and will, must serve the body. And consequently, the soul is equally responsible for the acts for which he has made use of the body, as well as for his very own acts that exist of all kinds of thoughts, wishes, desires and lusts.
11
When we however consider more in detail the life of the soul as such, we soon will discover that also he is a substantial bodily being, who in himself stands not much higher than at best for instance the soul of an ape. Although he possesses an instinctive thinking-faculty of a somewhat higher level than a simple animal, an intellect and a higher free opinion about certain things and their interrelation would be out of the question.
12
This higher potential in the soul that is in fact the highest and equal to God, comes from a pure essential, spiritual, third man who lives in the soul. Through him, he can distinguish that which is true from the false and that which is good from the evil, and is able to think freely in all imaginable directions and is able to will in complete freedom. As he - supported by the spirit - will direct himself with his free will towards that which is purely true and good, he slowly in the same proportion will make himself completely equal with the spirit who lives in him. Thus: strong, powerful and wise, and is then identical with him, as being reborn in the spirit.
13
When this is the case, the soul is as good as one being with his spirit, just as the more noble parts of a perfect soul - which in fact exist of the very different nature spirits in the body - will completely change into the spiritual substantial body, which you can call the flesh of the soul, and finally will also change into the essential body of the spirit under which the true resurrection of the flesh has to be understood on the youngest, most true day of the life of the soul, that begins when a man is completely reborn in the spirit, be it already here in this life or - what will cost some more trouble and time - in the beyond.
14
Even though a completely reborn man in the spirit is only one perfect human being, his being exists nevertheless in himself eternally out of a well distinguishable trinity.
15
How this is possible, I will explain very clearly to you. So listen carefully.