The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 26 -
The Being of God.
Listen, if it is sure that God as Creator of all beings - yet different from all other beings who were created by Him - was, is and will be eternal, is it then for Him an immovable necessity to remain in that particular original center? If it is already given to man to move freely with his body in all directions and even more so with his spirit, how could God in His limitless freedom restrict Himself in that wherein He gave even His created beings full freedom? I say to you: the divine infinity has the power in everything to also move endlessly free. He therefore will also have the right to change His glory into the flesh in order to be visibly and understandably present before His created human beings as an eternal entirely perfect Man.
2
But the endless glory of God does not have the power - and can impossibly have it - to create Gods outside of Himself who are completely equal to Him. For if He would be able to do that, He would be able to create besides the one endless universe also other equally endless universes, of which any somewhat clearly thinking person can already see from a distance that this is the purest nonsense. For if the first universe is endless in all imaginable directions, then where must the second equally endless universe begin?
3
A second perfect God with the fullest endless glory is therefore quite as unimaginable as a second endless universe. And so you can clearly see that I who am now just like you walking as a Son of Man in the flesh, am not a second but only the one and the same God who I was since eternity before all created beings and also will remain in all eternity. Therefore, I cannot do anything that is contrary to My eternal glory, but everything for it.
4
If I created outside of Me two more Gods, like for instance the Son and the Holy Spirit, so that the two would be individually different from Me, then they inevitably could claim all My unlimited power, without which no God could be imagined, no more than one can imagine a second or even third endless universe that would be divided in a certain way, limiting each other. However, if this would be thinkable, then what about God's sovereignty of which there can only be one?
5
There can however exist only one such endless divine sovereign authority. For if there were three, then God's endless one Kingdom would be split, and the existence of it would be quite as unimaginable and impossible as the existence of three endless universes next to each other.
6
The one Kingdom of the one God can exist eternally because only He is the only King and Lord of it, as it is written in the books of the prophets, who have prophesized out of the mouth of God: 'God will give His glory to no one else' (Isaiah 42:8). For only I, Christ, am the only God. Human beings, angels, sovereignties and powers, yes, all things in Heaven and on all globes have always bowed before Me and will throughout eternity only bow before Me and never for anybody else, just like the cosmic spaces of creation that seem endless in your eyes are devoured by the one endless space of creation, and compared to that, they appear like a total nothing.
7
If by the names Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not one self-existing God - the one primordial Being - has to be understood, and instead of that a Son that is separated from the Father and likewise a different Holy Spirit would be accepted, then what kind of God would the Father be?
8
When it is stated in the books of the prophets - which are not understood by the people because of their rude simple-mindedness caused by themselves - that the Father clothes the Son with all power and glory in Heaven and on all globes and worlds, and has given Him the Holy Spirit as cooperator to sanctify and to watch over the new teaching from the Heavens, which is now given to you and over which only the Son, who I am, has the leadership, just like over all other things, then I ask you: what kind of God do you think the Father is? Can you still see a God in Him?
9
And if in your material-human blindness you still can imagine another one, then you unquestionably would imagine Him to be useless and inactive, since you clearly have to perceive that under these conditions He cannot accomplish anything anymore and can also not govern over anything anymore. You surely will have to realize in a dark human manner that God the Father has perhaps delegated His government to His Son forever because of His high age - just like the old king Pharaoh in Egypt who delegated the government to Joseph - and also because of His weakness and tiredness so that He can enjoy His rest being totally inactive.
10
Can you really imagine that the Father has become old, and that He wants to lay down His work because He now has besides Himself a Son who is in all aspects equally almighty as He is, and further still has an equally powerful almighty Holy Spirit who He created out of Himself and His Son, and that He will delegate now the whole government to both of them, while He Himself will abdicate.
11
Oh how extremely heathenish foolish, silly and blind would human reason be to fall into such a madness.
12
If there exist a Son and a Holy Spirit who are different from the Father and would exist besides Himself, as this is the case with angels and human beings, then they can be nothing else except His created beings, because they did not receive their being - no matter how perfect it may be - of themselves as a result of their very own and eternal perfect power, but only from the one Creator.
13
However, how can there be a complete, divine relationship or a real unity between a spirit without body and form and a spirit with body and form? Can it be said that the Son - who is a bodily Person and, as you can see, has a body - is in the Father if the Father has no body, no shape and no form? Or can the infinite Father, without having a body, shape and form be in the Son?
14
Moreover: if the Holy Spirit is a third person as such, coming from the Father and the Son, then how can that person have the same qualities as those two are having and who are equally eternal? Or can that which receives its existence from another person, be equal to that which has its existence out of himself? Can eternity ever be equal to the all-fleeing time, or the limited area to infinity?
15
Even if one can accept that all the times of times are contained in eternity and are moving and changing, then it is however impossible to think and assert that time, no matter how long it lasts, can comprise eternity. Just like one can also think and assert that the endless primordial space surely can contain all spaces - which, no matter how big they may be, are finally still limited - but these last ones can impossible contain the primordial space.
16
Thus, if the Holy Spirit would really just like any other created being go out of the Father and the Son as a being as such, then he obviously would be a god of time and not of eternity. However, such a god could then, just like all that which is timely, in course of time cease to exist. But if this is the case, then who would be able to give an eternal life to all human beings and angels and maintain it?
17
In order that this matter of the highest importance would still be more clear and plain to you, we will continue this subject, and so you listen to Me.