The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 9 -
Lazarus' testimony of the Lord.
Lazarus said: "Did you then not read in the Scripture: 'When the Lord will come as a Son of Man on this Earth, the few righteous ones will see the angels coming down from Heaven and will serve Him?' However, what will you say when I will tell you that I and many who were with me have seen that, and it was not a dream and even less some illusion, but a full, evident truth. And the young man here is an angel, and even more: an archangel.
2
The inner spirit has shown the 7 men from the faraway Back-Egypt that with us Jews the great promise was completely fulfilled, and they went their way and came to us, led by the spirit, in order to see for themselves the Lord of all glory as a Man who deals with the people and to see Him teaching. And we are so blind that we do not want to realize what they as people who are living faraway from here can already see in the fullest light.
3
However, concerning my ability by which I could know what you have said behind closed doors, I never had that before, but the great, very exalted Galilean, the Lord, has given it to me as a result of my faith in Him and the love that I had for Him, and on account of Him for my many poor fellowmen.
4
What I have told you here, is a holy truth, but I cannot assure it to you in another way than by saying to you once and for all: this is how it is and not otherwise. And that is why I believe that the very exalted Galilean is in all living truth the promised Messiah, Jehovah Zebaoth. He who believes in Him and loves Him above all and his fellowman as himself will have the true, eternal life in him.
5
But now you can do whatever you want. Because this also is a holy statement of the Lord: even the will of the devil must be left free, because otherwise man should be no more man and the image of God. He would be an animal of which the soul would not have any freedom and could therefore only act in such a way as it is driven by God's omnipotence.
6
Everything that you can see on Earth and at the firmament is judged and stands under the unchangeable law of 'must'. For a short time man must put up with this rigid and firm law regarding his body. Only the body of man is - as far as his form, growth and very ingenious organic structure is concerned, as well as the normal duration of the bodily life - guided by God's omnipotence, and therefore God can also heal at once any sick body by means of the power of His godly will. But as far as the free soul of man is concerned the omnipotence of God has no dealings with it. Therefore, also the rules of conduct, which God has given to the souls of men were not given to man as 'must' but as 'you shall'.
7
Consequently, we have received the laws from God without 'must' and we can obey them if we want. Therefore, nobody is forced now to go to Him in faith, but everyone must do this freely out of himself. One should think about the consequences that this would have for the soul in the beyond where he will remain as free as he is here now. Only with the difference that there he will have to draw everything out of himself whatever he will need for his eternal livelihood. But how will he fare there when he did not follow the advises of God and did not gather here spiritual treasures and help in himself?
8
Just as God with His omnipotence restrains Himself here because of the fullest freedom of life of the soul, so also He will by virtue of His eternal order restrain Himself eternally. However, here on this Earth every man has the advantage for his soul that God's omnipotence has given him all kinds of treasures to make use of, and when he will use them according to God's advises he can with that acquire very great spiritual treasures for his soul for eternity. In the beyond however, a world full of treasures and food will totally disappear. There, every soul - as image of God - will have to create everything out of himself, that means: out of his own wisdom and out of his own totally free will. How will he fare when he still has never been in contact with God's will or with His wisdom and love?
9
Where will a blind, dark and by that totally powerless soul, who is lacking all inner, spiritual treasures start and do in the beyond? When you slightly think about this you surely must realize how terribly foolish it is not to take part now in this great time of God's mercy, which is appearing here and there while one will maybe never more have such a brilliant opportunity for that in such high degree.
10
Now I have told you everything that a friend who loves the truth can tell you, and I say to you once more, what I already have told you several times: as far as I am concerned you are not bound and you can do what you want, because your souls are equally as free as mine."
11
When the Pharisees heard Lazarus speak like that, the second speaker, who is - as known - a qualified scribe, said: "The fact that friend Lazarus - who as private individual is almost as wealthy as hardly a second one in the country - cannot have any interest when we follow up his advice, is very obvious. Because what will he care about our gold and silver, our pearls and precious stones? He has so many of them that he easily could buy a kingdom with that. Thus, he is not persuading us to believe in the Galilean so that we would step out of the temple and then would deposit our treasures in his bank of exchange with interest. Far from us to believe such thing of him since a couple of years ago he closed down his bank of exchange. But he, who is known as a skilled evaluator of all possible incidents in this world, has in no way considered this matter of the great Galilean one-sidedly and he has with his known discerning spirit found the real heart of the matter in this exceptional case. It would therefore be really the best if we simply will do what he has advised to us.
12
Truly, in our temple there is now little that can be done. The material gain has for the greatest part as good as disappeared. However, for our souls there are in the temple only continuously greater losses but never more gain. That is why it should be very clever of us if we at our high age would finally keep ourselves informed about how things will be with our souls after our bodily death, of which certainly we will not have to wait very long. I would immediately free myself from the temple if all of you will also do that.
13
But before that, I still would like an easy to be fulfilled condition, and that is the following: I gladly would still like to speak with the young man, which friend Lazarus has indicated just now as an archangel. Tell me, friend Lazarus, would that maybe be possible?"
14
Lazarus said: "Oh, nothing is easier than that. I only have to call him, then at the same moment he will be here."
15
The second speaker said: "Please friend, do this, because I am burning of desire to see and speak with this archangel-man."