The Great Gospel of John
Volume 9
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord in the region of Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 163 -
The doubts of the judge.
On this, the judge said: "I praise your zeal, and you are happy in your well-founded conviction. And if your Lord and God would also show me the mercy that He showed to you and your 2 companions, I certainly would speak the same words. But since we are now talking about this matter anyway, I just want to attract your attention on something.
2
Look, your almighty Helper is - as far as His body is concerned - also a human being in whom much supernatural power resides which we cannot grasp, and which lived also before in the human being Moses, who was a foster child of a pharaoh, and which then also lived in many other prophets, as this is known to us from the Scripture of the Jews.
3
All these exceptional men also performed great things and signs. Nevertheless, as far as their body is concerned, they all died. Whereto their souls have gone, no living being knows now with absolute certainty. It is believed indeed, for many valid logical reasons that the souls of many very great and virtuous men live on forever in a happy spiritual kingdom and that very pious men also associated oftentimes with such happy spirits. But I and certainly also you and several of your companions have no experience about this, and in this matter we must be satisfied in just believing it.
4
If your new God would finally die anyway what concerns His body - in a violent manner among the vengeful hands of His many enemies, or just like any other man in a very natural way - would you then still remain with your assertion?"
5
The doctor said: "Even stronger and more serious than now, for His body is certainly not His mightiest active being, but only His, as it were, omnipresent active Spirit that must live forever. For if He would not live forever in the same might and power, then who has created a suitable body for Him by which He can be quite as visibly active now for us blind men as He was active as a pure Spirit since eternity?
6
The fact that He helped me from a distance makes it obvious that it is not His to us visible body that is active, but only His Spirit, while His body was not present. So His active power and might are certainly not proceeding from His body, but from His eternal Spirit that is completely present everywhere.
7
That spirit does not need the actual activity of the body, but if He nevertheless clothed Himself with a visible body, He certainly did it only to make Himself visible, more understandable and more accessible to us men who are completely blind in the spheres of the spirit, and to reveal to us His eternal will and its endless power and might in an understandable manner.
8
When He will have reached the goal with us, calculated according to His endless wisdom, and undoubtedly out of pure love for us men, He will not need anymore His body that is now visible to us, and He will dispose from it in the manner that seems right to Him.
9
If He also will allow His extremely blind and hardened enemies to lay their hands on His body, or that He will lay off His body in another way, will not change anything to my words. For one time He will be invisible again to us men, but still eternally active like He was active since eternity before assuming a body. For if He did not exist before, then no other existence would be imaginable.
10
That He certainly is a Master and Lord over all existence and life I conclude from the fact that He must thoroughly and most clearly know about the healthy and sick arrangement of our body, and this into the smallest fibers, so that He then, with the power of His will can bring that which in the course of time became damaged, sick and unusable, into a healthy condition, and usable for the natural life, which I as an old and surely very experienced doctor must certainly understand. For how could one give a suitable means to a sick person to recover his lost health if he would not first know what is wrong with him, and which part?
11
But our perception, observation and opinion is and remains, despite all our experience, nevertheless extremely rough and disordered clumsy work, because it is impossible for us to see and evaluate the inner relationships of our physical life's machine in its numberless smallest parts. And therefore, with all our good knowledge and will, we are never capable to repair a serious disease, even not with the most powerful and most effective medicines, for we do not see the actual, maybe smallest sick spot in that extremely artful life's machine. However, the Creator and eternal Master of that machine can see everything in one glance and knows thus very precisely where the mistake is, and knows, as a result of His eternal all-wisdom, the right means that is present, and must be present, in His Spirit, in order to immediately restore the damaged part again into the right order and activate it.
12
If you, dear friend, carefully thought about this, you also will realize that I cannot and will not turn away one hair's breadth from my first assertion, even if the body of my God would die a thousand times. For I am more convinced than my now very healthy existence that His body is not Himself, but only a means to reveal Himself more closely to us men than would be possible in a pure spiritual way. If He, for instance, would have touched me with His hands, and only after that I would have been completely healed, then maybe I would share your concern. But since - as I told you before - was healed from a distance, merely by His Spirit, He also will remain, without His body, the One He was since eternity.
13
Take up my opinion really deeply into your mind as a full truth, and turn to a firm belief in the almightiness of His will. Ask Him also to heal your body, and then you will receive what I have received in miraculous way."
14
The judge, who was completely amazed about the solid perception of the doctor, said: "I thank you, dear friend, for this teaching of yours. You have changed my mind completely, and I share now completely your opinion. O, if your and now also my only true God would also want to help me as He has helped you, I would praise His name only, and this throughout my whole life, and loudly proclaim His honor to everyone. O Lord, and now also my only true, almighty and living God, help also me from my already long lasting great suffering. Let Your holy will heal me."