The Household of God
Volume 2
Rise and spiritual prime of the first world empire Hanoch
- Chapter 250 -
ENOCH AND THE LORD AS THE POOR MAN. ON THE ESSENCE OF THE ALMIGHTY DEITY AND ON THE POVERTY OF THE FATHER (9th February 1843)
These words by the poor man pierced the hearts of all those present like a thousand flashes of lightning. Even Enoch was not prepared for this manifestation, wherefore he had earlier wisely pointed out to Lamech the Lord's pleasure by way of the fruit-miracle.
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Therefore, Enoch himself promptly turned to the poor man and said to Him: "When I ask my heart it tells me quite secretly: 'It is You!' but when I then look from the depth of my heart into the eye of the spirit I cannot discover there how the almighty, holy Father, God, the Creator of all things, can possibly be also a poor man. - So I entreat You for a word that may enable me to recognize You."
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But the poor man merely looked at Enoch; and when Enoch saw the eye of the poor man he rushed to Him and said: "Yes, yes! It is You! You, good Father You, You it is truly; for such mildness, gentleness, such love, such faithfulness and for all that such divine sublimeness shine from no mortal eye!"
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Not until this exclamation did the Father in the person of the poor man begin to address the following words to our company saying as it were to Enoch:
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"Enoch and you, Lamech, listen! Remember in your hearts what the poor man tells you. When the poor man comes to you and you receive him in My name, you have received Me.
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"You say: 'How is this possible? To You, O God, only the sublime, the mighty, the strong are kindred!'
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"But I say: Verily, verily, you cannot ever recognize Me in My sublimeness or in My might and strength, but certainly in My mercy and truest fatherly love!
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"Love draws everything to it and wants to gather all in a tight circle around it. And behold, this is what the Father does.
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"If you want to measure everything against My divinity, you do not love the Father but merely want to draw near the Deity, which is endless in Its essence, and thereby you scatter and finally kill yourself.
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"Do also comprehend the profundity of God's Spirit. - You are a created man; as such you consist of a body and a living soul in which dwells the spirit of love.
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"Your body is out of the Deity; its law is an inexorable must, in other words, be thus, and not otherwise! You can do what you like but you cannot alter the form!
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"However, since your body is a work of the unchangeable divine might, consisting in the almighty must-law out of God, it is mortal and destructible.
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"You ask: 'How is this possible?' - Behold, because in God the most endless freedom prevails so that He cannot ever stick to a must claw.
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"If God were merely God, nothing would ever have been created but everything would still remain an endless thought only visible to Him, - but no being would enjoy the free existence in God.
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"But God is not alone God in and out of Himself, but He is God out of the love in Himself.
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"God goes forth from His love and infinity is His essence; but this essence keeps returning to His love there satiating itself with the endless power and might.
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"Now listen further: Your soul is begotten by the Father, Who is the love in God.
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"Just as this love is the actual primordial essence in God, thus your soul is also a fundamental essence of your being and is a receptacle for eternal life, and in it everything can be turned towards eternal life, including the body which is a work or a temple of God's Spirit through the divine must law.
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"You ask: 'Why through a 'must'?' - Look, as long as you hold a stone in your hand, it is in your free power and you can do with it what you like.
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"However, once you have flung the stone from you, you have freed it from your arbitrariness, but the stone must still fly in that direction which you gave it with the force of your hand and you can then no longer direct the released stone during its flight.
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When the stone again falls back having no inherent power you can once more give it direction according to your will.
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"Whoever has ears, let him hear! Behold, the Father, as the eternally endlessly great love in God or in His effectiveness, has divested Himself of everything!
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Through the great catapult of His endless power He has filled all infinity everlastingly with all His endlessly great thoughts. He kept nothing to Himself, but whatever He had, He gave away.
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Thus the Father is in Himself poor and poverty is now His love. His wealth, however, consists now in the free love and His sole eternal life in which alone reside all power and strength.
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This poverty is now the Father's greatest bliss because He now sees it all return to Him and can seize it with His love, endlessly perfected.
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"Behold, - the sun, the moon and all the stars, in short all you can see and comprehend, corresponds therefore to My Deity or power. It is bound by My must-law.
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"But it cannot remain as it is; for all is there for the Father's sake so that He may enrich Himself forever and ever, since He wanted to be poor for a time spontaneously.
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Thus you, too, should be in My faithful image spontaneously. Be verily My children! Like Me, give away everything, free your love and your life out of Me and you will become rich with Me forever and ever! Become poor so that you may become rich! Amen."