THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN
VOLUME 5
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus in the region of Caesarea Philippi. (cont.) Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 16
- Chapter 132 -
The salvation from the yoke of ceremonial service and the law.
1
(The Lord:) "With this I give you a divine life precept which is as far removed from any ceremony as one celestial pole is from another. There is then no need for a Sabbath, a temple, a prayer-house, any fasting, a staff and coat of Aaron, a two-horned head-dress, an ark of the covenant, a sensor, a blessed and, still less, a cursed water. With this teaching man as such is all in all and needs nothing but himself.
2
In the ancient, rudimentary teachings man was only partly depicted materially as, more and more ennobling himself, he developed into a true spiritual man and it was therefore necessary to portray him in all sorts of spiritually corresponding forms, vessels and ceremonial rituals.
3
In this My new teaching man is completely at one in and with himself, as if in one point. In the same way I Myself am here united with all My former primordial and infinite Deity in one point before you and tell you that from now on you need no longer look for the Kingdom of God and its righteousness in the temple at Jerusalem or on Mount Gerizim nor worship God there, but such divine service may be held wherever there is a human being!
4
The heart of man will be the living temple of the true, one and only God and the active love will be the only true service to God, and the love for God will be His one and only true worship!
5
But since neither a true love for God without active love for one's neighbor, nor this without true love for God is conceivable, both loves are basically only one love and thus one and the same true worship of God. Whoever has that within has everything, all the law and all the prophets united in his own heart and no longer has need of anything more.
6
I hereby abolish all old forms, as well as the law of Moses; however, not in the sense that they should no longer be observed - far from it - but only insofar as they had previously been an external coercion to act in a certain manner, followed by earthly punishment in case of non-compliance. In this way the law was a judge breathing down everyone's neck, and a permanent judgment from which no one could escape. But a human being weighed down by the burden of the law obviously is under permanent judgment; and he who is under judgment is spiritually dead and cursed by the inner, divine freedom of life.
7
Not until the law becomes his own and is subject to the freedom of his own freest will is man rid of all judgment and curse and death. I came into this world mainly to free all men from the yoke of the law, the judgment, the curse and death. Therefore, from now on I take away all externals, let you truly come into your own and thereby make you true children of God and lords over all the law and judgment.
8
If you, as well as your disciples, abide by this rule unchangingly, no judgment will ever come over you because you are above the judgment; but as soon as you allow in one or the other matter to have an ancient, external law added and adhere to some ancient, external ceremonial, you will again submit to a judgment, and death will touch you in the same measure as you have submitted to an old ceremonious law!"