The Great Gospel of John
Volume 1
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The nocturnal discussion with Nicodemus
- Chapter 21 -
Continuation of the discussion: about the mission of the Messiah, about judgment and punishment.
I say, 'I tell you: god is love and the Son is His wisdom. And God loved the world so much that He gave His only-begotten son, that is, His wisdom, emanating from Him from eternity, into this world that all who believe in Him may not die but have eternal life. - Tell Me, is this too incomprehensible to you?'
2
Says Nicodemus, 'I have the feeling as if I should understand it, but then I really do not understand. If only I knew where the Son of Man fits in, then I should be all right. You also spoke of God's only-begotten Son, whom God's love gave into the world. Are the `Son of Man' and `God's only-begotten Son' one and the same individual?'
3
Say I, 'Look here. I have a head, a body and hands and feet. The head, the body, hands and feet are flesh, and this flesh is the Son of Man, for what is flesh comes from the flesh. but in this Son of Man who is flesh there dwells God's wisdom, and that is God's only-begotten Son. Not God's only-begotten Son, but only the Son of Man will, like the brazen Moses-serpent in the wilderness, be lifted u[p, and many will be taking offence at that. Those who do not take offence, but believe and will adhere to His name, to them He will give the power to be called children of God, and their life and kingdom will be everlasting.
4
You must not expect some judgement of the world as, for instance wars, floods or even a fire from the heavens consuming all the heathens. For behold, God did not send His only-begotten Son (divine wisdom) into the world (into this human flesh) to judge (destroy) this world, but to fully save it, that is, that also the flesh might not perish, but may rise to eternal life together with the spirit. (Under flesh in this case not so much the actual flesh of the body is to be understood, but rather the fleshly desires of the soul.) However, in order to attain to this, the material feelings of exaltation in the flesh must be eradicated by belief, namely belief in the Son of Man that He has come into the world, born from eternity out of God, so that all shall have eternal life who believe in His name and adhere to it.
5
Whosoever, be he Jew or Gentile, will believe in Him, shall not ever be judged and thereby perish, but the one who will take offence at the Son of Man and not believe in Him, then already judged, for the fact that he will not and cannot believe because his feeling of exaltation causes him to take offence at the name and nature of the Son of Man, is already such a man's judgement. do you understand this now? I have presented it to you with great clarity.'
6
Says Nicodemus, 'Yes, yes, I halfway do understand the meaning of your highly mystical words, but they appear to have been spoken to no purpose, as long as the by you so highly regarded Son of Man in whom there dwells the fullness of God's wisdom is not present and you are either unable or unwilling to give details of the time and place where he will be appearing.
7
Thus also your judgement, which you connect mainly with unbelief, sounds rather mysterious. If the judgement is neither a flood nor war or pestilence and also not a consuming fire, but only unbelief as such, to tell the plain truth, dear Master, I still cannot grasp the meaning of your words. For whoever does not comprehend just one or maybe two points of a speech fundamentally does not comprehend the entire speech. What actually does your `judgement' mean? What new meaning do you ascribe to this concept?'
8
Say I, 'My friend, soon I too could say to you: I find it hard to understand why you are unable to grasp the perfectly clear sense of My words. You say you do not understand the concept of `judgement' and I have made it so plain to you.
9
Behold, this is the judgment that not the God-light from the heavens has come into the world, but men having been released from the darkness and set into the light still by fare prefer the darkness to the Go-light now in abundance before their eyes. That men reject the light is proved by their works which are evil all through.
10
Where can you find an initial complete faith, where the right piety? Where does one love another, except he has some selfish motive? Where are those now who loved their wife for the sake of fertility? they love the young harlots for sensual pleasure, lechery and harlotry. for he who carries on with the other sex in downright idolatry of lust and fornication commits true harlotry, and this the evil of all evils. - Where is there a thief who would take a lamp and steal visibly?
11
Behold, all those who are ill-disposed and act accordingly are the ones whose works are bad. '"Whosoever loves and practices such acts is an enemy of the light, hates it and will do all in his power to avoid it, so that his evil works, which he knows are tabooed by the light and judged, should not in the light be recognised in their ugliness and punished.
12
And behold, therein consists the actual judgement, but what you understand as judgment, is not the judgement, but only a punishment following the judgment.
13
If you enjoy walking in the night, that is already a judgement of your soul, since you prefer the night to the day. But if you then knock against something and hurt yourself badly or even fall into a hole or deep ditch, such a knocking or fall is not the judgement, but only the consequence of the judgement within you who love the night and hate the day.
14
If, however, you are a friend of the light, the day and the truth out of God, you will also act in accordance with divine truth and will surely long for your works to come to the light and be revealed to everyone, for you know that your works, because they were done in the light of truth out of God, are good and righteous and thus deserve appreciation and visible reward.
15
Therefore, who is a friend of the light will not walk in the night but by day, and he will recognise the light immediately, because he is from the light, and this light is called - faith of the heart.
16
Thus, whoever believes in the Son of Man that Jew is a light out of God, has already life within him. But who does not believe, has already the judgment within him, and the judgement is the very unbelief.
17
I think you will have understood Me now.'