The Great Gospel of John
Volume 1
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Exegesis of the biblical Gospel of John
- Chapter 4 -
About the law, judgement, grace and salvation.
The law had to be given to the first life, namely, in the beginning already to the first man in the course of things through Moses who in this verse is also mentioned as a representative of the law. But since the law is an impediment rather than a furthering of life, no one could ever gain the true freedom of life through the law.
2
The first ideas of creation were placed in an isolated as if independent existence by a positive 'must' from the immutable will of the primordial might. Therefore, as concerns the separation and forming of the existence limited by space and time, this was accomplished by an immutable 'must'.
3
Now the entity, man, was there, in his inner being to a certain degree the Deity Itself or, which is the same, the primal essence of God, only separated from his First Cause, although conscious of it, but still bound in a limited form and restrained by an immutable 'must'. The thus placed entity did not relish this state, and his feeling of exaltation came into a mighty conflict with his inevitable limitation and separation.S
4
Since in the very first line of beings the conflict kept growing in intensity, the great fundamental law had to be tightened to hold the beings temporarily in a firm judgement which consisted in the manifestation of the material, solid globes and the thereby effected greater division of the primordial beings.
5
In the second line of beings man appears, clothed in the flesh, standing on the ground of his first judgement. Notwithstanding his now threefold separation from his First Cause, he still soon recognised Him again within himself and became defiant, arrogant and disobedient to a mild law, no longer given with a 'must', but only a 'you shall'.
6
But because he refused to submit to this mild 'you shall', he was given a more severe and mightily sanctioned law, and the sanction promptly effected when this second 'shall' was disregarded (see the deluge and similar cataclysms!)
7
After this disciplining the Divine Being descended to the earth in Melchisedec and guided men, but they soon began once more to fight and had to be bound through new laws and returned to order, so that they were left with only a kind of mechanical movement limiting all their inclination.
8
Thus through the law a wide gulf had been created and no spirit or entity was able to leap across it. This is caused the prospect and the inner awareness of an eternal existence of the inner, thus considerably limited, life to become seriously doubted.
9
Following this limitation the divine primordial being then appears in its own fullness, namely, in the person of Christ.
10
Thus the original grace returns once more, takes all the weaknesses of the human life upon Himself, giving men a new grace, a new life full of true light and showing them in this light and through His example the right way and the true purpose of their existence.
11
Only now those who recognised Him obtained true knowledge of God and were for the first time able to see and recognise God - whom previously no being could ever see in His fullness - beside and outside of them and through Him also themselves and the freest destination of their own life.
12
And now also the insurmountable gulf that had been created through the law was once more abolished and every man could and can now at any time free himself from the burden of the law, if he exchanges his old nature for the new one out of Christ, wherefore it is also said that one should put off the old man and put on the new one. Or, Who loves the old life will lose it, but who flees it shall receive it as a new one. That is the annunciation from the bosom of the Father and the living Gospel of God.
13
The phrase, however, 'Who is in the bosom of the Father' , means as much as, 'the primordial wisdom of God or the actual innermost essence of God is within love just as light dwells in warmth, originally arises and goes forth from the love of mighty warmth and, finally, by its existence again creates warmth and this again always light. In the same way from love, which is equal to the Father and basically the Father Himself, goes forth the light of divine Wisdom, which is equal to the Son or the actual Son Himself, who is not two, but fully one with what is called 'Father', just as light and warmth or warmth and light are one, since warmth keeps producing light and light keeps producing warmth.