The Great Gospel of John
Volume 1
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Second day in Sychar
- Chapter 78 -
At Sychar. Continuation of the discussion between Jonael and the commander about tolerance. The chief's commendable testimony to Jesus, and his anger about the blind and evil Jews. A hint about allopathy. Consequences of sin, and a medicine. Gentleness and patience more effective than anger. Better to follow than forestall the Lord.
Says the commander, 'Dear wise friend! You have spoken well and good; but what should I as a stranger say to this?! I now believe and am convinced from my deepest recesses that this Jesus of Nazareth is no other than the truest Deity in human form. And not so much the great signs that He worked tell me that, but rather His unlimited wisdom! Because whoever wishes to create a world has to be as wise as He in every Word!
2
But these scoundrels most heinously call themselves children of God, to whom God has in all ages spoken either directly or indirectly, and now that He comes to them Himself physically, they scorn Him like common street urchins, and even want to remove Him from town! Friend, I am a Roman, a crooked pantheist by religion, hence a blind pagan, yet I will give my life for this new faith!
3
If it were heathens, in these parts, I would forbear towards them; but since they call themselves children of God, Who is supposed to be their eternal Father, and they scorn Him thus, I cannot show them forbearance as a stranger!
4
God the Lord they had a mind to expel! Now It is they who shall be expelled! The vermin and weeds must go, so that on this field, which the Lord Himself worked, a pure and wholesome fruit should prosper. Because if the weeds remain here they shall destroy everything the Lord has so gloriously sown here! Be absolutely honest - am I right or not? What ought to be more to me - the Lord or this street rubble?!'
5
Says Jonael, 'That you are strictly right in your view, no one shall dispute indeed; but whether this is essential forthwith is another question. It is quite possible that these blasphemers, frightened beyond measure, may turn inward, feel contrition and then fully reform; and then it would not after all be in order to expel them! Because sin only remains punishable in man so long as he abides in sin; but once man fully abandons sin and moves within the order established by God, then sin and its punishment has nothing further to do with man!
6
But to punish a reformed man because formerly he had on one or more occasions sinned out of blind foolishness or weakness, should be the crown of folly, unworthy of a true human and all divine order, and such action would be exactly that of a foolish doctor who, after his patients' recovery, says to them, 'You are indeed fully recovered now, but you also realise that your flesh and in particular this or that limb has committed a sin on you, and has to now be flogged in proportion to the degree it tormented you!' When the healed then start martyrising their flesh, which had only just come good, in all sorts of ways, or they are actually tortured, what shall become of their recovery?! Behold, they shall get ten times more sick than they were before! Question: of what good such ill-timed paining of the flesh? Is not the healing process an already sufficient punishment of the flesh? What for such after-torment, which makes the healthy flesh sick again?! But if such treatment is already exceedingly foolish physically, how much more on the spiritual man, mercilessly carried out?!
7
It is our responsibility indeed to in a brotherly fashion remind those men of the dangers of sinning who had sinned and then reformed, but to also at the same time strengthen and support them in their reformed state with every means at our disposal, so that they would not suffer re-bonding to sin; but to call them to account and punish them in their reformed state would be nothing short of dragging the reformed sinners back into tenfold sinfulness!
8
And here it can be asked whether such dealing would not be a hundred times more punishable by God than the former sin committed by the offender! - Believe me, the punishment which every sin carries with it already is a medicine against the soul-ailment called 'sin'; but once this ailment is alleviated through the inlaid medicine, why more medicine without more ailment?!' - Says the chief , 'As a preventative against further outbreaks of the illness!'
9
Says Jonael, 'Yes, preventatives are essential indeed; but they must be of a fortifying and strengthening nature, as stated, and not of a weakening or even killing nature! Anger shall not be assuaged by anger, but only through love, gentleness and patience!
10
If someone is on fire then water and not boiling pitch or molten ore is to be poured over him! If someone breaks a leg then let him be carried and have his leg set and bound so that his break can mend; but not bludgeon him with truncheons for having walked so clumsily as to break his leg!
11
I was recently told by a missionary, proclaiming the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to the Scythians, that these wild nomads punish a man for dying! They undress and bind him to a post, flogging him all day naked; and this they do on a corpse even if a victim of a killing, because it is his own fault for allowing himself to be overpowered and killed. The killer on the other hand is praised for triumphing over the other and preserving his own life!
12
As stupid as this may sound it yet resembles ourselves if we want to make still more dead someone who through sinning - a soul-sickness, already is spiritually dead.
13
A sick verily has need of physician and medicine; but to punish him for having had the misfortune of getting sick, this, my dear friend, belongs to deepest Scythia! I trust you will now have understood that it is better to follow the Lord of life than to forestall Him with pride and clumsy hands, and to therewith wantonly and either devil-fashion or through sheer stupidity destroy His great, divine plantation!'