The Great Gospel of John
Volume 2
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus in the Vicinity of Caesara Philippi (Matthew 16)
- Chapter 227 -
About the fall of the spirits.
1
(The Lord:) "But just as it happened on the smallest scale with man, falling into sin and hence ruining his nature, so a very similar event took place once at the creation of the pure spirits out of God.
2
Once the thoughts and great ideas arising therefrom out of God had found the necessary consistency to form a being endowed with limitless intelligence, in God's arch-primordial form, conscious of its free independence, the first thing to fully liberate them was to give and show them the opportunity to free action, - in what way to become free, and free through acting.
3
But how is it accomplished? Should one only, as it were say to them: you are now alive, as if out of yourselves, and you can do as you please? - Here it is questionable whether such beings, whose life is without experience, would be able to front up to any kind of free activity. Yes, they shall rather, like a voracious polyp, be consumed by satisfying their being with a corresponding nourishment and do nothing else, as you can observe and experience such quite natural phenomena with very spiritually unawakened people; because their sole concern is to fill the belly, and all their actions are focussed on the best possible satisfaction of this body part.
4
Another might say: Let them be told what to do in accordance with their intelligence, and they shall start acting accordingly! - Good, I say; supposing however that the still leisure-prone beings, having gone forth from such disinclination towards action, have not and cannot be awakened yet towards action, on account of which the sense for complete inactivity starts to pre-dominate, stopping the beings from voluntary action; what then? They can then certainly be forced by omnipotence, obviously indwelling the Creator!
5
Granted; where however would this leave absolute independence of action, through which alone a created being can attain to independent, free voluntary action? Behold, without the aforementioned full independence, every created being would remain a machine springing into action only through the intelligence of the manufacturer!
6
From this you can see that there neither can, nor must be any question about a compulsion; because only machines act under a 'must ', of which machines unfortunately, together with the Earth itself, there are still too many and crude ones upon Earth. Also infinite space is filled with such 'must' machines. Because all the countless suns, earths and moons are purely machines, together with all physical beings upon and within them, just as the human body in itself is nothing but an artful machine which can be set into manifold motion by the soul's free will.
7
If so however, and impossibly otherwise, how should the first-created pure spirit-beings have attained to conditioned, independent voluntary action, and from there alone to full independence? Obviously through means no other than a 'thou shalt' commandment, even if not as strict as with Adam.
8
But the commandment itself would be of no use if , together with the commandment, the newly-created being were not also given the drive or stimulus to trespass. If however the beings are imbued with the stimulus for transgression, then a certain concomitant deleterious consequence also must be furnished, as a punishment so-to-say, and the beings must be shown the consequences, and how they shall always follow a contra venous action against the commandment given.
9
Yes, the being must even be shown that there might be an initial temporary advantage for the being transgressing the commandment, from which however later on always a long lasting disadvantage will arise, and it will cost it a lot of toilsome troubles and painful efforts to overcome this. Only after being equipped with all this, can the newly created being make a true use of its free intelligence and actions arising from it, irrespective of the outcome whether straight or crooked, right or wrong. In short, the newly-created being out of itself becomes voluntarily active, therewith commencing the true and full act of self-determination, and in the end this is what it is all about all created intelligent beings. Because self-determination is achieved in either way, either along a shorter or longer route, and full destruction of such a being is thereby obviated.
10
Whether, at the outset, the independence is a blessed or unblessed state, is one and the same, of course in relation to the Creator; for the door is left open for every being to walk the outlined ways to blessedness. If it desires this, well and good for the being; if not however, that's alright too! For no-one but the being itself carries the blame. It retains its self-determination forever, irrespective of whether blessed or not, for basically it still has to conform to the Creator's overall order.
11
Knowing this now, it shall not be too hard to follow the fall of the first-created, pure spirits. Because they too had to be given a commandment, and with it the necessary stimulus towards transgression, tied to fleeting rewards or, alternatively and even if not with the predominant stimulus to obey the commandment, yet a clear vision nevertheless of eternal rewards which, although somewhat deferred, nevertheless will and must follow action with the given commandment!
12
That now some of the beings heeded the commandment and others not, is obvious from the visible physical creation, which as a judgement or threatened punishment had to follow the breach of the commandment, and as it were spiritually seen, is nothing else than the longer road to a most blessed, full-free existence of the created spirits.
13
On the other hand is also our angel here among us, a clear proof that nevertheless countless crowds of the once created spirits have heeded the given commandment, although at that stage it was not a firm positive commandment as with Adam. And now all the physical creation is subordinated to their power, strength and wisdom.
14
This angel nevertheless shall not be able to substantiate to later mankind the immensely large numbers of first-created spirits who did not transgress against the command given; but this is not essential for man's blessedness, particularly if a man has not attained to a full knowledge of himself through his spirit.
15
If any man attains to this however then, as they say, all seven heavens stand open to him anyway, and he can obtain testimony thereof to any desired degree. And thus all is already taken care of therewith.
16
Tell Me My dear Cyrenius whether you are able to now form a reasonable concept about the sinful fall of the first-created spirits.