The Great Gospel of John
Volume 2
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
First journey of the Lord: Kis - landing place at Sibarah - Nazareth
- Chapter 76 -
About humility and self-denial.
Judas calls Me asking: "Lord, is it the way Thomas has told me in a most domineering tone?"
2
Say I: "Yes, that is how it is. Who among you will humble himself most before his brothers will be the first in the Kingdom of God; any imagining himself better than others puts him back to a lowest state.
3
If any one of you still notices within him a feeling of mastery and superiority, he is not yet free from the all-consuming, most greedy hell and still remote from the Kingdom of God; for such a man is not of a free spirit.
4
But if someone has humbled himself below all his brothers and is prepared to serve all as best he can, then he is the first in the Kingdom of God and all the others could well take an example from him. Only he who is capable of humbling himself below all human beings is of a truly divine and great spirit."
5
Says Judas: "Then only a man capable of the greatest humility can be the first in the Kingdom of God? For of he is intent upon serving all to the best of his ability, the others must obviously first oblige him by accepting his service thereby helping him to achieve the heavenly priority. - But what then if the others either do not want to accept his services or offer their own services striving for heavenly priority? Who will then become the first in the Kingdom of God?"
6
Say I: "All those who strive for this with an honest heart. But people who, as it were, out of self-love should refuse their brother's services to deprive him of the opportunity of becoming a first one in the Kingdom of God, not ever striving for such a priority themselves, will still be the last whereas he will be the first because he truly wanted to serve all brothers out of love and true humility.
7
Ah, it would be something quite different if a person wanted in this world to become the least and a servant of all only because of the future heavenly priority. Oh, he too will be one of the last in the Kingdom of God. In the beyond everything is most carefully weighed and meted with the most exact measure. Wherever there is any trace of selfishness the scales will show it up and the measure of the heavens will not be met. Therefore, you must have within you the full truth without any ulterior motive, otherwise you cannot enter the Kingdom of God. Only the purest truth without any falsehood and plotting deceit can and will make you free before God and all His created beings. - Do you understand this?"
8
Says Judas Iscariot: "Yes, I do understand that, but at the same time also realise that this is impossible to carry out, for it is not possible for man to let go all of his self-love. He must eat and drink and procure for himself lodging and clothing - and this too is done out of a lesser kind of self-love. One takes a dear wife whom one wants for oneself alone, and woe betide him who should dare to covet his neighbour's wife. Would not that also be a kind of self-love?
9
If I possess a well-cultivated field and the time of harvest comes, would I out of self-contempt and completed lack of self-love go to my neighbours and say: 'My friends, go and reap what has grown in my fields, for as the least among you, as a worthless servant to all of you, I have worked only for you.' I am of the opinion that there the so highly praised self-denial and self-contempt should have certain limits without which it would even be impossible to preach Your teaching to mankind, since this would show clearly that one regards one's brothers as more stupid and blinder than oneself. For to regard oneself in spirit as superior to one's brothers surely does show a certain pride. And if that is so, let us look at mankind in a hundred years, and we shall see them eat grass like the oxen in the pasture, and there will no longer be any trace of a language nor of a dwelling or even of a city. - How far then is man's self-love allowed to go?"