The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 232 -
Conscience and the influence of the angels.
Here Raphael, who of course was also not asleep, stepped up to the three and said to Mathael, "Do you think that we countless angelic spirits, and here particularly I, are only at the Lord's service on this hill?
2
Look, as is now visible before your eyes, we are standing constantly at the ready for the high service of the Lord and carry His will from one infinity to another, and be assured that we will find you quite certainly in your Pontus lands and will give you knowledge of everything you need to know according to the order of God! Happen what may, you, if you keep a firm will, will be given knowledge about everything that you need in an instant, and in the meantime you need nothing else.
3
But if you as king went over to the usual ruler's arrogance and turned away from the Lord in this way and also from us, then surely you would learn nothing more about the kingdom of God and His immeasurable mercy!
4
Thus, if you concern yourself with nothing other than remaining in the mercy and full love of the Lord, everything else will come to you of its own accord!
5
If you had been able to convince yourself of everything that the Lord will perform personally on this Earth in the future and you would then nonetheless let yourself be enticed in some way by the world, everything that you have seen and heard would then be of no use to you as if you had seen and heard nothing at all! But if you continue to remain in the mercy and love of the Lord in that you not let yourself be deceived by the world, but instead you love the Lord above all else from now on and your neighbors all as yourself, then you will nonetheless be initiated in everything that the Lord will ever do, even if you were in the furthest and strangest world - in as far as that is demanded for the salvation of your soul. For not everything that the Lord wants and commands in the whole of eternity is necessary for the salvation of your soul!
6
Behold, the Lord gives orders for something on each of the countless worlds that has to happen; but such a thing is suitable only for one world, for which it has been designated and that is not suitable for the salvation of your soul at all! The Lord has also got some things to order for the maintenance of this earth which do not affect you at all; but what He orders for the salvation of the human soul will not be withheld from you! Are you satisfied with that or not?"
7
Mathael says: "My noble friend from God's heavens! I am fully satisfied with that and need nothing more than just this thing that I am admonished by you if I go astray in the least from the Lord and from His order through some circumstances! For a push at the right time is worth more than a whole world of the greatest treasures!"
8
Says Raphael: "This too would always happen without you demanding it. For look, every person has a spiritual organ in his heart, which always remains open to us angels and to God and is completely accessible! This organ always represents the simple concepts of good - bad, true - untrue, right - wrong.
9
If you in future do good, true and right, the agreeing and good part of the organ will be touched by us, and in you the rewarding feeling will be created that you have done and spoken well and correctly.
10
But if you have ever acted or spoken wrongly, the opposite of the organ will be touched by us, and a fear will seize you and tell you that you have stepped out of the divine order. And this organ is called in the moral speech quite simply the conscience.
11
You can rely faithfully on this voice, it will never deceive you! It had only to be that someone let this organ be dulled so that in the end does not even perceive a too material touch of ours; then it would be as good as lost with the spiritual part of the human! But that will certainly never be the case with you, because you have already made too great progress in the mercy and love of the Lord and the Lord has formed you quite new and organized you along with your companions. Your soul is truly still the old one in which the love of the Lord began to rule as His spirit very powerfully, but your old, bad flesh has been changed by the Lord so that it does not press your soul.
12
You would merely have to be firmly determined to apostatize from the Lord, then your flesh would become brutish as was once that of Esau, who against his father's will took more pleasure in hunting for wild animals than in the tending of his father's tame herds. But also such brutalization is with you impossible because your soul is already too mightily and all over penetrated by the spirit of God's love.
13
Within a short time your love for the Lord will through the exercise of neighborly love change into the concentrated essence and form and become fully united with the soul. Then you will be reborn in spirit and in truth and enter into the spiritual marriage with the primal love in God and thereby also become united with it.
14
Thereby God's love for you will also become substantial and take form, and you will then always be able to behold God and speak to Him. And the Lord, as He is now physically visible and perceptible to your heart, will be and remain forever your guide and teacher. And it will indeed be no longer possible for you to turn away from the Lord in your heart and cognition, for you will then, as a true son of the eternal Father, in your volition and cognition be completely at one with Him. - Do you understand that?"
15
Says Mathael: "Yes, indeed I do understand it and my mind is at rest about everything."