The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 205 -
The true worship of the Lord.
Now Roklus said: "Well now, raise your heart and your eyes. This Man, who is sitting here at my right side at the table and examines the heart and kidneys of each one of us, is the One to whom you wanted to travel to Galilee."
2
When the 30 heard that from Roklus, they fell down in deep awe with their face to the ground and called out: "Honor to You, God on high! Holy and above all, eternally mighty is Your name! O Lord from eternity, do not reject us, children of Abraham, and be forgiving and merciful! Your holy will only, will be our law for the whole future according to which we want to act, live and die!"
3
On this I said: "Now all this is very praiseworthy for Me, but in this position of yours I cannot speak with you. Stand up as free and wise thinking men and refrain from an exaggerated respect. For I did not come to you to let Myself be worshipped and honored as an idol by blind pagans, but to make known your God whom you have forgotten, and His will, to establish on Earth the Kingdom of God, the true Kingdom of eternal life, and to destroy the old shackles and dungeons of sin, the devil, the judgment and the death of the souls. That is why I want that men should not with a meaningless awe crawl as worms before Me, but as men who can and should become children of God, being free and open and straight up be gathered around Me as true friends and brothers, listening to Me and also talking with Me. And now that you have heard My wish and will, you should stand up and speak freely and openly with Me."
4
When the 30, who still were lying with their face to the ground, heard that from My mouth, they slowly stood up, but were still all dizzy from sheer awe, and no one of them dared to ask Me something or request something.
5
Since I could see that, I said to them: "Yes, friends, if you will always behave like that before Me, we surely will not be able to handle great matters with one another. Who has breathed in you such a ridiculous and useless awe for God? This you have learned from the pagan priests who worship idols. But God does really not want more than to believe in Him as the one only true and eternal living God, not to pronounce His name in vain or even to blaspheme it. Thus, to recognize Him as the good Father, and love Him above all and their fellowmen as oneself. Whatever is more than that is evil, as well as that which is less. So put off your exaggerated awe for Me and speak freely and openly with Me. Or will it perhaps please you to see that parents educate their children in such a way that they always have to crawl with all respect before them, namely their parents? What will become of such children? Nothing else but cowardly, and finally even selfish and imperious crawlers of whom no fellowman can ever expect anything good.
6
Since you have educated your children in the same foolish manner, it was therefore also right and just that they are taken away from you, even before your blind idol foolishness was able to entirely tie up and spoil their souls. So put off this foolishness now towards Me, for otherwise I really can and will never give you your children back."
7
These words of Mine helped, and the speaker went to Me and said: "O Holy One. Then how do you want that we, poor sinful men, would invoke You?"
8
I said: "I am Lord and Master, so invoke and speak to Me also as such. More is really not necessary. But do not come to Me anymore with the expression 'Holy One', for I am here just as you only as a Human Being and I say to you that no one is holy but God's Spirit alone. It is true that it lives in Me, but this is for the time being of no concern to you. But when you yourselves will be born again in this Spirit, only then it will be your concern, and then you will understand its holiness.
9
When men in their blindness will call God 'holy, holy, holy', it will look miserable among them. Whoever wants to call upon God in this way, must first be filled with this Spirit himself, otherwise his call is useless and foolish, and it resembles the call of the pagans who are tied up and fettered by the judgment of the sins of the world, and can thus impossibly perceive nor understand the eternal, infinite freedom in God, which actually is that holiness.
10
That is why I am - as long as you are still living in the judgment of the world - surely your Lord and Master, but when you yourselves in My Spirit have become seeing, being free and aware, only then you will recognize God in Me and will call Him 'Holy Father'. But then you will not, as now, call out with the mouth, but in yourself from the living spirit, for God is in Himself Spirit and can therefore only be called and worshipped in the spirit and in the living and enlightened free truth. If you have understood this now, then change immediately your foolish attitude, speak freely and openly with Me, and tell what can be done for you here."