The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 20 -
About the laws of the Lord.
Now all of them said again: "Lord and Master, everything, everything is since eternity only Your work and Your merit. We human beings are indeed in every respect nothing compared to You. Only Your love and mercy gave us the existence and You even want to exalt us to become children who are equal to You. Therefore, we are Your work in everything, and our excellency is only Your merit. O Lord and Master, please never leave us, for without You we are absolutely nothing. What would we know of ourselves of the spiritual things, of You and of Your almighty will? And as we owe you everything, so also our faraway descendants will owe You everything, if ever they still will possess our understanding and our pure faith. But You, o Lord and Master, will take care that they will not be withdrawn too far away from the light which is now shining so brightly."
2
I said: "As it was until now, so also in the future this will be left to the workers in My fields and in My vineyards. What really will matter then is how they will handle My will that they know very well, be it in the right or the wrong way. Therefore, take care that after My bodily separation from you there will be no quarrels and disagreements, for those will really become the mother of the antichrist on this Earth. I am saying this now to you beforehand, so that you will prevent it. Indeed you will prevent it, but if your disciples will do that also is still another question, for also their free will, as well as yours has to be respected.
3
My teaching gives you the highest freedom, and therefore it cannot be proclaimed with the sword and with the chains of the darkest slavery, because man must also be acquainted with and accept that which he can and will procure with the highest freedom of live. As I have given you all this for free, so you also should give it for free to those who want to have it from you.
4
Also, I have forced nobody of you, but I called you in full freedom: 'He who wants, let him come, listen, see and follow Me.' And you have done that out of your free will. Therefore, act from now on like this in My name, then you will walk the right way.
5
But he who will make a 'must' of it, will not be My disciple, and on his way he will encounter rocks, reefs and thorns. Take all of you a good and true example on Me. What would it cost Me to force in one moment all the people on the whole Earth by My omnipotence to completely accept My teaching and My will, as it is also possible for Me in one moment to map out with 'must' the way that all the other created beings strictly have to go according to My will? But will this give them an independent moral freedom of life that will make them happy? I say to you: no, not a single one.
6
For a dim, very limited intelligence with a little spark of My emphasized will according to which it has to be active, is indeed something very much different than a limitless inner awareness connected with an enlightened thinking-faculty, a clear reason and besides that a complete limitless free will to which I never gave My commandments and My fatherly counsel with 'you must' but always with the free 'you shall'. Because all commandments that I have given to man were in fact never laws, but only advises that My eternal love and wisdom gave to free man. With the conviction that they could give Me a so much greater honor, man has made of all these advises laws that had to be strictly followed, and not keeping them was sanctioned with temporary and eternal punishments.
7
Moses himself has added many in order to inspire the Jews with a deeper awe for God's revealed will, and others did the same. And the present Pharisees have now reached the highest point, not only of foolishness but also of evilness that had to come by necessity. The reason why the Jewry is now in such an indescribable bad situation is the inevitable cause of the fact that the people have made compelling laws out of My advises that were given in all freedom. And how can a compelling law go together with the free will and with the equally free, never limited reason of man?
8
The free will of man will gladly and always accept the bright illumination of his reason with the greatest thanks as a grace from above, but a severe compelling law he will curse in his will and mind. Therefore, every human being who stands under a law of 'must' is as good as continually judged, and consequently as if he were cursed.
9
Thus, he who will give the people compelling laws in My name, will give them instead of My blessing only the hard yoke and the heavy load of the curse, and will make them new slaves of sin and of judgment.
10
Therefore, your care for the further spreading of My commandments should be above all, that you will not at the same time put a new and heavy to carry yoke on the shoulders of the people, but that you will free them from the old yoke.
11
When a person with a free mind will recognize and realize the light truth of My teaching and My best fatherly will, he himself will with his free will surely make a free 'must' of it and will act freely according to it. And this alone will become the true well being of his soul. But a compelled law that is imposed on him will hardly ever or never at all do that, because firstly a compelled law for the free will of man is totally contradictory to My godly order, and such a law will only darken man and never enlighten him. And in the second place because they who are imposing compelling laws will immediately assume a higher future power and soon after that they will become proud, haughty and imperious. From their assumed godly position of authority for which the believers must often shudder and tremble more than for God Himself, they add to the pure godly announced precepts their own precepts as if it was the divine will that was newly revealed to them, and they attach to the observance of it more importance than to the observance of the pure divine commandments.
12
From this, will proceed dark superstition, idolatry, hatred against people of different faiths, persecution, murder and the most disastrous wars. People are motivating this by all kinds of dark nonsense, so that they finally think and believe to render God a pleasant service when they commit the greatest offences and crimes against their fellowmen of different faiths. And only those who are imposing compelling laws are responsible for that.
13
Therefore, in the beyond in Hell of which they were here zealous servants, they surely will occupy the most important places under the most relentless compelling laws, for in My Heavens there is only the highest freedom, however, by that also the highest unity, accomplished by pure love and the greatest wisdom.
14
I have now expounded this to you truly and openly and have clearly explained it, and you also know now in freedom and without the least inner compulsion that which you as spreaders of My gospel should take into account. But if any of you or of your disciples want to act differently, then he will be warned indeed but for this reason there will be no inner compulsion by Me. But from the rotten and bad fruits the better people will soon notice what kind of mentality such a later disciple has.
15
But because I am informing you this now, you must not think that by that I am abolishing the law that was given by Moses, because actually it is entirely the same which I am giving you back now in its original purity. Only the old, rusted 'must' I am abolishing and I give you the old complete freedom back. And the work to save your souls from the hard yoke and the judgment and of the actual Satan - the prince of the night and darkness who you know already - implies mostly that from now on you will stand no more under any compelling law in My name.
16
As I am now giving you back the full freedom out of Myself, do also the same in My name to your brothers. Baptize them in the name of My eternal Love, that is the Father, in the name of the Word, that is the Son of the Father who has become flesh, and in the name of His Spirit of truth. And by that, wipe out in them the old hereditary evil that consists of the now well known damnable 'must' of the law. And I am asking you now if all of you have understood that?"