The Great Gospel of John
Volume 9
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord on the way from Jericho to Nahim in Judea. Luke, Chapter 19
- Chapter 29 -
Why the possession of the son was permitted.
During this eating and drinking, several of them asked the healed son, who was now looking completely fit and cheerful, if he had to endure much pain during his sick condition.
2
But he (the healed son) said: "How can I know that, because I was as good as dead? I did not have any feeling and I also was not aware of anything that was going on around me. However, I know that I was continuously in a dream and I was speaking with good people in a beautiful environment."
3
This was surprising to those who were present and they could not understand it, and Zacchaeus asked Me how this was possible, and why it was permitted by God.
4
I said: "Friend, we will not lose many words on this now. With such afflictions, the soul withdraws into the heart, and one, or often many evil and impure spirits live in the rest of the body and do with it whatever they want, but the soul who rests in the heart does not notice anything of that.
5
However, such possession is permitted in order that men, whose belief in God and in the immortality of the soul has almost completely disappeared, will begin to think about spiritual things again and will also begin to believe in it. Because also you became already weak in faith, and therefore this lesson before My coming to this house was also very necessary for you.
6
If I would have come earlier, you yourself would not have believed Me as you believe Me now, and if this evil did not happen to your son, of whom you had great expectations, then pride and haughtiness would have grabbed you in such a way that you would have become a true devil among men. You would have driven out every belief in God and would have considered men only as machines who would only have any value for you if they would serve you almost for free and help you to give you still greater riches.
7
But when your son, who is your beloved one and your great pride, became so much sick as I have met him here, your heart changed. You began to think about a God again and to believe in Him, and you became more humble of heart. Besides that, you also called upon all the doctors that you knew - gentiles or Jews, that was the same to you - and paid a lot of money for that, but when you saw that no doctor, no Essene and still less one or the other magician could help your son, you became sad and began to think about it seriously why God, if He would exist, inflicted such evil on you.
8
You began again to read the Scriptures and discovered more and more that your conduct and actions towards your fellowmen was not right, and so you promised God in full earnest that you wanted to make up manifold for every injustice that you have committed.
9
When the intentions in you became more and more serious and true, and it also became more and more clear to you that only the almighty Father in Heaven could help you, I soon came into this region, and you heard what I had done for that blind man.
10
Then your faith in God became also stronger and more intense because you received a testimony of the old and the young Kado about Me, so that there was no more doubt in you that I am not only a prophet but also the Lord Himself. And look, you became ripe, so that I have come to you now and have helped your son with My power.
11
Now, if you will think deeply about this, it will be clear to you why I allow all kinds of evil among men in whose heart every heavenly spark of life is not yet completely extinguished.
12
However, with completely wicked and refined living people who are not worth anymore to receive an admonition from Me, such permissions to improve them are of course left out, because they do not help anymore and make the wicked ones even more wicked than they already are. But these kinds of people are consuming their material life here - but after this life will await their own judgment, and that is the other, eternal death.
13
The one to whom I still allow all kinds of sufferings and distress, I am helping at the right time. The one however whom I allow to continue unhindered to enjoy his earthly proud and reviling good life, carries his judgment and eternal death already in himself and thus also with him everywhere. Thus, now you also know why many people of worldly esteem and worldly riches can continue to sin and do cruel things unpunished until the death of their body."