The Great Gospel of John
Volume 9
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord in Nahim in Judea
- Chapter 33 -
The resurrection of the dead young man in Nahim.
After I had finished to give them My teaching we went immediately on our way again because the sun came already close to the evening. Within 1 hour we reached Nahim. And it is obvious that the Greeks, who were very surprised about everything and who were completely converted to My teaching, escorted us to Nahim, so that we formed quite a big caravan.
2
Nota bene: here is an event that has great similarities with the one that happened during the 1st year of My teaching in Nain in Galilee. However, the following one took place in Nahim in Judea, and these 2 occurrences, which are very similar, should not be mistaken with one another.
3
So when we came with a great number of people before the gate of the little city, the bearers, who were escorted by the mourners, carried the body of a young man who died, to the grave. He was the only son of a widow, and the widow wept greatly for her only son. When the funeral procession came very close to us they stopped to let us go by.
4
But I went to the widow and comforted her and asked her also how long her son had been dead.
5
The widow answered: "Lord, I do not know You and do not know who You are, but Your words of comfort have greatly reduced my grief. But how did You come to know that the one who died is my son?"
6
I said: "This I know out of Myself, and I do not need anyone to tell Me."
7
The widow said: "If You know that the one who died is my son, then You also will know how long he had been died."
8
I said: "Woman, you have rightly concluded, for I also know that your son has died 3 days ago from a severe fever. But if you would have trust, I could revive your son and give him back to you."
9
The widow said: "O Lord, Your words are refreshing my heart really a great deal, but a dead person can and will be brought to live again only by God according to His promise on the youngest day. Or are You a great prophet, filled with God's Spirit, so that with its almightiness You also can make a dead person alive?"
10
I said: "That you surely will come to know this evening because I will stay in your inn. But now, open the coffin, for I want to revive the young man and give him back to his sad mother."
11
On this, the bearers opened the coffin and I went to it, took the young man by the hand and said: "Young man, I want it: stand up and walk home with your mother."
12
On these words of Mine the young man raised himself up in the coffin, and when they loosened the cloths with which the Jews wrapped their dead, he stepped immediately out of the coffin, being really strong and healthy, and I gave him to his mother who was surprised beyond measure.
13
This sign provoked with all who were present to this event - even My old disciples not excluded - a real stupefaction, so that some were running away and others were speechlessly standing there from sheer astonishment and dared not say a word.
14
But I commanded the bearers to bring back the empty coffin, so that the mother and son could thank Me now with a cheerful heart for the grace that was given to them. And full of deep awe the bearers did what I had commanded them.
15
When the coffin was brought away, and by that also the remembrance of death, first the Greeks, who had escorted us until here, began again to praise and to glorify Me greatly, and they said loudly: "No human being can accomplish that, but only a God!"
16
But the Jews said: "Yes, yes, only with God such things are possible. But God is only spirit, and no one can see Him and stay alive as well, but these men we can see, and death remains far away, and therefore this Man is most probably a newly awakened great prophet, filled with the Spirit out of God, but by that He Himself is still not a God."
17
The Greeks said: "You know what you know, but we know also what we know. If you say that only God can do such thing and that such a human being can only accomplish these things because he is filled with the Spirit of God, then you recognize yourselves that God's Spirit in Him can be impossibly anything else than God Himself. So if we glorify and praise Him as a true God, then we certainly are closer to the Source of the great truth from where all the light and life comes forth than you Jews who do not consider the One as a true God who says: 'I want it', and not: 'God's Spirit in Me wants it', after which happens immediately what He has spoken out with His mouth and what He wills.
18
Only a couple of hours ago we were still heathens when this God-Man came to us and made my born-blind daughter Achaia seeing with 1 word, and also had destroyed our pagan temple in 1 moment in such a way that not the least of trace was remaining and we cannot even recognize the place anymore where it stood before, and all that He only did it just out of Himself, thus out of His highest own perfect power. And if He does these things and acts in such a way, He Himself must be a most true God and He does not have to pray to a still higher and more real God to help Him to accomplish a miracle, for He Himself is already the highest and most true God.
19
This is now how we gentiles think and this is our opinion, and if we will live and act according to His teaching and accomplish faithfully His will, He will also give us out of Himself the true, eternal life, just as He now has given back the earthly life to this young man also out of Himself, for He Himself is the initial Source of all existence and life."