THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN
VOLUME 5
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Beyond the Jordan at the Sea of Galilee. Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 19
- Chapter 272 -
The prophets' language of correspondences.
The far neighbor said, "Oh Lord, we now trust ourselves to speak if we only knew what about! But in addition comes the fact, easily understandable in itself, that we all are now much too full of thoughts about what we have heard, seen and learnt today. But if I may ask something simply for myself, then that would be that You would tell us all or simply me alone what will happen to me one day after the certain death of this body.
2
Will the pure soul keep its consciousness, or will it only awake again to consciousness after the resurrection of the flesh announced by the prophets? On the day of judgment this general resurrection should happen; but when this day will come, is to the highest degree undetermined. At this moment of horror, the just are supposed to then receive their eternal reward before God in heaven and the sinners their eternal punishment in hell.
3
Well, those are truly teachings that my mind and also my reason can never fully become friends with! How is that in truth to be understood, or will that happen literally?
4
Truly, if all that will happen literally, then things look very bleak for humanity, and under such circumstances it would be a thousand times better if one had never been born and never become a person! How many thousand times a thousand people know nothing about our teaching, are deep Gentiles, and their innocent fate will then be eternal punishment in the most terrible fire of hell!
5
Truly, if I observe God's wisdom, love and goodness correctly, such a final sentence for the people seems to me almost impossible! Oh Lord, You will certainly be able to give us a better explanation of this! But if things are so, then we people are the unhappiest creatures on the whole Earth!"
6
Said I: "Yes, My dears, this issue is difficult to explain to you with few words for the moment; but I have explained all this to My disciples in the smallest detail, and they will explain it also to you.
7
What the prophets wrote about it in their inner inspiration, they wrote down in parables which are pure correspondences of the naked truths hidden in them. Whoever understands the ancient science of correspondences will soon clearly see what the metaphors of the prophets mean.
8
Since you have never heard of correspondences, you know only the crude, natural meaning of the Scriptures. There is, however, always in the metaphors of prophetic scripture a threefold meaning: First, the material-spiritual, second, the pure spiritual and, third, the pure heavenly meaning coming from the heart of God.
9
The first influences the moral life of man in the sense that he, as a natural man, thinks and acts in accordance with a right upbringing, meaning, that he does not remain grounded in matter but turns away from it and uses it only as a means through which he can penetrate more and more deeply and clearly into the pure spiritual. A man who has been instructed in these things and acts accordingly will soon find the correspondence between matter and Spirit. Having Bone this, he will enter from the spiritual into the heavenly or, rather, into the pure spiritual. From there it is easy to enter into the pure divine, heavenly. Only then will he see in their full clarity and fundamental meaning the revelations contained in the prophetic books.
10
But whoever considers the purely material images in the Scriptures to be everything, proves that he himself is still purely matter, which is judged and must be, and that he keeps your judgment in his consciousness and in his feelings for all his earthly life and floats in the constant fear and terror of falling into that purely material state after the passing away of the body even with his soul, in which the Scriptures presents and describes in pictures the state of matter.
11
But I say this to you and to all of you, that in the beyond everything is different from the way the metaphors of scripture depict and describe things.
12
The words of Scripture are like the shell of an egg, inside which three things are hidden, namely the white and the yolk and in the middle of the yolk the reddish life coil, which carries the germ of life.
13
But this shell must be everywhere in the material world, wherever anything is, so that the innermost Divine can never be defiled anywhere and by anyone. But because everywhere in all natural spiritual, heavenly and divine is hidden, which obviously proves the all-presence of the divine will, so there is also a relationship between everything that is in the world, in the spiritual kingdom, in heaven and finally even in God Himself.
14
But My disciples, who now have knowledge about very much, will show you all during My longer stay in your midst the details of this and also at some opportunities show that they are My disciples "except for one, who until now has still not understood very much because of his still worldly greedy heart. But the other eleven and the scribe Matthew have already become very competent, divinely wise men, and you will learn and experience very much from them; just listen to them!"
15
At this Peter said, "Lord, Your divine witness indeed goes far beyond the witness of this world; but only we are not worthy of this at all!"
16
Said I: "In the world there is no dignity amongst men except that they are in the image of God, and this is the reason why each man has to love and respect his fellowman. And if someone hears and believes My word and acts accordingly, he is worthy of My proper testimony, for whoever testifies to Me, to him I shall testify before My Father in the Heaven of all life. However, if I give a testimony to someone also before the world, it is not for the purpose of praising him before the world, but I merely indicate that the truth out of God is in Him. In this way you may well bear My testimony."