The Great Gospel of John
Volume 1
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
First day in Sychar
- Chapter 43 -
Further explanation of the Sermon on the Mount. Nathanael's justification of the Lord's allegoric speech. The Lord gives his teaching in the form of seed capsules In the soil of love they will sprout and yield fruit.
Here the High Priest, as well as many others, is quite startled and says after a while, 'Yes, yes, now I do understand it. But why did not the Lord speak right away as plainly as you have now spoken? Then I would surely not have sinned against Him.'
2
Says Nathanael, 'If a seven year old boy would ask me that, I would not be at all surprised, but I do wonder how you, one of the principal sages of this place, could ask like that.
3
Would you not also like to ask the Lord why he put into the grain of seed the limitless forming and developing ability of the tree that will be going forth from it? Why the tedious development of a tree from the grain of seed and following that the long wait for the ripe fruit? Just look how foolish you still are!
4
The Lord's word and teaching is like all His works. He gives us His teaching in seed-pods. These we have first to sow into the soil of our spirit, which soil is called LOVE. Then the seed will sprout and grow into a tree of true knowledge of God and ourselves, and from this tree we shall then in due course be able to gather fully matured fruit for eternal life.
5
LOVE IS THE PRINCIPAL THING; without it no fruit of the spirit can thrive. Sow the wheat into the air and see whether it will grow and bear fruit for you, but if you put the grain of wheat into good soil, it will grow and bear multiple fruit. The right love, however, is a proper soil for the spiritual grain of seed which we receive from the Lord's mouth.
6
This is the reason why the Lord has now for all of you abolished the harsh Mosaic law of punishment, so that you may soon grow richer in good soil in your hearts. For he who punishes according to the law has little or often no love at all and the divine word-seed will, therefore, develop in him only poorly. The one who is being punished is anyway in the judgement in which there is no love, since judgement is the death of love.
7
Therefore, it is better if you do not immediately see your fellowmen's faults, but are forbearing and patient. And if they in their weakness ask something of you, you shall not withhold it from them, so that love may keep growing in yourselves and also in your weak brothers Once this is present in abundance in you as well as your brothers, the divine seed will thrive within you and the weak will then in his strength look upon you with good will and reward you many times over for what you did for him when he was weak.
8
But if you are stingy and hard where your weak brothers are concerned, you yourselves will never attain to a divine fruit within you and the judgement of the weak will in the end drag also you into destruction.
9
When the Lord said, "Give the one who asks you for your shirt also the coat," He only meant to point out that you who are rich and have many possessions should give abundantly to the poor when they come to you. Thereby you will also gain much soil in your hearts and thus be blessed with the possession of such true soil, and the poor will truly bless you, for from your hearts they will receive the most effective sermon of God's true Gospel and thereby become strong for your own eternal support. But if you give miserly and calculate when and how much to give, you help neither yourselves nor your poor brothers, and because of it these will never become a support for you.'