Men are to become children of God, thus gods themselves "[5] For if men of this Earth want to become children of God, they must try in every way to be as perfect as the eternal and holy Father in Heaven who is in Himself the eternal truth, the eternal love and power, and all the endless good, righteous and wonderful that results from it. Therefore, it is also written in the Scripture: ‘God created man after His likeness, He made him after His image and blew His breath into him, so that he would become a living, free soul.’ [6] In this manner, men of this Earth are not simply and solely creatures of Jehovah’s almightiness, but children of His Spirit, and consequently of His love, and thus – as it is also written – gods themselves. [7] And if they are – and their completely free will that is not limited by anything clearly proves this to them – then they also are completely free lords and judges over themselves. But they only become perfect and lords who are completely equal to God, by making God’s will, that is faithfully revealed to them, as their own will by acting according to it, in which they also are completely free. [8] That is why God works only very seldom visibly among the people because already since the very beginning He has given them out of Himself the capability to slowly raise themselves, out of their own power, up to the highest level of life that is equal to God. [9] Thus, the one who, as soon as he uses his mind, begins to search for the truth and its goodness and will also act immediately according to what he has found, is already walking on the right way, and God will lighten that way for him more and more and lead him to his glory. But the one who, also by his own will, becomes lazy and who will attach himself to this world and its enticements – which are only present for the outer and perishable sense organs of the material or physical man for the test of his free will – will judge himself out of his free will and will make himself equal to death and judgment, and is consequently himself also as good as judged and dead." (90. About the destiny of men - THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN Book 20) 4. Then Emmanuel said to Seth and all the others the following: "Seth, behold, I purify you all because of the truth of your words. But your truth is naked as you are before Me. Therefore, clothe your hearts with free love for Me that you may become alive! For I can give you everything, except the free love of your hearts for Me. This I cannot give to anyone. And if I did this, what would your love be worth? 5. "I tell you, it would be nothing but an alien impulse compelling you against your will to love and, thus, worship Me. 6. "I created you as free humans and children and endowed each one with his own share of love which produces the life within you. You have to seize Me with this your own free love, only then will you take hold of the life within you. 7. "I have given everyone a fair share just as a living germ originating in love has been laid into every grain of seed. When the seed is planted in the earth the dew of love gathers around it. This dew destroys the flesh enclosing the living germ and this becomes free. Once the germ is free it begins avidly to absorb the surrounding dew of love and life, keeps growing and soon forcefully breaks through the soil and freely rises upwards striving after the light of the sun. In such freedom it grows stronger and, finally, from the almost invisible little germ there develops a mightily strong tree full of life throughout and thus full of a thousand fold fruit. And all the life within it is a life characteristic of this tree bringing forth its kind a thousand fold. 8. "Now ask yourselves whether this is not the case with your own free love that is a true germ of eternal life in your flesh which latter is equivalent to the matter of the grain of seed. 9. "My Word and My love for you is the love-dew and does with you as does the dew with the grain of seed in the soil. So absorb My Word into your being that it may destroy your worldliness and then truly free your love, which is the true everlasting life. Only in this free life will you become useful fruit trees and be able to perform life's duties towards life. But now your sole task consists in becoming alive and free in the true love for Me. Only thereby will you become truly alive in Me and through Me, your true, eternal, holy Father. Amen. (HHG vol 1, chap. 142) [5] I said: “But he also has a free will, and therefore, he can also stay or go, how and when he wants. And you have seen that I even allowed the devils, according to their will, to move into the swine. And so, I also allow this man, who among you is a devil, to stay or to go, because as far as I am concerned, every human being and spirit is completely free. But by his actions, everyone takes also care of his own reward. If one wants to become an angel or a devil, is free to everyone. (GGJ Book 19, chap.23) 1. “Behold, I am omnipotent, and whatever I think must happen at once, if I will it. Were I to desire a million people in front of Me, they would be here instantly. They would even speak and act wisely and look like the most beautiful Seraphim. They would even embrace you in all love and eagerly serve you – and yet they would be completely dead within themselves, because whatever they did or said I would be doing Myself. For there could be no life in them other than what I wanted for a judged duration. If I then no longer wanted these make-believe life-beings, they would at once be gone! 2. “If however I wanted to maintain such people and transpose them into a properly free-acting life, independent of My almight, then I would have to sever My spirit acting within them by suitable means. I would then have to bind it within these people and then take it captive through an outer material cover, making them into veritable isolated units and giving them behavioural laws. I would then also have to give them opportunities and stimulants, urging them to voluntarily act through their own cognition and will, either in accord or contrary to the given commandment. The commandment would have to be purposeful, wise and kind. On account of its sanction, such person, in case of non-compliance, would have to be kept under even longer captivity – until forced into accepting and following same in deed. Only then would it be advisable to again remove such human’s outer bands, letting him, in a well-developed state like yourself, go over to the fullest freedom, whereupon he would out of himself have a perfect, no long judged, life. 3. “From this you can see that I must necessarily fully respect free action to the people on Earth under their freedom-gaining test – whether lawfully good or evil. Because if I seize them with My omnipotence, then they are at that moment dead, in that they are then no longer able to do anything out of themselves[1]. If I then want to make them free again, I again have to completely sever Myself from them and subject them to natural captivity, having to give them another freedom test. 4. “If this takes place within the set order, they can like yourself go over to this world of spirits and its fully free life. If however it results contrary to that order, then captivity must continue also in the spirit world, until such people attain to such practicable insight that they then can approach Me, their Creator, without harm. Once they can love Me as Lord and Brother, then they are truly free through such love, like Myself, in that I then think, feel, judge and act within them as a perfect second self[2]! 5. “In such everlasting state they can receive out of Me, without harm to their individual freedom, ever more cognition and powers and even become perfect in everything like Myself, which state alone leads to their perfect bliss. 6. “Behold, it is easy to say: ‘Lord, do this or that! Judge the evil nations, judge the kings and judge the tyrannical Pope! Destroy all those of arrogant and tyrannical heart! Work miracles! Let the entire evil human rabble perish through universal pestilence, for all of them are evil!’ – But it has to be considered that if, on account of lawless behaviour, I immediately judged and killed the people set down on Earth, then I would have laboured in vain. 7. “Although we have to mainly concern ourselves with the Earth’s people, acting as much as possible by the commandments under the set order – through which it is easiest of course to gain free life, we nevertheless have to apply ourselves with the greatest patience, regarding even the perverted deeds with the same calm as the good and righteous ones. For the primary condition for developing free men is that they would in complete isolation from Myself for once become conscious of themselves and start acting out of themselves! Whether for good or ill, lawfully or otherwise, has to be all the same for a newly developing human. We have to respect their own arrangements and discoveries and keep our maintaining influence hidden as much as possible. For were we to make an obvious appearance, we would destroy the new and tender human plant-school with one tread, and then have to take much longer to raise up the trodden and lead it to its great destiny than if we quietly and helpingly watched this initial human development on Earth. For after this first developmental period we still have countless ways to lead the undeveloped men to their right destiny. 8. “Only if counter-systemic transgressions take a rough turn, threatening the developing men’s destined, purposed absolute life-freedom to an undue extend, we naturally have to cause certain judgmental fear-deterrents to appear, such as wars, inflation, hunger and pestilence. But such punishing judgement must never affect more than at the most ten percent of mankind, or it would with higher percentage take on the aspect of a real, larger and deadly judgement! (From Hell to Heaven, chap. 95) 100. ABOUT MAN’S FREE SELF-DETERMINATION AND HIS SINFUL SELF-DEGRADATION [1] HEARING this, Cyrenius is overwhelmed by the greatest awe: “Friends and servants of the Lord, only now do I realize who the Lord is and who I am. I am absolutely nothing and He is endlessly everything. I only do not understand our human audacity which makes us speak with Him as if with our own kind.” [2] Say the two angels: “He wants it to be like that, for the children have from eternity the right to speak to the Father to their heart’s content. Therefore, do not ask about silly things and circumstances, for it is not your responsibility that you are a human being, but solely His who created you the way you are out of Himself, not depending on anybody’s counsel but His very own. And how could He have asked anyone else but Himself since before Him there was no being in the whole of infinity? [3] Therefore, if you speak with Him as if with your own kind, you do the right thing, for God has no one except Himself with whom He could speak. But His created beings that are out of Him have been given the freedom so that they can now speak with God and God with them like one man with another, and thus it is quite in order for you to speak with Him like with your own kind. For the created being is worthy of its Creator and the Creator of His created being. [4] Every created being is witness to God’s omnipotence, wisdom and love, and without His power no ever so mighty spirit is capable of creating anything, which can be done only by God. But since every created being is a witness to the divine omnipotence, wisdom and love, how should it then not be worthy of its Creator? – Do you understand this?” [5] Says Cyrenius: “Oh you supremely wise servants of almighty God, how clear and comprehensible your so very wise lesson is. Yes, it is indeed so. Man must truly not be ashamed of that which is, for he is the Creator’s truest masterpiece provided he lives according to the freely recognized will of God. I think he corrupts thereby and can no longer correspond to what he originally was and is meant to be and remain forever. [6] And so sin must be an act contrary to God’s original order by which act man, as himself creator of his to be developed nature, which is to become similar to God’s, corrupts himself there by rendering himself unworthy of being a created being of the eternal, almighty Master.” [7] Say the angels: “There you are quite right. Every human being remains God’s worthy masterpiece as far as his form, usefulness, ability and living freedom are concerned, so-to-say purely a machine for a free and living expression of the spirit. [8] But as concerns the moral development of his heart and soul, which necessarily has to be left to him, he can degrade himself to a hellish monster, thereby committing the greatest sin because he has within and through himself transformed God’s greatest masterpiece into a wretched bungle, whereupon it costs God Himself much effort and incalculable patience until the spoilt work becomes once more a masterpiece. [9] Because of inexpressibly many self-spoilt works the Master has this time Himself come into the world in order to once and for all rectify these spoilt works. However, the works will continue to become corrupted, and because of that He will establish in this world a new institution in which all the spoilt works will be able to rectify themselves independently. But he who will not of his own accord make use of this institution will forever remain corrupted if his will does not change. Do you understand this?” [10] Says Cyrenius: “I do understand also this completely and because of that I am of the opinion that people must be urged through good but strict laws to make the fullest use of this institution.” [11] Say the angels: “This will indeed happen, but it will be of little use to mankind, for only what man does spontaneously is of benefit to him. Everything else harms him considerably. [12] For if man could be perfected through any kind of compulsion, be it from the outside or from within, we would have more than sufficient power to bind and compel all people in such a way that it would be impossible for them to ever again act contraryto any law. Thereby we would make of man, who is destined in all freedom to become similar to God, only a dumb animated machine that would forever be quite as incapable of any useful free activity as the ever so sharp sword of justice, without being handed by an experienced hand. [13] This shows you clearly that any compulsion would not ever be of any use, but only true teaching followed by free self-determination in accordance with the received teaching by which everyone is shown the well-lit path of divine order, how to conduct his life.” (GGJ Book 3, chap. 100) 3. THE FREEDOM OF THE HUMAN SOUL [1] (The Lord) “Look, you are the bearer of the whole Law, of all power and all strength of Rome for the whole of Asia and a part of Africa, and nonetheless it depends on My will to execute the criminals or to let them go, and you cannot do anything against My will. [2] So I could coerce by My will all the people of the world to do good things; but that would also be a judgment which would turn a free man into a machine. [3] But you are not a machine because you see that what you do through My word is completely within the order of God; and if you don’t understand something, then you ask and act according to your understanding, and then there is no coercion from outside, but from inside, which is within the system of free life. [4] For if My will coerces you, then you are a bound slave, but if your own will moves you, then you are a free man; for your will now wants what your mind, as the light of your soul, recognizes as true and good! But it would be different with the world if it was forced to act according to My will; it would not recognize what is good and true and their actions would then be a like that of an animal and even worse. For the animal stands on such a level that a force which is implanted in its nature cannot do any further moral damage to its soul, because the soul of an animal cannot have anything to do with a free moral code; but the soul of a free person would suffer great damage through an inner mechanical force, because the animal side would go quite against its free moral nature. [5] Now, My dear Cyrenius, I hope you can see more than clearly from this why I keep away from those who persecute me as if I were fleeing, and go out of their way wherever and however possible, not to protect Me from their anger, but to keep them who are also My blind and foolish children from the eternal perdition. [6] But if I see that some people who persecute Me nevertheless have a better nature and can recognize the correct spiritual light and pure goodness, I do not flee from them, instead I let them come to me where they can be taught to recognize their night and their judgment and finally become people according to the order of God. You have just seen a living example in the 30 young but active persecutors of My feared person. Certainly I would not have had them brought here if I had not found their hearts to be suitable for Me when they were still far away. [7] The powers of nature were certainly forced by My will to bring them here; but their soul was not affected in any way through this. Now that they are here, they will be taught, their mind will become lighter, and they will then freely choose what is beneficial for their souls. [8] You see, it is now almost time for the sun to send its rays out over the horizon and still it has not occurred to any of you to make any noise about a need to sleep! Why not? You see, because this is how I want it today! But that is no coercion of the soul, only a material need which must serve the soul longer than usual. I used such coercion on you and Myself mainly for the sake of the 30, and none of you will be able to say that you are sleepy or tired. But for our vigilance we have saved 30 brothers twice over: physically and spiritually. Our effort and our vigilance is rewarded many times over and in the future will be rewarded even more; so an external coercion does no damage to any soul. But if I had forcibly dragged their souls into the light, they would have been nothing more than machines, and none of their actions would have had any more value than the action of a machine or a tool. [9] What use, for example, is a hatchet that chops well and a saw that cuts well? That is only useful to a person who has a free and knowledgeable awareness and knows how to tell the difference between what is of service, good and useful. Or what use is light to a blind man or a running track to the lame? It is only useful to someone who has a correct awareness of himself, the need, the use and the application. [10] The same applies to the spiritual light. The holy freedom of will of the people can and must not be touched by anyone; instead the light must be set in an open place where it can be noticed by everyone. Whoever wants to use it can do it without impediment; but whoever does not want to use it, he can leave it alone just as the light of the sun which brightens the day. But whoever wants to use it, may use it for work; but who wants to be lazy despite all the bright daylight of the sun, may do so and it does not damage the world at all. For the light does not compel any soul with free will for any action. [11] I have power enough to turn around your cognition and to make your free will into a bound beast of burden, and the beast will go around humbly as My All-powerfulness decides; but in itself it will be dead. But if I teach you and show you and give you the correct light, then you will be free and can accept the light or leave it. Do you understand that, My dear Cyrenius?” (GGJ Book 6, chap. 3) [4] Believe Me: If I wanted to convert you people to machines, it would only take a thought of Mine enforced by My will, and the whole temple and the whole large country wherein the Jewish people live, would impossibly recognize Me as anything else than the Messiah – Jehovah Zebaoth! But would it help all Jews and all gentiles? I say to you: Truly, no more than this wooden food bowl, which – as you will see in a moment – will start to move in all directions according to My will! [5] See, the bowl already lives and floats in the air like a bird! Would you like to exchange your being with it? See, it is very much alive and can move in all directions; but it does not have a self-awareness, but My very own consciousness penetrates it and makes it alive. You can even ask the bowl questions, and it will without mouth and tongue answer you. But will you ever believe, that the bowl on its own lives, thinks wisely and can speak without mouth and tongue?! [6] But I tell you even more: With My omnipotence I can maintain this apparent life of the bowl forever. But will it therefore have an own, independent and free life as I do? Forever not; since as long as I keep it alive with My pure might, it is on its own as good as completely dead. Since its apparent life is only My willpower in it and therefore My very own life. If I withdraw this, the old death and the old, necessary judgment of all matter is there, and you will see no life in it, no matter how gaily it now moves in all directions back and forth. [7] And see, man would have a similar life, if I were to force him with My omnipotence or with such signs, which leaves man no room for free thought. And thus a free unbelief is for man endless times better than a forced belief; because the fullest and most independent freedom of will in man is the great plan of God with man. Man can be taught completely harmlessly by God what he has to do to attain the completion of life in him; but he may never ever be forced with God’s or by another spirit’s might. If this occurs, man is judged, thus completely dead in himself and does not exist as a free and independent being anymore. [8] And see now, for this very reason the proposed observations and experiences in the kingdom of the pure spirits are allowed by Me as seldom as possible, and if from time to time it is allowed to happen to individual people, who are chosen for it like the prophets, those chosen people must be from above which have already completed a life trial in the body on a another world, because such observations and experiences about the beyond cannot harm them in any way, and also not their fellowman, because he can believe the prophets only if he wants to. If he does not want to – which unfortunately is mostly the case, he still stays completely free in his thinking and selfdeterminationof his actions, and this is obviously far better for him than any outer or even inner coercion to believe. [9] A person can only become blessed by God and in God, but only to such an extent, as he adopted the will of God as his own will and in his self-awareness has in a certain manner become one with God. But if God were to take away man’s own free-will and by His omnipotence place His own will into the heart of man, then man would be, as already said, in himself as good as completely dead, since only the superimposed almighty will of God gives life to man, as My will has given life to this bowl. But God has created man and has given him life and arranged him in such a way, that he in time can and must develop himself, and this is so wise that man with all his reason and with all his intelligence cannot imagine anything wiser. (GGJ Book 16 chap. 81) 75. THE NECESSITY OF EARTHLY TRIALS [1] I said: “Yes, yes, this is the very knot, which I after the explanation of the brain have discovered not only in you but in several of you, and therefore have asked you to ask. [2] It goes without saying, that God, as the highest and purest love from eternity always unchanged, can never be in any way loveless, and that He will apply in the most enlivened manner all services and means available to Him, to cure any no matter how ill soul. However, He cannot take away the soul’s own characteristic self, but must leave it untouched and place the soul in such conditions, which she, if everything else is to no avail, can better her through a kind of humiliation! [3] In the extreme case this road of course can become extremely cumbersome; however, nobody is guilty about this than the soul herself, who has become too obstinate and stubborn, and who of course became like that, because of her imperfectness of which I have told and explained to you before. [4] But this is the full-strong, very own will of the soul; she wants it like this and always does, what she thinks is best! Now, in this case an omnipotent and most powerful counteraction is of no use; because this would cause the soul the most unheard of tortures – for already the softest influence causes her the most inexpressible pain; just think what she has to endure with a too strong influence?! [5] God in Himself is the highest fire of all fires and the strongest light of all light! But who can endure a fire if he himself is not fire and endure the highest light if he himself is not light?! There, look at the left brain which is still here! Do you see any fire therein or any light, shining only as bright as a little glow-worm in the night? What does it take until this brain becomes completely fire and the brightest light? [6] However, if I wanted with all force to begin to exert My influence here, you will not see these two left brain heaps anymore; since they immediately will be dissolved into the familiar little fire tongues and scatter, until My will grasps them and forms a new being from them. But what happens then to this current being?! [7] However, so that no being which existed once, can forever not be destroyed in its soul-like sphere and transforms into another being and thereby losing its primordial I, My forever unalterable fixed set up order is good! And even if a soul takes an unimaginable long time to reach its perfection, she still stays her very own primordial I, and will recognize herself unalterable as such forever, which is hopefully still more comforting, than for a soul as completely divided transforms into another individual, where necessarily all recollections of an earlier being had to cease and no trace of an earlier, concrete being would be left! What would then be the meaning of a freely self-determining pre-life? Would a human then be any better off than a creeping worm in the dust?! [8] The pre-life is mainly blessed with all kind of difficulties. A person, even if he is a son of a king, must endure from his birth until his grave some quite heavy trials. He often makes thousand plans, which he all wants to execute most successfully; but soon unforeseen obstacles arise, and from all the nice plans nothing comes about. In its place all kinds of drudgeries, illnesses, annoyances – in short, for every encouraging day, normally five days in which nothing particularly cheerful occurs, are following, and in every one year a person surely have thirty completely bad days!” 76. THE HUMAN BEING DETERMINES HIS DESTINY HIMSELF [1] (The Lord:) “If one carefully looks at the life of man even under the most favorable conditions, one easily recognizes that nothing is given for granted. From the king to the beggar, each one has to fight the battle with the summer flies of life, which are full of stings, and which does not contain a lot to look forward to. During childhood man is plagued by weakness, as a man with all kinds of troubles and as an old man with both, and the last hour of life nobody has viewed as the best time of his life. [2] As such the earthly life creeps along mostly between thorns and thistles, and who doesn’t like it, will at the end of the earthly flesh life not be able to talk a lot about pleasant and beatific things; and the more self-loving someone was, the more insults he had to deal with. Who, however, as in the least self-loving, does not make much of all the occurring summer sting- flies of life and also of all the denigrating and offending thorns and thistles, and to whom also all kinds of bodily suffering, poverty, often hunger and thirst, cold, bad clothes andalso a bad dwelling and alongside this still all kinds of other misery, have not made him unsteady, will still be able to talk at the end of his life about some good times, while even a king despite all the incense strewn for him, will at the end of his earthly life career complain about nothing else than all kind of discontents over discontents. [3] Since where does the king lives, who conducted everything successfully, what he intended to do at the beginning of his reign?! Since this was impossible and he finally had to discover some rough calculation errors at himself, he is totally unhappy, and it is an old, familiar fact, that kings mostly die as a result of a secret inner disappointment. [4] As such the self-determining and educating person stays throughout the time of his earthly life in his completely determined consciousness of himself, in and under which he completed this earth’s life trial. If in or outside My order, we want to regard in this case as all the same; since in every respect the earthly life had little pleasantries for him, but instead all kind of bitterness to show for. Therefore also the great worldwise of the heathens, did not wanted to praise anyone on this world as fortunate, and praised only those as fortunate, who returned to the lap of the earth. [5] What would then the reward be for a soul for all the endured troubles, if she, after leaving her body, would lose her consciousness as the indestructible primordial I, and either ceases to be or became divided into thousand other I’s?! Would anyone of you be content with such an arrangement of My order? Surely no one! Therefore it is My opinion, that it will still be better, to keep the old order and above all see to it, that any nevertheless how bad soul, does forever not suffer any harm to her identity! [6] That an I can and must only then become perfectly happy, when it, determining itself, has entered My order, that you know by now perfectly well; since therefore I have preached to you for seven days uninterruptedly and have guided you back to the primordial root of all creation of the spiritual and physical world. However, that to the contrary a soul cannot enter permanent blessedness for as long she is not, determining herself freely, returns to My order, I have shown to you manifold through words, deeds and many examples and again explained them by words. How can thus any coldness, mercilessness, hardness and injustice be in Me? Or can you, what is necessary for a person to be, call hardness in Me? Yes, with one grain less patience and equally less lenience, I would be hard and unjust; but not at all like I am now!” 77. THE INDEPENDENT DEVELOPMENT OF A HUMAN SOUL [1] (The Lord:) “However, that you, Mathael, say, that finally I’m guilty, that over the length of time people have gone over to a totally evil life wrongness, where they apparently will perish, I immediately set this up against you and say: souls, like those of these blacks, have until now not been called to become children of God, and as such, what they have to present, a more stereotype firmly maintained perfection of their soul is sufficient; since it should not be seen as a special consequence of their most excellent development of their souls, but rather that it is given to them like their black skin. However, if they also want to become children of God, then all this will not be given to them anymore, but only the teaching. [2] If they according to it will determine themselves and try to strive for the perfection of their souls out of their own strength, and thereby in themselves awaken My spirit of love, they will be of course be similar like you now; but as long their soul perfection is two thirds given to them and only one third is self-acquired, they can never with such soul perfection awaken the spirit in themselves and also stay in the beyond this, what they are here: quite good, but more mechanically blessed, perfect souls, with whom the borders of bliss must necessarily have been fixed, and can never be thought differently. [3] Where the one and preceding is given, the therefrom following and subsequent can surely not be freely self-acquired; since who has given to you the head, surely also has given you hands, body and the feet! Or do you think that these have arisen from the head by themselves? [4] Ah, it is something completely different when it comes to a itself determining soul who developed itself to the received word of God! What she has, is her very own property, and she can build for herself therefrom a thousand heavens and more; since she now has her own material and her own matter and by the in her awakened spirit of love also the perfect God resembling power, to accomplish such and to be as perfect in everything, as also the Father in heaven is perfect! – And now let’s continue! [5] With a soul, like these blacks confidently own it, can be dealt with soon and easily in the beyond; since what she has, she has, and it stays with her. For herself she forever does not have a higher need and is perfectly happy, similar like a bee, when it has found a rich, with honey filled flower chalice; however, beyond the honey it forever feels no need. Once the bee has, what it was searching for, it already has everything; all the other treasures of the whole of infinity have no meaning for it. [6] However, it is completely different with a self-perfecting soul! In order to achieve this, all the necessary means had to be made in totality available to her, through which, if she wants to use them, necessarily and infallibly must reach perfection; but the required means are surely never enforced upon the soul, who is called to become voluntarily a child of God, but is only made available to her, just like the materials which are necessary to build a house are made available to the builder master. From there on the builder master uses them according to his own thinking and builds a house from it according to his insight and according to his taste, and the build house is then completely his own work and not a work of him, who supplied the material to him. However, if you have ordered the best materials to build for yourself a dwelling, but you do not build it yourself, but calls upon a builder master to build the required house for you, can you then also say: ‘See, this now beautiful and best furnished house is my work!’? Surely not; since the house always stays the work of him, who build it according to his thinking and recognition! [7] And see, in the same way the perfect souls of the blacks are not their own work! They of course are build quite well, but the blacks have contributed only very little to it. However, if so and not otherwise, they for the time being cannot reach the childhood of God; if however, it would be given to some of them to achieve this, their souls would immediately begin to look more imperfect. But since a soul, who is called to become a child of God, is only given the material to build herself and alongside the teaching, how to build, it is surely sufficiently explained, that also in the beyond nothing more can be done for her, if she should retain her individuality. Even if a soul is still so corrupted, she never can be touched by My omnipotence, and only the material can be supplied to her in such measure, as she is able to use it; one also cannot burden her with more, than she can carry with her strength.” 78. WHY THE FREE SOUL OF A HUMAN BEING HAS TO REACH HIS PERFECTION HIMSELF [1] (The Lord:) “Normally a severely corrupted soul is always very weak, so that she is not even able to keep her human form erect and therefore appears in the beyond normally in a half-, sometimes also in a complete animal-like grotesque shape. Now, in time she will be given more and more strength, without her noticing; but then the greatest care is taken, that the soul under no circumstances is not disturbed in her individuality. Simultaneously such support causes the soul a lot of pain, since such a weak soul is extremely sensitive and touchy. [2] If I suddenly wanted to provide her with too much strength, such heavenly generosity will drive the soul to desperation by the most horrible pain, whereby she finally would become more closed up than a diamond and she could not be taught anything, before getting completely dissolved, whereby I would give her such a push, for which not easily a self-provided counterweight coming from the soul, could be set up. The self conscious I would thereby be lost for at least one eon of earth years and from that point on it had to begin to collect and recognize itself again, what for the soul in her free, bodiless state would be much more difficult to achieve than here, where she has the body as a suitable tool to do this. [3] For you, My dear Mathael, the extraordinary length of timehas caused you too much strain; however, if you could recognize what it takes, to bring a soul to a point where she to such an extend is free, that she becomes what she is already in you, you would not have taken an exception to the length of time! What do you think how long has it taken, until you, as a quite perfected soul person, has reached this your current degree of life? If I would calculate all this for you, you would be gripped by horror, and you would not nearly understand such! However, our Raphael knows it quite well and understands it in the right depth of depths. [4] However, this I can tell you, that nobody’s soul here is younger than the whole visible world’s creation! You feel now uncomfortable about it, if I tell you faithfully to the truth, that your souls are much more than eon times eons of earth years old; should I Myself therefore start to feel uncomfortable, because I exist since eternity and under Me and out of Me already eons of pre-creations have come into being just because to you over unimaginable long periods of time?! [5] Yes, My friend, to create a son, an earth and all the things on it, is an easy matter! This requires not such a long time. Also to create animal- and plant souls under judgment is not difficult. But to create a soul, completely resembling Me in everything, is also for the almighty Creator a quite difficult matter, since there My omnipotence is of no use, but only wisdom and the greatest patience and leniency! [6] Since, when it comes to bring forth a soul completely resembling Myself, thus a second Godhead, My omnipotence is only allowed to do very little, however, the newly growing God out of Me must do and provide for everything. From Me he only receives the material spiritually and according to need also physically. And if this would not be the case, and if it could be otherwise, I surely would not, as the most everlasting primordial Spirit, out of love burden Myself with the unpleasant task, to take on the flesh Myself, to guide further the souls who have developed to a certain point, not by My omnipotence, but by My love and to give them a new teaching and the new God-spirit out of Me, so that they now, if they seriously want to, can become within the shortest time frame, completely one with Me. (GGJ Book 10) 70. THE NEED FOR SPIRITUAL FREEDOM AND A FREE WILL [1] THE LORD: “In spiritual matters of life do beware above all of the Roman “must” for that is at all times damaging rather than useful to man. For every “must” is a judgment and does not allow any freedom which in purely divine matters of life is the only well-fertilized field in which the seed of life can germinate, sprout and finally develop into a blessed and mature fruit of life. [2] If you take a recently hatched bird to feed it for strength and rapid flying yet, good feeding notwithstanding, keep trimming its wings – say, will even the best feeding help him? The bird shall be subsisting for sure, but there shall be a problem with free flying until you stop trimming its wings! [3] Just as the bird is incapable of flying without flying feathers, so also man’s spirit cannot attain to a free life-activity, when his free cognition is trimmed by the sanctioned “must”. A spirit without freedom of action is dead because he does not have what fundamentally conditions and comprises his life. [4] For his mere terrestrial life-sphere you can give man a thousand laws sanctioned under “must”, and you will harm man’s spirit therewith far less than if you sanction him even one divine Commandment terrestrially. [5] The spiritual must remain free and has to determine the sanction freely within itself, as also the judgment associated therewith; only thus can it gain life’s perfection in and out of itself. [6] Free cognition of the good and true are the spirit’s life-light; out of these he then himself determines laws that appeal to him. These are then free laws and the only ones harmonious to free life. The spirit’s violation in accordance with his cognition is the free law within the spirit, and the necessity to eternally act in free will is the everlasting sanction in accordance with which no spirit surely shall act otherwise than in free volition. [7] And behold, this also is the everlasting self-determining order in God, who surely has no law-giver above Himself. [8] God’s freest will itself, in accordance with the most perfect cognition and wisest insights within Himself determines the law, sanctioning it out of its very own, although admittedly free necessity. And this then is the basis of all created, terrestrial things and continuance, in so far as this essential for the development, solidification and ultimate isolation of the spirit. [9] The human spirit should however become perfect in himself and by himself like the primordial spirit of God is in Himself and by Himself perfect, otherwise the spirit is no spirit but a judged death. [10] So that the human spirit can become this, the opportunity must be offered to him, to develop himself with time, just like the divine spirit in God Himself has developed Himself from eternity! [11] Behold, since eternity I surely would have sufficient power, to coerce all people with compellingly inner power, to precisely act according to any given law, so that they are not able to deviate one hair’s breadth from it; but then man would cease to be man and he would be an animal just like any other in the large kingdom of animals. He would of course very precisely conduct his work but regarding the work itself you would discover just as little difference as with the work of cell building bees and countless many other large and smaller animals. [12] If you then wanted to develop such animal-humans to something higher with your free recognition, you would achieve just as little with them as when it occurred to you to send the bees to a school, where they finally should learn to start building their cells in a better and more effective manner. [13] Therefore you should not judge the ability of man to sin so low and not as too felonious; since without this ability to act against such given laws, man would be an animal and not a person! [14] And I say to you: Sin gives man the testimonial that he is human; without it he would be an animal!” 71. BLESSEDNESS OF FREE DEVELOPMENT [1] THE LORD: “Therefore, it is good and right to punish sinners if they have strayed too much from the order which God Himself has set for certain perfection attainable in the shortest possible time. But no one should be prevented from the possibility of sinning through an inflexible “must”. For I assure you: I prefer a sinner who voluntarily repents to 99 righteous according to the law who never needed repentance. The first one is a complete man, the others only partly. [2] Thereby I do not, of course, want to say that I prefer a sinner, who is always a sinner, to a righteous man, for to continue in sin means: to also become an animal which lives an unclean life prompted by a false instinctive motivation. Here I speak only of a sinner who in himself freely recognizes that it was wrong to act contrary to the law and who begins to change his attitude according to the recognized order of God and becomes a man who is familiar with every lesson life teaches. [3] Once in My Kingdom such a spirit will be capable of achieving endlessly greater things than one who out of slavish fear neverstrayed from the law by a hair’s breadth and in this be fear dictated observance of the law has physically and spiritually turned himself into a machine without a free will. [4] Take a stone and throw it upwards! In accordance with the “must” law put into it, it shall not take long for it to fall back to earth. Is the stone to be praised for keeping the law so strictly? You can certainly do all sorts of things with the stone as far as a solid foundation is concerned; but create some free activity for it, and it shall not abandon its dead rest! [5] Hence you should not turn people into stones through “must” laws but rather educate them in their freedom, then you have acted fully in accordance with God’s order. [6] Behold, if the people highly placed upon earth were not as lazy as they are, with rare exception they would with just a random amount of investigative spirit have quite easily noted that any person with a certain degree of education shall not in all eternity be satisfied with an animalistic monotony. He no longer builds a hut with thatches, straw and kneaded clay, but masons stones and bakes clay into bricks, building himself a stately dwelling with encircling walls, adding solid towers from whose battlements he can espy the approach of potential enemies! [7] And so a thousand educated people shall build themselves dwellings from which none resembles another – neither in shape nor interior design; but in contrast look at the nest of birds and animal retreats, and you shall never find diversification! Look at a swallow’s or sparrow’s nest or a spider’s web or bee’s cell and a thousand other products or efforts brought forth by animals, and you shall find neither an improvement nor retrogression. But compare human works: what almost limitless diversity! And yet it is always only humans which bring all this about with often much effort! [8] This proves clearly that God Who endowed man with a spirit similar to His own, did not create man to become an animal, but to gain the fullest and freest God-likeness.” 72. DEVELOPMENT AND LAW HE LORD “If man, irrespective of sex, color of skin and earthly rank has been created by God for such a supreme goal, which is now no doubt quite clear to you, his spiritual part cannot ever be given a “must” law if he is finally to become that for which God has destined him. Instead, every law should be given with a “shall,” and only for wicked opponents of the free law there should be a suitable punishment, always providing a chance for voluntary betterment, which must never appear as an arbitrary, but as a necessary consequence of disregarding the law of order. In this manner the human spirit will arrive at independent thinking and sooner accept the given law and act in accordance with it, whereas an arbitrary punishment for an offence always hardens and embitters the human heart and turns man into a devil show vengeance will not die until he has, either while still in this world, but quite certainly in the beyond, taken terrible revenge. This has to be allowed, for otherwise he could not ever be bettered in the hell of his own heart. [2] The law-giver and punisher shall never forget that man’s spirit, be it good or evil, can never be put to death, but lives on. While he still walks visibly on earth you can defend yourself and drive him off if he persecutes you; but once he has left the body and is able to approach you in a thousand ways to harm you and dog your steps without being seen and detected by you, say, with what weapons can you then defend yourself? (GGJ Book 3, chap.70, 71, 72) [5] Yes, My friend, to create a son, an earth and all the things on it, is an easy matter! This requires not such a long time. Also to create animal- and plant souls under judgment is not difficult. But to create a soul, completely resembling Me in everything, is also for the almighty Creator a quite difficult matter, since there My omnipotence is of no use, but only wisdom and the greatest patience and leniency! [6] Since, when it comes to bring forth a soul completely resembling Myself, thus a second Godhead, My omnipotence is only allowed to do very little, however, the newly growing God out of Me must do and provide for everything. From Me he only receives the material spiritually and according to need also physically. And if this would not be the case, and if it could be otherwise, I surely would not, as the most everlasting primordial Spirit, out of love burden Myself with the unpleasant task, to take on the flesh Myself, to guide further the souls who have developed to a certain point, not by My omnipotence, but by My love and to give them a new teaching and the new God-spirit out of Me, so that they now, if they seriously want to, can become within the shortest time frame, completely one with Me.(GGJ Book 10, chap. 78) [5] I said: “Yes, My dearest brother, your appraisal of this matter carries a lot of good and I cannot say to you: ‘See, you have judged incorrectly!’; but now the matter looks quite differently and as such you are falling into the brook with your appraisal! [6] In a world, on which it is all about to educate man to become perfect children of God, the people, alongside their freest will and the brightest mind, must also have laws in which the will of God expresses itself clearly. Man should seize such laws and exercise them. However, how could they do this, if it wasn’t for an equally powerful temptation not to keep the given laws? [7] This opposite temptation provides to the human will the most perfect freedom and gives him the fullest strength to also resist the temptation and puts the recognized will of God in its place. [8] I say it to you: A person who does not have the fullest ability in him, to become a perfect devil, can also never become an absolutely god-resembling child of God. [9] Would infinity of space with any kind of limit, still be infinity, or would God be almighty, if it would be impossible for Him to create even the smallest thing? Or is God therefore lesser a God, because He created next to the wholesome herbs also the harmful poisonous plants, and because He also seeded alongside the wheat all the weed, so that it can sprawl similar to the noble plants? [10] See, just as there is in God no limit whatsoever – neither upwards nor downwards – also in man, who is supposed to become a true child of God, no limitation – neither upwards nor downwards – may ever exist; since with any such limitation, man would not be man anymore but only an intelligent animal, whose will has only the appearance of freedom to only such an extent that it prods the animal to those actions for which it hasan instinct-like ability in itself, but beyond that it forever cannot move one hairbreadth further! [11] A simple animal soul can never become a human soul and therefore it is said that animal souls die with the animal, whathowever must only be understood, that namely an animal soul after the death of the animal, for example an ox, entirely ceases to be an ox-soul, because after its exit it soon combines with many other free animal souls to a new and more perfect soul, qualifies for some time as a human soul and afterwards be procreated into a human body, an old science which was common knowledge in its fullest clarity with the primordial fathers and is still today common knowledge in High India. [12] To negotiate this any further would be useless, since it is fully sufficient that man therefrom should recognize God as his Creator, Benefactor and finally as his only true Father, Whom he as a person should fully resemble in the spirit if he wants to. Tell Me now if you have understood all this!” (GGJ Book 15, chap.36) 71. THE FREEDOM OF THE HUMAN WILL [1] Says Roclus: “Yes, Lord and Master over all things, if we only can perform as miracles everything that You alone want, and indeed everything in Your whole original and natural eternal order, then our own free will is purely nothing, and here and there with the very necessary miracles as the best and most effective proof of the power and strength of Your name it will then begin to look very thin on the Earth! [2] The miracles of Your will happen every day regardless of whether we also want them or not, and our will is therefore always equal to a completely hollow nut against Yours. The sun, the moon and the stars rise and set without our will; and likewise the Earth becomes green and brings forth its fruit; and the clouds move, and the winds play with the waves of the sea; and it becomes summer and winter, and times pass and never come again, quite without our will! Whether we now want that or not is all the same! But how are things then with the very often necessary special miracles?” [3] I said: “Yes, dear Roclus, it is still a little difficult to get to grips with you, because too many worldly concerns still reign in your mind! [4] Behold, whoever sets his hands on the plough and looks backwards, is still not prepared for the Kingdom of God! Do you think then that God in His clearest thinking and wanting issomehow as uniform and monotonous as the rigid ice of the north? [5] O man, first of all recognize God and His almighty will properly, and you will then also recognize whether a man with a heart full of the Divine Spirit is really unable to will or do anything else but – in silent patience resigned to the eternal will of God – let one day after another pass while he happily watches the various herbs grow and flower and again wither away. [6] If that would have been God’s aim with the people, He never would have needed to give them their own free will, all He had to do was to simply let them grow like the mushrooms of the Earth with the roots stuck in the soil, just like sea polyps, if in human form; these would then have been able to look on day and night to see how the stars rise and set according to the will of God at least the way it seems, and how beautifully the grass grows around them! A free, changeable movement would not be necessary at all for them for they would in any case not have a free will, and the unchanging and stereotypical will of God could let them go much better as statues rather than as any pious person devoted to God with his will! [7] For despite all his aesthetics it can still come into the sense of a person who still has his own will and a free movement, to take a few steps across a beautiful grassy ground; and how inevitably must he then press the grass that has grown upright and standing into the ground according to the will and the eternal order of God and besides kill the life of a few grass mites before time! Do you then see the absurdity of your worry? [8] But now consider that a person for his physical nutrition does not only chew up with his teeth all sorts of magnificent fruits filled to brimming with fruit seeds and then consumes them as meals for his body without any mercy or compassion, but instead even attacks all sorts of animals, kills them and finally consumes their roasted flesh with a true avarice. Here and there he seeks great places where previously for many millennia the most beautiful grass, other healing herbs, bushes and trees have grown in the most beautiful and very most undisturbed order of God, and then builds dead houses and cities on this spot. Yes, friend, can that be just according to the order of God that you have thought of? [9] Or, if you shorten your nails, beard and hair that have grown too long with time, are you not acting against the order of God, according to whose stereotypical will nails, beard and hair grow again immediately and do not want to remain as short as you have decided yourselves with the scissors? [10] If God did not want at all some free-thinking and freedesiring being to act against the stereotype of His creating will and to make destructive attacks against the existing constantly unchangingly same order in big things as well as in small, would He have acted wisely to create beings that for the very sake of their existence are forced to make all sorts of destructive intrusions into the original order of creation, which is also a work of the same all-powerful and highly wise God?! [11] But if God, the Lord and Creator of all things and beings, allows the living beings, and namely the free-thinking people who are equipped with a free will, to destroy the forests, cut down the trees, build huts and houses out of it while burning the greatest part, trample His beautiful grass into the ground, mow it and feed it as hay to the cows, oxen, donkeys, sheep and goats and does not slap their hand for many other transgressions of His set order, how much less will He use His almighty will to put up opposition when it means developing man’s little freedom of will into the greatest divine one. [12] Haven’t you seen then how the boy, who is basically only a creation of God, turned the stone into gold before, against the stereotype of the divine will? Has anyone called him to account because he made such a violent attack on the basic order of God? On the contrary, only the divine will, united with that of the boy, brought him to do such a thing! [13] If you keep the easy commandments of God and truly love God above all, you will become obviously more united with the recognition and desires of God. You will become wiser and wiser and to the same degree also more powerful and insightful in desires. Your inner light from God will be raised to an all-seeing eye, with the means of which you will not only feel in the otherwise still dark life, but instead you will see the effective powers of life and through the possession of the freest will of God be able to decide them as well to be active in one way or another. But just in this way, that you recognize and see specially and individually the countless powers constantly coming from God, you can as a possessor of the divine will seize them and also determine them and bind them to some wise goal, and they will immediately be just as active as if God had determined them for some action Himself. [14] For all the powers that proceed from God through all the whole infinity are just like the countless arms of one and the same all-powerful God and can impossibly become and be active in any other way other than alone through the stimulus of the divine will, because they are basically nothing but pure emissions of the divine will. [15] If a man then joins his tiny freedom of will with the infinitely great divine one, tell Me whether it is then thinkable to make a mute observer of the pure divine will, or whether the crudely free willed person will be possible to perform some things with such a freedom of will from God!” (GGJ Book 11, chap. 71) [9] It is, therefore, first of all necessary to lead the people solely through the wisest instruction into the true cognition of self and of the only true Deity, and this with all possible kindness, patience and gentleness. Only stubborn, unruly characters, which are secretly possessed by a senseless, evil wantonness and a truly devilish malicious pleasure, must be routed through an external worldly judgment, but they must on no account be punished too soon through some miraculous act. [10] However, at the same time it must always be deeply considered that the one to be punished is also a human being who is to be guided to a proper use of his free will, and that possibly a cunning and revengeful demon may have gained control over his body, thus turning the otherwise perhaps quite harmless man into a veritable monster. [11] Therefore, any zeal carried to excess, even in the worthiest cause, must be restrained until that modest maturity has been reached which strives with all available means to set to work irresistibly and quietly and with loving care and wisdom, taking everything into account, that is, always considering the living subject it has to deal with, in all its circumstances and stages of development. [12] You surely must by now fully realize that your institute, such as it is, does not please Me at all. Yet, if it were based on a hundred even worse principles than it now is, it would be just as unwise to suspect and suddenly destroy it, as it would be now to annihilate, in an instant, Jerusalem or the exceedingly evil and pagan Rome. [13] Therefore, do strive from now on to gradually abolish all that is false in your institute without using any force, and little by little the institute, together with the people adhering to it, will be bettered in the full sense of the truth. However, if you and your companions were to attempt now to put the whole institute upside down, your many fellow members there would declare you insane and try in every possible way to prevent you from harming the institute, which they consider to be organized quite expediently. In this case you would never have the chance to remove, gently and unnoticed, all that is false from the institute and replace it with the fullest truth.” (GGJ Book 11, chap. 73) [1] (The Lord): “You see here the most eloquent example, namely, Me. You now know Me, My teaching and its true meaning for life. You also know My power, by means of which I could just as swiftly and easily annihilate this whole earth as I did a while ago that well-known ancient rock in the sea. But then I would have to tell Myself: ‘If You wanted nothing else but a world full of children of Your heart and gave them their character and nature, it would have been better not to have called any earth into existence from the very beginning.’ Yet, since the earth and the people are there, they must be maintained and guided with all love and patience according to the wisdom out of God, so that of all that this earth carries and contains, not one mote might be lost. [2] I even tell you: Of all the people on the whole earth, the worst and to Me most annoying men obviously are the Pharisees and doctors of the law in and around Jerusalem; but rather than judging them and having them nailed to the cross, I shall allow them to do the same thing to Me.” (GGJ Book 11, chap. 74) ASSUMING THE FREE-WILL OF GOD, WHEN UNITING WITH HIM [2] However here, not only the innermost of the temple is made completely accessible to the people, but also God, the everlasting Inaccessible, totally reveals Himself personally to the people, as He was, is and will be forever. Therefore it is also necessary, to accept God not only partially, but entirely with body, soul and spirit, by the exclusive sole love for Him. Such obligingness like this of the Creator towards the created, therefore also this from the created towards the Creator, must finally result in the full identification between the creative primordial Being and the created after-being. [3] God becomes one with us, and we become one with Him, without the slightest limitation of our personal individuality and the most perfect freedom of will! Since without the most perfect identification of the created with the Creator, a most perfect freedom of will is unthinkable, because only the will of the Creator can be present in the most perfect unlimitedness and the will of the created only then, if it has perfectly become one with the will of the Creator. [4] If we want what the Lord wants, our will is perfectly free, because also the Lord’s will is perfectly free; but if we does not want this or only partially, we are the most wretched slaves of our own blindness. Only in God can we become perfectly free; except for God there exists only judgment and death! (GGJ Book 11, chap. 8) THE ISSUE OF MAN’S DESTINY, FREE-WILL AND JUDGMENT 71. FATE OR FREEDOM OF WILL? [1] (The Lord) – “However, do not think that this is something which certain wise of the world call ‘destiny’, as if God had decided for every person what should happen in his shorter or longer lifespan! To think and believe this, can bring death to a soul, because this is a teaching, which is a secret product of hell, since it represents the direct opposite to the true principles of life out of God for men. People determine their own destiny by the wrongness of their free will and by the fact that they do not want to awaken the seven spirits in themselves, which is why they do not reach the contemplation of their inner, true and imperishable treasure of life. Thereby they go astray, wanting to seek for the true inner light of life in the light of the world and with joyous courage walk and act along that road. [2] Once, however, a human soul has properly established itself in the darkest night of its created worldly arrogance, by allowing it to keep its inner freedom of will, no angel of heaven will be capable to give it another direction, and nobody can say: See, this was the destiny for this person!’ Yes, it was very much a destiny, but not originating from God, but from the person itself. [3] God only allowed it according to the perfectly free will of man. And what I say now about a single person, is also applicable to a whole nation. It is and stays the creator of its own temporal and eternal destiny. [4] And thus it would very wrong to assume that God has from eternity determined that all this which I have shown to you by the phenomenon and predicted with the words out of My mouth, must take place. O no, absolutely not! Nevertheless everything will happen as shown, because the people want it like that, since by far the greatest and most powerful part of them live comfortably and most stubbornly willingly in the very night of hell, and even now upon My mighty call, do not want to leave this night of death. [5] Because I can do no more than what I have done now, have done in the past and still will do, if they are to keep their complete freedom of will, and he does not comprehend it, and who does not take note of it, his blindness and the great stubbornness of his heart cannot be healed by any means that one could say is true, good and gentle. As a last effective measure, a judgment must come. But for the judgment to break loose, the cup must be full, which will, as I have said, soon be the case with this nation. And as such do not think about it too much in fear; because not I, but the people who do refuse to change want it like this!” [6] Nicodemus said: “But Lord and Master, then it looks extremely bad for mankind! If even God cannot help such people against their own stupid will and stubbornness, then who else could help them?” [7] I said: “Yes, friend, there are many earthly things which you can see and touch but do not understand, so how do you want to understand and comprehend purely spiritual things which you do not see and in anyway sense?! I have explained that God, because of His eternal order, may not influence man in his inner spiritual development by guiding and directing him with His omnipotence. Since, if God would do this, man in himself would become a dead machine and could never reach the freest independence of life. [8] Bring Me the worst cut-throat, and I will instantly change him into an angel of light; but at the same time his individuality would be as good as dead! But as I withdraw the spirit of My omnipotent will, his individuality becomes active again, and the old cut-throat will stand before you. His love is to rob and to murder and it is therefore his life; if you take this away from him, he is completely dead and has totally ceased to exist. [9] But such a man can still be bettered, and this through the extremely bad state into which he has placed himself through his evil love. Because the soul of a person only then starts to think about the reason of its evil and miserable state, if it finds itself in hard, self-inflicted judgment; and once the soul has started to recognize the reason, then it will soon perceive the inner desire to rid itself from its miserable state, and will start to think about the ways and means of how it can free itself from the hard judgment. [10] And once the soul has such a wish and will, then it is also able to absorb a light which was given it from above by any suitable means. [11] If the soul seizes the means offered, its previously evil love starts to change into a good and better love within and out of itself. It will become increasingly lighter in it, and it will step by step go to a higher perfection of life, and this is only possible by allowing the severest judgment. And therefore, a most severe judgment will be permitted to come also over the Jews, when their cup of atrocities is full, and this here and in the beyond, and this will humiliate them for all times of times, since they will never gain domination over a people.” (GGJ Book 16, chap. 71) 72. THE MEASURE OF WHAT IS GOOD AND BAD [1] Nicodemus said: “Lord and Master, but why must there comes such a terrible judgment over a nation only when a certain measure of all kinds of sins has been filled? And what is this measure and what does it consist of?” [2] I said: “This is a little odd, that you as an elder of the temple and of the whole city do not understand this, whereby you have often read the wise Proverbs of Solomon for yourself and for many others! If a child in a mother’s womb has become mature, then its measure as a fetus is full, and it is born into the outside world. A fruit on a tree has reached its measure, if it has become ripe, after which it falls from the tree. A person, who knows the law quite well, follows it completely and does not transgress it out of love for God and his neighbor, has thereby filled the measure of light of his own perfection of life and is thereby already here a citizen of heaven, since he has completely defeated death in himself and has become filled with the everlasting life out of God. [3] However, a person, who firstly does not go to the trouble to acquaint himself with God’s laws of life more closely – because the amusements of the world are detracting him too much, and who rushes from one sensory entertainment to the next, starts to forget about God, and his believe in God dwindles more and more. As soon as he loses faith in God, his parents also become tiresome to him. Not only does he not listen to them anymore, but he annoys them with all possible disobedience, in the end he may even hit them, steal from them and leave them. Just as he does not respect his parents, he respects his neighbors even less. He commits whoring of all kind, and to obtain the necessary means to be able to indulge his senses and evil passions, he becomes a thief, a robber and a murderer. And in this way such a person has rid himself of all laws of life and acts then according to the laws of his evil nature and sins in this way against all laws. Thereby he has fulfilled the measure of evil, has become a devil and has in himself caused judgment to break loose over him, and must in his great torment ascribe it to himself, that nobody else except he himself is to blame for it. [4] But that a full measure of sins is definitely followed by judgment – which is the actual spiritual death – is prescribed by God since eternity and is irrevocably so for all future eternities; because if this were not the case, there would be no fire, no water, no earth, no sun and no moon and no creatures upon them. [5] Fire is an evil element, and if caught by it, it would give you death. Should there then be no fire, because it can easily have a deadly effect on people? See, the earth has a certain attraction, according to which everybody becomes heavy and strives incessantly towards its center! Based on this property of the earth you can fall from a height and kill yourself. Yes, does this mean the earth should not possess this property, because it can give death to people? Oh, this would soon turn out very badly for the earth; because it would break up and dissolve more completely than a piece of ice in the sun, and all creatures on it would come to an end! Since where could they exist, if they did not have a solid base? And see, this necessary property of the earth and all its matter is also a judgment of God for all matter, and without it no matter could exist! [6] And as such everything that you may see in this world is a judgment decreed by God, and whoever turns away from the spiritual and thereby also from God and turns in his soul to the matter of the world, can impossibly end up elsewhere than in the old judgment and its death; because freedom and the fullest none-judgment exists only in the pure spirit out of God, which can and will be obtained by everyone who lives according to My teachings, and believes that I have come into this world from God as Myself God, to give to all people the true light of life and eternal life. Since I Myself am the truth, the light, the way and the life. Do you understand this now?” (GGJ Book 16, chap. 72) [6] If I with My almightiness wanted it to be, that no person ever commits any sin, no person would ever sin again; for he would not be able to dare transgress one hairbreadth beyond My will, just as nobody can shape his body differently, as he is created by the will of God, and can also not extend his bodily life at his own discretion, since all this depends on the almighty will of God. If God would allow it that no person would ever commit a sin, who would have the gain completely for himself regarding the totally sin-free life of a person, who was guided by the almightiness of God, just as it guides the growth of the trees and all other fruit and guides the worlds through endless space? Surely nobody else than God Himself, since man would be nothing else than a play-doll in the hands of God! It also would be a lot more comfortable for God, as it is also more comfortable for Him to create the different animals with their most diverse and most strangest properties and then to guide them and let each in its own way become active. [7] However, the people of this earth are destined to become free and totally independent children of God, and as such they must be guided in such a way that their necessary most free will does not experience the slightest coercion from any more powerful side of a spirit, but be guided only through revelations and teachings and by external laws, to seize with their free will the truth and good which they have been taught, and become active accordingly out of their own self-determination. [8] See, the deference of the free will of the people of this earth goes by God even so far that He not even considers what one or also several people think, want and do. Only if deviated too far from God, only then does God look at them and awakens seers, teachers and prophets, who can announce to the people anew the will of God and His intentions. If the people take note of it, things will improve again; however if they do not take note of it, and mock and pursue the awakened seers, teachers and prophets of God, then God must allow a necessary external punishment to come over the people and often over a whole nation. But even such a judgment is never directly activated by the almighty will of God, but such a judgment comes always from blind and willful wrongdoings of the people. [9] The mighty Hanochites have been warned for more than a hundred years, that they should not for the sake of gold and precious stones destroy whole mountain ranges and should also not level them to the base to more easily conduct their wars, because thereby they would open up large underground water sluices and drown everybody. But all this was to no avail; they did what they wanted, dug even deeper into the mountains and opened up the water sluices. See, this was not carried out by the almightiness of God directly, but took place only through His admission, which was the necessary result of people who did not wanted to listen to His timely admonitions! [10] Through His almightiness God could have captivated the people, so that they would not continue to destroy the mountains any further! Yes, this would be very easy for God to do; but the people would then have ceased to be people, and it would also afterwards in the kingdom of the spirits not be possible to put them back on free human feet. God rather allowed it to happen, so that the whole of mankind through its willful actions perish in the flesh, than allowing their souls to be harmed only in the slightest manner with regard to their free will and fullest independence. [11] Equally so has a tribe been warned several times by the king of Salem, not to live near the vicinity of Sodom and Gomorrah, because there were many underground sulfur deposits and partly contained bitumen. It was also clearly and comprehensively indicated to the people how continuously impure nature- spirits wrench themselves from such deposits and provoke flesh-people to commit sodomy; since just as there are spirits of bawdiness in the wine and provoke the flesh to it if enjoyed excessively, equally so they are also at home in sulfur and bitumen. The people were also told that in such areas quite often earthquakes, mountain fires and many evil storms occur and quite often cause great destruction, whereupon easily famine and pestilence originate; however all such good advice out of the mouth of Jehovah was to no avail. Because the country was otherwise quite lush and fertile, the people nevertheless settled there, and before two-hundred years passed, next to Sodom and Gomorrah ten other cities were built. The people became completely sensuous and committed all kinds of indescribable acts of sodomy and the most hideous fornication even with animals. [12] They again were warned during the times of Nahors and Tharahs and they were advised to leave the evil country; however nobody took any note of it. The sons of Tharahs were Abraham, Nahor – who had the same name of his grandfather – and Haran, who fathered Lot. Haran himself went there and preached on instructions of God but did not achieved anything. Lot, his son, did the same for several years and alternately stayed in the various cities and nearly became himself a victim of the spirit of sodomy. [13] Then came visible angels who first visited Abraham, and Jehovah was among them and loyally informed Abraham what would happen to Sodom and the other cities. And the two angels were sent in the form of two strong youth to the city to still save Lot. The people did not at all listen to the youth but wanted to commit the most unnatural sodomy with them. Then Lot got away upon the warning of the two youth. Only his wife became a victim of her tardy curiosity; she turned into a salt column according to her body as predicted by the two youth. Since they said: ‘We must flee quickly and not even take the time to look back; for the underground fires spread very quickly and its everywhere erupting vapors quickly suffocate all physical life and turn everything very quickly into stony salt!’ Lot’s wife nevertheless stood still for a few moments and was caught by the vapors and became a victim. [14] See, again the almighty will of God did not directly caused the full destruction of the evil countryside; because this would happen to this unripe place anyway, which in fact took place later under Abraham. But that at the same time so many people perished, nobody else carries the guilt than the disobedience of their free will. [15] God could have of course pulled the people out of there with His almighty will and place them in another, healthy country; but this would be obviously against their will. Since this is considered the highest priority by God and must be considered, and He rather let it happen that all these people perished bodily, than let it happen that only one atom of the freedom of the will of their souls is damaged. Since even for God it is the greatest masterpiece of His love, wisdom and power, to create people who can fully resemble Him in everything. [16] In order to effectuate this, man must be born into this world nearly without power and in greatest desolation and obtain his lessons in time from the outer world. If he in such a way has gathered a little knowledge and abilities, only then does the surrounding good and also bad spirits influence him unnoticed – the good his soul and the bad his physical nature – so that the soul always remains in the most perfect free floating state. [17] If man voluntarily adheres to the good outer teachings and admonitions against some challenges of his senses and has adapted his life accordingly, the quiet influence of the good spirits become continuously stronger, which however no person can and also must feel differently, other than as if it is his own free work. Once the influence of the good from heaven through man’s own will is strengthened to such an extent, that the soul has completely submitted to it, the true, divine spirit of love will awaken in her, penetrates the whole soul and only then has the soul stepped on to the first level of her completion, is then already indestructible free and can, even in the flesh, receive visions and revelations from spirits and even from the highest angels. (GGJ Book 15, chap. 96) [1] (The Lord) – “However, do not think that this is something which certain wise of the world call ‘destiny’, as if God had decided for every person what should happen in his shorter or longer lifespan! To think and believe this, can bring death to a soul, because this is a teaching, which is a secret product of hell, since it represents the direct opposite to the true principles of life out of God for men. People determine their own destiny by the wrongness of their free will and by the fact that they do not want to awaken the seven spirits in themselves, which is why they do not reach the contemplation of their inner, true and imperishable treasure of life. Thereby they go astray, wanting to seek for the true inner light of life in the light of the world and with joyous courage walk and act along that road. [2] Once, however, a human soul has properly established itself in the darkest night of its created worldly arrogance, by allowing it to keep its inner freedom of will, no angel of heaven will be capable to give it another direction, and nobody can say: ‘See, this was the destiny for this person!’ Yes, it was very much a destiny, but not originating from God, but from the person itself. [3] God only allowed it according to the perfectly free will of man. And what I say now about a single person, is also applicable to a whole nation. It is and stays the creator of its own temporal and eternal destiny. [4] And thus it would very wrong to assume that God has from eternity determined that all this which I have shown to you by the phenomenon and predicted with the words out of My mouth, must take place. O no, absolutely not! Nevertheless everything will happen as shown, because the people want it like that, since by far the greatest and most powerful part of them live comfortably and most stubbornly willingly in the very night of hell, and even now upon My mighty call, do not want to leave this night of death. [5] Because I can do no more than what I have done now, have done in the past and still will do, if they are to keep their complete freedom of will, and he does not comprehend it, and who does not take note of it, his blindness and the great stubbornness of his heart cannot be healed by any means that one could say is true, good and gentle. As a last effective measure, a judgment must come. But for the judgment to break loose, the cup must be full, which will, as I have said, soon be the case with this nation. And as such do not think about it too much in fear; because not I, but the people who do refuse to change want it like this!” [6] Nicodemus said: “But Lord and Master, then it looks extremely bad for mankind! If even God cannot help such people against their own stupid will and stubbornness, then who else could help them?” [7] I said: “Yes, friend, there are many earthly things which you can see and touch but do not understand, so how do you want to understand and comprehend purely spiritual things which you do not see and in anyway sense?! I have explained that God, because of His eternal order, may not influence man in his inner spiritual development by guiding and directing him with His omnipotence. Since, if God would do this, man in himself would become a dead machine and could never reach the freest independence of life. [8] Bring Me the worst cut-throat, and I will instantly change him into an angel of light; but at the same time his individuality would be as good as dead! But as I withdraw the spirit of My omnipotent will, his individuality becomes active again, and the old cut-throat will stand before you. His love is to rob and to murder and it is therefore his life; if you take this away from him, he is completely dead and has totally ceased to exist. [9] But such a man can still be bettered, and this through the extremely bad state into which he has placed himself through his evil love. Because the soul of a person only then starts to think about the reason of its evil and miserable state, if it finds itself in hard, self-inflicted judgment; and once the soul has started to recognize the reason, then it will soon perceive the inner desire to rid itself from its miserable state, and will start to think about the ways and means of how it can free itself from the hard judgment. [10] And once the soul has such a wish and will, then it is also able to absorb a light which was given it from above by any suitable means. [11] If the soul seizes the means offered, its previously evil love starts to change into a good and better love within and out of itself. It will become increasingly lighter in it, and it will step by step go to a higher perfection of life, and this is only possible by allowing the severest judgment. And therefore, a most severe judgment will be permitted to come also over the Jews, when their cup of atrocities is full, and this here and in the beyond, and this will humiliate them for all times of times, since they will never gain domination over a people.” (GGJ Book 16, chap. 71)) 72. THE MEASURE OF WHAT IS GOOD AND BAD [1] Nicodemus said: “Lord and Master, but why must there come such a terrible judgment over a nation only when a certain measure of all kinds of sins has been filled? And what is this measure and what does it consist of?” [2] I said: “This is a little odd, that you as an elder of the temple and of the whole city do not understand this, whereby you have often read the wise Proverbs of Solomon for yourself and for many others! If a child in a mother’s womb has become mature, then its measure as a fetus is full, and it is born into the outside world. A fruit on a tree has reached its measure, if it has become ripe, after which it falls from the tree. A person, who knows the law quite well, follows it completely and does not transgress it out of love for God and his neighbor, has thereby filled the measure of light of his own perfection of life and is thereby already here a citizen of heaven, since he has completely defeated death in himself and has become filled with the everlasting life out of God. [3] However, a person, who firstly does not go to the trouble to acquaint himself with God’s laws of life more closely – because the amusements of the world are detracting him too much, and who rushes from one sensory entertainment to the next, starts to forget about God, and his believe in God dwindles more and more. As soon as he loses faith in God, his parents also become tiresome to him. Not only does he not listen to them anymore, but he annoys them with all possible disobedience, in the end he may even hit them, steal from them and leave them. Just as he does not respect his parents, he respects his neighbors even less. He commits whoring of all kind, and to obtain the necessary means to be able to indulge his senses and evil passions, he becomes a thief, a robber and a murderer. And in this way such a person has rid himself of all laws of life and acts then according to the laws of his evil nature and sins in this way against all laws. Thereby he has fulfilled the measure of evil, has become a devil and has in himself caused judgment to break loose over him, and must in his great torment ascribe it to himself, that nobody else except he himself is to blame for it. [4] But that a full measure of sins is definitely followed by judgment – which is the actual spiritual death – is prescribed by God since eternity and is irrevocably so for all future eternities; because if this were not the case, there would be no fire, no water, no earth, no sun and no moon and no creatures upon them. [5] Fire is an evil element, and if caught by it, it would give you death. Should there then be no fire, because it can easily have a deadly effect on people? See, the earth has a certain attraction, according to which everybody becomes heavy and strives incessantly towards its center! Based on this property of the earth you can fall from a height and kill yourself. Yes, does this mean the earth should not possess this property, because it can give death to people? Oh, this would soon turn out very badly for the earth; because it would break up and dissolve more completely than a piece of ice in the sun, and all creatures on it would come to an end! Since where could they exist, if they did not have a solid base? And see, this necessary property of the earth and all its matter is also a judgment of God for all matter, and without it no matter could exist! [6] And as such everything that you may see in this world is a judgment decreed by God, and whoever turns away from the spiritual and thereby also from God and turns in his soul to the matter of the world, can impossibly end up elsewhere than in the old judgment and its death; because freedom and the fullest none-judgment exists only in the pure spirit out of God, which can and will be obtained by everyone who lives according to My teachings, and believes that I have come into this world from God as Myself God, to give to all people the true light of life and eternal life. Since I Myself am the truth, the light, the way and the life. Do you understand this now?” (GGJ Book 16, chap. 72) [2] I said: “My friend, everything would be possible, but for many wise reasons not all is feasible or admissible. There are many very poor people, and people suffering with all kinds of diseases, whom you would like to help according to your good heart, which is very pleasing to Me. But look, if you had helped them according to your knowledge and conscience, in reality they would not have been helped at all, but you would have achieved exactly the opposite for them. [3] It is therefore, most commendable in you – now that you are doing well – to think about those in need and misery, and you have the wish to help them. But truly, not everyone whom you had helped would be helped. [4] Look, no one knows better about the need and misery of men than I. And no one is more merciful and loving than I, but all men would be helped very little with only My love and mercy if My supreme wisdom would not work together with it. [5] Yes, a poor family is in a bad state. They have no work, no shelter, no bread and suffer hunger and thirst. They are begging from house to house, from place to place, and often after a day of begging they barely have enough to satisfy their hunger while others are living in abundance and are feasting, and are sending such a poor family away when they ask for help. [6] Undeniable, this is wicked of the hard-hearted rich who are treating such a poor family in a hard way. And when you see such a hard attitude you certainly can say: ‘But great, very kind and almighty God, how can You allow without punishment such a cruelty which is crying to Heaven? Destroy such people with thunder and lightning from Your Heavens.’ And look, God would still not grant your prayer. Yes, but then why not? [7] Must men’s lack of love remain rampant on this Earth? No, I tell you, this certainly not. But look, according to God’s wise decision, everything must have its time on Earth, so that men can come to maturity to become true sons of God. That is why the one who is rich has his time to be rich and to be merciful to the poor with his abundance, and the poor has his time to practice in patience and self-denial and to sacrifice his need and misery to God. And God will soon help the poor in the way that is best for the salvation of his soul, and also chastise the hard-hearted rich at the right time. For the rich as well as the poor are called to become sons of God. [8] Once our poor family was also wealthy and hard toward other poor people, and for the salvation of their souls the tide of their earthly prosperity had necessarily to turn one day. If you would help them now suddenly, then they soon would become arrogant and take revenge on those who treated them harshly. However, once they have been properly tried in patience, they will slowly but surely, as imperceptible as possible, be helped and therein they will recognize God’s care better and clearer than if they had been suddenly raised to a state of happy prosperity. [9] But the hard-hearted rich man will also be placed step by step in a more unpleasant situation. Here and there he will be making a mistake in his speculations, he will have a bad harvest,will suffer losses in his herds, will get sick himself or his wife or one of his favorite children, and he will suffer one misfortune after another. [10] If he repents and recognizes his injustice, he also will be helped again. If, however, he does not repent and does not recognize his injustice, then he will lose everything and be reduced also to beggary or, depending on the circumstances, will have to suffer something worse. [11] Whoever will then comfort him in his poverty and support him will also be comforted and rewarded by God, but no one will be able to help him completely, until it is allowed by God’s will. I surely know who is ripe to be helped.” 12. THE EVIL AND THE JUDGMENT AT these words of Mine the man became completely joyful and he ate and drank, and his companions followed his example with great diligence. [2] The woman, however, who was among them with her husband said deeply moved: “Oh, how good and just the Lord is. He who has truly recognized Him must really come to love Him above all. Oh, if only the temple servants down there would realize who He was, then they surely would also love Him above all and keep His wise commandments. But the devil in person will never allow this to them, for they are his most faithful servants and helpers, and therefore, are not worth anymore to receive any mercy from the Lord. Oh, once in Hell they surely will regret this eternally and say: ‘Oh, why did we let ourselves be blinded by the devil?’ But there, such repentance will surely not help them anymore. O Lord, we thank You that You have revealed to us poor, simple people the Kingdom of Your mercy, and withheld it from the wise of this world.” [3] I said: “You have well spoken according to your own understanding, but consider also that in Hell there is no repentance for improvement of a hellish spirit and that is based on the fact that he really would feel repentance about the evil that he committed on Earth. For if a spirit in Hell could really come to such a repentance, then also improvement and salvation would be possible for him. But an evil spirit – thus a devil – cannot ever let a good repentance arise within him, but only repentance that is initially evil as he himself is, and he only regrets not having committed inexpressibly much more evil of the worst kind in the world. [4] It will be clear to every person with some sense that there is no improvement for such a soul and, therefore, also no salvation. [5] As for an angel of Heaven everything is thoroughly good, so also for a devil everything is thoroughly bad. The deeper an angel thinks and wills, the more he will be like God and the more free and mighty he will be, and the deeper a devil thinks and wills, the more he will be unequal to God, and will not be free and not be mighty, because that which is basically evil in him restrains all his power, and it is his judgment and his true death. [6] Yes, dear woman, if the devil would be able to truly repent from within, he would not be a devil and would not be in Hell. Therefore, a devil can never improve from within – thus, out of himself. But through influences from the outside it is still possible after an unimaginable long time. However, these influences must always correspond completely with the innermost of the devil, which is – as already said – thoroughly evil. In this way, the evil affecting the devil from the outside suppresses the inner evil, and only by that, it can become progressively clearer in his real evil spirit and thus become a little better. [7] Therefore, the torments of the hellish spirits always seem to come from the outside, which is also the case with very wicked people already on this Earth. If with a very wicked person, teachings, warnings and the wisest instructions have no longer any effect and he wants to resist more and more the laws of order, it is impossible to achieve any improvement from within him, out of himself. Then he comes into the hands of the severe and unmerciful judges who are inflicting very painful outer punishments to the criminal. [8] If the evildoer has to suffer a lot, he gradually comes to introspection and begins to think a bit more about the cause of his suffering, realizes his helplessness as well as the unmerciful judgments. Yes, finally he begins to realize that he alone is the cause of his torments, namely, through his wicked deeds, which he had voluntarily and with evil pleasure committed against the laws of general order. Since he can see now that his wicked deeds are his real tormentors, he finally begins to abhor them in himself and wishes he had never committed them. And look, this is then already a step towards a possible improvement. [9] But then, by far the outer punishments must still not be ended, because the evildoer began to abhor his wickedness only because it produces bad fruits. Through outer instruction, he must now first begin to recognize from within that his wicked deeds are wicked in itself, and also have to be abhorred only for that reason, and not because they have necessarily evil consequences for the evildoer. [10] If the evildoer can realize that and begins to abhor the evil because it is evil and decides to choose the good because it is good, he undergoes his punishment with more patience and bears everything, for he regards his suffering as completely just and as an aid by which his life will improve. Only when the evildoer has arrived at this point and his inner being is becoming truly better, then the time has come to reduce the outer punishments to the same extent as the former evildoer has truly changed within for the better. [11] If worldly judges would understand this, they still could transform many arch-criminals into good people. But in the case of great criminals they are immediately ready with the death sentence and precisely by this they are making the totally incorrigible criminals to complete devils in the spirit world. In the future this should not be so among you. [12] If you have to judge, then pass a just judgment like I have told you now, for the true and certainly possible improvement of the sinner, but not to make him more devilish.” (in Biblical Arg for Universal Salvation + NR)) 13. ABOUT THE DEATH PENALTY THEN Agricola said: “Lord and Master. I have engraved now Your extremely true, holy words deep in my heart, and will act accordingly as much as possible, but still I do ask You if the death penalty should be abolished in all circumstances?” [2] I said: “Oh friend, I know indeed what you want to tell Me now. Look, you have heard from one of My disciples that I Myself 1 year ago in the vicinity of Caesarea Philippi at the lake of Galilee have applied a sort of summary justice on a few very evil servants of the law who were tracing Me up, and that is why you have asked Me this question. [3] Yes, I tell you: if you can see from a criminal, just as I can, that he as human being in the body is already a perfect devil – just as Moses was also able to see that by My Spirit – then you can sentence him to the death penalty at once. But if you cannot see that, like I and Moses, then you must not be too quick with the death sentence. [4] I have of course the right from eternity to – what concerns the body – kill the whole human race, and so I am always executioner of all material created beings in the whole eternal infinity, but what I kill as matter, I make alive spiritually forever. [5] As soon as you can do that also, you can kill no matter who at the right moment. But since you cannot do that, you also should not kill, except in case of extreme necessity. For instance in a efensive war or in a by God ordered punitive war against incorrigible wicked nations, or also in case of self-defense against an evil killer or robber. In all other cases you may not kill or let kill as long as you do not have My full light in you. Did you well understand this?” [6] Agricola said: “I thank You, Lord and Master. This is now also completely clear to me, and as judge I will hold on to it as good as possible, although I myself cannot prescribe anything to the emperor, but now and then he is willing to accept good advice.” [7] I said: “This you can do, although you will not have much success. In Rome you have a few excellent laws indeed, but besides that, a great number of bad, wrong customs, besides which anything good and true can hardly take root. [8] I tell you: Rome is and will remain Babel, a worldly whore, despite all persecutions that will come over her, although there will also be a great many zealous followers of My teaching. [9] It is true that you have set the death penalty on robbery, murder and manslaughter and still a few other crimes, but at your great feast-days certain gladiators must fight for life or death to increase your pleasure, and the victor is then honored. Look, this is evil and will not bring any blessing to a nation. Also you have all kinds of battles with wild animals by which oftentimes men have to loose their life in a cruel manner, and still you find this very amusing. And look, also this is a great evil. There is virtually no blessing from above, and when this is missing, no state and no nation has a stable and permanent existence. On this, you can certainly believe Me. [10] If however, you can and want to change it, then contribute to it that such things, which are very bad for your city and your great kingdom, will be prevented, and in which anyway you who have now become seeing, will not participate in it, let alone this youth that you will be taking to Rome. Then you always and everywhere will be able to rejoice in My blessing. [11] I have given all of you the 2 commandments of love, which you have to observe faithfully. But in order to observe these commandments, one may not take pleasure in these wild battles. [12] Because little love can be found in the heart of someone who can watch with indifference when a human being or also an animal is perishing. Where there is true living love, there is also real compassion and true mercy. How can anyone possess neighboring love when he is taking pleasure in the painful dying of his fellowman? Therefore, away with everything that is unworthy for the heart of a good man. [13] If you see your fellowman crying, you shall not laugh, for if you laugh, you are showing him that his pain leaves you totally indifferent, as well as your suffering fellowman, who is still your brother. [14] However, if your brother is joyful and is rejoicing at his good fortune, then grant him this short gladness over his little earthly happiness. Do not grumble, but rejoice with him, then your heart will not become worse but only nobler. [15] When you see a hungry person while you have more than enough, then do not think that the hungry one will feel as comfortable as you with your full belly, but bear in mind that he is very hungry and give him to eat. After that, you will feel a great satisfaction in your heart, which will make you feel much more comfortable than your full belly, because a full heart makes man much happier then a full belly. [16] If you are carrying a bag full of gold and silver, while at home you still have much more, and you meet a poor person who is greeting you and wants to talk to you, then do not look the other way and do not let him feel one way or the other that you are rich while he is poor. But be friendly to him and help him with much gladness out of his need. If you do this, your heart will be filled with joy. Then the poor person will stay your friend forever and will never forget your true friendliness. [17] Therefore, true neighboring love is doing for his fellowman all that which one can reasonably wish that he also would do forsomeone else. [18] If a poor child asks you something, do not turn it away from you, but bless it and comfort its heart, then you also will once be comforted in Heaven by My angels. For then you are saying together with Me: let all the little ones come to Me and do not prevent them, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Truly, this I say to you all: if in your heart you do not become as little children, then you will not come into My Kingdom. For I tell you that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs first of all to them. [19] I know however, that with you there is the evil custom to often secretly torture very poor children in a terrible way, so that as a result of this torturing, a malignant poisonous saliva is coming out of their mouth, out of which these wicked priests and magicians of yours are preparing a dangerous poison. And friend, this happens in Rome even now this day. Where such abominations can still be committed completely cold-bloodedly, there the complete Hell is still very active, and My grace can hardly be found there. That is why wise and righteous judges should have taken action with great determination against such an evil that is crying unto Heaven. [20] I say to you: those who will commit such a crime against animals I will look at them with wrathful eyes, for also the animals are My created beings and have life and feeling, and a sensible man should not work his evil will on them. But how endlessly much higher stands even the poorest child than all animals of the Earth. Thus, whoever will offend a child in such a way is a devil and is cursed. [21] I still could tell you some more of such evil Roman customs which are not unknown to you and which are secretly tolerated with you after payment of a specific estimated amount, but it is your task to abolish such more than ungodly abuses. If you seriously want it, you will absolutely never lack My help. But first you must want this very seriously, because on this Earth My will never goes before men’s will – as I have already sufficiently explained to you – except in the case of a judgment, at which always many warnings are preceding. Of course it will cost you many a battle, but a good case is also always worth a serious battle. (GGJ Book 17) [11] But I said to him: “You know that from now on I do not judge the people anymore by My zeal but only by themselves, for the sake of the few righteous who have not yet bent their knees before the mammon of this world. That is why we are letting the world that is dumb and blind by its own will, go now its own way and execute the judgment that it has caused itself, leading to its own destruction. [12] But I want to lead My true children Myself on the ways of the light and on the paths of life. What can be saved will now also be saved. However, the one who will not allow himself to be saved and does not want to be free from judgment and death that he has caused himself, will also reap whatever he desires. [13] If someone wants freedom and thereby eternal life, then he will also find it. However, if someone wants judgment and death, then also this will be his share. Because from now on no Jew will be able to say: ‘I also would have walked the ways of the light if only I would have known something about it.’ I Myself have taught and worked everywhere, and even today I will send out 70 disciples who will carry out and preach My teaching to all the ends of the entire old Jewish kingdom, to gentiles and Jews, and within a year My oldest and first disciples will carry out this gospel in My name into the whole world. Salvation to everyone who will accept it and will direct his life conforming to it.” [14] Upon this, the spirit of Abraham bowed again deep before Me, thanked Me and disappeared. (GGJ Book 17, chap. 81) [23] Here I Myself went to both of them and said, after I had put My hands on their shoulders: “So it has to be, My dear friends. Also here you have completely acted in My Spirit today. Truly, I tell you: you My Jordan, are for Me together with our brother Lazarus worth more than a 100 countries full of injustice and self-love. [24] Truly, if I would not have found here a few men like you, and you two above all, I would not be staying at this place. Do continue to walk on My paths, then I will not be like now your Lord and Master, but your true Brother in person, and what belongs to Me since eternity will also be yours forever. [25] Oh if all men would be like you, then it would look quite different on the Earth. But the laziness of the people is Satan’s old trap in which they willingly let themselves be trapped for their eternal ruin. And still, men could not have been created more perfect than what they are now. They have reason, intellect, a complete free will and a conscience that warns them constantly. And everywhere and at all times there are men and teachers called by Me who are very active and have an equal great wisdom as the angels. But their lust and laziness draws them constantly away from all that is right, true and good. And so they fall victim to the kingdom of ruin, and nothing else can help them except one judgment after another and one punishment after another. And even that is only helping but a small minority. [26] Truly, the whole Earth would never have a bad harvest and would never fail if men would somehow be like you. But now in the whole country of the Jews there are not 1,000 who are fully as they need to be. But also because of those 1,000 I will not afflict the country with a total disaster. The good ones will always be spared from any disaster as far as they themselves are truly good. But as far as they will take part in one way or another with the world, they also will have their share of the disasters of the world. [27] Believe Me, it truly does not give Me pleasure when I allow that the lazy people on Earth are regularly afflicted with a thousand and one disasters. But it cannot be otherwise because if a lord would not wake up almost daily his always sleepy and lazy helpers for the necessary work, it would look bad and very meager for his harvest and his produce. Only the efforts of the lord – which consist in waking up his many helpers and workers on time – will be beneficial for himself and also for them. But those who are hiding, so that they can continue to sleep and not have to work, can only blame themselves if they will come to ruin. [28] Therefore, let all who are in your service be always awake and active in everything that is right, true and good, then you will have sown a good seed for Me that will give us a produce of a hundredfold fruit, and a great part of the harvest will be eternally your share. (GGJ Book 17, chap. 100) [2] He who has not yet created a sun, a moon, a habitable Earth, plants, animals and men, knows certainly not how all these creatures have to be guided, sustained and brought to their ultimate goal. I, however, know all this and have established an eternal order, without which nobody could achieve anything. [3] Man, as My complete image, must also have a perfect free will by which he has to – as far as his spiritual part is concerned – transform and strengthen himself, and make himself free from My omnipotence, so that one day he may stand next to Me and live and act as a strong, free, independent and arbitrary being. [4] Look, all creatures are subject to laws, which are established by Me. Also man, where his body is concerned. Only the soul and the spirit of man are not. That is, as far as his will and the freedom of learning and the realization of everything are concerned. The form and the structure of the soul in all its parts is of course also subject to laws which are established by Me, but only in such a way, that, precisely because of the free will in man, he can become either very noble and strong or very ignoble and weak. [5] But the free will of man would be of little or no use at all if he would not have the possibility to learn and to recognize freely, and from that, a reasoning that shows to the will what is good and true and what is wrong and bad. [6] Only when man has gathered knowledge and has sharpened and awakened his intellect, the revelation of the divine will is added, which shows man the true way to eternal life and God. Then man can either accept this revelation or not, since also in relation to God he must have a completely free will, or else he would not be a human being but an animal that has no free will but only an instinct which it cannot resist. [7] In the beginning, only one human pair was placed on Earth, and the man was called ‘Adam’ and the woman ‘Eve’. God provided this first human pair with all abilities. They had a deep understanding, a clear intellect and a very powerful free will by which all other creatures had to bow down. [8] In addition to these abilities they also received a clear and easy to understand revelation from the mouth of God, which showed them freely and openly what they had to do to reach the goal that has been set by God on the shortest and easiest travelable way. But besides that, God let them also know that they were completely free and could also act contrary to the will which was revealed by God, by allowing them to be seduced by the flesh and the matter of the world. However, thereby they would bring a judgment over themselves and by that also their death. [9] Well, this went very well for a certain period of time, but soon the sensual desire – represented symbolically by Moses in the form of a snake – became victorious over the realization gained from the divine revelation of what is good and true, and they transgressed the commandment in order to see what would be the result of that. [10] And look, what the first human pair did is now done by almost all human beings. [11] God has never failed to give great and small revelations, yet He has never forced any human being to heed them. However, blessed is the one who does heed them and directs his life accordingly. [12] The first human pair had surely received the purest and best education from God and would have been able to pass this on, unadulterated, to all their descendants. But just look at the people 2,000 years later at the time of Noah. Then you will see that they are changed into malicious devils. [13] Did the first human beings on Earth ever lack the best education? Oh no! Have they not given it also to their children? Yes, sure, and always in the purest way. However, men felt within also the impulse to go against the commandments of God, because that was pleasing to their body, and thereby their lives fell into total decay and complete ungodliness. And when God sent men to them and admonished them in a fatherly manner to return to Him, such men were soon excommunicated, expelled and some of them were even killed in a cruel manner. [14] Finally, those people who had turned their back to God even began to destroy the Earth, and then their measure was full. They themselves opened up the gates of the subterranean great waters, which then gushed over the evil ones by which they were all drowned. [15] This however, was not a judgment directly coming from God’s will, but a judgment that was allowed, that had to happen in this way because of the inner structure of the Earth. Because if you jump down from a high rock-face crashing and killing yourself, this is also a judgment that comes over you, but not by the will of God, but because the Earth is arranged in such a way that everything that is heavy certainly has to fall down, what man, by his intellect, is quite capable of knowing. [16] Therefore, no human being on Earth is so helpless that he could not help himself if he really wants, but if already from his childhood he does not want that, he can only blame himself if he comes into distress. And what I am saying now of one person applies also to a whole nation. [17] There is no nation on Earth that could not help itself quite well if it only wanted to. But where is the will? Yes there is more than enough will for doing what is evil and bad, but for the spiritual, which is purely good and true the good will is lacking because it is not according to the sensuality of the flesh. And the soul of someone who does not have such good will, as also the soul of an entire nation, goes over into the judgment and the death of matter, and then is unable and unwilling to listen, to absorb and to understand from what is of the spirit, of its light and its life. And if one wants to wake up such souls who are imprisoned in their flesh, they become mad and furious, fall upon those who are trying to wake them up, like wolves upon lambs, and strangle and tear them pitiless to pieces without any mercy. [18] Is that then also God’s fault if such people for the abovementioned reasons come into the greatest and most ungodly blindness of their soul, in which state they remain for thousands of years? If God allows a warning judgment to come over such people, this is surely fatherly good and wise, for only great misery of the flesh can turn away the soul from matter and turn him toward the spiritual. Do you understand this?” (GGJ Book 17, chap. 40) “I SAID: “God gave to every human being a completely free will, together with an intellect and a conscience that always warns and admonishes him. Without these 3 things man would not be more than an animal. [2] But in order to test man’s free will, also the laziness and selflove are inborn in his flesh wherein he feels most comfortable in this world. [3] With his own power, man should learn to perceive that this is bad for his soul, and with the means that were given by God he should fight against it until he becomes a perfect master over all his bodily passions and tendencies. But to the sensual and lazy man this is too uneasy and unpleasant. He prefers as much as possible to let himself be ensnared into the nets of his growing sensual passions, and by that, he draws thousands to him, because it also pleases them to bath their flesh in all laziness and sensual pleasure. [4] But what is the evil consequence of this? Instead of freeing himself from the shackles of matter by acting as God has advised him, and finally even to spiritualize that which is material and to make himself truly alive, the soul is going deeper and deeper into the death of his matter. [5] When this happens in general too often with people, God has mercy on them, and at the right moment He always sends them people to wake them up. But when they begin their task, the many lazy people become furious with them, fall upon them and even mistreat and strangle them in their blind rage, so that they can continue to sleep in their laziness, which pleases their flesh so much. [6] But since God created man only for eternal life and not for eternal death, He continues to send different messengers in order to wake up the lazy and sensual people, so that these should get up and start the heavy work which will make their soul alive. [7] If they do not listen to the warning prophets but when these are rather continuously persecuted, then God will quickly send other and sharper circumstances to wake them up, like bad harvest, high cost of living, wars, famine and epidemics, and still many other plagues. [8] If the people repent and become active again according to the godly advice, then soon God will remove the plagues again. But if they do not care, then God has still bigger awakening methods in store, and these are then like the flood of Noah and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. [9] So if you persist in your sins till the measure is full, you too can expect the last big and terrible awakening method. Now I have told you this, so that you very well will remember My words when it will come over you.” (GGJ Book 17, chap. 12) [2] I said: ‘If this would be advisable and good for the salvation of the people, then God would not need the priests, but He could also let the trees and the stones speak, which would even have a greater impact with the people. But in both cases it is not only of no benefit for the free will of men but it would merely harm the free development of the inner independent life of the soul. Because if suddenly all your priests would start to preach loudly against their old gods and idols to the people who are now still for the greatest part superstitious and whose convictions are for the greater part based on untruths, the people would consider them as enemies of their old gods, would grab and strangle them. And when trees and stones would teach the people, an enormous compulsion would be exerted on their consciousness and their will and then also the people would soon assault their idols and priests and destroy them. [3] Say for yourself, who would be helped by that? Not the people. By that they would not have a free but an entirely imposed belief, consciousness and will, by which their souls could not become free as was the case with their old superstition, which now already by many among you has become very transparent as a result of personal searching and thinking. [4] A belief that has been imposed by miracles would have – as just mentioned – no sense, because it would be just like the old one, a superstition, and for the priests it will also not be beneficial. And neither for you. Or do you have proof that you are really a wise man when you are only answering the questions which you are asking yourself? [5] If now for instance I would let the pillars speak in this palace and would ask them all kinds of extremely profound and wise questions at which the pillars would give Me such wise and true answers as would not be possible for any man in this world and also not for no angel spirit in Heaven, what would you say on this?’ [6] The highly ranked counselor said: ‘On the one hand it would be very wonderful, but finally the pillars would only be able to give those wise answers in agreement with Your will and in accordance to Your understanding, and this would actually be the same as if You would ask questions Yourself and then would answer them.’ [7] I said: ‘This you have perceived very well and well answered. And look, it would be precisely the same if God by His almighty will would impress in man the order of life, which once He has determined for eternity. Then God Himself would will and act in man. But if this were the case, then what will become of the complete free independent life of man? [8] However, God did not create human beings as so-called playing dolls for Himself, but as completely equal images of Him, which He has brought to life out of Himself, not as creatures of His almighty arbitrariness, but as true children of His eternal fatherly love. And He has given them a creative quality, which is completely equal to Him, in order to develop themselves completely freely out of their own power of life according to their own totally free will until they are completely equal to God. And look, for this reason, the development of men’s free will may not be slowed down by any godly force. And even under the most severe circumstances they must be allowed to keep their completely free will, even when it would cost Me My earthly life on the cross. [9] Look, this is how much love the godly Wisdom has for men, who once placed His children in this world for the test of the complete free will that was given to them. Understand this well and do not ask Me any further foolish questions, because God has set out of Himself an eternal order and this is how it will remain eternally. And now, let us talk about something else if you want.’ (GGJ Book 17, chap. 34) [5] I said: “If you truly believe in Me, you also must not try to anticipate My wisdom which guides and settles all things in the world, but you must unite your patience with Mine and think: in this world, where the freedom of life is being tested, order has been set once and for all times that every man may do what he wants. For only by the complete freedom of will he can fight for the eternal life of his soul. And as he has a free will, he also has a right ability to think and a free intellect with which he can distinguish and determine what is good and true and he can also act accordingly, for the powers were richly given to him. [6] When man distinguishes what is good and true, but still voluntarily acts contrary to it, he is building his own judgment and his own Hell and is therefore already here on Earth a complete devil. And look, that is the punishment which man is giving to himself, without My willing it. [7] Therefore, do not busy yourself with My great patience and love for men, whether they be good or bad. I only warn them when they are on the wrong path. But despite My omnipotence I cannot grab them and bring them back on the right path of life, for that would mean that I would take away their free will, which would mean the same as if I would take away the life of the soul and that of the spirit within. [8] Therefore, everyone has to walk as it pleases him. It is for man more than enough to know the ways and the fixed consequences that he can expect, whether they are good or bad. Because every man who uses his reason and his intellect knows the things which are right and good according to the revelations from the Heavens, and also what is wrong and bad. The choice to act accordingly is completely up to his free will. [9] If you understand this well, you cannot complain about My patience and tolerance, because on this Earth, which is a house of education for the future true children of God, it must be so and can impossibly be otherwise. [10] Where people are called to become complete spirits and beings equal to God, also the opposite direction must be possible for their freedom of will to have free allowance to become a complete devil. However, by his own fault he will have to bear in a miserable way that which he caused by his own will. [11] Therefore, I will judge and punish no one by My omnipotence for his bad deeds, but the individual will do that himself and also the unchangeable law of My eternal order which was made known to everyone by way of the light of the many revelations already since the first beginning of the existence of man on this Earth. [12] If you understood this now, then train yourself also in patience, and have also true compassion in you, not only with the sick bodies, but even more with the sick and blind souls of the people. Then you will be on the easiest and fastest way to attain to the true and complete equality with God and become like the angels in Heaven.” (GGJ, Book 18, chap. 21) [3] However, I did not come for the sake of the body, but only for the sake of the soul of man. Therefore, you should only ask Me for what is really and eternally to the advantage of your soul. For to what advantage would it be for man if he would win all the dead treasures of this world, but because of that would surely suffer the greatest disadvantage to his soul? How will he be able to save him from death and the judgment of worldly matter? [4] You say within yourselves now: ‘Lord, all things are very well possible to You, and also the matter of this Earth is Your work.’ You are right in this. Nevertheless, I say to you that with man not everything is, nor may be, possible to Me, for if everything were possible to Me with man, it would not have been necessary for Me to come as a perfect human being to you in this world and to teach you with My very own mouth. [5] For I gave a free will to man, and showed to his reason what is true and good, and also what is evil and malicious, so that he would examine, give direction and develop himself. For only by that he will be a man and not an animal that is kept by My power and judgment, having to act according to My coercing laws as they were laid in it, having therefore no freedom, self-determination and no entrusted independence within itself. [6] Apart from his body, man has received no coercing law from Me, but a totally free law in his will and a completely unlimited reason by which he can examine, test, understand and remember everything. And what he has then recognized as true and good, he can take as guideline for his actions. [7] Thus, you also examine everything, keep what you have found to be true and good, and act and live by it, then you will develop yourselves and be always and eternally My true beloved children, and you will be just like Me, free and independent. [8] So if you completely adopted My will that you know now, and if by that you also became strong in the living faith in Me, then also the whole creation will be submissive to you, just like it is to Me. And you never more will be able to transgress or sin against My eternal order, which is the foundation of all that originates, is and exists. Out of that, will also exist the true and extremely blissful eternal life of your soul, and where I will be, you will be also as My beloved children and you will work like Me. [9] For man to attain to the highest blissfulness, he must give direction to himself according to his completely free will and unlimited reason and understanding, and determine and develop himself according to My will that I revealed to him. And I cannot and may not restrain his free will with My almightiness or force him to act like with another creature that is still judged, which all of you will thoroughly and truthfully realize now. [10] So with man, not everything is possible for Me, as you erroneously imagined, because I cannot intervene in the completely free will of man if man has to become and remain man forever according to My eternal and unchangeable order. [11] If you well understood this, then it also will soon become completely clear and understandable to you for which things you should mainly ask Me. And if you ask Me, in full trust, for something good, it will also be given to you in the right measure. So always ask for the things that are beneficial for the true well being of your soul, and only very seldom and little for the things that are beneficial for your body. [12] However, with this I do not mean that you may not pray to Me for help when you are in physical need. Yes, moreover I say to you that if you will show physically good deeds to your fellowman out of love for Me and in My name, that you will be richly rewarded with spiritual goods for the salvation of your soul, and if you will stay in Me, by the works of love in the living faith in Me, you will receive My power to heal the sick by laying your hands on them, and to free those from their torments who are possessed by evil spirits – and there are many, especially in this time. [13] But you only can accomplish these things if you have a full and truly firm faith in Me. In short, with Me you will be able to accomplish everything, but without Me nothing. Therefore, stay constantly in Me through love and through faith, then I will stay in you with My love, truth, power and might.” (GGJ Book 23, chap. 91) 70. THE NEED FOR SPIRITUAL FREEDOM AND A FREE WILL [1] THE LORD: “In spiritual matters of life do beware above all of the Roman “must” for that is at all times damaging rather than useful to man. For every “must” is a judgment and does not allow any freedom which in purely divine matters of life is the only well-fertilized field in which the seed of life can germinate, sprout and finally develop into a blessed and mature fruit of life. [2] If you take a recently hatched bird to feed it for strength and rapid flying yet, good feeding notwithstanding, keep trimming its wings – say, will even the best feeding help him? The bird shall be subsisting for sure, but there shall be a problem with free flying until you stop trimming its wings! [3] Just as the bird is incapable of flying without flying feathers, so also man’s spirit cannot attain to a free life-activity, when his free cognition is trimmed by the sanctioned “must”. A spirit without freedom of action is dead because he does not have what fundamentally conditions and comprises his life. [4] For his mere terrestrial life-sphere you can give man a thousand laws sanctioned under “must”, and you will harm man’s spirit therewith far less than if you sanction him even one divine Commandment terrestrially. [5] The spiritual must remain free and has to determine the sanction freely within itself, as also the judgment associated therewith; only thus can it gain life’s perfection in and out of itself. [6] Free cognition of the good and true are the spirit’s life-light; out of these he then himself determines laws that appeal to him. These are then free laws and the only ones harmonious to free life. The spirit’s violation in accordance with his cognition is the free law within the spirit, and the necessity to eternally act in free will is the everlasting sanction in accordance with which no spirit surely shall act otherwise than in free volition. [7] And behold, this also is the everlasting self-determining order in God, who surely has no law-giver above Himself. [8] God’s freest will itself, in accordance with the most perfect cognition and wisest insights within Himself determines the law, sanctioning it out of its very own, although admittedly free necessity. And this then is the basis of all created, terrestrial things and continuance, in so far as this essential for the development, solidification and ultimate isolation of the spirit. [9] The human spirit should however become perfect in himself and by himself like the primordial spirit of God is in Himself and by Himself perfect, otherwise the spirit is no spirit but a judged death. [10] So that the human spirit can become this, the opportunity must be offered to him, to develop himself with time, just like the divine spirit in God Himself has developed Himself from eternity! [11] Behold, since eternity I surely would have sufficient power, to coerce all people with compellingly inner power, to precisely act according to any given law, so that they are not able to deviate one hair’s breadth from it; but then man would cease to be man and he would be an animal just like any other in the large kingdom of animals. He would of course very precisely conduct his work but regarding the work itself you would discover just as little difference as with the work of cell building bees and countless many other large and smaller animals. [12] If you then wanted to develop such animal-humans to something higher with your free recognition, you would achieve just as little with them as when it occurred to you to send the bees to a school, where they finally should learn to start building their cells in a better and more effective manner. [13] Therefore you should not judge the ability of man to sin so low and not as too felonious; since without this ability to act against such given laws, man would be an animal and not a person! [14] And I say to you: Sin gives man the testimonial that he is human; without it he would be an animal!” 71. BLESSEDNESS OF FREE DEVELOPMENT [1] THE LORD: “Therefore, it is good and right to punish sinners if they have strayed too much from the order which God Himself has set for certain perfection attainable in the shortest possible time. But no one should be prevented from the possibility of sinning through an inflexible “must”. For I assure you: I prefer a sinner who voluntarily repents to 99 righteous according to the law who never needed repentance. The first one is a complete man, the others only partly. [2] Thereby I do not, of course, want to say that I prefer a sinner, who is always a sinner, to a righteous man, for to continue in sin means: to also become an animal which lives an unclean life prompted by a false instinctive motivation. Here I speak only of a sinner who in himself freely recognizes that it was wrong to act contrary to the law and who begins to change his attitude according to the recognized order of God and becomes a man who is familiar with every lesson life teaches. [3] Once in My Kingdom such a spirit will be capable of achieving endlessly greater things than one who out of slavish fear never strayed from the law by a hair’s breadth and in this be fear dictated observance of the law has physically and spiritually turned himself into a machine without a free will. [4] Take a stone and throw it upwards! In accordance with the “must” law put into it, it shall not take long for it to fall back to earth. Is the stone to be praised for keeping the law so strictly? You can certainly do all sorts of things with the stone as far as a solid foundation is concerned; but create some free activity for it, and it shall not abandon its dead rest! [5] Hence you should not turn people into stones through “must” laws but rather educate them in their freedom, then you have acted fully in accordance with God’s order. [6] Behold, if the people highly placed upon earth were not as lazy as they are, with rare exception they would with just a random amount of investigative spirit have quite easily noted that any person with a certain degree of education shall not in all eternity be satisfied with an animalistic monotony. He no longer builds a hut with thatches, straw and kneaded clay, but masons stones and bakes clay into bricks, building himself a stately dwelling with encircling walls, adding solid towers from whose battlements he can espy the approach of potential enemies! [7] And so a thousand educated people shall build themselves dwellings from which none resembles another – neither in shape nor interior design; but in contrast look at the nest of birds and animal retreats, and you shall never find diversification! Look at a swallow’s or sparrow’s nest or a spider’s web or bee’s cell and a thousand other products or efforts brought forth by animals, and you shall find neither an improvement nor retrogression. But compare human works: what almost limitless diversity! And yet it is always only humans which bring all this about with often much effort! [8] This proves clearly that God Who endowed man with a spirit similar to His own, did not create man to become an animal, but to gain the fullest and freest God-likeness.” 72. DEVELOPMENT AND LAW HE LORD: “If man, irrespective of sex, color of skin and earthly rank has been created by God for such a supreme goal, which is now no doubt quite clear to you, his spiritual part cannot ever be given a “must” law if he is finally to become that for which God has destined him. Instead, every law should be given with a “shall,” and only for wicked opponents of the free law there should be a suitable punishment, always providing a chance for voluntary betterment, which must never appear as an arbitrary, but as a necessary consequence of disregarding the law of order. In this manner the human spirit will arrive at independent thinking and sooner accept the given law and act in accordance with it, whereas an arbitrary punishment for an offence always hardens and embitters the human heart and turns man into a devil show vengeance will not die until he has, either while still in this world, but quite certainly in the beyond, taken terrible revenge. This has to be allowed, for otherwise he could not ever be bettered in the hell of his own heart. [2] The law-giver and punisher shall never forget that man’s spirit, be it good or evil, can never be put to death, but lives on. While he still walks visibly on earth you can defend yourself and drive him off if he persecutes you; but once he has left the body and is able to approach you in a thousand ways to harm you and dog your steps without being seen and detected by you, say, with what weapons can you then defend yourself? (GGJ Book 3, chap.70, 71, 72) [1] but the angels?… they are Lord’s will organs… but still capable of free will…. [2] (…)
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