Volume 11 · Chapter 75

CONCERNING THE DEATH OF THE LORD BUT what happened while the body was lying in the grave? And what was actually the compelling reason for My death? There will be a short but clear explanation about this now. So listen:

[GGJ.11_75,2] It has been often explained before that Adam as first human being on this Earth – that means as a human being with full spiritual freedom – was created to build a form from which matter could be led back to a free spiritual life. And most of all, overcoming matter itself was necessary to achieve this, and by a free decision of will, a condition had to be created which showed on the one hand the overcoming of all the lower characteristics, like worldly lusts, wrong desires and tendencies, in order to on the other hand make a free ascension to the purest spiritual life possible.

[GGJ.11_75,3] It has been said often enough that the human soul consists of very small beginnings that develop to ever higher levels of consciousness to finally reach that form again in man and which cannot develop any further as an earthly form, except for what the form of the soul is concerned. So there are two principles in man: the end of the material life as highest developed self consciousness and the beginning of a soul life that is unchangeable in the highest attainable perfection of the form. Therefore, on this knife edge of earthly life man cannot ignore the awareness that he lives – for he himself is proof of that – while he still has no idea that he came at the doorstep of a spiritual life which has now its beginning in the unchangeable human form. In other words, after he went through many changes of physical forms – with the purpose to reach the human shape – this shape in its general form does now not change anymore. However, it is now that the soul begins to change with the purpose to come ever closer to the Spirit of God Himself and so to enter in communion with Him.

[GGJ.11_75,4] Now he who can think, let him think. What can happen if this transition is not achieved, because here matter and spirit stand sharply against each other? They can both refine one another more and more, but – since they are polarities – they can never completely touch each other. Anyhow, a way must be shown here, a bridge built over which it is possible for matter to come to the spirit. And that bridge must be an example that everyone is able to follow. If that way were not found, that means: if someone would not walk on it, then it would become impossible to leave matter and come into a free, spiritual life.

[GGJ.11_75,5] So the Deity Himself – who compelled His created beings to walk the way of matter out of love to save them, and after they had reached the border from where the way of the spirit is possible – had to strive to draw them to Himself and bring them in this way into the relationship of Father and child. Adam had to build that bridge in himself, and it was actually very easy for him since the attractions of matter were very weak compared to now. He only had to overcome himself – obedience – then the bridge would have been built and the spiritual life could have awakened and blossomed in him, because for man, who is for the rest free of every sin, obedience to God is the only means to test him. It is only after disobedience that automatically all other offences follow, as everyone can easily notice with children. Now Adam fell, and with that a withdrawal in matter had taken place – this means in that polarity – which can distance itself from God equally as far as it can ascend to God Himself to ever greater bliss.

[GGJ.11_75,6] But with this fall, sin came into the world, because God never creates a work to destroy it again but continues to follow the way that was once taken and tries as it were to correct it, because divine wisdom takes the consequences of a failure into account beforehand. And when it comes to creating free created beings – not spiritual machines – then the way of self-development in man is truly the only way to it. However, when the human race divided into nations, a succession of all sins occurred, consisting of a long series, leading to an ever deeper fall, because its beginning – disobedience – was simply there. This means: if Adam had not been disobedient, also none of his descendants could have been disobedient because then he would have destroyed a germ in himself that could not be inherited anymore. However, in this manner he fertilized the germ, and it grew in his descendants to become a tree that hardly allows the light of the sun to shine through its dense roof of leaves.

[GGJ.11_75,7] Now often very strong souls have tried to break through this roof of leaves to let the sun shine through it, and although they succeeded partially, mankind possesses very ancient religions. But those strong souls did not succeed to reach the core of the tree and break its crown to such extent that this mighty tree had to die. And they did not succeed because they themselves were not without guilt in their earthly life since they first tasted of the world before they felt thirsty for the truth and knowledge of God. The world tasted nasty to them, and only after that did they seek something better.

[GGJ.11_75,8] The old Indian religions are the oldest that you know, because the old Egyptian religion in its true teaching was the oldest but its knowledge has been lost. All those teachers were such strong souls. They broke through the roof of leaves for themselves, showing the way, and they described and declared what is true and real. Nevertheless, they could not write otherwise than for their time by which many things have become invalid now, which is easy to understand considering the circumstances. Concerning this, let us see the following:

[GGJ.11_75,9] Before the encasing in the flesh as Jesus, God was impersonal. This is why nobody could come to see Him but only feel His Being who could of course only show Himself as Light because God Himself is pure light that sends out His rays. But when there is light, it is everywhere. It streams through everything and awakens everything to life. However, the impersonality of God necessitates not one point from where the rays are shining, like from a sun, but a sea of light in which there is no concentration. So those who spiritually penetrated to the divine Being could not be aware of the divine Being in any other way than as a life in the light – floating and resting in the light, uniting with the light without any wish. Now when Jesus became the personification of God, experiencing the deity was very different for those who came near to Him – it was simply the drawing near of one person to another. Therefore, the old seers are right, but the newer ones, who lived after Me, are also right.

[GGJ.11_75,10] However, after the fall of Lucifer, when the material world came into existence, the spiritual sun was created as the seat of the deity. But despite everything, it was not to be understood as a concentration existing in itself. The light in the spiritual world was everywhere, but to the physical man – as long as his soul was bound to that body – this spiritual sun did not become visible before My earthly life. The fact that it became visible was a crowning of the faith of the spirit-beings, for it was only visible to them – but now also to the person who believes in Me as soon as his spiritual eye is opened, because the Man Jesus can reveal His whole Kingdom at any moment to all who believe in Him.

[GGJ.11_75,11] But the question remains: why can we find the same basic features in the old religions?

[GGJ.11_75,12] If it were not so, it would be surprising to the one who has understood these revelations, for if these old religions are forerunners of the teaching of the Son of man and Son of God, then they also must contain the main features of the latter. They cannot contain things that are different. That the lives of individual teachers who arose show similarities with Mine is based on the same fact.

[GGJ.11_75,13] If the old Egyptian religion would be entirely known it its oldest basic features – these only survived hazily in the present time by the later cult of the gods – then one would say: the Christian religion is derived from the old Egyptian religion. This is how strongly they look alike, especially if one would know the original meaning of the characteristics of Osiris, Isis and Horus.

[GGJ.11_75,14] However, to what extent did I succeed to break the tree of sins and not to only break through the roof of leaves?

[GGJ.11_75,15] In the first place everyone should clearly understand what it means “to sin”.

[GGJ.11_75,16] Many will soon be ready with the answer and say: sin is everything that is against God’s will. Although this is true, but what is God’s will actually, and how can man recognize it if he does not even believe in God and even less recognize His will?

[GGJ.11_75,17] But then we can know from the viewpoint of human life: No one can sin against God unless He came to know Him. No one can be offended when a blind man claims that there is no light only because he does not see it, and even less will God pressure the one who does not know Him because of his foolishness. However, a blind man can offend his neighbor or someone else when he resists him in one way or another – even though he does not see him but he can hear and feel him and he is able to receive and enjoy his direct good deeds. He can sin against his love, for despite his blindness he cannot deny that the person exists.

[GGJ.11_75,18] This is also the case with someone who is spiritually blind. He certainly can sin against the commandment of neighborly love, even if he does not know God. Neighborly love is the way to the love for God – this has often been explained.

[GGJ.11_75,19] Now since the Man Jesus fulfilled this commandment down to the smallest detail – and this since His youth – the love of God grew in Him so that He finally was absorbed by it. Sin had no power over Him for he strove to go from the initial visible way of neighborly love, which was apparent through outer works, to the inner invisible way in the love of God.

[GGJ.11_75,20] God gave a commandment to Adam: unconditional obedience. He despised it and fell. Out of love for God the Man Jesus gave to Himself this commandment: not to do anything without the will of the Father, and through this He became the shining example to follow. So He achieved in Himself the level that Adam did not achieve, and in this manner He reconciled in Himself the deity who was hurt in His holiness by the commandment that was violated.

[GGJ.11_75,21] Wisdom gave the commandment. The will, the power, wanted its fulfillment. The love found the way in the Man Jesus to fulfill the conditions that were necessary to bring back the former state of happiness for all created beings. Salvation lies in the fact that this way, which leads directly to God, is now opened and that this way was fulfilled by the Son of man Jesus who became by that the Son of God. The death of Jesus is the seal of the unconditional obedience. Even though it was not necessary, but since mankind, with its unlimited free will and by the influence of Lucifer demanded it, Jesus submitted Himself also to this demand and died physically.

[GGJ.11_75,22] Falling from one sin into another brings about an ever greater hardness of the soul. One speaks of stony hearts to describe this condition. How far this can go cannot be overseen. Matter, the outer lust, keeps growing, and naturally the awareness of any spirit-soul essential core becomes lost more and more. This hardening leads finally to an animal condition which only knows preservation and procreation without inner spiritual freedom. Only a pure spiritual teaching can bring salvation from such condition and will lead to a moral awareness of human dignity, and this teaching was given briefly, could not be misunderstood and in the greatest possible clearness. Acting upon it will break the chains of matter, will release the bonds of worldly lust for pleasure and will finally lead the material wishes and desires to a condition of pure awareness as knowing evil, but no more doing evil because the ego will melt down more and more while this ego (selfishness) would otherwise outgrow more and more. The more the ego will fade away, the more the shackles of matter will loosen (soften) and they will finally be no more felt as shackles.

[GGJ.11_75,23] So the tree of sin was and could only be broken by Jesus because in Himself He enclosed the Spirit of God who already gave the commandment to Adam, but he did not obey.

[GGJ.11_75,24] Now one will say: ‘But where is the proof that this is so, and that the former teachers did not accomplish the same? For what has been said here is hidden to the human eye. It is an inner process about which no one besides Jesus can report while the outer process, the appearance of a great teacher, his life, his good teachings and also his death, happened many times. Now how can the tree of sins be really broken by Jesus, and over there they only broke through the roof of leaves? This can hardly be noticed from the outer result in the world, because sin is flourishing in the present time as never before, and mankind cannot recognize the signs, except the outer ones.’

[GGJ.11_75,25] Yes, this seems to be so at first sight but when we look closer, it does not.

[GGJ.11_75,26] All those who will go the inner way will soon realize what it is truly like. The outer appearance means nothing at all, for it is a hollow note. The one who does not want to go the inner way cannot be convinced or given an image of that way, just as little as it is impossible to give a blind person a notion of colors. Here the result decides. The way is there. Walk on it, and then make your conclusion.

[GGJ.11_75,27] No one can come to the Father without Me, and without faith in Jesus no sage has ever felt the almighty Being of God as the very first Source of all love who can make Himself personal. Only in Jesus, the impersonal becomes personal, and the union of these two in the human form makes it possible for the creature to draw near to the Creator, the rising of matter in the spirit, the leading back of the sequence of sins that were committed upwards beyond the wall that separates matter and spirit, as points that otherwise cannot touch each other – and the bridge is the life of Jesus.

[GGJ.11_75,28] Now the question arises: before the death of the Son of man, how far actually could the deceased souls go?

[GGJ.11_75,29] They could of course come to insight and also to inner bliss, this according to how they followed the teaching of the many earlier teachers, but they could of course not reach the point of viewing the personified deity.

[GGJ.11_75,30] This happened in history for the first time when the body of Jesus was lying in the grave. There lay the purely earthly body, while the soul with the indwelling Spirit of God passed over and there showed Himself to all as the One who He is and was.

[GGJ.11_75,31] This can only be mentioned here. However, later will also be revealed what exactly happened.

[GGJ.11_75,32] With this manifestation in the spirit world, began the building and populating of the New Jerusalem as the city of God and the inhabitants, and it will continue to exist forever.