NEUOFFENBARUNG12 August 1847
[JS.01_008,01] Even the great gentlemen of the world must die. With all their politics and diplomacy, they have still not managed to set up an insurance society against this most disagreeable feature of life. So our minister, too, had at last to prepare to exchange the temporal for the eternal.
[JS.01_008,02] For such people dying is, of course, the most disagreeable thing in the world. The destroying angel cares little for that. Anyone whose duly calibrated measure he finds full he takes without mercy or pardon.
[JS.01_008,03] Our minister was a man whom all the world admired for his worldly shrewdness. At an advanced age he was laid low by a gouty catarrhal fever. It tormented him for half a month, and the more remedies he took to cure it, the worse it became. Towards the end he grew indignant and threatened to have the doctors arrested if they would not, or could not, restore him to health soon.
[JS.01_008,04] But instead of carrying out his threat, he sank into unconsciousness on the sixteenth day of his illness and awoke in this world only for an hour just before his end. In that hour he made a short will setting out what was to be done with his vast property. As is usual with such people, he made very little provision for the poor. What are a few thousand guilders against several millions left behind?
[JS.01_008,05] The Church, too, was remembered, as a matter of form, with an endowment. This was no act of blind faith, for a man of this sort seldom has faith, if he has any at all, and everything he does is pure politics. As already said, it was simply what political custom required.
[JS.01_008,06] Having made his last wishes known, he sank back on his bed and died without having confessed or received communion. Privately he had never set any store by the act anyway. That was the end of him for this world, and for ever. So let us linger no longer by his body, but go straight ‘across’ and see what sort of face our exceedingly proud aristocrat makes there.
[JS.01_008,07] Look, here we are already. Our man is standing before us and four veiled angelic spirits in full robes of state, though he sees only the latter. The place is an exact likeness of his state office, where he still intended to attend to some important business and put it in order.
[JS.01_008,08] He now sees the four clearly in his private office and can scarcely contain his anger at the outrageous impudence of these four ‘rogues’, as he takes them to be. He jumps up, seizes the bell and tries to ring, but the bell makes no sound.
[JS.01_008,09] ‘Treason! High treason!’ he shouts at the top of his voice. ‘How did you miserable wretches get into this room, to which I alone have access and in which the most secret and sacred mysteries of state are dealt with and kept? Do you know that the penalty for such high treason is death? Which of you took the clapper out of this bell, so that it cannot make a sound at this most decisive moment? Confess, you villains. Which of you was the ringleader?’
[JS.01_008,10] The first angel says, ‘Listen patiently and very carefully to what I am about to tell you. I know very well the proper rule that in the world no one except the king may enter this room. If you were still in the world, you would not have seen us here either. But look, you have now died in body and are in the world of spirits. Here there is only one Lord, while all other spirits are brothers, good or bad according to whether they acted well or badly on earth. Thus from the Lord we have the right, always a duty of love, to visit anyone and offer our services if, like you, that person can still be reached by us.
[JS.01_008,11] This is precisely what the one Lord has charged us to tell you. We are also to make known to you that here in this eternal world all worldly honour and station have ended for you, along with all politics. This room, your robes and all these papers you take for the most important matters of state are only illusions born of an imagination that still clings all too strongly to the world. They will vanish as soon as you follow us. If you follow us, you will have an easy road to the true, eternal realm of life, where there are joys beyond measure and number. But if you do not follow us, you will have a very hard time reaching God's realm of life. See, by God's permission you were a great man in the world and had great power. But through this power the love of ruling awoke in you with tremendous force. It led you to many things that had no foundation in the divine order. This worldly power, in the form of a lust to rule, also took away your faith in the Lord and much of your love for your neighbour, making you wholly unfit for the kingdom of God.
[JS.01_008,12] But look, the Lord knows what a heavy burden you had to bear and has great mercy on you. That is why He sent us to you, so that you might be saved and raised up, and might not go under from the great worldly burden you still brought over with you. Do not think of a judgement here. In the realm of the freedom of the spirit there is no judgement and no judge except each person's own free will. Do not think of hell either. It is nowhere except within each person who first creates it within himself through his own evil. Nor think of heaven as a promised reward for good works. Let the word of the Lord Jesus be your will, and through it seek Him alone. When you have Him, you have all the heavens and a power from love quite unlike the power you had in the world from your worldly shrewdness and high station. Now you know everything. In the name of the Lord Jesus, do what your free will allows you to do. Amen.’
[JS.01_008,13] The minister says, ‘Truly, your words are wise and assure me that everything is as you have just told me. It is also quite clear to me now that I have died bodily. But that this particular Jew Jesus should be the one God and Lord is beyond me. What, then, are the “Father” and the “Holy Spirit”? You see, this does not agree with Jesus' own teaching. He was the first to teach a divine Trinity everywhere! So forgive me if I cannot follow you as quickly as you wish, unless you can convince me quickly!’
[JS.01_008,14] The angel says, ‘Brother, that cannot be done as quickly as you think. First take off your robes of state and put on another garment, one of humility and complete self-denial. You will soon be fully convinced of what now seems incomprehensible to you.’
[JS.01_008,15] The minister answers, ‘Very well, then. Take charge of me, put me right and carefully scrape all worldly things from my soul. Then we shall see how your statement holds up.’
[JS.01_008,16] The other three angels step forward, take the robes of state off the man and give him ash-grey clothes, badly torn and rather dirty, to wear in their place. The second angel now says to him, ‘You are clothed in the garment of humility. But that alone is insufficient. You must be humble in deed as well. So follow us!’
[JS.01_008,17] The man follows. Look, they come to a farm and say to him, ‘See, an ill-tempered man lives here and has large herds of pigs. You are to serve him and be content with whatever he may give you in wages. If he treats you harshly and unjustly, bear it all patiently and seek justice for yourself solely in the Lord's grace and mercy.
[JS.01_008,18] If he strikes you, do not strike back. Offer him your back like a slave, as you often saw on earth under military discipline when a poor soldier had to lie on a bench, with no will of his own, and endure a harsh and often grossly unjust punishment. If you bear it all with true patience, a better lot shall fall to you!’
[JS.01_008,19] At this the man says, ‘My most humble thanks for such guidance! Just give me back my robes of state, you impostors. I will find my own way! Look at these scoundrels! They want to make a swineherd without so much as a by-your-leave out of a man like me, who can count at least twenty ancestors. Oh, if I were still in the world, I would make you pay for this so that you would remember it! These vagabonds even pass themselves off as God's messengers! Just you wait. Playing God's messengers will cost you dearly!’
[JS.01_008,20] Look, the angels return his robes of state and say, ‘As you wish. Here is your earthly attire! If you will not walk the paths of life, walk your own. Our service to you is at an end.’
[JS.01_008,21] Now look at the ‘water’ into which our man is going. He will have a long swim before he reaches the prodigal son's way back to his father.
[JS.01_008,22] Let everyone therefore beware of the lust to rule, for it always has the same consequences. Another example will follow.