NEUOFFENBARUNGDeutscher Text · Book contents
21 February 1844, evening
[Ste.01_034,01] ‘Whoever believes in Me, out of their body, as Scripture says, will flow streams of living water.’
[Ste.01_034,02] This text is given like a mousetrap and made like a pit for catching lions, panthers and tigers. It is also like a corner-stone over which many stumble in the night and take a terrible fall. And I say that whoever strikes against it and falls will have great difficulty getting up again.
[Ste.01_034,03] Why is that? Here and there I did enjoin faith, and everywhere I preached love in deed and word. I said, ‘If you had faith, you could move mountains!’
[Ste.01_034,04] I also said what the present text states. And yet I say again that I did not say what the text states, for I said, ‘Be doers of My Word and not hearers only!’
[Ste.01_034,05] I also said that those who say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ and thus believe in the Son of God will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Only those who do the will of My Father will enter it!
[Ste.01_034,06] I likewise said, ‘Whoever lives according to My Word is the one who loves Me. Whoever loves Me, to that person I will come in all fullness and will reveal Myself to them!’
[Ste.01_034,07] I likewise said, ‘I give you only one commandment, that you love one another as I love you! By this people will recognise that you are truly My disciples.’
[Ste.01_034,08] Now I ask, what should a person do? Should they content themselves with faith alone, which is advised in its own right? Or should they hold to love alone and believe only what their love for Me gives them, the love they have made their own by acting according to My Word?
[Ste.01_034,09] For I Myself gave love in action as the only valid test by which you can tell whether My teaching is human or divine. I did say, ‘Whoever acts according to My Word will recognise whether My teaching is from human beings or from God!’
[Ste.01_034,10] How, then, does it say here, ‘Whoever believes in Me, out of their body or loins will flow streams of living water!’? For the living water signifies the living wisdom from the heavens, which must also count as a sure test of the divinity of My Word!
[Ste.01_034,11] And so we have two tests before us, each finding its opponent in the other. For saying ‘Lord, Lord!’ is also understood to mean perfect faith in the Son of Man. Yet in that instance it is said that such faith will not gain the kingdom of heaven, while in the present text streams of living water are promised on the strength of faith alone.
[Ste.01_034,12] The question now is, did I teach two different doctrines? Or did I turn My coat with every wind, preaching to an assembly of believers about the sole value of faith, and to an assembly of doers about the sole value of action? If so, I would have been in the most obvious contradiction with Myself.
[Ste.01_034,13] The Pharisees believed as firmly as iron in the ordinances of Moses, for temporal considerations and, at one time, spiritual ones too. Yet on many occasions I rebuked them all most sharply for their unbelief.
[Ste.01_034,14] Why was I not content here with their former faith? Why did I rebuke them for refusing to believe in Me and call them ‘doers of evil’ because they lived according to the letter of the law and refused to heed My teaching?
[Ste.01_034,15] Why did I let the Pharisee, who always fulfilled the law, go away from the temple unjustified, while the tax collector, burdened with sins, went away justified?
[Ste.01_034,16] Why, indeed, did I disregard the ordinance of Moses and pay no heed to the Sabbath? Why did I Myself cause the Pharisees offence through this, while teaching, ‘Woe to whoever causes their neighbour to stumble!’?
[Ste.01_034,17] Indeed, I even taught that if a limb causes a person to stumble, they should remove it and enter the kingdom of heaven maimed rather than go into hell whole. Tell Me how all this fits together. There is a whole heap of contradictions before you. How are you going to reconcile them all?
[Ste.01_034,18] I tell you, left to yourselves you might never find a way out of this labyrinth. But, like the hero of Macedonia, I will untie the knot with one light stroke. Listen, then!
[Ste.01_034,19] There is a difference between what I merely said and what I commanded. There is also a difference between one kind of saying and another. One is like a negation, the other like an affirmation. A negation is like something natural, an affirmation like something spiritual. In what is natural there is no commandment, but in what is spiritual there is a commandment.
[Ste.01_034,20] Therefore when it says, ‘I did not say it,’ it means, ‘I did not command it.’ And when it says, ‘I said it,’ it means, ‘I commanded it.’
[Ste.01_034,21] Whenever I spoke of faith, I always meant living faith, that is, faith joined with love. Faith by itself alone I always rejected.
[Ste.01_034,22] That is why I said to you recently, ‘I did not say, “Whoever believes in the Son of Man, out of their loins will flow streams of living water!”’ This means, ‘No one will reach the light through faith alone, but only by acting according to My Word!’
[Ste.01_034,23] When I say here, ‘Whoever believes in Me, out of their body will flow streams of living water!’ I mean, ‘Whoever has a living faith, that is, faith joined with love, will be led into the wisdom of the heavens.’ If you can think at all, you will easily see that this promises only the lowest degree of heaven.
[Ste.01_034,24] Your own experience teaches you that no degree of heaven at all is promised to faith alone. For you too have believed in Me since childhood. But ask yourselves how many drops of any living water have flowed from your body on that account. Through your faith of forty years, have you reached the point where, from a single drop of living water within you, the immortality of your inner being has become wholly evident?
[Ste.01_034,25] I have already given you so much of the most genuine living water, and still you are uncertain in many respects about your inward life continuing after the body's death. Yet I am no liar. I promised streams of living water to faith. Where, then, are they among you believers?
[Ste.01_034,26] From this experience of your own you can sufficiently gather that I, as eternal truth and wisdom itself, could not possibly have meant faith alone in the present text. I could only have meant the faith well known to all My disciples, which is joined with love for God and for one's neighbour.
[Ste.01_034,27] For faith alone can do as little to further eternal life as a husband can beget children with and from himself alone. He must marry a wife, and only in the fire of his love can he beget children with her.
[Ste.01_034,28] In the natural sense the children correspond to the streams of living water from the loins of the body. Moreover, the ‘body’ or the ‘loins’ in this text are a material image signifying love in action itself. With its meaning laid bare, the whole text reads, ‘Whoever holds fast to Me in their heart, their activity will bear fruit for eternal life!’
[Ste.01_034,29] From this very clear meaning it is equally clear that I always spoke of faith alone in the negative and never in the affirmative. Otherwise I would plainly have contradicted Myself most shamefully before the eyes and ears of all the world.
[Ste.01_034,30] Whenever faith is spoken of in My Word, then, it is always to be understood as when you speak of a purse. If someone says, ‘I gave him my purse!’ it goes without saying that it was full, for an empty one will be of no service to anyone. As I see it, so it is with faith. I never mean empty faith. I always mean faith filled with love.
[Ste.01_034,31] So I say once again, I did not say, ‘Whoever believes in Me, out of their body or loins will flow streams of living water!’ But I did say, ‘Whoever believes in Me, out of their body or loins will flow streams of living water!’
[Ste.01_034,32] In the first, negative case, what is meant is empty faith alone, which never yields even the smallest drop of living water. In the second case what is meant is faith filled with love, from which the streams of living water do indeed follow. This is when I say in the affirmative, ‘Whoever does the will of My Father will recognise whence the teaching comes!’
[Ste.01_034,33] But the Father is love, and love is never satisfied with an airy semblance. It is satisfied only with what truly is. What use is the faintest glimmer of the lantern of faith alone in the infinite realm of creation? You may reach here and there and look up and down. Only faint rays come towards you, and far away are the things from which you receive nothing but those faint rays from afar. A dream is enough for a sleeper, who takes it for reality as long as they sleep. But once awake, they look everywhere for reality and certainty.
[Ste.01_034,34] But what if a person sleeps through their whole earthly life and takes the shapes in dreams for realities? What will happen when they awake from such an earthly dream-life after laying aside their body? What will they reach for? What will they hold on to? Night will surround them on every side. Where will they find light to illuminate the bewildering night around them?
[Ste.01_034,35] Therefore I say that it is better for someone who feels caught here in all kinds of doubts. They show thereby that their spirit is awake, though it is still in the night. They have discovered early how empty the images of dreams are, and with great longing they call for the day within themselves.
[Ste.01_034,36] But the dreamer knows nothing of their own night. They are a lord, do as they wish, eat and drink, and think it all real. Only when they awake will they become aware of the great emptiness within, and then, alas, too late. For if faith, meaning faith filled with love, does not bring streams of living water from the loins during bodily life, how is it to do so afterwards, when the loins have fallen away?
[Ste.01_034,37] Or if someone cannot keep money in the purse meant for it, how will they keep it when they have neither purse nor money? Or if someone cannot preserve life when they have it and the sack that holds it, how will they preserve it when they have lost both the sack and their life?
[Ste.01_034,38] Whoever cannot be when they are, how will they be when they are not? Only to the one who has will it be given, and from the one who has nothing, even what they have will be taken away!
[Ste.01_034,39] I think this rather lengthy explanation should be clear enough. Strive, then, for faith filled with love, for empty faith is nothing but a dream. If you want to see streams of living water flow from your loins, your faith must come alive through works of love! Amen.