NEUOFFENBARUNGDeutscher Text · Book contents
(Luke 4:20)
26 February 1844, evening
[Ste.01_036,01] ‘When He had rolled up the book, He gave it to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed upon Him.’
[Ste.01_036,02] My dear children! In this text only a natural action is depicted, one that had to follow the earlier act of reading aloud from the prophet Isaiah. But since there is an inner and an innermost ground in every deed of the Lord, there is such a ground in this seemingly most natural movement too. Within that ground there must again be an infallible test that attests the full divinity of Christ, and thus of all His actions, for all time and all eternity.
[Ste.01_036,03] Let us at once make it as clear as possible before everyone's eyes that this is so, by reflecting briefly and comparing this text with the circumstances of the times that followed. Listen, then!
[Ste.01_036,04] Jesus stood and read aloud from the prophet in a synagogue. What does this signify?
[Ste.01_036,05] The ‘synagogue’ is the world. The Lord standing as He reads aloud from the prophet signifies that He is always watching and surveying all circumstances and mysteries, giving His Word to the world veiled in its natural sense. For the ‘prophet’ signifies what is hidden in the natural, and the Lord shows that all that is hidden can be found unveiled and fulfilled in Him alone.
[Ste.01_036,06] After the Lord had read the book, He rolled it up and handed it to the attendant. Then He sat down, and all eyes and ears were turned towards Him. What does this signify?
[Ste.01_036,07] ‘The Lord rolls up the book’ signifies that He closes up the spiritual meaning of the Word for later generations too. ‘Then He gives the rolled-up book to the attendant of the synagogue’ means that He entrusts the hidden wisdom to the one who works in its temple, which henceforth is the human heart.
[Ste.01_036,08] Thereupon the Lord sits down to rest, and all eyes and ears are turned towards Him. This act foreshadows and corresponds to the state found among people in the world from the ascension up to this time, in which the Lord rests in relation to the outer world as after a work.
[Ste.01_036,09] The eyes and ears of many are turned towards Him, but He is silent. He cannot be seen bodily at work, but only with the eyes of faith, resting patiently in His sanctuary. Why is it so? Because people turn only their eyes and ears towards Him, that is, their thirst for knowledge, and leave their hearts turned elsewhere.
[Ste.01_036,10] Yet the Lord speaks a little through the words, ‘Now, before your eyes, what the prophet spoke has been fulfilled.’ See, this is also happening with you now. For after the long rest My Spirit has come upon you too, since you sought Him, and He unveils for you the rolled-up book which the attendants through all the ages had kept veiled in their chambers.
[Ste.01_036,11] These attendants are, in the natural sense, like the one to whom the book was handed rolled up. They are all those whom you call ‘priests’ in any church whatsoever. These attendants will not receive the book unveiled as long as they remain attendants of the synagogue.
[Ste.01_036,12] Yet everyone who is a true attendant in the true, new synagogue of their heart likewise first receives the book rolled up and veiled. But if they serve faithfully in this temple, sweeping and cleansing it and holding the holy scroll in honour, the Lord comes and sits down in this synagogue, and rest and peace will come to it. And when eye and ear from every part of the heart are turned towards the Lord there, He too will say, ‘Now the Spirit of the Lord is upon you, and the holy scroll is unveiled and fulfilled in your living synagogue!’
[Ste.01_036,13] See, this is the exceedingly clear meaning of this quite unassuming text!
[Ste.01_036,14] I tell you, people may strive and search as they will to unveil this scroll. They may question all people, all spirits and angels, and still accomplish nothing, for I alone am the door!
[Ste.01_036,15] What good is it for a person to ask, ‘Have I eternal life in me?’ and then receive the answer, ‘Eternal life is a riddle to me, a doubt. I have nothing of it in me but the longing for it!’
[Ste.01_036,16] Who, then, could be satisfied with this consolation? Is it not the same as the philosophical proposition with which the worldly sage consoles himself, saying, ‘If my thinking self continues, I gain. If it does not continue, I gain likewise, for to non-existence plus and minus amount to the same thing.’
[Ste.01_036,17] But again I ask, who that knows the value of life could be satisfied with such a consolation? Can it be all the same to a living being whether they are or are not? And how can anyone who exists praise non-existence at all, when they cannot possibly know what the state of non-being is like?
[Ste.01_036,18] Everyone can easily see from this how blind such an inquirer must be if, in the midst of infinite being where non-being can have no place, they can ultimately console themselves with a wholly impossible non-being.
[Ste.01_036,19] Do you suppose that any annihilation is possible within My infinite being, or that there is any place where nothingness would be at home?
[Ste.01_036,20] As far as your eye reaches into the depths of My creation, the natural world itself shows you the starkest opposite of any little place of nothingness. There you see either celestial bodies or the vast open space, yet filled with the ether of light and with powers from Me at work in every direction! Is that nothing?
[Ste.01_036,21] I need not pursue this proposition further to show its folly. But I will add at once the true test by which anyone can discover whether there is any nothingness, and I say:
[Ste.01_036,22] Fly through the spaces of infinity in your thoughts! Wherever you find a space into which your thought cannot penetrate, there you may look for nothingness. But you may be wholly sure that you can never succeed at this, to all eternity! For where thought reaches, there is being. But where is there a place that thought cannot reach? I do not know this ‘where’, and a worldly sage will surely know it even less.
[Ste.01_036,23] So do not cling to vain inquiry and foolish investigation, for they will never bear fruit for you. Do not needlessly make the way difficult for yourselves when it is so easy. Let each come to Me, and there they will find in fullness everything they will never attain by other ways, for I alone am the door, always and for ever! Amen.