The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. The Gospel of John as a Document of Initiation

The first twelve chapters of the Gospel of John

[ 1 ] Contemporary theology makes a strict distinction between the first three Gospels and the Gospel of John. The first three are called the Synoptic Gospels. In contrast, the last is often presented as a didactic poem with no historical value. The crucial point, however, is that everything in the Gospels that refers to Christ is a profound symbol, and that the symbol is at the same time a historically important fact. The first three Gospels differ from the Gospel of John in reality in that they originate from less deeply initiated disciples, while the Gospel of John originates from the most deeply initiated disciple.

[ 2 ] The name of John is not mentioned directly in the Gospel of John, but he is referred to as the disciple whom the Lord loved. This designation is a key word for the most deeply initiated. The fact that certain disciples were the most intimately initiated was indicated by saying that the Master loved them.

[ 3 ] The disciple who wrote down the Gospel of John first describes his own experience. Chapters one to twelve are experiences in the astral world, while chapter thirteen and the following chapters describe events on the devachan plane. This is very significant and indicative of the matter. John describes the experiences on the astral plane because he believes that what Christ Jesus accomplished here on earth can only be understood when viewed in the light of the spiritual. What the Master did and said can only be understood when one enters a higher state of consciousness. Through inner development, human beings can come to truly see in the astral world. This is achieved through very specific types of meditation. People must shut themselves off from the outside world. Then they must allow eternal truths to arise in their souls. A new world then opens up around them.

[ 4 ] What Christ Jesus did on earth could only be judged correctly if one placed oneself in a higher world. What one had experienced physically with Jesus only became transparent when one perceived it astral. If one wanted to experience what Christ Jesus had done, one had to put oneself into a state through appropriate Christian meditation, through which one came to the soul understanding of Christ.

[ 5 ] John expresses this first in the introduction to his Gospel. It is a meditative prayer, from the beginning to the sentence “the darkness did not comprehend the light.” When the soul experiences what lies in these sentences, the powers are awakened to understand the content of chapters one to twelve. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This ancient truth was vividly portrayed in all the ancient mysteries, especially those with Egyptian coloring.

[ 6 ] The words resonate through the air, otherwise we would not hear them. The forms of the words we speak are in the air. If the air could suddenly be frozen while I am speaking, the waves buzzing in the air would fall down as solid, rigid bodies. The mystery teacher made it clear to the student: just as man speaks and his inner being struggles into the air, so too did the world soul speak into a much finer matter, the akashic matter, and this became solid. Everything around us is condensed divine word. Thus, said the mystery teacher, the world around us is a frozen divine word, a frozen Logos. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” It was still within him, it was itself a god. Then it filled the space and solidified. This Logos is now contained everywhere. All around us we have the crystals of the Logos. But as life arises, the Logos awakens from its slumber, as it were. In human beings it becomes the light of knowledge. When we recognize this, God, who first descended into the world, comes to meet us from this world. We must immerse ourselves completely in order to penetrate so deeply into the world that we become aware: the Logos lives in the world.

[ 7 ] What originally happened was the formation of the physical human being. The spiritual human being entered into this physical human being. Then the light shone in the darkness. But the darkness did not understand it at first. Then, as the human being develops further, the content of astral true vision comes to him. Then it becomes clear to him what Christ Jesus was and what his teaching meant: that the time was ripe to bring forth a reverse Adam. Man had descended into the body, and through this came birth and death. Then the light penetrated the darkness.

[ 8 ] Now man was to be led back up to the understanding that life is the victor over death. The forerunner, John the Baptist, appeared. The Baptist proclaimed that the old, which was still entirely under the sign of what the divine powers had once brought forth, would now be replaced by a new kingdom. Until then, it had been said: God will destroy you if you act against his law. But the new kingdom is that which man can experience within himself when he experiences God. The idea of the Old Covenant is: We must submit to God's command. The New Covenant says: Man should voluntarily follow God within himself. That is love for the good. It is prophesied in advance; it must increase. Christ, the representative of the New, must increase, John, who is only his forerunner, must decrease.

[ 9 ] Two great moments touch each other here. This appears in John's vision. Everything appears in a pictorial state. At the same time, however, the real baptizer, his historical mission, also appears before John's spiritual eye. The whole mission of Christianity now appears to him. He describes this in the first chapter.

[ 10 ] Let us look back to ancient times, to those times at least two thousand years before Christ. There were wise men who had progressed so far that they were initiated into the mysteries. One symbol of this was the sacrifice of water. The priest of wisdom used water as a symbol. It is a law that man cuts himself off from the higher spiritual world through alcohol. If man wants to live his way up into the spiritual worlds, he must not drink wine, not even sacrificial wine.

[ 11 ] The wedding at Cana characterizes the mission of Christianity. The ancient priestly sages possessed the most sublime spiritual teachings, which had been given from the deepest knowledge. But the ancient pagan culture lacked one thing: the conquest of the physical world. The tools were still extremely primitive, the entire external culture was primitive. People did not yet have a connection with what was about to happen here on earth. In order for humans to learn to rule the earth, they had to be limited to the physical. They had to become strong and sanctify the lower humans.

[ 12 ] This culture is prepared by great teachers who point to the importance of the physical plane. Egyptian art is great in its spiritual conception, but not as a creation on the physical plane. All Greek art is a bringing down of man to the physical plane. Roman law is also something that brings man down to the physical plane. All this is connected with the Dionysus cult. The representative of wine is even depicted as a god. The introduction of wine into human development is depicted in a sublime form in the story of the wedding at Cana in Galilee. In truth, it is a matter of showing that water is superior to wine. Because man was to be brought down to the physical plane, water was turned into wine.

[ 13 ] Today, we have descended to the physical plane with all our institutions. If a moral culture does not accompany the culture on the physical plane, physical achievements have a destructive effect. Through the development of morality, man will be able to generate forces quite different from those that now exist on the physical plane. Keely set his motor in motion through vibrations that he excited in his own organism. Such vibrations depend on the moral nature of man. This is a first ray of dawn for what will emerge as the technology of the future. In the future, we will have machines that only start moving when the forces come from people who are moral. Immoral people will then be unable to set such machines in motion. Purely mechanical mechanisms must be transformed into moral mechanisms.

[ 14 ] The spiritual-scientific worldview is preparing for this ascent. Christianity first had to bring people down. Now Christianity must lead humanity upward again. The wine must be turned back into water.

[ 15 ] John's gaze went beyond physical reality. What the Lord did, his mission, appeared to the disciple John in the image of the wedding at Cana in Galilee. This is how the first twelve chapters of the Gospel of John are to be understood. It does not say that Mary asked him, but the mother of Jesus. We are dealing here with a mystical mode of expression. In all mysticism, the mother is understood to be that which must be fertilized when man ascends to a higher level. Jesus had to raise the entire consciousness of humanity to a higher level. The entire consciousness of humanity calls upon him to take it one step further. That is why Jesus could say, “Woman, what have I to do with you?” Jesus would not have said this to his mother.

[ 16 ] On the third day there was a wedding. This means that John was in an initiatory sleep for three days. Then the vision of the wedding at Cana in Galilee took place. During the three days of sleep, he went through what was happening in the spiritual world. On the third day, he experienced the vision of the wedding at Cana. Everything that follows are events that he sees in the astral vision.

[ 17 ] In the third chapter, the conversation with Nicodemus follows. In the astral vision, the Lord himself always appears to John. What is to happen to John is revealed to him in the conversation with Nicodemus. The Lord speaks clearly. At first, Nicodemus does not understand him. It should become clear to John himself; it is explained to him in the vision that it is a matter of the death of the lower man and the revival of the higher man. It gradually becomes clear to him who Jesus really is; that in Jesus the original forces of the world, the Father of the world, are lived out. Hence, Christ's speeches about the Father follow here. The power of the occult forces that Jesus has confronts John as an astral reflection of the real events. Everything really happened, but John experiences it in astral vision. Thus John learns the deepest truths from the Lord himself.

[ 18 ] In the fourth chapter follows the encounter with the Samaritan woman. The Lord says to her: “You have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband.” She is to be lifted up to the higher self. To do this, she had to pass through the lower bodies. These are the old husbands. Now she must be connected to the higher self, which is the new husband. In the story of the man born blind, it becomes clear that it is the karma of the man born blind that causes him not to see.

[ 19 ] Astral experiences are the first events in the Gospel of John. Is it not natural that John himself is not present, because he experiences everything in image consciousness? John does not appear in the first twelve chapters. He is not yet the disciple, because he experiences all this on the astral plane.

[ 20 ] Now he sleeps the sleep of initiation. Now he is to be promoted to a higher degree. This happens when he lives through the experiences of the three days into the fourth day. The initiation lasts three and a half days. Then his own initiation appears to him, the resurrection of himself. This is the resurrection of Lazarus. Lazarus is the writer of the Gospel of John. Martha and Mary are the states of consciousness of his soul, the divine soul and the soul turned toward earthly life. The description of the miracle of Lazarus is the description of a higher initiation. In the twelfth chapter, the actual recognition of the personality of Jesus is prepared. John himself says: Now I recognize him who raised me up.

[ 21 ] The thirteenth chapter marks the beginning of John's higher development. Every word of the Gospel of John becomes understandable to us when we understand it as an experience of John. He now becomes conscious in his ego, without image consciousness. Now he becomes consciously the disciple whom the Lord loved.