The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Gospel of John V

[ 1 ] “The law was given through Moses; devotion — grace — and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). If we understand this passage in its entirety, we also grasp the deeply significant turning point in human history that occurred with the appearance of Christ. In the previous lectures, the development of humanity was roughly outlined and it was shown how the sense of self has developed. In the distant past, whole groups and generations of people felt themselves to be I. The great age of the patriarchs becomes understandable in this way. Gradually, this sense of self became more and more limited to individual personalities. It has also been shown how two spiritual currents asserted themselves in this development: one, consanguinity, which naturally strove to hold humanity together; the other, the luciferic current, which relied on the individual and prepared him for the coming, purely spiritual bond.

[ 2 ] Throughout the Old Testament period, the law is understood to mean something that brings order into human society from the outside. After blood ties had lost their binding power, people had to be brought into a certain relationship with each other through external, mental order. The law was felt to come from without. This law given to us from without will remain in force until the devotion, grace and truth that have come to us through Christ have created in us from within an understanding of true knowledge. Devotion and truth can only develop gradually. Christianity, which wants to bring devotion instead of the law, is still today at the beginning of its development. The more the earth progresses in its development, the stronger the influence of Christianity on humanity will become. Humanity is to rise to a level of coexistence where each person is impelled by his inner being to enter into the relationship of brother to brother with his neighbor. Mankind could not rise to this high level of development by its own efforts, and it is the task of Christianity to help it to do so. Then man will no longer need an external law when he has the inner impulse to behave in such a way that devotion and truth form the guiding principle of his actions.

[ 3 ] This is not to be understood to mean that humanity no longer needs a law; but it is an ideal to strive for. Gradually, humanity is coming to the realization that the harmony of the world is established through their voluntary actions. To reach this goal, the Power that is Christ in the sense of the Gospel had to intervene. Of the one who, through his own inner strength, is able to rise to such a relationship with all his fellow human beings that he freely, without any compulsion, fits into the harmony, it is said in the secret schools that “he carries the Christ within him”.

To understand the following, it is necessary to visualize once more the composition of the human being:

Ich
Astral body	Spirit Self
Etheric body	Life Spirit
Physical body	Spirit Man

[ 4 ] Through the work of the I on the astral body, the latter is transformed into a spiritual self. However, this happens in stages, with the sentient soul forming first, then the intellectual soul, and then the consciousness soul. The spiritual self pours itself into the matured, refined consciousness soul. Likewise, the I works on the etheric body, and the impulses that have the greatest effect there are those of art, religion and secret schooling.

[ 5 ] Even in pre-Christian times, there were secret schools that were able to develop their students to the point where they were able to see into the higher worlds. But this vision was only granted to the real pupils in the most hidden secret schools, and even there only at the actual act of initiation, when the etheric body was separated from the physical body. Initiation is understood to mean the lifting of a person in order to let him see the spiritual world. In all the initiations of pre-Christian times, the person to be initiated had to be brought into a kind of sleep. The difference between the sleep of initiation and ordinary sleep is that in the latter the etheric body remains connected to the physical body, whereas in the former the etheric body is separated from the physical body for a short while. During this time the Hierophant had to keep the body alive. By taking out the etheric body, it was possible to lead it with the other bodies into the higher worlds, in order to let it make experiences there that could be transmitted to the physical brain afterwards. Only such methods of initiation existed in pre-Christian times.

[ 6 ] With the appearance of Christ Jesus, something entirely new occurred with regard to the method of initiation. Imagine that a person had transformed the entire astral body into a spirit self. This spirit self then impresses itself upon the etheric body like a seal in sealing wax, giving it its imprint. In this way, the etheric body is transformed into the spirit of life. When this is fully accomplished, the spirit of life imprints itself on the physical body and makes it a spiritual being. It was only through the appearance of Christ Jesus that it became possible to impress what was the spirit of life directly into the life body. The experiences gained in the higher worlds could now be incorporated into the physical brain without the need for a previous separation of the etheric body. The first person to have an etheric body that was completely permeated by the spirit self, and a physical body that was completely permeated by the life spirit, was Christ Jesus. Through Christ Jesus' coming to Earth, it has become possible for those who are connected to him to undergo the same initiation without separating the etheric body from the physical body. Thus all pre-Christian initiates had experienced initiation outside of the physical body, had re-entered their physical body and could now proclaim as their own experience what had taken place in the spiritual world.

[ 7 ] Buddha, Moses and others were such initiates. In Jesus, for the first time, a being came to earth who, remaining in the physical body, was able to see into the life of the higher worlds. The teachings of Buddha, Moses and so forth are quite independent of the personality of their masters. He is a Buddhist or a Mosaic who observes the teachings of Buddha or Moses. It is immaterial whether he recognizes Buddha or Moses, for these founders handed down only that which they had experienced in the higher worlds. It is different with Christ. His teaching only becomes Christianity through His personality, and it is not enough just to follow the teaching of Christianity to be a Christian. Only those are truly Christians who feel connected with the historical Christ. Individual tenets of Christianity can be found before that. But that is not what matters, but that the Christian believes in Christ Jesus, that he regards him as the manifestation that, walking in the flesh, represents the perfect man.

[ 8 ] In ancient times, the expression was still known: “The initiate is a divine man.” This was based on the fact that during the initiation ceremony, the initiate was in the spiritual world, with the spiritual beings or beings of God. There he was the divine man. But only through Christ Jesus could one see the divine man in the physical body, never before. The passage in John 1:18, “No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him,” is to be taken literally. In the past, only those who had made the ascent themselves could perceive the Godhead. In Christ, the Godhead had visibly descended to earth for the first time. This is proclaimed in the Gospel of John 1:14 and was also taught in the Dionysian School. Christ was there to show people the way; people should become his disciples, should prepare to impress what is in the etheric body into the physical body, that is, develop the Christ principle within themselves.

[ 9 ] The Gospel of John is a book of life. No one has understood this book by studying it with the intellect, but only the one who has experienced it knows it. If you repeat the first fourteen verses day after day for a while, you will discover what these words are for. They form the material for meditation and awaken in the human soul the ability to see the individual sections of the Gospel, such as the wedding at Cana in Chapter 2, the conversation with Nicodemus in Chapter 3, as one's own experiences in the great astral tableau. Through these exercises, the person becomes clairvoyant and can experience for themselves the truth of what is written in the Gospel of John. Hundreds have done this. The writer of the Gospel of John was a high seer, initiated by Christ Himself.

[ 10 ] The disciple John is not mentioned anywhere in the Gospel of John. It is only said of him: “The disciple whom the Lord loved”, for example in chapter 19, verse 26. This is a technical term and refers to the one who was initiated by the Master Himself. John describes his own initiation in the resurrection of Lazarus, chapter 11. Only through this can the most secret relationships of Christ with world evolution be revealed, that the writer of the Gospel of John was initiated by the Lord Himself. As stated above, the old initiations lasted three and a half days; hence the resurrection of Lazarus on the fourth day. It is also said of Lazarus that Christ loved him (chapters 11:3, 35-36). This is again the technical term for the favorite disciple. While the body of Lazarus lay dead in the grave, his etheric body was taken out to undergo initiation and receive the same power that is in Christ. Thus he became a resurrected one, the same one whom the Lord loves, from whom the Gospel of John originates. If one reads through the Gospel of John with this in mind, one will see that not a single line contradicts this fact, except that the process of initiation is presented under a veil.

[ 11 ] Let us consider another image from the Gospel of John. In chapter 19, 25, it says: “Now from there came two women, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the sister of Mary the mother of Jesus, who was married to Clopas; and Mary Magdalene.” To understand the gospel, it is necessary to know who these three women are. Just as it is unusual today for two sisters in the same family to have the same name, so it was not the case in the past. Thus, the passage cited is proof that, in the sense of the gospel of John, the mother of Jesus was not called Mary. If you search the Gospel of John for it, you will not find any indication that the mother of Jesus was called Mary. For example, in the wedding at Cana (ch. 2) it only says: “The mother of Jesus was there.” These words denote something important, but we can only understand it if we know how the writer of the Gospel uses his words. What does the expression “Mother of Jesus” mean? As we have seen, the human being consists of a physical body, an etheric body and an astral body. We must not imagine the transition from the astral body to the spirit self as being simple. The I transforms the astral body slowly and gradually into the sentient soul, the mind soul and the consciousness soul. The I continues to work, and only when it has brought the astral body to the consciousness soul is it able to purify it so that the spirit self can arise in it.

The human being is composed of:

Father	7. Spirit Man	distant future
Son	6. Life Spirit, transformed etheric body
Holy Spirit	5. Spirit Self, consciousness soul	Sophia, the purified consciousness soul
	4. Intellectual soul, Astral soul	Mary, Cleophas' wife
	3. Sentient soul, Astral body	Mary Magdalene
	2. Etheric body
	1. Physical body

[ 12 ] The spiritual man will only develop in the distant future. The life spirit is also only present in the germinal system of most people. The development of the spirit self has only just begun. It is inseparably connected to the consciousness soul, similar to a sword in its scabbard. The sentient soul, in turn, is contained in the sentient body or astral body. Thus we find nine members in the human personality. However, because the spirit self and consciousness soul, as well as the sentient soul and astral body, are inseparably connected, the theosophical literature usually speaks of seven members. The spirit self is equivalent to the Holy Spirit, which, in the Christian sense, is the guiding entity on the astral plane. The Life Spirit is called the “Word” or the “Son” by the Christians. The spirit man is the “Father Spirit” or the “Father”.

[ 13 ] Those who had born the spirit self within themselves were called “God's children”; with them “the light shone in the darkness” and “they received the light”. Outwardly they were men of flesh and blood, but within them dwelt a higher man. In their inner being the spirit-self had been born out of the consciousness soul. The “mother” of such a spiritualized man is not a bodily mother; she dwells within him; she is the purified and spiritualized consciousness soul. She is the principle out of whom the higher man is born. This spiritual birth, a birth in the highest sense, is described in the Gospel of St. John. Into the purified consciousness soul the spirit self or the Holy Spirit pours out. The expression “I beheld, and the Spirit descended like a dove out of heaven, and sat upon him” refers to this.

[ 14 ] Since the consciousness soul is the principle in which the spirit self has developed, it is called the “Mother of Christ” or, in the secret schools, the “Virgin Sophia”. Through the fertilization of the Virgin Sophia, the Christ could be born in Jesus of Nazareth. In the secret schools of Dionysius, the mind soul and the sentient soul were called “Mary” and “Mary Magdalene”.

[ 15 ] The physical human being is born out of the community of two human beings. The higher human being can only be born out of a consciousness soul that encompasses the whole nation. In all nations the method of initiation was the same in its essential phases. Every initiation has seven steps. In the Persian initiation they were called: First, the raven. The one standing at this step had to bring the messages of the outer world into the temple. The raven is everywhere called the spirit messenger, for example also in the German legends of Odin and his two ravens. Secondly, the Occult. Thirdly, the Champion. He had already been allowed by the secret schools to go forth and proclaim the teachings. Fourthly, the Lion, the firmly grounded one, who not only had the word but also the magical powers, who had passed the test and therefore offered a guarantee not to abuse the powers entrusted to him. Fifth, the Persian. Sixth, the Solar Hero. And seventh, the Father. We are interested here in the designation of the fifth degree, the Persian. In all secret schools, the initiate of the fifth degree was called by the name of the people to which he belonged, because his consciousness had expanded to embrace the whole nation. He felt all the suffering of the people as his own. His consciousness was purified and expanded to become the general consciousness of the people. Among the Jews, an initiate of this level was called an Israelite. Only when we know this fact can we understand the conversation between Christ and Nathanael (ch. 1, 47-49). He was an initiate of the fifth degree. The remarkable answer of the Christ, that he had seen Nathanael under the fig tree, points to a special process of initiation, namely, the reception of the consciousness soul.

[ 16 ] The following explanations will help us to understand the inner processes of initiation. The individual consciousness of the human being is in the physical world. People wander around with their I. The I of animals, on the other hand, is on the astral plane. Each group of animals has a collective consciousness there. But not only the ego of the animals is present in the astral world, but also the ego of the body that man shares with the animal, that is, the ego of the human astral body. In the world of Devachan we find the I of plants, as well as the I of that body that we have in common with plants, the I of the etheric body. If we ascend even higher into the higher Devachan, we find there the I of minerals and the I of that part that humans have in common with minerals: the I of the physical body. Thus we are in contact with the higher Devachan through our physical body. We are here in the physical world with our individual ego. When the ego of the astral body of an initiate is permeated and transformed by his individual ego, he becomes conscious in the astral world. He can then perceive and work in it. He meets the entities that are incarnated in the astral bodies, as well as the group souls of the animals and the higher entities that are called angels in Christianity. In the case of even higher initiation, the I of the etheric body is also permeated by the individual I. Human consciousness thus expands up to the devachan world. There one encounters the plant I-ness and the planetary spirit. An even higher initiation takes place when the individual I permeates the I of the physical body. Then the human being will also come to personal consciousness in the supersensible world. There he encounters the I of the minerals and even higher spirits. Thus, initiation is a journey up into higher worlds, where ever higher entities are encountered.

Higher Devachan World I of the Minerals	I of the Physical Body	Super-Devachan Consciousness
Devachan I of the plants	I of the etheric body	Devachan consciousness
Astral world I of the animals, also angels	I of the astral body	Astral consciousness
Physical world	Individual self	Day consciousness

We can use the following image:

The I of the etheric body can be compared to the engineer
The I of the astral body can be compared to the driver of a car
The I of the individual I, physical body, can be compared to the owner of a car.

[ 17 ] When the individual ego has gained full control over the three bodies, it has developed inner harmony. One being who fully possessed this harmony is Christ. He appeared on earth so that man could develop the power of inner harmony. In this Son of Man we see the whole evolution of humanity depicted, rising to the highest spiritual level. Before, this inner harmony did not exist; in its place, external laws held sway. The inner harmony is the new impulse that humanity has received through Christ. Man is to acquire the ability to be Christ-like, that is, he is to develop the inner Christ. But just as, according to Goethe's saying, “the eye is formed for light by light,” so this inner harmony, this inner Christ, is kindled only by the presence of the outer, historical Christ, before whose appearance it was not possible for man to reach this stage of spiritual development.

[ 18 ] Those people who lived before the time of Christ's historical life are not excluded from the blessings that came to humanity through his appearance. For one must not forget that, according to the law of reincarnation, they must come again and will consequently have the opportunity to develop the inner Christ. Only when the doctrine of reincarnation is forgotten can one speak of injustice. The Gospel of John shows the way to the historical Christ, to that Sun which kindles the inner light in man, as the physical sun has kindled our vision.