The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Gospel of John VIII

[ 1 ] The author of the Gospel of John says in conclusion that Christ did many other things that are not contained in the book: “There are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they should be written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25) Thus, we must also say that even a longer series of lectures would not be sufficient to explain everything that is written in the Gospel. Today we want to subject the duality of the concepts of the “father” and the “ego” to a more precise examination. These two concepts will give us an explanation of the evolution of humanity, which was the subject of the previous lectures. Humanity started out with a completely different sense of self than the one we know. “Adam” is not to be understood as a single human being, but as a sense of self that encompasses several generations. The one who begins such a generation is the “father”. In Old Testament Judaism, Abraham was indeed felt to be a father, and every Jew of that time said to himself: I am not an independent ego, but an ego flows down from Abraham and branches out into all members of the tribe, and also into me. Just as in a great tree sap flows from the root to the individual branches, so too does Abraham's sap flow through the entire Jewish people, the Jewish people's common ego. When the Jew of the Old Testament spoke the name of his father, he pointed to the entire bloodline, and this sense of self that encompasses all generations was called the divine consciousness. When he invoked this ego as God, he called it Yahweh. When the name of Yahweh resounded, the people were reminded that a common ego, beginning with the progenitor Abraham, flows through the entire nation.

[ 2 ] Through the mixing of blood, this relationship has changed over time. The consciousness of “I am” has become individualized, and Christ is the power that should make humanity aware of this change. The man of ancient times meant by the “I am” something that flows through generations. The man of later times understands it to mean something that flows through his own inner being. The former meant the God who flows through the whole community as the divine consciousness of the I, the latter feels within himself a spark, a drop of the divine substance. Let us imagine a power on earth that brings humanity to the right realization that this “I am” can live in every single person, a power that makes it clear to people that God has placed a drop of his substance in every human being. This power would say: This “I am” is something that is in each of you, it is a part of the one divine power. That which you feel as your individual “I am” is one with the “I am” of the Father. He among you who has developed within himself the consciousness of this fact can say, “I and the Father are one.” Look up to Adam: you see the consciousness of self flowing through generations, for centuries, for millennia. But there is still a higher human consciousness that was given to man in his ancient capacity as a human being. This is the consciousness of humanity, which encompasses not individual generations but all of humanity. Then came the consciousness that belongs to generations, lasts through generations, and that has finally been individualized by man into the “I am”. Thus the germ of the “I am” was already present in man earlier. Therefore Christ could say: “Before Abraham was, the ‘I am’ was.” This is the true teaching of the School of Mystery.

[ 3 ] For a further explanation of the teaching of the “I am”, the “Golden Legend”, which is known in all Christian schools, should be consulted. It says: When Seth, whom Jehovah had given as a replacement for Abel, came one day to the gates of Paradise, the cherub with the flaming sword granted him entry into the place from which humans had been expelled. Seth saw two intertwined trees there, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge. And the cherub signaled to Seth to take three seeds from the two intertwined trees. Seth put these three seeds into the mouth of his father Adam when he died. From the grave grew a tree with three parts, which showed itself radiant in the fire to many, and its embers then formed the words: “I am who was, who is and who will be.” The wood of this tree, which had grown out of the grave of Adam, was used in many ways: it was used to make the magic wand with which Moses performed his miracles. The wood was also used for the gates of Solomon's Temple. The bridge over which Jesus was led to his death was also built of it. Finally, the cross to which Jesus was nailed at Golgotha was made of this wood. The secret schools gave the following explanation of this legend: Within man you see two trees, the red blood tree and the blue-red blood tree. The red blood tree is the expression of knowledge, the blue-red blood tree is for life. Both trees were separated from each other, so the ancient secret doctrine teaches. There was a time when there was no red blood in man. It was only when the I descended into the human body that the red blood arose. What is expressed in the blue-red blood, life, was there long before. It arose through higher development out of the life fluids. And the Christian view puts the point in time when it was given to human beings precisely in the time of Paradise, when the first dawning of the I took hold in the human soul, when the Godhead descended and human beings were endowed only with the group soul, but in this they possessed the first germ from which the individual I could arise.

[ 4 ] The Paradise Myth says: By receiving the red blood, human beings became cognizant beings, they learned to look up: their eyes were opened, they learned to know the difference between man and woman. But this knowledge had to be bought. Self-awareness can only arise from the blood dying. In the human body, life is constantly being consumed and renewed. The blue blood has fulfilled its task when it is used up, and the ego consciousness arises from the destruction of the blue blood. In the human soul, the forces will develop through which he can control and connect the two trees. Man only feels the ego by continually carrying murder and dying within himself. Man, as soon as he enters the world, is dependent on the plant for the sole possibility of life. Just think, for example, that man continually inhales oxygen-containing air and exhales used air containing carbonic acid. He uses the oxygen and converts it into carbonic acid. The oxygen, without which he cannot live, he acquires only through the plant, which converts the carbonic acid produced by man back into oxygen and thus makes the air usable for man again. The plant retains the carbon that it splits off from the carbonic acid and gives it back to humans after millennia as coal. The Earth is a unified organism, and if only one part of it were missing, life as we know it would be impossible. We can regard plants, animals and humans as one being, and indeed, if you take away the plant, the other links can no longer live. In a very distant future, this relationship will be changed. Modern man knows nothing about it, but the seer can see into the time when the stream of carbonic acid will no longer be transformed by the plant, but by man himself, into useful oxygen. This is the great ideal of the secret schools for the future, that man should consciously accomplish within himself what the plant does for him today, that man should learn to assimilate the activity of plants into his own activity. Those organs are formed within him that enable him to transform carbonic acid for himself. The initiate foresees how the two trees, the tree of carbonic acid and that of oxygen, will fuse their crowns together. Then that of which it is said, “I am, who was, who is, and who will be,” will live as something eternal in every human being. In Adam the ego already lived, but it had first to be fertilized. In the beginning the Tree of Life had to be made into the Tree of Death. It could not be given at the same time as the Tree of Knowledge, therefore the two trees were separated from each other: the plant was interposed. The consciousness of eternity had first to be attained. Christ Jesus bore it within Himself and He transplanted it into the earth. The three seeds are the three divine parts of Manas, Buddhi and Atma. That which is eternal in all was laid with Adam in the grave. From the grave, the consciousness of eternity is proclaimed. From the grave grew the tree that bore the flame inscription: “I am that was, that is, and that will be.” Christ teaches people to ignite this “I am an individual human being” in human nature by saying: Try to lean more and more against the essence of “I am”, then you have what constitutes your community with me. Only through this “I am” do you reach the divine Father, for the Father and I are one. — Only a seer was able to grasp this, and a seer was indeed the writer of the Gospel of John. He did not want to record something that had only historical significance, but rather that which one recognizes when one looks into the spiritual world.

[ 5 ] If a seeing contemporary of Christ wanted to know what was going on in the spiritual world, he had to fall into a state of sleep. We find this hinted at in the third chapter. Nicodemus, an elder of the Jews, came to Christ at night. He came to him because he wanted to become a seer, because the state had come to him in which he could become a seer, and “he came by night” because his day-consciousness was extinguished. In the fifth verse of this chapter we also find the important teaching recorded that man can be born “of the Spirit”.

[ 6 ] Christ says (ch. 14, 6): “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Where is this Way that leads to the highest Divinity through Christ? The “I Am” works on the astral body and forms the spirit self out of it; it works on the etheric body and forms the life spirit out of it; it works on the physical body and forms the spiritual man out of it. When the human “I” works on it, the spirit self is thus worked out, and the life spirit arises in it. In this way man comes to true life. In the “I am” lies the way to truth and to true life, because the “I am” works through the lower bodies and allows true life to arise in them. We can present this as follows:

[ 7 ] The “I am” indicates the direction that man must take in order to develop his spiritual self, the spirit of life and the spiritual man.

[8] Direct theosophical teachings can also be found in the Gospel of John. The fact that an individual I lives in every human being, that there is a spark of divine substance in this I, and that this spark must develop into the “God in us”, is mentioned by the author of the Gospel of John (ch. 9). In most translations of the Bible, Christ's answer to the question of who had sinned, this man, who was born blind, or his parents, is rendered as follows: “It is neither this man nor his parents who have sinned, but so that the works of God might be made manifest in him.” But is this a worthy conception for a Christian, that God lets a man be born blind so that God can reveal His glory in him? A concept of God that is capable of such conclusions is impossible. This passage reads much more simply and clearly if we take the theosophical view as a basis. Christ replied: “Neither he nor his parents have sinned; he is fulfilling his karma so that the spark of God in him may become visible, so that the works of the ‘God in him’ may become visible.” The answer of Christ (9:3) is to be translated as follows: “He was born blind so that the works of God in him might be visible in the body.” Every human being undergoes repeated lives on earth. We see a man born blind. He must not have sinned in this life, he may also have brought the guilt that led to this birth with him from a previous life. It is the teaching of karma in the theosophical sense, which works through the embodiments, which is described by this event. It is obvious that Christ, through his teaching, had to come into conflict with the commonly held Jewish view, and this also explains the discord into which he comes with the Jews (ch. 9, 22).

[ 9 ] We find yet another passage in the gospel that recalls the teaching of karma. There is a curious passage in chapter 8: when the Pharisees asked Jesus for his opinion of the adulteress, he bent down (verses 6 and 8), without saying a word, and wrote with his finger on the ground. But the earth is, as we have seen, his own body. He does not condemn the adulteress, but he inscribes her act in his own organism. He thus implies that, just as a seed placed in the earth rises and bears fruit that corresponds to it, so too will every human deed arise in a later earthly life and bear the fruits corresponding to it, and that no power on earth is able to remove the consequences of an act. Theology, however, believes in the atoning death, believes that Christ died for us, and believes that it dare not accept a doctrine of karma because it is contrary to the view that Christ took upon himself the sins of the whole world through his death. This disharmony between the theosophical and theological views, however, resolves itself, when properly understood, into harmony.

[ 10 ] The doctrine of karma means for life the same as an account book does for a merchant. According to the law of karma, we must assume that what we have caused in previous lives will come to us in this life as an effect, and that what we do now will be expressed in later life. We thus have a complete life balance: on the one hand, good actions are recorded, and on the other, bad actions. If someone believes that he cannot perform a voluntary act under the rule of the law of karma, since his actions are always the consequence of his previous actions, then he is like a merchant who would say, “I have now closed my business accounts, I must not do any more business, otherwise my accounts would be inaccurate.” Just as such a way of thinking is wrong for a merchant, so the view of the effect of karma described above is also wrong. The correctly understood doctrine of karma does not, therefore, include any fatalism. Freedom of will and karma can be reconciled with each other in the most beautiful way, and karma, correctly understood, is never something irrevocable. And if a person were to refuse to help another in misfortune under the pretext that he must not interfere with another's karma, such a person would be doing no more right than if he were to refuse a loan to a merchant in need who can be saved from bankruptcy by such a loan. Just as the merchant records such a subsidy in his books as a debt that he has to repay, while the giver records it in his books as a loan, so every good deed is also credited to the person who does it as an item in his account, while it is written as a debt to the person to whom it is done. Thus, the law of karma does not preclude any kind of assistance, and it seems entirely appropriate to ease the karma of one's fellow human beings by performing acts of mutual help. A person can do good to a single fellow human being by performing a good deed, but there are also deeds that benefit many people, that is, they ease their karma, and these are then entered in the account of many people. And if an act is so powerful as that of Christ, then it is engraved in the karma of all people, because this act creates a relief for the karma of all those people who allow it to take effect in them. We see, then, that the law of karma is also mentioned in the Gospel of John and that its existence does not in any way impair freedom of action. Through the one act of self-sacrifice, Jesus Christ has brought himself into a relationship with all of humanity. According to the law of karma, every deed is written into the ledger of life. It is linked to the body of Christ, to the earth. Therefore, he does not judge the adulteress at that moment, but he inscribes the deed in his own body. He takes everything into His own body that can happen from person to person, since karma must always be lived out again in the earthly world. This story points in a deeply significant way to the fact that Christ, through His act, has brought Himself into connection with the karmic evolution of all mankind. He guides the future evolution of humanity.

[ 11 ] If we call to mind once more the five cultural epochs, the Indian, Persian, Egyptian, Greek-Latin and the European, we see that in the third period the foundation was laid for the Christ-power, which will bear fruit for all mankind. What has been introduced into the evolution of mankind will only come to life in the sixth period. In the sixth period, the spirit self that has developed out of the consciousness soul will unite with the life spirit. From the third to the fourth period, the power of Christ shines prophetically. In the sixth period, the great marriage of humanity will be celebrated, where the spirit self unites with the life spirit. Then humanity will be united in the great brotherhood and I will stand next to I, brother next to brother, in that brotherhood that is foretold in the description of the wedding at Cana in Galilee, which is not only a historical fact but also symbolizes how, in the sixth period, the sons of men will marry in a great brotherhood that encompasses all of humanity. From the third period, three periods still have to be traversed before this event will come, the third, fourth and fifth. In esotericism, a period is called a day, hence it says at the beginning of the second chapter: “And on the third day there was a wedding at Cana.” This indicates that the coming description of the wedding refers to something that will occur in the future. The mother of Jesus, the consciousness soul, is present at the wedding. Christ says to her: “What is going on there from me to you? My hour has not yet come.” It is clearly stated that the wedding at Cana points to something that is yet to happen in the future. What does Jesus do because his hour has not yet come? He turns water into wine! It can be explained again and again that this act is intended to suggest that new fire, new life force, should be added to Judaism, which had fallen into decadence, by turning the “fade” water into fiery wine. One could say that the wine drinkers came up with this explanation to prove the justification of their actions. But if we grasp the significance of this act, we gain a deep insight into the great evolution of the world.

[ 12 ] Alcohol has not always been associated with humanity. Everything spiritual that develops has its corresponding expression in matter, and conversely, everything material in the spiritual has its corresponding counterpart. Wine, and with it alcohol, only appeared at a certain point in the history of the world and of humanity. And it will disappear again at the same point. Here we see the profound truth of occult research. Alcohol was the bridge that led from the generic, group ego to the independent, individual ego. Man would never have made the transition from the group to the individual ego without the material effect of alcohol. This produced the individual, personal consciousness in man. When humanity has reached this goal, it will no longer need alcohol, and it will disappear from the physical world. You see, everything that happens has its significance in the wise guidance of human development. Therefore, no one should be opposed to drinking alcohol today, while, on the other hand, those people who have rushed ahead of the rest of humanity and have advanced their development to such an extent that they no longer need alcohol should also avoid it. Christ appears to give humanity strength so that in the sixth period the highest ego-consciousness can be attained. He wants to prepare people for that 'time that has not yet come'. If He had left it at the water sacrifice, humanity would never have attained the individual ego. The transformation of water signifies the elevation of the human being to an individual being. Humanity had reached a point in its development where it needed wine, which is why Christ transforms water into wine. When the time comes that man no longer needs wine, Christ will change the wine back into water. How could such power come to be in Christ that He could change water into wine? Because Christ's body is the Earth itself, He could make the forces of the Earth effective in Himself. In the earth, water, flowing through the vine, is transformed into wine. What happens in the earth, Christ as personality could also carry out, because all the powers of the earth must also be present in him, as soon as the earth is his body and is animated by his astral body.

[ 13 ] What does the earth do with its powers? If you put a seed into the earth, it will sprout and bear fruit. It multiplies; one becomes many. Likewise, through procreation, one animal becomes many. The same power of multiplication and reproduction is also at work in Christ, and it is hinted at in the feeding of the five thousand. Christ has the power of multiplying the seeds inherent in the earth. If we keep in mind the thought “Christ's body is the earth with its powers” and apply it to what is reported in the Gospel of John, many details will become clear to us.

[ 14 ] What are gospels anyway? In the gospel of John we see a representation of the principles of initiation as they were spread throughout the ancient world. What the person to be initiated did outwardly was not decisive for the school to which he belonged, but what he experienced from step to step, from degree of initiation to degree of initiation, that was the decisive factor. The modern world of scholars is very surprised to have discovered similar traits in the developmental history of Buddha as in the developmental history of Christ Jesus. This is explained by the fact that the writers of such life stories did not record the external circumstances of life, but the inner, spiritual facts. These correspond in all true initiates, since all have traveled the same path and have had the same experiences on it. What the initiate had to experience on the path of initiation was indicated in the initiation instructions, and all initiates of the same degree had to undergo the same experiences. The biographers thus only wrote one biography of the various stages of initiation. The Gospels are nothing more than ancient initiation instructions of varying depth. What took place in earlier times with a tuned-down consciousness happened publicly in the Mystery of Golgotha. Death, which was previously overcome during initiation in the etheric body, was now overcome in the physical body. The event at Golgotha is the initiation of a supreme initiate who has not been initiated by anyone else.

[ 15 ] Thus the writer of the Gospel of John could only describe the life of Christ as the initiation code describes it. Whoever lives through the Gospel of John will awaken within himself the power of vision. It is a seer's book, written to train the faculty of seeing. Those who live through it sentence by sentence will emerge from it with the great and powerful result of having encountered the Christ spiritually, eye to eye. It is not easy for people to become convinced; they have to work their way towards the goal, where they realize that the Christ is a reality. The Gospel of John is the way that leads to Christ. The writer wanted to give everyone the opportunity to understand him. Those who develop the spirit self within themselves out of the astral body will have that wisdom revealed to them in spirit, through which they can understand what Christ is. Christ Himself indicated this: He hangs on the cross, at His feet stand His mother and His initiated disciple, whom He loves. The disciple is to bring people the wisdom, the realization of the significance of the Christ. Therefore, the Mother Sophia is indicated with the words: “This is your mother, you must love her.” The spiritualized Mother of Jesus is the Gospel itself, she is the wisdom that leads people to the highest realizations. The disciple gave us the Mother Sophia, that is, he wrote the Gospel for us, which contains the possibility for anyone who searches in it to get to know Christianity and to grasp the origin and goal of this great movement.

[ 16 ] The Gospel of John contains the wisdom of “God in Man”, of Theosophy, and the more humanity devotes itself to studying this document, the more wisdom and enlightenment it will gain from it.