The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] In yesterday's lecture, we came to understand what the baptism of the forerunner of Christ Jesus, the baptism of John, actually was. And today it will be relatively easy for us to grasp the difference between what can be called the baptism of Christ and the baptism of John. And the whole nature of Christ's influence on the world will become clear to us precisely because we can understand the nature of Christ's baptism, of the Christ impulse, in contrast to John's baptism.

[ 2 ] We must point out above all that the state into which human beings had to come through the baptism of John was, in essence, abnormal compared to the ordinary everyday state of consciousness of human beings. We have heard, for example, that the old initiation was based on the etheric body of the human being, which is otherwise firmly connected to the physical body, being lifted out of the physical body in a certain way, and that this made it possible for the astral body to impress its experiences upon the etheric body. This was true of the old initiation. And the baptism of John also had to bring about an abnormal state. The person was immersed in water. This separated the etheric body from the physical body in a certain way, so that the person could gain insight into their life and become aware of the connection between this individual life and the realms of the divine-spiritual world. To be more precise, we can say that those who were successfully pulled out of the water knew through this process that they had something spiritual within them, that they were not merely beings in physical, material bodies. And this spiritual element within them was connected with the spirit that is behind all other things. He also knew that this spiritual being that appeared before him was the same being that Moses had perceived in the fire of the burning bush and in the lightning on Mount Sinai as Yahweh, as “I am who I am,” as “ehjeh asher ehjeh.” He knew all this through the baptism of John.

[ 3 ] How did such consciousness differ from that of an ancient initiate? An ancient initiate, when brought into the abnormal state I described to you yesterday, perceived the ancient divine-spiritual beings that were already connected with the earth before what Zarathustra called “Ahura Mazdao” and Moses called “Yahweh” connected with the earth. The ancient spiritual world from which man grew out of, in which he still lived in the old Atlantean time, and for which the ancient Indian people longed, the ancient gods, man perceived through ancient wisdom. But the God who had kept himself away from the earth for a correspondingly long time in order to be all the more effective, who had influenced it only from outside for long periods of time and slowly approached it, so that Moses was able to perceive this approach, this God was not yet known to the ancient initiates. Only those people who were initiated in the sense of the Old Testament initiation perceived something of the unity of all that is divine.

[ 4 ] Let us consider the state of mind of an initiate, not of the Persian or later Egyptian mysteries, but of an initiate who had also experienced what could be absorbed in Hebrew secret research. Let us assume that such an initiate had also undergone the initiation on ancient Sinai, say in an incarnation during the ancient Hebrew development or even earlier. There he had been led to the knowledge of the ancient divine world from which human beings had grown out of. Then, with this ancient wisdom and his ability to observe the ancient divine world, he entered into the Hebrew secret teachings. There he learned to say something like this: What I knew before were gods who were connected to the earth before the deity Yahweh-Christ united with the earth. But now I know that the principal spirit among them, the leading spirit, is the one who only gradually approached the earth. In this way, such an initiate came to know the identity of his spiritual world with the spiritual world in which the approaching Christ reigns. The one who was immersed in water by John did not need to be an initiate; but through this he learned the connection between his individuality, what he was as a personality, and the great Father Spirit of the world. However, only a few were able to achieve this success. Most people only needed to accept this baptism as a symbol, as something that served, so to speak, to convince them, in good faith and under the significant influence of the teachings of John the Baptist, of the existence of the God Yahweh. But among those who were immersed, there were some who had already matured in previous incarnations to learn something from their own observation. However, it was an abnormal state into which man was placed by the baptism of John.

[ 5 ] John baptized with water, and this had the effect of separating the etheric body from the physical body for a short time. But John the Baptist wanted to be the forerunner of “him who baptizes with fire and with the Spirit.” The baptism with fire and with the Spirit came to our earth through Christ. What, then, is the difference between John's baptism with water and Christ's baptism with fire and the Spirit? Only those who learn such understanding from the very beginning can understand this. For in regard to the understanding of Christ, we are still really at the beginning today. This understanding will become greater and greater, but today human beings can only grasp the very beginnings. Have the patience to begin with me the path to understanding Christ from the very beginning.

[ 6 ] First, it must be pointed out that spiritual processes really lie behind all physical processes, including all human physical processes. This is very difficult for people today to believe. The world will gradually learn this, and only then will it come to a full understanding of Christ. Today, even those who would like to speak of the spirit do not seriously believe that everything that happens physically in human beings is ultimately directed by the spiritual. They cannot consciously believe it, even if they want to be idealists.

[ 7 ] There is, for example, an American who carefully collects facts that show that in abnormal states, human beings are able to rise into a spiritual world, and through this he seeks to gain a certain foundation for the most diverse facts. This American, William James, goes about his work in the most thorough manner. But even the best among human beings can do nothing against the powerful spirit of the times. They do not want to be materialists, but they are nonetheless. This philosophy of William James has also influenced some European scholars, and therefore reference should be made to some grotesque statements by William James that confirm what has just been said. For example, he said: Man does not cry because he is sad, but he is sad because he cries! “People have always believed that one must first be sad, that is, that a mental and emotional process must take place, and only then does this mental process press itself into the physical body. When tears flow, there must be an emotional process underlying the secretion of tears.

[ 8 ] Even today, when everything spiritual is buried under the veil of the material and must first be rediscovered by a spiritual worldview, even today we still have processes within us that are remnants of an ancient time when the spiritual was still more powerful, and which can show us in a meaningful way how the spiritual works. I usually draw attention to two things: the feeling of shame and the feeling of fear and terror. Let me say in advance that it would be easy to list all the hypothetical explanations for these two types of experience. But that is not our concern here; and if anyone wants to object to this, they should not think that spiritual researchers are not also familiar with these hypotheses.

[ 9 ] About the feeling of shame, we can say: 'When a person feels ashamed, it is as if they want to prevent their surroundings from seeing something that is happening within them; it is like wanting to hide something that is going on in the person's sense of shame. And what physical effect does this psychological experience have on the person? It causes a blush to rise to the face, the blood rushes to the face. So what happens under the impression of a mental-spiritual event such as the feeling of shame? A transformation, a different circulation of the blood! The blood is driven from the inside to the periphery, to the outside. The blood is changed in its course—this is a physical fact—by a mental-spiritual fact!

[ 10 ] When a person is frightened, they want to protect themselves against something they perceive as threatening: they turn pale, the blood withdraws from the outer surface. Again, we have an external process caused by a mental-spiritual process, by fear and fright. Remember that blood is the expression of the I. What will a person want to do when they see something threatening approaching? They will gather their strength and become strong in the center of their being. The ego, which wants to gather itself, also draws the blood back to the center of its being.

[ 11 ] Here you have physical processes as the effect of spiritual-soul processes. In the same way, the welling up of tears is a physical process brought about by spiritual-soul processes. It is not the case that some secret physical influences converge and squeeze out the tears, and that the person then becomes sad when they feel the tears coming. This is how the materialistic view turns the simplest thing upside down. If we were to go into all the various physical ailments that can afflict human beings and which are connected with spiritual-soul processes, we could multiply such cases to an enormous extent. But for us today, it is important to understand that physical processes are the effects of spiritual-soul processes. And where a physical process appears to us as if there were nothing spiritual-soul behind it, we must always be clear that we have not yet recognized the spiritual-soul.

[ 12 ] People today are not at all inclined to recognize the spiritual-soul immediately. Today's researcher sees how the human being develops from the first moment of conception, from the very first stages of the germ, first in the womb, then outside the mother's body. He sees the outer physical form of the human being grow. And because he observes this with the means of modern research, he comes to the conclusion that human beings only come into being with the development of the physical form, as he observes at conception, and he is not at all inclined to accept that there are spiritual processes behind the physical processes. He does not believe that there is anything spiritual behind the physical human germ and that this spiritual element connects with the physical and brings out what comes from a previous embodiment. Now, if one wanted to give credence only to theory and not to practical experience, one could say: Well, it may be that some higher knowledge would make it possible to understand that the spiritual stands behind the physical. But we humans cannot recognize the spiritual behind the physical! — So say some. Others say: But we do not want to make the efforts that are prescribed for us in order to attain this knowledge of the spiritual-divine. What difference does it make to the world whether we recognize this or not? But it is a terrible belief, indeed a terrible superstition, to think that nothing in practical life depends on such knowledge. We will now try to show as clearly as possible that very much in practical life depends on this knowledge.

[ 13 ] Let us take a person who does not want to have any idea that behind everything physical in human beings there is something spiritual, who also does not understand that, for example, an enlargement of the physical liver expresses something spiritual. Another person, for my sake, willingly accepts, through spiritual scientific inspiration, that it is only by penetrating into the spiritual that one first arrives at an inkling, then at a belief, and finally at a knowledge and observation of the spiritual. So we have two people before us: one rejects the spiritual and is satisfied with the sensory observation of things; the other accepts what can be called the will to know the spiritual. The person who is unwilling to accept spiritual knowledge will become weaker and weaker, because by not giving his spirit the necessary nourishment—which is knowledge alone—he will allow his spirit to starve, wither, and perish. Then the spirit becomes weak and cannot become strong, and that which is independent of this spirit gains the upper hand and overwhelms the human being. The human being becomes weak in relation to what is happening in his physical body and etheric body without his intervention. But the other person, who has the will to gain knowledge, nourishes his spirit; his spirit becomes strong, and the spirit gains control over what goes on independently of him in his etheric body and physical body. That is the essence of the matter. We can apply this immediately to a case that plays a major role in our time.

[ 14 ] We know that human beings enter the world from two sides. They inherit their physical body from their ancestors, from their father and mother and their ancestors. From their ancestors, human beings inherit certain characteristics of a good and bad nature, which lie in the bloodline. But every time certain characteristics appear in a child through such inheritance, these characteristics are combined with the forces that the child brings with it from its previous incarnations. Now you know that today, when a person develops this or that disease, there is a lot of talk about “hereditary predisposition.” What nonsense is being made today with the term “hereditary predisposition,” which is certainly justified within certain narrow limits! Wherever this or that occurs in a person and where it can be proven that it consists of characteristics of their ancestors, people refer to hereditary predispositions. And because they know nothing about spiritual forces that come from previous incarnations and are effective in humans, they believe that these inherited predispositions have an overwhelming power. If we knew that something spiritual comes from a previous incarnation, we would say: Fine, we believe in inherited predispositions, but we also know what inner central forces in the soul originate from a previous life. If we strengthen and fortify them, they gain the upper hand over the material, that is, over the inherited predispositions. And such a person, who is capable of rising to a recognition of the spiritual, would go on to say: No matter how strong the inherited predispositions may be, I want to nourish the spiritual within me! In this way I will become victorious over these inherited predispositions. But those who do not work on the spiritual, on that which is not inherited, will fall victim to their inherited predispositions precisely because of this disbelief.

[ 15 ] And so, through materialistic superstition, inherited predispositions will indeed gain more and more power over human beings. People will become bogged down in their inherited predispositions if they do not strengthen their spirit and thereby continually overcome what has been inherited through a strong spirit. Of course, in our time, when so much has already happened through materialism, they must not overestimate the powers of the spiritual. You must not say: if that were the case, then all anthroposophists would have to be fundamentally healthy people, because they believe in the spirit. Man is not, as he is in the world, merely an individual being. Man stands within the whole world, and the spiritual must also grow in strength. But once the spiritual has become weak, even in the most anthroposophical person, even in someone who nourishes the spirit with so much, it will not immediately enable them to triumph over the things that come from the material world. But it will all the more surely find expression in their health and strength in their next incarnation. People will become weaker and weaker if they do not believe in the spirit, for then they surrender themselves to their inherited predispositions. They themselves have caused the spiritual to be weak. Everything depends on how people relate to the spiritual. Do not think that the circumstances involved can be easily overlooked.

[ 16 ] I will express in a grotesque way how people can err when they form their judgments based solely on outward appearances. Someone might say: There was a person who was a good follower of the anthroposophical worldview. But the anthroposophists themselves claim that health is always improved by the anthroposophical worldview and that it even prolongs life. What a beautiful teaching! The man died at the age of forty-three! People know that the man died at the age of forty-three; they saw that. But what don't people know? They don't know when the man would have died if he hadn't had anthroposophy! Perhaps without anthroposophy, the man would have lived only to the age of forty. If a person's life span without anthroposophy extends to the age of forty, then with anthroposophy it can extend to the age of forty-three. And because anthroposophy is increasingly penetrating life, its effects will already be evident during life. If a person wants to see the effects of everything in one life between birth and death, then they are an egoist, wanting everything for their own selfish purposes. But if they acquire anthroposophy for humanity, then they also have it for all the incarnations that will follow.

[ 17 ] Now we see that by influencing his spiritual being, when he surrenders himself to what really comes from the spirit, he can at least supply his spirit with fresh strength, he can make his spirit strong and powerful. This is what we must understand: that there is a possibility of allowing oneself to be influenced by the spiritual and thereby becoming more and more the ruler within oneself. And now we seek the means in the world that is most effective in our present stage of development for allowing ourselves to be influenced by the spirit.

[ 18 ] We have already pointed out in a certain sense how spiritual science nourishes our spirit through the means of spiritual research. We can perhaps say that what human beings take in as spiritual nourishment is still small, but we also see that it can grow and grow in subsequent incarnations. But this is only possible under one condition, and in order to understand this condition, let us take a look at the anthroposophical worldview itself.

[ 19 ] The anthroposophical worldview teaches us what members the human being consists of according to its nature. It teaches us what is invisibly present in a visible human being standing before us. It then shows us how human beings pass from life to life in their core being, how everything we bring with us from our last life in terms of soul and spirit is integrated into the physical and material that we have inherited from our ancestors. Anthroposophy also shows us how humanity has developed on Earth, how it has passed through the Atlantean epoch, through the preceding periods, and through the post-Atlantean cultures. It also shows us that the Earth itself has undergone transformations, that the Earth underwent an earlier embodiment in what we have called the old lunar state, and another earlier one in the old solar state, the Saturn state. Thus, the spiritual scientific worldview leads us from what is closest to us, what our eyes see, what our hands grasp, what our present science investigates, to the great, comprehensive facts of the world and, above all, into the supersensible. It gives human beings spiritual nourishment by leading them out of the sensory world. Those who have engaged further with us in this anthroposophical worldview know that for seven years we have been describing in greater detail the development of the human being, the forms of transformation of the earth, and the life of the human being in the various stages of culture. We are already able to describe these things in great detail. And when the opportunity arises, we will delve even deeper into these matters. We have a tableau of supersensible facts to paint before our souls. But this tableau has another peculiarity.

[ 20 ] We also showed that our sun split off at a certain point in time, and that the beings who were to undergo their further development on this sun ascended to it. The leader of these solar beings is Christ, and he is the one who goes forth as the leader of the solar beings with the sun when it splits off from the earth. He first sends his power down from the sun to the earth. But he comes closer and closer to the earth. Zarathustra still has to see him as Ahura Mazdao. Moses already sees him in the outer elements. And when Christ appears on Earth in Jesus of Nazareth, this Christ force appears in a human body. Thus, for the anthroposophical worldview, the Christ being fits into the whole tableau of reincarnation, the nature of the human being, the contemplation of the cosmos, and so on, as a center point. And anyone who looks at this anthroposophical worldview in the right sense says to themselves: I can look at all this, but I can only understand it when the whole picture points to the great focal point, the Christ. I have painted the doctrine of reincarnation, the doctrine of the human races, of planetary evolution, and so on, in various ways, but here I have painted the essence of Christ from one point, and through this, light is shed on everything else. It is a picture that has one main figure, and everything else is related to it, and I understand the meaning and expression of the other figures only when I understand the main figure.

[ 21 ] This is how it is with the anthroposophical worldview: we sketch a large picture of the various facts of the spiritual world; but then we look at the main figure, at Christ, and only then do we understand all the details of the picture.

[ 22 ] Those who have gone through our development in spiritual science will feel how everything can be understood through this. Spiritual science itself will become more perfect in the future, and today's understanding of Christ will be replaced by a much higher understanding. Through this, the power of anthroposophy will become greater and greater, but through this, the human being who takes in this power of anthroposophy will also develop, and the dominion of the spiritual over the material in him will become stronger and stronger. Because human beings have their present inherited bodies, they can only bring about processes such as blushing, turning pale, and phenomena such as laughing and crying. But later they will gain more and more power over such phenomena, and human beings will spiritualize the functions of their bodies from their souls and thus place themselves in the outer world as powerful spiritual and soul rulers. This will then be the Christ force. This is the Christ impulse working through humanity. This is the impulse which, even today, if sufficiently strengthened, can lead to what the old initiation led to.

[ 23 ] The old initiation proceeded in the following way. First, the human being learned everything that we learn today in anthroposophy in its entirety. That was the preparation for the old initiation. Then everything was led to a certain conclusion. This conclusion was brought about by the person concerned lying in the grave for three and a half days, as if dead. When his etheric body was then lifted out and the spiritual world passed through his etheric body, he became a witness of the spiritual world. It was necessary that during this time, when human beings were first to be initiated into the spiritual worlds, the etheric body was lifted out so that human beings could come to perceive the spiritual world within the forces of the etheric body. These forces were not available in the normal waking state of consciousness; human beings had to be brought into an abnormal state of consciousness. Christ also brought this power to earth for the purpose of initiation, for today it is possible for human beings to become clairvoyant without the etheric body being lifted out.

[ 24 ] When a person reaches the point where they get such a strong impulse from Christ that this Christ impulse can influence their blood circulation, even if only for a short time, so that this Christ influence shows up in a special blood circulation, in an influence that goes into the physical, then the person is able to be initiated within the physical body. The Christ impulse is capable of this. Anyone who can truly immerse themselves in the facts that occurred at that time through the events in Palestine and through the mystery of Golgotha, so strongly that they live completely within them and they become concrete to them, so that they see them spiritually alive before them, working like a force that communicates itself to their blood circulation, they attain through this experience what was formerly attained through the emergence of the etheric body.

[ 25 ] Thus you see that through the Christ impulse something has come into the world whereby human beings can work upon what causes their blood to pulsate inwardly. No abnormal event, no immersion in water, but solely the powerful influence of the Christ individuality is at work here. Baptism is not performed with any sensual matter, but with spiritual influence, without the ordinary everyday consciousness undergoing any change. Through the spirit that has streamed forth as the Christ impulse, something flows into the body that can otherwise only be brought about by physical and physiological development: through fire, inner fire, which expresses itself in the blood circulation. John still immersed people in water; then the etheric body emerged, and people could look into the spiritual world. But if people allow the Christ impulse to work, then this Christ impulse works in such a way that the experiences of the astral body pour into the etheric body and people become clairvoyant.

[ 26 ] Here you have explained the expression “baptism by the Spirit and by fire.” And here you have presented the difference between the baptism of John and the baptism of Christ, as it corresponds to the facts. Thus, a class of new initiates was made possible through the Christ impulse. In the past, there were a few people among humanity who were disciples of the great teachers and were initiated into the mysteries. Their etheric bodies were brought out so that they could become witnesses of the spirit and step out before others and say: There is a spiritual world — we have seen it ourselves. Just as you see the plants and stones, so we have seen the spiritual world! These were the “eyewitnesses.” Those who were able to step out of the depths of the mysteries proclaimed the gospel of the spirit, but from the ancient wisdom. While they led people back to the wisdom from which human beings emerged, Christ made it possible for such initiates to observe the spiritual world within the physical body, within everyday consciousness. Through this Christ impulse, they recognized the same thing that had become clear to the ancient initiates: that there is a spiritual world. And they were now able to proclaim the gospel of this spiritual world. In order to become an initiate and proclaim the gospel of the spiritual world in the new, Christ-conscious sense, it was necessary for the power that was in Christ to overflow as an impulse to the other, who became the disciple and was to become the proclaimer of this power. When did such a Christ initiate first appear?

[ 27 ] As development progresses, the old must always be connected with the new. So Christ also had to slowly lead the old initiation into the new. He had to create a transition, so to speak. He still had to reckon with certain processes of the old initiation, but in such a way that everything that came from the old gods was overflowed by the Christ being. Christ performed an initiation with the one of his disciples who was then to communicate the Gospel of Christ to the world in the deepest way. Such an initiation is hidden behind a narrative in the Gospel of John, behind the story of Lazarus (chapter II).

[ 28 ] Much has been written about this story of Lazarus, an incredible amount. But only those who knew from esoteric schools and from their own observation what lies behind it have ever understood it. I will first quote just one characteristic passage from the story of Lazarus. When Christ Jesus is told that Lazarus is sick, he replies: “The sickness is not unto death, but that the God in him may be revealed!” The sickness is for the revelation of God in him. It is only through a misunderstanding in the translation that the word δόξα (doxa), which appears in the Greek text, has been translated as “for the glory of God.” It is not done for the glory of God, but so that God may emerge perceptibly from hiddenness in him! That is the correct meaning of this word. This means that the divine that is in Christ should flow over into the individuality of Lazarus, that the divine, the Christ-divine, should become visible in Lazarus, through Lazarus.

[ 29 ] When we understand the raising of Lazarus in this way, it becomes completely transparent. However, do not think that when spiritual scientific facts are communicated, it is possible to speak in such a way that everything is immediately obvious to everyone. What lies behind such spiritual scientific facts is communicated through various embellishments and veils. This must be so. For those who wish to comprehend such a mystery must first work their way through apparent difficulties so that their spirit is strengthened and fortified. And it is precisely through the effort of working their way through the words that they attain the spirit behind such a thing. Think of how, when it is spoken of “life” that is supposed to have departed from Lazarus and which the sisters Martha and Mary wish back, Christ Jesus replies: “I am the resurrection and the life.” Life is to reappear in Lazarus! Take everything literally, especially in the Gospels! We will see what comes out of taking the Gospels so literally. Do not speculate, but take the sentence literally: “I am the resurrection and the life!” What does Christ bring when he appears and raises Lazarus? What passes over to Lazarus? The Christ impulse, the power that flowed out of Christ! Christ gave life to Lazarus, as Christ himself said: “The sickness is not unto death, but that the God in him may be made manifest.” Just as all the ancient initiates lay as if dead for three and a half days and then God became visible in them, so Lazarus lay in a death-like state for three and a half days. But Christ Jesus knew very well that this meant the end of the old initiations. He knew that this apparent death would lead to something higher, to a higher life, and that Lazarus had therefore perceived the spiritual world during this time. And since Christ is the guide in this spiritual world, Lazarus took the power of Christ into himself, the vision of Christ. You can find more details about this in my book Christianity as Mystical Fact, where a special chapter attempts to explain the miracle of Lazarus in terms of spiritual science. Christ poured his power into Lazarus; Lazarus arose as a new man.

[ 30 ] One word is noteworthy in the Gospel of John. In the miracle of Lazarus, it is said that the Lord “loved” Lazarus. The word is then used again for the disciple “whom the Lord loved.” What does this mean? Only the Akashic Records reveal this to us. Who is Lazarus when he is resurrected? It is the writer of the Gospel of John himself, Lazarus, who was initiated by Christ. Christ poured the message of his own being into the being of Lazarus so that this message of the fourth Gospel, the Gospel of John, could then resound throughout the world as the description of the being of Christ. That is why the Gospel of John does not mention the disciple John before the story of Lazarus. But read carefully and do not be misled by those strange theologians who have found that at a certain point in the Gospel of John, namely in verse 35 of the first chapter, the name John is supposed to appear as a reference to the disciple John. At this point it says:

“The next day John was there again with two of his disciples.”

[ 31 ] Nothing, absolutely nothing at this point indicates that the one who is later called the disciple, “whom the Lord loved,” is meant here. This disciple does not appear in the Gospel of John until the point where Lazarus is raised from the dead. Why is this so? Because the one who is hidden behind the disciple, “whom the Lord loved,” is the same one whom the Lord had loved before. He loved him so much because he had already recognized him invisibly, in his soul, as his disciple who would be raised from the dead and carry the message of Christ out into the world. That is why the disciple, the apostle, “whom the Lord loved,” only appears after the description of the raising of Lazarus. That was when he first became who he was. That was when Lazarus' individuality was so transformed that it became the individuality of John in the Christian sense. Thus, in the highest sense, we see a baptism performed by the Christ impulse itself on Lazarus: Lazarus became an initiate in the new sense of the word by still clinging in a certain way to the old forms, to lethargy, thus creating a transition from the old to the new initiation.

[ 32 ] From this you can see how deeply the Gospels reflect spiritual truths that can be explored independently of all documents. The spiritual researcher must know that he can find everything in the Gospel beforehand, independently of any document. But when he finds what he has previously researched spiritually in the Gospel of John, then this Gospel becomes for him a document that has been given by the one who was initiated by Christ Jesus himself. That is why the Gospel of John is such a profound writing.

[ 33 ] Today, it is particularly emphasized that the other evangelists deviate from John in some passages. There must be a reason for this. However, we will only find this reason when we penetrate the actual fundamental nerve of the other Gospels in the same way as we have now done with the Gospel of John. And when we penetrate to the fundamental nerve of the individual Gospels, we find that the difference could only have arisen because the writer of the Gospel of John was initiated by Christ Jesus himself. This made it possible to describe the Christ impulse as the writer of the Gospel of John described it. And in the same way, we must investigate the relationship of the other Gospel writers to Christ and see to what extent they received the baptism of fire and the baptism of the Spirit. Only then will we find the inner relationships of the Gospel of John to the other Gospels and thus penetrate deeper and deeper into the spirit of the New Testament.