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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

a project of Steiner Online Library, a public charity

Faith, Love, and Hope
GA 130

Summary

Steiner tells us of the three revelations of importance to humankind. The first two will be as familiar to most as the third will be a surprise. The first revelation is the Sinai Revelation in which Moses received the Ten Commandments. The second revelation he calls the Palestine Revelation which gave us the Gospels of the New Testament. The third revelation occurred in the middle 20th Century — it consisted of what is referred to in the New Testament as the Second Coming of Christ in Glory. The glorified body is a phrase which refers to the etheric body or a body in the etheric plane. Christ has been intervening in human destiny from the etheric plane on Earth for almost seventy years as I write these words. Steiner gives us an example of this intervention proceeds.

[page 10] There will be people, for instance, who, while carrying out some deed, suddenly become aware ... of an urge to refrain from what they are doing, because of a remarkable vision. They will perceive in a dreamlike way what appears to be an action of their own; yet they will not be able to remember having done it.

What these people are experiencing is the bleed through of information from their karmic destiny, a deed from some past lifetime, is entering their minds and preventing them from carrying out a similar deed again.

Another important aspect of these lectures is what the words “faith, love, and hope” mean to humankind for the next 5,000 years. These words, following St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians are usually placed in this order: faith, hope, and love. Steiner makes an excellent case for the proper order of these words, considering the destiny of humankind, to be: faith, love, and hope.

Bobby Matherne