The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 34 -
The nature of Satan.
Now again, one of the Pharisees who was converted in Emmaus came forward and said: "Lord and Master, we know now well what the truth is concerning those who are possessed and who actually are the evil spirits by whom here and there the body of a human being is taken into possession. But nevertheless, in the Scripture it is explicitly spoken about the true extremely evil devils and about their prince, Satan, and at the same time it is said that Satan, who is also called Lucifer, and a countless great number of angels who chose his side, were rejected by God and were thrown into the eternal fire of Hell.
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So it is also written that Satan in the form of a snake made the first human beings to fall, and how God has allowed him to tempt the pious Job.
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How is it according to the new teaching with Satan and his subordinate devils? Who and where is Satan, and who and where are the devils?
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Since it is allowed for us to understand the complete mystery of God's Kingdom, we also must have a clear view concerning this. Therefore, would You like to be so merciful to give us an understandable explanation about this?"
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I said: "I already have said and explained a lot about this, and My old disciples know what they can expect. But because you are still a newcomer by My side, you surely may ask what was still not made known to you. So listen.
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Look, that which endless space contains as matter is judged and therefore fixed by the power of God's will. If this would not be the case, there would be no sun, no moon, no Earth and certainly not any created being in the great endless space. Then there would be only God, contemplating His great thoughts and ideas.
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However, God had placed His thoughts already since eternity as it were outside of Himself, and by His almighty will He has provided them with a body. These embodied thoughts and ideas of God are however strictly speaking no bodies, but they are spiritual things that are judged, and vessels for the ripening of an independent being. Thus, they are created beings, intended to exist continuously forever out of themselves and out of their own power, next to Me, the Creator who is visible to them.
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All creatures, as judged spiritual beings are, compared to the already pure and free spiritual, still impure, unripe and therefore not yet good. And compared to the spiritual, pure and good they can still be regarded as bad and evil as such.
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Thus, by 'Satan' you should understand the whole material creation in general, and by 'devil' the separated specific parts thereof.
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When a person in this world knows God's will and lives according to it, he raises himself out of the imprisonment that is inherent to all that which is created and passes over to God's freedom that is inherent to that which is not created.
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However, a person who does not want to believe in a God and consequently does not want to act according to His will that is revealed to man, sinks more and more and deeper into the created material and becomes spiritual impure, evil and maliciously judged, and consequently a devil. Because all that which is merely created and judged is - as already said - in relation to the pure and free spiritual which is not created, impure, bad and wicked. However, not because God could have created something impure, bad and wicked, but simply and solely because in the first place it necessarily had to be something that is created for the sake of existence, gifted with intelligence and power of action and at the same time with a free will, and in the second place because, in order to acquire independence in himself, he independently has to make use of that which was created and given and must as it were make it his own property.
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For God however, there does not exist anything that is impure, bad or evil, because for the pure everything is pure. Everything that God has created is good, and therefore for God there is no Satan, no devil and consequently also no Hell. Only that which has been created as such is all that, as long as it has to remain something created and judged and as long as he finally, in possession of the free will, wants to stay either good or bad.
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So when it is stated in the Scripture that Satan in the form of a snake has seduced the first human couple, it actually means to say that the first human couple who knew God's will very well, have allowed themselves to be enchanted by the material world and that the lust and the voice of their judged flesh said: 'We want to see what will happen when we will act contrary to the well-known will of God. For God Himself has given us freedom to act. Therefore we cannot lose anything of our insight, but only win. Because God surely knows what can happen when we act freely. We however do not know it. Therefore, let us act only once according to our will, then we will know by experience that which God knows alone.'
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And look, then both of them ate from the forbidden tree of knowledge by way of wanting to experience it themselves, and by that they sunk one degree deeper into their judged matter, which regarding to the free life of the spirit is also called 'death'.
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After that, they realized very well that in their flesh dwells the bondage of judgment and death that, because of a growing love for the world, can also bury the free soul in judgment and bondage. And so, they lost the pure paradise that consisted of the full union of the soul with his spirit, and then they could not find it completely back on their own, because their soul was wounded by the sting of matter and it took a lot of effort to maintain himself above the judgment of the created bondage, as this is now the case with all the people. And therefore I came into this world, namely to show the people again the true way of life and to give them back the lost paradise through My teaching.
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This was also the same with Job. In an earthly way Job was an extremely happy man and possessed many things. He was however also a wise man and very dedicated to God, living strictly according to the law. However, his extreme wealth made his flesh more lusting and made high demands to the spirit in him.
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The judged spirit of the flesh said in a way to the soul: 'I want to see if by my earthly pleasures and sorrow I cannot draw you away from your God and if I cannot exhaust your patience in such a way that I can put you under my coercive judgment.'
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This gave Job a mighty battle to fight, because on the one hand all earthly pleasures were at his disposal, of which he indeed enjoyed, but they did not rule over his soul and he remained united with the spirit.
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Since in this way the evil spirit of matter could not achieve anything with the soul, his soul was tempted by all kinds of physical miseries that are symbolically described in the book. But Job endured them all with patience, although he now and then grumbled and was lamenting his misery. But he finally always recognized, that before, God has given him everything, has taken it away and was able to give it back to him, and even more than what He has taken away from him, because of the full strengthening of his soul in the spirit.
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Now, when this is so, then who was Satan who tempted the pious Job so much? It was the judged spirit of his flesh. This means the different lusts thereof.
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But a certain personal primordial Satan and primordial devils did in reality not exist anywhere else except in the judged worldly matter of all kinds. However, the reason why Satan and the devils were presented by the old wise men by all kinds of dreadful visions is that the soul had to be able to imagine through all kinds of terrible images what kind of misery a free life must suffer when he will allow himself to be recaptured by the judgment of matter.