The Essence of Christianity

GA 68a — 14 December 1907, Düsseldorf

35. The Gospel of John and the Future of Christianity

Goethe, who had such a penetrating insight into so many things, once said the following remarkable words about the fate of the Bible in more recent times: For many centuries, people did not actually get their hands on the Bible, but only got to know it indirectly. When wider circles began to take an interest in the Bible, people were more inclined to think critically about the Bible and its origin and much less to delve directly into its content and its effect, so that actually, as Goethe says, since the acquaintance with the Bible in wider circles, much less has been spoken out of the spirit of this document than has been spoken about it.

What Goethe felt a hundred years ago has intensified significantly over the course of this century. In research, it has become increasingly rare to immerse oneself in the spirit of this religious scripture without prejudice; instead, critical research is increasingly conducted to determine how the individual parts correspond, when and how each part originated, and what the external history of this work is. People are paying less and less attention to the spiritual content.

At the same time, Goethe remarks that basically the Bible is the book of books; so says Goethe, this so-called pagan. Yes, he says that it is not going too far to say that everything that lives in our attitudes and feelings, in our perceptions and ideas, in our way of thinking today, is based on the Bible. It is particularly noteworthy that even that in our civilization which has seemingly made us independent of the Bible is nevertheless, if you follow things closely, a result of the Bible. It is so easy to believe that modern science since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is merely an opponent of the Bible. But the power of thought, the direction of imagination, even if seemingly contrary to the Bible, are taken from the depths of the Bible.

Copernicus may have explored the heavens in a way that seemingly contradicted the Bible, but he drew the power of thought from the Bible. Yes, the thought forms of modern monism, of materialism, have gained their strength from the Bible. Those social parties that radically oppose biblical faith have also — this is recognized by anyone who understands the psychology of the soul — drawn the strength of thought and feeling from the Bible. This is most the case with so-called biblical criticism, which, after all, most strongly opposes the Bible. They have gone through this in the culture of the Bible. If one follows this intimate historical course of the new time, one could say in view of this:

Your good nature, in foreign veins,
will soon quarrel with you.

Goethe said this with reference to one of his students who, in certain views, opposed Goethe and became his critic. Thus, it is the thoughts that have taken root in people over the centuries in our Western culture that have made our thinking, feeling and willing strong, the thoughts of our ancestors that struggle with the ancestors in the veins of their descendants.

Among the parts of the Bible that have suffered the most from modern thinking is the Gospel of John, which for centuries was considered the most vivid source of Christianity. This is far less appreciated by modern Bible criticism than the first three, so-called synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The Bible critics try, to the best of their ability, to test the books of Scripture for their historical value. They say that if you examine the first three Gospels, which, if you ignore the details, agree, you will find a picture of Christ Jesus that turns out to be credible. If you add the Gospel of John, there are so many contradictions to the first three Gospels that it is impossible to reconcile it with the first three Gospels. The first three Gospels report historical facts that give a vivid picture of the one who walked around in Palestine. The fourth evangelist, they say, cannot be regarded as a presenter of historical truths. He is rather an enthusiast for the personality of Christ Jesus. His aim was to compose a significant hymn to Christ Jesus, to express in lyrical form what he felt to be the truth about this revered personality, and to merely wrap this in historical facts.

Thus, to many, the fourth gospel does not appear as a historical document, but as a teaching in which one can be edified, like a poem, but which is not suitable to say something about the one who was the founder of the Christian religion on earth. As this view became more and more widespread in the course of the nineteenth century, the scholar Bunsen said in the 1850s: If it were really the case that the Gospel of John could not be taken as a historical document, then it would be bad for historical Christianity.

It cannot be denied that in the first three gospels, Jesus is presented even more humanly than the personality that gradually unfolds in its greatness, but that in the fourth gospel, an accomplished being , who has descended from invisible heights, who has nothing more to learn from his surroundings, who is endowed with grace and truth from the very beginning, who himself carries the fullness of the Godhead within himself.

The first three gospels contain beliefs and doctrines. In the fourth gospel, the essence of Christ Jesus apparently speaks mostly of itself, of what he is supposed to be to humanity and his disciples. These are differences that everyone notices. Those who notice them are pushed to the question: How does this fourth gospel relate to the other three gospels? We must realize that these contradictions have actually always been present, but that through the centuries the wisest people have not taken offense at them. Anyone who does not subscribe to the view that only in the nineteenth century did people become wise knows that in the most ancient times the wisest people endeavored to establish a harmony between the Gospels and also thought that they had succeeded.

Every age understands every thing in the way that the age itself is characterized. In other ages, there was not this exclusively materialistic way of thinking, which has even crept into the criticism of religious writings. Another age did not have that preference for the “simple man from Nazareth”. The urge has arisen more and more to push Christ Jesus down to the level of humanity, to say more and more, “In Him there is indeed an ideal figure, but He is still human.” To measure Him against other people has increasingly become the thinking habit of our time. Other ages have not had this urge; throughout centuries of Christian development there was a different ideal, a different aspiration. In an inaccessible distance stood the Christ Being. All human learning, all depth of wisdom, all depth of feeling and sensing sought to lift themselves up to those heights where one could sense something of that Being. It was believed that only the purest, most refined knowledge could approach this Being. The urge of the older times was to lift oneself up in knowledge and feeling in order to sense the height of that being. Thus nothing other than the spirit of the age in which one thinks, feels and searches is reflected in the conception of the Gospels.

We are now once again in an epoch that wants to elevate people to a higher world. But even though it is only at the beginning, this epoch knows its goal precisely and also knows how to pursue it in detail. The aim of Theosophy is to grasp and understand the Gospel of John. It could well be that the Gospel of John will celebrate a kind of resurrection through the means of this research. Through spiritual research, we will come to understand the evangelist again, who so sublimely presents the essence of Christ Jesus. If we first immerse ourselves in the content using the means of spiritual research, this gospel indeed presents itself as the deepest book of humanity. This gospel has been taken as a book of life throughout many centuries. Perhaps it can become a book of life again.

Let us try to consider some of the things that arise for those who seek to understand in this area. It turns out that the Gospel of John is a writing that is in wonderful congruity with the Old Testament. The Gospel of John begins with the beginning of things, as does the Old Testament. There, the gods create heaven and earth from what was chaos at the beginning. The Gospel of John also begins with the words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

Thus both documents refer us to the beginning. In both cases, humanity's gaze is directed towards the same thing. There is a congruence here, but one that nevertheless reveals a remarkable difference. In the Gospel of John, there is something actually new. In the Old Testament, we are transported to the starting point of humanity. In grand and powerful images, the genesis of the world is shown, up to the human being, who appears to us as the companion of other beings in the world of minerals, plants and animals, presented as an external, visible being. His development is traced back to the development of a people, the Jewish people. It is not a particular human becoming that is described, but rather humanity as it arises in the world, and then ascends to a people. A people is described as a whole. Only those who appreciate the guiding thread in the right way understand the Old Testament correctly. The meaning of the Old Testament lived in the soul of every single Jew. The individual human being feels himself as a member of the whole people. When the Jew wanted to express his innermost feelings, he spoke of his common bond with Abraham. When he wanted to speak of his transcendental nature, which extends beyond death, he spoke of his transcendental self going to Abraham's bosom. He did not feel the separate self, but rather the great national self, and that the common blood connected him with the nation, which leads up to the father Abraham. When he looked up to the Highest, he looked up to a Being Who revealed Himself through the blood of the whole people. Not only was the memory of the patriarch Abraham sacred to him, but also the feeling of unity with him. Further up, the beginning of the world was taken up, how one blood flowed in a coherent human whole and how the cosmic order, God Himself, permeates and spiritualizes such a group of people.

Let us contrast this with the Gospel of John. This also takes as its starting point the beginning of our entire development. However, it does not begin where the Old Testament begins, but rather, in a certain way, before that. The Old Testament places the emergence of the material world, of what can be seen, of what is there for the outer senses, at the very beginning. “And God said, ‘Let there be light!’” (Genesis 1:3) The author of the Gospel of John takes us further back, to an even earlier time, to a point when nothing material yet existed, when only the spiritual was there: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God” (John 1:1), which is nothing other than the spiritual, of which all material things are the manifestation. He says: It is true that the visible world began as it is described in the Old Testament. But it was preceded by a spiritual world. All the laws that were lived out in that primeval beginning are expressed not in any individual, but in the common blood that connects him to the whole people. If we go back to the spirit that precedes this sensual beginning of the world, we also come to that in man which is exalted above all sensuality, above all national context and to that which is found in every human being, in every human individuality. If we put ourselves in the place of the Jew for the God principle, we find: He felt united with the father Abraham when he traced back the whole line of blood.

In John, we find a tremendous advance in relation to this view. What does the Christ of John's Gospel say? In what he says, there is tremendous progress compared to the spirit of the Old Testament. If you examine what appears to us as the deepest human essence, then you need not go beyond the individual human being. The individual human being can stand alone, by himself; he finds the Father within himself, that from which he emerged.

I, my innermost being, I and the Father are one. (John 10:30)

This is the meaning of the herald's call, the revelation of the individual human being. How did Christ Jesus relate to the Jews who went up to the Father Abraham? He said exactly: This human ego lives in you; when you find the human “I” or “I am” in yourselves, the power of individuality, then everyone may say: There is something living in me that is out of time.

Before Abraham was, the I AM was.

What can be experienced in the innermost core of a person's being is more eternal than anything that can be experienced in the external world. We no longer go up to Abraham; we go up to that which will be eternal in us.

I and the Father are one.

Every single person finds access to the eternal through themselves. Thus we ascend to the very beginning of that which lives eternally in each individual.

Thus, the Gospel of John is the significant continuation of what is written in the Old Testament. It presents itself as a revelation of what was before the very beginning of what is presented in the Old Testament. To understand what is meant in the Gospel of John, we have to engage with the use of words. What is meant by the Logos, the Word? One scholar says of the beginning of the Gospel of John that it is not found in the other gospels. They simply tell, albeit steeped in miracle stories, what happened externally. It is said that the writer of the fourth gospel, on the other hand, was a philosopher. John must have known Philo. It can be said of him that he expresses similar speculations to those in the Gospel of John. He also says that the Word stands between the Creator of the world and man. From Alexandrian and Greek education, John drew the elements of his writing. From this, John had conceived that he would tell the story in the Gospel in such a way that the Christ is the Word made flesh. This had not occurred to any other evangelist.

Let us read the beginning of the Gospel of Luke with this in mind:

Since many have undertaken to set in order an account of the same words that have been handed down to us, as they were delivered to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word,

Here stands the exact same word or logos. It is said that one wants to retell it to those who have been “servants of the word”. In truth, something else is also there: “as those who have been eyewitnesses and servants of the word know”. — In Luke, there is also a way of speaking that John speaks of the word. He also says that those who know something from the beginning have been eyewitnesses of the word. Among the initiates, it was common at the time to speak of the being that lived in Christ as the Word and to call themselves servants of the Word. The author of the Gospel of John adopted the term “the Word” from the language of the initiates. Only spiritual science can explain what is actually meant by the “Word”. To understand this, we must consider the nature of man in terms of theosophy.

What is known from the external senses is only a part of the human being. Wherever spiritual science or theosophy has been present, there has been exactly the same division of the human being as is taught now. Spiritual science speaks of a second part of the human being, the etheric or life body. It says that the human physical body consists of the same substances as all of nature. But in the human body, these substances are combined in such a way that, if they followed their own laws, the physical body would disintegrate. However, the etheric body prevents this decay. The moment the ether body leaves the physical body, the physical body follows its own laws and decays. The fact that this does not happen during a person's lifetime is due to the fact that the physical body is imbued with the ether or life body.

If we consider that when we look at a person, we are not just looking at their physical and etheric bodies, but also at something that is much closer to them than their physical and etheric bodies, that they are permeated by a sum of pleasure and pain , joy and pain, drives and passions, wishes and desires, we have in it what spiritual science calls the astral body, the third part of the human being, which is much more original than the ether body and the physical body. Just as ice forms out of water, water in a different form, so the ether body and the physical body are a condensed astral body. Spiritual science shows that the etheric and physical bodies are denser astral bodies. The astral body is the cause of the etheric body and the physical body. The human being shares the physical body with all visible beings of nature, with minerals, plants and animals. The etheric body is shared with plants and animals, and the astral body with animals. But there is one thing that human beings have alone that makes them the crown of all beings. Everyone can only say a name to themselves, and that is the name 'I'. No one can pronounce the name 'I' if it is meant to refer to someone else. Everyone can only say this name to themselves. This is where the actual center of a person's nature is revealed; so that spiritual science imagines the human being as having four parts, with the 'I am' as the fourth. This is a power and entity of its own. Jean Paul describes in his biography how the thought first occurred to him: You are an I. He said: “There I looked into the most hidden sanctuary of my soul.” All religions based on spiritual wisdom have sensed this fact. The Hebrew people have also sensed it. Yahweh or Jehovah is nothing other than the “I am”. (Ex 3:14) He is the “I am” and points to the innermost core of human nature. In this ancient Hebrew people, the “I am” or Jehovah was felt to be something that expressed itself in the whole group. They applied this name to that which flowed down through the whole stream of Abraham's blood.

This “I am” – how was it seen? In those places of ancient times, which were called mystery schools, one can say that they were both church and school at the same time. In the mysteries, the mystery students sought to rise to the nature of the “I am”. There they were led from the sensual into the spiritual. A complete renewal of this fourth link of the human being occurred through the appearance of Christ Jesus. The term for this “I am” is the Logos or the Word. From the invisible worlds, the spiritual in the I announced itself, revealed itself in the I, permeated the I.

In terms of their physical body, human beings are an extract of the entire mineral world. This is why we call human beings a microcosm. Their etheric body is an extract of the life forces that live outside in the plant and animal kingdoms. Their astral body is an extract of all the astral forces that live in animals. The I is not related to the surrounding mineral, plant and animal world, but only to the invisible, divine spiritual world. It is an extract of the spiritual, a drop of the substance of the divine. A drop from the ocean of the divine is the I. Thus the Divine penetrates into man and sends its drop into the innermost part of man, and the expression of this Divine is the “I am”. This drop of the divine nature is even older than the astral body. It was in the bosom of the Divine before our astral body came into being.

“In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1), or the “I am”, that innermost power of the human being that represents the eternal. People should become educated so that everyone can find the drop of divinity within themselves if they seek this community within. Man should become educated so that he can find communion with God as an individual individuality within himself.

The knowledge of the Word penetrated into the world, it shone into the darkness of the astral, etheric and physical bodies. Only a few who were not born of the flesh understood it. They could reveal themselves as children of God. But now the eternal, all-embracing aspect of human nature, which was before Abraham, entered in, which every human individuality has. This supersensible power has become flesh in Christ Jesus. Thus, Christ Jesus is the power in the evolution of humanity that wants to lead humanity to the realization of its innermost being, of its “I am”. From this point of view, the Gospel of John and especially that most profound chapter in which so much is said about the “I am” becomes understandable. He says explicitly: “All I say of the ‘I am,’ I do not say of myself” (John 14:10), but He says that when people recognize the power of the “I am,” then they have something higher than all other powers. When you express the “I am,” you speak of the power that also lives in the Light of the world. “I am” lives in everything; it is what permeates the entire being of the earth in all realms. You can only properly explore what the earth gives you as food if you understand the ‘I am.’

I am the bread of life (John 6:48),
I am the vine (John 15:5),
I myself am planted by the Father, and the Father is the vinedresser (John 15:1).

Thus this chapter of John's Gospel presents itself as something that must give people strength and life. These powers are rooted in the Father, the spirit of the world: “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)

If we go far back in time, we come to times when blood ties played an increasingly important role. They were the basis of what we call love. Love existed only between those in whose veins related blood flowed. In those days, close marriage prevailed. Later, distant marriage replaced close marriage. At that time, only shared blood brought about love. As humanity developed through later eras, the peoples became more and more mixed. The Jewish people felt even more the togetherness of the common blood. But in those days, when Christianity arose, the time began when the peoples were mixed up. That was also the beginning of the time of a new love that is not based on blood. Christ Jesus said: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:37). “If anyone comes to me and does not hate (leave) his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, he cannot be my disciple.” This saying must be interpreted in such a way that at the beginning of the development of the earth, those who were related loved each other; but at the end of the development of the earth, people will love and recognize each other in soul love. That brotherly love that goes from soul to soul, that comes from the spirit, that is the love that takes its starting point from the power of Christ Jesus, which will gain more and more ground in humanity. Where the same blood flowed, there one felt as a member of a group ego. At the end of human development, one will feel as a member of the whole of humanity. One will then seek the “I am” not in the blood of the tribe or people, but in the spirit and in the truth. The Old Testament worships the God in the foundations of nature; in the New Covenant, God will be worshipped in that which is prior to nature, in the spirit and in truth. Even for those who were intimately connected with the Lord, it was not readily understandable how that other love should take the place of the love of blood. Only the Lord's favorite disciple understood this. The other evangelists still tell the whole line of descent to the father Abraham. But the one who came into the world as the being that was embodied in Christ Jesus, he could say: “Before Abraham was, the I AM was.” (John 8:58) That the favorite disciple had understood. He goes up to the extra-temporal in his presentation. There is no external contradiction between the Gospel of John and the other Gospels. It is only the difference between a subordinate and a higher point of view. We are dealing here with different perspectives. If we know this, then we also understand the old Bible interpreters. They knew that one can describe the truth from different points of view.

We so often find the expression “one” and “we” in today's scientific writings: “one cannot see this,” “we cannot see this,” and so on. These “one”s and “we”s take the standpoint of the blind man who wants to judge what can be seen or not seen. Man can judge only what he knows, but not what he does not know. The higher man rises in the spiritual world, the deeper he also looks into the spiritual world. John's perspective may differ from that of the other evangelists, but not the content.

The task of Theosophy is to reawaken understanding of this neglected gospel and to show people its power. Because this gospel has the greatest power, it will also play the greatest role in the future of humanity. Those who delve into the gospel of John will find something that lifts them above all the doubts of science.

In modern times, the world has divided into two halves: the world of nature and the world of moral life. The law of nature is seen as something special, and the moral law as something special. This dichotomy in particular will not be able to exist in the long term. Man had to seek something deeper, something that encompasses both. He must not feel a dichotomy between inside and outside. He no longer feels this dichotomy if he understands the innermost core of the Gospel of John. We find the origin of the world within ourselves through the development of our innermost self. We come to something that encompasses the laws of nature and our innermost being. What the “I am” reveals to us was there as the original spiritual before the external world. The Logos, the Word was there before the outer world. — Thus there is a reconciliation between the external and the innermost nature of man. Especially the chapter of John's Gospel, where the “I am” is spoken of, will be an invincible conqueror of human nature. Only man has lost the thread of recognizing the purely spiritual in it.

Theosophy will again attempt to understand what was said by the one who gave the Gospel of John to mankind. When the revealed word is understood, all natural laws will be recognized as the revealed word, but the inner moral law will also appear as the revealed word. Whether one calls himself an idealist or not, if one judges the document of the spirit only according to what the senses see, then a materialistic attitude lives in us. This has been felt by deeper minds, and they sensed and longed for a time when humanity would learn to understand such things again, for example, Goethe and also Carlyle, who said: “We see in this day and age how external institutions have turned away from the spirit that originally emerged from the grasp of the spirit (religion), and how the spiritual seeks a refuge in the individual soul, or, where it does not find it, how it seeks it in external organizations and founds sect after sect and so on, in order to seek again ways to the original spirit.

But the future of humanity and of Christianity lies in learning to understand again a document such as the Gospel of John. We can follow different points of view in their relationship to the teachings about the world in the religious scriptures as humanity develops.

The first point of view is that of naive belief. The second is the point of view of clever people. When we arrive at the third point of view, people interpret the document of humanity in a mystical sense; they understand it as allegories, as symbols.

The fourth point of view is where we learn to recognize spiritual facts in their unambiguous nature through theosophy. Then one encounters such a document with the deep reverence that its inner greatness demands. This is how one will understand the Gospel of John in the future. In the future, spiritual science will again point the way to the true understanding of the Gospel of John and to the true form of Christianity.