The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Gospel of John V

[ 1 ] “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). If we fully understand this passage, we also grasp that profoundly significant turning point in human history brought about by the appearance of Christ. In the preceding lectures, the development of humanity was outlined in broad strokes, and it was shown how self-consciousness has evolved. In the distant past, entire groups and generations of people perceived themselves as a single “I.” The great age of the patriarchs becomes understandable in this light. Gradually, this sense of “I” became increasingly restricted to individual personalities. It was also shown how two spiritual currents asserted themselves in this development: one, the blood kinship, which naturally sought to hold humanity together; the other, the Luciferic current, which set the human being on his own and prepared him for the coming, purely spiritual covenant.

[ 2 ] Throughout the Old Testament, the term “law” refers to something that imposes order on human society from the outside. After blood ties had lost their binding power, people had to be brought into a certain relationship with one another through an external, conceptual order. The law was perceived as something coming from outside. This law, given to us from outside, remains in effect until the devotion, grace, and truth bestowed upon us through Christ have created within us, from within, the understanding for true knowledge. Devotion and truth can only develop gradually. Christianity, which seeks to replace the law with devotion, is still in the early stages of its development today. The more the Earth progresses in its development, the stronger the influence of Christianity on humanity will become. Humanity is to rise to a stage of coexistence where every person, driven by an inner impulse, is led to enter into a relationship of brother to brother with his neighbor. Humanity could not rise to this high stage of development by its own power, and it is the task of Christianity to help it achieve this. Then humanity will no longer need an external law, if it has the inner impulse to behave in such a way that devotion and truth form the guiding principle of its actions.

[ 3 ] This should not be understood to mean that humanity no longer needs laws; rather, it is an ideal to which we should aspire. Little by little, humanity is coming to a point where the harmony of the world is established through its voluntary actions. To achieve this goal, the power that, in the spirit of the Gospel, is Christ, had to intervene. In the secret schools, it is said of the one who, through his own inner strength, is able to rise to such a relationship with all his fellow human beings that he freely, without any compulsion, blends into the harmony, that “he bears the Christ within himself.”

To understand what follows, it is necessary to review the composition of the human body:

I
Astral body	Spirit-Self
Etheric body	Life-Spirit
Physical body	Spirit-Man

[ 4 ] Through the work of the ego on the astral body, the latter is transformed into the Spirit-Self. This, however, occurs in stages, as first the sensory soul, then the intellectual soul, and finally the conscious soul develops. The Spirit-Self pours into the matured, purified soul of consciousness. In the same way, the ego works on the etheric body, and the impulses that have the greatest effect there are those of art, religion, and esoteric training.

[ 5 ] Even in pre-Christian times, there were secret schools that could develop their students to such an extent that they were able to glimpse the higher worlds. But only the true students in the most secret of schools possessed this ability to see, and even then only during the actual act of initiation, when the etheric body was separated from the physical body. Initiation is understood as the lifting up of a person to allow them to see the spiritual world. In all initiations of pre-Christian times, the one to be initiated had to be brought into a kind of sleep state. The initiation sleep differs from ordinary sleep in that in the latter the etheric body remains connected to the physical body, while in the former the etheric body is separated from the physical body for a short while. During this time, the hierophant had to keep the body alive. By removing the etheric body, one was able to lead it, together with the other bodies, into the higher worlds so that it could gain experiences there which could later be transmitted to the physical brain. Only such methods of initiation existed in pre-Christian times.

[ 6 ] With the appearance of Christ Jesus, something entirely new emerges regarding the nature of initiation. Imagine that a human being has transformed the entire astral body into a Spirit-Self. Then this Spirit-Self imprints itself upon the etheric body like a seal in sealing wax, giving it its character. Through this, the etheric body is transformed into the Life-Spirit. When this is fully accomplished, the Life-Spirit imprints itself upon the physical body, making it a Spirit-Man. It was only through the appearance of Christ Jesus that it became possible to imprint what was the Life-Spirit directly into the Life-Body. The experiences gained in the higher worlds could now be incorporated into the physical brain without the need for a prior separation of the etheric body. The first to possess an etheric body completely permeated by the Spirit-Self and a physical body completely permeated by the Life-Spirit was Christ Jesus. Because Christ Jesus had come to Earth, it has become possible for those connected to him to undergo the same initiation without separating the etheric body from the physical body. Thus, all pre-Christian initiates had undergone the experiences of initiation outside the physical body, had re-entered the physical body, and were now able to proclaim as their own experience what had taken place in the spiritual world.

[ 7 ] Buddha, Moses, and others were such initiates. In Jesus, a being came to Earth for the first time who, while remaining in a physical body, was able to perceive the life of the higher worlds. The teachings of Buddha, Moses, and so on are entirely independent of the personalities of their masters. One is a Buddhist or a follower of Moses who observes the teachings of Buddha or Moses. It makes no difference whether one acknowledges Buddha or Moses, for these founders transmitted only what they had experienced in the higher worlds. With Christ, it is different. His teaching only becomes Christianity through his personality, and it is not enough merely to follow the teachings of Christianity to be a Christian. Only those who feel connected to the historical Christ are truly Christians. Individual tenets of Christianity can be found even earlier. But that is not what matters; what matters is that the Christian believes in Christ Jesus, that he regards him as the manifestation who, walking in the flesh, represents the perfect human being.

[ 8 ] In ancient times, people still used the expression: “The initiate is a divine human being.” — The underlying idea was that during the initiation ceremony, the initiate was up in the spiritual world among the spiritual beings or gods. There, he was the divine human being. In the physical body, however, one could only see “the divine human being” through Christ Jesus; never before. The passage in John 1:18: “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the Father’s bosom, he has made him known to us,” is therefore to be taken literally. In the past, only those who had made the ascent themselves could perceive the Godhead. In Christ, the Godhead had descended visibly to Earth for the first time. This is proclaimed in the Gospel of John 1:14 and was also taught in the Dionysian School. Christ was present to show humanity the way; people are to become his followers, to prepare themselves to imprint what is in the etheric body into the physical body—that is, to develop the Christ principle within themselves.

[ 9 ] The Gospel of John is a book of life. No one who has studied it with the intellect has truly understood it; only those who have experienced it know it. If one repeats the first fourteen verses day after day for a time, one discovers the purpose of these words. They serve as material for meditation and awaken in the human soul the ability to see the individual sections of the Gospel—such as the wedding at Cana in chapter 2 and the conversation with Nicodemus in chapter 3—as personal experiences within the great astral tableau. Through these exercises, a person becomes clairvoyant and can personally experience the truth of what is written in the Gospel of John. Hundreds have gone through this. The writer of the Gospel of John was a high-ranking seer, initiated by Christ himself.

[ 10 ] The disciple John is never mentioned by name anywhere in the Gospel of John. He is referred to only as “the disciple whom the Lord loved,” for example in chapter 19, verse 26. This is a technical term designating the one who was initiated by the Master himself. John describes his own initiation in the raising of Lazarus, chapter 11. It is only through this that the most secret connections between Christ and world development can be revealed—namely, that the writer of the Gospel of John was initiated by the Lord himself. As mentioned above, the ancient initiations lasted three and a half days; hence the raising of Lazarus on the fourth day. It is also said of Lazarus that Christ loved him (chapter 11, verses 3, 35, and 36). This is again the technical term for the beloved disciple. While Lazarus’s body lay in the tomb as if dead, his etheric body was taken out to undergo the initiation and receive the same power that is in Christ. Thus he became a Resurrected One, the very one whom the Lord loves, from whom the Gospel of John originates. If one then reads through the Gospel of John, one will see that not a single line contradicts this fact, except that the process of initiation is presented under a veil.

[ 11 ] Let us consider another passage from the Gospel of John. Chapter 19, verse 25 reads: “Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” To understand the Gospel, it is necessary to know who these three women are. Just as it is rare today for two sisters in a family to have the same name, so it was rare in the past. Thus, the passage cited is proof that, according to the Gospel of John, Jesus’ mother was not named Mary. If one searches the Gospel of John for this, one finds no indication anywhere that Jesus’ mother was named Mary. For example, at the wedding at Cana (chap. 2), it simply says: “Jesus’ mother was there.” These words signify something important, but we can only understand it if we know how the writer of the Gospel uses his words. What does the expression “mother of Jesus” mean? As we have seen, the human being consists of a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body. We must not create a mental image of the transition from the astral body to the Spirit-Self. The ego slowly and gradually transforms the astral body into the feeling soul, the intellectual soul, and the conscious soul. The ego continues to work, and only when it has brought the astral body to the stage of the conscious soul is it able to purify it in such a way that the Spirit-Self can arise within it.

Human beings are composed of:

Father	7th Spirit-Man	distant future
Son	6th Life-Spirit, transformed etheric body
Holy Spirit	5th Spirit-Self, Consciousness Soul	Virgin Sophia, purified Consciousness Soul
	4. Intellectual Soul, Astral Soul	Mary, wife of Cleophas
	3. Sensitive Soul, Sensitive Body	Mary Magdalene
	2. Etheric Body
	1. Physical Body

[ 12 ] The Spirit-Man will not develop until the distant future. The Life-Spirit, too, is present in most people only in embryonic form. The development of the Spirit-Self has now begun. It is inseparably connected with the conscious soul, much like a sword in its sheath. The feeling soul, in turn, is contained within the feeling body or astral body. Thus, we find nine members in the human personality. However, because the Spirit-Self and the consciousness soul, as well as the feeling soul and the astral body, are inseparably connected, theosophical literature usually speaks of seven members. The Spirit-Self is synonymous with the Holy Spirit, who, in the Christian sense, is the guiding entity on the astral plane. The Life-Spirit is called the “Word” or the “Son” by Christians. The Spirit-Man is the “Father Spirit” or the “Father.”

[ 13 ] Those who had given birth to the Spirit-Self within themselves were called “children of God”; in them “the light shone in the darkness” and “they received the light.” Outwardly they were human beings of flesh and blood, but within they bore a higher human being. Within them, the Spirit-Self had been born from the consciousness soul. The “mother” of such a spiritualized human being is not a physical mother; she lies within him; she is the purified and spiritualized consciousness soul. It is the principle from which the higher human being is born. This spiritual birth, a birth in the highest sense, is depicted in the Gospel of John. The Spirit-Self, or the Holy Spirit, pours into the purified consciousness soul. The following expression also refers to this: “I saw the Spirit descending like a dove from heaven and remaining upon him.”

[ 14 ] Since the consciousness soul is the principle within which the Spirit-Self has developed, it is called the “Mother of Christ” or, in the mystery schools, the “Virgin Sophia.” Through the fertilization of the Virgin Sophia, Christ was able to be born in Jesus of Nazareth. In the secret schools of Dionysius, the intellectual soul and the emotional soul were called “Mary” and “Mary Magdalene.”

[ 15 ] The physical human being is born from the union of two people. The higher human being can only be born from a soul of consciousness that encompasses the entire people. Among all peoples, the method of initiation was essentially the same in its fundamental phases. Every initiation has seven stages. In the Persian initiation, these were: First, the Raven. The one standing at this stage was to bring news from the outside world into the temple. The raven is called the messenger of the spirits everywhere, for example also in the German legends of Odin and his two ravens. Second, the Occultist. Third, the Warrior. He had already been permitted by the secret schools to go out and proclaim the teachings. Fourth, the Lion, the one firmly grounded within himself, who possessed not only the word but also magical powers, who had passed the test and therefore offered a guarantee not to abuse the powers entrusted to him. Fifth, the Persian. Sixth, the Sun Hero, and seventh, the Father. What interests us here is the designation of the fifth degree, the Persian. In all secret schools, the initiate of the fifth degree was called by the name of the people to whom he belonged, for his consciousness had expanded to the point of encompassing the entire people. He felt all the suffering of the people as his own. His consciousness had been purified and expanded into the general national consciousness. Among the Jews, the initiate of this stage was called an Israelite. Only when we know this fact do we understand Christ’s conversation with Nathanael (chap. 1, 47–49). He was an initiate of the fifth stage. Christ’s striking reply—that he had seen Nathanael under the fig tree—points to a specific stage of initiation, namely, the reception of the consciousness soul.

[ 16 ] The following explanations will help in understanding the inner processes of initiation. The individual ego-consciousness of human beings is in the physical world. Human beings move about with their ego. The ego of animals, on the other hand, is on the astral plane. Every group of animals has a collective ego-consciousness there. But it is not only the ego of animals that exists in the astral world, but also the ego of the body that humans share with animals—that is, the ego of the human astral body. In the Devachan world, we find the egos of plants, as well as the ego of the body we share with plants—the ego of the etheric body. If we ascend even higher into the higher Devachan, we find there the I of the minerals and the I of that part which humans share with the minerals: that is, the I of the physical body. We are thus connected to the higher Devachan through the physical body. With the individual I, we are here in the physical world. When, in an initiate, the I of the astral body is permeated and transformed by his individual I, he becomes conscious in the astral world. He can then perceive and act within it. He encounters the beings incarnated in the astral bodies, as well as the group souls of animals and those higher beings whom Christianity calls angels. At an even higher level of initiation, the ego of the etheric body is also permeated by the individual ego. Human consciousness thereby expands all the way up into the Devachan world. There one encounters the plant egos and the planetary spirit. An even higher initiation takes place when the individual ego permeates the ego of the physical body. Then the human being will also attain personal consciousness in the super-spiritual world. There one encounters the ego of the minerals and even higher spirits. Thus, initiation is an ascent into higher worlds, in which ever higher beings are encountered.

Higher Devachan World The Mineral Self	The Physical Body Self	Super-Devachan Consciousness
Devachan The plant self	The etheric body self	Devachan consciousness
Astral world The animal self, including angels	The astral body self	Astral consciousness
Physical world	Individual self	Daytime consciousness

You could use the following image:

The “I” of the etheric body can be compared to an engineer
The ‘I’ of the astral body can be compared to a driver
The “I” of the individual self, the physical body, can be compared to the owner of a car.

[ 17 ] When the individual self has attained full mastery over the three bodies, it has developed inner harmony. A being who possessed this harmony in its entirety is Christ. He appeared on Earth so that human beings might develop that power of inner harmony. In this Son of Man, one sees the entire development of humanity represented, all the way up to the highest spiritual level. Before this, such inner harmony did not exist; in its place, external laws were at work. Inner harmony is the new impulse that humanity has received through Christ. Humanity is to acquire the Christ-capacity, that is, to develop the inner Christ. But just as, according to Goethe’s saying, “the eye is formed by the light for the light,” so this inner harmony, this inner Christ, is kindled only by the presence of the outer, historical Christ, before whose appearance it was not possible for humanity to reach this stage of spiritual development.

[ 18 ] Those who lived before the historical life of Christ are by no means excluded from the blessings that came to humanity through his appearance. For one must not forget that, according to the law of reincarnation, they must return and will consequently have the opportunity to develop the inner Christ. Only if one forgets the doctrine of reincarnation can one speak of injustice. The Gospel of John shows the way to the historical Christ, to that Sun which kindles the inner light in man, just as the physical Sun has kindled our eyesight.