The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Gospel of John VIII

[ 1 ] The author of the Gospel of John concludes by saying that Christ did many other things that are not recorded in this book: “There are also many other things that Jesus did; but if they were to be written down one by one, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). So we, too, must say that even a lengthy series of lectures would not suffice to explain everything that is written in the Gospel. Today we want to examine more closely the duality of the concepts of the “Father” and the “I.” These two concepts will provide us with an explanation of the evolution of humanity discussed in the previous lectures. Humanity originated from a sense of self entirely different from the one we know. By “Adam,” one must understand not a single human being, but a sense of self encompassing several generations. The one who begins such a generation is the “Father.” In Old Testament Judaism, Abraham was indeed regarded as the Father, and every Jew of that time said to himself: I am not an independent “I”; rather, an “I” flows down from Abraham and branches out to all my kinsmen, and also into me. — Just as the sap of life flows in a great tree from the root out to the individual branches, so too does the sap of life of Abraham—the collective “I” of the Jewish people—flow through the entire Jewish people. When the Jew of the Old Testament uttered the name of the forefather, he pointed upward to the entire bloodline, and he called this sense of self—encompassing all generations—the divine consciousness. When he invoked the “I” as God, he called it Yahweh. When the name Yahweh was spoken, the people were reminded that a collective “I”—beginning with the patriarch Abraham—flows through the entire people.

[ 2 ] Through the mixing of bloodlines, this relationship has changed over time. The consciousness of the “I Am” has become individualized, and Christ is the power that was to bring this change to humanity’s awareness. People of ancient times understood the “I Am” to be something that flows through generations. People of later times understand it to be something that flows through their own inner being. The former referred to the God who flows through the entire community as the divine “I” consciousness; the latter senses within themselves a spark, a drop of the divine substance. Let us imagine a power brought to Earth that truly brings to humanity’s consciousness the fact that this “I Am” can live within every single human being—a power that makes it clear to people that God has imbued every human being with a drop of His substance. This power would say: This “I Am” is something that is within each of you; it is a part of the one divine power. That which you perceive as your individual “I Am” is one with the “I Am” of the Father. Whoever among you has developed within themselves the awareness of this fact can say: “I and the Father are one.” Look back as far as Adam: You see the sense of self flowing through generations, for centuries and millennia. But there is an even higher human consciousness that was bestowed upon humankind in its ancient capacity as human beings. This is the consciousness of humanity, which encompasses not individual generations but all of humanity. Then came the consciousness that belongs to generations, endures through generations, and has finally been individualized by humankind into the “I Am.” — So humanity already possessed the potential for the “I Am” from earlier times. That is why Christ could say: “Before Abraham was, the ‘I Am’ was.” This is the true teaching of the Esoteric School.

[ 3 ] To further explain the doctrine of the “I Am,” we will draw upon the “Golden Legend,” which is well known in all Christian schools. It is written therein: When Seth—whom Jehovah had given as a replacement for Abel—one day came to the gate of Paradise, the cherub with the flaming sword granted him entry into the place from which humankind had been expelled. There, Seth beheld two trees intertwined: the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. And the cherub instructed Seth to take three seeds from the two intertwined trees. Seth placed these three seeds in the mouth of his father, Adam, after he had died. From the grave grew a three-part tree, which appeared to many as radiant in fire, and its embers then formed the words: “I am who was, who is, and who will be.” The wood of this tree, which had grown out of Adam’s grave, found many uses: it was fashioned into the magic staff with which Moses performed his miracles. The wood was also used in the gates of Solomon’s Temple. It was also used to build the bridge over which Jesus walked as he was led to his death. Finally, this wood was used to make the cross upon which Jesus was crucified at Golgotha. — The following explanation was given for this legend in the secret schools: Within the human being, you see two trees, the red blood tree and the blue-red blood tree. The red blood tree symbolizes knowledge, while the blue-red blood tree symbolizes life. — Both trees were separate from one another, as the ancient esoteric teaching holds. There was a time when no red blood was yet produced within the human being. Only when the “I” descended into the human body did red blood come into being. What is expressed in the blue-red blood—life—had long been present. It arose through the higher transformation of the life juices. And the Christian view places the moment when it was given to humankind precisely in the time of Paradise, when the first glimmer of the “I” took root in the human soul, when the Divinity descended, and when humankind, though endowed only with the group soul, possessed within it the first seed from which the individual “I” could arise.

[ 4 ] The myth of Paradise states: Because humans had received the red blood, they became beings capable of discernment; they learned to look upward: their eyes were opened, and they came to know the difference between man and woman. — But this knowledge had to be paid for. Self-consciousness can arise only through the death of the blood. In the human body, the consumption and renewal of life take place continuously. The blue blood has fulfilled its purpose when it is exhausted, and from the destruction of the blue blood, self-consciousness arises. In the human soul, the powers will form through which he can master and unite the two trees. Human beings perceive the “I” only by continually carrying within themselves the act of killing, the process of dying. Just as they entered the world, human beings are dependent on plants, which alone provide them with the possibility of life. Consider, for example, that human beings continually inhale air containing oxygen and exhale used air containing carbon dioxide. They consume the oxygen and convert it into carbon dioxide. The oxygen, without which they cannot live, they obtain only through the plant, which converts the carbon dioxide produced by humans back into oxygen and thus makes the air usable for humans once again. The plant retains the carbon it extracts from carbon dioxide and, after millennia, returns it to humans in the form of coal. The Earth is a unified organism, and if even one part of it were missing, life as we know it today would be impossible. We can regard plants, animals, and humans as a single being, and indeed: remove the plant, and life is no longer possible for the remaining members. In a very distant future, this relationship will change. People today know nothing of this yet, but the seer can look into the time when the flow of carbon dioxide will no longer be transformed into usable oxygen with the help of plants, but by human beings themselves. This is the great future ideal of the secret schools: that human beings will consciously accomplish within themselves what the plant does for them today—that they will learn to incorporate the plant’s activity into their own. Within them will develop the organs that enable them to transform carbon dioxide themselves. The initiate foresees how the two trees—the tree of carbon dioxide and the tree of oxygen—will merge their crowns. Then that of which it is said, “I am who was, who is, and who is to come,” will live as something eternal within every human being. The “I” already lived within Adam, but it first had to be fertilized. In the beginning, the Tree of Life had to be made into the Tree of Death. It could not be given at the same time as the Tree of Knowledge; therefore, the two trees were separated from one another: the plant was placed between them. The consciousness of eternity first had to be attained. Christ Jesus carried it within himself and transplanted it into the earth. The three seeds are the three divine aspects: Manas, Buddhi, and Atma. That which is eternal in all was laid with Adam in the grave. From the grave, the consciousness of eternity is proclaimed; from the grave grew the tree bearing the inscription in flames: “I am who was, who is, and who will be.” Christ teaches people to kindle this “I am an individual human being” within human nature by saying: Try more and more to align yourselves with the essence of the “I am,” and then you will have that which constitutes your communion with me. Only through this “I Am” do you reach the Divine Father, for the Father and I are one. — Only a seer was able to grasp this, and the writer of the Gospel of John was indeed a seer. He did not wish to record anything that had merely historical significance, but rather what one perceives when looking into the spiritual world.

[ 5 ] If a sighted contemporary of Christ wanted to know what was happening in the spiritual world, he had to enter a state of sleep. We find this implied in the third chapter. Nicodemus, an elder of the Jews, came to Christ at night. He came to him because he wanted to become a seer—because he had entered the state in which he could become a seer—and “he came at night” because his daytime consciousness had been extinguished. In the fifth verse of this chapter, we also find the important teaching that a person can be born “of the Spirit.”

[ 6 ] Christ says (chap. 14:6): “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Where is this path that leads to the highest Divinity through Christ? The “I Am” works on the astral body and forms the spiritual self from it; it works on the etheric body and forms the life spirit from it; it works on the physical body and forms the spiritual human being from it. When the human “I” works on it, the spiritual self is thus brought forth, and the life spirit then arises within it. This is how the human being attains true life. In the “I Am” lies the path to truth and true life, because the “I Am” works through the lower bodies and allows true life to arise within them. We can illustrate this as follows:

[ 7 ] The “I Am” points the way that human beings must take in order to bring about the unfolding of the spiritual self, the life spirit, and the spiritual human being.

[ 8 ] Direct theosophical teachings can also be found in the Gospel of John. The fact that an individual “I” lives within every human being, that a spark of divine substance is found within this “I,” and that this spark must develop into the “God within us”—the author of the Gospel of John has mentioned this (chap. 9). In most translations of the Bible, Christ’s answer to the question of who sinned—this man born blind or his parents—is rendered as follows: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be revealed in him.” But is this a view worthy of a Christian—that God would allow a person to be born blind so that God might reveal His glory through him? A concept of God capable of leading to such conclusions is impossible. This passage reads much more simply and clearly when we base our understanding on the theosophical view. Christ replied: “Neither he nor his parents have sinned; he is fulfilling his karma so that the divine spark within him may become visible, so that the works of ‘God within him’ may become visible.” Thus, Christ’s answer (9:3) should be translated as: “He was born blind so that the works of the God within him might become visible in the body.” Every human being goes through repeated earthly lives. We see a man born blind. He need not have sinned in this life; he may also have brought with him from a previous life the karma that led to this birth. It is the doctrine of karma, in the full theosophical sense, that operates through the incarnations described by this event. It is evident that Christ, through his teachings, had to come into conflict with the prevailing Jewish view, and this also explains the conflict that arose between him and the Jews (chap. 9:22).

[ 9 ] We find yet another passage in the Gospel that brings to mind the Carmelite teaching. There is a remarkable passage in the eighth chapter: When the Pharisees asked Jesus for his opinion about the woman caught in adultery, he bent down (verses 6 and 8) without saying a word and wrote with his finger on the ground. But the ground, as we have seen, is his own body. He does not condemn the adulteress, but he inscribes her deed into his own organism. He thereby implies that, just as a seed sown in the earth sprouts and bears fruit corresponding to it, so too will every human deed sprout in a later earthly life and bear the fruit corresponding to it, and that no power on earth is capable of removing the consequences of a deed. Theology, however, believes in the atoning death, believes that Christ died for us, and believes it must not accept a doctrine of karma, since such a doctrine would contradict the view that Christ, through his death, took upon himself the sins of the whole world. This disharmony between theosophical and theological views, however, dissolves into harmony when properly understood.

[ 10 ] The doctrine of karma is to life what a ledger is to a merchant. According to the law of karma, we must assume that what we have caused in past lives comes back to us as a consequence in this present life, and that what we do now will manifest itself in future lives. We thus have a complete ledger of life: on one side are recorded the good deeds, and on the other, the bad deeds. Now, if someone believes that, under the rule of the law of karma, they cannot perform a voluntary act—since their actions are always the consequence of their past deeds—they are like a merchant who would say, “I have now closed my business ledger; I must not conduct any more business, lest my ledger become inaccurate.” Just as such a way of thinking is incorrect for a merchant, so too is the aforementioned view of the effect of karma incorrect. The doctrine of karma, when properly understood, therefore does not imply fatalism. Free will and karma can be beautifully reconciled with one another, and karma, when correctly understood, is never something unchangeable. And if a person were to refuse to help another in misfortune under the pretext that he must not interfere with that person’s karma, such a person would be acting no more correctly than if he were to refuse a subsidy to a merchant who is in distress and could be saved from bankruptcy by such a subsidy. Just as the merchant records such a contribution in his books as a debt that he must repay, while the giver records it in his books as a loan, so too is every good deed credited to the one who performs it as an entry in his account, while it is recorded as a debt for the one to whom it is rendered. Thus, the law of karma does not preclude the provision of aid, and it seems entirely appropriate to lighten one’s neighbor’s karma through acts of mutual aid. A person can do good for a single fellow human being through a good deed, but there are also deeds that benefit many people—that is, lighten their karma—and which are then credited to the accounts of many people. And if a deed is as powerful as that of Christ, then it becomes ingrained in the karma of all people, because this deed brings relief to the karma of all those who allow it to take effect within themselves. We see, then, that the law of karma is also mentioned in the Gospel of John and that its existence in no way impairs freedom of action. Through that single act of self-sacrifice, Christ Jesus has established a relationship with all of humanity. According to the law of karma, every deed is recorded in the ledger of life. It is linked to the body of Christ, to the earth. That is why he does not judge the woman caught in adultery at that moment, but instead inscribes the deed into his own body. In his own body, he takes upon himself everything that can happen between human beings, just as karma must always be reenacted in the earthly world. This narrative points in a deeply meaningful way to the fact that, through his act, Christ has connected himself with the karmic evolution of all humanity. He guides the future evolution of humanity.

[ 11 ] If we recall once more the five cultural epochs—the Indian, Persian, Egyptian, Greco-Latin, and European—we see that during the third epoch the foundation was laid for the Christ force, which will bear fruit for all of humanity. What was planted there in the course of human evolution will not come to life until the sixth epoch. In the sixth epoch, the spiritual self, developed from the soul of consciousness, will unite with the life spirit. From the third to the fourth epoch, the Christ force shines forth prophetically. In the sixth epoch, the great wedding of humanity will be celebrated, when the spiritual self unites with the life spirit. Then humanity will be united in a great brotherhood, and “I” will stand beside “I,” brother beside brother, in that brotherhood foretold in the description of the wedding at Cana in Galilee—an event that is not merely a historical fact but symbolically represents how the sons of men will unite in the sixth epoch to form a great brotherhood encompassing all of humanity. Starting from the third period, three more periods must be traversed before this event will occur: the third, fourth, and fifth. In esotericism, a period is called a “day”; hence, at the beginning of the second chapter, it is written: “And on the third day there was a wedding at Cana.” This indicates that the upcoming account of the wedding alludes to something that will occur in the future. Jesus’ mother, the soul of consciousness, is present at the wedding. Christ says to her: “What does this have to do with me and you? My hour has not yet come.” This clearly states that the wedding at Cana points to something that is to take place only in the future. What does Jesus do, since his hour had not yet come? He turns the water into wine! One can repeatedly find the explanation that this act is meant to signify that new fire, new life force, is to be infused into Judaism—which had fallen into decadence—by transforming the “dull” water into fiery wine. One might say that the wine drinkers concocted that explanation to justify their actions. But when we grasp the significance of this act, we gain a profound insight into the great evolution of the world.

[ 12 ] Alcohol has not always been linked to humanity. Everything spiritual that develops finds its corresponding expression in the material world, and conversely, everything material has its corresponding counterpart in the spiritual world. Wine and alcohol first appeared at a specific time in the history of the world and of humanity. And they will disappear from it again. Here we see the profound truth of occult research. Alcohol was the bridge leading from the generic, group “I” to the independent, individual “I.” Humanity would never have found the transition from the group “I” to the individual “I” without the material effect of alcohol. It was alcohol that brought about individual, personal consciousness in human beings. When humanity has reached this goal, it will no longer need alcohol, and it will disappear from the physical world once again. You see, everything that happens has its significance in the wise guidance of human development. Therefore, no one should be criticized today for drinking alcohol; on the other hand, those who have surged ahead of the rest of humanity and advanced their development to the point where they no longer require alcohol should also avoid it. Christ appears to give humanity the strength to attain the highest sense of self in the sixth epoch. He wishes to prepare people for that “time which has not yet come.” Had he limited himself to the water offering, humanity would never have reached the stage of the individual self. The transformation of water signifies the elevation of the human being to an individual being. Humanity had reached a point in its evolutionary course where it needed wine; therefore, Christ transforms water into wine. When the time comes when humanity no longer needs wine, Christ will transform the wine back into water. How could such power arise in Christ that he was able to turn water into wine? Because Christ’s body is the earth itself, he was able to make the forces of the earth active within himself. In the earth, water is transformed into wine as it flows through the vine. What happens in the earth, Christ was likewise able to accomplish as a personality, because all the forces of the earth must also be present in him, since the earth is his body and is animated by his astral body.

[ 13 ] What does the Earth do with its powers? If you plant a seed in the earth, it sprouts and bears fruit. It multiplies; one becomes many. Likewise, through reproduction, one animal becomes many. The same power of multiplication and proliferation is also at work in Christ, and it is alluded to in the feeding of the five thousand. Christ possesses the power of multiplication inherent in the earth. If we keep in mind the idea that “the body of Christ is the earth with its powers” and apply it to what is reported in the Gospel of John, many details become clear to us.

[ 14 ] What are the Gospels, anyway? In the Gospel of John, we see a depiction of the principles of initiation as they were widespread throughout antiquity. What the initiate did outwardly was not decisive for the school to which he belonged; rather, what he experienced from stage to stage, from degree of initiation to degree of initiation—that was what mattered. Modern scholarship is very surprised to have discovered similar traits in the developmental history of the Buddha as in that of Jesus Christ. This, however, is explained by the fact that the writers of such biographies did not record the external circumstances of life, but rather the inner, spiritual realities. These are consistent among all true initiates, since all have traveled the same path and had the same experiences along it. What the initiate had to experience on the path of initiation was specified in the initiation regulations, and all initiates of the same degree had to undergo the same experiences. The biographers, therefore, wrote nothing more than a biography of the various stages of initiation. The Gospels are nothing more than ancient initiation regulations of varying depth. What in earlier times took place with a lowered state of consciousness occurred publicly in the Mystery of Golgotha. Death, which until then had been overcome in the etheric body during initiation, was now overcome in the physical body. The event on Golgotha is the initiation of a supreme initiate who was initiated by no one else.

[ 15 ] Thus, the author of the Gospel of John could only describe the life of Christ as the Initiation Codex describes it. Whoever lives through the Gospel of John will awaken within themselves the power of vision. It is a book for seers, written to train the gift of vision. For those who live through it sentence by sentence, the great and powerful result emerges: they come face to face with Christ in spirit. This conviction does not come easily to people; they must work their way through to the point where the realization dawns on them that Christ is a reality. The Gospel of John is the path that leads to Christ. The writer wanted to give everyone the opportunity to understand him. Whoever develops the spiritual self within themselves from the astral body will have that wisdom dawn upon them in the spirit, through which they can understand what Christ is. Christ himself hinted at this: He hangs on the cross; at his feet stand his mother and his initiated disciple, whom he loves. The disciple is to bring to humanity the wisdom and the understanding of the significance of Christ. Therefore, reference is made to the Mother Sophia with the words: “This is your mother; you must love her.” The spiritualized Mother of Jesus is the Gospel itself; she is the wisdom that leads people upward to the highest insights. The disciple has given us Mother Sophia—that is, he has written the Gospel for us, which offers those who study it the opportunity to come to know Christianity and to grasp the origin and goal of this great movement.

[ 16 ] The Gospel of John contains the wisdom of “God in Man,” or theosophy, and the more humanity devotes itself to the study of this text, the more wisdom and enlightenment it will gain from it.