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I am here, Jesus:
Yes, I am here in your room this evening, quite willing to write you a message on John's Gospel as long as you are in the mood and in condition to take it, and I shall say that John, Chapter 7, contains a number of things which should be clarified.
In the first place, I never told any of my brothers and sisters, as it is recorded in this chapter, that my time had not yet come, while their time was opportune, always. For that meant that I had an understanding of the time when I should be arrested and given over to the Roman authorities for execution. And this is a point I should like to emphasize: that I did not know when my time had come, and certainly not at that time. And, furthermore, I never said that their time was always at hand, for the phrase had no meaning. If it meant what it is supposed to mean to me, then it meant that their time to die was ever present and could take place at any time; and while man is subject to death at any time, yet his expectancy of life depends, as a general rule, on age. And all of my brothers and sisters being younger than myself, could expect to live much longer, barring illness or accident, or trouble with the Romans.
I did not go up to the feast because of fear of trouble with the Jewish authorities, but because I switched my plans to come to Jerusalem when I was least expected by the Jewish authorities, and I would thus be able to make my appearance and teach there without being stopped by the Jews or causing a disturbance between them and my disciples. For, once in the city, I knew that the authorities would not dare to molest me for fear of the people.
In my teachings with the crowds of people and also with the Jewish leaders, I never sought to provoke them by adopting a hostile attitude toward them, but urged and exhorted them to believe that the Divine Love was available as it had been promised to the Jewish nation through the word of the old prophets like Moses and Isaiah. And I taught fulfillment of the prophecies. The things which I did which infuriated the crowds were designed to show them that Love was greater and accomplished more than the law, which would not be necessary if God's Love rested in the hearts of all my hearers.
I taught them to pray to God for His Divine Love, and it was only when I was asked to show proof that the Love was in existence that I had to explain that it had been given to me and was glowing in my soul. And it was in this way that trouble followed, for the Jews would not believe that this Divine Love had been granted to me or to anyone else, much less believe that the Divine Love had been given at all.
At the Feast of Booths, when the Hebrew priests carried filled water pitchers in their procession, I did use Isaiah, Chapter 58, to show that the living waters of God's Divine Love would enter each heart if each one turned to God to seek for it in earnest prayer. But it was difficult for the Jews, in the shallow spiritual condition in which they were, to be able to comprehend my message. The Gospel of John states that here it referred to the Holy Spirit which man was to receive, for not being glorified myself, the Spirit was not yet given. This meant, of course, that the Divine Love was not yet given because I had to die first; but this is not the truth, for as the Divine Love had been bestowed upon me, it could be bestowed upon all mankind who sought for it and whose souls were opened up to receive it. It is true, however, that the Divine Love did not come flowing into the souls of my disciples in great abundance until Pentecost.
While it is true that, as recorded in John, Chapter 8, I did discuss Abraham with the Jews, the report of it as now found in the Gospel is so distorted as to make it appear that I thought the Jews were born of the "devil" -- that they were descendants of a murderer or murderess, and that they had cut themselves off from God. This passage has caused a great deal of hatred to be directed against the Jews for their obstinacy in not accepting me as the Messiah. But if there were some things I had not come to preach, it was hatred against man or nation. I wished to persuade mankind to come to seek God's Love through love, and not compel man to come to God through force or compulsion; and John, who was filled with God's Divine Love in his soul, never preached hatred of the Jews -- an act for which he stands accused by the Jews unjustly -- nor did I ever call the Jews children of Satan.
I was sorry and grieved that the Jews would not turn to the Father and seek His Love, which would give them the status of being His redeemed children. But I never turned against them in anger nor cursed them, or termed their father a murderer; for whether they did Abraham's works or not, they were still the children of their ancestor, Abraham, and their father in a real, spiritual sense was God, the Creator of mankind.
So, you see that the account of my disciples with the Jews concerning Abraham was distorted to include hatred. Never could I have called the Jews the children of the devil, a murderer, for as you know there is no such creature and the falsity of this statement and the incomprehension of the writer is borne out by his identifying the father of the Jews as Satan, a real being who was a murderer. In his hatred of the Jews, this writer (and he was not John but one who came many, many long years after John, when the Christians were subject to Jewish and pagan persecution), denied that the Jews originated from Abraham physically and from the Father spiritually.
I tried to show the Jews that they were turning from the path laid out by Abraham because they put no trust in a messenger sent from God who brought them the glad tidings of spiritual union with God through prayer for His Love, whereas Abraham put his faith in God in a voice which he trusted was God's, or came from God. And, thus, I proclaimed that my voice came from God to carry God's message to His children. It is true that I told them that if they observed my teachings they would not taste death forever, and I meant by that that their souls would not only survive physical death but that their souls would be clothed in immortality through being filled with the Father's Love.
The great difficulty in being understood was the lack of spirituality of the Jews at this time and their inability to perceive that I was not talking of physical but spiritual death. I told them that I would not die because my soul was immortal and therefore not subject to death; but the Jews who failed to understand the spiritual significance of my teachings thought that I was proclaiming I would never die in the flesh, declaring myself superior to Abraham and making myself equal to God.
Never did I state that I had existed as a conscious entity before Abraham's birth, as reported in this chapter, which would make me the second person of a supposed trinity, for there is no such trinity but only one Heavenly Father; and this was inserted to sustain the concept of my being part of the Godhead, which was then gaining great acceptance with the early Christian church.
So, you see that many passages in John's Gospel reflect writings that never came from his pen but came from those of later individuals who wrote into his Gospel many statements and ideas that simply bring us to later stages in the development of the early Christian religion.
I think I have written to you more than I am accustomed to do, but since you were eager and in condition to receive this message, I was glad to write you. I must ask you to pray more for the Father's Love and keep more in touch with His great Soul. And, with my love to you and the Doctor, I shall close and affirm that I am your elder brother and friend,
Jesus of the Bible
and
Master of the Celestial Heavens
