The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. The Gospel of John as a Document of Initiation

The second part of the Gospel of John

[ 1 ] The experiences of John from chapter thirteen onwards refer to the Devachan plane. John hints at this by saying that he has been raised: Lazarus, who was raised from the dead, is John. Therefore, we can understand that from now on, the Gospel refers to the disciple whom the Lord loved. This is the central mystery of the Gospel of John, that the writer is Lazarus, who was raised from the dead.

[ 2 ] John now experiences Christ in the spiritual world. The second part in particular is not merely a narrative of what happened on some world plane, but describes what everyone can experience within themselves. The way one feels when one is at the stage John describes is as follows: From a certain point in their development, human beings no longer feel separated from all things. They immerse themselves in the things around them. This means expanding one's own self to the universe. John feels himself to be a member of the whole world surrounding him. This is expressed in the devachanic image of the washing of feet. John experiences this in the spiritual world, even though the washing of feet is also a historical event.

[ 3 ] A higher kingdom of nature always arises at the expense of a lower kingdom. If there were no mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom could not draw its nourishment from it. The plant kingdom is pushed down so that a higher kingdom, the animal kingdom, can develop again, and so on. The human kingdom also needs the other kingdoms. The more highly developed needs the less developed. If a subordinate caste did not form, there could be no higher caste. Just as the plant kingdom presupposes the mineral kingdom, so Christ Jesus presupposes the apostles. No saint could develop if others were not pushed down. In chapter 13, verse 16, it says: “The servant is not greater than his master.” Christ grew out of the apostles, so he can call them the masters from whose community he grew out. He washes their feet to show that he is beneath them insofar as he owes his existence to them. Everyone must experience this feeling for themselves. Anyone who has never experienced this feeling has not recognized the Christian mystical path.

[ 4 ] Jesus goes on to say, “He who eats my bread tramples me underfoot.” He feels himself to be in communion with the whole earth. He feels the whole of humanity weighing on him, trampling him underfoot.

[ 5 ] After John has experienced all this on the Devachan plane, he can understand what now comes in the parable of the vine and the branches. The community of the whole Christian congregation is expressed in it.

[ 6 ] We live in the fifth root race of our earthly existence. This fifth root race has seven sub-races: the ancient Indian, the ancient Persian, the Egyptian-Babylonian-Chaldean, the Greek-Roman-Semitic, the Germanic, the Slavic, and the seventh sub-race. The last three sub-races of the fourth root race, the Atlantean, are particularly important. The fifth root race emerged from the third last, the Proto-Semitic sub-race. This fifth sub-race was located in the area where Ireland is today. It migrated from there and settled in the Gobi or Shamo Desert. From here, the ancestral race for the current root race, the fifth, originated. Now there are three sub-races of the Atlanteans, seven sub-races of the Aryan root race, and two of the sixth root race, which are related to each other in a certain way. Then, when humanity has passed through all these races, it will have progressed to the point where a large part of humanity has attained what it is predisposed to attain.

[ 7 ] The twelve apostles are the symbols of these twelve sub-races. Jesus grew out of the twelve apostles. In the washing of the feet, Jesus bows down to the races to whom he has to bring salvation.

[ 8 ] In the parable of the vine, Christ feels himself to be the one who is connected with all races; he supplies them with what constitutes the spiritual lifeblood.

[ 9 ] Now the most diverse images enter the higher world. We are shown the betrayal of Judas Iscariot. He is the representative of one of the races, namely the race that reduces everything to the material plane, our current fifth sub-race, the materialistic one. The development, according to which people had previously lived in spiritual perception and now had to be led into the physical world, made it quite natural that the representative of this fifth sub-race should become the betrayer. Judas Iscariot was the representative of the race that descends the deepest. The Gospel of John, because it is to be understood symbolically, retains its value beyond space and time. Judas's deed fits quite organically into Christ's mission. Judas undergoes a kind of martyrdom. He is the traitor and also, in a certain sense, a martyr. He brings about Christ's sacrifice.

[ 10 ] Through the series of parables, the apostles are to be led up into the inner nature of Christianity. With Christ's sacrificial death, everything that had previously taken place in the mystery cult itself, in which the disciple lived through it as Lazarus lived through it here in the Gospel as the three-day symbolic death, came onto the world stage, onto the stage of history. In Christ, this was to emerge into the great plan of history. From now on, a person could be redeemed simply by believing, without having seen the mysteries themselves. Everyone would experience this when the Spirit of Truth came. He proclaims what is laid down as a force in world history through the Christian events. “What is to come, he will proclaim to you.”

[ 11 ] John prophesies from this Spirit of Truth. The historical betrayal of Christ takes place in the future in the race that corresponds to Judas.

[ 12 ] Now follow the events that are exemplary for the Christian mystic's own inner experience. Christ receives the betrayal. This is the second important event after the washing of the feet. Everyone who wants to experience the Christ life in their soul must receive this. One must endure with complete peace of mind not being recognized by those before whom one represents one's best. Second, there is also the scourging. Morally and spiritually, this means that we endure the pains that come to us from the world with calmness. Together with the slapping of the cheeks, this is the second stage that the Christian mystic must go through.

[ 13 ] Since that time, the disciples of Christian mysticism have truly been going through this. The disciple's own body expresses his ability to endure pain with this calmness. He actually feels as if he were being pricked with needles.

[ 14 ] The next, the third stage, is wearing the crown of thorns. This means calmly accepting humiliation. What is being oppressed is precisely the human ego. The forebrain, which was developed in the last period of Atlantis, feels the crown of thorns. Truly painful manifestations of this mystical-soul state arise, which must be overcome.

[ 15 ] Then comes the fourth stage, the crucifixion. This is the mystical experience which means that one's own body has become as foreign as something external. The person then bears the burden of the cross. Their soul has now become independent. It is then only bound to the body in the same way that Christ's body was nailed to the cross. This is an inner process that the mystic experiences. The person now truly knows that they live in a spiritual body. The accompanying phenomenon of this process is the blood test. Then the wounds of Christ really appear on the hands and feet when the Christian mystic has gone through this. For everything that is spiritual, there is a physical accompaniment.

[ 16 ] When the person is ready, death on the cross occurs. This is a spiritual experience. It is expressed in Goethe's saying:

[ 17 ] And as long as you do not have this,
This: Die and become!
You are only a gloomy guest
On the dark earth.

[ 18 ] And Jakob Böhme says: “He who does not die before he dies will perish when he dies.” The Christian mystic must go through death completely. Otherwise, he cannot enter into a higher life.

[ 19 ] Then, as the sixth event, the burial takes place. This is the mystical realization of communion with the earthly organism. The student then unites with the Earth planet and becomes a planetary spirit. Everything around him then becomes his body.

[ 20 ] The seventh stage is the higher life, the resurrection, which is granted to man.

[ 21 ] These are the seven stages of Christian mystical development: the washing of the feet, the slapping of the cheeks and the scourging, the crowning with thorns, the crucifixion, death, the burial, and the resurrection. It is an inner path with outer symbols.

[ 22 ] John presents all this in such a way that he has actually provided a mystical foundation. The sentences must be used as material for meditation when they are read. Then the human being has the meditation that is necessary to go through these events. The Gospel of John is a book of miracles in that it works miracles in the soul. It is written for all people, and everyone can experience the Gospel of John within themselves.

[ 23 ] Let us look at the second chapter again from this point of view. The person before the washing of the feet is the one who is to give birth to the new person. The person has then gone through the seven stages. They now become the new person. The new person relates to the old person as a child relates to its mother. The old person conceived them, the old person carried them. This is how we are to understand the image of the mother of Jesus. Every old person is predisposed to become a new person.

[ 24 ] The old humans have different types. When the new human is born in them, they will all give birth to the same Christ from within themselves. The old human, the mother, can be present in different ways. When Christ is on the cross, he looks back at his mother, namely at the three women as his mother, as representatives of three different human forms from which the mystic can grow. The mother of Jesus cannot be called by her own name. Nevertheless, she is called Mary. Mary is the same word as Maja, the shell from which the new human being emerged.

[ 25 ] When Christ was taken down from the cross, his leg was not to be broken. This is connected with our entire cultural development. In Atlantis, human beings still possessed the ability to influence the etheric formative forces. This enabled them to use the germinative power of grain to set airships in motion. The task of the twelve sub-races, starting with the fifth Atlantean sub-race, is to develop the powers and abilities related to the mineral kingdom, the combinatory abilities. The twelve races have to bring the earth to the point where the mineral kingdom is essentially conquered. The time when Christianity is at the center is the time when humans transform the mineral kingdom. Humans will make the earth's magnetism serve them once they act on the earth through their moral powers. For everything else, humans are still more or less unconscious.

[ 26 ] The Gospel of John is one of the writings that carries the infinite within itself like a source.