True and false prophets (22 April 1847)

1. Someone could ask here again and say: So one can always give fullest faith to a born-again, if he predicts future things, or should also such prediction be put into a little doubt? - To this I say: If the born-again says: "Do this," then do it. But if he says: "This or that will come to pass," and has not put an if on it, do not believe him; For then he is already not a true born-again, because everything that happens and should happen, happens conditionally; therefore also regarding the events nowhere a firm unchangeable prediction can happen, because if something would be predicted definitely, what would have to happen, then the world would be in the deepest judgment, and all freedom would be lost. A true born-again knows this very well and would therefore have to prophesy against his purest knowledge, thus obviously lie, if he wanted to predict something that will happen.

2. I Myself was surely the first prophet in the world; but who can prove that I have predicted something for certain, except My resurrection? I did say that I would die and rise again on the third day, but the time and hour of neither the death nor the resurrection was foretold to anyone.

3. So I have also predicted My Second Coming, but, mind you, with the addition: The time and hour are known to no-one, except to Me alone, and also to the one to whom I wanted to reveal it; but I have already revealed it, too, but not with regard to time and hour, but only with regard to the signs by which one should recognize My Second Coming.

4. So also all the prophets prophesied; but all that they prophesied was conditional, so that by such a prophecy no-one should be judged, but be at liberty to do what is offered in order to escape the threatened judgment, or to refrain from what is offered in order to be judged.

5. Jeremiah prophesied for years, and waited himself, sometimes bitterly complaining, for the success of the prophecy; for what he prophesied for tomorrow happened only after years, indeed at 23 years, he had to wait until his prophecy concerning the 70 years of Babylonian captivity on the Jewish people came into full fulfillment.

6. Jonah waited in vain for the downfall of Nineveh, so that in the end he quite angrily reproached Me for My goodness; but the cause of all this lies, as has already been remarked once before, merely in the behavior of people, for if they are threatened with judgment, but they change, if not all, at least some, then the judgment is cancelled.

7. If there are only ten righteous people among a hundred thousand, I will spare the hundred thousand from judgment because of those ten; and if there are a hundred righteous people among a million, I will spare a whole million from the threatened judgment because of them.

8. If, of course, the number of the righteous is higher, then the judgment will be all the more certain to be lifted, and instead of a general judgment, only a specific one will affect the most stubborn. If, however, there are fewer righteous, then, of course, after some subsequent admonitions, the threatened judgment will not be stopped.

9. According to this well-defined sense, only a born-again can and may predict future events. If the prophecies do not have this aspect, then they are false, and the prophet was neither a born-again nor a called one, but he did it out of his own power, for which he will also find his reward; and if he will also say to Me one day, as there are so many of them now: 'Lord! I have done all this in Your name, and everything for Your greater honor', then I will still answer him: 'Away with you, for I have never known you', that is, as a prophet and as one whom I would have called to prophesy in My name, for a prophet who prophesies for money is like one who serves God for money and worships Him for money. Such have already taken their reward; therefore I have nothing more to do with them, for they were always false prophets, only servants of the eyes and servants of Mammon and Belzebub.

10. But you see that it is clear from this that everyone should be very careful with prophesying, the born-again and the called as well as the not born-again and not called; because for the sake of prophecy, I let no-one reach the rebirth, but only for the sake of eternal life.

11. But if I call someone to prophesy, he should not be so bold as to add or take away something on his own authority, for if he did that, it would be very bad for him one day; therefore, it is by no means an easy business to be a prophet, and a very useless and harmful person is the one who prophesies on his own authority, or even presumes to be a divine judge.

12. He that does this is a vain doer of evil, and shall come into the same judgment wherein he has judged his brethren. He who condemns will be condemned, and he who curses will be cursed; he who judges with hell, will find his judgment in hell; he who judges with death, will find death; he who judges with the sword, will be judged with the sword; and he who judges with darkness, will be cast out into the outer darkness, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth; but he who does not want to be judged, let him not judge.

13. But if someone wants to say that he has power from Me to judge, I say to him that he is a liar for eternity; for I have given to My born-again apostles and disciples only a power of supreme charity, which I have made equal to love for Me, and this supreme degree of charity is My Spirit in the heart of every born-again, as well as in the heart of those who believe in Me, love Me and their brothers for My sake. By virtue of this love, which is My Spirit in man, everyone has the most covenantal right to forgive his enemies as often as he wants, with all his heart; and as often as a man has forgiven his enemy through My Spirit in him, so often shall it also be forgiven the same sinner in all heaven.

14. But when there is an evil enemy against whom all avoidance is fruitless, let man say: The Lord repay you according to your works; and in this consists the withholding of sin.

15. Question: Is this authority a granted office of judge? Oh no! It is only an authority of the highest neighborly love or of a love that is equal to My divine one; but never ever an office of judgement, which I Myself have put aside, and for that very reason have given it all the less to a man.

16. But I have given this supreme power of love to mankind precisely out of My supreme love, so that people among themselves might all the more easily become true brothers in My name; for among the Jews no-one, except the high priest alone, could atone for a sin which one man committed against another, and that only at certain times and by certain sacrifices, and two people who sinned against each other remained enemies as long as the priest and the sacrifice did not reconcile them.

17. How unfortunate was this circumstance, which, of course, was more a misconception of the law than the law itself, for such people who not infrequently lived many days' journey from Jerusalem! In order to counteract this old abuse of the law in the strongest possible way, and to lighten the burden of mankind as much as possible, I have therefore given every man the highest divine power of love, so that everyone can forgive his offender with all his heart, and that this forgiveness is also valid for all heavens.

18. Who can bring out of it a grant of authority, which appropriates an office of judge? Or if I had done something like that, would I not have contradicted Myself, if I had condemned all judging on the one hand, but on the other hand I would still have ordered it as an indispensable condition for beatification? Such a thing could hardly be expected from a stupid man, let alone from the highest wisdom of God.

19. When I said: Receive the holy Spirit, it meant, and it still means: Receive the highest power of My divine Love; what you solve on earth, that shall be solved, and there is no need for a sacrifice and a high priest anymore, and what you bind to your heart, and what you bind in the world, that shall also be bound in heaven.

20. Here, loosening and binding are not even forgiveness and reservation of a sin, but loosening is making free, and binding is accepting.

21. If, for example, someone owes Me something as a man owes a man, the man can release the man from the debt. Or if there is some heathen, a Christian can make him completely free, if he confesses Christ, and can immediately accept him into the congregation, or bind him in heart with the omnipotence of divine love; every orthodox Christian who believes in Me, loves Me and is baptized in My name, has the full right to do this, without having to turn to the high priest, to whom alone it was formerly incumbent to accept foreign heathen people into Judaism through circumcision.

22. Such authority was given, as already shown above, so that man's life would be made as easy as possible, and he could cleanse his conscience everywhere and lead a pleasant life.

23. But who can lead out an even more troublesome office of judgement than the former Jewish one was? Where such exists, it exists against all My order, and who takes part in it, he judges himself, if he thinks to become free of his sins by it, if he let himself be judged voluntarily. Such a judicial institution becomes for him a true sin bank; for how can a third party cancel a debt owed by a second to the first? The first can forgive the debt of the second, but the third can never do so for eternity. If the first and the second, or the creditor and the debtor, are stupid people, a third party can make a friend of the law, and can compensate them through good counsel and good deeds; but there can never be any question of forgiving sins, unless the creditor has authorized him to do so from the bottom of his heart.

24. But when Jacob recommends a mutual confession of sins out of My spirit, this is by no means to be understood as confession, but only a mutual confidential sharing of one's own infirmities and weaknesses, in order to receive a true strengthening antidote in spirit and in truth from the stronger friend and brother. Behold, for this one needs neither priestly nor exorcistic ordinations, and the apostleship itself is only a brotherly teaching office, but no Hebrew and pagan gold-, silver- and precious stone pomp.

25. That the teachers of the church should show themselves in the highest and richest pomp, Jacob certainly did not intend, since he called the congregations to a mutual confession of infirmities and weaknesses; he wanted to achieve not only the medical purpose but also that of mutual humiliation, that not one brother should distinguish himself before the other like the Pharisee in the temple, but be like the humble tax collector.

26. There is no mention of confession, as already noted above; however, not only the apostles, but everyone is commanded, if it is necessary, to be an unjust steward, which, among other things, should mainly manifest itself in the fact that some very feeble-minded people have sinned against their brothers, but these have died, either bodily or spiritually, in which circumstance a remission of guilt against their feeble-minded offenders is no longer to be thought of. A third party can come to the weak and write off their supposedly great guilt. He will perform a work of true Christian mercy on them, especially when he sends them to Me, but in every other case a third person should not interpose himself between two brothers as a debtor; if he does so, all the sin of the two will be laid on him, because he wanted to judge them, but not correct them.

27. This is a very thorough understanding of the meaning of the commanded forgiveness of sins. Next, something more about this, and more about false prophecy.