But a man was sent by God, whose name was John.
This man was called John. At the Jordan he preached repentance and baptized those who had turned back to God with water. In this man dwelt the spirit of the prophet Elijah, and this was the very same angelic spirit who defeated Lucifer at the primordial beginning and later, on the well-known mountain, contended with that same Lucifer over the body of Moses.
He came as a witness (from above), to bear witness to the light, so that all of them (the people without light) might believe through him (that is, recognize through his light the primordial light that had come to them).
He came as an old and new witness from above, that is, as light from the primordial light, to bear witness to the primordial light, to God’s primordial Being, which now Itself took on flesh and, in a wholly identical human form, came as a human being to His human beings, who are from Him, to illuminate them anew in their night and thus restore them to His primordial light.
He was not the light (from himself), but only a testimony to the light, that is, (he testified before the darkened feeling of greatness in human beings that the primordial light itself had now come down from its eternal height to them in humility as a lamb, and would voluntarily take all their weaknesses (sins) upon Itself, thereby to restore the primordial light to human beings and make and place them on an equal footing with it).
This man was certainly not the actual primordial light itself, but, like all beings, only a partial light from the primordial light. Yet through his prevailing humility he was granted the ability to remain united with the primordial light.
Since he was thus continually united with the primordial light and clearly distinguished it from his own light—having himself come forth from the primordial light, yet being only a reflected light of it, not the primordial light itself, so that he might recognize it and bear true witness to it—he did indeed bear fully valid witness to the primordial light. In this way he awakened so much true light in human hearts that, though only very faintly at first, they could recognize with increasing strength and clarity over time that the primordial light, now veiled in flesh, was nevertheless the same light to which all beings and humans owe their independent existence, which they can retain forever as an independent existence if they so wish.
That was the true light which enlightens all human beings who come into this world.
Not the witness, but his testimony, and the One of whom he testified, was the true primordial light, which from the primordial beginning has enlightened and given life to all human beings who come into this world, and still gives them ever more life and light. This is why verse 9 also says that this is and was the true and genuine light that formed all human beings for free existence at their primordial beginning, and now came to illuminate that existence in all its fullness and make it like Himself again.
It was in the world, and the world was made through it; but the world did not recognize it.
How I, or the primordial light, could have been unrecognized by this world—that is, by the darkened human beings who in all their being had come forth from Me, or, what is the same thing, from the primordial light (Word)—despite all the forerunners and heralds of My coming, has already been clearly explained in connection with verse 5. It must only be emphasized that ‘world’ here does not mean the earth as the bearer of souls under judgment, which actually constitute matter. It means only human beings, who are indeed partly taken from this matter, but who, once established as free beings, no longer belong, or may no longer belong, to this soul-matter under primordial judgment. For what an unreasonable demand it would be if I required a stone, still lying under the deepest judgment, to recognize Me! Such a thing can rightfully be required only of a soul that has become free and has My Spirit within it.
He came into His own possession, and His own did not receive Him.
Thus, as already mentioned, it is not the earth but solely human beings, in their nature as soul and spirit, who are regarded and must be understood here as the Lord’s own possession. They are His possession because in this way they themselves are primordial light from My eternal primordial light and thus coincide as one with My primordial fundamental Being.
But because they are weakened in this very nature, which expresses itself within them as the feeling of greatness—and because of this weakness I came to them as into My primordial possession, and still continue to come in the same way—they did not recognize Me. Nor, therefore, did they recognize themselves and their very own primordial foundational being, which can never be destroyed, because in the ground of the ground it is My Being.
But to all who received Him, He gave the power to become children of God, since they believe in His name.
It is virtually self-evident that in all those who did not receive Me or did not recognize Me, the primordial order remained disturbed, and with this disturbance there remained a state of suffering, the so-called evil or sin. In many others, however, who received Me—that is, who recognized Me in their hearts—this evil necessarily had to disappear, since they were reunited with Me, as with the primordial order and primordial power of all being. Within this they found themselves and My primordial light, established within them as their own, and in this light, eternal, indestructible life.
In such life they also found that they were thereby necessarily not merely My creatures, as is apparent only from their lower feeling of life, but, because they hold My very Self within them, which was freely brought forth from Me solely by the power of My will, they are unfailingly My very own children. For their light (their faith) is equal to My very own primordial light and therefore has within itself the full power and strength that is in Myself, and from that power also has the fullest right not only to be called My child, but to be so in all fullness!
For faith is precisely such a light, and My name, toward which the mighty rays of this light are directed, is the strength, the power and the very essence of My primordial Being, through which everyone brings about within themselves the fully rightful and valid state of being a child of God. Thus verse 12 also says that all who receive Me and believe in My name shall, I say, have within themselves the power to be rightfully called children of God.
Who are born not of blood, nor of the will of a man, but of God.
This verse is nothing but a closer definition and explanation of the preceding verse. In a more connected form of speech, the two verses together could also read as follows: But to those who received Him and believed in His name, He gave the power to be called children of God, who are born not of blood, nor of the will (desire) of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God.
It is already self-evident, however, that this cannot refer to a first birth as flesh from flesh, but only to a second birth from the spirit of love for God and from the truth of living faith in the living name of God, which is Jesus-Jehovah-Zebaoth. This second birth is also aptly defined as the rebirth of the spirit through baptism from the heavens.
Baptism from the heavens, however, is the complete passage of the spirit and the soul, together with all their desires, into the living spirit of love for God and of love within God Himself.
Once this passage has taken place through a person’s utterly free will, and through such holy love the whole person is also in God, and is there matured into a new being, empowered and strengthened, and thus, on attaining proper full maturity, born again of God, only then, after this second birth, preceded neither by the desire of the flesh nor by a man’s will to beget, is the person a true child of God. They have become this through grace, which is a free power of love for God in the human heart.
This grace is also precisely God’s mighty drawing within the human spirit, through which a person, drawn by the Father, reaches the Son: that is, the divine primordial light, or, what is the same thing, the true and living, powerful wisdom of God.