The Gospel of St. John

By Rudolf Steiner

Book Overview

12 lectures, Hamburg, May 5-31, 1908 (CW 103)

During Pentecost 1908--seven years after he had given the world his book Christianity As Mystical Fact and the first intimation of the consequences of his Christ experience--Rudolf Steiner began his great work of renewing humanity's understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha and its meaning for human and earthly evolution. Accordingly, he turned to the deepest, most spiritual of the Gospels--that of the initiate St. John.

In this lecture course, readers will find that the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Divine Word, or Logos, reveals the mission of the Earth: Love. We learn of the mysteries behind Lazarus' resurrection, the "I AM" sayings, and the seven degrees of initiation. We come to understand that the Gospel of St. John is a continuing spiritual presence--to be recalled, meditated, and permeated with one's own life. In doing so, we realized that our purpose--and that of all humankind--is to become the Virgin Sophia, a receptical for the Holy Spirit.

All of Steiner's work, as Marie Steiner writes in her introduction, was "to pave the way to Christ." Indeed, at the conclusion of these lectures, Rudolf Steiner said: It will come to be understood that Christianity is only beginning its influence and will fulfill its real mission only when it is understood in its true, spiritual form.... The more these lectures are understood in this sense, the better they will be understood as they were intended. This volume is essential if one is to truly understand Rudolf Steiner's understanding of esoteric Christianity and its place in the world today and in the future.

This volume is a translation of Das Johannes-Evangelium (GA 103).

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0910142130
• ISBN13: 9780910142137
• Release Date: May 1984
• Publisher: Steiner Books
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.7" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Seeing with new eyes.

Rudolf Steiner's explanation of the Gospel of John is startling. Bible readers often comment on John having a completely different tone from the other Gospels. Steiner's solution to the mystery is radical, but coherent. Don't miss this book!

Best Commentary on the Gospel of John

In an era when 'evangelical' and 'fundamentalist' adherence to wildly inaccurate materialistic interpretations of the Bible dominates theological discourse, Rudolf Steiner's series of lectures on the Gospels given in the waning years of Pax Europa, before the outbreak of World War I, are ever the more relevant and important. If truth is holy - then the better part of Steiner's work (to which these lectures make an integral contribution)demands to be treated as such. For various reasons, not the least of which is the darkening reign of materialist thought in every area of life (greviously, including religion), Steiner is today abjured my most thinkers with any sort of public audience and read by few. Only in education, through the Waldorf schools, is Steiner's influence directly felt on a somewhat widespread more popular level. Yet, Steiner's thought is too powerful to fade or to die. Despite the concerns of those who feel that Steiner's extensive descriptions of the human spiritual anatomy and history could easily be no more than mere speculation, insufficiently justified by material fact, and thinly argued at best, there is an undeniable consistency to the logic of his claims and the reasons he gives for their acceptance within the context of our experience. Within the limits currently alotted for these reviews, I can only justify my view with the briefest of explanations drawn from the text: "Let us ask: - What then is essential for love? What is essential in order that one person love another? It is this - that he be in posssession of his full self-conscousness, that he be wholly independent. No one can love another in the full sense of the word if this love be not a free gift of one person to another. My hand does not love my organism. Only one who is independent, one who is not bound to the other person, can love him." This idea - which stands at the heart of the increasing individualization of the human spirit, ushered in and fostered through the Mission of Christ and the present evolutionary course of humanity, is analyzed with a depth and eloquence in this work that no earnest student of the Gospels should miss.