Gospel Study – The Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ – the Beatitudes

by John-Peter Gernaat

​The Book of Revelation may be the most significant part of the New Testament because it is connected to the revelation of Jesus Christ; this is the revelation of Christ. The Gospels are the revelation of the Father through Jesus Christ. Remember the question asked by Philip at the Last Supper: “Show us the Father” to which Jesus replied: “Philip, how long have I been with you? If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” The Gospel writer Mark begins by telling us that John the Baptist hears the words, “This is my beloved son, in whom I shall be fully revealed.” The Book of Revelation is Jesus revealing what he has come to know, as a result of the Christ having fully incarnated in him, having risen from the dead and now a Spirit Human; revealing through the Christ in him what it will be for us to become a ‘son of man’, a future human spirit being.

The main revelation of Jesus the Christ is that we have to overcome. We will be faced with many challenges, natural and created by us. The Book of Revelation is always about the NOW. It is about the future and the past, but, importantly about now. We can use it to overcome the challenges we face in this current time, and how we are to become. We are always in the process of becoming.

It is therefore not unusual that the Book of Revelation has a set of beatitudes. We know the beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount given by Jesus as recorded by the Gospel writer Matthew. These nine beatitudes presented by Matthew, Rudolf Steiner tells us, correspond to the nine-fold human being – physical body, etheric body, astral body, sentient soul, mind or comprehension soul, consciousness soul, spirit self, life spirit, spirit human. Luke presents four beatitudes with four challenges that correspond to the four-fold human being – physical, etheric, astral, “I” – the human being here on the earth right now. Luke is about where we are on the eight-fold path on the earth. As we heard in the Gospel reading on Sunday, 23 March and considered in the sermon given on that day, Luke includes a another beatitude: an attitude of life (a way for us to achieve the expression of life in Christ) in chapter 11 verse 28 – it comes as a response from the Christ Jesus:” Blessed are those who hear my Word: the full expression of the divine, and keeping it in their hearts preserve it in themselves.”

The Book of Revelation presents us with seven beatitudes, corresponding to the physical, etheric, astral, “I”, spirit self, life spirit and spirit human of the human constitutional experience. This is the picture of how we will be in the future in our physical, ether and astral transformations through the work of the “I”.

In Matthew the first beatitude is: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” This is how we are in our earthly body where we are poor in spirit, rich in physical material reality. We lack our connection to the spirit while we are here on the earth. This is the current reality. In the Book of Revelation, the first beatitude is a different reality. These are not the full translation of the beatitudes, only the highlights. The first beatitude is about what we gain by having been in a physical body, what it means to have been in a physical body. It is to comprehend. This is something we can only come to by being human, we have to experience of life on earth. The spiritual world cannot teach us this because they lack the experience. The etheric becomes younger as our physical body becomes older because, in the spiritual world, after death, it will rest assured. It will rest in what it has come to know. The task of our astral in the future is to be conscious of our personal responsibility, this is the essence of the third beatitude. The fourth beatitude is about being part of the whole process, about being included and invited. This is the experience of the “I” in this earthly reality, it is invited into earth incarnation. Our higher “I” remains in the spiritual world where our “I” belongs while our earthly “I” incarnates because it has been invited.

The fifth beatitude, in summary, is: Blessed are those who experience the renewal of new life. This is spirit self experiencing life in a new way, in the future, while in an incarnation.

The sixth beatitude is: Blessed are those who are able to hold onto the inner live. We lose our inner life through earthly distractions on a daily basis.

The seventh beatitude is: Blessed are those who are made pure, who are freed from attachments and hence are ready for the next stage.

The first beatitude in chapter 1 verse 3, has a connection with the seventh beatitude in chapter 22 verse 14 – the physical body in the first beatitude transforms into spirit human in the last beatitude. The comprehension that is gained in the physical earthly incarnation allows us to wash our garment, connect to the Tree of Life and enter into the City.

The translation by Michaël Merle of the first beatitude:

Blessed is one in whom comprehension arises within and who keeps heeding the prophecy and holding within the things having been written into it, for this is how the present moment is fully experienced.

​The translation by Michaël Merle of the last beatitude:

​Blessed are those purifying their stoles, the archetypal kingly and priestly garment, for that will be the right overarching way of being for them as a Tree of Life, and by the gateways into the inner space they shall enter into the city of themselves.

​The second beatitude in chapter 14 verse 13 translated by Michaël Merle:

Blessed are the ones who from now on come to experience lifelessness in the slow dying process of earthly life ordained by the Lord. Yes, says the spirit, they shall find the uplifting refreshment of the weariness of the earthly repetitive energetic activity, the deeds of their true inner intentions shall accompany them on their way of life.

​The sixth beatitude in chapter 22 verse 7 translated by Michaël Merle:

​Blessed is the one keeping guard through careful observation the expression of the divine conceptualisation of the prophetic gift of communicating and bringing about the revealed truths of this inscribed record.

​The third beatitude in chapter 16 verse 15 and the fifth beatitude in chapter 20 verse 6.​

The translation by Michaël Merle of the fifth beatitude:

​Blessed and set apart as holy are the ones having a share in the first resurrection, the rising up again, over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of the Christ and will reign with them in a full measure of space.

A full measure of space is 10 by 10 by 10 (a thousand years): a cube, the New Jerusalem. The first resurrection is what happens when we cross the threshold. If we can share in this crossing of the threshold the second death, three days later, will have no power over us. If we cannot rise in the crossing of the threshold the second death (when the etheric forces are fully dissipated, and one begins the journey of the soul detaching from earthly attachments) will be a heavy experience.

The translation by Michaël Merle of the third beatitude:

Blessed is the one who is consciously awake and who carefully guards that which one must put on, in order to be sent out, so that you do not go out while still in training and go out while you are still unprepared and thereby expose your unformed self.

​The fourth beatitude in chapter 19 verse 9 translated by Michaël Merle:

​Blessed is the one called to the communal fellowship meal of the marriage celebration of the Newborn Lamb.

​Christ is the bridegroom and we, the community of human beings, are the bride.

These are the beatitudes of the child to which we are giving birth, the future human being.
 
The verse that accompanied the study of the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ was given by the Venerable Bede as a meditation on Revelation 2:28:

Christ is the Morning Star
Who when the night of this world is past
Brings to his saints the promise of the light of life
And opens everlasting day.

The Venerable Bede