The New Testament stands there as a record for humanity — but the whole future course of the Earth’s evolution will be required for a full understanding of the New Testament to be reached. In the future, men will acquire much knowledge of the external world and of the spiritual world also; and if taken in the right sense it will all contribute to an understanding of the New Testament.
The understanding comes about gradually, but the New Testament is written in a simple form so that it can be absorbed and, later, gradually understood. To permeate ourselves with the truth that resides in the New Testament is not without significance, even if we cannot yet understand the truth in its deepest inwardness. Later on, truth becomes cognitional force, but it is already life-force, in so far as it is imbibed in a more or less childlike form.
Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 155 – Christ and the Human Soul: Lecture 4 – Norrkoping, 16th July 1914
Translated by Charles Davy
Previously posted on August 30, 2018