YES, HE is Talking to YOU! (continued)
Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
“Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25)
This was the Quote of the Day from yesterday and it is from here that we will continue our consideration of the idea of resurrection. Vincent gives us some help here from a truly Christian point of view saying, of the words of Christ that, I am the resurrection and the life: the words I am are very significant. Martha had stated the resurrection rather as a doctrine, a current tenet: Jesus states it as a fact, identified with His own person. He does not say, I raise the dead; I perform the resurrection, but I am the resurrection. In His own person, representing humanity, He exhibits man as immortal, but immortal only through union with Him****. We should understand here that Vincent’s perspective on union is related to the Christian thoughts on believers and non-believers while we will look at this as followers of His words or non-followers.
We should see here, in Jesus words that resurrection and Life are terms that stand together. Life is more than what we see here in this world. As Spirit we give this Life, our own Life, to this form for the duration of our Earthly existence. We, being as He is when we realize and follow in His ways, are then also the resurrection and the Life. We know this! But Jesus is speaking to those who do not know and likely in parable form. What we believe and what we know plays a large part in what we will become at death and on this Vincent quotes Godet (On life) saying: “Every believer is in reality and for ever sheltered from death. To die with full light, in the clear certainty of the life which is in Jesus, to die only to continue to live with Him, is no longer tat fact which human language designates by the name of death. It is as though Jesus said: In me death is certain to live, and the living is certain never to die****” We know that all are the same, believers or not, in the reality of Spirit; any belief that leads one to a spiritual life of Love and keeping the words of the Master is valid in this sense. Believing then becomes realizing and knowing and then Godet’s saying To die with full light can be seen to be the very difference. Resurrection and Life are the same from every perspective except that of the mortal man looking through mortal man’s eyes. In the realization of what we are comes the necessary understanding of what we will be. Let us look at this in some detail before we continue with our subject parable verses.
The view of much of the church is that we are Spirit and we have a soul and they relegate the soul to the place where is our mind, our emotions and our will. From our perspective this is also true except that we give the Soul a higher position saying that there is a Higher Mind which is the substance of the Soul much like the Earth’s elements are the substance of our physical bodies and this Mind is part and parcel of the Divine Mind of God. Depending on each Soul’s place, He knows little or nothing, He is oblivious, to the common everyday happenings that our carnal mind deals with. There is also a Higher correspondence to what we feel as emotion in our mortal life and this is the Purity of the Love of God in which the Soul is enmeshed. Then there is the Will and it is in the Will aspect of the Soul that Soul and Spirit are one. Now this may be difficult to understand at first and there is really nothing to know unless we are driven by our Inner Man to investigate and understand; what is important is that we have some understanding of the Constitution of Man, what we actually are.
In the Bible there is much crossover of words when it comes to Spirit, Life and Soul with the same Greek and the Hebrew words translated as each of these and more. For example the Greek word psuche is translated as soul, life, mind and heart and refers to the breath of life and breath itself while the Greek word pneuma is translated as various spirit types (of God, of the Lord, My, of Truth, of Christ) and also refers to a human soul that has left the body and as the rational spirit, the power by which the human being feels, thinks, decides. Pneuma also refers to the soul, wind and breath. Then there is the Greek word kardia which is translated as heart but which refers to the soul or mind as it is the fountain and seat of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, endeavours….of the soul as the seat of the sensibilities, affections, emotions, desires, appetites, passions**. There is more and the Hebrew is much the same and we should come away from this with a sense of the confusion regarding the words and terms and their interchangeability. We should note that the idea of mind, emotion and will are included a part of the understanding of each of these words; they are part of the heart, of the soul and of the spirit. Intentional? Much of this is what was and are regarded as the mysteries of Life and of God and much has been hidden and confused for centuries. Today we are able to look at much of this in new light and with new understanding and it is interesting to note that it is only when we are driven by our Inner Man to investigate that we do see some of this light and it is only at such a time that we can accept the dichotomy of being a personality in form and at the same time being the Spirit and the Life that we know so little of.
So they in the church posit that the soul survives this Earth experience and life and that the soul, containing or being the seat of emotions and mind and will, continues after this life and into the hereafter but as a component of our Spirit not of our physical body as it was in life. That our spiritual self will, without a body, be much the same as we are in physical life using the soul’s experience from that life to maintain our perspective of self. And this for eternity pending of course the event called resurrection. This eternity is in Heaven with God, perhaps in mansions prepared for us based on our ‘degree’ of whatever the measure is, or in Hell with the Devil and in the lake of fire.
What do we say of this? Man is, as we have said before, a Trinity as is our God. Man is Spirit, Soul and Form corresponding to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit considering of course that the Form aspect is not the dense physical being and its mental and emotional natures, but is the Energy that brings them about. As Spirit and as Soul man is eternal and pure; it is only in relation to this physical and psychical appearance that he becomes, as the Apostle Paul says, corruptible. In the realm of Spirit we are One with God, part and parcel if you will, and little can be said of this state of being that can be comprehended by our finite minds; this is Pure Will to Be if I may be so bold as to offer a definition. The Soul is also a divine part of our constitution and it represents the Love of God, the Christ and hence is to be considered as the Christ Within. It is the Soul that gives Life to the Form and it is the Spirit that IS the Life of the Soul. As we discussed in previous posts, the Soul gives Life to an infant child and there is much debate over when this actually happens and, of course, the how is for us still a mystery. Nonetheless, we have a infant given life by a Soul and this can work our for us conceptually with or without any understanding of reincarnation. Does the Soul realize its consciousness as this infant? we do not know but we do know that the child grows and takes upon himself a personality dependent on several factors including his physical, emotional and mental equipment plus the life experiences of growing up as a child, an adolescent and a young adult. Through much of this time the Soul can be seen as a bystander who, as some point, tries to get the attention of the conscious personality and with this idea we come back to where we are as men today in relation to our Souls. When we acknowledge the calling of the Soul and begin to live the Higher Life we can and do begin as well our approach to the Kingdom of God.
This places us into the stream of thought that we see in these posts and in the concept of Life and of Love and of Christ and God that we have established. From the point of acknowledging, we focus or not on the things of the Kingdom depending on the focus of our lives. We sow and we reap and as the Apostle puts it “For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:8).
Based on the church idea and on ours we have the this life and at some point this body dies. Much mystery surrounds this and most likely intentionally so. We do not have the proper understanding yet to discover the insight necessary to unravel these mysteries but there are some things that we can posit and understand that are based on our Christian scripture as well as other Spiritual writings from around the world. The body dies and for us we should see resurrection as a part of this and not as the future event that the Church has created from scripture. As we discussed in previous posts (In the Words of Jesus part 70) much of our experience after death does depend on our accomplishment in Life insofar as our spiritual lives are concerned; there are levels of heavenly experience, for each of us, based on the degree with which we can become His disciples and do His word. Leaving this Life with full knowledge, as disciples of the Master, can be seen as True resurrection as we will be as He is. As we read from the Apostle John recently “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).
Conversely if we should enter into the afterlife with no spiritual collateral or with negative spiritual collateral what would be our place? We said previously that the base and the gross person who cares only for worldly things will find existence is the same after death as it was here but will be tormented by the inability to perform for lack of a physical body; lustful cravings and desires continue without the wherewithal to satisfy them. This can hardly be likened to resurrection as the idea is presented in the gospels and, as we shall see, as it is presented in the teaching of the Master, in the parable form that we are discussing and to which we will get back to soon.
We see here how this can work for the disciple and for the gross; what of the average person? Following the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus which we will cover in a future post, we can liken the situation of a gross person cfrom above to Jesus depiction of the rich man and the average good fellow to Jesus depiction of Lazarus. We see Lazarus finding comfort and not torment because he leaves this life without the base lusts and greed and therefore without any thing to torment him. We must remember that there is no ‘exactly this or exactly that’ in this portrayal of the afterlife but rather an infinite range based on one’s nature in this life. This could range from the base and gross to the most holy of persons who are focused on the Kingdom and His Presence in this life. It is these, those focused on Him, that get the great reward of His continued Presence after death and this is being raised up; this is also resurrection.
Note on the Quote of the Day
This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.
Thursday is the beginning of United Nations Week and Monday is United Nations Day. This is our opportunity to support this world body that is humanities best hope for lasting peace and for the uplifting of millions upon millions of our brothers and sisters from poverty and hopelessness to a sense of value and of worth. There is a tab at top, Peace In Our Time, which provides additional insight and information. If nothing else, we can pray for the future success of the United Nations. We will leave this banner up as the Quote of the Day until the end of United Nations Week but will try to change the attached scripture frequently.
One World, One Humanity, One God
United Nations Day
In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly declared 24 October, the anniversary of the Charter of the United Nations, as which “shall be devoted to making known to the peoples of the world the aims and achievements of the United Nations and to gaining their support for” its work.
In 1971 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a further resolution (Resolution 2782) declaring that United Nations Day shall be an international holiday and recommended that it should be observed as a public holiday by all United Nations memberstates.
United Nations Day is devoted to making known to peoples of the world the aims and achievements of the United Nations Organization. United Nations Day is part of United Nations Week, which runs from 20 to 26 October.
Wikipedia contributors. “United Nations Day.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 10 Oct. 2011. Web. 18 Oct. 2011.
God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation (Acts 17:24-26)
- ** New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
- **** Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
