IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 161

YES, HE is Talking to YOU! (continued)

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

While we intended to get to some new sayings by the Master from the Gospel of Matthew yesterday, we got stuck on our continuing interpretation of the Parable of Speaking Well as we have called this most difficult saying by the Master regarding the unpardonable sin. From there we went on another excursion into the finer points of the parabolic sayings of the Master to show that what we contend is right, that most all of His teachings are done by parable. This now done, we go on to some verses in Matthew that follow immediately after the Parable of Speaking Well. We post the selection here with the aforementioned parable so the flow of the verses can be seen and possibly a relation between that parable and these sayings:

“Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified , and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Matthew 12:31-37).

In this version of events from Matthew we have the clear impression that He is saying these things to the Pharisees and that He was also in the presence of a great multitude. It is interesting that as this scene is set the Master has just “…healed them all. And charged them that they should not make him known” and rather immediately, at least in the view of the text, “….was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw” (Matthew 12:16-17, 22). It is here that the Master starts His dialogue, addressing the Pharisees but within the hearing of many. He goes through what we have discussed over the last several posts; Satan and the demons, the house divided, the strong man and the idea of “he is not with me“, up to and including the Parable of Speaking Well which we repeat above. We come now to the group of sayings, of parables and teachings, that follow.

Jesus starts here speaking about the tree and, according to Matthew, this is the second time He had done so. Toward the end of the Sermon on the Mount, the Master said this: “Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them“. This saying was spoken about false prophets or as we should say false teachers; those who the Master called “ravening wolves” two verses earlier (Matthew 7:15, 17-20). One could say here that Jesus is speaking of the Pharisees and the scribes at the time and so He likely was but, since His message is eternal, we should also see the caution to us today and to humanity over the last 2000 years. We have discussed this idea before (In the Words of Jesus parts 48, 125) and our point is that Jesus never condemned all of the scribes and Pharisees in His day of being corrupt with purpose and intention as would be the idea of the “ravening wolves“, but rather He exposes their religious habits as moving away from and not toward God. Today’s saying is of a more general nature and although we can see the relationship, we should also see that it is an ‘if the shoe fits’ saying. It is, as is the prior statement, the unpardonable sin if you will, a message about bringing forth the Light of the Soul, the Christ Within, to bear on the outer physical conscious life so as to turn the man away from the carnal and toward the spiritual.

Looking again at our interpretation of the Parable of Speaking Well we can see some similarity of message. In that parable the speaking evil against the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit was deemed to be saying that if we, as men, so focus on the carnal life as to completely ignore and even deny the reality of our Spirit selves and continue in this way, that we are essentially dooming this particular incarnation and wasting an opportunity to move into His Presence, which is our goal incarnation after incarnation. This is the battleground and this is where the work must be done. The current verse regarding the good tree can be seen in the same light from Jesus perspective and the obverse, from a carnal perspective, is shown to us as well. This is corroborated by the Master’s saying a few verses farther down. Let us look at this in stages then to discern His meanings, both the outward to the people on hand, and the inner for those who see and who hear the inner voice of the Soul.

We said earlier that this is an ‘if the shoe fits’ type of message and so it is but it is also a message of change. We can all likely see that the tree is the man and he should be either good or corrupt and hence the fruit that he bears as well. We can accept the idea here of good as it appears in the eyes of the Master and this would be morally good as a man; corrupt we should see as the lexicon tells us: rotten, putrefied; corrupted by one and no longer fit for use, worn out; of poor quality, bad, unfit for use, worthless². Strong’s gives us similar meaning saying that this Greek word sapros means: bad, rotten, decayed; unwholesome³. Note the absence of the word evil here; again, in speaking about the Kingdom, the idea of evil is not as pertinent as is the idea of not being accounted worthy which is much more comprehensive. For our purposes today let us use the idea of worthless as the Master’s context in this saying. Simply He is saying that a man needs to be one or the other; good and bearing good fruits or worthless and bearing worthless, rotten and decayed fruit. And so we know the man by the fruit that he bears and so the relationship to His prior saying of this same theme except, in the prior case there is definitely evil involved, “ravening wolves“, taking advantage of and intentionally misleading the people.

Moving on, the next phrase admonishes those who are on the worthless side; while it may appear that Jesus is addressing all, He is likely addressing specifically those who qualify as bearing worthless fruit. The word translated generation here is the Greek word gennema of which Strong’s tells us that it is fruit, product, yield, harvest, offspring, brood³ and is not the same word for fruit that is used in the prior verse. Hard to put into words, the idea here is that those who qualify as bearing corrupt fruit are seen as vipers as well and for this the literal translation is exactly that. So what do we see when we see one called a snake? The lexicon tells us that it would be one who is cunning or malignant, wicked men² and the modern idea would be much the same in a cunning, crafty, out for himself kind of person. Jesus then is addressing the harvest of snakes which are men that He is now calling evil, bad fruit if you will, and He is asking them how they can say anything good, being as they are a bad and worthless harvest which bears worthless fruit; telling them that this fruit is what is in their hearts and what comes out in their speech.

The spiritual insight for this series of sayings lies next in the saying “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things“. In this we find the idea of the heart of man as his conscious self, his conscious personality that sees and acts and does on this Earth. It is in this personality that exist both good and evil and the infinite array of ranges and combinations of each. Vincent showed us recently, while explaining about the use of the word mind by Paul, that the function of reflective intelligence and moral judgement which is expressed generally by kardia heart⁴; and it is this word that we use as the biblical idea of personality consciusness. The lexicon says in part of kardia that: the soul or mind, as it is the fountain and seat of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, endeavours, of the understanding, the faculty and seat of the intelligence, of the will and character and we can subscribe to these ideas as well except that our view these are not the Soul. For us the Soul is the higher correspondence of manifest Life; it is that aspect that is the manifest Life of the Spirit and which breaths that Life into the conscious personality and the form of man. And this is the entire idea that the Master puts forth. What is in one’s heart, his conscious personality, is either what is good and is coming from his contact with his soul, his Christ Within, or it is ‘worthless’, from a true and spiritual perspective, and coming form the world. And, here we can repeat the words of the Master again in regard to the ‘good’ of what comes from the Spirit and the ‘worthless’ that comes from the world; He says “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing” (John 6:63). This goes hand in hand with “For where your treasure is , there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:34) which keeps with the idea in our current verse regarding treasure and shows clearly how the focus of one’s Life is of great importance.

We have here what the Master calls good treasure and evil treasure which, we will interpret as treasure from above, from God and from our Souls or treasure from the world, carnal treasure. So that we do not get so tied down by the ideas of evil we should understand the context that the Master is using. He does not say that this can be either good or evil but makes the contrast of what comes from the “good man” as opposed to the what comes from the  evil man. We should ever understand that, as we have said, in between these two poles is an infinite range of possibilities; it is not just black and white. And we should remember here also that the Master is specifically telling us about speaking; from the idea of speaking a word against the Holy Ghost to speaking good or evil out of the abundance of the heart. This is the outer saying and this is what is the intended message to all but what is the deeper message is found in the idea of heart; to speak a thing it must first be in our minds or it must be an emotional outburst through our mind. We speak therefore what we are, nothing more and nothing less, unless of course we are seeking to deceive. Again this brings us to the same place and that is “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” and this is the larger and more important message to them in that day and to us. Does it matter what we say, of course it does, but what matters more is where these thoughts that become these words originate; from above, from one’s Soul, or from below, from the world.

We will leave off here with some words from the Apostle James’ Epistle and finish up with his ideas and the closing statement from the Master in the next post. James tells us speaking, using the tongue as his reference:

“If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body. Behold, we put bits in the horses’ mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body. Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth. Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell. For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and there with curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.  Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh” (James 3:2-12).

This is the state of man today and yesterday. Combining this with the words of the Master we can see the sources of the words we say and in this by James we can see the effect of them. We will continue with this in the next post.

Note on the Quote of the Day