IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 248

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part XXXV

“God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him“

(1 John 4:16)

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way , the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me“

(John 14:6)

We continued our discussion yesterday regarding this first saying and barely began the second getting sidetracked by the additional verse in this chapter of 1 John which for us is enough to give us the understanding of the intent of the Master and the apostles regarding our Love for our brothers who we should understand as anyman and everyman. As we have discussed, the Greek word here can be translated with the inclusiveness of our perspective or in the narrowness of much of the church and, understanding the overall teaching of the Master, it is hard for us not to be as inclusive as is possible. This additional verse that we discussed is a very strong statement on the idea of Love saying to us all that that “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar“. This word liar carries the same meaning today that it did when it was written and clearly says that a man in this condition does not Love God although this may be what he says.

We went on after this to outline some ideas of what Love is not saying that Love is not sentiment, Love is not affection and Love is not emotion although these ideas are attached to the common understanding of Love. For us Love is not an outpouring of emotion or sentiment or affection but it is rather an outpouring of ourselves in benevolence, and  GoodWill; a disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good. This is void of feeling and full of duty and responsibility and this is giving to all as we would want others to give to us, and this in every facet of Life. Granted, this is not an easy Love and universal Love as GoodWill is not an easy feat to accomplish. It is however the single most important key to one’s own spiritual development and it will lead us to the Path to that strait gate that opens up into the Kingdom of God.

Understanding then our ideas on Love, on its Power and on the necessity of our Living in it as we have set forth in our rendition of the saying at the top of the page saying:

Live in Love, Live in God

Live in God, God Lives in us

This should be clear to us all from the sayings of the apostle and it is in this understanding that we will look towards our other saying. If we understand that “God is love” and we understand what the Master tells us regarding Himself saying “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30), then we should be able to combine these in saying that the Master is Love as well. Now this is not a stretch for as the apostle tells us above that “he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God” and as the Master tells us that “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (John 4:10). We should have a clear understanding here of the relationships that are involved here and that all of these terms are the same in reference to Our God: Love, Father, Christ, Son and it is this theme that we will use in our interpretation of that parabolic saying by the Master that tells us in a sentence the same things that He speaks in volumes in the synoptic gospels; and that is how we can get to His Kingdom. Of course this is readily apparent when we understand the reality of His idea of believe on and believe in as they reflect the right understanding of follow Him and keep His words which should tell us in their essence that we must Live in Love.

Seeing then our understanding of the ideas noted above and the High regard that is placed on Love in the words of the Master and of the apostle we come now to our next saying. In this Light of Love we have the key to this saying that has be erroneously interpreted by church doctrine for so very long thereby aiding in the shutting down of our the fulfillment of His commandments on Love. As we have said the church has lost track of much of the  basic premise of the teachings of the Master being in parable and in proverb and have taken to the literal translation of so many of the things that He said which should be seen to cover an essential reality. To properly understand the sayings of the Master we must remember both His words and the words of His apostles who tell us of the parabolic nature of His teachings; not only of His parables, but of His teachings in general. We must remember the words of the Master and of the apostles regarding those things that Jesus told us of the Kingdom of God and this saying that we are about to broach is an answer to Thomas regarding his lack of understanding things about the Kingdom.

• “And he said , Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see , and hearing they might not understand” (Luke 8:10). We should remember here that the Master is responding to a question about the parable that He just told them all which the apostles did not understand either and it is certainly unclear if they even understood the explanation of it.
• “All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 13:34-35). And Truly He has uttered these things in parable and so little of it is understood by so many who fail to look into His sayings in the Light of the Soul, the Christ Within.
• “These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father“. (John 16:25). We know that John’s word translated here as proverb is in other places translated as parable and, as we have discussed, these can be seen as the same. Here the Master is speaking to His disciples alone and telling them that He has been speaking of the things of God in this fashion, in parable, and this He says to them near the end of His time with them which shows us that so much of what He says to them in private is parabolic as well.

We should have an understanding of this idea that we have covered many times regarding His teaching in parable and yet we all sometimes forget it and try to see a saying as it is spoken without realizing that there is a deeper meaning that we must reveal. Such is the case here with this saying: “I am the way , the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me“.  Let us look a at the view of some of the commentators on this saying which, as we have discussed, is a of prime importance in the most all Christian doctrines ans the source of so much of what is believed.

• John Gill in his Exposition of the Bible⁸ tells us this regarding the last part of this saying by the Master. no man cometh unto the Father but by me; Christ is the only way of access unto the Father; there is no coming to God as an absolute God, not upon the foot of the covenant of works, nor without a Mediator; and the only Mediator between God and man is Christ: he introduces and presents the persons and services of his people to his Father, and gives them acceptance with him⁸. Gill provides a very lengthy commentary on the rest of this saying but it all leads to this idea of the Christ and, according to the doctrines, this reference is the person of Christ in Jesus as it is built upon by his interpretation of the writings of the apostles.
• The Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible⁸ says this in regard to the whole of the question and answer: 4-7. whither I go ye know . . . Thomas saith, Lord, we know not whither thou guest . . . Jesus saith, I am the way, &c.–By saying this, He meant rather to draw out their inquiries and reply to them. Christ is “THE WAY” to the Father–“no man cometh unto the Father but by Me”; He is “THE TRUTH” of all we find in the Father when we get to Him, “For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9), and He is all “THE LIFE” that shall ever flow to us and bless us from the Godhead thus approached and thus manifested in Him–“this is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20). Here again is reliance on the writings of the apostles to complete the thoughts on the interpretation of this saying and here again is the understanding that the Christ is the Way with is a Truth but not for the reasons that the doctrines permit.
• The Reverend Billy Graham teaches this Truth in this way saying that: Jesus told his disciples, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). He did not merely point the way to God. He himself claimed to be the only way to the Father and the source of eternal truth and life. The way to God is through personal faith in Jesus Christ. Intellectual acceptance of Christ is not enough. You must come to him determined to turn from what displeases him, with a total trust in Christ’s saving power for you. We should note here that Reverend Graham tells us that Jesus himself claimed to be the only way to the Father which is only true in the literal understanding of this saying.

The idea that we are trying to bring out here is the common Christian teaching that Jesus, or the Christ, is the only way to the Father and, according to the Master this is a Truth. However there is no a real comprehension of the meaning behind this. We have put together above a relationship between the Father and the Son and Love and Christ, not in the person of Jesus per se, but as the Christ of God. Seeing the synonymous relationships here and especially the relationship between the Christ and Love we can look at this whole saying in a different Light.

• I am the Way can be seen in our context of Love and is in accordance with what we have been saying and with the overall teachings of the Master and the apostles as well. Love is the Way to God; not only Love of God but Love of our fellow man which, according to John, is the precursor of our Love of God. If we cannot accept this at face value then let us look at it saying that Christ is the Way and in order to get to the Father, that is the Kingdom of God, one must follow the Christ which should be seen as keeping His words which, of course, are that we Love our fellowman. Can we see the essential oneness of this?
• I am the Truth is a statement of fact. God is Truth, Christ is one with God and so, Christ is Truth. We said yesterday that Truth can be expressed as the reality that IS and this reality is LOVE as it related to Vincent’s saying that Loving is the condition of knowing⁴. The closest that we can come to this idea in the bible, aside from the Master’s proclamation,  is in this saying by John in the Prologue to his Gospel: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The Webster’s definition of Truth tells us that: The quality or being true; as: — (a) Conformity to fact or reality; exact accordance with that which is, or has been; or shall be. (b) Conformity to rule; exactness; close correspondence with an example, mood, object of imitation, or the like¹. In a word, we can describe this Truth as Perfectness. Now we need to take this idea and relate it to the first idea of the Way, Love, and see the equivalency of Love and Truth; if the same Christ is both of these then we must see them as together.
• I am the Life is again a statement of fact. In our understanding of Life we see the Christ, the Son, as the manifestation of that Life that IS God. God IS and this is an undefinable state and Christ is the manifestation of that state; we speak here of Christ as a cosmic potency of God and not as the Christ that is individualized in the person of Jesus. Again, God is Life itself; Christ and the Father are One and the therefore the same and so we can say that the Christ is Life. Regarding manifestation and Life John tells us that “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:3-4). Now we need to take this idea and relate it to the first idea of the Way,  Love, and see the equivalency of Love and Life; if the same Christ is both of these then we must see them as together.

So we have a triplicity, a trinity if you will, of Love, the Son; Life, the Father; and Truth, the Reality that IS or the Holy Spirit. In this we should see the eternal correspondences of man to God. More importantly though we should see that the reality of our Path to the Father and to His Kingdom is in the keynote of Our God, if we can use such a term, and that keynote is Love and that Love in found in the Light of the Christ. Twofold is our vision then of this; Love is the key to the Path, Love is the Way and it is through focus on the Christ Within that we can glimpse the Truth of this Love and it is through this focus that we find the Path home. We will continue with these thoughts in our next post.

Note on the Quote of the Day