IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 287

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part LXXII

Yesterday’s post was a continuation of our Easter theme regarding what we see as the reality of the Resurrection of the Christ and as His teaching to all that can follow Him. He shows us by His deeds the Way, the Truth and the Reality of Life so that we can become His disciples which is the same as finding the strait gate and the narrow way to His Kingdom which we must know is here and now as “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). In the last post we tried to show that the Master intentionally clouded all of the issues regarding His resurrection so that we could see the Light and question the doctrines and the dogmas that have heretofore misinterpreted it. The viewpoint of our post was intended to show that the Master did not simply take up the same body that He had died in but rather that He took form at will in differing appearances and with the ability to appear and disappear from among His disciples. We must remember here that while we may consider these things as miracles, they are also within our ken and Jesus tells us this is so; that we can be as He is and that we can do His works and even greater than He; the criteria for these is that we keep His words and follow Him with all that these terms imply. The Master tells us that:

  • Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12).
  • The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40).

We should see in these sayings the synergy of the ideas presented by His words “believeth on me” and “every one that is perfect“. From the perspective of our spiritual nature these are the same thing; if a man does believeth on Him, which is for us the same as following Him and keeping His words, then that man will be perfect. Modern Christianity does not generally subscribe to these ideas; it seems that they would rather subscribe to the words of the Apostle Paul who tells us that  “For all have sinned , and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Now this is a true statement by the apostle but it is not intended to be one’s lifelong order of things; by following Him and keeping His words we are doing His works as well and this is the way to perfection. All is a matter of perspective and ours is, of course, that we are NOT this body but we are the Soul that gives this body Life and consciousness. To frame this in the words of our last post, while one lives in this world of illusion, glamour and deception he lives under the power of sayings such as that from Paul above but, when he begins to hear the voice of the Shepherd and recognize Him and that it is He whom he must follow, the world loses its hold on him and he can then break free from the wolves, the thieves and the robbers that are the powers of this world. We should see the possibilities of Life when we Truly follow the Shepherd and allow Him to be our Master and we must understand and keep in mind always that it is each man’s own Soul that plays the part of the Christ in his Life. The common Christian idea that Jesus comes to live inside the man who believes is a misplaced understanding of the reality of the Christ Within each man; this belief is based upon doctrine and upon the illusion and the glamour that these provide. We do not here mean to belittle anyone who may believe in this way as this is, for many millions, the way for them to reach a higher stage and to get closer to God. However, this being said, we must, as True aspirants to discipleship, understand the importance of and the reality of the Way, the Truth and the Life of which we are a part. We see the reality in the sayings of the Master away from the doctrines of the churches and we understand the parabolic way in which He teaches us and this is the Light in which we also must Live if we desire to be His disciples; we know the Lord’s requirements and we accept them and, while we may not be successful in each, we do strive to do ALL that He commanded that we should do. We call Him Lord and we remember His saying that: “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say ?” (Luke 6:46) which is a much allied saying to that one from James that serves as a place marker in our journey through these ideas of illusion, glamour and deception: “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22).

We should see in those sayings above the idea that the Master intended for us to see insofar as we can do as He did and can be as He IS and this is affirmed for us by the Apostle John who says that: “as he is , so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). Although we do post this saying often we have never gone more deeply into it from the perspective of the teachings of the Master which we will try to do here today. This saying is a part of a dissertation by John on the nature of God as Love and it is, in its own right, one of the most profound parts of the entire New Testament. Let’s look at the entirety of John’s thought:

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error. Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.  There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment . He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:1-21).

This is a very difficult set of sayings by the apostle; there is much here that feeds the doctrines of the churches and much here that is relatively ignored by them. Those parts that support doctrine and dogma are those that infer ‘belief’ in Jesus as the way of being of God, that speak about the antichrist, about the propitiation, the suggestions of spirits and false prophets. These are, each of them, rather undefinable in the world today and likely meant very different things to the people to whom they were addressed. What is ignored? simply the talk of Love and of the universality of it in the world and in the Life of one who wants to be of God. How do we get through the confusion of this all and remove John’s sayings out of the realm of illusionglamour and deception and into the realm of spiritual reality? Verse by verse:

  • Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world“.  We should see this first of all as a continuation of the previous thought that ends Chapter Three: “And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us” (1 John 3:24). This should put the whole of the ideas on Spirits from Chapter Four above in a different Light. The Spirit in Chapter Three can be understood as the Christ Within which Truly “abideth in us” as men in form when we “keepeth his commandments“. Carrying this forward is a caution that a man should not believe that every spirit is that Christ Within as we do have that duality of thoughts and feelings stemming from the personality, the lower self, and from the Christ Within, the Inner Man. This becomes then a purely personal undertaking; the personality believing the things of the world and the “false prophets” which preach the ways of the world as the ways of God or believing that which Truly comes form the Inner Man, the Christ Within.
  • Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God“. We should remember here the primary audience of these epistles, that they are general in scope and directed at those who are, like us, aspirants to discipleship. These words are not written to the everyday man in the street who knows nothing of the new dispensation of the Christ and they are written also as an encouragement to the aspirant that he should stay steady and resist the ways of the world which are contrary to the ways of God, the way of Love most particularly. Continuing then seeing this as the personal undertaking we started above we find John telling us that we will know that the Spirit is the Christ Within and not the spirit of the lower self if that Spirit agrees with the reality of the Christ as he is teaching it to them. Again we must remember to whom and when the apostle is writing in order to make sense of these sayings away from the limiting doctrine of the churches which interpret this t0 say that a man that has never heard of the Christ is not of God. We can see John’s point in saying this in his time and place where people had heard of the Master and know of His works and yet, like the Pharisees, deny that He is of God. This is the proper sense of this saying and is just as true of that person today as it was then.
  • “And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world”. This verse is a continuation of the ideas set forth above and it is telling the reader of those who, like the Pharisees and the rulers that put the Master to death and try to confound His teachings, are in the spirit of the antichrist  which word is  as it seems, they are against the Christ and His teachings. John goes further to tell the reader that the have likely heard about them and they are here in the world today. We should see in these first verses that there are outside forces as well as inside forces that play on the minds of men. John speaks here of both although the personal part, that duality between the Christ Within and the personality, is found within the outer sayings regarding others and stems from the opening of this subject in the previous chapter. Can we see this? On the personal side there is the struggle in duality where the Christ Within attempts to express through the personality but the will of the personality is too strong so that while the Inner is confessing the Christ, the lower personality is professing the world. On the outer side we have those men, the Pharisee and the ruler type, who deny the reality of the Christ and teach these ideas to men as the antichrist and John’s warning that the reader should be cautious and discerning regarding what it is that he believes. Can we see also how these ideas work together?
  • Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world“. This is a much used saying in parts of the church and at the same time one that is misunderstood and a part of the foundation for the idea that we mention above regarding that doctrine that Jesus comes to Live in one who believes; not one who “keepeth his commandments” as we read from Chapter Three, but one that believes. John here tells his reader that they are of God and, of course, he does not know that each and every one is as the idea is defined above. The apostle goes on to that much used part affirming the idea of the Christ Within and His superiority over the forces that are in the world. Can we see here that there is no condition placed upon the idea of “greater is he that is in you” and can we get a glimpse of the apostle’s wording which can be seen to tell ALL of this Christ Within, even those that he heretofore calls the antichrist. Can we see also that in the Spirit of Love, John is speaking to ALL. This is a hard thing to put into understandable terms  but if we read through all that is above we can see that John is warning the reader about who they should listen to and this for both the personal and impersonal as we paint above; this could be the Christ Within and the Christ-like teacher or it can be the lower carnal self and the antichrist, that teacher that teaches against the Christ. In the end, in this last verse we should be seeing that John is affirming that ALL are of God and that the Christ Within is within each and that this Power of Love is greater than the powers that are in and of the world.
  • They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us“. On the surface this next verse seems to contradict what we have said above but this is not necessarily True. We can see this as we say above, John is speaking to the reader, whoever he may be, and therefore what we say above is in our view true as we are all the same, Souls, pure and unblemished, which are incarnated into this world and enmeshed in the illusionglamour and deception of it. As such each of us IS the Christ Within and our differences are in our several ability to express this reality; this is the Truth of the prior saying which we maintain that John is speaking to any and ALL who read his words. In this next verse however we have an apparent dichotomy which is expressive of readers and of those who do not read or, in a more realistic understanding, those who are readers and followers of the Master (this is the criteria set in chapter three) against those who are not followers regardless of whether they are readers or not; the ultimate divinity of each having been  established in the prior verse. We should remember here that John is speaking to a specific audience and not to the world at large and there are many who are followers of the Master’s teachings on Love and righteousness who have never and likely will never know Him as the Christian does. The separation here is of those who live in the world and do the things of the world against those who are aspiring disciples and True disciples of the Lord. John’s saying here is that those who are living as expressions of the Christ Within or striving to do so will hear the words of those who are of God and do them and those who are captives of the illusionglamour and deception that is the world will not. This is a Truth that must be tied to the earlier verses that talk of discernment regarding what and who one may believe.

So far the message here is that we must discern what it is that we believe and follow and that this is a combination of those inner forces of the Good, the Beautiful and the True versus the forces of the world at large as well as those same inner forces versus what may be taught and preached as the word of God that in reality is not. The Master speaks on this saying “Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath” (Mark 4:24-25). Ponder on this.

We will continue with our thoughts on this in the next post.

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.

We leave our Quote of the Day for another day in hope that we can come to intimately understand the idea of the Real and True Self as it is incarnated into a body in this world. Even without touching on the idea of reincarnation as a valid concept of Life, we should at a minimum understand that the True Life is the Life of the Soul, the Christ Within.

Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be. As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change. (Bhagavad Gita 2:12-13) from Bhagavad Gita as it is.

Today’s Quote of the Day is from the ancient Hindu text of the Bhagavad Gita. This quote is the essence of reincarnation which has been modified by the religious beliefs of some Hindu sects to deviate from the essential truth. For us it is a guide to the proper understanding of Life itself and it is in so many ways intimately tied to the properly understood teachings of the Master that we try to expound in our post.

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