IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 296

• “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.  Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:19-21). These are the verses that are attributed to the doctrine but these are not the entire thought; Paul is speaking essentially of becoming a disciple of the Master, he says earlier: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new“. This is a powerful saying by the apostle and it shows the changes in a man when the Christ Within has the focus of the personality consciousness which heretofore was focused upon the world. Paul goes on to tell the Corinthians “And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:17-18). Now we should understand here that it is Paul, a disciple, who is speaking and he is speaking to them in Corinth that he believes are disciples or are aspirants, as we are, to discipleship; that is, he is speaking to those who have some degree of the focus upon the Christ Within, the Soul, albeit in this day this may have ALL been understood within the idea of devotion to the Lord, thus Paul speaks to the devotee. For us in this day and age we can and do see the idea of devotion to the Christ as devotion to the Christ Within and this is how this has ever been taught but not nearly understood and hence the oft times confusion in the words and ideas of the teachings themselves. What we may see as being in this reference, others still see as devotion to the Master or at times they do not see the point at all. So Paul is explaining that “all things are of God” which we see as a Truth and that God has “hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ” and it is in the right understanding of this idea that we find the Truth of this saying. Vincent tells us that reconcile is to be understood as: The verb means primarily to exchange; and hence to change the relation of hostile parties into a relation of peace; to reconcile. It is used of both mutual and one-sided enmity. In the former case, the context must show on which side is the active enmity⁴. Can we see here the idea of bringing God and man together through the Christ? The Master makes this point for us in two verses; speaking to the Jew at large He says: “Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world” (John 8:23) and speaking to His disciples He says: “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world” (John 15:19). In this is the need for reconciliation and in this we see the reconciling factor as the Christ and the Christ Within; the consciousness of man in form reconciled to the Spirit by the action of the Christ Within. Paul’s final point here it to say that to those who have experienced this reconciliation, which can be seen as the reality of being born again, are now in a position of bringing this message to others and this is the same message as the Christ; “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Getting back now to the verses at the head of this section we can see the carrying forward of this idea of being reconciled and carrying this message forward; the apostle then tells them that they are ambassadors, emissaries if you will, who should be showing by their fruits the ways of the Lord. A good understanding of ambassador is found in Webster’s 1828 edition which says: A minister of the highest rank employed by one prince or state, at the court of another, to manage the public concerns of his own prince or state, and representing the power and dignity of his sovereign. Embassadors are ordinary, when they reside permanently at a foreign court; or extraordinary, when they are sent on a special occasion¹. Paul goes on here to encourage the reader in saying that he and his party are reconciled, are ambassadors, and that they should all be so as well. Now this is the context of these sayings by the ambassador Paul and this should be the context of the final verse as well. What then can we say of this but that Christ was brought into this world of sin, was exposed to it in the flesh, and overcame it all and was not affected by it. In like manner Paul and his readers should be able to take that righteousness of God that they are when they are perfect as disciples of the Master and let that be their outward appearance as it was His. This word made as it appears in this saying that “he hath made him to be sin for us” is not such a straightforward word; Vincent has this to say that may enable us to understand: Made to be sin (amartian epoihsen). Compare a curse, Gal. iii. 13. Not a sin-offering, nor a sinner, but the representative of sin. On Him, representatively, fell the collective consequence of sin, in His enduring “the contradiction of sinners against Himself” (Heb. xii. 3), in His agony in the garden, and in His death on the cross. We should understand here that the only verse, out of this many that we have discussed in this context by Paul, that the supporters of the atonement doctrines use is this last one regarding sin thereby taking it out of the context that it was offered in. Two sayings by the Master will help us to close this segment: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33) and “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). We add one more to cover the whole of the idea of discipleship and of being an ambassador and “that we might be made the righteousness of God in him“; the Master tells us that: “The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40).

• “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (Romans 4:25). From all that we have discussed heretofore this one should be the of the easier verses to understand. The notion here is that the Master was “delivered over to death for our sins” and it is in this that many find the ‘evidence’ of the vicarious atonement of the Master’s death. This saying is taken from the New International Version (NIV) where the word is translated as sin; our King James Version (KJV) says it this way: “Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” which paints it just a bit differently as the normal word for sin is not here used by the apostle. Again we need to see the context that this verse appears in; here, in Chapter 4 of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, we find the apostle speaking about Faith and the topic just before our verse is the Faith of Abraham who, being of advanced years, was to have a son. Paul’s example here is that we should trust God as Abraham did and, as Abraham’s Faith is imputed to him for righteousness, let us all be in the same way believing that God, who raised up Jesus from the dead, will raise us up as well through the Christ Within. The apostle’s words here are: “Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead” (Romans 4:23-24). Can we see the proper context of this all; that if one believes in God, that is follows Him and keeps His words, that this same righteousness is imputed to him? can we see in the idea of imputed an accounting which we can look at as being accounted worthy? The whole of the argument for atonement here lies in the out of context reading of “Who was delivered for our offences” which is likely just to show the humanity of Jesus, that He was put to death for and by the transgressions of mankind; not that He bore them Himself but that they, in their effect, caused the Pharisees and the rulers to put Him to death. Perhaps the better translation here would be by our sins as the preposition is the same that is translated for and by. The final thought here is that the Master was raised again for our justification and here we should see the idea of being made righteous; to follow this through we might say that His resurrection gives us the Faith to KNOW the reality of the Christ and in this KNOWING we find the same imputation, or accounting, of righteousness.

We will continue with the balance of these sayings in the next post.

• “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past , through the forbearance of God” (Romans 3:25).
• “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:1-2).
• “…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”  (1 John 4:8-11).
• “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:  Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we , being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls” (1 Peter 2:21-25).

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 this again today and have moved yesterday’s comments to below the Quote of the Day. Do we see in this our Christian ideas of the Christ Within? Though we do not say that we do not know how to find Him we should recognize that one’s inability to sense His presence and to heed His call is essentially the same thing. The reality is also the same; when we do ‘find Him’ we are His disciples and we proceed to do these other things. We sacrifice desires and works for the purposes of Life as the Soul in form, the Christ Within, which is our own perspective on the One by Whom the Universe was formed and we should see too that the objective is perfection which is what the Master directs us toward saying “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48)

Thou carriest within thee a sublime Friend whom thou knowest not. For God dwells in the inner part of every man, but few know how to find Him. The man who sacrifices his desires and his works to the Beings from whom the principles of everything stem, and by whom the Universe was formed, through this sacrifice attains perfection. For one who finds his happiness and joy within himself, and also his wisdom within himself is one with God. And, mark well, the soul which has found God is freed from rebirth and death, from old age and pain, and drinks the water of Immortality.—Bhagavad-Gita

We repeat here again a saying that is from the Bhagavad Gita. Today we see the God Within us as the Christ Within and this is good in the Christian world and this is True based upon our understanding of the Christ as the manifestation of God. We should see that it matters not what we call this Inner Man as it is the same in ALL, it is the Soul.

It is difficult to tell just what verses of the Bhagavad Gita the above is from; whether it is a paraphrase or a combination. It is from the book “The Great Initiates” by Édouard Schuré which was originally published in French in 1889 and perhaps it is in the translation of the verses that they become hard to recognize. However, the sheer beauty of the presentation caught my attention and so I share it with you. The Path to the Kingdom is the same no matter what religion one professes.