IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 299

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part LXXXIII

“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).

Today is the three hundredth consecutive day that we have published a post on this blog. This includes our brief introduction and two hundred ninety nine essays on our True theme, In the Words of Jesus. At the outset we stated our bewilderment at the state of religion in America and around the world, how that the doctrines and the dogmas had overcome the often clearly stated words of the Christ, our accepted Master and Lord. We stated too our bemusement at the multiplicity of doctrines as they are practiced by the multitude of different denominations of the ONE CHURCH of the Christ. And, over the last several weeks we have found in our essays and our thinking that the basis of these issues lies in the prevalence of and the effect of the illusion, glamour and deception that is in the world today and which sorely effects most everyone regardless of who or what they may profess to be. The Apostle Paul gives us this as an explanation to our dilemma and we should not see this only in the strictness and the direction that we may understand from doctrine. Speaking of the “gospel of Christ” which should be understood as the Truth of His message and not as the book we have come to know, Paul tells us:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator , who is blessed for ever. Amen” (Romans 1:16-25).

It is interesting to note that part of this saying from the apostle is today’s Verse of the Day from BibleGateway.com and another part is made applicable by some to today’s celebration of Earth Day. Our use here is related to neither as our objective is to show the working out of illusion, glamour and deception in Paul’s words to the Romans. The Earth Day part of this we will discuss in the Quote of the Day section and the Verse of the Day as a part of our own discussion. Our verses above are rather straightforward and but their meaning is missed by many as people generally find in scripture that which will benefit their cause, their philosophy and their doctrine. Many times with long and complex sections of scripture, we tend to break them down and illuminate the individual verses and thereby lose sight of the meaning of the whole or, yet worse, we tend to ascribe the meaning of the whole to another thought further along in the writing. This is the case with these sayings by Paul to the Romans; our segment above is specific and separate from the next but it is seen by some as merely a lead into Paul’s derision of a gay or homosexual lifestyle. Later verses do offer Paul’s understanding on these things but these above, while they may lead into the next theme, are not intended to go there only, nor directly. While some verses have individual merit an can stand alone, this segment should not be seen as a series of individual verses. We will try now to extract the overriding message that Paul is offering to us:

• Paul begins first of all with a general statement regarding the Gospel. Vincent tells us that “of Christ” should be omitted as it as it is in other versions and in this the idea of gospel should be seen in the same Light as it is offered in the gospels themselves, as the good news that the Kingdom of God is at hand and one only need to repent to gain it. Paul is telling them of his own feelings on the matter, that he is not ashamed and gives them then a sense of his reality that “it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth“. Here we have a different dynamic than is preached in the gospels which say to follow the Master and keep His words by way of believing in or on the Him. Here the apostle is telling us that the POWER is in the Truth of the Kingdom and that this POWER is available to all who believe; that when a man KNOWS the Truth and the reality of the Kingdom of God that he then has also the POWER of God in his Life. We should remember here that Paul is speaking to “all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints” (Romans 1:7) and not to a man that must be convinced of these things. Paul goes on to tell them that the righteousness of God is revealed through the gospel, through this good news of the Kingdom of God. The gospels tell us that this is what the Master taught saying that: “And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom” (Matthew 9:35) which is otherwise said as “The time is fulfilled , and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). The gospel is not doctrine nor dogma nor the finer points and parables of the Master’s Life, death or resurrection which things should serve only to emphasize the Truth and the reality of the Master’s teaching on the Kingdom….that it is at hand. For us who believe that we can see a bit deeper into His teaching, we can take away from His words the single point, a point that is not generally accepted by many in the church and which, at the same time, is one point that holds the key to the Truth and the reality that this good news is for us here and now. He never tells us that we have to wait but He tells us quite the opposite saying that “behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21)
• Vincent tells us that the entirety of this Epistle to the Romans has as its subject Righteousness is by faith. The subject is not stated formally nor independently, but as a proof that the Gospel is a power, etc.⁴ and hence the apostles ideas here. We can see Paul’s idea on Faith more clearly here than in other places and indeed it is here that he begins at least in the order of his epistles in the canon. He tells us that it is in one’s Faith, his believing and his KNOWING, that the righteousness of God is revealed by the good news of the Kingdom which for us is here and now. Can we see how this would work out? that by the POWER of God is in the gospel, in the good news of the Kingdom, for all who have Faith, all who believe and KNOW or, as we might more clearly say it, all who hear the call of God, of the Christ Within, and heed that call. The idea of Faith here is in the sense of believing which is for us the sense of KNOWING and without this sense Faith all but dwindles down to hope. Continuing here we should see that Paul’s message is simply that the righteous live by Faith and that righteousness, at its source, is revealed in Faith by the good news of the Kingdom which we should see as we have painted it above, in hearing and heeding the call of the Christ to righteousness, to the Kingdom and to discipleship.
• The next several verses reflect for us the reason why this is a part of our post today. We see things as they are; we hear the good news, we KNOW that in it is the POWER of God and we KNOW that through it we live in righteousness and in His Presence. However, there are many who do not hear the Truth and the reality but who hear only the echo of the world of men; looking out for themselves and whatsoever they consider their own. In this world they create their own sense of righteousness which in Paul’s words is to say  that they “hold the truth in unrighteousness“. Can we see Paul’s idea here that the Truth can be made to be a lie by man to whom the Truth is a hindrance to his way of Life? Can we see that herein lies the fundamentals of illusion, glamour and deception. The apostle goes on to tell us that this deluded man has no real excuse because what can be known is manifest in man, all men, as the Soul, the Christ Within, and that this is ever being revealed to him by everything that he sees and we would add here by his very conscience.
• Paul continues to say that all men know God, those that do hear and heed and those that hear only and continue along on their way believing that they are wise and that they KNOW the Truth. In their imaginations and in the darkness of their foolish hearts they are deceived by into thinking that they are wise when in Truth they are fools, seeing only the things that are visible, or to them viable, and not the things that are the cause and the Life. They lose sight of the Christ Within and profess that their phenomenal appearance is their Life and in such belief they are imprisoned by their own lusts and the call of their own flesh and personalities. They change “the truth of God into a lie“, such Truth being what we know and understand of Life and Love and discipleship and the Kingdom as taught by the Master. Do we see here the reality of the last line of serving the creature and as well the creation as this word means both? Do we see that by degree ALL men are in some way guilty of this if we can use that word in this context. Some men are fully deluded, others only in part and until one reaches that High Point of discipleship, no man can really escape. Can we see that in Paul’s words is the Truth that anything that is short of the fullness of the righteousness of God leaves the man in the clutches of the illusion, glamour and deception that plague the world yet today.

We spent more time here than planned but this is an important enough subject to allow for the deviation from our stated course. Paul’s words are in many ways largely misunderstood when it comes to Faith and righteousness and much doctrine is built upon misconceptions of his intent. We should see no doctrine in the phrases above just a straightforward portrayal of how things are and how the man that has not Truly  ‘found’ God will act. We continue now with our next saying regarding the idea of propitiation and atonement; this one from the First Epistle of John:

• “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). Here we find again the idea of propitiation that we covered from Vincent’s text in the last post. We stated our conclusion on this idea as: Here in propitiation we find reconciliation and in reconciliation we find repentance and in repentance we find the remission of sins. However, we must see too that for the propitiation to have the effect of reconciling a man to God that there need be that repentance, that change, and it is in this that there can be that remission or that release from the wiles of the world. John’s message here is that we should not sin and again we should see sin in the broader sense and as it is presented in the words of Paul above. We should see sin as a departure from the righteousness of God, a departure from seeing ourselves as the Christ Within whereby we then see ourselves as a part of the world of men. John reminds us that we have an advocate and he uses the same word here as he uses to describe the Holy Spirit, the comforter which we see as the the working out of the Power of the Christ Within in form and in the world. The message here is also simple and straightforward and there is no air of atonement within it at all. It is that we have reconciliation to God, we have, through the Christ and the Christ Within, the flow of propitiating Power that brings us back to our proper focus. In this idea we should see the trials and ordeals of the Apostle Peter who is shown to us as a disciple of the Lord who several times falls back into the ways of the world and who each time, by the words of the Master or the Power of his own Christ Within, catches himself and comes back to his proper focus on the Lord and on His ways. John tells them and us also that it is not only to those to whom the epistle is written that this works but to the whole world with but one criteria….” if we keep his commandments“.
• “…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). This is a saying that we have covered in some detail and one which started us off in this effort to properly understand atonement and propitiation. The whole of this saying is on Love and not on the ancillary ideas that men put on it. Christ is our reconciliation to God. It is in the fact that “God is love” that we see that “God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him” and we should understand that to “live through him” is not intended to infer some mystical relationship but rather it is to infer that we live through His words, that we keep His words. Living through His words and His precepts sets one apart from the world of men and in this should be seen a sense of repentance which brings a man to this place in his Life. Can we see the reality behind the words? Can we see that if one lives “through him” that he is necessarily repentant and that in this is the “propitiation for our sins“, our reconciliation to God. Can we see also the True intent of this saying, that at its beginning and its end we find Love.

We will continue with the last of our verses on atonement and propitiation in the next post.

• “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).

Note on the Quote of the Day

• ⁴    Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd  edition, 1888