IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 461

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART LIII

ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•Α

GoodWill IS Love in Action

ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•Α

In the last post we were able to complete our remarks on the verses that had been at the head of our essays for many days and we found an appropriate way to complete this as we were able to work it into our discussion on Truth as that element of Life that can both clarify and confuse. From a spiritual perspective there is but ONE Truth and that is God and the Christ Aspect of God is the purveyor of Truth in manifestation. This we read from the Apostle John’s Gospel in two places saying:

• “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). Here we understand that John is speaking of the Logos, the Christ, as He is incarnated here on Earth as the Man Jesus. We should see that the Master is here said to be “full of grace and truth” because this is His expression on Earth and His expression IS the Love and the Power of the Soul, the Christ Within, and this the Master is able to fully express as we are told by the Apostle Paul who says that “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). Here we are reminded of our theme a few posts back where we are using this same verse to make a similar point and to lead us to the understanding that this is the reality of each of us as well; that we are “full of grace and truth” as well when we are able to express the Love and the Power of the Soul which we can do, like most ALL things spiritual, by degree. In these words then we get our point that God is Truth because we KNOW that the Christ IS Truth and that the Christ and the Father ARE ONE as the Master tells us saying: “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30) and we also see that it is from the God Within, with the Christ Within be seen in the SAME Light, that this Truth can flow through Life in form. We add here our understanding of ‘as above, so below‘ to illustrate the sameness of God and Christ and we extend it here as we often do to include each of us through John’s telling us that: “because as he is , so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). The final point here is that for us as men in form, the source of spiritual Truth is the same, it is from the Soul, the Christ Within, and it IS what the Apostle James tells us is “the wisdom that is from above” (James 3:17).
• “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). Here we have a complex saying by the Master; from the perspective of His being Truth, we have His words and we can relate these to the ONE God in the same way as we see the relationships in the point above. Here we also have another reality, one that is sorely misunderstood in the doctrines of the churches, when we look at this verse from the perspective of the True man, the Soul, the Christ Within. We should try to see in these words that based upon the right understanding of the relationship that we, as men, share with Christ and the relationship of Christ with God, that it IS the Christ Within, the Soul, that is:
  • The Way of Liberation, which is as Paul tells us in the verse that we studied for many days from his Epistle to the Romans saying that: “…the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” and this is through the realization of the Christ Within and His expression through one’s Life in form.
  • The Truth, that it IS found in the Love and the Power that is the Soul, the Christ Within. We KNOW that “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and therefore the Christ is Love as well and, based on our correspondences, on our understanding of ‘as above, so below‘, as well as the saying of John above that “as he is , so are we in this world“, we are, as the True man, the Soul, Love as well.
  • The Life, which is the reality of ALL, God IS and His very Being IS Life; there is no further defining possible of God from our perspective of men in form. So then, according to what we have said above, God IS therefore the Christ IS and therefore we ARE as well and this from the perspective of the True man, the Soul, the Christ Within.

The essential understanding here then is twofold, first that the Master, the Christ Jesus, IS Truth and this He tells us plainly and we should see this as His expression here on this Earth as the body of Jesus is no more the Master than our bodies are us. His being Truth is in the Love and Power of the Christ Within the Master as it is Within us as men in the world as well, with the difference being that He can express the fullness of this Love and Power as we read in the words of Paul above. The Christ Within then is also the Way, the Way to the Kingdom which is within and the Way to the “the glorious liberty of the children of God“. Finally, the Christ Within is the True Life of the man as we KNOW that we are not this form and personality but rather the Life and the consciousness within it. The Master is Truly the Way, the Truth and the Life in the reality of the Christ and He points the way to us through the reality of the Christ Within which we find by believing in and believing on Him which is to keep His words and to follow him. In so doing, we focus upon the Christ Within which is the Way, which is the Truth, and which is the Life; this IS our objective and this IS our goal.

It may seem like we went a long way to point out the reality that the Truth IS God but along the way we have further established that the Truth IS us as well when we view Life from the perspective of the True man, the Soul. And in this we compliment our discussion from the last essay which had for a purpose to show that it is from the Soul, from the Christ Within, that Truth proceeds and it is in proportion to our degree of focus upon the things of God and the Christ Within, that we, as men in form, can find Truth which we KNOW can be measured by the words of James regarding the Wisdom from above which is synonymous with Truth.

Seeing as we have again discussed the correspondences between man and God we again post our chart of the Constitution of Man and the Aspects of God and again repeat the reality that we recently discussed insofar as seeing the Master, the Christ Jesus, in the right hand column and not the left and that in doing so we have better opportunity to understand the very nature of Life’s relationships.

We begin here now to discuss our sayings that we have posted for several days with the intent of discussing them as regards the words translated as evil in the Gospels so as to further our view that this word is not limited to the malicious, the bad or the vile persons or things that a person can do but that. while the idea of evil may include these things, the reality is that evil IS ALL that takes our attention away from the Truth of Life, the Soul, and is used in regard to those whose focus is upon the things of the world and not the things of God. A few posts back we explored the meanings of the various Greek words that are translated as evil and this can be reviewed in In the Words of Jesus part 458. It is our contention and our view that man’s interpretation of this word as regards the ideas of good and evil, are responsible for much of the confusion that exists for most persons in  the understanding of scripture and this whether the confusion is realized or not. To explain this we should try to see that when we believe that the evil are as the common understanding of the word, then we see ourselves as good and we account ourselves worthy of the Master and His Kingdom; this is of course far from True as we KNOW by the Master’s words what requirements there are for both. When however we can understand that Good is limited to God as the Master tells us we can then see that it is limited to the Christ Within as we point out in the beginning of our essay. We can then realize that if the counter to Good is evil and if Good is of God, then evil IS of the world and in this we should see the opposite poles of God and mammon. Let us expand upon these idea using the sayings of the Master.

• “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and  on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). We should begin here by repeating our foundation for the meaning of Good in the Gospels which we take from the saying of the Master in His response to the rich young man’s calling Him Good Master; He says: “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God” (Matthew 19:17) and this is repeated in ever so slightly different terms in all three synoptic gospels. If we believe the words of the Master then this saying is the benchmark for our understanding of Good as regards persons and here even the Master, who is the Expression of the Fullness of God, does not claim for Himself this designation. How can we explain this? It is explainable from the perspective that the man in form, including Jesus, is in this world and that there can be no Good in the world or, it is explained in realizing that the expression of God in the world IS God and therefore IS Good and in this we can see that this expression of the Christ Within, the Soul, through the form Life and consciousness or personality is the expression of God in the world for ALL; for the Christ and for the man who can so express this and again we must understand that this is by degree. The apostles and the disciples of the Christ are all to some degree expressing this Christ Within and therefore are expressing the Love and the Power that IS God and can then be considered Good. Remember here that the Master teaches us by parable. So then having established our benchmark for Good we go to our saying which is that “he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and  on the good” and, if the Good are the apostles and the disciples, which is a catchall word for any that can express this divinity, then the evil must necessarily be ALL others. Can we see this in the depth that we believe it is intended to express? What then of the just? By definition these are the righteous and those who keep His words so again, we see the apostles and disciples of the Lord in the True understanding of the word. So then we can say that the sun rises upon those who are focused upon the things of the world and on those who are focused on the things of God equally because they are both in the world and are both children of God. Remembering the True objectives of ALL spiritual pursuits, that we “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33), our perspective here should make much more sense than the common understanding even to us in the world.
• “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (Matthew 7:11). Here we should see similar ideas as those we cover above; the Master is speaking here to both His disciples and the crowds and these words come early in His ministry. Seeing that he is not speaking to the Pharisees or any particular group that one would today consider as evil in the common interpretation of the word, we must either believe that ALL men are evil or that the understanding of evil is as we are portraying it in our essays, as being worldly and focused upon the things of the world. This is the way of most ALL men in that day, especially in the early days of the Master’s ministry, as this is likely ALL they KNOW and even those assumed spiritual men of the Jews looked for their rewards in the things of the world. Can we see the Master here saying that ‘ALL of you listening are evil yet you KNOW how to give good gifts’ and that in this saying is the reality that He is saying that ‘ALL of you listening are focused upon the things of the world and know how to give what you think is good to your children; how much more will the Father, who IS Truly Good,  give good things to you’. Here we must understand that while the doctrines teach that these good things are of the world and given by God, that the reality is that God does not give things of the world in exchange for anything that man can do, that this is an Old Testament philosophy and finds no place in the Master’s teachings. This is confirmed for us in the version of our saying from the Gospel of Luke where we read: “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13). Perhaps in Matthew’s writing he believed that we would just assume this giving of the things of the Kingdom is True based upon the nature of the Master’s overall teachings on the Kingdom of God.

• “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders” (Mark 7:21).
• “Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake” (Luke 6:22).
• “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh” (Luke 6:45).
• “And in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind he gave sight” (Luke 7:21).
• “And when the people were gathered thick together , he began to say , This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet” (Luke 11:29).
• “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved” (John 3:19-20).
• “And shall come forth ; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:29).
• “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil” (John 17:15).
• “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen” (Matthew 6:13).

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.:

So that we do not forget that the reality of this ALL is still LOVE which is our Truth regardless of whatever other realizations may come to us in Life, we present here again the Apostle Paul’s words followed by our own understanding of this reality:

….but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:8-10).

The first of all the commandments is, Hear , O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this , Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these

(Mark 12:29-31)

We should remember always to link to this Greatest Commandment that other saying of the Master that gives to us the practical understanding of how to love one’s self plus the practical instruction on how it is that we CAN Love our neighbour; He tells us:

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them

(Matthew 7:12)

Unlike so much of the Master’s sayings that come to us in the form of parables and for which we can only surmise that we have the spiritual presence to understand, these sayings are very straightforward and they are the key to many of the promises of spiritual life; they are the very key to the Kingdom of God. To these sayings we add our adopted definition of the Greek word agape (agapao) which is translated into the English words Love and Charity and which is:

‘In a general sense love is benevolence, good will; that disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good. In a theological sense, it includes supreme love to God, and universal good will to men’