Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART CLVII
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•Α•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•Α
“There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:1-15).
We are moving through our lists of sayings by the Master that reflect the His reality of the Way to the Kingdom which, as we have frequently discussed, is here and now. It is our intention that we can understand the equality of ALL of the Ways that the Master tells us of in the simplicity of mathematics. It is our premise that the mathematical Truth that A is equal to B and B is equal C then A must be equal to C can be extended to the various ways of attaining the Kingdom. Taking this forward we can see that if being born again gives one the Kingdom and any of our other criteria in both lists below gives us the Kingdom then the other criteria and being born again must be equal. The verses that we covered so far are:
- “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God“.
- “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God“
- “And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said , Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20) AND “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).
- “But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:27) AND “Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew 16:28).
- “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21).
- “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10).
As we move on we should keep in mind that there are other KEYS and clues to this being accounted worthy of the Kingdom which are not framed in quite the same way as we see in our list of sayings; there are many in which the Kingdom is implied but not stated and we came across at least one of these in our discussion in the last post: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). This is as much as sign of the Truth of the Kingdom as it any of the other realities that we are discussing; being perfect, True righteousness, being born again and all of the others should be synonymous in our thinking as they are in the words of the Master and we can see that He uses them interchangeably to denote the same things in relation to God. As we closed yesterdays essay we included Love in this group sayings, showing that they are all equally True indicators of one’s being accounted worthy and while this may at first seem strange, it is not if seen in the reality of the Master’s other words and sayings. God IS and God IS Love therefore, Love IS; it is the Great Power of the Christ and in this view it is ALL that a man must be concerned with. If our expression in the world is LOVE as it is defined and understood by the Master then ALL of these other ideas or ideals are accomplished. In True LOVE there is righteousness, there is perfection and a man IS born again and born of the Spirit; and, to add our much discussed word of the last two posts, the man is ‘poor‘ from the perspective that we defined…..he cares nothing for the things of the world and is focused ONLY on the things of God.
While we can consider Love to be included in our list, the word is seldom used in this fashion and perhaps this is because it should be considered AS IS the Kingdom of God. Additionally we should see that one cannot be righteous without his expression being Love; neither can he be perfect nor born again. In this we can see our fixation on this ALL Powerful Potency of the Christ and of the Christ Within; properly addressed, Love is the Way par excellence of attaining the Kingdom and being accounted worthy. From this perspective then we can say that righteousness IS Love and being perfect IS Love and so on through our list of the True ideals of man’s intended expression in the world. We can match these ideas also with the Apostle Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit and with the Apostle James list of the things that ARE the Wisdom from above and in doing so we can likely see the reality of the apostles’ word lists and at the same time realize that they ARE ALL incorporated into the Power of Love and in their fullest meaning these lists are equivalent to each other. Taken together each of these lists is the revelation of Love and of perfectness and of righteousness and their expression in Life is the same as being born again.
- Paul tells us that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22-23). As a list these are our perfectness and they are ALL resolved into the Love that leads the list and, perhaps as a testimony to the reality of this word Love as God intends it, but which is not nearly understood by man in any age, the apostle puts it at the head of the list. From Paul’s other sayings on Love we do KNOW that he is fully understanding of its power and its importance in the Life of man. The apostle tells us elsewhere that “For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth” (Ephesians 5:9) and in this saying we should try to see the apostles intent as he tells us that this fruit is ALL of the entirety of these three ideals and, from the right perspective, behind them we can see Love.
- James tells us: “the wisdom that is from above is first pure , then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (James 3:17). In a recent post we drew the relationship between these words from James and those from Paul above and we can continue with this theme by saying that there is the same equation in this as we have been discussing regarding the Way to the Kingdom. Looking at the lists there are several common elements and others that are hidden by the translation and the use of language by the apostles themselves. In all, these lists combine to create a single uniform picture of the perfection and the righteousness of the True man of God, the man that is accounted worthy; a picture that can be easily discerned. Individually, within the words of Paul’s fruit of the Spirit there are contained the ideas of “without partiality, and without hypocrisy” and within James’ understanding of the Wisdom from above we can easily find meekness and temperance.
In the reality of both of these, the Wisdom from above and the fruit of the Spirit, we should understand that they come from the Soul, the Christ Within, and when the become the expression of the Life of the man in the world, the man IS born again, born of the Spirit, and accounted worthy of His Kingdom. And we should try to see here the True role of Love; if a man Loves as the Master instructs, if he Loves as has been established in the reality that God is Love, then the man’s natural expression in the world will be the combination of the words of Paul and James above for in these words there is the very meaning of Love. In these words from Paul and James is the essence of the Golden Rule and as a man can treat others and react to others according to these ideals one can see the reality of the Master’s words: “Herein is my Father glorified , that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples” (John 15:8); it is here that one is His disciple. And, it is in these things that a man can be KNOWN of others; as the Master tells us “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:20) is a universal reality and a one who does act in the way of the ideas that we have presented here would be KNOWN by ALL in the reality that he is: a disciple, accounted worthy of the Kingdom, born again, Truly righteous and born of the Spirit, and while they may not understand nor appreciate the man they will KNOW that he is not of the ordinary.
Our next saying is one of the more profound as regards the ability of the man in form to attain to the Kingdom of God and in this is the single reality of how; in this saying we find ALL of the others and at the same time we see this in ALL of the others and the basis of our theme of the equalness of these approaches to God. That in the Truth of each one we can find them ALL.
- “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). There are two dynamics at play in this saying by the Master; the first is that it is “he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” that can be accounted worthy and who can “enter into the kingdom of heaven“. There is a stark reality in these words that is somehow missed by those millions of people that believe that they are destined for the Kingdom when they leave this Earth and who, following the dictates of doctrine, do not follow in these rather simple words from the Christ. The second dynamic that we see here is that the Master likely understood the reality of this first dynamic that we state here; He recognized the ways of man and He says this first part “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven” as a caution and a warning. Remembering that Paul tells us of the Master that “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9) and understanding the words of the Apostle John who tells us that “But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man” (John 2:24-25) we can sense the reality of His caution to the generations of men that would follow. He acknowledges for us at the same time the effects of the forces of illusion and glamour although He never uses these words. We can see this in the reality of His caution in understanding that the Master KNOWS that men both then and now will succumb to the delusions that tell him that he has done enough by following in the doctrines that are supposedly designed to allow a man to accomplish but in reality only cover his approach. As we have said before, the reality of the difficulty of one’s journey to the Kingdom….a reality that is found in the second part of this saying and in all the allied sayings on the Kingdom, causes man to find the convenient way and to canonize that way in doctrine and this is what the Master railed about against the Jews. In Truth it is necessary that a man “doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven; there ARE NO shortcuts and no alternatives. To our theme, we should see this saying as the cornerstone of ALL sayings that lead a man to the Kingdom as in accomplishing this there is both the Way and the Truth that leads us to the Life of the Christ Within. While there may be questions as to how to be born again or how to be born of the Spirit, while there may be confusion regarding the meaning of True righteousness and while there may be uncertainty on how one can become ‘poor’ or the True meaning of perfect, there is no uncertainty, no confusion and no questions in the right understanding of this saying that one do the Will of God. From the perspective of the average man in the world, the man who is focused upon his Life and is pursuing the things and the pleasures of Life in form, the reality of living for the Kingdom is a difficult thing to understand and an even more difficult thing to do. This IS the reality of Life in form this is the reality of sin: focus upon the world and it is in this Light that the apostle tells us that “…all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23); this is the way of man in the world. These things are True of the ‘religious’ man as well as the man who does not KNOW any religion or chooses not to practice one; the criteria here is not religion KNOWN nor practiced, the criteria here is a man’s focus upon the things of the world; this is the True dividing line. As a man moves along in his spiritual Life, as he begins to be awakened to the reality of the Soul and the Christ Within; as the man begins to see the reality of Love, righteousness and Truth and to recognize the Good, the Beautiful and the True, he can at the same time see the Truth in the reality of this saying by the Master and it is here, at this point in the Life of a man, that he recognizes as well the duality of Life and the role of illusion and glamour. It is here that the Path begins and it is here that he will begin to strive, it is here that the man begins to move through the various stages of what we call aspiration. It is here as well that the deeper meanings of the Master’s words and the words of His apostles come to Life; it is here that we are who would be disciples of the Lord. It is in this stage of realization that we Live and work, it is here that we continually strive in ever escalating motion toward that High Calling of discipleship. And it is here that we realize the Truth of the price of discipleship, a price that seems far to high when we are far from the goal but as we come closer appears to us as portrayed by John who says: “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous” (1 John 5:3).
We are coming to the end of our list of sayings by the Master regarding being accounted worthy of His Kingdom and in our understanding that it is only in being accounted worthy that we can enter. We can here equate ALL of the ideas that we have discussed thus far. In the reality of Life in form, accomplishing any of these is accomplishing ALL and if we cannot see this Truth is only because we are not seeing clearly the meanings of the words used.
We will continue with our thoughts and our final point in the next post.
- “And said , Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted , and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).
- “But Jesus said , Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14).
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Aspect of God |
Potency |
Expressed as Fire |
Aspect of Man |
In Relation to the Christ |
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GOD, The Father |
Will or Power |
Electric Fire |
Spirit or Life |
Life |
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Son, The Christ |
Love and Wisdom |
Solar Fire |
Soul or Christ Within |
Truth |
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Holy Spirit |
Light or Activity |
Fire by Friction |
Life Within the Form |
Way |
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:
Today’s Quote of the day ties into our discussion above from the point of view that these virtues expressed ARE the reality of being born again and that in their expression comes the baptism, the immersion of the consciousness in the things of God.
Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful (Colossians 3:12-15).
In this Quote of the Day we find the Apostle Paul speaking to the followers and believers at Colosse and instructing them in how it is that they should act and be. These are the virtues which establish the ways of disciples of the Master. We note here that Paul tells us the importance of Love which is translated here as Charity but which we know from previous posts is from the same Greek word as Love. We should see also that it is the same Love that we defined as a combination of our English definitions of both words, Love and Charity:
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. Plus the ever important High Ideal as taught by the Christ: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).
Paul ends this with what comes naturally when we are in the Presence of the Master and this is to be in His Peace; as we seek and we strive toward Him we should notice the aura of Peace that overcomes us and in that Peace we find all of the virtues enumerated above.
