Monthly Archives: January 2013

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART CLVI

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“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 have made it through this first list below of ways to the Kingdom although the last two in this first list are not quite ways but rather statements of fact regarding the Kingdom, statements that help to reinforce the ideas conveyed by the others. From this perspective we should be able to see that if a man is born again or if he is born of the Spirit or if he has given up ALL for the Kingdom and is ‘poor’ in or to the world, that he is accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God here and now; he does not need to wait for anything as he is among those “which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God” and this is because of the reality of the Master’s words saying that: “the kingdom of God is within you“. Looking again at the first part of our list, we should be able to piece this ALL together and see the relationship in ALL these sayings and we should keep in mind here the premise that we made two posts back regarding the logical mathematics in these realities, that they are ALL the same in essence and differ only in the way that they are presented. This is of course based upon the Truth that if A is equal to B and B is equal C then A must be equal to C and this would be True in any direction regarding this type equation. 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).

Before we move on we should briefly discuss the ideas that we need to be able to see in the “the poor” and in the Master’s framing this Matthew’s Gospel as “the poor in spirit“. First we should note again that the differences in the wording of phrases like these in the New Testament are to do with the interpretive personality of the writer; no matter who we are, until that point of perfection we are likely expressing the Truths through the mind and the emotional response of the personality in form that has controlled the conscious expression up to that point of a man’s awakening. From this point of awakening on there is that steady change in the expression of the man as his focus upon the things of God becomes more sure and this advances until the personality is ‘overcome‘ and the illusion and the glamour of the world, the vanity according to Paul, is eradicated and the man stands FREE. He IS “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). Until this point the thoughts and the feelings of the man are colored by the personality albeit for the Apostles in their writing this is limited to the way of expression and NOT the meaning or intent; they each perceive the Master’s words a bit differently and they report based on their perception. We can most readily see this in the stark differences in the words of the Apostle John and the writers of the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke; the latter are in various modes of statement of fact while John’s Gospel is replete with the more emotional and devotional approach.

As we related the biblical idea of poor in the last post, we failed to take into account the actual wording of these phrases and the meaning of the words both in Greek and English. In looking deeper at this we should recall the reality of the Master’s teachings and the preconceived ideas of man on just what a parable is; Jesus taught in parables and not just in allegorical stories but in many sayings that are intended to hide the reality of the message from those who were not ‘worthy‘ to understand it. In this we should understand that in His words to His disciples that “Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables” (Mark 4:11) should tell us of this hiding of the mysteries. The Master also tells us His disciples that “These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh , when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father” (John 16:25) which should show us that there are levels of mystery to be revealed and to be realized. So there is no confusion as keeping with our understanding above regarding the differences in the writing styles and perceptions of the apostles, let us look at these two words, proverb and parable, according to the lexicon.

• Of parable, a word that John never uses we find these ideas: a comparing, comparison of one thing with another, likeness, similitude; an example by which a doctrine or precept is illustrated; a proverb ².
  
• Of proverb, a word that is not found in the synoptic gospels, except in a different context once in Luke’s gospel, we find these ideas: speech or discourse in which a thing is illustrated by the use of similes and comparisons; an allegory; extended and elaborate metaphor ².

Our point here is that these are basically the same thing although we should see that there are levels of mystery from the way that they are used. Had John used the word parable in his writing to the same meaning that he uses proverb this would likely further confuse the issue of its use in the synoptic gospels. We should try to understand that it is not the intention of scripture to confuse but only to hide and any confusion is most likely in the minds of men and the problems of language and translation as there are seldom sufficient words to use in relation to divine things.

Our greater point here is that it not only the sayings that we consider to be parables that are parabolic. We use this word much as we believe that the Master intended which is to hide the truth behind words in such a way that one with the right degree of understanding can find the hidden meaning. Hence our words “the poor” and the saying “the poor in spirit“; from our general understanding of the Master’s teaching on the Kingdom, there is little or no likelihood that He is saying that one that is poor as the word is defined which is, as we see in the lexicon,: reduced to beggary, begging, asking alms; destitute of wealth, influence, position, honour ². Based solely upon our understanding of the criteria for attaining the Kingdom as we see them on this page, we can discount this idea as the intent of His words. Similarly with the idea of “the poor in spirit“; who could these be? There are many different understandings of these words and we must apply to them all the same idea that we apply to the words “the poor“; there is under the normal view no special advantage given against the criteria for entering the Kingdom. Being “the poor in spirit” does not make one born again any more that being “the poor” and hence our understanding that there must be some an additional quality that fits into our equation and makes it equal to being born again. It is apparent from the variety of explanations of these verses that there is little understanding of the Master’s True intent and based upon our understanding here as well as the reality of His hiding Truths behind words, we believe that our conclusion is valid and usable and that it reflects the reality of the Master’s intent that ALL become disciples.

Moving on to the next point:

• “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10). Here we have a similar dynamic to the ideas above regarding “the poor“, that this is a misunderstood pronouncement from the Master. Commentators and interpreters generally key on the idea of persecuted and there is much ado about the persecution of Christians in some parts of the Church. But is this really what the Master intends for us to take from these words? The Apostle Paul, quoting Psalms, tells us that: “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10) and while we may be taking this out of context, there is a reality in these words especially when we relate righteousness in its proper intent which is righteousness from the perspective of God as in the Master’s telling us to “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). So then the ordinary man that thinks he is righteous is not the man that these ideas are cast at, and the degree and type persecution that he may perceive he is under is of no matter as regards the saying at hand. This saying is not addressing the persecuted but rather the righteous and we can understand this when we understand the idea of the righteousness of God. To be “persecuted for righteousness’ sake” requires first and foremost that one be Truly righteous as God is righteous. There should be a deeper understanding of this word than is apparent in society today which characterizes righteous as: adjective 1.characterized by uprightness or morality: a righteous observance of the law. 2.morally right or justifiable: righteous indignation. 3.acting in an upright, moral way; virtuous: a righteous and godly person. 4.Slang. absolutely genuine or wonderful: some righteous playing by a jazz great. noun 5.the righteous, ( used with a plural verb  ) righteous persons collectively ⁷. Can we see anything here that can be said of God seeing that Jesus addressed the Father saying “O righteous Father”  (John 17:25) and do we think that any of these secular defining terms is equivalent to being born again? To make our point clearer let us use our equation here as well as in the context that we are currently using it. We read that God is Love and we read that God is perfect and here above we read of the righteousness of God and that Jesus addresses Him as “O righteous Father“. In this we can say that God is righteous and so our equation would be that if righteousness IS God , Love IS God and perfectness IS God, then we can deduce that perfectness and righteousness and Love are equivalent and in this we should be able to look past the common understanding of the word righteousness. To this we can add the premise that we are working on and say that righteousness, True righteousness is equal to being born again, being born of the Spirit, and of being poor in our understanding of the intent of the Master’s use of this idea.
• “For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). This next saying is concerned with righteousness as well and its relationship in in the degree of that righteousness according to the common understanding. However, when we look at this in relationship to the previous point, we should see that there is only ONE degree of righteousness that will get a man to the Kingdom and that degree DOES “exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees“. For a better understanding of this word righteousness let us look to the lexicon which tells us: righteous, observing divine laws; in a wide sense, upright, righteous, virtuous, keeping the commands of God; of those who seem to themselves to be righteous, who pride themselves to be righteous, who pride themselves in their virtues, whether real or imagined ;innocent, faultless, guiltless; used of him whose way of thinking, feeling, and acting is wholly conformed to the will of God, and who therefore needs no rectification in the heart or life ². The difference between the secular understanding above and this from the Greek lexicon should allow us to see the wide disparity in which this concept can be used. It is interesting to note that many consider themselves as righteous who are not keeping His words which is the True essence of the word in the Master’s use and this is noted in the lexicon’s definition of the word. This is another place where the word in conveniently interpreted so as to allow a man to believe the illusion that he has created regarding his relationship to God. Here, in practical use, this word is considered by many in the church to be more aligned with the secular meaning that with the spiritual as we are presenting it and as it is reflected upon in the lexicon and here we should see this word righteousness as being the same as being born again and we should understand that to be in True righteousness IS to be born again and being born again is impossible without True righteousness as one’s mode of living.

We will continue with our thoughts and our final points in the next post.

• “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).
• “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).

Aspect of God	Potency	Expressed as Fire	Aspect of Man	In Relation to the Christ
GOD, The Father	Will or Power	Electric Fire	Spirit or Life	Life
Son, The Christ	Love and Wisdom	Solar Fire	Soul or Christ Within	Truth
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.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• ¹ Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913
• ² from New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ⁷ Dictionary.com Unabridged based on Random House Dictionary – 2011