Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART CCXVI
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
“God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things…….Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device” (Acts 17:24-25, 29).
“And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them;and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (2 Corinthians 6:16).
We ended yesterday with these two sayings from the Apostle Paul and our comments on them; while it may seem that these are unrelated to our Easter Week discussion, we can find in them some understanding of the Master’s act of ‘cleansing the Temple’. We must KNOW that these comments by Paul are a part of the Master’s thinking and from these and other saying of the apostles we should see that the stone edifice IS NOT the True Temple of the Lord and that this concept can reach to any and ALL buildings that man may perceive as being God’s house. The apostle tells us rather clearly that the “ Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands” and then again he says, speaking to the disciples at Corinth, “ye are the temple of the living God” and in these saying we should get some better idea of the Master’s thoughts as He enters the Temple, that He must KNOW that God is not in this building save His Presence in the Life of the men in the Temple. And He says as much as he repeats the words of the Prophet Isaiah saying “My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer?” (Mark 11:17) which designates the purpose of the building as a place of prayer. This is of course the better understanding of the purpose and the use of the temple and the church according to scripture and in this we should see the reality of the True house of the Lord. Paul tells us many things that are saying this same thing albeit most always in different words and from different perspectives and perhaps 2 Corinthians is the apostle’s forum for this discussion as He says here as well that “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:6-7). We should take from this two things: first is the reality that the God within each of us is that same ONE God “who commanded the light to shine out of darkness” and that from the perspective of the man in form He “hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God” and we should see Paul’s words as speaking to those who have this realization….aspirants and disciples of the Lord. We should note then that the apostle then calls this treasure and so it is as from the perspective of the man in the world this Light that Is the Soul is that “treasure in heaven” of which the Master tells us to seek. this IS the God and the Christ Within. In this realization we KNOW the reality of Life and that it IS the “excellency of the power may be of God” that the disciple expresses and no longer the carnal nature.
What this has to do with the Temple is clearly to show us that the man in the world IS the “temple of the living God” and this IS the understanding that the Master’s teaching in parable and proverb as well as the writings of the apostles IS intended to reveal. And here then is the lesson for the Jews, that they perceive that the temple is the building that they call the House of God and that while the reality may be that it IS “the house of prayer“, it is in the perception that the people have that is of moment. They believe it is the House of God and yet they allow the transacting of business for profit and convenience to take place….purely worldly things in the perceived sanctuary of God. Now this is not to take away from the Old Testament stories of Exodus and the building of the Temple in the wilderness nor the Presence of Jehovah with the Jews in those days and while we cannot understand the what and the how of much of the Old Testament depictions of God, we can say here that it is the same superstitions that men lived with in those days that contributes to the nature of this depiction as the way to explain to the newer generations the miracle of the Jew’s attained freedom from the darkness of the land of Egypt.
And there is the deeper message for those in that day that have this better conception of the “treasure in earthen vessels” and then here for us as well. Do we allow the Temple of the Lord to become “a den of thieves” (Matthew 21:13) as the Jews did in what they perceived to be the House of God? Can we allow our own Christ Within to ‘cleanse the Temple’, the True temple of the Lord which is our body and it attendant personality? and is this not the same message that we see throughout the gospels and the words of the apostles albeit seen in yet a different light?
There is another function to be considered insofar as the Master’s ‘cleansing of the Temple’ and that is that it represents the start, the beginning of the end as the Master intentionally gains the ire of the Pharisees and the Jewish rulers at Jerusalem. Heretofore Jesus’ actions had been limited to words that the Pharisees and the scribes took as insults and as antagonistic to their sense of authority plus the Master’s Good Works in healing and teaching the masses. While in the synoptic gospels one can get the idea that the Pharisees and the other rulers of the Jews did not KNOW Jesus except by reputation or if they had been somewhere where He was and as there is no report of His going to Jerusalem before what we call Easter Week, the Gospel of John paints a different picture that says that the Master was at the Temple several times. As we discussed, John’s Gospel reports that the Master ‘cleansed the Temple’ early in His ministry (Chapter 2, reported in our chronology as the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry 10); He was there again for the healing at the pool at Bethesda (Chapter 5, reported as the ministry of Christ chiefly outside Galilee 10). The next time that Jesus is at the Temple according to John is when He went alone to the feast and taught there (Chapter 7, reported in the same time frame as the previous and as the Feast of Tabernacles 10) and He continues there teaching and speaking with the Pharisees and the Jews to the point where “Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself , and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by” (John 8:59) and this is seen in our chronology as the continuation of the Master’s visit to the Temple at the feast 10. We find the Master at Jerusalem and at the Temple again before His triumphant return as He goes for the Feast of the Dedication where we read that “Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch” (John 10:23) and this chronologically is in same ministry of Christ chiefly outside Galilee 10, and finally we have His triumphant return which we have been discussing and here, John DOES NOT reference the Master’s going to and ‘cleansing the Temple’. As we said previously, we do not KNOW why there is this disparity in the gospels and while we KNOW that John’s way of writing is vastly different than the others, this cannot explain what we see. However, as we have said, there is yet our reality that each of these writers writes about those things and those sayings that they first recollect and second deem of importance insofar as their writing. In this we should also understand that the gospels represent a very small portion of the total time of Jesus ministry and in this understanding there are many things and sayings that ARE NOT reported or, as we see here, are reported only by those to whom they seem most important.
Between the overall tenor of the synoptic gospels regarding the relationship of the Master with the Pharisees, the scribes and other rulers of the Jews outside of Jerusalem and John’s depiction of the relationship between Jesus and those rulers at Jerusalem, we should have the idea that they, the Pharisees and others, had no use for the Master as He is seen as a disruption to what they believe and their traditional ways. We should easily see that they did not believe that He is the Messiah despite the works and the miracles and the teachings about God and the Kingdom. Despite the fact that He is clearly doing the work of the Lord, the Jewish rulers are blinded by the illusion and the glamour, by their own sense of place and their own self-righteousness; by their doctrines and traditions they have blinded themselves and become more blinded as the days move on. The Master’s cleansing of the Temple can be seen as the His attempt at the final straw, that act that puts all things leading to the crucifixion in motion and this is as we read in Mark’s Gospel after the ‘cleansing of the Temple’: “And the scribes and chief priests heard it, and sought how they might destroy him: for they feared him, because all the people was astonished at his doctrine” (Mark 11:18). Can we see how the Master fed their anger and can we see His intent?
So then from our perspective we have the Master telling His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and endure the suffering of crucifixion and we can see in His tenor that He is willingly discharging His duty as the Highest Disciple of the Father and there is purpose in this that is beyond our ken and which is at the same time much more than the church appreciates. Somehow there are doctrines that have created a ‘legal’ framework that they say governs this all as they believe that Christ had to die to take away our sins. In our view and understanding there is no Truth to this; by His very Life here on the Earth the Master shows us the way to remove our sin, our focus upon the world and the self, and this way IS to keep His words. The belief that God required a blood sacrifice of His Son has no True basis in fact nor in scripture and we must understand that we are speaking about God as the ALL Powerful and ALL Wonderful Supreme Being and His Son who IS ONE with Him. We should see that the way that this all plays out is in many ways dictated by the Master; it IS He who informs His disciples and it IS He who sets in motion the causes of His eventual demise and while it is True that there are men in the world who played their parts as men in form among the Pharisees and other Jews, we should KNOW that there are also those whose duty it was to was to betray and to order His crucifixion. In this grand plan there is no room for error and as we ofttimes say, every contingency was understood and accommodated, there was no space left for failure and we dare say that the same WILL be True when He comes among us again.
In the failure to comprehend the reality of the Soul as the Christ Within, doctrine fails to recognize the differences between the Christ as the Son of God, that Spiritual Presence and Aspect of the Godhead and the man in the world, the form that we KNOW as Jesus. In our reality Christ CAN NOT die, it is only the body and the personality that He used for His expression of the Power and the Love of God that dies and this is much the same as the death of any man. And in this is the lesson for us and for the generations before and after us and from a number of perspectives.
- In His death on the cross we should see the reality of forsaking ALL as the Master teaches; He showed to us the ultimate in forsaking and in this regard we should return to His words on this that say: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). Can we see the relevance here? He gave up His Earthly Life and endured the suffering of this for the Kingdom of God and when we forsake ALL we are doing so for the Kingdom as well.
- In His death on the cross we should see as well the reality of the temporal nature of Life in form; He gives up His Life in the world KNOWING that His own Soul, His own Christ Within, survives and we will address this idea further as we discuss His Resurrection. We KNOW that He tells us that “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12) and that the Apostle John also tells us that we are as He IS saying “as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). In these we should be able to break out of the doctrinal blind and see that by His example of dying we are assured of Life.
In these ideas IS our understanding of the example of His death on the cross, a death that He approached willingly and in some ways eagerly and His perspective can be seen in His words to His apostles “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Much is made in doctrine of the theory of vicarious atonement as regards the Master’s death, that He died and took to himself the sins of the world and this is seen by many as in that present and our future so that the doctrine tells us that our sins are wiped clear by believing on Him who died as our atonement. Much of this likely comes from the Johns writings among which we find” “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” (John 4:8-10). Three things are True here; first that the whole of this saying is about Love, the Love that the Master teaches; second we see in John’s word the idea that the Master came into the world “that we might live through him” and this is His example for us to follow as well as our UNITY with Him through our own Christ Within which IS part and parcel of Christ and the Father. Third is the idea that we must take from the word rendered as propitiation; a word that gives rise and support to the doctrinal beliefs in the atonement offered by His death. The lexicon tells us of the Greek word hilasmos that it means: an appeasing, propitiating; the means of appeasing, a propitiation 2 while we read in Strong’s that this means: atoning sacrifice , the means of forgiveness; traditionally propitiation 3. These are of course doctrinal presentations regarding one of the most important foundations of Christianity and along these same lines the secular dictionary follows; Webster’s tells us that propitiation means: 1. The act of appeasing the wrath and conciliating the favor of an offended person; the act of making propitious. 2. (Theol.) That which propitiates; atonement or atoning sacrifice; specifically, the influence or effects of the death of Christ in appeasing the divine justice, and conciliating the divine favor 1.
Vincent tell us this regarding propitiation: The propitiation (ilasmov). Only here and iv. 10. From iJlaskomai to appease, to conciliate to one’s self, which occurs Luke xxviii. 13; Hebrews ii. 17. The noun means originally an appeasing or propitiating, and passes, through Alexandrine usage, into the sense of the means of appeasing, as here. The construction is to be particularly noted; for, in the matter of (peri) our sins; the genitive case of that for which propitiation is made. In Heb. ii. 17, the accusative case, also of the sins to be propitiated. In classical usage, on the other hand, the habitual construction is the accusative (direct objective case), of the person propitiated. So in Homer, of the gods. Qeon iJlaskesqai is to make a God propitious to one. See “Iliad,” 1, 386, 472. Of men whom one wishes to conciliate by divine honors after death. So Herodotus, of Philip of Crotona. “His beauty gained him honors at the hands of the Egestaeans which they never accorded to any one else; for they raised a hero-temple over his grave, and they still propitiate him (auton ilaskontai) with sacrifices” (v. 47). Again, “The Parians, having propitiated Themistocles (Qemistoklea ilasamenoi) with gifts, escaped the visits of the army” (viii. 112). The change from this construction shows, to quote Canon Westcott, “that the scriptural conception of the verb is not that of appeasing one who is angry, with a personal feeling, against the offender; but of altering the character of that which, from without, occasions a necessary alienation, and interposes an inevitable obstacle to fellowship. Such phrases as ‘propitiating God,’ and God ‘being reconciled’ are foreign to the language of the New Testament. Man is reconciled (2 Cor. v. 18 sqq.; Rom. v. 10 sq.). There is a propitiation in the matter of the sin or of the sinner.” 4
From this rather lengthy description of our word propitiation we center in on the words of Canon Westcott who we can assume is the Westcott of the Westcott and Hort who compiled the The New Testament in the Original Greek from ancient manuscripts and which compilation is used in the later translations of much of the New Testament into English. While we do not KNOW this for sure, we do KNOW that Vincent quotes Westcott often and so we will use this as our premise though this really does not matter as it is what he says that is of interest. John’s words here say that God “sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” and in another place he says “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2) and here Vincent tells us that The sins of (A. V., italicized) should be omitted 4 and it is in this sense that we will proceed. Now in these words from John’s Epistle there is no mention of the Master’s death but only of His Life that He is sent “to be the propitiation” and that He IS “he is the propitiation for our sins“. Combining this with Westcott’s words and our understanding of Sin, we should be able to see the reality of this word; that first it IS NOT related to His death in scripture and second that if we look at this concept as one of altering the character of that which, from without, occasions a necessary alienation, and interposes an inevitable obstacle to fellowship we can see a different reality than what we may believe from doctrine. In Westcott’s words we find a bit of our understanding of the idea of vanity as presented by Paul and interpreted for us by Vincent who tells us that the reference is to a perishable and decaying condition, separate from God, and pursuing false ends 4. Can we see here that the propitiation that the Christ offers us is in the altering of our character as men in form who by that vanity to which we are subjected are alienated from fellowship with God through the God Within, our own Souls as our focus us upon the self in the world? Can we see that in His Life, His teaching and His example we are able to overcome the illusion and the glamour of Life in the world and that in this simplicity IS the propitiation that the Master IS for us; that by keeping His words we can and will overcome and “shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21); and in this is our fellowship.
To see this as we do we must first understand the nature of sin as we understand it, that sin is not the gross offense that a man may commit as in breaking one of the commandments and for which one needs ‘forgiveness’ but rather sin IS one’s focus upon the self and the things of the world; sin is any and ALL things that are contrary to keeping His word and if one were to look around the world today one would see that the biggest sin in this sense is in the way we ignore His teaching on Love and the amplification and the clarity of His words on Love as offered by His apostles.
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
| Aspect of God |
Potency |
Aspect of Man |
In Relation to the Great Invocation |
In relation to the Christ |
|
GOD, The Father |
Will or Power |
Spirit or Life |
Center where the Will of God IS KNOWN |
Life |
|
Son, The Christ |
Love and Wisdom |
Soul or Christ Within |
Heart of God |
Truth |
|
Holy Spirit |
Light or Activity |
Life Within |
Mind of God |
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:
Leaving again the Great Invocation, we encourage ALL to read and reread it and our comments as in these words can be found the keys to our spiritual reality.
From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into the minds of men.
Let Light descend on Earth.
From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into the hearts of men.
May Christ return to Earth.
From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little wills of men–
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.
From the centre which we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.
Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.
This prayer is a part of our Prayers and Meditations section and there is much information about it there and in our discussion of it in the Quote of the Day section of In the Words of Jesus parts 128-132
The above Invocation or Prayer does not belong to any person or group but to all Humanity. The beauty and the strength of this Invocation lies in its simplicity, and in its expression of certain central truths which all men, innately and normally, accept—the truth of the existence of a basic Intelligence to Whom we vaguely give the name of God; the truth that behind all outer seeming, the motivating power of the universe is Love; the truth that a great Individuality came to earth, called by Christians, the Christ, and embodied that love so that we could understand; the truth that both love and intelligence are effects of what is called the Will of God; and finally the self-evident truth that only through humanity itself can the Divine Plan work out.
Like the Lord’s Prayer, this invocation is a World Prayer which is as all that a prayer is intended to be. It is a prayer for the uplifting of the Human Family out of the mire of materialism and selfishness. The Lord’s Prayer asks nothing for the individual praying it but asks that its benefits be for US and for WE which is why it was given by the Christ as a prayer and as a model over 2000 years ago. This invocation is also attributed to the Christ who, as He promised, has never left us; He, through channels that we do not readily understand, has Himself instructed His disciples to distribute this prayer and to encourage its use as a world prayer and as an aid in preparing the world for His return.
The first three stanzas of this prayer should be understood as reflecting the effective potencies of the Trinity which is God and which, when brought down to an individual level, the Trinity which is Man. His Will, His Love and His Light we should see them as the Potent Powers of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit albeit on a much smaller, microcosmic, scale.
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!
- 1 Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913
- 2 New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
- 3 Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible – 2001
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
- 10 A Chronological Harmony of the Gospels; Stephen J. Hartdegen, O.F.M., S. Scr. (1942)
