IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 642

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART CCXXXI

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“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 fourfooted beasts, and creeping things”  (Romans 1:18-23).

We are fast approaching the second of the Three Spiritual Festivals as they are called and celebrated by those who study esoteric philosophy and others who recognize the New Age as a time of opportunity. The first of these three was the Easter Festival which is at the time of the first full moon of Spring and this we did recognize in its more traditional way as that Great Christian holiday of Easter which is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon. The second festival, the Wesak Festival, occurs at the Taurus Full Moon which is traditionally the Full Moon of May and which is this year on April 25th and which will be celebrated by most Buddhists on April 24th. This IS the Festival of the Buddha. So we have in the first a celebration of the Christ and in the second a celebration of the Buddha and each of these are celebrated by their individual followers; Christians and Buddhists and, there is some crossover by people such as us who see the Truth in both. We should understand here that the idea of celebration can be seen in the ways that the Christian world treats Easter as it is in similar fashion that the Buddhist world celebrates this day as the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha and we should try to see as well that in both of these Great World Religions, the majority of the people are casual followers and this from the perspective of what we understand as the Truth of the Christ and the practice of Christianity. The Third festival is not one that is along the lines of these two and is called by many the Festival of the Christ and is seen as well as World Invocation Day; this day is the more esoteric of the three as it is not centered around an established regular religious holiday but this is nonetheless an important day for those like us who see beyond the separatist attitudes found in the everyday world of religion. World Invocation Day will be celebrated on May 24th, at the Full Moon of Gemini, and, as is indicated by the alternate name, this is day of invocation and of the expanded use of the Great Invocation by the world. According to the reality that we expressed regarding the use of the Great Invocation we will find on this day a greater opportunity to see the reality of the words of the Great Invocation at work in the world as many bring these High Ideals into their own focus and, as we understand it ALL, it is when more and more people can bring these things about in their own lives that we can begin to see them effecting the world at large. This day can also be seen as World GoodWill Day and this is from the reality that GoodWill IS the Love of God, of the Christ, in action from the perspective of man. An excerpt from a pamphlet on the Three Festivals tells us that: The third festival, Christ’s festival, celebrating humanity’s innate goodwill, takes place over the full moon of Gemini. This is the festival of our basic aspiration towards human and spiritual unity. It gives voice to a deep invocative appeal to the spiritual Hierarchy for light, love and the will-to-good. This Festival is also observed as World Invocation Day, when a special focus is placed upon the world-wide use of the Great Invocation. And from these words we can clearly see that New Age influence on this day whose public awareness was made possible by our Tibetan brother of whom we often speak.

There is a deep divide between the practice and the reality of most world religions as none Truly embrace the precepts of their founders and, if we can use Christianity as our example, this phenomenon reaches from the the leadership down to the participant as the precepts have been diluted and even lost in the illusion and the glamour in which we live. Getting back to Wesak we should understand that the individual practice of the Buddhist Tradition varies from place to place and from country to country in the East where we will find some that declare this is a public holiday and others where it is celebrated at a different time. This is much like the divide between the holiday celebrations of Christianity where the Orthodox Churches are on a different timetable and hence have a different effect worldwide than the other parts of the church; and, by example we note that the Western Church celebrated Easter on March 31st while the Eastern Church, the Orthodox, has not yet celebrated Easter which celebration will occur this year on the 5th May. Of course within ALL of this the leaders of each denomination and sect do profess that they are right and that the others are wrong while ALL maintain that that are doing His Will. As we move closer to the Wesak we will post additional thoughts and spend some additional time in the words and the teachings of the Buddha and, for any who wish to read additional material on Wesak now, we did cover this over several posts last year beginning with In the Words of Jesus part 310 and going to part 312.

Because yesterday was a travel day we continued in our discussion of the Great Invocation and again continued our thoughts on forgiveness, judgment and Repentance and we were brought by this to the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican where we get a glimpse of the Master’s  teaching on prayer and on having a self righteous attitude based on one’s own assumed spirituality. This parable ends in a Life lesson regarding our being humble as He was humble; the Master tells us here that “every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 18:14) and we made it a point to show that the His words are in regard to “every one“.

Having completed our look at the topics that we have been treating, we now begin our critical look at the saying from the Apostle Paul that appears at the top of our essay again today. We begin here with the word that is translated in the New Testament as wrath; the Greek word orge is translated in the King James Version as wrath 31, anger 3, vengeance 1, indignation 1² and we can easily see the hostility in all of these ideas. From our perspective and considering the words of the Apostle John that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16) we find difficulty with this translation as it is contrary to our understanding of both God and Life. Vincent tells us that this word orge means: Both  ὀργὴ and θυμός are used in the New Testament for wrath or anger, and without any commonly observed distinction. Ὁργη denotes a deeper and more permanent sentiment; a settled habit of mind; while θυμός is a more turbulent, but temporary agitation. Both words are used in the phrase wrath of God, which commonly denotes a distinct manifestation of God’s judgment ⁴; and in our saying above we have the word  ὀργὴ used. While we do not get much that will help our premise here, we do find that there are two words used for this purpose. We also find in our review that all translations treat this word the same way which is wrath and anger.

John Gill in his Exposition of the Bible ⁸ tells us this regarding this verse: By “the wrath of God” is meant the displicency and indignation of God at sin and sinners; his punitive justice, and awful vengeance; the judgments which he executes in this world; and that everlasting displeasure of his, and wrath to come in another world, which all through sin are deserving of, some are appointed to, God’s elect are delivered from, through Christ’s sustaining it, in their room and stead, and which comes and abides on all impenitent and unbelieving persons ⁸. We should try to see here that the doctrinal bent of Mr. Gill’s words is beyond the scope of the reality of God and of Christ and his words are counter to the Truth offered by the Master regarding the Fatherhood of God and against the reality of the apostles’ words especially those that tell us that “God is love”. In an ancient writing, a letter from Lactantius, who is one of the Church Fathers from the Fourth Century, to Donatus, another of position in the church, we find these words that we can build upon: I have often observed, Donatus, that many persons hold this opinion, which some philosophers also have maintained, that God is not subject to anger; since the divine nature is either altogether beneficent, and that it is inconsistent with His surpassing and excellent power to do injury to any one; or, at any rate, He takes no notice of us at all, so that no advantage comes to us from His goodness, and no evil from His ill-will ¹³. We should try to see here that Lactantius, a Christian apologist, which is one who practices if you will A theological science which has for its purpose the explanation and defence of the Christian religion ¹³, is giving us his understanding of the doctrine of the church which in this time is filled with the aspects of holiness and awe of God and not any fundamental reality from scripture itself save if we refer to the Old Testament which is filled with such ideas of wrath. The Old Testament ideas of the Wrath of God must here be tabled as there is not sufficient understanding of these writings nor is there time here to deal with this except to say that much of what we understand to have been the result of such wrath is steeped in the superstitions and the times compounded by the fears and the angst that is created in the bible stories, many of which may be allegorical depictions of the internal conflict that we are addressing in our essays.

In our words above from Lactantius we see that he is speaking about the assumed errors of the philosophers in his day and it is these very words of the philosophers that should strike us as the greater Truth. Taking this a bit further we find some comments from Saint Augustine that may be helpful in seeing that the doctrinal approach does not always cover what we would see as reality. In his exposition of Psalm 2 Augustine tells us “Then He shall speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure” Psalm 2:5. For showing more clearly how He will “speak unto them,” he added, He will “vex them;” so that “in His wrath,” is, “in His sore displeasure.” But by the “wrath and sore displeasure” of the Lord God must not be understood any mental perturbation; but the might whereby He most justly avenges, by the subjection of all creation to His service. For that is to be observed and remembered which is written in the Wisdom of Solomon, “But You, Lord of power, judgest with tranquillity, and with great favour orders us.” Wisdom 12:18 The “wrath” of God then is an emotion which is produced in the soul which knows the law of God, when it sees this same law transgressed by the sinner. For by this emotion of righteous souls many things are avenged. Although the “wrath” of God can be well understood of that darkening of the mind, which overtakes those who transgress the law of God ¹³. Now here we can see some combination of the words of the philosophers noted by Lactantius with a bit of religion as Augustine perceives that this Wrath of God as a condition of the man who is not focused upon or in compliance with the word of God and while we may not agree with all of the words of the philosophers nor of Augustine we do hold that these ideas are more rightly discerned than are the words of doctrine.

There are many views on these things from the Church Fathers and another Fourth Century contemporary of Lactantius and Saint Augustine is John Chrysostom, another who attained Sainthood in the Church. Saint Chrysostom writes directly on these words of Paul to the Romans and in a homily he tells us this: “For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness.” Observe the discretion of Paul, how after encouraging by the gentler things, he turns his discourse to the more fearful. For after saying that the Gospel is the cause of salvation and of life, that it is the power of God, that it genders salvation and righteousness, he mentions what might well make them fear that were heedless of it. For since in general most men are not drawn so much by the promise of what is good as by the fear of what is painful, he draws them on both sides. For this cause too did God not only promise a kingdom, but also threaten hell. And the Prophets spoke thus with the Jews, ever intermingling the evil with the good. For this cause too Paul thus varies his discourse, yet not any how, but he sets first the good things, and after the evil, to show that the former came of the guiding purpose of God, but the latter of the wickedness of the backsliding. And in this way the prophet puts the good first, saying, “If you be willing and will obey me, you shall eat the good of the land: but if you be not willing and will not obey me, the sword shall devour you.” ¹³. Here in these words from Chrysostom we find the evolving doctrine of the church regarding the fear of hell and other sorts of fears inspired by the church teachings; here this is interpreted into the words of Paul, words that we believe do not offer this interpretation when taken in the proper context and in the Light of the reality of God and of Life in form.

We must see this wrath as an internal conflict and not one of anger but of displeasure as Augustine tells us. From our perspective there is no punishment save that which we inflict upon ourselves in the mysteries of the psyche of man who IS the Soul living through form and affecting that Life in many ways dependent upon the focus of the man. But this does not help us to understand Paul’s words which we will find have a very different meaning than that which is assigned by Saint Chrysostom; this we will proceed with in the next post having dealt with one of the more difficult ideas, the Wrath of God, which we can see in this combination of the thoughts of the philosophers and Saint Augustine.

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.

We are again at a time of year that includes the three Spiritual Festivals which are yet largely unrecognized by the Christian churches except for the one that recently past called Easter. We know about these festivals through the teaching and the efforts of the Master’s of the Wisdom who we should see as advanced disciples of the Christ, a group which may yet include those Souls that appeared with the Master as His Apostles, disciples and others who aided and assisted in His Great Mission such as the Baptist and His natural mother Mary. Each of these festivals is celebrated at a Full Moon and the cycle begins with Easter which is celebrated on the Sunday following the first Full Moon of Spring. At the Full Moon of May, which occurs on the 5th day of the month, is the Wesak Festival which is the Festival of the Buddha and at the Full Moon of June, which will occur on the 4th of June, is the Christ Festival also known today as World Invocation Day. As we progress toward the Wesak Festival we will post Quote’s of the Day that are, in our view, conducive to the view of the Buddha and the Christ as regards the spreading of Love and GoodWill throughout the world; we begin with the Affirmation of the Disciple.

I am a point of light within a greater Light. 
I am a strand of loving energy within the stream of Love divine.
I am a point of sacrificial Fire, focused within the fiery Will of God.

And thus I stand

I am a way by which men may achieve. 
I am a source of strength, enabling them to stand. 
I am a beam of light, shining upon their way.

And thus I stand.

And standing thus, revolve 
And tread this way the ways of men, 
And know the ways of God.

And thus I stand.

We repeat again what we had previously said of this Mantram:

Today’s Quote of the Day is called the Affirmation of the Disciple and is spoken from the perspective of the Soul and not from that of the man in form. It is the Soul that we are in this life on Earth, housed in this ‘temple’ of flesh and it is the Light of the Soul that must flow through this ‘temple’ in order that we may say with the Christ “I have overcome the world“ (John 16:33) which is our goal and our destiny. Speaking then as the Soul we affirm our reality and true existence in God and in His Three Aspects of Light and Love and His Will. As this Light and Love and Will flow through our conscious personalities and forms we, as disciples, take on the nature of the second stanza being able to offer to the world a better way through our service and our Love for all, encouragement to righteousness through our strength of purpose, and the Light which shines in accordance with the Master’s instructions to “Let your light so shine before men” (Matthew 5:16) and illuminates the Path. Finally we realize that we are standing in this world and walking as men but, as conscious Souls in form, we know the way and the ways of God and are able to say with the Christ that “I am not of this world” (John 8:23).

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 Strongs Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible – 2001
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888

• ⁸ Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com

• ¹³ The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org