ON LOVE; PART CMIII
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GoodWill IS Love in Action
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FIRST IS THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS: “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).
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WHAT THEN IS LOVE? 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. While this IS from an older definition of Charity, which IS rendered in the King James Bible from the same Greek word agape which IS generally rendered as Love, we should amend our own definition here to include the idea that in the reality of Love a man will accord to ALL men ALL things that he would accord to himself and to say that Love IS our thoughts and attitude of the equality of ALL men regardless of their outward nature or appearance…that ALL ARE equally children of Our One God
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PLUS THE EVER IMPORTANT AND HIGH IDEAL TAUGHT TO US BY THE CHRIST: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).
In the last essay we discussed some of our thoughts about the predictive ideas which ARE offered by the Prophet Isaiah regarding the Life of Jesus. While the Jews DO NOT believe that the prophet’s words reflect a specific prediction about the Master, our own hindsight seems to support the ideas that have been a part of most basic Christian doctrines for centuries. We should note here one thing that some of the Jewish commentators DO write however; as we noted in the last essay, the Apostles, some religious Jews in their own right, DO NOT seem to connect the prophet’s words with the Life and the death of Jesus even through Jesus own predictive words and His own acknowledgement of the Prophet’s sayings. Our recent studies from the Gospel of John revealed several places where the apostles question the Master’s sayings and in these we can see that they DO NOT yet understand what IS happening nor do they understand the True spiritual nature of His words. As we combine these ideas from John’s Gospel with the presentation of the Master’s own predictive revelations that we find in the synoptic gospels, we can see that even at the third time that Jesus reveals His fate, as they ARE going to Jerusalem, that they DO NOT understand His words and it IS this confusion that continues in the Master’s more spiritual teaching as He tells them “whither I go ye know, and the way ye know” (John 14:4) which idea they DO NOT yet see. The Apostle Luke’s Gospel shows us this third revelation and their confusion there saying:
“Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked , and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again. And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken” (Luke 18:31-34).
It IS in the spiritual nature of ALL of these ideas from the Master and from the prophets that much IS lost; the understanding of the apostles IS NOT yet fixed upon these spiritual ideas, ideas which ARE unique and without precedent. Here, as we have discussed in previous essays, we should try to see the apostles as men; men who have some measure of revelation and realization of the Truth which allows for their ability to follow the Master as men. The apostles and ALL who followed the Master as disciples achieve this sense of realization in the same way that we DO so today which IS to keep His words and to strive toward that end. We should see here however that even in this sense of realization they DO NOT understand as men; that IS that their carnal minds DO NOT see the unprecedented reality that Jesus IS showing them. In their hearts then, in their conscious awareness that is man’s state of reality in this world, they have the realization, the KNOWING, that the Master IS the Messiah who they had been waiting for and, at the same time, they have the working of the carnal mind which CAN NOT yet see these possibilities of which Jesus speaks.
It IS in the reality of His words and His miracles that the mind slowly accepts the reality of Christ and we should try to see here how that the apostles ARE slowly convinced of the Truths as men as the mind slowly ceases its aversion to the spiritual impulses that His words invoke. And while it may be convenient to see the more nebulous idea of faith here and of believing, the reality IS that they must KNOW and that this KNOWING comes to them as they bring their own consciousness away from the carnal understanding and to the reality of what IS revealed to them from their own Soul’s interpretations of what it IS that they see and hear from Jesus. There IS NO easy way to portray these ideas that we are discussing as we ARE speaking about the conscious reactions of men 2000 years ago. We read that they see and that they ARE told but DO NOT understand and we read that they eventually DO come to understand the Master’s Truths and to accept them as men in the world, but we DO NOT KNOW their thoughts. It IS in this that we surmise that their difficulty was in the newness of the ideas that ARE revealed to them and it IS in this that we can see our own reality, a reality where we DO have an advantage over the apostles and the disciples in those days. We have their written reports in the gospels and the epistles of the apostles and we have 2000 years of history through which to see the greater Truths of the Master’s words. We only need to look, as they did, at the reality of His words and His example along with the one tool that they DID NOT have: the written record.
The apostles ARE with the Master, they have an intimate relationship; He IS as their teacher and their guide. Yet they DO NOT see the reality of His words against their own carnal thoughts and assumptions which ARE based, as ARE ours, in nurturing and in Life experience, and in the doctrinal beliefs which these develop. It IS in their relationship that they ARE focused upon the Master and His teaching and it IS in the steady shift of their focus away from their nurturing, their Life experience and their doctrinal beliefs that they come to KNOW the Truth. It IS in this steady shift of focus that they “continue in my word” as the Master instructs and it IS in this that they find their own spiritual reality which IS the reality of being His “disciples indeed“. It IS in this idea of “disciples indeed” that we should see our own view of the True disciple; this IS the greater meaning of the Greek word alethos that IS rendered here as indeed 2. It IS in this shift of focus that they keep His words and it IS in keeping His words that they come to KNOW the Truth which word IS rendered from the kindred Greek word aletheia. We read the Master’s words on these ideas again:
“Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin” (John 8:31-34).
This IS the dynamic that IS at work in the lives of the apostles and the disciples of Jesus in those days and this IS the dynamic that works in the lives of men yet today. It IS in our change of focus, it IS in our keeping His words, that we come to KNOW the Truths which ARE hidden in His words as they were hidden from the view of the apostles and disciples 2000 years ago. It IS this steady growth of our realization of the Truth of His words and the mysteries of Life that IS the growth of the Kingdom of God that Jesus tells us begins as the smallest seed planted in the consciousness of the man in the world; it IS this seed which, when nurtured as the focus of the man who has sowed it, “groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it” (Mark 4:32).This IS the Kingdom Within, as the Master tells us saying “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21), that grows in the heart, the consciousness of the man in the world and it IS within this Kingdom Within that we find perforce the reality of God and of Christ….the God and the Christ Within.
While many DO NOT see the reality of these ideas, they ARE as presented by the Master and His apostles. While many deny the idea that the Kingdom of God IS within each man and while many deny the Truth behind the idea of “Christ in you” (Colossians 1:27) as the realization of the saints, the realization of the man who will focus upon the things of God and keep His words, it IS these realities that ARE found in Jesus words from the fourteenth chapter of John’s Gospel which we repeat again below. It IS in these words that we come to KNOW the reality of the Presence of God, the Presence of Christ and the Presence of the Holy Spirit in the Life of the man in the world; That doctrines CAN NOT see these Truths can ONLY be attributed to the same failure that overcame the apostles….the failure to set aside the nurturing, the experience and the developed doctrinal beliefs and focus upon the Truth of His words and, in this focus see the reality of keeping His words. We read Jesus’ words again:
“If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless:a I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me” (John 14:15-24).
As the apostles ARE taken closer to the Master’s death day by day, they ALSO gain greater realization in the same way as their focus remains sure and on the things of God. With ALL of the predictive words that the Master offers them however, the apostles ARE yet taken by surprise by the unfolding events that lead to His death and, as we will see as we continue in our discussions of His death and resurrection over the next several posts, they ARE left confused by the magnitude of it ALL as their hearts remain in close accord with their carnal mind which CAN NOT yet imagine what IS taking place before them. It IS in this same way that we come to KNOW yet today: day by day our own realization grows as our focus remains sure and this IS the same growth that the Master teaches us of above. There IS an unmistakable clarity in Jesus’ instructions to the Eleven which we read above; but, while we see this as unmistakable there ARE many millions of men who DO NOT see these Truths much as the apostles and disciples in Jesus’ day DID NOT see them.
The instructions ARE clear however in their depiction of the reciprocal action, the reward if you will, for keeping His words. Jesus words tell us clearly that the Presence of God, His own manifestation to the man who keeps His commandments and the Father’s ‘joining Him’ in making their abode in the Life of the man who keeps His words, IS the realization of the apostles as they DO keep His words and will be the realization of everyman who will DO so. This IS, in our perspective, the Master’s Easter message; this and ALL of His words from the time of the Supper to the time of His prayer in the Garden at Gethsemane. ALL of these instructions and ALL of these revelations of the Truth which we have been discussing ARE the final ideas that Jesus wants for His apostles to KNOW and to understand as men in this world.
There IS a great event taking place here in Jerusalem as the Master prepares His apostles for His death and a large part of this event IS these teachings that we have been discussing regarding the apostles’ realization of the Presence of God as it IS this that will replace His physical Presence in their lives. It IS in the combined Presence of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit that we have the greater reality that we call the Presence of God and perhaps it IS in Jesus’ separation of these ideas that they ARE confused then and now as the world IS yet confused. We should try to see here how that there IS NO easy way to explain these spiritual things in carnal terms; there IS NO easy way to explain the Fatherhood of God, the humanity of the Son and the Power of the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit that IS God, in terms that are comprehensible to men and there IS especially NO easy way to explain the essential Unity of these three aspects of the Godhead. This IS however Jesus’ task and while most DO NOT understand the Truths behind His words in that day, the apostles DO, by their continuing in His words, come to the fuller realization of the Truth.
Can we see that while His death IS a monumental and important event, that this IS NOT the whole event? Can we see that His words to His apostles in the end carry forth the fullness of ALL that He had previously taught them and that this fullness IS the reality of the Presence of God, through the facility of keeping His words, which IS implemented in the world of men through Love? His death IS a great sacrifice but perhaps the greater sacrifice IS in His Life among us as a free and liberated Soul who came to Earth in a scripted Plan to show His brethren the Way. This IS the reality of the Love of God and this IS the deeper idea behind the spiritual view; it IS in Love that He came among us and while we may read that He IS sent by the Father, we must look deeper into the Truth of the Unity and the Oneness which we see above and which IS framed for us in His simple but misunderstood words saying “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).
The very idea of the atoning quality of the Master’s death IS NOT seen in the gospels and is scarcely seen in the epistles. This foundational idea of most Christian doctrines IS borrowed if you will from the Jews, from their doctrines and traditions and embellished by the created ideas of men concerning Him and how that He DID “bear their iniquities” and how that “he bare the sin of many” as the Prophet Isaiah writes. He Truly DOES bear the sins of the world and this IS His greater sacrifice but this should be considered in the context of His Life; how that as He presented the Truth he was “despised and rejected of men” and how that He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” by way of His view of the Lives of those that He came help find the Truth and the Way. In the illusion and glamour of men who saw themselves as more righteous than He we find their transgression, their inequities and their sin and it IS Truly in this most basic ignorance of men that He IS “wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:1, 12, 3, 5). While this IS translated by doctrines into the idea that He takes away the sins of the world by taking them upon Himself, the greater reality IS that it IS in their sin that they put Him to death and while the Baptists words saying “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) IS seen in this same context of taking such sin upon Himself, the greater Truth IS that it IS by keeping His words and by following His example that men ARE saved….it IS in this way that He “taketh away the sin of the world“.
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
| Aspect |
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.
Live in joy, in love, even among those who hate.
Live in joy, in health, even among the afflicted.
Live in joy, in peace, even among the troubled.
Live in joy, without possessions.
Like the shining ones.
The winner sows hatred because the loser suffers.
Let go of winning and losing and find joy.
There is no fire like passion, no crime like hatred,
No sorrow like separation, no sickness like hunger,
And no joy like the joy of freedom.
Today’s Quote of the Day is from the Dhammapada (on JOY)5; a collection of the sayings of the Buddha. These words and ideas ARE much the same as those we discuss in our In the Words of Jesus essays. And what is this freedom but the release of our hearts and minds from loving this life in this world and attaining the Presence of God. This word Joy has many meanings as DOES the idea of Love, but in the context that it IS used here we should see the idea that Joy IS Love, Joy IS health, Joy IS peace and that Joy IS without the burdens placed on a man by the illusion and the glamour of the ways of the world. We should try to see that it IS the antithesis of these ideas in hate, in affliction and in troubles that ARE among the possessions of the carnal man, that ARE among the “evil treasure of his heart” (Luke 6:45) according to the Master.
And it IS in the second stanza above that we see the basic psychic ideas that can eliminate the harm caused by such “evil treasure” as a man looks past himself and at the welfare of others which IS the greater reality of Love as the Master teaches us. It IS in losing such possessions, losing such carnal thoughts and attitudes, that one can truly find the “joy of freedom“….this IS the Truth of deliverance.
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts
- 2 New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
- 5 The Dhammapada Translated by Thomas Byrom
