ON LOVE; PART MXCII
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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).
We spent much of the last essay discussing how that the Master, Jesus the Christ, and the rest of mankind ARE largely the same. We noted that in the right understanding of the Greek words there IS the KEY to this Truth of anointing and being anointed. ALL men have that anointing, that unction, which IS the essence of their lives….it IS their True spiritual self manifesting as the Soul. That doctrines and doctrinal men have chosen to fix the translation of christos as Christ, which IS but an adaptation of the transliterated word christos, have led many to see this word as part of the name of Jesus despite the fact that in the gospels the Master IS referred to as the Christ. As we have previously discussed Vincent shows us this saying of the word christos that it IS:
Properly an adjective, not a noun, and meaning anointed ( Χρίω , to anoint). It is a translation of the Hebrew Messiah, the king and spiritual ruler from David’s race, promised under that name in the Old Testament (Psalm 2:2; Daniel 9:25, Daniel 9:26). Hence Andrew says to Simon, “We have found the Messiah, which is, being interpreted, Christ (John 1:41; compare Acts 4:27; Acts 10:38; Acts 19:28). To us “Christ “has become a proper name, and is therefore written without the definite article; but, in the body of the gospel narratives, since the identity of Jesus with the promised Messiah is still in question with the people, the article is habitually used, and the name should therefore be translated “the Christ.”
Vincent of course speaks from his own sense of doctrine but his point IS clear. Jesus IS the Christ, the anointed, and we should try to see here how that in His being the anointed the man Jesus was able to express “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). Two points here ARE important; first IS the expression of this “fulness of the Godhead ” which IS based in the reality of the unction and the anointing that ALL men DO possess and which they essentially ARE. And, second, IS that Jesus possesses this bodily which IS to say that the unction IS become His expression of Life. It IS this idea that we should relate to the Apostle Paul’s words that show us the relationship between the man in the world as a body and a personality and the True man that gives this body its Life and IS its intended expression. We read Paul’s words to the Corinthians again saying:
“For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed. Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him” (2 Corinthians 5:1-9).
Here in the idea of the tabernacle we have the carnal man, the body of flesh with its personality which ARE its mind and its emotions. While some doctrinal authorities prescribe the attributes of mind and emotion to the Soul, the reality IS that these ARE but the required parts of the “natural man” which ARE necessary for his expression in this world. The sense of mind that IS of the Soul IS the reality of a man’s consciousness, a higher state of mind if you will, that dwells in the more abstract arena that we should see as the heart which Jesus speaks of. The mind, the lower mind of the man in this world, IS changeable but a man’s consciousness IS NOT; his self awareness DOES not change but his thinking about his awareness DOES. Again these ARE difficult ideas as there ARE NOT sufficient words to express them.
And we should try to see how that Paul’s groaning; his “earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven“, IS his way of saying that the consciousness which he IS, the ALL KNOWING consciousness that IS the Soul, should be the clothing of the man in this world. It IS this clothing that allows for the man to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2) and here we should see that the mind must change, the carnal mind that IS heretofore “conformed to this world“. The Transforming energy here IS the Soul, it IS the Light of the Soul that “hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God” and it IS this Light that must penetrate the miasma of carnal Life according to the trifecta which we read again saying:
- “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“ (John 8:31-32).
- “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).
- “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 14:21-24).
We should remember here that this idea of carnal living IS NOT ONLY for those people who may live their lives in disregard of religion or those who DO commit the more egregious acts as men; this idea of carnal living applies to ALL men who ARE NOT in accord with the Great Commandments as we discussed in our study of the Truth behind Paul’s list of “the works of the flesh” (Galatians 5:19). We should remember as well that the translations of the Greek words that Paul uses in his list DO NOT mean what they ARE translated to mean but that they have a deeper relevance in the Life of the man who Truly seeks the Lord. And the same can be said about Paul’s words here in our selection from Romans: the words translated as “rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying” have a much deeper significance in the Life of everyman. Reading the apostle’s words again:
“Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” (Romans 13:10-14).
While we will NOT get into the deeper meaning of these Greek ideas in this essay, we should remember how that we treated these same and similar ideas in the past; that they ARE thoughts and attitudes that ARE against the reality of Life that IS the Great Commandments. Today we ARE trying to continue our thoughts on the reality of Life and its continuum for the True man who IS the Soul; to this end we have laid our foundation in the reality of Unity in Diversity and in the Truth of the sameness that we have with the Master as Souls in form seeking to express “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily“….seeking to express the fullness of Paul’s other list of “the fruit of the Spirit“.
These ideas of Unity and of the Truth of Jesus as the Christ ARE lost in doctrines that have ever tried to ‘protect’ the divinity of the Master while NEVER realizing the divinity of man. It IS these same doctrines that refuse to even entertain the ideas involved in the continuum of Life through reincarnation and rebirth; the same doctrines that DO NOT even glimpse the idea of a True Cosmic role for the Souls that ARE incarnating in this world as men. It IS these same doctrines that see the Universe, the vast and infinite Universe if we can use these terms together, as that it IS for the pleasure of men here in this world because there ARE NO others.
It IS these same doctrines that ARE committed to a literal translation of Genesis without ever approaching the ambiguity that a literal rendering creates or by cleverly tucking the obscurity of it ALL into their doctrinal precepts. And what IS more obscure that infinity? Can we NOT see that in this infinite Universe there ARE also infinite possibilities and that these possibilities ARE squandered by the doctrinal refusal to see past their own interpretations which replace the Truth. And what IS more obscure that eternity? Can we NOT see that forever IS NOT ONLY a long long time but it IS forever….without end….eternal. And can we NOT see that this same eternity has NO beginning. Can we NOT see that eternity and infinity ARE the essential reality of time and space.
While doctrines ARE convinced that there IS a place that IS heaven where those who ‘believe’ will go and that ALL others will NOT IS nothing but a fantastical idea that has NO basis and NO foundation in Truth. Even worse ARE the doctrinal views of hell, of a place of torment and anguish to which those who DO NOT ‘believe’ will go. It IS when we can see the reality of Life as the Soul, as the consciousness that IS Life, that we can begin to dispel the many versions that paint heaven as a place where God sits on a throne and where men and angels worship him, as well as those many versions of hell….especially those that involve a ‘lake of fire’. It IS when these ancient and superstitious ideas ARE dispelled that men can begin to see the reality of the continuum of the Life of the Soul which we see in reincarnation and it’s work in the Redemption of the forms and of the very nature of this world.
Most ALL of the scriptural support for the doctrinal denial of reincarnation comes from those words from the Book of Hebrews which, while they ARE factual, can be seen to be in agreement with our ideas of rebirth when men can look upon their lives AS the Life of the Soul and NOT of the body. The bodies of men will die but once but the judgement IS NOT based in the doctrinal view of judgement by God. It IS rather a judgement that IS responsive to the very nature of the Life of the man in this world; a judgement that weighs each man’s ‘contribution’, a contribution that IS detracted from by sin. Can we see this in these words from the writer of Hebrews saying: “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” Hebrews 9:27).
We must of course see the reality of sin as ALL thoughts, attitudes and actions that ARE against the Truth of the Master’s teaching, against the Truth of the Great Commandments and against the Truth of our trifecta which IS that men should keep His words. It IS toward this end, keeping His words, that Jesus words ARE directed and it IS in striving to DO so that one’s ‘contribution’ in made in his Life in this world. The judgement then IS based in the reality of the very nature of the divine Soul of men which IS ever One with the Divinity of the Lord and which sees the progress one has made….this IS the judgement that IS obscured by the doctrinal ideas which ARE taken from some of the most parabolic ideas of scripture.
Again we should note that doctrines readily read the parabolic in most literal terms while ‘ignoring’ those ideas that ARE clearly presented….ideas such as those on Love and on the need to keep His words. In the combination of the Truths that ARE behind the doctrinal interpretations there IS the reality of the continuum of Life which those purveyors of doctrine have ever denied as they use their own misinterpretations to support their denial. Aside from the words from Hebrews above, others point to this saying from Ecclesiastes which, speaking of the dead man, says “neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun“. Here we should see that the writer IS speaking about the man as a man in this world and NOT about the Soul; speaking about the nature of the man he says: “memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished” (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6).
Most every scripture used in the denial of reincarnation turns moot when the difference between the tabernacle and the Soul that dwells in that tabernacle IS rightly discerned. We should remember that there were several opportunities for Jesus to outrightly deny the Truth of the continuum of Life in reincarnation and that at every opportunity He DID NOT DO so. He DID however suggest that there IS a reality to this while NOT teaching on it in several recorded exchanges with His disciples. Perhaps the most cogent ideas can be gleaned from Jesus words on the relationship between the Prophet Elijah and John the Baptist which we read in the gospels. Building up to the point of this relationship ARE the words of the Prophet Malachi and then the words of the Angel Gabriel to the father of the Baptist; we read:
- More than 400 years before the birth of the baptist the Prophet Malachi says to the Jews: “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts” (Malachi 3:1).
- Then, clarifying his words, he says again that: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD” (Malachi 4:5).
- Then, nearly 500 years later the Angel comes to Zacharias saying: “Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:13-17).
Our point here IS NOT what IS said but ONLY the fact that it IS said. Malachi prophesied that Elijah will return and Gabriel acknowledges that it IS “in the spirit and power of Elias” that the Baptist IS born and the ideas in the New Testament regarding John the Baptist begin here. we read further the words of the Master:
- In an exchange with His disciples after Jesus’ Transfiguration we read this: “as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead. And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist” (Matthew 17:9-13).
- In another exchange we read Jesus’ words about John after his death saying: “Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear” (Matthew 11:11-15).
While some may use the Baptist’s own words as evidence that there IS NO reincarnation, their argument fails when we can rightly discern between the tabernacle and the Soul or the Spirit that manifests as the Soul. In the Prologue of the Apostle John’s Gospel we read: “And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No. Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias” (John 1:19-23). Here we should try to see that John IS NOT Elijah but that the same Spirit, the same Soul, that was born as Elijah IS also born as John.
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.
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 repeat here a Quote of the Day that we spent much time with over the course of our essays. In this affirmation we find the Truth of discipleship as we have been ever been expressing and here we can relate our themes of the last few days; “take no thought” for the things of the world and that we approach the Kingdom and discipleship in the nature of the little child, in humbleness, meekness, unashamed in any way and unassuming. The message that this imparts for us today IS that it IS the Soul that is at work in the world of men as it expresses to some degree the purpose, power and the will through Life in this world. These words are from a meditation offered to his students by our Tibetan brother and in which we find greater understanding of the message of the Master. This IS Truly the way of the disciple.
My Soul has purpose, power and will; these three are needed on the Way of Liberation.
My Soul must foster love among the sons of men; this is its major purpose.
I, therefore, will to love and tread the Way of Love. All that hinders and obstructs the showing of the Light must disappear before the purposes of the Soul.
My will is one with the great Will of God;. that Holy Will requires that all men serve. And unto the purposes of the Plan I lend my little will.
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
