IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 1548

ON LOVE; PART MCLXXXVII

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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).

While our last discussion turned to the reality that the apostles of Jesus DID NOT understand the ideas that He was presenting to them, new and unique ideas that had NO place in their Jewish culture or religion, our main point IS that men today DO NOT understand them either. It IS ONLY under the cover of the authority of their doctrines that men make their claim to KNOW the Truth of the mysteries that Jesus and His apostles present to us through their words, an authority that was originally taken by the men of the early church and then divided into the thousands of different presentations that we have today.

In the past the authoritative hold of the church over the people was more concerted and uniform through strong alliances between the church and the state and while those days ARE gone for the most part, the church still wields considerable power. Today, in most parts of the world, men submit themselves to the authority of the church in varying degrees and we should understand here that the sense of authority IS still a prime mover and those who have become the teachers and the preachers teach and preach what it IS that they have learned through their own indoctrination.

There ARE ever new ideas which lead to small changes in the presentations of doctrine and we should understand here that the most popular of the recent authorities ARE those who offer the most popular messages. Be they the ease of salvation or the ‘promise’ of health and wealth, it IS the message that brings more and more people to a certain denomination and its doctrines which ARE presented as the Truth. While most men DO remain in whatsoever denomination or sect they were subjected to by their nurturing and indoctrination, many are willing to change according to the attraction of the message being heard; this IS likely because there ARE religious constants involved in the multiplicity of Christian doctrines that ARE available to the people.

These religious constants such as atonement and salvation however DO vary among the different presentations; they ARE constants as a general idea but vary, some greatly, in their application and their interpretation by the leadership authorities. And while some denominations ARE soundly structured, others ARE rather individual presentations of individual doctrinal views that ARE presented under the banner of the name of that individual leader. There IS also a rather complex system of affiliations at play where many of today’s religious leaders lend themselves to others with similar appeal and it IS unfortunate that some of these affiliations appear to be more of a business venture than True religious leadership.

Among the religious constants IS of course the idea that we have been discussing: Jesus simple and largely misunderstood words saying that “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). While we have sufficiently discussed the first part of this idea that IS become a wedge between Christianity and other world religions, we have NOT discussed the reality of the second part, “no man cometh unto the Father, but by me“. Before we move on however we should note that  a special place seems to be given to the Jewish religion; while others ARE mocked because Jesus IS the ONLY way, the Jew DOES NOT seem to be held to that same standard, and this despite the Jewish religion being among those that specifically deny Christ.

The latter part of Jesus’ saying tells the doctrinal Christian that there IS NO other Way to God but by believing in Jesus but the Christian religion has never seen the Truth in this statement because they rely upon the nebulous doctrinal ideas regarding pistis and pisteuo. This Truth IS that the reality of believing in the Master, the reality of True faith, comes in KNOWING and not in the nebulous realm that doctrines have built. Vincent puts this into a clear idea in telling us that believing on or believing in Jesus IS:  is more than mere acceptance of a statement. It is so to accept a statement or a person as to rest upon them, to trust them practically; to draw upon and avail one’s self of all that is offered to him in them. Hence to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is not merely to believe the facts of His historic life or of His saving energy as facts, but to accept Him as Savior, Teacher, Sympathizer, Judge; to rest the soul upon Him for present and future salvation, and to accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life ⁴.

For us the crux of Mr. Vincent’s commentary IS found in the last part which we most always present in bold type. This idea of accepting and adopting His precepts and example as binding upon the life IS NO less than the reality of keeping His words which IS the most constant message from Jesus, a message that has been lost in the Christian attitude and in their sense of possession of Jesus the Christ. Were this the sense in which that the Master’s words were understood: that the Way to reach God IS through the Master, through His precepts and example, Jesus Truth would NOT have been missed. What else IS missed IS the reality of the rest of His words in this part of His exchange with His apostles.

Doctrinal thinkers like to separate the Master from the Father so that the idea that “no man cometh unto the Father” IS understood in terms of going somewhere. In the reality however that there IS but One God and that God IS everywhere, we should understand that there IS NO ‘place’ to go. The Hindu religion sees this through their own doctrinal dilemmas; in one of their deeper spiritual texts we find this reality of God:

To the God Who is in the Fire and Who is in the waters;
To the God Who has suffused Himself through all the world;
To the God Who is in summer plants and in the lords of the forest;
To that God be adoration, adoration.

Sh’vet Upanishad, II.17.

In this view of God there IS much Truth and reality which seemingly feeds the Christian’s desire to make this a view of a ‘false’ God and this likely because it lacks the sense of personality that the Judaeo-Christian religions have applied to the Godhead. It IS the Christian view however, a view that IS steeped in the superstitious past, that afflicts the church yet today and while the doctrinal views of most ALL world religions ARE far from the Truth, it IS mostly in the Christian view that we find the divisive nature that paints ALL other views of God as false gods and idols.

Jesus shows us that there IS NO separation between Himself and the Father but the reality of His words IS NOT seen in the doctrinal view of God which relies upon men’s ideas of just what the Trinity IS. This again IS an example of the way that men may believe that they have the KEY to the mysteries when in reality they have ONLY the doctrines of men who ARE trying to explain the deeply spiritual in carnal terms. Jesus tells us that “I and my the Father are one” (John 10:30) but this idea IS destroyed by the doctrines that show how that this CAN NOT be True. John Gill tells us that this oneness IS: Not in person, for the Father must be a distinct person from the Son, and the Son a distinct person from the Father ⁸ and he does so without any True evidence save for his own doctrinal view.

The reality of this idea of the Oneness of the Godhead which Jesus shows us can be understood ONLY in spiritual terms, in terms that ARE fully divorced from the carnal realities of men in this world. And so too the idea of Jesus Sonship; that His miracle birth points us to the idea that God, through the Holy Spirit, IS the Father of a human child DOES NOT speak to the reality of the of the miracle….that Mary simply becomes pregnant without the aid of a human male. We should remember here that we ARE speaking of God whose control over the physical world IS absolute and we should note as well that the agents of this awesome Power ARE spiritual beings.

ALL of the men of the bible, the patriarchs, the prophets and Moses had the ability to channel that awesome Power and control the workings of nature and it IS this Power that IS the True miracle rather than the idea that God Himself, as a single actor, IS responsible. The virgin birth, the feeding of 5000 with a few loaves of bread, Jesus’ stilling the wind and walking water as well as the healing; NOT ONLY to the individuals noted in the text but also the greater miracle that “great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all” (Matthew 12:15). These men of the bible, the patriarchs, the prophets, Moses and Jesus however must be seen in terms of being spiritual beings who ARE living for a time in the body and the personality of a man.

This same IS True of ALL men; ALL are spiritual beings, Spirit, manifest as Soul, living for a time in the body and the personality of a man. It IS ONLY when we can understand this greatest of mysteries that we can see the reality of “Christ in you”  (Colossians 1:27) and understand the ideas that Jesus presents in our trifecta, saying that “we will come unto him, and make our abode with him“. It IS in the previous idea that the Christ “will manifest myself to him“, to the man who keeps His words, that we find the reality of revelation and realization which ARE both wrapped in the very same mysteries that ARE revealed according to the trifecta which we repeat here 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).

It IS unfortunate that the doctrinal thinker believes that he has the KEY to the spiritual mysteries without ever seeing the correlation between revelation and realization and the terms of the trifecta which clearly states such things that ARE contrary to the doctrines of men. Our point here IS that behind ALL of the doctrinal ideas regarding the ‘person’ of God, behind ALL the ideas of the virgin birth and behind ALL the ideas on the miracles of the bible, beats the essential Truth of the God Within….the eternal Spirit that IS the True man.

Paul calls this our “treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Corinthians 4:7) and we should remember here that while his words release some aspect of the mystery, the Truth IS ONLY realized by the man who DOES strive to keep His words. These ARE the saints of which Paul says “the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints” (Colossians 1:26) and here we should try to see the deeper reality of the Greek word hagios which idea IS used so loosely by the doctrines of men. In this idea of hagios, which IS rendered as holy, saints,  and Holy One ² in the King James Bible we should see the man who strives to be “perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) as the Master tells us that we should DO.

It IS to those who strive to be saints that the revelations and the realizations come and we should see here that such striving IS the result of True Repentance and the result IS an ever increasing measure of one’s expression of Love, of agape, which IS tantamount to the trifecta idea of keeping His words. This we read again in Paul’s words that equate for us the reality of agape and the way that this IS keeping His words; we read:

“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”  (Romans 13:8-11).

And this IS our point: it IS to the saints and to those who strive to be such that revelations and realizations flow. It IS those who strive to be saints that can begin to understand the reality of the God and the Christ Within as the Spirit and the Soul that IS the Truth of man, the unction and the anointing by which “ye know all things” (1 John 2:20). It IS to the saints that comes the measure of revelation and realization of the Truth of God and the relationship of the Father and the Son….a True understanding of Jesus words saying that “I and my the Father are one“. And it IS to the saints and those who strive to be such that the reality of John’s words saying that “as he is, so are we in this world” can be understood.

In these words we should see that as Jesus can say that “I and my the Father are one” so can every man who has such revelation and realization that comes in keeping His words according to the trifecta. And this IS NOT an alien idea; Jesus Himself tells us this, albeit in different terms, saying that “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do” (John 147:12). This brings us back again to pistis and pisteuo and the idea that to Truly believe on or believe in Jesus as the Christ IS to keep His words….to accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life ⁴.

This IS of course the same idea that the Master imparts to us according to Luke’s version of the ideas from the second part of our trifecta….His rhetorical question that simply asks “why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). While our view here IS clearly that Jesus IS defining the reality of the Lordship of the Christ, of His precepts and example, and defining as well the realities of pistis and pisteuo, doctrines apparently DO NOT agree. While they must agree in the context of these words and the like ideas from Matthew’s Gospel, they DO NOT make this a reality in their teaching as they continue in “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mark 7:7); they substitute their own ideas as gleaned from the epistles in place of the simplicity of keeping His word.

Perhaps if we can see that the error IS in failing to understand that Paul and the other writers ARE clarifying and amplifying the words of the Master and that they ARE NOT setting a separate doctrinal approach, we can better understand the depth of both. If we can see that the entirety of the journey IS to come to better KNOW God and thereby better KNOW ourselves as spiritual beings, as Spirit and Soul, we can then likely see the deep reality of Jesus words saying that “no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” and understand that His perspective here IS that of the Christ.

In these words, and in the fullness of the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, ARE some of the most revelatory statements of Truth in ALL the gospels. They ARE however cloaked in mystery and in word ideas that have NO equal in the carnal minds of men. And again we must understand that if the apostles to whom Jesus speaks DO NOT understand His intent and the implications of His words, how can we as men who ARE NOT saints and who ARE NOT long on our journey to that high office. We should try to see ALL scripture from a spiritual perspective and here this means that we should see that the journey from being men as men in this world to being Truly “as he is” IS the ONLY way to the fullness of spiritual enlightenment which IS the full flow of Truth into and through the body nature and the personality of a man.

This fullness of spiritual enlightenment requires ONLY that one strive to become Truly “as he is” and it IS ONLY in this way that His words should be understood; men should NOT ever believe that the God that IS Love would intentionally separate and divide people based upon who they believe and follow. To be Truly “as he is” IS simply to to accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life and His precepts and example ARE Love and the expression of it universally to ALL. To understand this IS to understand how that pistis, pisteuo and agape and sorely misrepresented by the doctrines of men. It IS when we can understand that the nebulous ideas of faith and believing must give way to KNOWING and that KNOWING comes, according to our trifecta, in keeping His words, that we can also see the dynamic link between this KNOWING and Love.

NOT Love in the common understanding of the mental and emotional attraction and attachment that men have for others and for things but in the True sense which IS shown us in the Great Commandments and the Golden Rule. And what IS this dynamic link? Jesus tells us that KNOWING comes in keeping His words, Paul tells us that our expression of agape IS equivalent to this and the Apostle John tells us “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8). A True sense of Love IS given to us by Paul in the second part of our selection from his Epistle to the Corinthians which we repeat here again:

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

“Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).

There IS another dynamic link to be seen and understood and that IS the link between these ideas of Love and the Master’s words which were NEVER intended to divide; when we can see His words saying that “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” through a prism of Love, we can then better understand His intent.

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 change our Quote of the Day today to the words from Solomon on Wisdom along with our thoughts on them from the original postings of them in In the Words of Jesus parts 46 and 556.  These words ARE a testament to those things that we should be asking of the Lord and which are representative of the Holy Ghost. Wisdom, understanding and knowledge which will lead us  to understanding the fear (reverence and respect and awe) of the Lord and the knowledge of God so that in this world we can understand righteousness and judgement and equity and be preserved by discretion and understanding. Thus are we in a position to treat everyone as we would want to be treated ourselves.

Since we are centered on the ideas of Wisdom today we offer the following from Proverbs as our Quote of the Day. Solomon, who is KNOWN for his Wisdom, which we read in the story of his Life was His gift from God, a gift that he receives because he does not want for the things of the world. But Solomon gains as well the things of the world in plenty and as his Life story proceeds we can see clearly that it is his Life in the world that is to his detriment. The wisdom however produces for us the writings of the Book of Proverbs and it is this that he is remembered for. His Life is interesting reading and is well documented in the Books of Kings and Chronicles.

….incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly. He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints. Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path. When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee (Proverbs 2:2-11).

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts

• ² New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition
• ⁸ Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com

Those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road. 

Voltaire,
Writer and Philosopher