YES, HE is Talking to YOU! (continued)
Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
We discussed yesterday the Parable of the Tares and we did so from the perspective or ourselves as Spirit and not of ourselves as this conscious personality. Though it is a difficult concept to follow at times, we must remember that our nature is not this outer form and its thoughts and feelings but our nature is the Life that is in the form. From this perspective we can see the ideas in this parable rather clearly; without this understanding the parable makes little sense. As we discussed yesterday the idea of good and evil persons on the earth from the origin of them, that is people as seed from either God or the Devil, does not make any real sense in the life of man nor in the teachings of the Master. In the normal Christian vernacular this would be to say that we are, as seed, either good or bad and are sown into the field where there is little or no choice on what will happen to us. We are either cast into the fire or we are gathered into the householder’s barn. Another Christian thought but one that is not expressed in the parable would be that we are in the world as men and the seed is the good and bad that we take up and become, the things of God or the things of the Devil, so that at the time of harvest we are the one or the other and so our fate.
Our thought from yesterday is closer to the latter of the two depicted above in that we are in the world as men and the focus of our lives, the things we take up, determines what we are at any given time; good or bad seed or ideas producing in us wheat or tares. The difference is where is the time of harvest? In our perspective from yesterday the time of harvest is that point in time when we decide to be one or the other. Both the good and the bad seed are growing into wheat and tares in the field of our consciousness. When we decide that we are going to follow the way of the Spirit, the way of the Lord, then all that is contrary to that is burnt up and we go forth into His service.
We will develop this idea a bit more as we go through Jesus explanation of this parable to His disciples who apparently do not understand His concept either. We should note that in this one chapter of Matthew this is the second parable that the Master had to explain to His disciples. Repeating His explanation: “….and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear , let him hear” (Matthew 13:36-43).
This all seems pretty straightforward and fits well with, or should we say helps to establish, the Christian belief regarding the end of the world and that final judgment. There is also a great transcription that takes place here by many in the churches and that is the exchange of the ideas of bad and evil to become nonbelievers thereby fortifying that great schism created by the Christian churches. Do we take the explanation literally because He said this to the disciples in answer to the question given Him asking that He explain or can we believe that there is still some parabolic note in this? He did say to His disciples that He teaches them in proverb and there is, as we know, little difference between the parable and the proverb as we have previously discussed (In the Words of Jesus part 82 and part 94). Taking it straightforward we have the scenario we painted above; good seed, children of the Kingdom, planted by the Son of Man and tares planted by the devil, the wicked one. Since there is not any explanation of this, is it right to assume anything else? Then comes the end of the world or the end of the age and the ‘angels’ come and reap the harvest and the tares are gathered and burned in a furnace of fire and the fruit of the good seed remains. This fits well with all theories of doom that involve a fiery hell or a lake of fire or whatnot. Believing in this way is the result of the belief that we are this body’s consciousness that persists and that we are much the same after death. Many commentators, by way of their commentary, say that this literal understanding is not the way the parable should be seen. But this is what it does say and it is then interpreted by the various denominations in the light of their own beliefs on life, death and the end times.
So it is for us as well. We interpreted the parable yesterday into the thoughts and ideas that we believe and today we will take on the explanation realizing that this too is not to be taken literally. Overall, in His explanation, the Master is replacing the idea of the householder and the servants with the Son of Man and the angels; the idea of good seed becomes the children of the Kingdom and the tares the children of the evil one. Let us start here with a new and better understanding of the Son of Man. We discussed this before (In the Words of Jesus part 56 and part 56 on Born Again) and left there with the idea that this was Jesus reference to Himself showing His relationship to humanity; that He was just like us and is telling us through these words that we also are just like Him sans the full anointing and Presence of God. Taking the idea that we are just like Him and that if He is the Son of Man so are we, there comes a new understanding in the context of this parable. Knowing that we are not this form and recognizing that the Master was not the form that He appeared in we must take the idea of the Son of Man away from the physical realm and into the realm of the Soul or the Spirit. This said we can then see that for the human family as a whole, as for the Christ, that this ‘heavenly’ part is the Son of Man appearing in the flesh. How can we liken ourselves to Christ? From His words and the confirming words of His apostles. Repeating here some of His words will help build our picture of being like Christ especially when we follow in the words of the Master.
“Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake. 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 they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 17:21) and confirmation from the Apostle: “because as he is , so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). From the words of John we should see the idea that we and the Master are essentially the same and it is His admonition to us that we should be more like Him by living and following His word: “The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40). This is just a few of the many verses that show to us this theme of likeness and oneness and these should suffice to allow us to go forward with this parable’s explanation. Jesus says that “He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man” and this is then as we said yesterday regarding the parable; that the householder should be seen here as our own Spirit or Soul that it is the true man that sows the seed into the field which in His explanation is called the world. As yesterday, we will repeat here that the world for us is our own consciousness which we should see at the personality that we have and created on this Earth. With this we are back to our idea from the last post that the Soul or son of man is sowing the seed into the field of consciousness.
Jesus then tells us that “the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one” and here we need to understand the message given by the Master in the idea of children. From the lexicon and from Strong’s the idea of children is limited to the normal idea of offspring and the idea of becoming children of God by how we live insofar as our relationship to God. Webster’s gives us the normal thoughts of offspring but adds two idea that will help in our understanding. First: One who is the product of another; or whose principles and morals are the product of another and second: One who, by character of practice, shows signs of relationship to, or of the influence of, another; one closely connected with a place, occupation, character, etc.; as, a child of God; a child of the devil; a child of disobedience; a child of toil; a child of the people*. These ideas from Webster’s can he seen in our context from yesterday of ideas being the children of our Souls or of the evil one that are planted in the field of our personality consciousness. Taking the word children away from its normal offspring idea is done all the time as seen from Webster’s and it is done by the Jesus as well when He says in this very parable explanation that some are “the children of the wicked one” or when He tells the Pharisees that “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do” (John 8;44). In neither of these instances is the idea of child to be taken in its literal ‘offspring’ concept but as children of the ideas of the wicked one or of the ideas of the devil. As we said in the last post the thoughts of lusts, of anger and of greed are but ideas; ideas from the wicked one, from the world of men.
So here in the explanation is the same idea as we see in the parable; the ideas (children) of the Kingdom come from our Souls and from the Kingdom where our Souls exist and the ideas (children) of the wicked one come from the ways of the world in lust, anger and greed. They are planted in our world of consciousness by the Soul (son of man) or by the carnal nature (wicked one) that our personalities function in. These planted seeds become then wheat or tares. The Master then tells us that “The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity” and for this we need only carry forth the same idea on harvest as yesterday plus we have the idea of angels as well. Angels comes from the Greek word aggelos which word has a literal translation of messenger. With this in mind we can see the angels, or messengers, as the power of righteousness from our Spirit and Soul that will overcome “all things that offend, and them which do iniquity“. Note here that the thought of man or children is missing in the saying which is all things plus then the and them which them refers back to all things; this is a most important point. In the last post we said that the harvest was that time when a man makes a decision to go the way of the Lord and no longer the way of the flesh and it is at this time that this separation will happen; taking out of our conscious lives all that offends and all that does iniquity and so signifying the end of lust, anger and greed and all that they can spawn in the life of the carnal man. We are Born Again.
In the next part of this explanation the Master tells us “And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth” and this is simply put as the burning away of all those offensive parts of our conscious personality. What then of the wailing and gnashing? Again, simply put, this can be seen as reference to the carnal nature revolting, or we should say losing finally in the revolt, against the power of righteousness; the end of the struggle for the superiority of this life in form. As the Apostle Paul says “And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24) which is to say the same as the Master in this parable and in this explanation. From the seeds of the son of man and the evil one we evolve into what it is we have become and when that time comes that we finally decide to forsake the flesh and follow the Master is when we harvest and destroy the offensive parts of our nature and put on the new man created in righteousness from the seeds sown from the Kingdom of God. Jesus then gives us a proclamation of the value of righteousness: “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” and this happens to us in the here and the now; we shine forth in that Kingdom that is within us and throughout the world. The Master closes with the idea that we may be listening but are we hearing what He is saying. Do we really understand this parable and its parabolic explanation or are the traditional explanations of the end of the world and children as men more right. The answer lies within each and every one of us and is largely dependent on what we know and what we believe. “Who hath ears to hear , let him hear”
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.
And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever (Daniel 12:3)
This is a repeat of a previous Quote of the Day but it seems to be one that fits well into the closing statements made by the Master above. It is also cross referenced in the New American Standard Version. Jesus tells us that the righteous will shine forth in the Kingdom and this is the same that the Lord is telling us through Daniel. Wise in this verse is from the Hebrew sakal and means those that have insight, are teachers, have understanding or are prudent** which we can broadly consider as righteous.
- * Websters Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913
- ** Old Testament Hebrew Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
