IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 177

YES, HE is Talking to YOU! (continued)

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

Yesterday we covered most of the additional thoughts about John the Baptist that are available to us in the gospels and in this we should see his importance in the overall task of bringing the Son of God to incarnation on this Earth. Two points we made about John the Baptist:

• First is that the role of the Baptist was certainly to herald the coming of the Christ; it is written that “In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:1-2). In these words we should see the unity of the ideas of the coming of the Christ and the coming of the His Kingdom and this from our perspective which understands the nature of the Christ Within combined with the Master’s words telling us that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21) as well.
• Our second point regarding the Baptist is that he is a trusted ambassador of the Kingdom of God and his life as the Baptist is interwoven with the life of the Christ and the salvation of humanity from the perspective of bringing the whole of the human family closer to that lofty goal of being in the Presence of God. Rev. Hartdegen says it this way: The Gospel of St. Luke begins where the visions of the last prophet end, with the person of the new Elias who will herald the dawn of salvation and prepare the people for the arrival of the “Sun of Justice.”¹⁰ 

The drama of the conception and the birth of the Baptist and the Christ are widely known but the inner truths that surround it all are sometimes veiled by our limited view of the outer. The presence of the Baptist in the years before Christ made Himself known allowed for the ‘smooth’ entry of the Master onto the world scene; smooth from the perspective that the foundation for His message on the Kingdom is already laid and smooth also by the affirmation by John that this is indeed the Messiah.

We come now to the virgin birth of the Master Himself. Disputed by some as a mistranslation of the Hebrew in Isaiah which led somehow to a falsification of the gospel narratives and by others as just unbelievable, the virgin birth of the Master still stands as a mainstay of the Christian faith. It is interesting to note however that the Qur’an also tells of the virgin birth of Jesus, and this five hundred or so years after the birth of the Master, by another prophet who seemingly had no requirement to embellish Jesus birth. Since there is so much misunderstanding of the whole of Islamic culture as regards Christianity, let us look at this Islamic view before we move on:

Mary (مريم Maryam in Arabic), the mother of Jesus, is considered one of the most righteous women in the Islamic tradition. She is mentioned more in the Qur’an than in the entire New Testament and is also the only woman mentioned by name in the Qur’an. According to the Qur’an, Jesus was born miraculously by the will of God without a father. His mother is regarded as a chaste and virtuous woman and is said to have been a virgin. The Qur’an states clearly that Jesus was the result of a virgin birth, but that neither Mary nor her son were divine. In the Qur’an, no other woman is given more attention than Mary and the Qur’an states that Mary was chosen above all women:

“And when the angels said: O Mary! Lo! God hath chosen thee and made thee pure, and hath preferred thee above (all) the women of creation.”

The nineteenth chapter of the Qur’an is named after her and is, to some extent, about her life. Of the Qur’an’s 114 suras, she is among only eight people who have a chapter named after them. Mary is specifically mentioned in the Qur’an, alongside Asiya, as an exemplar for all righteous women. Mary plays an important role in Islamic culture and religious tradition, and verses from the Qur’an relating to Mary are frequently inscribed on the mihrab of various mosques, including in the Hagia Sophia.*

We see here that this virgin birth is a part of the Qur’an and there are numerous references to Jesus in this Holy Muslim Scripture which we may someday explore in relation to our Christian gospels. For now, it is important just to see the common threads flowing through these two world religions and the idea that there may be a definitive relationship between our Master and Muhammad. As to Allah and our conception of the Father God, we should always see these as the same; it matters not what God is called when He is referenced as the Creator of the Universe. The Apostle Paul reminds us of this in saying to the Greeks that their worship of a God that they called Unknown is the same God that he, Paul, was declaring; Paul says: “….him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said , For we are also his offspring” (Acts 17:23-28). There is but One God and Creator regardless of what He may be called by different cultures and religions; if their Name of God is considered as the Creator of All then He is the same One God of All.

Getting back to our storyline on the virgin birth of Jesus, we should look now at the disputed idea from the Book of Isaiah referenced above. The text says this: “And he said , Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings” (Isaiah 7:13-16). The disputed word here is the Hebrew word almah which is here translated as virgin but in other places as maid and damsel. Strong’s tells us of almah that it means girl, young woman, (in certain contexts) virgin³. From this view we do not know the strength of the idea of virgin in this verse except by the assumption that a girl and a young woman would naturally be a virgin in the culture of the time. For us this should be enough as the whole of the idea of the virgin birth is meaningless except as to show the intervention of God, the True Fatherhood of God as regards Jesus and the purity with which the Master came among us. With or without the virginity of the Mother of the Lord, we can still see all of which was its intent; we see clearly today the intervention of the Will and the Plan of God in the Life of Jesus, we understand the Truth of the Fatherhood of God and we know His purity.

We will not assume here that the gospel writers, Matthew and Luke, did anything to change or create the idea of the virgin birth but that they merely reported what they knew to be True; we will accept the gospel stories on their face value. The story according to Luke begins for us with the conception of the Baptist; we discussed yesterday the angel’s talk with Zacharias about the birth of John but we did not address what happened to Zacharias and it is here we will begin: “And Zacharias said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years. And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings. And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season. And the people waited for Zacharias, and marvelled that he tarried so long in the temple. And when he came out, he could not speak unto them: and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple: for he beckoned unto them, and remained speechless. And it came to pass , that, as soon as the days of his ministration were accomplished, he departed to his own house. And after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived, and hid herself five months, saying, Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men” (Luke 1:18-25). We can see here that the Great Plan of God worked in many ways to assure the desired happenings in the world of men. From the perspective of the free will of man, the Plan is found working through those who could be touched by their own Souls and moved to action and that certain assurances were sometimes necessary, the becoming dumb of Zacharias among them.

As we continue here we come to the Angel Gabriel’s visitation to Mary. As we said yesterday regarding Zacharias we can say the same of Mary: Mary is a spiritual woman and in touch with her own Soul and that her communication comes via this ‘Soul’ channel and that the angel, being an apparition, it is not viewed with the physical eye but by that spiritual perspective that we can call today revelation. This angel of the Lord appears to Mary thus: “And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her” (Luke 1:26-38).

We must understand that there is no thing that happens in this sequence of events by accident. Elisabeth, Mary, Zacharias and Joseph are all destined for their roles in this Great Drama of the Nativity of the Lord. These are Souls that are close to or are in the Presence of God and who, through the unknown way in which spiritual things work, are born to their purpose and who likely at some point, perhaps at the time of the angel, become aware of their awesome responsibility and respond. In this respect we should see the role of the dumbness inflicted upon Zacharias as an assurance that the flesh would stand aside and let the Soul’s purpose do its work.

For us the key words in the above should be always that “For with God nothing shall be impossible“. The Great and Awesome Plan of God moves forward and naught can stop it. It may be hindered by the actions of man but the steadiness of  His Plan cannot be overcome and those who watch over the happenings of the human family are likely forced to continually adapt based on the doings of man. There is only the Goodness of God flowing through to us, His children, and until we see that Goodness we will continue in our worldly and carnal ways. This is can be seen in all life from the reality of what each person does as an individual to the happenings of groups, large and small, religious and secular. There is no plan for war and for the strife and brutality that one man inflicts upon another yet these things do happen and they happen because the world of men is enmeshed in what we have referred to as the three gates of hell….Anger, Greed and Lust. It is only when we leave off from these effects of the selfish nature of carnal life and seek communion with our own Soul’s that we will sense the Presence of God and then, as the Master instructs, we will SEEK Him and STRIVE toward the strait gate to His Kingdom.

We will continue with these thoughts in the next post.

Note on the Quote of the Day