IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 289

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part LXXIV

“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error. 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. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.  There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment . He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:1-21).

We began looking at our next verse from the text of John’s First Epistle above and never left the first word because it seems to be an important transition term to get us from the ideas of discernment to the idea of Love which we will come to see as the central idea of this chapter and, in fact, most all of John’s writings. Our word is hereby and we were left to ponder on which direction it should take the apostle’s narrative; forward to the ideas of Love or backward into the ideas of discernment. On discernment we have seen John’s wording as leading us to the Truth that we must be ever careful to discern the source of the ‘spirits’ that we allow to influence us in Life and we have seen how these may be the personal and internal conflict of duality that besets the man who is coming to recognize the voice of the Christ Within and who must discern whether what he is being inclined to do or to say is from that Christ or from the worldly nature of the personality and, as John and the Master allude to, the veracity is found in the fruits of those inclinations and in the showing of those fruits in the intended motives. We should see here that we have, as men in form, ample opportunity to evaluate ourselves and our actions by the simple observance of our motives, whether they be toward the worldly nature and its profit or toward the spiritual. The Master makes this idea clear to those who can see it in His saying that: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).

The other side of discernment is in regard to outside forces that can manipulate the man into believing a thing to be True when it is not. These can be the words of religious and political leaders or even one’s family and friends who in John’s day and today can be in so many ways antagonists or, as John prefers, antichrist. We should see this in ALL things that are not in line with the rightfully discerned words of the Master and the supporting words of the apostles. We should see this in the cleverly disguised doctrines and dogmas that can lead a man astray and the warning of these things is in this chapter of John and in his lead saying of “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God” although we have been deluded into thinking that this refers only to the ideas that come with confessing Christ. We should understand that this is written to those men at that time that were divided between believing and not believing, between following the new way of the Lord or maintaining the comfort of the old way; for us today there are so many ways in which we should be trying “the spirits whether they are of God“. In both of these thoughts, the effect of the duality and the effect of the outside forces, we should see the ideas of illusion, glamour and deception about which we repeat some of the other sayings by the apostles of the Lord that should help us to understand.

• “Be not deceived; God isnot mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall healso reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7-8).
• “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22).
• And we add this from the Master who is speaking not about evil men only but of all who misrepresent the True teachings regardless of their motive in doing so for the personality of man is generally weak and will believe and do those things that are convenient much more readily than those that take our True spiritual fortitude. He says: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matthew 24:24). Ponder on this!

Now in our view this is the crux of the teaching by John in the first six chapters up to our partial verse that we are here still dealing with and which is “Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error” and this is what would be seen as the reference to hereby if we see it as going only backward. We can of course see this reality, that the “spirit of truth” is the right discernment and the “spirit of error” is the trusting in other spirits representing the ways of the world, and this should be for us rather clear but is this what the apostle wanted us to see in these ‘spirits’ ? Let’s go forward now with this idea as it moves into the next verses on Love:

• “Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error“. This is the partial verse with which we begin.
• “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.” This is where we will try to see it as a bigger reality regarding these spirits of Truth and of error.

We can contrast this idea of going forward with the hereby that is in Verse Two above; although it is a different word usage as we saw from Vincent yesterday we should see that it does work. Taking our saying then we should try to see that the “spirit of truth” resides in the ideas of the apostle on Love; to Love one another and as another way to gauge the idea of being of God and KNOWING God. Conversely we should see that “the spirit of error” is found in those who do not Love and who therefore “not knoweth not God“. Can we sense the ease of using the ideas from our partial verse in relation to this next verse on Love.  Can we also see that going backward does not relate directly to the first part of this same verse nor does it relate well with the prior verse. To relate this backward one must go, as does the commentary we cited, back to the beginning parts that are in regard to confessing and here we see that their realization is of Truth is with “confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh” and error is with “every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh“. Vincent gives us a bit of information about “the spirit of error” that may be helpful in understanding the intent of the apostle; he says: The spirit of error (to pneuma thv planhv). The phrase occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. Compare pneumasi planoiv misleading spirits, 1 Tim. iv. 1.⁴

Does the idea of misleading spirits give us any better understanding of John’s intent? that from our perspective there is the thought of being misled away from Love, either by the personality itself and its carnal and selfish perpective or by those outside forces of whatever kind and for likely similar reasons. It is interesting to note that the word translated as deceived can be seen in the same way; Vincent tells us that the idea of deceive as we have it above in the Master’s words can be seen as Deceive (planhsh). Lit., lead astray, as Rev.⁴ and from this we should be able to take away that these words are all similar in meaning and in intent. To be deceived or misled or led astray can and does happen to the man in form and this takes on additional importance once the man faces that duality and conflict between the Soul and the personality. We should see that it is here that this takes on the spiritual perspective of which John and the others speak; it is here that the conscious Self in form can be deceived by the personality that wants to move on in its worldly way and thereby misleading the Self or leading the Self astray and in this is John’s lesson on discernment , in his telling us that we must “try the spirits whether they are of God“. Can we understand this concept well enough to be able to fend off this deception? That the Self is the Soul enmeshed in the world of illusion, glamour and deception and that the largest part of this deception is the belief that one IS the personality and not the Soul which makes it so that until the conflict of duality, until the man recognizes the Soul and the Christ Within as a reality, the ways of the world seem to be the only normality. Then, when the duality is sensed, when the man becomes vitally aware of his spiritual part, the time of discernment is at hand; it is here that the man must constantly choose between what John calls the “the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error“.

Taking this idea forward of “Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error“, we take it into the realm of the depth of the apostle’s teachings on Love and his defining statement on God Himself, that “God is love“. In this we should see that the Spirit of Truth is Love and that the Spirit of error is to be misled into believing that Love is NOT the crux of the message of the Master and His apostles. This is of benefit and of use to the world much more so than the ideas that Truth is confessing that Jesus was born and that error is in not confessing this. Can we see that in this debate itself is a good amount of deception, of being misled into not believing nor seeing the strength and the Power of Love and its overall importance in Life from the perspective of that Great Truth that “God is love“. The reality of this deception is found deep within the personality that is the man in form and who, without the flow of Light from the Soul, will continuously dwell in that glamour of the lower self, each of which sees only his own importance. It is only in the Light of the Soul, no matter how dimly it may shine within a man’s Life, in this sense of conscience, that the whole world does not turn back to its barbaric past.

We will get into the ideas that John puts forth on Love in the next post.

NOTE: We are experiencing server and website issues and have been throughout the day; we cannot publish this nor even save it properly. This is the reason for the delay and the abrupt end and we will continue to try to publish this as long as it is feasible. My apologies for any inconvenience.

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