IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 1092

ON LOVE; PART DCLXXXI

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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.

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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).

In the last essay we continued with our discussion of the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John as a part of our overall look at the idea of grace and its relationship to the reality of the Holy Spirit which we understand as that Aspect of the Trinity of God and man that is the expression or the activity of God through Life in form. While our discussion on this part of John’s Gospel may not seem to be on our subject of grace, this idea will develop as we proceed into those parts of this chapter where we learn of the Oneness of the Father and the Son. We should see this idea as it IS extended to the Oneness of the Spirit and the Soul, the God Within and the Christ Within, and ALL other correspondences to these Aspects of Life apart from this existence in this world. It IS in the misplaced view that the man IS this body that IS responsible for much of the doctrinal confusion in the world yet today and it IS in the right view of the True man as the divine man, the Spirit manifest as the Soul, who IS living through this form that we can rightly understand the words of the Apostle John’s Gospel that we read here again:

“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake” (John 14:1-11).

We should see here how that Jesus IS speaking to the apostles as men in the world whose Life IS focused in God and that He KNOWS and He understands that it IS through their ability to realize the divine Truths in their hearts, in their consciousness, that they will be able to understand the Truths that He IS revealing to them. This IS the way that ALL things divine work out in the lives of men and this IS as True today as it was in those days when the Master’s parabolic language IS ONLY understood by those whose focus IS right and who ARE keeping His words. It IS these things that bring more grace which IS greater revelation and realization and the expression of this which IS the Holy Spirit in the Life of a man in the world. We should understand here that just as these concepts are alien to men today, even to men whose lives may be focused upon God in a religious way, these were alien to men in that day; even to the apostles who were nurtured and who believed the view of God that was presented by the Jewish doctrines of the day. These apostles were nurtured in the idea of a Transcendent God, a God who existed outside of their lives and, while the operation of the Inner God was the same as it ever was, the perception was to visions and to the personality of God speaking. The Truth of God Immanent was likely understood by those with greater focus and greater vision, those who could look past the doctrinal pronouncements and who could glimpse the greater realities of Life, but this was not the common vision much as it IS not the common vision yet today.

And this IS the teaching of the Master: from his saying in Luke’s Gospel that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21) to the ideas above that say clearly that “I am in the Father, and the Father in me” to His words further on that includes the disciple, the man who keeps His words, saying “I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” (John 14:20). The KEY here in ALL of this IS in keeping His words which IS the result of one’s focus and IS the operation of grace and of the Holy Spirit in the Life of a man in this world. This IS the Master’s teaching on the Immanence of God, of the God Within the man and of God Within the entirety of His creation; this DOES NOT preclude the Transcendence of God but expands it to every corpuscle of Life which can say that “I am in the Father, and the Father in me“. This IS the greater reality of Life that IS alien to the apostles even to the end of Jesus time with them and we should note that the growth of these men away from the Jewish doctrines in which they nurtured IS great as they see clearly much of the Truths of the Master”s teachings and, as we can see in the lives of some, they continue to grow in their realizations and expression of His Truths. Peter IS our example in both the gospels and in the Book of Acts, our example of the growth of the disciple and of the Kingdom Within; John IS our example by way of his grasp of these Truths to such a degree that he can write them out for us to read in his own way, a way in which we can clearly see his understanding of the Love that IS God and that IS the central point in the working of Truth in the world of men. And we should not forget the Apostle Paul here as while he IS NOT with the Master as He lived among men, he comes to KNOW the Truth of the God Within through his own revelations and his own awakening to the realities of Life and IS able to express these realizations to us in his own words of Truth which stream forth in his Life as the grace of God and the operation of the Holy Spirit in his Life.

And here in these words above from John’s Gospel we have the Master’s teaching these apostles who KNOW much but yet have much to realize of the Truths of the Master’s message and here He presents them in His own parabolic way so that ONLY they who ARE ready can understand His meaning. And this IS the same plight that we have here today reading His words although for us the dynamic IS different; for us there IS the added difficulty of reading through the doctrinal bent that IS applied to these rather alien concepts, ideas that extended into the minds of the Early Church Fathers from the Jewish traditions and doctrines and which cause translations and interpretations that ARE according to their own visions of Truth. It IS through these early ideas, the doctrinal ideas of the translators and the latter view of the interpreters, that we have what we read today; little has changed in the common view of Life and few see the reality of the ideas that the Master IS here presenting to us. As we began our look at these words from John’s Gospel we saw that the Master IS cautioning the disciples to stay strong and to continue to KNOW the Truths of God that they have been exposed to in their time with the Master and, while this IS framed doctrinally and while there ARE several interpretations of these words, this IS the message that we get from His words that they “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me“. As we discussed the better view of this IS to: believe in God and believe in me ⁴ as Vincent tells us.

We must remember that these ARE Jesus disciples, these ARE the Twelve who just heard again the Master’s words on His impending death according to the scriptures and of the betrayal by Judas, and we should see this scene through the combination of the way that the story IS told in ALL of the Gospels. It IS with ALL this in mind that the Master teaches these things that we have in the sayings above and it IS with ALL this in mind that Jesus tells the Twelve to be strong and to continue in the way of of KNOWING, of realizing, ALL of those things that could be included in the ideas of believing in God and in the Christ. And the Master goes on to speak about the Kingdom and about the Father; while these ideas are converted to the doctrines that prescribe the Kingdom as a place and even a place in the sky, the reality IS that Jesus IS telling them of the reality of the Kingdom of God, that there many ways to abide in that state of being that IS founded in Love and in keeping the words of the Master. The idea of physical buildings is built in fantastical ideas from Jewish traditions or in the ideas that the Kingdom of God IS like unto the Earth but for believers in the doctrinal sense of the word; likewise the idea that these mansions are a symbol for the type of Life in the Kingdom or those that see this as a symbol of opulence in the afterlife as understood in the opulences of the world, ARE also fantastical and there IS NO support for this in scripture except in the misplaced translations and interpretations as we have here in this word rendered as mansions. In the greater idea of abode we should be able to see the Presence of God, being in His Presence and, as we read further on, God being in our Presence as we live and work in the world as expressions of the divine Life of the Kingdom of God.

These are difficult things to see for the man whose understanding IS in doctrine and, as we see in the dialogue above, this IS a difficult thing to understand for Thomas and for Philip as well. In the ideas of His preparing a place for the Twelve in these mansions in the “Father’s house” we should see the deeper ideas that are found in these Greek words and perhaps understand that the Master IS preparing them for this place and that He IS DOING so by His Life and His example as well as by His death and His resurrection. We ARE NOT Greek scholars but we ARE students of Truth and of the complexities of the Master’s words and their presentation by the apostles and what we see here in this saying on mansions and the preparation of a place IS that there ARE many assumptions made in translation that ARE based in doctrinal beliefs….this IS True of many verses. We point to this here because our view is so radically different than most ALL doctrinal views that consider that the Kingdom of God IS a place and, while we may seem to be stretching our interpretations here, our ideas become clearer as we proceed.

The very nature of the next verse calls into question the previous by the inclusion of the word if and we should try to see here that since Jesus has already said that this IS what He would do, the idea of if should become meaningless. While this Greek word ean IS most always rendered as if and seems to mean if, some translators have rendered this in terms like since and after so as to better fit the dialogue and the doctrinal assumptions; overall, the majority render as if and in this there comes the difficulty of the the Master questioning His own statement. In our view of this however the idea of if can work; when we see this as that He IS preparing them for the opportunity of being in the Presence of God and that this idea of opportunity ² IS a part of the lexicon’s definitions of the Greek word topos and part of Strong’s as well along with the ideas of possibility and position ³. With this in mind we can see the question of if as pertinent from the perceptive of the Master’s success in preparing them for this Presence of God which we can see in the greater context of grace and of the Holy Spirit. The Master’s words can be understood then as His saying that He is preparing them for this Presence and, in the idea of go, we can understand the greater idea of His leading them; this too can be seen as part of the ideas presented in the lexicon for the Greek word poreuomai ² which IS rendered as go.

In the repeating of this idea with the addition of the word rendered as if, we can see the question as to whether the Master’s preparation of the apostles IS successful for them ALL and read this as if He has successfully prepared them for the Presence of God in their lives. Then if this IS True, the Master will “come again” to this apostle who has been so prepared and here again we must try to see through the doctrinal influence on the translation. Vincent tells us on this idea: I will come again (πάλιν ἔρχομαι); The present tense; I come, so Rev. Not to be limited to the Lord’s second and glorious coming at the last day, nor to any special coming, such as Pentecost, though these are all included in the expression; rather to be taken of His continual coming and presence by the Holy Spirit. “Christ is, in fact, from the moment of His resurrection, ever coming into the world and to the Church, and to men as the risen Lord” (Westcott) ⁴. While this interpretation IS doctrinal in nature, we can take from Vincent’s ideas that this IS His continual coming and presence by the Holy Spirit as a way of better understanding this thought from the Master; that to those who ARE prepared, the divine Power of the Christ and the Christ Within continually come. For us this IS grace and this IS the Holy Spirit.

We should remember that from these words from John’s Gospel much doctrine has been built; both in these translated words and in the doctrinal idea of that place called heaven and here we should see the doctrinal understanding of the final idea of this verse as that He will go to Heaven after His own death and prepare a place for them in the “Father’s house“, a mansion according to the translations, and that He will come back for them so that they can be with Him. We can see somewhat of this from the rendering of the Master’s words in The Message Bible where we read: “And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live“. The greater understanding however IS in the reality that we present above along with the final realization that He IS in the Presence of God and those who are prepared can be there also. Can we see the sense of this? While we may not be accurately rendering the Greek ideas, we are rendering them according to the various sources that we have and we are making sense of them according to our own view of Life and of the Kingdom of God as this exists in the here and now; as a state of being that IS accessible through the grace received by our focus upon preparing ourselves through His words for this same Presence of God in our own lives. 

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 repeat here again a saying that is from the Bhagavad Gita, which goes well with our theme of the God Within, the Soul, which we see as the Christ Within and while this is good in the Christian world and is True based upon our understanding of the Christ as the manifestation of God, we should also see in these words below that it does not matter what these divine ideas are called; that it matters not what we call this Inner Man, that he is the same in ALL, he is the Soul.

Thou carriest within thee a sublime Friend whom thou knowest not. For God dwells in the inner part of every man, but few know how to find Him. The man who sacrifices his desires and his works to the Beings from whom the principles of everything stem, and by whom the Universe was formed, through this sacrifice attains perfection. For one who finds his happiness and joy within himself, and also his wisdom within himself is one with God. And, mark well, the soul which has found God is freed from rebirth and death, from old age and pain, and drinks the water of Immortality.—Bhagavad-Gita

It is difficult to tell just what verses of the Bhagavad Gita the above is from; whether it is a paraphrase or a combination. It is from the book “The Great Initiates” by Édouard Schuré which was originally published in French in 1889 and perhaps it is in the translation of the verses that they become hard to recognize. However, the sheer beauty of the presentation caught my attention and so I share it with you. The Path to the Kingdom is the same no matter what religion one professes.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• ² New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ³ Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible – 2001
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888