IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 135

YES, HE is Talking to YOU! (continued)

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

We have now covered two of the three parables that the Master told to His Disciples after He had sent away the multitudes. These are the Parable of the Hidden Treasure and the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price. These were short and relatively easy to discern although we did not agree with most of what the commentaries said of either one. These are parables that tell the disciples something about the Kingdom of God which, for us, has been different from the normal religious understandings of them. As we said yesterday and which bears repeating here, these two parables liken the value of possessing the Kingdom of God to possessing something of great value here on Earth. The Master tells us in both that the carnal man, focused on the carnal life, would be willing to give up all to obtain the great treasure or the pearl of great value and in this same way we, focused on the spiritual life, must be willing to give up all that we hold dear in this world in order to attain to the Kingdom and to possess it. Note that we do not say we must give up all; we say must be willing to give up all; the requirement is therefore that we shed our attachment to the things of this world.

This next parable is a more difficult task as it is not so straightforward as the previous two and is of ambiguous meaning, it concerns in part “the end of the world” and is concluded by a statement that seemingly has little to do with the idea of the parable itself, as least in its surface value. Again we find that the commentaries are of little help to us as they fail to even relate what for us are the proper ideas of the Master’s use of analogies to the Kingdom of Heaven. One likens it to the gospel and its ministry another says this of the Kingdom as a net: The far-reaching efficacy of the Gospel is thus denoted. This Gospel net “gathered of every kind,” meaning every variety of character(Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible)⁸. A third commentary is more complicated than the parable itself, breaking apart the thoughts into bite size pieces and explaining them in much words and with little clarity. By small example let us look at this from John Darby’s Synopsis of the New Testament: Thus the gospel net has been cast into the sea of the nations, and has enclosed of all kinds. After this general gathering, which has filled the net, the agents of the Lord, having to do with the good, gather them together, separating them from the bad. Remark here that this is a similitude of the kingdom. It is the character which the kingdom assumes when the gospel has assembled together a mass of good and bad. At the end, when the net has been drawn so that all kinds are enclosed in it, the good are set apart because they are precious, the others are left. The good are gathered into divers vessels. The saints are gathered, not by the angels, but by the work of those who have laboured in the name of the Lord. The distinction is not made by judgment, but by the servants occupied with the good⁸. If our objective in interpreting a parable is to gain some insight into its redeeming value then this type of commentary does not help us and so, we are on our own again to try to discern what the Master is telling His disciples behind the words of the story of the Parable of Drawing in the Net or as others call it the Parable of the Drag-net.

In meditation this morning the thought came to me that I may seem to be criticizing the writers of the bible commentaries that we use here and I apologize if this is the inference that comes across. This is not my intent and I am sure that all valid commentary, in its place, time and audience, is valuable reference material. My point in showing them and talking about them is that these have much become the way we think of scripture in the churches today and to show the contrast between this and what is, for us,  better interpretations which contain in them some help to us as we journey on the Path to the Kingdom. To understand the precepts of a parable in the terms of how a particular denomination may see it or how it has relationship to some real life event does not help us to understand the way to the Kingdom. While our interpretation may also be flawed, they are an attempt to show the idea behind the parable as it affects our True Self’s, our Soul’s, relationship with its expression on this Earth rather than merely how we can see it as men. It is seldom, if ever,  just the story that counts and all these parables are the teaching of our Master which we should see as teaching us who can hear and can see the secrets and the mysteries of the Kingdom of God and not to gain a better understanding of the net or who is may be that separates the fishes. The parable goes thus:

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: Which, when it was full , they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall bewailing and gnashing of teeth. Jesus saith unto them, Have ye understood all these things? They say unto him, Yea, Lord. Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old” (Matthew 13:47-52)

We should note that the net in this parable is a different kind of net than is spoken of in other parts of the gospel. This is said to be a large fishing net; a drag net². Vincent helps us to understand this better; he says that this is: the only occurrence of the word in the New Testament. A long draw-net, the ends of which are carried out and drawn together. Through the transcription of the word into the Latin sagena comes seine. From the fact of its making a great sweep, the Greeks formed a verb from it (xxxx), to surround and to take with a drag-net⁴. This shows us that the Master had something specific in mind regarding the net in this parable. While looking on-line for other names given to this parable I was reminded that Jesus did say to His disciples early on: “Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men” (Mark 1:17). In this saying may be some greater understanding that can be applied to our parable today and we should also see that when this saying was spoken to His disciples, it affected them in such a way that they immediately left all and followed Him. Are we His disciples or do we aspire to be such? then this saying is as much for us as for them.

While the common understanding of these type parables is that they concern the Great Judgement and the Great Judgement Day, of what great use is this information to us or to them at that time? It becomes a phantasmagorical picture of Angels looking over the ‘catch‘ of humanity in the Kingdom and sorting out those that are wicked and leaving the rest. Again, does this help us in any way or does it just further promote the ideas and the superstitions about heaven and hell; judgement and punishment? and why would the Master want to promote these ideas to His disciples? So we say that there must be more! Now Vincent’s comment about the net does brings to mind a great harvest from which nothing escapes. One can also visualize, in today’s terms, that this net would catch every thing including the ‘kitchen sink’; the good, the bad and the ugly. Much like we have looked at the field in the Parable of the Tares as being our conscious selves, our conscious personalities, can we not see the same idea in the sea. Instead of growing wheat and tares we are catching all that is out there in the great sea of our minds and hearts. The word translated as world in these verses is the Greek word aeon which has its real meaning in the idea of time and not in this physical planet on which we live; this same is true in the Parable of the Tares. We can then take this to say that at the end of our lives here or at the end of the age as each is a period of time albeit the one is within the other.

Taking then the sea of consciousness we, as the Soul, cast forth the all gathering net, and we, as the angel in the parable, separate out all of the thoughts and feelings that are not conducive to the Kingdom Of God and so we are as Souls in His Kingdom. As we have said in previous posts, the Spirit of man and his manifestation as the Soul of man is Pure and is clear of all the doings of his expression as his conscious form. We can add here that from each life the Soul reaps the Good, the Beautiful and the True aspects of that life in form; the progress made toward the Kingdom of God in any lifetime. We have also posited that it is not impossible that the references to angels in the New Testament are references to man’s spiritual self (In the Words of Jesus part 115). Since the idea of what is an angel is so unclear it can well be a reference to our Spiritual Self acting in the Kingdom on the catch of the content of physical man’s mind and heart. Is this thought any more strange than the visual of thousands of unidentified flying beings going through the billions of humans; identifying the ones that are wicked and picking them up and casting them into a giant furnace?

Taking this then as the parable or the proverb that it is, what is the Master saying? We should see that this is a reference to all of life, to our current day, to our timely death and to the end of the age for if we are fit, accounted worthy, for the Kingdom today and we persist, we will be also at the time of our death and at the great unknown at the end of the age. So our Soul, our Angel, when He has the necessary degree of control or influence over the conscious personality, is in a constant work of garnering our good thoughts and feelings and casting out the wicked and the selfish and all that are contrary to the Presence of God; this is in our current day. As we have discussed previously the time of death is a at a specific point in time when we will be found to be where we are and what we are at that point in time; hence the Master’s telling us in so many ways that we should be ready. If we are accounted worthy in our current day and can persist, we will be the same at the death of this body and, as we have said, can bypass the normal ideas of heaven and hell and continue in His Presence; He will then “raise him up at the last day” (John 6:54) of both our mortal life and at the end of the age. Again we must remember that there is an infinite degree of readiness that culminates in (and to be sure goes beyond) what we have been speaking of as discipleship; and we should remember that in this parable as well as in His explanation of the Parable of the Tares, the Master is talking to His disciples. The stories and the outcomes are much the same.

What then is the value of this interpretation to us today, especially those of us who would be disciples? and what is the relevance to the mass of men? First, to us aspiring disciples the Master is saying that we, as Souls, will continue to correct the wayward ways of the carnal man in form so long as that man is attentive to the prompting of the Soul. If we reach out for what is not ours, by conscience, we will pull back; if we are going to anger in a situation, the peace and calm of the Soul will calm us in order to look differently at the matter; if we have thoughts of others that are contrary to the Master’s message, the continual renewal of our minds in the Light of the Soul will carry those thoughts away. This is separating the wicked from the good and casting it away. And, in our understanding of this, we are able to bring the underlying message of the Master to all those who may be ready and thereby we become fishers of men. Second, hidden in this and all of Jesus’ teachings, is the reality that when we can master all these things and come to being accounted worthy that we can be free from all the travail of life in this world as we will attain to the Kingdom of God and His Presence forever.

The last part of this parable is the more obscure part saying: “Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old” Again commentaries abound that do not really give any clearer idea of this for our use than the parable itself. What is it that the Master is saying here? First let us look at some of the words. Commentaries say that the scribe listed here is the New Testament preacher but these references are not sound and if they were then we still have little understanding of the meaning. We will take the word to mean any teacher of the law who was considered naturally qualified to teach in the synagogues⁶. The next words of interest here are which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven; Vincent tells us that this should be translated as who hath been made a disciple of the Kingdom, etc⁴. Using these two ideas from our reference library we can see that a teacher who is a disciple is His intent and so the Master is saying that every teacher who is a disciple of the Kingdom. We know that a householder is the master of a house, even the goodman of the house² and we should assume that as such he has treasure. Vincent tells us here that the words translated as bringeth forth are literally flingeth forth indicating his zeal in communicating instruction and the fullness out of which he speaks. 

This brings us to the ideas then of new and old which are as they appear, new and old. So we have the teacher, Jew or Gentile, New Testament or Old, who is become a disciple of the Kingdom. These are the very disciples that he is talking to. And now this teacher, this disciple, who has a treasure of knowledge and of understanding from which he should bring forth those things that are of the Old, of the Law, in the light of his discipleship understanding plus all the New that the disciple is learning now and tomorrow from the Master. These things should he teach.

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. If you have not seen this before, this should be viewed as, like John and Jesus to the Jews, something new and different.

Scheduling difficulty has forced me to leave the same Quote of the Day as we had. It is a good message to ponder.

No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. (2 Timothy 2:4).

While beautifully put, the King James Version makes this saying a bit cumbersome to understand in the spiritual context. It does tell us that no matter what we do in life we need to pay attention to that and not to other affairs of life. We must be, as James tells us, singleminded. Putting this in a spiritual perspective we should see that if we are ‘soldiers of the Lord’ as chosen by the Lord, we can only please the Lord by NOT entangling ourselves in the affairs of the carnal life. On a personal level we should see that when we have heeded the call of the Soul and are striving toward the Kingdom, success will only come in our singlemindedness; that is attending to the things of God and not the things of the world remembering that “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13)

• ²New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
• ⁶ Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, 1996