IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 166

YES, HE is Talking to YOU! (continued)

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

We ended yesterday with a question that we need to ask ourselves and ask at all times. This is as the Master asked and as we should be asking ourselves: “Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember?” (Mark 8:18). All who desire to be disciples of the Master and work toward that end do know what the Master says and do see what the Master’s words should mean in one’s life and likely we do also remember the bliss that we experience when we find ourselves truly in His word, even if but for a small moment of time. The personal life however gets in the way, the carnal nature, the ways of the world that we know so well.

If for us that believe that we are aspiring disciples and who believe we are striving toward the Kingdom can know these things to be true what of the many who are not as ardent in their desire to be in His Presence, what about those who simply believe what it is that they have learned about salvation and redemption and think that they have done enough to be redeemed and to be saved. Do they hear the inner depth of His message? do they see the underlying meaning of His call to leave it all behind for the sake of the Kingdom? do they remember the dawning of truth in their lives? Is this not the plight of those in Jesus’ day? They felt confident in their understanding of Jewish religious laws and customs and they likely saw the teachings of the Master as an intrusion into their sacred little world. They likely asked of themselves ‘who is this guy who is trying to change the ways of our religion…..away with him’. Two thousand years later the world of men is still in the same place. Though the religion has changed to what is considered Jesus’ religion, men again have their own understanding, this time of the Christian religious laws and customs. Many still see the Master’s teachings as an intrusion on their sacred little worlds having substituted the easier doctrines of man for the Truth of the teachings of the Christ.

In the fluidness of time the words of the Master reflect in us all as they did in the people to whom He spoke in that day. Knowing that they did not hear nor see nor remember all the things that He had done, the Master says: “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold , a greater than Jonas is here. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here” (Matthew 12:41-42). What does this mean? In the fluidness of time and of Life it means simply that these “men of Nineveh” will judge what it is that these people were doing and thinking, their failure to repent and follow the Master. Is this not what we are doing now and have been doing since these words were recorded; can we not be the “men of Nineveh“? Such is the idea of reincarnation; at some point in this history of humanity these “men of Nineveh” have returned and have seen and have judged as we see and we judge right now.

We have here in this saying by the Master the simple preposition with which is what many use to tie this to the resurrection of the dead. John Gill in his Exposition of the Bible⁸ says of this verse: The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment; Alluding either to the custom and practice of witnesses, who rise up from their seats, and stand, when they give in their testimonies in a court of judicature; or else, referring to the time of the general resurrection from the dead, at the last day, when these men shall rise from the dead, and stand in judgment; with this generation; shall rise when they do, and stand before the judgment seat together, and be against them. Understanding this preposition, with, to be more that just what it appears in our English text, we shuld see that it could as well have been translated as after as the lexicon tells us. The Greek word meta it is translated as after nearly twenty percent of the time in the King James Bible. Much in line with the ideas set forth above, can we see how the translators used words that fit into their understanding of what the scriptures meant therefore bringing others mentally to the point of the resurrection as well. The matter takes on a different light when meta is translated as after instead of with showing it then as “the men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with after this generation“.

The idea of the “the queen of the south” works out much the same way except here we have a single individual who we will assume is here in these verses more for the contribution of the idea of Wisdom than to confirm the Master’s thoughts about the “the men of Nineveh“. We have discussed this concept of reincarnation many times before in our posts (In the Words of Jesus parts 60-70 subtitled ‘The Bread of Life’ contains much of our ideas on this subject) and we should be able to see that is makes so much more sense, both spiritually and in common sense, than do the teachings of heaven and hell and the final resurrection of the dead as they are taught in their various forms by the churches. In both of these sayings then we have what we should see as the Master’s allusion to reincarnation in His words about the “the men of Nineveh” and “the queen of the south” and we should understand that He never denies that this is a part of Life. When the subjects  come up of which one can assume reincarnation, as in the place where there is a man born blind or in the place where the disciples tell Jesus who it is that the people think that He is, the Master has opportunity to tell His disciples that these ideas, of the man born blind being a sinner or that Jesus is the return of one of the prophets, should be forgotten. Jesus answers questions regarding the resurrection as it was understood in that day and never explained any of it. He knew that there were differences between the Sadducees and the Pharisees regarding their concept of resurrection but He never corrected them. In fact, we could say that the Master disqualified the idea of resurrection for them at that time by telling the Sadducees how wrong they were in their assumptions of what it meant; not to tell them that they were right or wrong in disbelieving but to tell all, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, that all is Life saying that “For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living : for all live unto him” (Luke 20:38).

Speaking about “the queen of the south“, “the men of Nineveh” and the quarrel between the Sadducees and the Pharisees regarding resurrection are all examples of the Master speaking to the people in that time about the things that they knew. Without comment on the accuracy of any of the legends or beliefs, Jesus used them to make His own points regarding Life and the Kingdom of God. We have said in past posts that it is not necessary that anyone subscribe to the concept of reincarnation just because this is what we write as it matters not what one believes in this context. It is however right and progressive to follow the promptings of one’s own Soul, the Christ Within for guidance in these and all such matters that are in relation to the unknown and the unseen. The Soul does not mislead albeit we do, as men, sometimes shut out this enlightenment that we get in favor of what it is that we have believed; in this we should see the idea that we set forth above regarding the difficulty in setting aside what it is that we believe that we know. Are we these “men of Nineveh“? we certainly do judge what these Pharisees and scribes did in Jesus time; we certainly see their hypocritical nature and their lack of repentance.

We come back now to our other verse, that one that we called a sort of seed thought. We explored this yesterday from the perspective of the word generation which we have taken to mean the ‘the time in which we are and the ‘people’ that we are here with‘ which was taken from a combination of the ideas of Vincent and from Strong’s. This should give to us the idea of the fluidness of time that we cite above. Later we will discuss the use here of Wisdom but for now we want to look at the presentation of this saying in the Gospel of Matthew and the Master’s telling us of John the Baptist that: “And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear” (Matthew 11:14-15). Taking this into our discussion on reincarnation, can we see some relevance to this saying here, the return of Elias as the Baptist and then the following statement that “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear“. Critics of the concept of reincarnation will say that this saying does not apply because Elias did not die. In a literal sense this is true, He did not die; it is written that “And it came to pass, as they still went on , and talked , that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven” (2 Kings 2:11). But this criticism only reflects the lack of understanding of Life and death on the part of those that do not want to agree. No matter how we leave this Earth, we are leaving and in Elias case that there was no physical death is likely a good sign that he was accounted worthy of the Kingdom and taken directly to it. Much like the Master appeared and disappeared before His disciples after His resurrection, so the did the body of Elias become. This is the power of one accounted worthy.

So we have here the rebirth of the Spirit that had previously appeared as Elias now appearing as John the Baptist and this is the working of reincarnation. It is the Spirit and the Soul that are reborn and not the personality nor the personal self that left. That there was some idea of this in Jesus time is apparent in several sayings in the New Testament as we said earlier in this post and to this we should add this exchange between John and the Pharisees: “And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith , I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No” (John 1:21). To this we should also add the words of the Master that tell His disciples of the reality of their belief regarding Elias; He says: And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall lso the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist” (Matthew 17:10-13).

There is little or no True understanding of the nature of Life and death nor the afterlife and the Kingdom of God. We garner our understanding from those things that we learn and the revelation that we get from our own Souls and what we believe is generally some combination of these things. Truth however is constantly unfolding should we be alert to it and open enough to accept it; it will not come from others but others may help to turn us toward it.

We will continue with our verses in the next post and proceed on to the last part on Wisdom.

Note on the Quote of the Day