Monthly Archives: January 2012

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

The Miracles of Jesus (continued; part xvi)

We spent much time yesterday completing our thoughts for the time being on our side theme regarding the apostles and disciples of the Master who appeared with Him to help Him to complete that part of the Great Plan of God. The seeds for these ideas came from the Christmastime posts and the appearances of men, women and angels who were in the world and who played a part in that Great Drama of the birth of the Christ. The appearance of the angel Gabriel to Zacharias and his becoming dumb; the appearance of the angel Gabriel to Mary telling her of the Christ Child; the appearance of the angel in a vision to Joseph regarding Mary, his espoused wife, and then again warning him of the danger of Herod. Then there is the angel that appears to the shepherds which sends them to Bethlehem, to the manger, giving encouragement and strength to Mary and Joseph as the shepherds were told of the Glorious happenings by the angel of God and, let us not forget the Magi who traveled far to reach the baby Jesus and to honor him and his parents with fine gifts again adding to their courage and their strength. Sometime in between these we find the prophet Simeon and the prophetess Anna with strong words of prophesy and truth about the nature of the child. We painted this picture as it is for us; the playing out of a Great Drama in which the angels and the other persons are willing participants who come and bring messages and encouragement to ensure that the Great Plan would work out.  Can we see, based on the free will of man, what might happen if there was no angel for Zacharias, how he might treat the pregnancy of his aged wife? Can we see how Joseph might respond in this country of laws if there were no angel to tell him that this is God’s Plan or if he were not a spiritual man or he was not listening? Can we see what may have happened after the birth of the child in stark surroundings with no support if there were not the shepherds bringing the message of Glory or the plight of the child if there were no Magi?

All this is to say that in times like these, in the bringing forth of the Son of God into manifestation on the Earth as a man like all others in appearance, that there is no thing left to chance or to the unpredictable free will of man. These people and events are in place, and there were likely many others that we do not see, to ensure the working out of the Great Plan; the people are not randomly picked and overwhelmed by the Spirit of God so that they do as He wills, there is not free will in this. These people are willing participants, even voluntary in their service, much like what we have posited about Peter and Paul and the other apostles and disciples. They are born for their roles in this Great Drama and from here we supposed that many others have come and gone throughout history to bring new ideas and ideals to the attention of the race of men, ideas and ideals that the world was then ready for. For all this to work and to be successful one must accept at least the premise of the concept of reincarnation because short of this we have either a God who overcomes the inherent free will of man at His choosing or we have a God that IS a respecter of persons and who lifts up certain individuals to do His work with an unexplainable bias. There is much more to say on these ideas and we will visit them again as the subject matter allows.

Getting back to our main theme of the miracles of the Master as regards His rule over the forces of Nature, we left off with the idea that there are degrees of KNOWING. We see this in the ability of the Apostle Peter to heal, raise the dead and even cure masses of people by his proximity, by his shadow, and we know from the Master’s words that this ability comes in the KNOWING which is our single word for believe and doubt not. We see this in these same abilities in the Apostle Paul; his ability included the use of napkins and aprons that, when brought to the sick or afflicted person, would heal them. Here we have Paul sending with the article some portion of his KNOWING that the person would be well regardless of the malady. Of Paul we read it this way: “And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them” (Acts 19:11-12). We also read of Paul that he was caught in a ship in a fierce storm but he could not and did not cease the wind nor the rain but let the ship go on for days with all in fear of their lives. We have surmised here that Paul did not have that KNOWING to control the environment, that this required a greater believing and a surer level of doubting nothing which the apostle did not yet have and so after many days they were then rescued by the Hand of God, spared to continue Paul’s mission to Caesar in Rome.

In this we see that there are indeed degrees of KNOWING and some more understanding of our citation above regarding those things that are put in place or done in order to ensure the working out of the Plan which in this case required Paul to get to Rome. Critics might say that our premise is not right but we should say that it is still a premise and worthy of consideration as it relies on the stories themselves and the words of the Master. Critics might say that if Paul had been able to control the storm that those present would think he was God but we should say that they are likely already aware of the exploits of Paul and the power that he carries. We list here again the four points that we have adopted which are the Master’s words on KNOWING and on righteousness:

• “For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith” (Mark 11:23).
• “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do ; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12).
• “All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him” (Matthew 11:27).
• “…for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove ; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” (Matthew 17:20).

These sayings should be rather clear to us now, or can we say clearer as they do contain much of the mysteries of spiritual Life. As we have discussed this, it is in the accomplishment of the second point that we come to the Path and to the strait gate; in doing this we can then be seen as disciples of the Master, not only in our own minds and in words but in deeds. We must remember that the idea of believe on must be understood as Vincent gave us clue: to accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life⁴ and to which we give the ideas of following Him and keeping His word. Then, after the accomplishment of this comes the KNOWING and the confidence that we are Truly in the Will of God. As the full Light of the Soul, the Christ Within floods the conscious personality, we begin to see that this IS the KNOWING and the more of ourselves we give to the Master, the greater our ability to attain even more. In this we can see the reality of the Master’s sayings that: “For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him” (Matthew 13:12). We should understand that in this context the idea of giving more of oneself is akin to recognizing what it is that we have and then using it according to His other saying that: “….for unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required” (Luke 12:48). We should see all of this also in the Light of the endpoint of yesterday’s post regarding the idea of forsaking all, giving all and holding nothing back. From the perspective of a man in form this all seems to be rather impossible and extremely difficult but we should remember that to be possessed of such Power as there is in this concept of KNOWING, one must be TOTALLY AND UNCONDITIONALLY at the side of the Master and in His Kingdom.

We move on now to the next level, from our perspective, of miracles and these include His power over the very substance of matter. As we know, or should know, there is nothing of illusion here as those that partook in these things received real substance; we are talking about changing water to wine and the multiplication of the loaves. the stories go thus:

• “And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now” (John 2: 3-10).
• “He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat? He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes. And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties. And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all. And they did all eat, and were filled. And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes. And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men” (Mark 6:37-44)
• “And his disciples answered him, From whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness? And he asked them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven. And he commanded the people to sit down on the ground: and he took the seven loaves, and gave thanks, and brake, and gave to his disciples to set before them; and they did set them before the people. And they had a few small fishes: and he blessed, and commanded to set them also before them. So they did eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets. And they that had eaten were about four thousand: and he sent them away” (Mark 8:4-9).

These are, in our consideration, the greatest of the miracles of the Master in that in these He created matter where there was seemingly nothing. Today we know that ALL is energy, all is the Life of the ONE GOD in manifestation. In these miraculous works the Master exhibited control of the very nature of matter, changing it by His will and if we read our points above again, He gives us this same ability and opportunity if we can measure up to the requirement which is first of all found in point two, that we follow Him and keep His word and second, from point one, that we KNOW, we believe and doubt not. After the miracle of the wine, the Apostle John tells us that: “This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him” (John 2:11) and it is interesting that in practically the next instant the thing is forgotten, devoured by the doubt of His disciples. Interesting too is the same effect in relation to the multiplication, or we really should say the creation, of the loaves; the second occurrence of this is not long after the first yet we are told that Jesus’ disciples say “From whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?“. They do know that these things happened but their state of mind is apparently such that they cannot readily accept the reality; they cannot see these things, along with the healing and the cures and the raising of the dead and the control over the environment as the demonstrations of the Power of God wrought by the Son that they are.

Jesus says loudly throughout His time on the Earth 2000 years ago that this is the Mighty Power of God and through me you should see that it is available to you as well if you do these things that I say. Now it is True as well that the Master’s point is not that one should follow Him so that you can have this power as this is an attitude that is contrary to much of what He says of the way a man should act and what it is that he should want. However, the fact remains that He tells us rather clearly that we can be as He is. As John tells us:  “as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17).

We will continue with this in the next post.

Note on the Quote of the Day