IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 220

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part VII

There is an ongoing controversy in the Christian church regarding the nature of  the Christ as He appeared in form on this Earth. We know of His birth, the miracle conception by the Virgin Mary, and, as we have previously discussed we know so little of His early Life. But, we do know what we are told in the gospels and we can choose whether we want to believe stories of His younger Life from some of the apocryphal works or some of the later works that are purported to be divinely inspired (see In the Words of Jesus parts 97 and 181 for more on this). We say purported because we take no position on the nature of these works such as the Aquarian Gospel by Levi or even the Book of Mormon as written by Joseph Smith. We have an understanding of the ways in which things of inspiration work in the world of form. This is that a revelation, from the time of its conception or transference from the Soul in the higher places of the Universal Mind to the brain of the man, it must per force descend through man’s personality, his heart if you will, and it is thereby colored by this process. This is to say that the revelation is tainted by a man’s own beliefs and proclivities and by his emotional and mental states with the end product being some combination of that likely pure revelation and his own personality. This is a primary cause for so many divergent philosophies and doctrines flowing into humanity from the same source; each of us sees the world through our own eyes and this seeing is of course defined as perceiving and understanding and not just what appears to the physical eye. This same dynamic is true in these posts as all that is written is colored by my personality, by my heart. Additional caution is always wise in seeing and trying to understand the true source of a revelation for there are times when its origination is also within the personality and which can be sparked by things good and evil. The test is ever in the fruit as the Master tells us and in the measure that we are told of by the Apostle James who, writing about the wisdom from above (and what else would we call revelation?), says that: “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (James 3:17). Put into a bit more modern English this says: “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no partiality and is always sincere” (James 3:17 New Living Translation (NLT)).

The controversy on Jesus, the Christ, in based on an age old argument from which the church is still split and this is to the question of the Christ being of a single divine nature or of a dual nature, divine and human. In today’s church this is not only a reflection on the ideas enumerated but also entails an understanding of the Virgin Mary in the churches view as either the Mother of God or the Mother of Jesus. We bring this up here so as to begin our look at the Second Aspect of the Trinity, the Son, the Christ of God. Where one may stand of this controversy noted above is of no moment to us as, depending on one’s perspective, they are both right. Our basic understanding of ourselves as Spirit made manifest on the Earth makes us all divine in the True sense of the word. A theme that we have not yet introduced in words can be seen acting here; this is a theme that we originally founded it in the words of the Apostle John who tells us, speaking of Jesus the Christ that “as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17) and we can call the name for this as above, so below. This is saying that as things are True of God, so they are True in Man; we have said that God is a Trinity and so we have said of man, we have said that God is a Spirit and so we have said as man and we have said that the Master was the pure Love of God made incarnate in this world and of this John tells us that we are as well.

Saying that the Christ is the Son of God and the Second Aspect of the Trinity, aside from doctrinal beliefs and confessions, does not serve a concrete purpose but there is an understanding in this that can be of great consequence in the lives of men who can grasp this idea and see it working out in their own lives and in the world. We can boldly say that as Spirit we are One with the Christ, pure and unmanifest as we discussed in previous posts. From here we need to try to understand the multiplicity of levels on which Life is working and so, here again our chart:

Cosmically,  speaking of God we see the Father manifesting through the Son, the Christ, and it is this Aspect of God that created all and is in all and is all. In Jesus the Christ we have a Spirit, like and of the Father, that is manifesting through the Christ on an individual basis and who is all that the cosmic Christ is. We can say here the same thing about man as a Soul remembering that “as he is , so are we in this world” and remembering all that the Master has told us regarding our ability to do as He did. The confusion comes in the fact that the Master is telling us these things as men and is giving us the criteria that we must meet as men. The reality can be seen behind His words; we could not do as He did as men if we were not “as he is” in Spirit and in Soul for this is the Source of the Power to do spiritual things on Earth. The Master tells us that:

• “Many good works have I shewed you from my Father” (John 10:32). Telling us that the works are from the Father who is the Spirit Aspect of God working through the Spirit Aspect of the Master.
• “When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things” (John 8:28). The same is true here; speaking as a man in form Jesus is telling us that there is no real power except as that Power comes from Above, from 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” (John 14:10). Here the Master amplifies the idea by adding the “the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” and again we should see the spiritual nature of it all; the Power is of the Spirit, made manifest in the Soul and used by the man in form, Jesus the Christ.
• To round this out and to show us the Unity of it all, the Master says that: “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).
• And, to show us how all this works for us the Master tells us that: “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). and in this we can see that if we can follow Him and keep His words here on this Earth as conscious personalities then the Power that came from Above, from His Spirit, will come for us as well.

So how then do we make these statements regarding the Christ and all of humanity and still retain an understanding of the differences between us and Him? How do we account for the fact that He could do all that He did and that we cannot? How can we account for the Oneness of Jesus the Man with His Christ Within and with the Father? Let us explore this from the human perspective and His words. We should understand here that the Master is in the Kingdom of God, and His telling us that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21) should be an affirmation that to be in the Kingdom one can be here on Earth; we should look at this idea as being in the Presence of God as this phrasing has a more direct affiliation to Life here on Earth. Being then in the Kingdom, in the Presence of God, is the natural state for the man Jesus; He is totally aware of His Life as the Christ which is represented to Him in the same way that it would be represented to us and that is that the purity of the Christ Within becomes the total focus of the conscious personality; the personality becomes the Christ as the Christ becomes in Jesus what the Master calls the “the abundance of the heart” (Matthew 12:34). Can we see how this all works together?

This is necessarily a difficult topic to broach as it is contrary to much of the doctrine and the dogma of the churches but if one will follow along in the Master’s words and understand the parabolic nature or most and the straightforwardness of others, with an open mind and dropping all predispositions, it is likely that he will come to similar conclusions. Most all of the teachings of the Master are aimed at getting us to first aspire to be His disciples and then, once upon that Path, to continue to the strait gate as a disciple of the Christ. It is here that one is in His Presence, in His Kingdom and it is here that we become Christlike on this Earth. As we close for today let us look at some of the Master’s sayings that lead us to Him and the Kingdom of God:

• “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. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:27-30). We should see this as a twofold saying; the one being our reliance on Christ Jesus and His relationship with the Father and His teaching on the Way and second we should see this as our own Christ Within.  The first part of this is a statement of value to us all: as a man in form we know not the Soul nor the Spirit but, when we hear the call of the Soul and attend to it, the Soul will reveal itself to the conscious man and in doing so the Soul will reveal the Spirit as well as they are Truly One.
• “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him……..If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John 14:21, 23). In the greater sense, whenever a man hears the call of his Soul, his Christ Within, and chooses to seek Christ and God through an emotional attachment that we call Love, or through the reality of Love as GoodWill, he then has the responsibility to keep His words, to follow Him and thereby to believe on Him. A man can make whatever claim he wants to make in regard to his relationship with the Lord but without keeping His words it is a futile claim with no substance.
• “….except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). Here we see a sort of equivalence between keeping His commandments, keeping His words and righteousness. Of course we need to look beneath the words to see this relationship but we should understand that the effect is the same; the manifestation of the Christ to a man is the same as the man being in His Presence and His Kingdom and, it all happens within.

We will continue with our thoughts about the second aspect of God in the next post.

Note on the Quote of the Day