IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 224

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part XI

In yesterday’s post we began with a discussion of the ideas ON GOD that we can gather from the New Testament. Some of these are sayings of the Master and others are sayings by His apostles and the next one that we cover will is from the lips of John the Baptist. Except we missed some, these are the extent of the direct sayings regarding God in the New Testament and the nature of these sayings in much different than we find in the Old Testament. Much of the Old Testament’s direct sayings about God refer to where God is and who He is with as with nations and people; other sayings speak of His strength and ability in human terms and give us ideas like jealous and anger regarding God in certain situations. These types of sayings we leave to be read in their context; if we believe that God is angry or jealous in general terms or that He is with the Jews only, we do not get a true understanding of God at all. In this we should remember the emotional and mental state of the people of this time and we should keep in mind also a point we left to ponder in a recent post regarding the right understanding of the ONE GOD and His effectual presence in that day as Jehovah. There are however several sayings in the Old Testament that do refer to the Nature of God. We began looking at these sayings in the New Testament in the last post and, although it was not the intention to address them, we will cover some of these Old Testament references along with the unfinished list from yesterday. Before getting to this however we will first go back to briefly give the Old Testament references for those that we have already covered.

Yesterday we covered God’s Perfection and there is nothing to add to this idea from the Old Testament. We should understand that the idea of Perfection is inherent in our understanding of God insofar as He is God and that the intent of this saying by the Master is first to reinforce this idea of Perfection on those that may not realize its value based on some of the Old Testament ideas as we mention above. The idea of Perfection is at odds with any thought of God being in a state of  jealousy or anger and should this be of a confusing nature to any, the Master sets the record straight for them. The Master is also intent here on telling us, His aspiring disciples, of the ultimate necessary action in our spiritual Lives and that is to “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). In this the bar is set high and the possibility is made evident.

We next covered the idea of merciful insofar as the Master tells us that this is a part of the Nature of God and we did spend much of our time on this in an effort to rightly understand the concept of mercy from the God perspective. We came away saying that it is in the preceding verses that we get the right understanding and that in the context that this is offered we should understand mercy as that quality of Love for ALL equally and without the need to be asked plus, the sharing by OUR God  of all that is in His Glorious Creation. On a personal level, when we are told to “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful” (Luke 6:36) we should get a like understanding of Love as we have been discussing it in these posts and add to this a general sharing of the ALL of His creation with ALL in His creation; that is that ALL things should belong to ALL people. Don’t misunderstand this as a view of social programs, the sharing in the eyes of God is a voluntary sharing that starts with us, His aspiring disciples. Now the idea of the Mercy of God is also found in the Old Testament though is a slightly different setting and context. His mercy in this reference is in His part of the covenant and is His promise to the Nation if they turn to Him and are obedient to His word. The text says that “(For the LORD thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them“(Deuteronomy 4:31). We can take this in two ways; first this can be that God is speaking to those people in their emotional and mental state in a way that they can understand and so this is a True depiction or, we can see this as a tribal issue with Jehovah speaking as God instructing His people, His nation to follow Him and not the ways of the heathen world. There could also be some reality in both these approaches. The message from the Master to us is one that is for disciples and aspirants and is on a spiritual level of sharing and Love; the message from Jehovah to the Jews is on a physical level; that they follow the Lord and His ordinances if they want to be in His mercy here and now in this life on Earth.

Our next idea in the Last post was that God is the God of the Living and not of the dead and this needs no further elucidation as it appears clear enough to say as we did that for man there is in reality no death but just transition; the Spirit endures, the Soul continues. From here we went to the idea that originally is taken from the Old Testament and this is “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD (Deuteronomy 6:4) and in this we came away with two ideas. First that there is and can be only ONE GOD as by definition God IS one Boundless Immutable Principle; one Absolute Reality which, antecedes all manifested conditioned Being. It is beyond the range and reach of any human thought or expression** and it is likely that this was the emphasis in the Old Testament. Although we do read so much that the Jews in that day worshiped many Gods, the scripture is replete with Gods anger at this prostitution. Second we said that God is not divisible and this is an understanding that does not appear in the Old Testament; the ideas and concepts regarding the Trinity come from Jesus teaching regarding our relationship to our Father God and the Son and us too as the Sons of God.

Continuing with our list from yesterday we come to the statement by the Baptist saying:

• “God is true” (John 3:33) The Greek word used here is alethes and it is the same word from which the Greek word aletheia is derived. The former is generally translated as true and used as an adjective and the latter is generally translated as truth and is used as a noun. For us the meaning is uniform though the usage and the context is different. In this context John is speaking about the Christ and although the verses are rather obscure and difficult to understand as regards to the reference of who ‘he‘ is in all places, we can come to the logical conclusion that the Baptist is telling us of the Truth of God. We can understand it as the church does, that John is testifying to this Truth that is Jesus or we can take on the vision that the Master is testifying to the Truth of God. What is Truth is the question posed by Pilate at the trial of Jesus and we need to see Truth as more than the absence of a lie. We should see in True ideas like real and genuine⁴ and we should see the multiplicity of defining terms as presented by Webster’s saying: 1. Conformable to fact; being in accordance with the actual state of things; 2. Genuine; pure; real; not counterfeit, adulterated or false; 3. Faithful; steady in adhering to friends, to promises, to a prince or to the state; loyal; not false, fickle or perfidious; 4. Free from falsehood; 5. Honest; not fraudulent;  6. Exact; right to precision; conformable to a rule or pattern; 7. Straight; right; 8. Not false or pretended; real; 9. Rightful ¹. In these ideas of True we have two of the ideas that we review above; first that God is Perfect as in the accomplishment of these things that make one True is perfection and second we should see in these definitions that there can be only ONE REAL AND GENUINE GOD.
• “God is a Spirit” (John 4:24). This is the most profound defining statement regarding God as this is His Very Nature. Spirit is a word that fails to be rightly defined and we, from our perspective can say that Spirit is the Substance of God; His very essence. As we recently discussed, this is also our own True Nature as it is written that: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him“. In a way we can say simply that Spirit IS GOD and on His level use the same defining statement we have above; Spirit is boundless and immutable and as we indicated yesterday Spirit is eternal and infinite. In a few words by Alfred, Lord Tennyson we can see the Nature of God and of Spirit from our own individual  and human perspective; he says Speak to Him thou for He hears and Spirit with Spirit can meet. Closer is He than breathing and nearer than hands and feet. The full context of this saying in John’s Gospel is testimony to the idea that we are Spirit as well; the Master says: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth”  (John 4:24). We could spend an entire series on this one verse and the few that lead up to it but this is not the time for that; for now we need to understand the intention of the Master who is telling the Samaritan woman that the time is now come when it does not matter where one worships and it does not matter how one worships as to tradition and practice. The Master says that “the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23). We are left to understand what is a True worshiper and how it is that one can worship in Spirit and in Truth and we can surmise here that the Master is telling us that True worship is not what we think at all but it is in the communion of Spirit as Lord Tennyson tells us. We can add here by His words that worship is done in Perfection; it is done in His Kingdom. There is a saying from the Old Testament defining God that can help us to get this message a bit clearer; these are the words of King David as recorded by the Prophet Samuel and in the Book of Psalms saying that “God is my strength and power: and he maketh my way perfect”. (2 Samuel 22:33, Psalm 18:32). This is of course on a personal level; his Spirit and Soul are his strength and his power and it is through this working of the God Within that perfection comes in life on Earth.

We close for today with a reminder that all things that the Master teaches have the same few ideas inherent in them and all come to the conclusion of becoming His disciple and being accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God and His Presence. Can we see all this in the understanding of the Nature of God and our relationship to Him through the ideas presented by scripture in Mercy and Truth and Love and ONENESS and can we see it ALL in His Perfection and as our destiny as men in form? Leaving the rest of our list to the next post:

• God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34)
• God is faithful (1 Corinthians 1:9, 10:13)
• For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace (1 Corinthians 14:33)
• God is one (Galatians 3:20)
• For our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29) For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God. (Deuteronomy 4:24)
• God is light, and in him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5)God is love (1 John 4:8)

Note on the Quote of the Day