Monthly Archives: February 2012

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part XIX

Our comments yesterday were more concerning our Quote of the Day than they were about our general theme for the day of “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and was aimed at the proper understanding of that profound statement by the Christ that For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish , but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). As we said, this single statement has been a main fuel for the many separatist attitudes that are held in the Christian churches regarding the nature of our Master and the self proclaimed relevance to Him by the churches that carry His name. It is unfortunate that the free will of man has understood and promulgated the erroneous ideas regarding the Christ, ever the symbol of the Love of God made manifest to ALL, with belonging to and practicing any version of Christianity. The Christ is Truly come into the world and the Christ, in the person of the Master, is Truly the “only begotten Son” of the Father although not for the same reasons as proclaimed by the churches.

The Master and His disciples were clear about His teaching of the mysteries of the Kingdom being done by parable and by proverb and, as we have discovered, much of the teaching given to His disciples, as well as some of the explanations of the parables given to His disciples, were in parables as well and were still not completely understood; that is not understood on all levels. In this light, why or how can we believe that the age old ideas regarding John 3:16 are accurate or True in the way that the church implies? It is a difficult thing to go against the ‘wisdom‘ of the Christian churches as they most all have their doctrines and their dogmas firmly entrenched in the hearts and the minds of the clergy and the believers and yet there is still a vast divergence in thought among them which one would think would bring about some type of search for a common reality that is away from the literal interpretations or those interpretations that are propounded to support the dogma.

This saying by the Master in John 3:16 is one of a few sayings that give rise to the Christian attitude of being the only way to God; another is John 14:6 which says that “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way , the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” and which we discussed in some detail in In the Words of Jesus parts 78-79. Again we ask the question; understanding what is said about the Master’s teaching in parables, why do so many believe that the Truth of any saying of the Master is to be found in the surface understanding of any saying? Let us review here some of what the Master says regarding His teaching and some of what is said by His disciples about the same:

• “And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying , Behold…….And the disciples came , and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given….” (Matthew 3, 10-11).  Here we have the Matthew telling us that the Master is using parables and, when questioned, He tells them why and then explains this particular parable to them.
• A similar rendition of this is in the Gospel of Mark saying: “And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine, Hearken…..And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable. And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables…..And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?” (Mark 4:2-3, 10-11, 13) In this is much the same as above except we see the Master chiding His disciples for not understanding the parable before going into an explanation of it.
• In this same sequence of parables from Matthew’s Gospel, the Master tells the multitude the Parable of the Tares (we cover this is some detail in In the Words of Jesus parts 97-98) and then continues with others. Matthew tells us this after this parable and before the Master takes to explain the parable and tell the disciples alone still others: “All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 13:34-35). This is a profound statement regarding the teaching of the Master and one which the Master alludes to in His statement in the previous point above.
• Regarding the Parable of the Tares, His disciples say to the Master when they are alone: “Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field” (Matthew 13:36). The Master proceeds to retell the story quite differently taking it into areas of judgement and the Kingdom. He says to His disciples, after His retelling of this parable “….Who hath ears to hear, let him hear” (Matthew 13:43) which can attest to the parabolic nature of the explanation as well. In this sequence, the Master also tells other parables to His disciples; the Parable of the Hidden Treasure, the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price and Parable of the Drag-net (In the Words of Jesus parts 134-136) and these without explanation but which lead to the Master’s saying:
• “Jesus saith unto them, Have ye understood all these things? They say unto him, Yea, Lord” (Matthew 13:51). While they do answer yes we can see that this is a broad answer to a even more broad question; at what level do they understand? on the level of the people or in the depth of a disciple? We cannot know the answer to this and it is likely that each of them had their own degree of understanding for as we go on through the gospel narratives we can get the idea that they are continuing to learn up until the end. It is interesting that after He had said all this the Master puts forth yet another parable and one which is not yet understood by so many: “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 13:52). We covered this from our perspective in the same parts as referenced above and in part 142 and repeat here a bit of our understanding so as to show the timelessness of understanding the Master’s words. We said:
• We looked at the ending of the last one as a separate parable within a parable which somehow took us onto our journey into Love and then into Faith and Hope and finally to believing. This part said: “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 13:52) and we gave this saying a bit of time (In the Words of Jesus parts 135 and 136); we found that “every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom” can be seen as saying every teacher who is a disciple of the Kingdom thereby putting us also into this equation. We interpreted the rest of the Master’s saying thus: 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 speaks⁴. 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.
• The importance here is in the effect of this saying on us. As disciples or aspiring disciples we are those scribes, those teachers and from our treasure of understanding and knowledge, both of the new and the old, we should communicate with zeal and with fullness. For what other purpose would we be or would the Master even need disciples?
• “And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it. But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples” (Mark 4:33-34). This is a similar saying to the one above from Matthew’s Gospel and includes the understanding that the Master “expounded all things to his disciples” which is what we understand from the separate dialogues of the Master telling us such as well. It is assumed in the church that in this saying is Mark’s telling us that the disciples understood but this is not what Mark says; he says only that the Master explained as we can see from His explanations of the Parable of the Sower and the Parable of the Tares. As we say above, we cannot tell how much of the explanations the disciples received were actually understood and by whom.
• We know also that the Master spoke to His disciples by parable as we see above in His speaking to the disciples alone and in this from John’s Gospel: “These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs” (John 16:25) and this can be further confirmation that this was His way with His disciples as well albeit perhaps not in reference to the mundane but only as regards the outwardly spiritual sayings that also have deeper meanings. It should be noted that this thing is said by the Master near the end of His time with us; after the final Passover supper and before His arrest.
• To further show our point on this idea of parables and their extent in the Master’s teaching we look last at this from the Gospel of Luke: “And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear” (Luke 19:11). Now there is no way to know for a certainty but this is apparently spoken to the twelve and perhaps a select few as it was said in the interchange with Zacchaeus the publican. The sequence of events is unclear and is likely unimportant but we can see, if this occurs at Zacchaeus’ house, that what we say is true regarding the Master’s explaining of things to His disciples who still, at this point, right before the final Passover, do not understand.

Our purpose in this review of the teaching methods and style of the Master is to further our understanding that the parable is His way and that in most everything we should be looking for the deeper meaning and not be satisfied with the outer sayings as they appear.

We close today with our understanding of the saying of John 3:16 by again saying that the interpretation of the churches is just an outer literally based understanding of it from a purely physical perspective; that is that Jesus is born of the Virgin and the only begotten Son of God. This is a Truth but it is not a Truth for the reasons assumed; His way of birth is unique and thereby, as we said yesterday, fulfills the literal aspect but the deeper part remains and is perhaps as we have discovered in that the Master came among us fully a Son of God in the flesh while we other Sons of God have not yet been able to let that Light of the Soul, the Christ Within, shine forth through our phenomenal appearance.

We will continue with our last point on the direct sayings of the attributes of God and with our unveiling of the rest of the Quote of the Day in our next post.

• God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1)

Note on the Quote of the Day