Monthly Archives: March 2012

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part XLV

 “For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you“

(Matthew 10:20)

“Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come“

(John 16:13)

“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance , whatsoever I have said unto you“

(John 14:20)

(John 16:7)

“And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost“

(John 20:22)

Yesterday’s post closed our discussion of the two seemingly contradictory sayings the Master and by the Apostle John. The one in which the Master tells us that God will give the Holy Spirit to ALL who ask and on which we spent considerable time over the two days establishing what the idea of ask should actually mean to us which is that to ask one must be putting himself upon the Path and sincerely desire the spiritual  aspect in his Life which is, in our understanding, the Holy Spirit. The other saying by the John tells us  that the Holy Spirit is not yet given and which is taken to mean that He was not available until after the death and resurrection of the Master. While we acknowledge that we do not understand John’s purpose in making this statement we do note that this should not override the saying of the Master regarding our asking and we noted also that the saying by the Master that leads up to the comment by the apostle is actually in agreement with the idea of asking when viewed from the proper perspective. This saying is that for all that believe on the Master  “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38) which we can equate with the power of the Holy Spirit working within one’s Life and flowing from the man. When we see that to ask in the context of the Master’s saying is the same as to believe on the Master which is to follow Him and keep His words, these sayings can be reconciled and it is not a stretch to do this. Can we see how this understanding works and can we see how it is better than doubting or changing the idea that was expressed by the Master when He told us: “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13).

We then went into a dialogue, using a verse from the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Romans as our starting point, to try to get an understanding of the idea of conscience as it is reflected in scripture and to develop our perspective of the relationship between conscience and the Holy Spirit. Early on in our posts we made the observation that conscience is that functioning in one’s Life of the Christ Within and here we are re-defining the effect of the Christ Within in a man’s personality as the Holy Spirit. Of course we must ever realize that these are both the same; one IS the Light and the other is the Activity of the Light in the world. Conscience can be see as the call of the Soul, the prompting to do right and to focus on above. When we hear this Inner Voice and heed what it says to us we are in essence heeding the call of the Soul; the more we do this the more we will be prompted and the closer one will come to keeping the Master’s commandments. However, when the Good thought comes to a man and he sees heeding this against the norm of the world and he chooses the norm of the world we have the converse; the prompting by the Soul will likely not escalate and the man will remain stagnant or even move backward depending on what it is that he has chosen to do. Can we see in this the ideas of the Master who tells us several times that “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath” (Matthew 13:12)? From the perspective of Light alone, when one hears and heeds he is in the Light and in the Light there is yet more hearing; when one hears and does not do what is right he is not in the Light and there is no abundance of hearing but a lessening because the man is tending to the things of the world.

We start now with the sayings that we have been listing at the top of the page:

• “For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you“. So much of our understanding of scripture is based on the perspective that we view it from and we should understand that much is written to be understood in different ways giving us an understanding that a man in the world could profit from and an understanding that the aspiring disciple will profit from and in this we have a rather simple way of looking at the Master’s use of the parable in His teachings; not in the known parables only but in His teaching in general. Here the Master is talking to His disciples as He is sending them out to “preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 10:7). From this perspective, that of a disciple, we should see this saying as it is; that because these are following Him and keeping His word, heeding the call of the Soul, that the understanding of ALL is within their capacity to KNOW and that the Inner Man, the Soul, the Christ Within, will reveal these things to the personality consciousness. Now, speaking to His disciples who do not readily understand these things, the Master puts it into the more familiar understanding and that is that God will show them. There is no dissertation on the how and the why, just the plain statement of fact which is that they should not try to think of what to say and do in carnal terms but that they should listen and be open to the Truth and understanding as it comes forth from above. This is the nature of the Truth and the Wisdom from above.
• “Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you“. Again speaking to disciples, the Master speaks here of the Spirit of Truth and we should see this as just another way of speaking of God and therefore the Father as in the point above. The Master is clearer here in telling them that the carnal man cannot receive this because he is  rather oblivious to it and that they, by their discipleship, have this Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth living within their personality consciousness. The Master does not say that the carnal man does not have this but rather He says that they do not know Him and cannot see Him….they do not realize His presence. Again the Master is speaking in terms that the disciples can understand and while the interpretation may be that this is an outside force, the result is the immanence of God in man for when one knows Him, He is there. We can look at these stages as the working out of our own discipleship; we know the Spirit and He lives in us as He Lives in ALL men, we are focused upon Him but until we begin to act out our discipleship responsibilities we can not say that He is in us as conscious personalities in form.
• “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come“. This is in a way a continuation of the previous thought although they are separated by two chapters. In the previous point this Spirit of Truth is within the disciple because he knows Him and he is a disciple. So then how are we to understand the differences in approach here where the Master tells them about “when he, the Spirit of truth, is come“. Again, we need to understand the perspective; here the Master is speaking to them as men who seem suddenly confused by what is happening and by what they are hearing from the Master. It is in this chapter that we realize that even at this late time in the Ministry of the Master that the disciples do not understand what is happening. Knowing this the Master tells them that “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now” (John 16:12) before explaining the “Spirit of truth” in our subject verse. This is also after several points in the gospels where the Master is aware of their lack of understanding and  He further explains things, yet it is before that point where the Master tells them that “These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh , when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father” (John 16:25). The disciples lack understanding and the Master speaks here to them in that tone; He tells them that He will not leave them alone and He calls the Holy Spirit the Comforter who will come into their personality consciousness to help them as we see above in the Spirit of Truth. And this is the Truth: “when he, the Spirit of truth, is come” is yet in reference to when the man begins to act out his discipleship responsibility and in the case of Jesus disciples in that day we should see that they are reliant on the Master for ALL and it is when He is gone that they will be steady in the Light of the Soul when hitherto they may have only sporadically understood and accepted their role. The Master knows and understands this and frames His teaching in this way.
• “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance , whatsoever I have said unto you“. We should note that the Master never speaks directly of the Christ Within; He speaks of the Father and of the Holy Spirit freely but it is left to the apostles to give the teaching of the Christ as more than the historic figure. We should see here also that from the perspective of the True Man, the Soul, that all of these sayings are in parable as they only relate to the phenomenal appearance of the man in the world. He speaks to them as men and tells them that the power of God the Father will come into each one’s conscious personality as the Holy Spirit, the activity of God in man and in the world, and that this power from on High which we refer to as the Christ Within (but at the same time realize that this is God) will comfort them and teach them and remind them of ALL. As God is ALL KNOWING so too is our lower correspondence of God in man. Ponder on this.

We end today with this from Vincent regarding the proper understanding of the terms Holy Ghost and Holy Spirit which are both translated from the same Greek word pneuma which is sometime rendered as Spirit and sometimes as Ghost when it is phrased with hagios which is translated Holy. As we have said before there is much confusion in the use of the Hebrew and the Greek words that are translated as Spirit and as Soul and as Life and although we cannot deal with this now, let us look at the lexicon’s definitions of pneuma before we go to Vincent. The lexicon tells us of pneuma: the third person of the triune God, the Holy Spirit, coequal, coeternal with the Father and the Son; sometimes referred to in a way which emphasises his personality and character (the \\Holy\\ Spirit); sometimes referred to in a way which emphasises his work and power (the Spirit of \\Truth\\); never referred to as a depersonalised force; the spirit, i.e. the vital principal by which the body is animated; the rational spirit, the power by which the human being feels, thinks, decides; the soul; a spirit, i.e. a simple essence, devoid of all or at least all grosser matter, and possessed of the power of knowing, desiring, deciding, and acting; a life giving spirit; a human soul that has left the body; a spirit higher than man but lower than God, i.e. an angel; used of demons, or evil spirits, who were conceived as inhabiting the bodies of men; the spiritual nature of Christ, higher than the highest angels and equal to God, the divine nature of Christ; the disposition or influence which fills and governs the soul of any one; the efficient source of any power, affection, emotion, desire, etc.; a movement of air (a gentle blast); of the wind, hence the wind itself; breath of nostrils or mouth². Can we sense the diversity of understanding here?

Note on the Quote of the Day