Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON GOD; Part CXXXVII
“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry , Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:14-23).
There is a wealth of understanding given to us by the Apostle Paul in the saying above and the same is true of so many of his writings. It is unfortunate that the True meanings are missed by the churches in their effort to mold ALL to their doctrines instead of the reality of the teachings of the Master and the amplification of them by His apostles. A good example of this is in the church’s treatment of the idea of “the adoption” and the meanings of it as a part of man’s understanding of himself and of God. We discussed this idea briefly in a recent post on this same part of Paul’s writing to the Romans as is it relates to the idea of redemption in the last verse above and today we will explore this with a bit more depth and relate it to the idea of “the Spirit of adoption“. The common understanding is that the apostle is telling us that if one is “led by the Spirit of God”, that he can become a Son of God and this by the adoption which is spoken of by Paul. As we discussed previously this belief is in general a contradiction to the teachings of the Master who tells us of the Fatherhood of God and not to those who are led by His Spirit only. We also noted that Paul affirms this in his speech to the Epicureans and, if we read the above sayings to the Romans properly, he affirms them here as well. There is similar dialogue in Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians which we will address separately at another time; understanding the words of the apostle in this part that we are discussing will help to shed the proper Light on his other references to this idea. In the last post we discussed the idea of the creature and the Soul as two aspects of this Life in form and we again caution ourselves to remember that we ARE NOT the creature itself but that we give, as the Soul, Life and consciousness to the form and the personality, the creature if you will.
Seeing as we did yesterday the processes of incarnation is an act of the Soul’s giving his Life and his consciousness to the material form and the personality and, as we have previously discussed, there are many variables that go into this process. From the perspective that it is the Soul’s goal and objective that the fullness of this Life and consciousness, as it exists outside of time and space and in a constant state of purity, be expressed through the creature, the Soul is ever building new and better forms through his series of incarnations and in every Life time he reaps the rewards of success and suffers the karma of failure. This is of course a very simple way of looking at this great mystery of Life but for our purposes this will suffice for now. We should remember that although the Soul has ‘lent’ his Life and his consciousness to the form and personality, he is still the Soul, still pure and unblemished, and still aware of the process that he has undertaken. It is as though the Life and the consciousness as it is given to the Life in form is then lost in a maze from which he cannot find escape and this maze is the illusion and the glamour of Life in this world of things. In this all we should also remember the idea that it is what we focus upon that we think about and in a way become and this is a key to understanding what we are trying to say here. The Soul is in the world of form by way of his lending his Life and consciousness to the form and by focus upon that form the Soul remains in the clutches of the illusion and the glamour. However, in the deep recesses of that consciousness that is lent to form the Soul yet KNOWS his True identity and continually prompts the form to change that focus away from the things of the world and toward the Life of the Good, the Beautiful and the True. When there is success, the Soul, the Christ Within, becomes the focus of the Life thereby allowing the Soul to live through the form and we have then the Life of a Truly born again disciple of the Lord. This is likely a long and a slow process as the forces of the world of form are strong and alluring but eventually this does come about and, until such time, the Soul makes steady progress incarnation after incarnation. It is said that there are lives that can be contrary to this idea and we can likely see this in looking about the world of men seeing that there are those that are so vile and despicable that they make no progress in an Life time and perhaps even in a series of Life times but we should remember that the Great Plan of God has the right karmic effect that attempts to correct this type of situation in every afterlife and then again at every birth. Nothing escapes the Law which is the Great Plan of God.
We should know that this is no easy fare, that the lure of the world is a powerful force and that it too is a part of this Great Plan of God. As we discussed in the last post, this is borne out by the words of the apostle who tells us above that “the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” Can we see in this the purpose and the importance and, of course, the mystery of Life in this world. The purpose is well beyond our ken but it can be seen as some far away purpose of redemption as the apostle also tells us that the fulfillment of our goal, the adoption of you will, has this very purpose of redemption.
In an unsure look at this reality we can, if we try, see the creature as the highest of the Earth’s animal kingdom, capable of thought and independence yet possessed of all of the traits that this kingdom affords. Into this world the Souls that are the reality of man descend and it is to these bodies of flesh that they give their individuality through their Life and consciousness. We should remember that ALL IS Life albeit not ALL is Life as we understand it; it is into this world that the divinity which is the Soul and the Spirit come and by their very nature they set aglow the forms into which they are born. And, when the fullness of the Godhead is able to flow through this form it can be then said that the body is Truly redeemed and in this can be seen a glimpse of the act of transfiguration. While this may sound to some as an absurd premise, it is no more absurd than any that are offered by religion and by the misinterpretation of the words of the Master and His apostles. There is much mystery in Life and in God and the above portrayal, while not accurate, can be seen in the real history of our planet and in the evolution of the species that becomes the human form; one does not have to subscribe to all of Darwin’s theories to see the relationship and growth of the species human from its earliest beginnings to what we see today. When and how this all happens is a mystery as well and when the Soul’s came to interact with this human form is yet beyond our comprehension but it is likely in relation to the beginnings of Life where the motivation became more than just instinct. Much of this story of man is portrayed for us early in the Book of Genesis where there is much mystery. While the various religions who take their beginnings from this Book may believe that they understand this in the simplicity with which it is portrayed, there is great uncertainty in most all of their understandings. From the fundamentalist view that the Earth is only six thousand years plus old to the ideas of original sin and the purpose of the serpent and the Garden of Eden, there is only myth and doctrine. We have discussed this in some detail (In the Words of Jesus parts 171 and 218 among others) and in each we have made the point that the focus on man in this context of Genesis is not the focus upon the form of man but on the Spirit, Soul and expression of man.
Getting back to the idea of redemption, we should be able to see these ideas that we are putting forth in the words of the apostle. Not the entirety of what we say here but enough allusion to take his words out of the realm of the doctrines that are established around them. The common understanding of redemption is bought with a price and the price of this redemption that we are speaking of here is the giving up of the purity of Life as a Spirit in God and taking on the form Life of the creature. What then is redeemed? We can say that there is a dual redemption at hand here; the first is the redemption of the body as spoken of by the apostle and to which we compared the transfiguration. We are told by the Master that “Ye are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14) and by this we should see this as a fact for ALL and not just those that obey and follow; we are told also to “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16) and in this we see a trait of the disciple and the aspirant. After this, comes the fullness of the Godhead in form and to this we give the name of the transfiguration which can be seen as the fullness also of overcoming the world and a state of being in which the reactions, mind and the emotions of the body and the personality no longer hold sway in the Life of the man. That the Christ Himself required this event in His Life as a sign that He had overcome or that He did it for the benefit of the three who witnessed, we cannot say. We can say however that the brilliance of the Soul shining through the form can be enough to obliterate it as it becomes itself a body of Light although it seemingly appears the same to those who cannot see clearly. This is a hard thing to understand but if one can picture in his mind this event as it happens to the Master and while doing so remember that “as he is , so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). The narrative goes thus:
- According to Mark: “And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them. And his raiment became shining , exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them” (Mark 9:2-3).
- According to Matthew: “And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light” (Matthew 17:1-2).
This is the redemption of the body, of the creature; this is bringing the divine into contact with what was one gross matter assembled into the form of the man though we should note that as the Soul becomes better able to build responsive forms, the matter from which they are built becomes less and less gross. The second redemption is more mysterious yet. The Soul pays the price of giving himself to the world of form to help to redeem that world, to bring it closer to God, and in so doing the Soul reaps the reward of the experiences of Life in form and the spiritual collateral of having done the Will of God thereby bringing himself to yet another plateau of Purpose, Power and Will. There is little more we can say here and our objective has not been to make claim that these things are facts but only to open our eyes and our minds to the limitless possibilities of Life and of GOD and in this vein we should call to mind that saying that we have left at other points in our essays: Every Man and Woman is A Star and of which we have said that this can give us an inkling of the extance of His Creation and the future possibilities of our roles in it.
In closing today we should look at the line that leads up to these that we have been discussing over the last posts regarding the creature and his relationship to the Soul. Paul speaks of the creature as the Soul in form, the combination of the form itself with the personality, and the Life and consciousness that is the Soul; this is the man in the world, this is you and this is me. He tells us that we are unwilling participants in the illusion and the glamour that he calls vanity and that this is a part of the Plan of God. He tells us also that this creature will be delivered from the hold of vanity and into the “glorious liberty of the children of God” which we should understand as discipleship and His Kingdom. This is the story of everyman and our deliverance and redemption is in the focus of our Life. Forget not that we are speaking of this combination called the creature because this is the nature of man in form and the apostle is writing to men in form; for us we should see this redemption also as our freedom as a Soul from the cycle of death and rebirth which is the reality of attaining His Kingdom. The lead in saying to this is “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” and in this we should see the ideas that we premise here; that “the glory which shall be revealed in us” is the glory of the Christ Within in the world of men and the the “earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” is the expression of this same Christ Within through the Life of the creature on Earth.
We will continue with these thoughts and get to our thoughts on adoption in the next post.
Note on the Quote of the Day
This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.
We leave this Quote of the Day again for today with the hope that we can discuss these important points in the next post.
In accord with the ideas that we close with above we bring again to your attention the ideas by which a man should Live. This Quote of the Day is the realty of how we should focus our lives and in so doing, all the other things alluded to above will take care of themselves and this is a great part of the selfless attitude of the disciple and his ability to forsake ALL.
Values to Live By
A Love of Truth—essential
for a just, inclusive and progressive society;
A Sense of Justice—recognition
of the rights and needs, of all.
Spirit of Cooperation—based
on active goodwill and the principle of right human
relationships;
A Sense of Personal Responsibility—for
group, community and national affairs;
Serving the Common Good— through
the sacrifice of selfishness. Only what is good for all
is good for each one.
