Monthly Archives: July 2012

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part CLVII

“For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh” (Luke 6:44-45).

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt , and where thieves break through and steal : But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt , and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).

Aspect of God	Potency	Expressed as Fire	Aspect of Man
Father	Will or Power	Electric Fire	Spirit or Life
Son, The Christ	Love and Wisdom	Solar Fire	Soul or Christ Within
Holy Spirit	Light or Activity	Fire by Friction	Life Within the Form

Yesterday’s post was published with several grammatical errors due to scheduling difficulties that prevented proper proofreading. These have been corrected and a the post was updated.

We begin today with our two sayings by the Master and our chart which is intended to show the reality of the Trinity of man, his constitution as we have been calling it. Just as God is a Trinity of Aspects while remaining the ONE GOD, so man is a Trinity that   remains ONE as well. The reality of man is Spirit, which is Life, manifesting through the Soul, which is Life and Consciousness, and expressing as the Conscious Life within the form. The important parts here are that the reality of the man is Spirit and that the man IS NOT the form but merely uses his form for a time on this Earth. We have spoken several times about the idea of God as Spirit manifesting through the Soul, the Christ Principal or Aspect, and appearing as the Forces and the Energies that we see as the Earth on which we live and the Cosmos in its entirety. These Forces and Energies lie behind the form of the Universe and ARE the Holy Spirit of which the Master speaks. God is not, in our sense, the Earth or the Cosmos although these cannot be separated from Him; He is the Life, the Forces and the Energies that give the Universe its own peculiar existence. It is as this Trinity which is a man that we should understand the words from Genesis saying “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27); this is a hard Truth for the Christian world to grasp. Man IS NOT this body and this personality.

The Master tells us clearly that “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24) and while this word Spirit is a difficult idea to understand, we should know that it IS NOT the form of a man in Earth. In yesterday’s post we set forth the doctrinal interpretations of heart and Soul from the lexicon, Strong’s and from Vincent’s writings; let us here so the same with the word translated as Spirit.

• The Greek word pneuma is translated as Spirit in the New Testament and is generally understood as the Holy Spirit as we see here from the lexicon: 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 mouth⁴. Can we see here the similarities to the ideas from the last post on Soul and even on heart and can we see also the confusion of these terms.
• Strong’s says of pneuma that it means: wind, breath, things which are commonly perceived as having no material substance; by extension spirit, heart, mind, the immaterial part of the inner person that can respond to God; spirit being; (evil) spirit, ghost, God the Holy Spirit³. Again here we should see the overlap of terms with some of Strong’s definition referring to the Soul and other parts as referring to the consciousness and the physical self as the mind.
• Vincent gives us several points on the word pneuma including the one that we used in the last post as regards the Soul and which is from Luke’s Gospel; the verses, as spoken by the Blessed Mother, say: “And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour” (Luke 1:46-47). It is from this combination of words that translate into Soul and Spirit that Vincent says: My soul — spirit (yuch>_pneu~ma). See on Mark 12:30. The soul is the principle of individuality, the seat of personal impressions, having a side in contact with the material element of humanity, as well as with the spiritual element. It is thus the mediating organ between the spirit and the body, receiving impressions from without and from within, and transmitting them by word or sign. Spirit is the highest, deepest, noblest part of our humanity, the point of contact between God and man.⁴. We should see in the bible text and in Vincent’s remarks that these words are intended to mean separate things making the crossover of the lexicon and of Strong’s a rather difficult thing to comprehend and this confusion is the state of much of the church today as regards these words Soul and Spirit as well as the addition of the ideas of heart and mind all of which are pushed into doctrinal molds. Vincent has several other references to Spirit in his writings but they are given in direct relationship to the verse for which he is giving explanation and not in a more general sense of definition as above except in his comments on the verse we cite above saying: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth“. On this Vincent says that: In spirit and in truth (ejn pneu>mati kai< ajhqei>a|). Spirit (pneu~ma) is the highest, deepest, noblest part of our humanity, the point of contact between God and man (Romans 1:9); while soul (yuch>) is the principle of individuality, the seat of personal impressions, having a side in contact with the material element of humanity as well as with the spiritual element, and being thus the mediating element between the spirit and the body. The phrase in spirit and in truth describes the two essential characteristics of true worship: in spirit, as distinguished from place or form or other sensual limitations (ver. 21); in truth, as distinguished from the false conceptions resulting from imperfect knowledge (ver. 22). True worship includes a spiritual sense of the object worshipped, and a spiritual communion with it; the manifestation of the moral consciousness in feelings, motions of the will, “moods of elevation, excitements,” etc. It includes also a truthful conception of the object. In Jesus the Father is seen (14:9) and known (Luke 10:22). Thus the truthful conception is gained. He is the Truth (14:6). Likewise through Him we come to the Father, and spiritually commune with Him. No man can come in any other way (14:6). To worship in truth is not merely to worship in sincerity, but with a worship corresponding to the nature of its object⁴. From our perspective we should see that Vincent says much of what we do but has placed these ideas into the human being on Earth as things that a man has instead of that which a man IS. In his bible references can be found much understanding.

We should be able to see the relative confusion of terms throughout the definitions from the lexicon and Strong’s and, to a lessor extent in Vincent’s writings.This is of course true as regards our own understanding which we should see as closer to the reality of the True ideas to be found within the words Spirit, Soul, and heart.

There is much of depth in these subjects and we have covered some of this in today’s post and on this it  will do us well to ponder. It will also be beneficial to our understanding to associate today’s idea with those from the last post.

We end today with this brief recapitulation of our thoughts on these Aspects of man which we will present in bullet points starting with the Spirit.

• Spirit is the First Aspect of God; Spirit is the Father and, from a human perspective Spirit can be seen, as Vincent tells us, as the highest, deepest, noblest part of our humanity. What he misses is that Spirit IS our humanity, a humanity that gives Life and consciousness to the complex animal form in the world. As with most everything in this Awesome Creation, there are ranges of complexity within the animal kingdom and it is in this kingdom that the BODY nature of man belongs. This is another hard saying for the church to accept but it is a scientific Truth. The body nature that man uses in this Earth is the most advanced and complex that evolution has yet provided as it incorporates within itself the ability to rational thought and driving emotion. Across the animal kingdom are creatures with many values upon this scale of complexity with many reacting to instinct only while others can be moved by emotions in the form of desire which can be expressed as curiosity or inquisitiveness. Yet others have the ability to handle rudimentary thought processes in combination with a more advanced emotional nature. All of these ideas are clearly seen by an open minded look at the animal Kingdom of which man is the culmination with the reality of emotional response and mental ability being in yet another range of  accomplishment which can be clearly seen in an open minded look at the human family. In the long and unidentifiable evolution of species, the human form is the final accomplishment of today’s reality of existence but, as Life goes on and on, there is likely no limit to this advancement of body, emotion and mind as final perfection is ever sought in ALL Kingdoms of Life. We could go on and on in this but let us stop here and try to see these realities.
• The Soul is the Second Aspect of God; Soul is the nature of the Christ as a Cosmic Power and Soul is the Christ Within. Christ is the Love and the Wisdom of God and it is this that was embodied by Christ Jesus over 2000 years ago. Christ is the manifestation of the Spirit that IS GOD in the that place that we can call Heaven although this is no place at all but a state of being without form as we comprehend it. The Soul is the appearance of the Spirit in what we understand as the heavenly realms which are but states of consciousness and individuality. The Soul exists in the Kingdom of God and in some strange and incomprehensible way the Soul is the Kingdom itself and this is, of course, a difficult thing to understand when one is not yet a disciple to whom it is given to KNOW the secrets of the Kingdom itself. The Christ was able to embody ALL of the Power and the Love and the Wisdom of God which we ALL possess as Souls, in His Life on this Earth, and this is our goal and our objective as well. The Apostle Paul tells us that “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9) and we should see this literally as what it says and we should see this as our High Calling as well because, as the Apostle John tells us, “as he is , so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). Soul is the presence that a man IS in creation and who, while standing back in the Kingdom, gives, or rather lends, his Life and consciousness to the form that he has taken for any given Lifetime.

The Third Aspect of God and of man is the conscious Life in the form and this we will leave for the next post as it is a most complex issue and the one that is most directly related to our desire to understand Life.

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.

Evening Reflection

May the Power of the One True God flow through His group of all true servers;

May the Love of the Christ characterize the lives of all who seek to aid in His work;

May I fulfill my part in the one work through self-forgetfulness, harmlessness and right speech

(Evening Reflection)