IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 558

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART CXLVII

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.  And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died” (Genesis 5:1-5).

We have been posting below the Quote of the Day a section from the Book of Proverbs that is enlightening for any who wonder about the role of Wisdom in the Plan of God. While we understand that “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and we KNOW the ONENESS of the Christ and the Father from the Prologue of John’s Gospel and the Master’s clear saying that “I and my father are one” (John 10:30), this relationship of Wisdom and the Father is more obscure in the teachings of doctrine. And, the spiritual understanding of Wisdom is much misunderstood from the perspective man in the world just as is the understanding of Love. Both of these words have marked differences in their use in the world versus their use in the reality of the Life of the Soul in form; the Love and the Wisdom that exist in the realms of God, and that are to be expressed in the world by the enlightened man, bear little relationship to the love and wisdom that we find in the minds and hearts of the man in the world. Regarding Wisdom there are some clear scriptures that tell us of this difference but, since Wisdom is more obscure in the teachings of the churches, these are not fully understood nor appreciated. That there is a difference between the wisdom of the world and the Wisdom of God is highlighted for us by the apostles; by the Apostle James in his verses on the Wisdom from above and by the Apostle Paul in his various sayings.

• James of course tells us this that we have been discussing for the last few essays: “Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace” (James 3:13-18).
• Paul tells us that  “Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” and again that “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness” (1 Corinthians 1:20, 3:19). He also tells us that “Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought” (1 Corinthians 2:6).

We should see in these sayings the definitive difference between the wisdom of this world and the Wisdom of God and in much the same way that we should also see the difference between the Love of God and the love that is understood here in the world. We generally do not however and this despite clear scripture as we have above. Simply KNOWING that “God is love” (1 John 4:16) should give us the better understanding that there IS the same dynamic at play, a Love of God and a love of the world, and it is this perhaps that we should read into the sayings of the Master and His apostles regarding desires and lusts as in the final analysis the love that we find in the world is a function of the emotional response of the carnal man.

We can further our understanding of the relationship between Love and Wisdom by a simple comparison of our words from proverbs on Wisdom and the words from the Prologue to John’s Gospel regarding Christ. Now we should have NO trouble reconciling the apostles words on the Christ as words on Love and this is ever true: that Christ is the Love of God made manifest in the world of men. We say this confidently based on many sayings by the Master and His apostles and the two above are primary examples namely, “God is love” and “I and my father are one“. To clarify our point we should see the relationships of ideas on Love and on Wisdom:

• “ON WISDOM WE READ: The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men. Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways” (Proverbs 8:12-32).
• ON LOVE WE READ: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.  He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born , not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake , He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.  No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:1-18)

We should understand that this is not to call Love and Wisdom the same nor to show great similarity in effect but only to show that they are both with God from the beginning. We should understand as well that in the Trinity and in the named Aspects of the Trinity, ALL ARE resolved into ONE; there is ONE God only and Love and Wisdom are the shared potency of the Aspect we call the Son. In a previous post we give a rather secular definition of Wisdom saying that: Wisdom is The quality of being wise; knowledge, and the capacity to make due use of it; knowledge of the best ends and the best means; discernment and judgment; discretion; sagacity; skill; dexterity ¹ and today we will try to clarify this a bit more. Our definition above is of the appearance of Wisdom in the world, the way we see it as men. This can and apparently does contain aspects of both the Wisdom from above and the wisdom of the world so that for our purposes it is not useful to our True understanding. What then can we say of Wisdom? Looking at the scriptural relationships we can see that they can be viewed together and in our chart below they are together; as we say above they are the shared potency of the Christ Aspect of God. At the same time we should try to understand that these potencies of Love and Wisdom both come from God, from the God Within or, as James says of Wisdom, from above. As such we cannot see the reality of what they are, we can only see the reality of their working out in the world of men and we could venture to say that if a man is expressing the Love or the Wisdom of the Soul, that he would perforce be expressing both. Let us take another saying from John to help us to understand this relationship: “But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected : hereby know we that we are in him” (1 John 2:5). Can we premise from this saying that keeping His words is the Wisdom of God in our Life and that in so doing the Love of God is perfected in us allowing us to treat ALL men and ALL things in True righteousness. We will try to expand upon this in future posts.

We come now to our last point on deception as we have been discussing for several days. In many ways, this idea of deception can be seen as the opposite of the Wisdom from above and in this we should try to see that in the illusion and the glamour that bring deception to bear in one’s Life there is most always a sense of self. It is the work of illusion that causes man to believe the things of the world and that his Life in the world is of prime importance. It IS the Wisdom from above that shatters the illusion; it IS the Wisdom from above that causes us to keep His words. Our last point is:

• “And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful” (Mark 4:19). We have covered this verse before from a variety of perspectives and today we  will look at it only as it relates to us the illusion and the glamour of Life in form. We should note that the cares and the lusts in this saying are as much a deceit as is the idea of riches and that these three, the world, the riches and the other things, are all of the same genre, things that take our attention, the focus of one’s Life. We should understand as well that these are ALL centered in the lower self, the carnal self in the world, which is contrary to the Life of the Soul, the Christ Within. We should note also that the entirety of the Master’s explanation of the Parable of the Sower of which this verse is a part is intended to show the a reality: that there are those who hear the word but who let these things of the world supplant it. In this is the understanding that these particular men are listening, they are accepting and even believing the word but they give in to the lure of the things of the world. Their hearing, their accepting, even their believing is not enough to tear them away from the riches and other things of the world. They do not yet see the true illusory nature of these things; they believe that they are important and many believe that they are even entitled to them by reason of their acceptance or belief. And there is a caution in these very words from the Master as He tells us plainly that this allowing the things of the world to “choke the word” is an issue, and here again many a man deflects this admonishment off onto others and seldom take it to themselves and this is the part of glamour.

In the last post we put this last part off to today thinking that we would have much more to say but in saying what we have above, we have said all that we have. This then completes our look at these ideas from the words of the Master and His apostles on deception for now; we should try to focus on the reality of their words as ours only serve to highlight and put them into a different perspective than does doctrine as we focus upon the revelation of illusion and glamour. We close this segment repeating our words from yesterday: When we understand the reality of illusion and glamour as they beset us ALL we can understand as well our own reluctance and hesitation in coming fully to the things that the Master teaches that we MUST do and this is for many reasons.

We have yet to complete our discussion on the Creation of man from the Book of Genesis and the last point on that is the one at the top of our essay. We will try to get to this and complete it 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 our words on Wisdom for yet another day.

Since we are centered on the ideas of Wisdom today we offer the following from Proverbs as our Quote of the Day. Solomon, who is KNOWN for his Wisdom, which we read in the story of his Life was His gift from God, a gift that he receives because he does not want for the things of the world. But Solomon gains as well the things of the world in plenty and as his Life story proceeds we can see clearly that it is his Life in the world that is to his detriment. The wisdom however produces for us the writings of the Book of Proverbs and it is this that he is remembered for. His Life is interesting reading and is well documented in the Books of Kings and Chronicles.

….incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly. He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints. Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path. When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee (Proverbs 2:2-11).

¹ Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913