IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 589

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART CLXXVIII

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.  And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:  That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:1-15).

We closed out our discussion of the Fifteen Points by Emmet Fox in yesterday’s post, a discussion that was sparked by his revealed intent of the Master in giving us His Golden Rule. We see the Golden Rule as the single most powerful saying in ALL the Master’s words and as the obnubilated instruction that tells us HOW we are to Love our neighbor and what it Truly means to Love oneself. Like so much of the Master’s words that are given in parable and in proverb, these words that are the Golden Rule are not so much understood in the way that the Master intended them but rather as a generally good perspective on how to live in the world. Jesus words ARE NOT seen here as the  commandment they they are and are generally not recognized in the way that Mr. Fox presents them either. The Golden Rule can be seen as the gateway to the reality of that Love that the Master teaches, that Love that IS God as the Apostle John tells us, and that Love that IS expressed throughout the Life of the Christ. It is that Love that streams forth from the Soul, the Christ Within, whensoever we turn our focus to the things of God and away from the self and the attitudes of the self in the world. It is a Love that is grounded in GoodWill and is expressed to ALL in GoodWill which IS the Will to Good, a conscious work by the man in form who senses the Light of the Soul and seeks to express it. GoodWill IS Love in Action.

We see the Golden Rule as the True KEY to the accomplishment of the Great Commandment or rather the part of the Great Commandment that tells us how it is that we should conduct our lives; “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 19:19). In this part we should see as well the accomplishment of the other part of this Greatest Commandment, namely “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matthew 22:37) and this based upon the teachings of the Master who tells us in one place that what a man does for the least of His brethren, he does for the Master as well. The Master tells us this to further show that a man should Love to his brother, his neighbor and to the stranger who qualifies as both saying: “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40) and in this we have yet another KEY and one that is hidden in plain sight.

We have discussed the Golden Rule from the perspective of its underlying instruction on the defining of the quality of Love for oneself, a Love that can be seen by ALL in reflection upon how it is that they want to be treated, what any individual wants to be done to them or for them by others and, conversely, what any individual does not want in his  treatment by others. It matters not what one sees in this reflection except that it defines for each their degree of self Love. We have also discussed the Golden Rule from the perceptive of its underlying instruction on the Love that should be expressed to our neighbor and how this is accomplished and this we see in the simplicity of DOING to others and for others, what we have defined to be what we want others to DO to or for ourselves. This relation of the Master’s sayings is real and in the True Christian Life there is no way to separate them and, as we oft say, Love is the way par excellence to our individual spiritual progression and we add here that this is True as well for the corporate reality that must eventually take hold in the Earth.

Mr. Fox adds for us an unseen reality in the Golden Rule that is incorporated in the Master’s words but is obscured and, as we have discussed in a previous post, many do interpret Jesus words in a reciprocal way which IS NOT in any way His intent. Looking again at the Master’s words we find simply:

• “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” (Luke 6:31).

• “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).

It is in the apparent difficulty of performing this that the world has made of them a maxim, and an ethical or moral code with a reciprocal relationship, rather than a commandment and a integral part of the words of Jesus which must be kept by the man who seeks spiritual advancement through his Life in form. It is here that Mr. Fox gives us the added reality of the Master’s intent saying:

The important point about the Golden Rule is that I am to practice it whether the other fellow does so or not ‡.

This is the True intent of the Master and in this we find the free flowing reality of Love for one’s neighbor and a KEY as well to many of the sayings that the Master gives us in His Sermon on the Mount and, as we said in the last essay of the Golden Rule: It IS the overriding reality of ALL His teachings, from “whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” all the way up to “forgive them; for they know not what they do” that we find in the words given us by Emmet Fox that show the True intent of the Master’s teaching. As we leave this topic, the Golden Rule and Emmet Fox’s enlightened words on it which led us to the study of his Fifteen Points and he words of the Apostle Paul which we see as his testimony to focus, we remind ourselves that the reality of the Golden Rule spreads across ALL True religions and spans many thousands of years. This is covered in some detail in In the Words of Jesus part 574.

We return now to the sayings by the Master that have graced the top of our essays for several weeks now; the Master’s words to Nicodemus from which we have discussed the reality of being born again in great detail. While we have looked at this from the perspective of how these sayings are perceived by the churches and the doctrines that they have created, we have not moved far off of the central point of being born again. As we have discussed, the words born again and the meaning that the Master places behind them make them equivalent to ALL of His other sayings and instructions on becoming accounted worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven, of Him and of discipleship. Here in these sayings to Nicodemus the Master makes it exceedingly clear that it is in this new birth that one can “enter into the kingdom of God” but, at the same time He does not explain for us just what this being born again means. Some doctrine has taken His words and have created elaborate schemes of baptism by water while others, using unrelated words from the Book of Acts, have created other schemes where, by the ‘laying on of hands,’ one can be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Still other doctrines claim that by attesting and confessing certain things one is born again and yet others use some combination of these to achieve the purely personal accomplishment of being born again. None of these doctrinal approaches make a man one who is born again unless there is the corresponding act of the man keeping the words of the Master which is Truly the way to the Kingdom of God and, when one can do this, when one can keep His words and be a DOER of them, there is no need for the rituals of baptism nor the affirmations and confessions of doctrine. For the rest these rituals of baptism and affirmations and confession do naught to bring any man closer to the Kingdom but at the same time they may suffice in bringing his attention to the reality of the spiritual Life and cause him to think for a time on the things of God. This in and of itself IS a good thing and the drawback is that there are those who will experience the ritual of baptism and/or the affirmations and confessions and who will believe that in doing such they have done what is necessary to attain the Kingdom and this some doctrines teach.

As we complete our look at these sayings by the Master we center on two parts that are not generally given much attention. First is the saying that is rendered as “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit“. In this translation as well as most others this saying is obscure and as much as we usually refrain from using the ‘whole thought’ translations, we find that here one does capture the True intent of the Master’s words. From the New Living Translation (NLT) we read: “Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit“. From our perspective the way we read  this in the NLT captures the intent of the Master in His discourse with Nicodemus and says plainly that just as you don’t KNOW the ways of  the wind, you don’t KNOW the ways of the Spirit either. This then becomes a statement of fact and not a deep spiritual enterprise…the Master is simply telling Nicodemus that fact, that it IS NOT for the man in the world to KNOW these things.

This saying above is the culmination of a series of words that begin with the much misunderstood saying that “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” and this we also see as a statement of fact that is borne out in the next saying should one look at the Master’s words and not their reflection in whatsoever doctrine he has studied. When we can see that  “born of water” is the man in form’s natural birth in the world we can begin to realize the Truth of what the Master is saying in the next part and the whole. It IS in this world that a man is able to seek for and find the Kingdom of God, it is only here in the crucible of the Earth that his ‘salvation’ can be wrought out; this then is “born of water” and this creates the man in the world. As it is the objective of ALL that the Spirit or the Soul become the expression of the man in form, we can then see the Truth of born again as it IS being born “of the Spirit” which is the reality of the carnal personality being subdued  and which allows for the Soul consciousness to become the ‘director’ of one’s Life expression in the world. Being “born of water” puts the man in the world subject to the ways of the world and the worldly personality; being born “of the Spirit” is the overcoming of those worldly ways with the ways of God and in this we see clearly the words of Paul who tells us that “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Galatians 5:24).

Our understanding this saying is helped by the next and especially when we see them as a single thought and not separated by the verse numbers inserted by man. The clarity in the Master’s words “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” brings to Light the idea that we have propounded above when we see in the continuation the reality of “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” as it replaces in the sequence the original thought of “born of water” of which we are saying is the same thing, of the same effect. The flesh IS “born of water” and the “flesh is flesh” and the other part of this equation by the Master is being born “of the Spirit” and in this we see that that which is so “born of the Spirit is spirit“. And in this regard our new word above can be used again as we are saying that the Truth and the reality of these sayings is LOST, it is obnubilated by the doctrines of the churches and the ideas of men. We are Truly “born of water” which brings our fate of being “born of the flesh” and then we are flesh which is reference not only to this physical body but rather we should see this as Vincent paints it for us saying Of the flesh (ek thv sarkov). See on ver. 14. John uses the word sarx generally, to express humanity under the conditions of this life (i. 14; 1 John iv. 2, 3, 7; 2 John 7), with sometimes a more definite hint at the sinful and fallible nature of humanity (1 John ii. 16; John viii. 15). Twice, as opposed to pneuma, Spirit (iii. 6; vi. 63) ⁴.

Then what IS being born “of the Spirit“? It IS the Way to the Kingdom; it IS being born again and this IS ONLY found in keeping His words; there are no shortcuts, no rituals nor any affirmations and confessions that will suffice to accomplish the goal of the Kingdom of God; there is only keeping His words which is the ultimate reality of believing in HIM. As we relied upon Paul to tell us the reality of being born again, of forsaking the worldly Life above, let us go to him here again to tell us the reality of what happens to one who has “crucified the flesh“; in the same context of being Christ’s, the apostle tells us: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away ; behold , all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). This “new creature” IS the born again version of the man in form who before expressed his carnal self to the world but who now expresses the Love and the Power of the Soul, the Christ Within.

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

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

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:

Leaving again the Great Invocation, we encourage ALL to read and reread it and our comments as in these words can be found the keys to our spiritual reality.

From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into the minds of men.
Let Light descend on Earth.

From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into the hearts of men.
May Christ return to Earth.

From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little wills of men–
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.

From the centre which we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.

This prayer is a part of our Prayers and Meditations section and there is much information about it there and in our discussion of it in the Quote of the Day section of In the Words of Jesus parts 128-132

The above Invocation or Prayer does not belong to any person or group but to all Humanity. The beauty and the strength of this Invocation lies in its simplicity, and in its expression of certain central truths which all men, innately and normally, accept—the truth of the existence of a basic Intelligence to Whom we vaguely give the name of God; the truth that behind all outer seeming, the motivating power of the universe is Love; the truth that a great Individuality came to earth, called by Christians, the Christ, and embodied that love so that we could understand; the truth that both love and intelligence are effects of what is called the Will of God; and finally the self-evident truth that only through humanity itself can the Divine Plan work out.

Like the Lord’s Prayer, this invocation is a World Prayer which is as all that a prayer is intended to be. It is a prayer for the uplifting of the Human Family out of the mire of materialism and selfishness. The Lord’s Prayer asks nothing for the individual praying it but asks that its benefits be for US and for WE which is why it was given by the Christ as a prayer and as a model over 2000 years ago. This invocation is also attributed to the Christ who, as He promised, has never left us; He, through channels that we do not readily understand, has Himself instructed His disciples to distribute this prayer and to encourage its use as a world prayer and as an aid in preparing the world for His return.

The first three stanzas of this prayer should be understood as reflecting the effective potencies of the Trinity which is God and which, when brought down to an individual level, the Trinity which is Man. His Will, His Love and His Light we should seen as the Potent Powers of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• ‡  From The Fifteen Points by Emmet Fox; © 1932 HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• ² from New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888