Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART CCI
ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•Α
GoodWill IS Love in Action
ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•Α•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•Α
“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren” (James 1:12-16).
We spent yesterday discussing our ideas on the Transfiguration of the Lord as well as the possibilities that this Divine Show has for us who can come through the stages that we present in this last line on the subject from yesterday’s post:
REPENTANCE, TRANSFORMATION AND REDEMPTION LEAD US TO TRANSFIGURATION
We must ever be careful and try to understand that the perspective that we have as men in the world, as aspirants to discipleship, is by no means a final word on the Truth that we WILL ALL eventually experience. We can ONLY see, hear and comprehend to the degree of our own realization of the Light of the Soul and as we continue in our focus upon the things of God. As our realization continues to grow, we will see, hear and comprehend more and more and this even from the same words and sayings that we think we may KNOW today. We often say that the words of the apostles are written to aspirants and disciples and this is a Truth that we get from reading the tenor of their words. However, depending upon the intended audience, the Apostle Paul’s writings do have a variability about them which can be seen as His writing at times to fledgling aspirants whose nature he sees as still susceptible to the ways of the world. In this we find his many cautions on our thoughts and activities and on what we hear and believe as the apostle continually addresses what he perceives as the tendencies of some in the community to which he writes. In our reading these many years later, these same cautions should take our attention as we are yet in the world; we are yet but aspirants having not yet succeeded in attaining that full discipleship which the Master clearly defines for us from the perspective of what we must do. And, being in the world while not being able to say confidently with the Master that “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33), we must recognize that we ARE susceptible to the ‘old self‘ and his habits and ways as well as the driving forces of illusion and glamour as they affect the whole of the human family. Paul addresses these ideas to the Ephesians who perhaps he sees as fledgling aspirants or as susceptible to regressing back into the ways of the world and this while he keeps the ultimate goal in mind and sets it before us. Remembering that the Path from the world and to the Kingdom passes through many phases of realization and that being an aspirant in itself is comprised of many degrees of KNOWING, we should try to take from the apostles words the positive reinforcement that he offers as he says:
“Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:13-32)
Our first notation here is that the apostle is reminding us of the goal which he states as ”the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ“. This is as the Master tells us, that we should “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Mathew 5:48) and, as the Apostle Peter tells us in quoting from the Law of Moses saying, from the perspective of God, that “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). In this word holy we should see the reality of the disciple, and again by degree from the accomplishment of the criteria of the Master to the ability to express the “fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9) as the Master or, as we now say, our own Transfiguration. As we say above regarding our growing realization, the apostle is telling us from his own perspective the same thing as he tells us that we can no longer be children and this from the perspective hearing and believing every new thing that may come along and attract us away from our previously realized aspiration and toward that which may seem easier and more palatable to the carnal mind; he tells us that we must “grow up into him in all things“. And we must not forget the apostle’s emphasis on Love as he repeats this admonition that we speak “the truth in love” and then that we build ourselves up in Love. We should ever remember that it is Love that IS the Power and the way par excellence to progress in our journey and that while ALL these other ideas that we discuss have relevance and importance, they MUST be done in Love if they are to have any meaning whatsoever and, of course, we mean that Love that the Master teaches us, that GoodWill, that attitude of forgiveness, and that strong desire to follow Him.
The apostle goes on to tell the aspirant and the disciple that they should not regress and the idea here of the word rendered as gentile we should try to see the world of men who are focused upon the world and not some special group of heathens as it is considered by some. The lexicon tells us that Paul uses the term for Gentile Christians 2 but this is not apparent in the context here where he is telling us that we should not walk as the rest of the world which is the better rendition of the Greek word loipoy that is here called other. We come across Paul’s use of the word vanity here again and we liken this to his other use where we see it as the illusion and the glamour of the world into which we are subjected. We should be able to see most ALL of what we have been speaking about in these words from the apostle: “This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart“. Reading this as we do it will say that we should not walk, or be like, the rest of the world, in the illusion of their thoughts which result in their darkened understanding as they focus upon the things of the world and their carnal lives. In this illusion and glamour, this vanity, their consciousness is blinded to the reality of the Soul, the Christ Within. Can we see this in the apostle’s words?
Paul goes on to detail some of these ways of the world and in these ideas we should see more of the normality of human behavior and less of the gross and egregious behavior as considered by many. The apostle says “Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness” and in the combination of these words one is left unsure of the wrong. By rendering the first word as lasciviousness we naturally will focus upon the sexual as the nature of the offense; however, the Greek word aselgeia does not have only this meaning. Another translation , The Common English Bible (CEB), captures what we would see as the reality saying “They are people who lack all sense of right and wrong, and who have turned themselves over to doing whatever feels good and to practicing every sort of corruption along with greed“; In this way there is a more rounded understanding of the ways of men in the world, that while there is a great sexual orientation, this is only a part of the thoughts and actions of the man in the world. The Master uses this word aselgeia in speaking about what it is that defiles the man; He says in part: “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness” (Mark 7:21-22). On this saying Vincent tells us: Lasciviousness (aselgeia). Derivation unknown. It includes lasciviousness, and may well mean that here; but is often used without this notion. In classical Greek it is defined as violence, with spiteful treatment and audacity. As in this passage its exact meaning is not implied by its being classed with other kindred terms, it would seem better to take it in as wide a sense as possible – that of lawless insolence and wanton caprice, and to render, with Trench, wantonness, since that word, as he remarks, “stands in remarkable ethical connection with ajselgeia, and has the same duplicity of meaning” (“Synonyms of the New Testament”)4. Our point here is to show again that we are dealing with words and with translations and with ideas that have been defined for us according to doctrines and beliefs which at times cast a pall upon the what could be the Truer understanding of the intent of the writer.
We must try to see that the difference between the aspirant and disciple that the apostle is addressing and the gentiles or the men of the world is basically in their focus. Doctrine paints this however that ALL ‘believers’ or ALL Christians are the audience of the apostle and that the gentiles are Truly bad men and this greatly contributes to that sense of accomplishment that many feel even when they ARE NOT keeping His words or just selectively doing so. We should see in the short list given by Paul the entirety of the long list given by the Master and to the same end, those focused in the self and in the world will have these ideas of self and the world as their expression and with many of the words used by the Master there is a range of offense, a range of foolishness, of thefts, of covetousness and of deceit to name a few and this range can be from the venial to the mortal. The apostle’s message to this point should be clear; that as we are working toward that perfection we must stand firm and not be swayed by the various doctrines that promise a quick fix or an easier way. At the same time we must let the Christ Within grow in our lives in this world, we must strive and seek for more Light to be expressed and this is of course done through our focus on the things of God and we must build this growth with and in Love. We are also told that we must not regress, not look back to the world and that we should KNOW that the world is lost in the confusion caused by the vanity, the illusion and the glamour, in which it is immersed and that in this confusion men go about “doing whatever feels good and to practicing every sort of corruption along with greed“. We should remember as well that all of this operates on a great scale and in infinite degrees and variations so that there is no True model.
Paul goes on to tell us that these things of the world ARE NOT what we have learned from Christ, from the Christ Within. He goes on in words that bring us back to the starting point of perfection and how to accomplish this as he tells us that we should “put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts“. In this we should see two things, first that we not regress as we earlier said and second that we continue to grow; in the reference to “the old man” we should not just see that man that of the past that was focused upon the world, which IS the sin and the evil, but we should see the man today as well. In this we understand that we are yet growing, yet moving forward and yet repenting as we continue in spiritual growth with the objective of renewal. The next saying is a straightforward one from our perspective and one that should be married to the verse that follows as they are a giving continuous thought: “And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness“.
We should see here that we ARE Spirit and this Spirit is manifest as the Soul and these are ever ONE and the SAME just as the Father and the Son are ONE. Unraveling the problems of language here and pulling these thoughts away from doctrine, we should see that the apostle is telling us that we should let the Spirit rule the mind and not allow the personality to do so and, if we can look at the idea of mind here as consciousness, this saying is consistent with what we have been saying. As Paul continues here he explains that we “put on the new man” which is spiritual as opposed to the old which is carnal and it is this “new man” which IS according to the ways of God and in this we should read that perfection which IS our goal. The next part of these saying is Paul’s instruction on how to accomplish these things and we should again remember that he IS speaking to aspirants who should KNOW and understand these words that he is giving them regarding their actions and we should note that the majority of his instructions are in regard to the interpersonal relationships of his readers and that the foundation IS Love.
There are two more points here and one of them is that word that kept us on this journey, redemption. We will continue our thoughts in the next post and again try to get to our sayings on discipleship below.
- “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” (John 8:31).
- “Herein is my Father glorified , that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples” (John 15:8).
| Aspect of God |
Potency |
Aspect of Man |
In Relation to the Great Invocation |
In relation to the Christ |
|
GOD, The Father |
Will or Power |
Spirit or Life |
Center where the Will of God IS KNOWN |
Life |
|
Son, The Christ |
Love and Wisdom |
Soul or Christ Within |
Heart of God |
Truth |
|
Holy Spirit |
Light or Activity |
Life Within |
Mind of God |
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 see them as the Potent Powers of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit albeit on a much smaller, microcosmic, scale.
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!
- 2 New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
