Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART CCIX
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)
In our last essay we completed our remarks on the Life’ realities of these words below as these concepts play their part in the Life of the man in the world and on how they are stages through which we live with the objective of accomplishing them ALL in one incarnation which IS our goal and our destiny. There is no ready way to KNOW how far along one may have gotten in any previous incarnation save the relative ‘ease’ with which he may be able to come to the necessary realizations in his Life today and there is no certainty in this approach as there are so many variables. At every opportunity the Soul will try to gain control of the carnal nature in any incarnation and while this may not move a person to the Kingdom if the Soul is successful, it will certainly move him along in the relative need for the man’s accomplishing a part of the eventual expression of divinity in form and his overcoming the world. And, from our perspective in the world we can premise here that the goal of Life in form is to be able to express the True divine man, the Soul and the Christ Within through his form in this world and it is in this understanding that we say that our attainment of the Kingdom and of the High Calling of discipleship must be worked our in Life in this world and that any who fall short of this will be back, incarnated again and again, until he is able to express this divine nature to the world. And so we have our words below, words that can help us to understand the Path that one’s Life must take as we journey to the Promised Land, the Kingdom of God and, a most useful tool is given to us by the Master for accomplishing our goal, given in plain language but sorely misunderstood, Jesus tells us: “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21).
REPENTANCE, TRANSFORMATION AND REDEMPTION LEAD US TO TRANSFIGURATION
We left this parable below over the last few days that we might come back to it as a reinforcement of our thoughts on the growing of the Kingdom in the Life of a man in the world. It is from the perspective of the carnal man in the world that it is True that “the kingdom of God is within you” and we should try to see that it is within as the Soul and as the God Within and while this idea may seem a bit convoluted we should be able to derive this conclusion from the words of the Master who tells us several things that lead us here:
- First are His words above that we must take to heart and understand if we are to be able to rightly discern so much else that He says: “behold, the kingdom of God is within you“. Here we have what is for us a fundamental Truth which tells us that the Kingdom IS here and now and that it is not a place but rather a state of being which we should and must accomplish through Life in form leading us to our expression of divinity to the world as we find in His words and especially His words about Love.
- In the Master’s several sayings like “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” (John 14:20) we can get a glimpse of the reality that IS Life in from; Here the Master IS in the Father, the disciples ARE within the Master and the Master IS in the disciple and from a logical perspective we KNOW that He IS NOT speaking about the physical form but rather of the more psychic reality of the Soul and here we use the word psychic for lack of a better one that references the conscious Life of the Soul apart from the body.
- We must remember that the teachings of the Master to the general population are by parable and that those to His own disciples are in proverb as we look at sayings like this one where we must use the words He gives us to discern the reality behind them: “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do ; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:10-12). A number of points are in these words; first we should KNOW our own ability to be like Him and recognize His words that say that if we keep His words, which is our interpretation of Jesus’ saying “He that believeth on me” we can and shall do as He has done and this idea is confirmed by the Apostle John for us in his saying that: “as he is , so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). In this then we should see that our relationship to the Father is the same as the Master’s that as He IS “in the Father” and as the Father IS in Him, that the same IS True of us and we should combine this with the reality “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27). Of course we must here again look past the form of the man in the world or else we must believe that God IS a man; it is as the Trinity of Life that we are in His image and this Trinity is depicted for us in the chart below.
Looking at these points we should be able to conclude the reality of Life as we understand it. Seeing then that the Kingdom IS within, the Father is within, the Christ IS within as are stated in the sayings above and combining these with the reality of the Master’s words that “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30) should make our point clear insofar as the Christ Within and the God Within us ALL. Add to this the reality that the Father IS in the Kingdom, IS in heaven as we see in the Master’s words saying “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven“, we should be able to understand this IS ALL within us and while this may be incomprehensible, it should suffice to allow us to see that these are essentially the same as we cannot separate the Father from His Kingdom nor can we separate the Father from the Son.
This next parable about the nature of the Kingdom of God follows the Parable of the Mustard Seed and there are several verses before them that may hold for us another KEY to the reality that we are trying to see clearly; that it is the Master’s teaching that the Kingdom grows in the carnal man from that seed planted in one’s Repentance and that it grows until the man is Transformed. Now the Master does not say this in words that are easily discernible and we KNOW that this IS His intention as we read about His teaching in parable and by proverb. The Master teaches us Repentance, that we must make the decision to come to the spiritual Life; this is the first step of moment that a man must understand. Most ALL else that He teaches is Transformation although He never uses this word; we see this throughout the Sermon on the Mount as He tells them in that day that they should not just do the traditional things but that they should adopt His new way and this IS Transformation. On a higher level He teaches His disciples and apostles a deeper sense of Transformation as He tells them how they should interact with each other and with the world and we see this especially in Jesus’ interactions with the Apostle Peter. Let us look here at the Parable of the Growing Seed:
“So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come” (Mark 4;26-29).
In this parable which precedes the Parable of the Mustard Seed we have a similar dynamic as to the way the mustard seed parable is told by by Luke where the man merely casts the seed into his garden rather that intentionally sowing in as in Matthew’s version. This Parable of the Growing Seed is only found in Mark’s Gospel and it tells us that the Kingdom as planted, even as it is merely cast, will grow and it will grow regardless of the attention that it may get and, in this growth that the man does not KNOW how as he never did attend to it, he merely cast the seed. From our perspective we have here a man who Repents as we understand it, he decides to change his focus from the world to the more spiritual pursuits and this can be seen as that he “cast seed into the ground“. We should assume that the man is sincere in this Repentance and that at the same time he does not KNOW what else to do but to carry on his life which we can read in the words that he “should sleep, and rise night and day“. If his Repentance is sincere and if he does not turn back but simply lives his Life according to his Repentant heart, the seed WILL grow, the Kingdom WILL grow in his heart which we KNOW as his consciousness. We are told then by the Master that the man “knoweth not how“, that he does not understand and, we likely are in this same position as the sense of spiritual Life grows in us so long as we so not turn back and renew the old Life. Then the man notices that the Kingdom has grown within him, that he IS more spiritually oriented; he Loves more and he cares more about his brothers in the world and that he no longer desires the carnal things of the past; this IS the fruit and when the man realizes that he is bearing fruit, he realizes as well the growing Transformation that he has accomplished and this is the harvest, that he IS being Transformed.
A few brief points from John Gill 8 can give us some understanding here of how this parable is viewed by the doctrinal oriented church. As the whole of his writing is long as was the last one on the mustard seed, we will only pick out segments that give us the flavor of his thoughts.
- On the whole parable idea Mr. Gill says: The design of it is to set forth the nature of the word, and the ministration of it; the conduct of the ministers of the Gospel, when they have dispensed it; the imperceptibleness of its springing and growth; the fruitfulness of it, when it has taken root, without the help of man; the gradual increase of grace under the instrumentality of the word; and the gathering of gracious souls, when grace is brought to maturity.
- On the relation of the Kingdom to the parable he tells us: so is the kingdom of God; such is the nature of the Gospel dispensation; and such are the things that are done in it, as may fitly be represented by the following.
- On the man casting the seed we read: as if a man should cast seed into the ground: by “the man”, is not meant Christ, for he sleeps not; and besides, he knows how the seed springs and grows; but any Gospel minister, who is sent forth by Christ, bearing precious seed:
- On sleeping and rising Mr. Gill says: And should sleep: That is, the man that casts in the seed, who represents the ministers of the Gospel: and, as applied to them, is not to be understood of natural sleep, and indulging themselves in that; much less of spiritual sloth and indolence, as if they cared not what became of the seed sown, whether it sprung up, and came to any thing, or not; for neither of these belong to the characters of the true ministers of the word: for though bodily sleep in them, as in other men, is necessary for the support of nature, and to put them in a capacity of discharging their work; yet perhaps none have less of it than studious and laborious preachers of the Gospel; and rise night and day; which shows their diligence and laboriousness, and their constant attendance to other parts of their work, rising up early, and sitting up late, to prepare for, and discharge their ministerial work; and their continued expectation of the springing-up of the seed sown, which accordingly does in proper time:
- On the growing of the seed he says: and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how; it is a mystery in nature, how the seed under the clods, where it dies before it is quickened, should spring and grow up, and bring forth fruit; and so it is in grace, how the word of God first operates on a sinner’s heart, and becomes the ingrafted word there; the time when, and much less the manner how, grace, by this means, is implanted in the heart, are not known to a soul itself, and still less to the ministers of the word, who sometimes never know any thing of it; and when they do, not till some time after: this work is done secretly, and powerfully, under the influence of divine grace, without their knowledge, though by them as instruments; so that though the sowing and planting are theirs, all the increase is God’s: this may encourage attendance on the ministry of the word, and teach us to ascribe the work of conversion entirely to the power and grace of God.
- Skipping over the next verse we come to the end where there is the harvest and here we read: But when the fruit is brought forth: Unto perfection, and is fully ripe; signifying that when grace is brought to maturity, and faith is performed with power, and the good work begun is perfected; then, as the husbandman, immediately he putteth the sickle; and cuts it down, and gathers it in; because the harvest is come; at death or at the end of the world, which the harvest represents: when all the elect of God are called by grace, and grace in them is brought to its perfection, and they have brought forth all the fruit they were ordained to bear, they will then be all gathered in; either by Christ himself who comes into his garden, and gathers his lilies by death; or by the angels, the reapers, at the close of time, who will gather the elect from the four winds; or the ministers of the Gospel, who shall come again with joy, bringing their sheaves with them; being able to observe with pleasure a greater increase, and more fruit of their labours, than they knew of, or expected 8.
Again there is a stark difference between the simplicity of the parable and the complexity of the interpretation which, from our perspective does not address the Truth of the parable that the Master intended which is simply that the Kingdom will grow in the heart of the Repentant man.
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post and we leave our sayings on discipleship again until then.
- “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!
- 8 Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com
