IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 1130

ON LOVE; PART DCCXIX

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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FIRST IS THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS: “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31).

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WHAT THEN IS LOVE? In a general sense love is benevolence, good will; that disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good. In a theological sense, it includes supreme love to God, and universal good will to men.

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PLUS THE EVER IMPORTANT AND HIGH IDEAL TAUGHT TO US BY THE CHRIST: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).

In the last essay we continued our discussion on the intimate relationship between the idea of grace and the Holy Spirit as these ARE presented by the Master and His apostles. Through the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, this discussion brought us to a secondary topic, the Trinity that IS God and that IS man. Here, in the very words of the Master, we ARE made to see that ALL Aspects of the Godhead ARE a singular look at God, that they are Truly inseparable. Additionally, we see that the idea of God in man IS a scriptural fact that IS presented here by Jesus albeit in parabolic language that must be rightly discerned. As the Master alludes to Himself as the Comforter saying “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you” (John 14:16, 18), we should try to understand that His intent is NOT that He will come to them as the resurrected Christ as many believe but that He comes in the greater reality of the Christ Within which He frames for us as “ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you“. This IS the greater Truth of the reality of “another Comforter“; not the physical presence of the Master with them in the world but the reality of the Christ Within whose activity in Life in this world we see as the Holy Spirit.

We have often taken this idea of the Christ Within from the words of the Apostle Paul who tells us of the deep mystery that this Truth had been and how that this IS now revealed to “his saints” who we should understand in the reality of discipleship and NOT in the diluted view by some that says most that ALL believers ARE such.  The apostle tells us that “the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:26-27). This IS the same reality that IS offered to us by the Master in our current selection from John’s Gospel and NOT only this, but the yet greater understanding of the inseparable nature of the Trinity as well. It IS in the fullness of His words here from John’s Gospel that we should see the progressive nature of this teaching on God and, while it IS offered to us in a parabolic tone, it IS also readily understandable by the man who can see past the doctrines and the preconceptions of men. Repeating our current selection:

“At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:20-26).

For us these relationships are firmly offered by the Master and the reality of the Christ Within IS amplified and clarified for us His apostles. In the Master’s words we have our view of the homogeneity of the Trinity and in the overall teachings of the New Testament we have the Truth that this Trinity, and NOT this body, ARE the Truth of man….that this body IS but the vessel, the temple if you will, of the God Within; a God that IS part and parcel of the One Great and Awesome Presence that we humbly call God. Paul tells us that “we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” and he defines the treasure itself as that it IS the Light of God that “hath shined in our hearts“; and we should see this idea of heart as our consciousness, and we should see our consciousness as the reality of the Soul in form. It IS the consciousness, the heart, that must be reoriented away from the things of the world and onto the things of God and in this we should see the reality of focus, that it IS the consciousness that that IS hijacked by the the personality in this world through a man’s nurturing and experience and that it IS the Soul, the God Within, that must wrest this consciousness away from the corruption of worldly attention and onto the Truth of the divine nature. This IS the whole of the journey of the Soul through time and space: to place the focus back upon the things of God and to progressively build upon the grace, the revelations and the realizations of Truth, through which we can see the Kingdom of God.

We read of an exchange between Jesus and the Jews where the Master shows them and us of the reality that the body, the carnal and mortal nature, IS but the vessel of the Soul in this world: “Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body“. We should note here that the disciples themselves DO NOT understand the Master’s words as we read the Apostle John’s comments saying: “When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said” (John 2:19-22). We should try to see here how that in the lack of understanding of this by the disciples, along with the many other instances where they DO NOT see His words clearly, that the Master teaches them slowly and in parabolic terms that ARE only discerned by each of them individually as they are ready to see the fullness of His Truths. Our point here IS simply this idea of the temple as the body, the vessel of the Soul in this world. This idea IS presented again by Paul as he tells us “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? ” (1 Corinthians 3:16) and this idea should add to our understanding that “as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17).

And the Apostle Peter speaks of the body in similar fashion as he calls this his tabernacle; we read: “Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me. Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance” (2 Peter 1:13-15). There IS a reality here regarding these ideas of temple, of vessel and of tabernacle as they describe the phenomenal body of the man but which have come to be regarded as the man against the True suggestions of scripture that shows the body as but the vehicle for the Life an the consciousness that IS the Soul. We should understand here that this reality IS clear and understood in the apostles’ writings and that it IS the doctrinal view of Life itself that prevents proper understanding. For example, the lexicon shows us that the word tabernacle has a metaphorical meaning: of the human body as the dwelling of the soul ². Similarly we have this from the lexicon regarding the Greek word skeuos which IS rendered as vessel: “Vessel” was a common Greek metaphor for “body” since Greeks thought of souls living temporarily in bodies ². The lexicon’s definitions of the idea of temple however DO NOT contain this idea of body even though it IS clearly used this way by the Master and by Paul; here, in regard to temple, they offer a much more doctrinal idea that identifies the metaphor as: the spiritual temple consisting of the saints of all ages joined together by and in Christ ².

Through the words of the Master and His apostles we should see the greater reality of the nature of the body yet doctrines still pronounce that it IS this body that IS created “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27). And this IS what we should take from these words in John’s Gospel: that the Trinity that IS God IS the Truth of men and that it IS this Truth that IS created “in the image of God“. When we can see the words of Jesus as the words of the Christ, the Soul that IS the Life and the consciousness that IS using the body of Jesus, we can then better see the ideas that He IS presenting here: that “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30) IS not a reality in the body but a reality in the divine being that IS Christ and that IS the Soul of every man…..again, “as he is, so are we in this world“. This IS the True meaning as Jesus tells us that “the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” as He tells us of the teaching and the miracles and as He shows us that we too can do these same things and yet “greater works“. Again, “as he is, so are we in this world” should be our rule of understanding and in this we should see that as the Father dwells in the Christ who dwells in the temple that IS the body of Jesus, so the Father IS in the Christ Within which dwells in the phenomenal body of every man…,.his own temple.

We should see here as well the idea of the Holy Spirit, the parakletos in Greek, which IS rendered as the Comforter. He also IS within this temple of the body which the Master portrays for us saying “he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” and which IS rendered by Weymouth as “remains by your side and is in you” (John 14:17). This IS the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, and this IS that Aspect of God that “doeth the works” that ARE of God, that ARE of the Father. And we must NOT forget the further revelations that the Master offers to those who can understand His words: first we see the idea of His saying that “I will love him, and will manifest myself to him“. Here we have the greater idea of revelation and of realization of the reality of man’s being created “in the image of God“; in this Truth we should see that ALL men are so created as divine beings, as the Trinity of Aspects which IS God. Jesus tells us that His manifestation, which IS our own realization, IS founded in the ability, the grace, of the man who “hath my commandments, and keepeth them“. This IS the price of seeing God and of KNOWING the Truth as a man in this world. This word that IS rendered as manifest can be easily misunderstood; Vincent tells us that it should be seen as: of manifestation to the sight ⁴ which he later qualifies by quoting Wescott’s saying that: “It conveys more than the disclosing of an undiscovered presence ( ἀποκαλύπτω ), or the manifesting of a hidden one (φανερόω)” ⁴. The lexicon shows us that this can be a combination of these ideas as they define emphanizo as: to manifest, exhibit to view; to show one’s self, come to view, appear, be manifest; to indicate, disclose, declare, make known ² which ideas ARE borne out in the varied uses of this word in the New Testament. Perhaps the intent of this word IS most accurately portrayed for us in Webster’s 1913 version where we read: To show plainly; to make to appear distinctly, — usually to the mind; to put beyond question or doubt; to display; to exhibit ¹; in this we can see the intent of the Master and our idea of this as revelation and realization.

If we can see this idea that He “ will manifest” Himself in accordance with Jesus previous words that tell them that “ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you“, we can see further into this idea of grace as the revelations and the realizations of divinity. The reality that this Trinity IS man however remains obscured by the parabolic nature of His words and the very nature of the mystery that IS revealed in the Book of Genesis and spoken of by the Master and His apostles as they speak about the temple, the vessels and the tabernacles within which the True man Lives in the Kingdom of God…a Kingdom which the Master also shows us IS within. None of this IS accepted by most doctrines who DO NOT see the reality of these words here nor His straightforward saying that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). Can we see these relationships? Can we see that the Master’s words that “the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works“, the Masters showing us that the Holy Spirit “dwelleth with you, and shall be in you“, which IS easily rendered as “is in you“, ARE both divine Aspects of God that ARE fro most men unrealized. Can we see the Truth behind Paul’s words that “the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? ” and the reality of realization in Jesus telling us that He “will manifest” Himself as the realization of the man who keeps His words?

There are hidden Truths and of these the Master tells us that “nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad” (Luke 8:17). When we can see this idea in conjunction with His words that tell His disciples that “Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand” (Luke 8:10) we can better see His words on manifesting Himself as recorded by John…that this IS Truly for the man who keeps His words. While doctrines DO NOT see the underlying ideas that are incorporated into the Genesis saying that man IS created “in the image of God“, the Truth of this remains buried in the words of the Master and His apostles. Words that show this body as what it Truly IS….as the vehicle through which the divine man who IS created “in the image of God” will express that divinity as realized in the grace that comes to the man whose focus IS on the things of God. This expression IS Love and this expression IS the fruit of the Spirit who IS the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God.

When pressed about His saying on manifestation by the Apostle Judas, the Master responds with an even more perplexing idea as He shows again the intimate relationship between the Aspects of the Trinity as He shows again that this manifestation, this revelation of Truth, IS the product of keeping His words. Here He takes the dialogue from Himself to the more inclusive idea of we as He says: “we will come unto him, and make our abode with him“. In this we see the intimacy that IS the Trinity and we see as well the reality that the Master offers us as He tells us that the Father that “doeth the works” in Him will also give us the ability to yet “greater works“. This IS the Father of whom He says “I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” and we should see here the relationships that are implied: since He IS in the Father and we are in Him then we are necessarily in the Father as well. Also then we must see that since the Father dwelleth in Him and He IS within us, then the Father IS necessarily within us as well. Can we see the simplicity of His words and the obscurity that these offer to the man who CAN NOT see clearly.? We close today with a reminder of the idea that IS intended in these sayings from the Greek word agapao which IS rendered as Love and which should be seen in this context as more than what we commonly understand. And this is the question that we posed in the last post saying: Can we see this particular sense of Love as grace, as the realizations and revelations of the things of God to man?

We will continue with our thoughts 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 repeat here again a saying that is from the Bhagavad Gita, which goes well with our theme of the God Within, the Soul, which we see as the Christ Within and while this is good in the Christian world and is True based upon our understanding of the Christ as the manifestation of God, we should also see in these words below that it does not matter what these divine ideas are called; that it matters not what we call this Inner Man, that he is the same in ALL, he is the Soul.

Thou carriest within thee a sublime Friend whom thou knowest not. For God dwells in the inner part of every man, but few know how to find Him. The man who sacrifices his desires and his works to the Beings from whom the principles of everything stem, and by whom the Universe was formed, through this sacrifice attains perfection. For one who finds his happiness and joy within himself, and also his wisdom within himself is one with God. And, mark well, the soul which has found God is freed from rebirth and death, from old age and pain, and drinks the water of Immortality.—Bhagavad-Gita

It is difficult to tell just what verses of the Bhagavad Gita the above is from; whether it is a paraphrase or a combination. It is from the book “The Great Initiates” by Édouard Schuré which was originally published in French in 1889 and perhaps it is in the translation of the verses that they become hard to recognize. However, the sheer beauty of the presentation caught my attention and so I share it with you. The Path to the Kingdom is the same no matter what religion one professes.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• ¹ Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913
• ² New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888