IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 1138

ON LOVE; PART DCCXXVII

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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).

We ended the last essay with the beginning of a review of the parts of the fourteenth chapter of John’s Gospel that we have been studying for several weeks now. We began with our understanding of the Master’s words on Kingdom of God, that there IS a place for ALL men, and while this IS rendered as mansions by some and as rooms or dwelling places by others, the reality IS seen ONLY in the spiritual view and understanding of the idea of place which is shown us in the completeness of His words: “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told  you. I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2). In the doctrinal view of these words we see ONLY the preconceived ideas of the existing doctrines regarding heaven and in this view much of the Master’s intent IS lost, an intent that is further built as His teaching progresses into the realities of God and man. We should likely understand that His words ARE intentionally parabolic, but more than this, we should also see the role of translation and doctrine as contributing much to the lack of understanding of His intent. The Kingdom IS a spiritual realm and in this sense it bears NO relationship to what we understand as men in the world; here, if we can believe that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21), we can begin to sense the reality of Jesus words here to His Eleven, to those who can best understand His meaning.

We KNOW however that they DO NOT understand and that it IS their questioning that forms the foundation for this most important teaching from the Master. If we can take the ideas of the Christ Within as this IS presented in later verses and understand these ideas on the Kingdom, the “Father’s house” in this same context, the greater Truths ARE revealed. The Master IS comforting, if we can use that word here, His Eleven whom He has again told of His departure, and it IS in this sense that the Master IS speaking to them saying “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me” (John 14:1) and, as we have discussed, this latter part should be seen as saying “believe in God and believe in me“⁴ as Vincent shows us; there IS NO question here nor any request that they believe in Him. This IS already certain….they DO believe that He IS the Christ and that He IS sent from God; it IS upon this fact and their belief in God that the rest of His words are framed. He teaches them about the Kingdom, that there IS a place for ALL and we should see here that the Master’s intent IS NOT to go anywhere to prepare a physical place but to prepare them for that place, that state of being that IS the Truth of discipleship. In the variety of meanings ascribed to the idea of the Greek word poreuomai which IS rendered as go, we should try to understand that the act of physically going IS not the necessary understanding which, in this case, would be going by means of His death; we should instead understand this as the act of His leading them, He IS preparing them, for that state that IS His Presence in their lives. The lexicon tells us that poreuomai can be defined as: to lead over, carry over, transfer to pursue the journey on which one has entered, to continue on one’s journey; to depart from life; to follow one, that is: become his adherent to lead or order one’s life ; while much of this IS doctrinally based, we should see that this IS a more complex word than merely that act of going physically. It IS interesting to note that Strong’s definition of the Greek word poreuomai IS: to come, go, travel ³, and that a derivative of this word, poriea, means: journey, trip, going about one’s business, way of life; conduct ³.

Our point here IS again to say that the renderings of much of the New Testament IS according to the doctrines and the preconceived notions of the Master’s intent and the intent of His apostles and we should understand that this afflicts us ALL….we ALL tend to see things according to what we may believe. Our view here however IS broader and more inclusive and seeks to dispel the archaic ideas of heaven and hell, of eternal punishment and damnation for any but those who can come to believe in the Christ according to some particular doctrine. In this it IS our belief that Christ, the Love of God made manifest to men, IS NOT a God who would NOT Love ALL men as He teaches us; and we should see here that eternal damnation IS NOT Love. Nor DO we believe nor understand that in the simplicity of common believing that one IS saved from this fate as so many doctrines believe; this IS NOT what the Master teaches and it IS here in this chapter that we are reminded of the Truth of our salvation….that it IS found in keeping His words.

And so we see His words here; that they are to show the reality of the Kingdom of God, our place in it in this Life and NOT in death; that in our place in that Kingdom Within we find His Presence and the Presence of the Father. This IS the greater reality of His words “I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am , there ye may be also” (John 14:3). From Vincent’s comment we should see the continual coming and presence by the Holy Spirit ⁴ of our Lord into the Life of the man who IS focused upon Him and in the idea that He will “receive you unto myself; that where I am , there ye may be also“, we should remember the God’s Word translation that renders this as: “Then I will bring you into my presence so that you will be where I am“. These comments and translations, while still according to the doctrine of the writer, offer us a view of His words that shows the depth of His meaning rather than the more common doctrinal view of His death and then our joining Him at ours. The doctrinal view of this IS seen in this from John Gill who says: And if I go and prepare a place for you; Seeing I am going to prepare, and will prepare a place for you, of the truth of which you may be fully assured: I will come again; either by death or in person a second time, here on earth: and receive you unto myself; I will take you up with me to heaven; I will receive you into glory; that where I am there you may be also: and behold my glory, and be for ever with me, and never part more ⁸. While there ARE likely many variations on this belief and on the proper view of His words, the reality IS that few see these ideas as we DO and as we believe that they ARE intended, and in this the Master continues. He tells them that they DO KNOW and this perhaps in the same way as that John later tells us of the unction…that their Inner man, the Soul, KNOWS these things….the Soul KNOWS and this the Master shows them saying: “whither I go ye know, and the way ye know” (John 14:4).

In this we should see that Jesus KNOWS that they DO KNOW these things and that any lack of vision that they display IS ONLY because they have NOT yet had the fullness of the realization of these Truths in their hearts, their consciousness in this world. It IS this realization that the Master IS building in the Eleven as He proceeds. Doctrines vary here; John Gill tells us that the Master’s words mean: And whither I go ye know; They might have known, at least, whither he was going, since he had spoke of his Father’s house, and of his going to prepare a place for them there, and doubtless had some knowledge thereof, though very confused and imperfect: and the way ye know: this also they might have known from some expressions of his, that the way to his Father’s house lay through sufferings and death, in which way they also were to follow him to his kingdom and glory ⁸. Here we see the Kingdom and death while the authors of The Commentary Critical and Explanatory of the Whole Bible tell us that whither I go ye know….By saying this, He meant rather to draw out their inquiries and reply to them…Christ is “THE WAY” ⁸. It IS this next saying that IS the most perplexing and among the most misunderstood parts of this chapter and the entire New Testament; Jesus says: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6); it IS this saying that sets the stage for the rest of the revelations that ARE offered by the Master as He begins to show how that He and the Father ARE inseparable…that they ARE One and the same. Taken in a literal fashion, these words give rise to the ideas that we cite above, that the Christ, the Avatar of Love, would forsake men simply because they ARE men who DO NOT yet see the reality of Christ from a doctrinal perspective. The reality of His words IS made abundantly clear in the rest of the message from this fourteenth chapter; when we can understand that He speaks of the Way to the Kingdom of God here and now, we can understand much of His intent…it IS in His Presence in the Life of the disciple, a Presence that comes by way of keeping His words as we read in our selection below. It IS in DOING that the God and the Christ Within ARE realized; that These make their abode in the hearts of men in this world. We should remember that the word rendered abode here in this idea that “my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” IS the same Greek word that IS rendered as mansions above. And it IS this reality of His Presence that the Master IS teaching. here and throughout this chapter, that leads us to the yet greater Truths of in 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).

We should try to see that the Master IS the Presence of God in this world of men…that it IS through this Presence in the Life of the man who keeps His words that he can realize the Truth that He offers us saying “I will love him, and will manifest myself to him“. It IS this manifestation that IS our show of His Presence as the realization of the Christ Within and in this we see also the God Within. This Love IS founded in the grace of God as we have previously discussed, it comes to us as Souls and IS the reality of the Christ Aspect of the Godhead; and it comes to us as men in the grace that we can realize in Life. Can we see the idea of the Way here: that it IS in following the Master, His words and His example, that we find His Presence which IS the Truth of His Kingdom which IS within us? And can we see that this Way IS founded in His words which ARE the essence of His Truth which we see above in our selection? His word then IS both; it IS the Way and they ARE the Truth and, in the reality of the Logos Himself, the Christ, He IS in a strange and mysterious way the Word Himself. Can we see a deeper idea of the Way and the Truth here and can we see as well how that these ARE Life; Life in God….in His Presence here and now? And it IS upon this idea that the Master continues to build as He shows us how that He, the Logos, the Christ, the Word, and the Father ARE indeed One.

Jesus tells us then of the “the Father in me“; He tells us how that “the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me” and in this we should see the Truth of the Father in Christ; the Spirit of God, the Spirit that IS God, and, to make this ever more harmonious we must see as well the reality of His saying that “I am in the Father” (John 14:10). In this we get Jesus view of the inseparable nature of the Father and the Son and, while doctrine paints the Son as the physical presence of Jesus, the greater Truth IS found in understanding the Oneness of these Aspects of God…that it IS these that ARE the True reality of the Master as the Spirit and the Soul that animate and motivate His body of flesh. We must see here how that the Master takes this idea from the personal to the universal; He shows us how that the Father IS within Him and how that ALL things Spiritual come from Him….Jesus words and His works come from the Spirit that IS the God Within Him. And what of the Soul that IS the Christ? the Son? This IS the individual Life that IS the Christ that we see and KNOW; this IS, from His own perspective, His individual spark of Life that IS the Spirit, the Father; and yet IS the uniqueness of His True Spiritual Self, a Self that has garnered the ability to express “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9) in the Life of Jesus. The inner working of the Truth of the Trinity of God are yet beyond our ken but it IS in His words that they ARE revealed as the grace, the realizations and the revelations that come to us as we prepare ourselves for the fullness of His Presence or, as we should frame this, as we allow the Christ Within to flower forth into the Life of the man in this world.

And so we see the personal view of the relationship between the Master, who IS the reality of the Life that expresses through the form of Jesus, as a Soul and the Father who IS the essence, the Spirit that IS the Life. We get a view of their inseparable nature and of the homogeneous interaction that can ONLY be understood spiritually from His words that “I am in the Father, and the Father in me“. It IS in this that we must see the reality that “the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works“; it IS here that we must see the idea that it IS God in the man Jesus that has the words and the works that ARE expressed in the mortal Life of the Master in this world. And we should see yet more as He takes this personal view and extends it to us, to the Eleven and to the world of men, in that simple saying that “the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do” (John 14:12). This IS the beginning of our understanding of the great Truth that “as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17), it IS here that we can see that as the Father dwells in the Master and does these works, so DOES He dwell in us and DO these same works. But there IS a cost, a price to pay for this reward of grace. Here, while John paints this in the idea of believing on Him, the reality IS as we see in the subsequent verses….that we keep His words. This idea that “He that believeth on me” shall be able to DO these works must be seen in the reality of its presentation…that it IS the Presence of God that DOES such in the Life of Jesus and it IS the Presence of God that shall DO such in each man who attains the fullness of His Presence. And this IS the reality of His Presence:

• “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“.
• “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“.

This IS the Truth of His Presence in the Life of the disciple: that he keep His words; this IS the Truth in our claims of Love for God and Christ: that we keep His commandments; and this IS the Truth of His words: that they ARE of the Father. Finally, ALL of this IS the reality that must be seen in the Life of the man who Truly believeth on Him.

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!

• ² New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ³ Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible – 2001
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
• ⁸ Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com