ON LOVE; PART DCCCXVIII
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•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•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•Α
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).
ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ
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. While this IS from an older definition of Charity, which IS rendered in the King James Bible from the same Greek word agape which IS generally rendered as Love, we should amend our own definition here to include the idea that in the reality of Love a man will accord to ALL men ALL things that he would accord to himself and to say that Love IS our thoughts and attitude of the equality of ALL men regardless of their outward nature or appearance…that ALL ARE equally children of Our One God
ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ
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 with our thoughts on the Master’s words to His disciples regarding where it IS that He IS going when He leaves their physical presence. Here we should try to see that it IS ONLY in men’s carnal ideas of His leaving that they attribute ALL to the idea of this physical departure and the doctrinal ideas that this produces. If we should look at His departure with a view of His resurrection however we may get a very different perspective from the intent buried in His words at the end of our selection from the sixteenth chapter of John’s Gospel which we repeat below. In His words that “A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father” there IS the reality that whether they may see Him or NOT, He IS going “to the Father“. It IS in the “mysteries of the kingdom of God” that Jesus reveals to the disciple that the greater reality of His departure IS to be found and we should understand that even in His teachings to the apostles the deeper Truths ARE covered by His continued parabolic tone. While Jesus teaches the masses in parables that only allude to a reality, He teaches His disciples in words that ARE ONLY discerned when one looks away from the carnal interpretation of them.
And the Master tells the Eleven this Truth later in the sixteenth chapter as He says “These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father” (John 16:29); and in these words we should see the overall teaching that He offers them from the time of the Supper on to the end. We should note also that He DOES NOT say that this will change before He departs….He ONLY says that “the time cometh“. In this we should try to understand the whole of His way of speaking and teaching them, that He IS awakening in them their own sense of KNOWING, their own sense of believing and faith, which the Apostle John IS able to show us in simpler but also parabolic terms as He writes to those whom He IS teaching that “ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things” (1 John 2:20). This unction, which IS also rendered as anointing, IS from the same root word that IS rendered as Christ and IS the reality of the Christ Within, the reality of the Soul, which must become the expression of the man in the world. It IS in this idea of expression that the “all things” which ARE KNOWN become the realization of the consciousness of the man in the world. And, when we can see that this realization IS the grace of God and His Presence according to His words that we repeat here again, we can come closer to understanding the totality of the Master’s words to the Eleven….words that must be spiritually discerned:
“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” (John 14:21-24).
In these words the Master shows us the gateway to His Presence, the gateway to our realization of the Truths that ARE KNOWN by the Soul but unrealized in the Life of the man whose focus IS carnal…whose focus IS upon himself and the things of the self in this world. And this gateway IS that we keep His words which John shows us as such and as the deeper ideas of DOING so in Love. While the Master shows us the way to His Presence, the apostle shows us the very meaning of that Presence as the unction, the anointing, that ALL men have. Although the doctrinal view of this unction IS that this IS on the man who believes according to doctrine, the greater Truth IS that ALL have this anointing unrealized until they come to believe in Truth which IS the reality of keeping His words. When we can understand Vincent’s ideas on this sense of believing which tell us that to believe in and to believe on the Master IS: to accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life 4, we can then understand the reality in Jesus’ words above regarding the Presence of God in one’s Life. And when we can understand the more basic reality of even simple believing and faith, we can then understand that to believe that Jesus IS God and that God IS God requires that one DO as God says without reservation and without delay or, at the very minimum, that one should strive toward that goal.
It IS in the realization of these ideas and the spiritual discernment that comes in the Truth of believing, which IS keeping His words, that we can understand the idea that in His departure from them as a physical presence through His crucifixion, He remains. As the Christ He IS yet with them as His Presence but they DO NOT yet realize this Truth even in view of the many words that He has given to them. In the resurrection the Master again takes a form and while doctrines DO NOT address the idea of His changing forms and His ability to appear and disappear before them, there IS a great reality and the deeper answers to that question “Whither goest thou?“. For us there appears to be a great purpose to the stories from the gospels regarding Jesus’ appearance after the resurrection but this purpose IS NOT seen by the carnally minded purveyors of doctrines despite the rather graphic ideas that we find in the apostles’ writings. In the story offered by the Apostle Luke of the Master’s long walk with two disciples who DO NOT KNOW that He IS the Master, in the way that Mark phrases this as “After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked , and went into the country” (Mark 16:12) and after Mary’s seeing Him and “supposing him to be the gardener” (John 20:15), we should be able to glimpse the spiritual reality of the relationship between the Soul and the body.
And, when we combine this with His appearing in closed rooms as we read in John’s second account saying “then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you” (John 20:26), we should see yet deeper into the Master’s own words on those “greater works” (John 14:12). And when we can see the deeper reality to Luke’s account saying that “And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit“, a reality which IS found in the Master’s answer saying “Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?” (Luke 24:36-37), we should be able to better understand how that the carnal mind can hide and cover the greater Truths. We have discussed this phenomenon of His appearance many times over the course of this blog and we DO so in conjunction with our discussion on the ideas from the Gospel of John in In the Words of Jesus part 1131.
Our point today is to show again that the body IS NOT the significant consideration in the Master’s words saying “Whither I go, ye cannot come” (John 13:33), neither IS the actual place of His own Soul, His own spiritual self, which He tells us IS ever with the Father. In the Master’s words we read such things as “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9), “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30) and His words above on His Presence saying “we will come unto him, and make our abode with him“. In His words saying that “I go to my Father” we should understand the sense of Union that is involved and NOT the act of going. In His release from His Life as Jesus in this Earth, the Master IS free of ALL worldly fetters and IS again in True Union with the Father. In Jesus Life there IS the Presence of God and the expression of that Presence through form and, while this IS our own goal in Life, we too can be free of this at that time when our work in this world IS DONE and we too ARE Perfected. Perhaps it IS in the sense of His completed work that He finds the ultimate of Perfection which was revealed in part in His Transfiguration on the mount; perhaps it IS in His completed work in the form of Jesus that the Master refers to as He says to the Jews “Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected” (Luke 13:32).
While we DO NOT KNOW these things, we can try to see the deeper spiritual realities that ARE hidden in His parabolic tone and in the whole of the message from the Master and His apostles. While we can show these ideas in that same nebulous way as do much of the doctrines of the church, it IS our way to try to discern the greater Truths that CAN NOT be seen by the carnal mind which sees ALL things according to the ways of the flesh. And there ARE many who DO glimpse these Truths, many who come to question their own inner ideas which may be opposed to their doctrinal ideas, and here it IS unfortunate that the carnal way, the ideas of men in this world, overwhelm the inner promptings in favor of the easier common approach. And perhaps this IS the difficulty that the Master shows us saying that we should “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:24); can we see here how that this striving IS contrary to the normal ways of men whose focus IS yet upon the things of the world and the worldly view of Life. In the Apostle Matthew’s rendering of this we find the more compelling reality of the broad way as the ways of the carnal man opposed to the narrow way of the man who chooses to focus upon the things of God and to DO; we read: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).
In ALL of these ideas we find the reality of the Kingdom of God; NOT some place that one should go after death but that state of being which IS the Soul and the Christ Within. This Is the reality of the idea that “the Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21) and this IS the reality of the Master’s words to the Eleven saying “whither I go ye know, and the way ye know” (John 14:4). It IS in this KNOWING that we see again John’s words saying “ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things” and it IS ONLY by the realization of these things in one’s own consciousness that we can understand His words as men; it IS ONLY in this sense of grace which IS the Presence of God realized by the man whose focus IS upon the things of God. The apostle tells us more about this unction and while these ideas are surrounded by His cautions on who and what to believe as men, the reality IS the same….that it IS the Christ Within, the Soul, that prompts a man to the Good, the Beautiful and the True; and it IS in heeding this prompting that we change our focus and see the reality of the things of God. And for the man who has changed his focus as those to whom the apostle writes, we should see the deeper ideas of how to abide in Christ and in His Love. We read: “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him” (John 2:27).
Again we have the sense of KNOWING as being within the man, that “the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you“, and here again we come to the intersection of words where we must discern from the idea that “even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him“. Here we should see that in this idea of taught IS the reality of one’s realization which IS the realization of the Presence of God which comes in those things that one IS taught from within, from His own Soul. And here we must come back to the idea of abiding which we find above in the Master’s words as the result of keeping His words and which we find here in this saying in much the same way; we read: “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love” (John 15:10). This IS the reality of the Kingdom of God and this IS the reality of “whither I go“…..this IS a reality that can ONLY be glimpsed by measure by men, a measure that increases in proportion to one’s expression of Love and of keeping His words in Life in this world.
We did not get back to our selection except in our reference to the ideas behind Jesus’ words “Whither goest thou?“. We repeat our selection again and we will get back to this in the next essay:
“These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh , that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you. But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin, because they believe not on me; Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you. A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father” (John 16:1-16).
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
| Aspect |
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.
Repeating a Quote of the Day from the past that has some significance in relation to what we are discussing here, that the Kingdom of God and therefore God is within us ALL and that it IS His Presence which a man realizes by measure as he begins his journey to the Kingdom of God. Here Lord Tennyson poetically tells us just how close God Truly IS and how it is that we touch Him
Speak to Him, thou, for He hears,
and Spirit with Spirit can meet
Closer is He than breathing,
and nearer than hands and feet.
(Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809–1892)
From the poem The Higher Pantheism which puts forth the authors spiritual belief. Whether we agree with him or not, the quote if spiritually perfect for all of Christianity as well as any other world religion.
The thought behind the idea above IS NOT unlike that which we have been carrying as our Quote of the Day for many essays; It IS in the closeness that Lord Tennyson shows us that we should see the idea that “God dwells in the inner part of every man” which we read in the previous Quote of the Day. For us this saying and the previous one show us the closeness of the spiritual self to the Father and then too the closeness of the spiritual self with the personality of man. Men may like to think of God as something outside and above but the reality, as we have seen in so many of the sayings of the Master, is that God is with us and in us and we need only to let ourselves be drawn and to focus upon Him. And, if we can use these words from the Gospel of Thomas here we can perhaps see much: “When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the children of the living Father“
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
