IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 174

YES, HE is Talking to YOU! (continued)

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

As we approach Christmas this year we should strive to remember the True meaning of this day. It is not likely falling on an historically correct date for the birth of the Master and there is dispute even among some denominations and sects regarding the proper day for this celebration. Similar confusion and dispute exists regarding the nature of the celebration of this day with some parts of the church disallowing the celebration of ‘Christmas’ for a variety of reasons. How we came to this current play with the Christmas tree and gifts is a matter of history and how it became the mega commercial day it is for a large part of the world should be seen as the doing of men and likely of the reign of the lower desires that each has developed on the ‘easier’ path of carnal living. Much good is done too at this time of the year and for many it is truly a season of giving but even in this the True essence of the celebration seems to be lost. So let us strive to remember the True meaning of Christmas and see it as a day in which we celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus who came to us as the Christ of God and who brought into manifestation on this Earth the fullness of the Love and the Wisdom of God; a Love and a Wisdom that we can touch and achieve as we strive toward being in His Kingdom and His Presence.

We left off yesterday with a list of some of the ideas, even requirements, of attaining to the Kingdom of God and we closed with the Quote of the Day that spoke specifically about being worthy of Him which, in another gospel is framed as the Master telling us these are the requirements to “be my disciple“. In the synthesis of these two versions we should see that these ideas are the same and that if one is worthy of Him, then one can be counted also as among His disciples. This alternate saying goes thus: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple……So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26-27, 33). The dialogue here from Luke is broken up by what we called the Parable of Counting the Cost which we discuss in some detail in In the Words of Jesus part 130 and which gives us the message that we need to see both here and through the list we published as the end of our post yesterday. These thoughts plus yesterday’s Quote of the Day from Matthew put together for us the Master’s thoughts on being worthy, being a disciple and attaining to the Kingdom of God which we should see as an interrelated and even singular theme. While there are no words by the Master that specifically tie these three together, we should see the sameness in the requirements and the idea of accounted worthy which encompasses all three and make them one; if we find a one of these we have found them all.

These then are the thoughts that we need to build in order to see the reality of the Master’s saying that we were discussing yesterday:  “he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Luke 7:28, Matthew 11:11). In part 130 that we mention above, we posted these words which bear repeating and from which we can then venture into the meaning and the ideas behind our subject verse: ‘The hardest part for man to understand from this series of sayings is that it is only in being His disciple, only in following Him and His word are we truly ”accounted worthy” of the Kingdom of God. We somehow believe that it is in believing and in the grace of God that we find acceptance into the Kingdom but most all of the Master’s words speak against this perspective. Believing and grace may give us salvation and that is a higher afterlife than for those who do not believe but it is only in DOING His words and keeping His commandments that we will find ourselves in His Kingdom and we will find it to be here and now. This is what Jesus is telling us here; are we willing to become His disciples? then we must be willing to give up ALL.‘

We should always remember that the idea put forth above of giving up ALL is in relation to those temporal things of the world and include man’s expansions on the idea of those things of which Jesus taught us to “Take no thought“. In reality we give up naught but the thoughts of these things which play through our consciousness; through our minds and our emotions. Can we then come to a point, for the sake of our discussion, where we can look at this as did the Apostle Paul when he says, speaking of his old ways and his own confidence in the things of the flesh: “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” (Philippians 3:7-8)? Can we look at the accumulations of a lifetime of thoughts and feelings and worldly goods and stature and our own pride as dung, as the worthlessness of dung, which we give up all claim to for to be accounted worthy of Christ? Try here for a moment to imagine this and then to look around at your brothers who have done the same; is any of us then any better or any worse that another?

This is the perspective from which we must look at the Master’s phrase; this is what we should see when we see His words: “he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he“. What we should see then in this special realm called the Kingdom of God a place where we are ONE with our God and with the Master, a place where we leave off all of the lower carnal nature and become that essence of who we Truly are; a state where we live as one whose new consciousness is exceedingly higher than the highest spiritual realization that one has ever felt or imagined. Yes, this is unimaginable from our perspective here and now as is the reality of the Kingdom of God within us, and these are one and the same thing. Thoughts and words do not exist to properly describe these things in human terms and perhaps this is the reason for the phantasmagorical revelations of some of the prophets who have glimpsed this Truly special realm. And so again our point, in attaining to the Kingdom we have attained to a place where we are all the same as regards our mortal ideas of better than or greater than; we are truly one and have taken a great step out of the state of human affairs and into the waiting arms of the True disciples of Christ who welcome us to their ranks. As we have said before, this is our destiny and our goal.

The commentaries are varied on their understanding of this verse; with many there is that line of demarcation created by man between the Old Testament and the New. That there is a new revelation is true but many stretch this to say that there was no Kingdom until the Master arrived. However, the reality is more that there was no understanding of the Kingdom outside of the law before the Master told us that it is what is in the heart that counts. There is not the creation of a new place here but rather just a new way of seeing it. The chronology that we recently cited, A Chronological Harmony of the Gospels puts forth a seemingly Catholic idea of this saying this way: Through his exalted mission John the Baptist was the greatest of the prophets of the Old Testament, with the heavy burden of establishing a worthy preparation for the Messias. but as the New Testament excels the Old, so likewise the call to Christ’s kingdom for even the least of His disciples far surpasses in dignity and excellence the vocation of the Precursor of Christ¹⁰. This is an example of the thoughts of men that cast the ways of the world into the Kingdom of God by saying that there are a least and a best; here it is based on the presumed excellence of the Master’s disciples over John the Baptist and the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament.

Similar tone can be seen in this from John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible⁸ where he says in part that: Notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven, is greater than he; which is to be understood, not of Christ, who was younger in age, and a junior preacher, and less in the esteem of the Pharisees, being greater than he, in nature and office, nor of the saints in heaven, where he that was least, the meanest, and most abject, when on earth, is more happy than John, who was then in prison; nor of all the believers under the Gospel dispensation; but of the apostles of Christ, and the least among them, who were then the kingdom of heaven, or the visible Gospel church state⁸. Mr. Gill goes on to speak of the disciples presence with Jesus versus the Baptist’s not having this opportunity to hear; he fails however to consider the deeper ideas of the Christ Within and much of his own writing about the Holy Spirit. We add here one more idea of the church regarding this saying from John Darby’s Synopsis of the New Testament⁸ which tells us again of his idea regarding the newness of the Kingdom: Among all that are born of women there had been none greater than John the Baptist, none who had been so near Jehovah, sent before His face, none who had rendered Him a more exact and complete testimony, who had been so separate from all evil by the power of the Spirit of God-a separation proper to the fulfilment of such a mission among the people of God. Still he had not been in the kingdom: it was not yet established; and to be in the presence of Christ in His kingdom, enjoying the result of the establishment of His glory, was a greater thing than all testimony to the coming of the kingdom⁸.

We should see here the common ideas regarding this saying of the Master and the contrast of our ideas to them. We see that the Kingdom of God is that place where there is no worldly thing but rather a place where we can truly say with the Christ that “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). We see that the words and the thoughts that we may have here in this frame of mind on Earth have no meaning in the Kingdom of God; there is no mine and yours, no good and evil and as long as man tries to define this Kingdom and the Presence of God in human terms and language, so long will he be mired in the misconceptions that today abound.

We will conclude this discussion about John the Baptist with some final words and sayings in the next post and then try to find some thoughts about the Christ that can fill our hearts with the True Joy of this season.

Note on the Quote of the Day