IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 256

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part XLIII

 “For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you“

(Matthew 10:20)

“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“

(John 16:13)

“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)

(John 16:7)

“And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost“

(John 20:22)

We will address the sayings that appear above in due course but we start today with the two verses that follow which are, in the view of some, contradictory.

• “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13).
• “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said , out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)”  (John 7:38-39).

This first verse from Luke is rather disregarded in the doctrines of a good portion of the church and it is changed by others so as to uphold the basic understanding that has developed within the church of what the Holy Spirit is and how it is obtained. The church view is a result of the words of the Apostle John above as well as the early chapters of the Book of Acts which present the Holy Spirit as coming upon the mass of believers. While it is not our intention to dispute the established beliefs, it is important to understand these issues from our perspective as well. Much of what we as men believe to be true is what it is that we have learned and so much of what is taught today is based upon those ideas developed early in church history by the church fathers and then by the reformers. It is, most all of it, based on the perspective at the time as well as the capacity for understanding such things in that day. Much of what is missing in the understanding of the church is based upon the ideas that are generated by those who see this Life in form as the Life of man and which do not take into account the reality of the True Life and the parabolic teachings of the Master about it. From our perspective and from our chart we understand that the Trinity of God is the same Trinity that is of man as we are created in His image and His likeness. This being said it is a logical deduction, as well as a revelation from the Inner Man, that the Holy Spirit IS just as God IS and that the ideas of receiving the Holy Spirit or it being given are to be seen solely from the perspective of the personality consciousness which must receive Him so as to express Him. We repeat here in different terms our premise from the last post that the Holy Spirit, like the Christ or Christ Within, are basic parts of the constitution of a man and of God and that if the Christ Within is working out His expression through the personality of a man, the Holy Spirit is that expression and we then have a spiritual man in form on the Earth. This is not the result of Faith and believing on doctrine but it is the result of believing on the Master which is to follow Him and keep His words. To do this is to have the Holy Spirit in one’s Life and to thereby know and understand ALL that one’s personality components are capable of understanding. In this last statement is much food for thought and in it can be found the place for the differences in approach to the ONE GOD.

This first verse is for us a testimony from the Master saying that it is upon asking that the Holy Spirit is given to a man and we should understand this as it is intended for us. In that day there was little talk of the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost and it is a concept that was in that day little understood. As we have said before in these posts we have the privilege of having the scriptures which have been with us for about 2000 years and which should be providing for us an ever increasing understanding. Can we see that based upon the evolution of the mind of man going from the superstitious and unthinking man in Christ’s day who was governed by emotion and just beginning, as a society, to sense the realm of real thought, at least for the more intelligent people in that day, and growing from those times to the current through a steady progression in the capacity of man to think which is so because of the Soul’s ability to build for itself  more and more capable vehicles of expression in the world; physical, emotional and mental. Through all these times it is the idea of asking which should be seen as the hurdle to overcome and not the idea of the Holy Spirit itself. We should see that to Truly ask for the Holy Spirit one must understand what it is that he is asking for and that this understanding itself will place that man upon the Path and can be see in itself as the asking. The word translated as ask means just that, but we should see within the context of this saying by Jesus that there is a degree of sincerity involved and in this sincerity would be the understanding of what it is that one is asking for.  This can be seen to predicate the need to be heeding the call of the Christ Within, the Soul, that call from the Inner Man to the Good, the Beautiful and the True. This all works together insofar  as asking is a function of understanding the spiritual ideas that would cause one to desire the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle James clarifies this for us in saying: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.  For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord” (James 1:5-7). Of course we should understand that this “wisdom that is from above” (James 3:17) flows from the Christ Within, the Soul and is thereby is the expression of the Holy Spirit.

So we have established that in the asking there must be sincerity and an understanding of what it is that one is asking for and all of this can be seen as another way of saying that when we heed the call of the Soul, the Christ Within and ‘ask‘ that it become a part of our daily lives by doing our part as men in form, which is following Him and keeping His words, that the Holy Spirit will be then active in our lives. Now this may be a bit oversimplified because it is a blessing that can come to most any man and the idea of understanding should be seen as a rather wide entrance into it. For the devotionally oriented person understanding takes on a very different perspective than it does for the mentally oriented person and, as we have discussed, there is an infinite range of values between these two poles as well as degrees within each. Can we see the depth to which this can go?

There is much commentary on this saying and most all of it is to the point that the Master does not mean what it is that He is saying but that it means a different thing based upon their reading of other verses that appear in contradiction. Let us look at some of these so as to understand how this verse is viewed:

• John Gill in his Exposition of the Bible⁸ says: instead of the Holy Spirit here, the Vulgate Latin version reads, “good Spirit”, and so two copies of Beza’s; and the Ethiopic version, “the good gift of the Holy Spirit”; and doubtless intends the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, in distinction from, and as preferable to the good things given by earthly parents, to their children⁸.
• The Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible⁸ tells us that the words Holy Spirit should be understood as “good gifts”; the former, the Gift of gifts descending on the Church through Christ, and comprehending the latter⁸.
• The John Darby Synopsis of the New Testament⁸ says this on the combination of the first thirteen verses: the prayer which He taught His disciples (chap. 11) has respect also to the position into which they came before the gift of the Holy Ghost. Jesus Himself prayed, as the dependent man on earth. He had not yet received the promise of the Father, in order to pour it out on His disciples, and could not till His ascension into heaven. These, however, are in relationship with God as their Father⁸.
• Scofield’s reference notes (1917 edition) says this: It is evident that none of the disciples, with the possible exception of Mary of Bethany, asked for the Spirit in the faith of this promise. It was a new and staggering thing to a Jew that, in advance of the fulfilment of Joel 2:28 Joel 2:29 all might receive the Spirit. Mary alone of the disciples understood Christ’s repeated declaration concerning His own death and resurrection John 12:3-7 . Save Mary, not one of the disciples but Peter, and he only in the great confession Matthew 16:16 manifested a spark of spiritual intelligence till after the resurrection of Christ and the impartation of the Spirit ; John 20:22; Acts 2:1-4. To go back to the promise of Luke 11:13, is to forget Pentecost, and to ignore the truth that now every believer has the indwelling Spirit; Romans 8:9; Romans 8:15; 1 Corinthians 6:19; Galatians 4:6; 1 John 2:20, 1 John 2:27⁸.

Scofield alone gives us some understanding of the reality of this saying insofar as the disciples are concerned; that they do not understand. However, he also minimizes this saying in favor of the writings of the apostles and the happenings in the Book of Acts. While his ending premise is partially right from the perspective of the man in form, the understanding of the word believer brings us confusion. Every believer and every man has the Holy Spirit as it is a part of his True Self, its expression. However, to bring this to where Scofield puts it as the indwelling Spirit in the man on Earth requires more that just believing as it is commonly viewed, it requires the repentance and the commitment that comes with and from following Him and keeping His words. Can we see here how the doctrines are built more on the isolated and sometimes out of context sayings of the apostles rather than on the words of the Master and the Gospels. As we said earlier, the idea of the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is not much spoken of in the gospels but we do have, in the words of the Baptist, the Holy Spirit mentioned which should tell us that the Holy Spirit comes to a man in form (this is who John is speaking to) from the Christ and, by extension, the Christ Within. The Baptist tells us: “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire” (Matthew 3:11). Do any of us have any True comprehension of the meaning of these words “baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire“?

This is a vast and a complex subject with many scriptural references and so many opinions on what it is that baptize means in general and more so what it means as regards the Holy Spirit. We should remember that the idea of baptism as the ritual is just that, a ritual, and that the meaning behind it is what must take place in the Life of the man baptized. In the baptism of John we have the single idea of repentance (you can search ‘baptism of repentance’ on the home page for other essays on this) which we know is that change of heart that puts one onto the Path and in this Light we can see that the baptism with the Holy Spirit follows for those on the Path who are bringing the power of the Christ to bear on their lives by their focus and their commitment to the Christ and the Christ Within. There is no requirement nor need for a ceremony of any kind for there is no one who can Truly help a man to do this; that is to be His disciple. There is also no need to understand this from our perspective or any church’s doctrine; the only requirements are those that we know from the Master and they are to keep His commandments and to do this makes of no account the capability and capacity to understand for in the free flowing Light of the Soul that comes with doing His words is the fullness of understanding for each of us regardless of how we believe.

In contrast to the our saying from Luke’s Gospel is our other saying above from the Gospel of John which tells us in John’s words that “for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified“. On the surface this seems like a rather direct statement of fact by John which should not be disputed and which is interpreted in doctrine as the Holy Spirit was not available because Jesus was not resurrected. In understanding this we must first understand the first verse which is the words of the Master testifying to the accuracy of the old sayings; even more important however is the idea that these “rivers of living water” are to those who “believeth on” Him which is understood as those who follow Him and keep His words. So then what do John’s comments mean? first that the Master is equating the idea of living waters with the Spirit, the effect of the Christ Within on the personality of man or, as we have said, the Holy Spirit. Now this seems clear and we should note that two differences appear in this verse as noted by Vincent and others; first that the best texts omit holy, and second that the word given…is added to guard against a possible misconception⁴. We should have no doubt that the reference is the Holy Spirit but what is the reality of the rest? It is a confirmation that those who keep the Master’s words would have the Spirit, the living water, flowing forth from their belly which should be understood, as Vincent tells us, as the innermost part of man,  soul or heart⁴. We of course see this as both, the Soul as the originator of the Spirit and the heart as the personality expressing it. Now John is there with the Master and He is a disciple and, from what we know of disciples, the Spirit is moving in John’s Life; John is, as are all the apostles and disciples, expressing the potency of the Christ Within through his  personality and this expression is the Holy Spirit. Yet John says, in our reinterpreted sense, that “the Holy Ghost SPIRIT was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified” Now it is commonly understood that the idea here is that Jesus is not yet crucified and resurrected and while we cannot say what it is that is Truly meant by John we can say that it is apparent from the remainder of the gospel narratives that His disciples did not understand this idea of glorified at this time. We know also that these are John’s comments attempting to explain the words of the Master and that up to this time in John’s Gospel that the words Holy Spirit and Holy Ghost are not used. Can we say anything for sure from this? No we cannot and this should be true of all who comment on this verse. Again, we should see the Truly important part; that the Spirit will flow through the lives of those who believe on the Master and, so that we can ever keep our understanding of these words and our derivation of the ideas of follow Him and keep His words from them, we repeat again Vincent’s comments. Vincent tells us:

• To believe in, or on, is more than mere acceptance of a statement. It is so to accept a statement or a person as to rest upon them, to trust them practically; to draw upon and avail one’s self of all that is offered to him in them. Hence to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is not merely to believe the facts of His historic life or of His saving energy as facts, but to accept Him as Saviour, Teacher, Sympathizer, Judge; to rest the soul upon Him for present and future salvation, and to accept and adopt His precept and example as binding upon the life⁴.

We started here with two sayings from scripture that are seemingly at odds with one another as so many perceive to be the case. However, after looking at what we have said the only things that can be determined with certainty from our perspective are:

• That the saying by the Master is True and accurate especially when viewed from the right perspective and the right understanding of the ideas embedded in the word ask.
• That the comment by John is of uncertain relevance except that we know it is intended to explain the words of the Master regarding the Spirit being received by those who keep His words. Our comments on this are only that we know from other scripture that His disciples did not understand and that the Master spoke to them in parable. It may be so that these things had not yet have been totally revealed to the apostle when he wrote these words or, it may be that John is speaking from a perspective that has not yet been revealed to us.

Regardless of how we view the words of John we should be sure that the words of the Master are True and accurate and that they fit well into our understanding of the overall progression of a man from carnal living to sensing the Christ Within and heeding the call with which then comes one’s entry onto the Path where we follow Him and keep His words and grow into discipleship, into His Kingdom.

We did not get to any of the sayings at the top of this essay and will deal with some of these in the next post.

Note on the Quote of the Day