Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part CXXXVI

“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry , Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:14-23).

We began yesterday with the idea that the Quote of the Day, as it is presented below, embodies much of  the teachings of the Master and that the man who can accomplish these things in his everyday life is fast becoming a follower of the Master and a keeper of His words and this regardless of where he may be, his culture, his religion or any other of these man made divisions of humanity. These precepts, as expressed below, are universal in appeal as are the teachings of the Christ; most ALL men in their heart of hearts KNOW the value of Love and of justice and of Truth and of personal responsibility. Though they may ignore it and even fight against it, there is an innate sense of these things in ALL men and this is the outward expression of the Christ Within, the God Within….the Soul of man. Somewhere in a rather warped sense of pride, individual, national, religious or even racial, is that human trait that seeks to separate one from another and to see oneself as ‘better’ in some way. In line with this attitude is another that is of great harm to ALL and this is the direction of anger and prejudice against other groups that one may feel violates some national, religious, or cultural rule and for reasons that are difficult to understand. These attitudes lead to actions that are un-Christian in the Christian community of Love and they are attitudes that are spread across most all religious creeds as well as ALL true religions do teach the finer art of a man’s relationship with others; we talk not of doctrine here but of the words of the Christ and other Sons of God for which doctrines are generally a pale reflection. The reality of this is a personal one for each of us and, as we reflect upon those things that each is anti, or against, one can get a better feel for the extent of pride and prejudice in his Life.

This idea is reflected upon by the Apostle Paul in our opening sayings from Romans above. Paul tells us that “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope” which is his testimony to what is the reality of human affairs and in the idea of “not willingly” we should be able to see the ideas that we have been presenting insofar as illusion and glamour and deception and their effect on the lives of men throughout the world. Mankind is immersed in this world and, according to Paul, this is as a part of the Plan of God which is seen in his saying that this is done “by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope” and which we should see as the way things are in the world of form, as the forces that drive man to betterment of his human condition and then which eventually drive him back to God. Paul also here testifies that it is the creature, the very creation itself, that is immersed in the illusion and the glamour and in this we should see Paul’s separation of the man as the form and personality, the creature if you will,  in the world and the reality of the “the children of God“. This is the redemption in which we are involved as well and this is a subject of much mystery as we see in Paul’s words a hint of the idea that it is us, as “the children of God“, who will redeem the creature, the form and the personality, deliver it if you will, from “the bondage of corruption“. This redemption is the product of man’s repentance; the result of his conscious awakening of the Life of the Soul which is the Truth of the Life of the man as he lends to the form the animating capacity of Life and consciousness.

There is Life in ALL forms and it IS Life from God, for the human family this Life from God is an individual effect endowed with Self-Consciousness which is lost in the morass of worldly living until such a time as a man finds the Truth of his own Life. The Master teaches on this in His parabolic way as this is a part of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God; He says: “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 10:39). Can we see here how ALL is a matter of realization and revelation as the Soul imparts to its own consciousness in form the Truths as the personality is able to accept and to understand and can we see that this ability to accept and understand is the result of the Soul’s ability to build and use the forms into which he incarnates? As we have said, these are deep mysteries which ARE NOT given to men who cannot understand them and we should realize that this giving is done by one’s own Soul; we should also understand that these realizations are not required in order for a man to perform that repentance that brings him to God but that they are rather perceived after that repentance is accomplished. There is no single standard for these things as each man is in his own place of ‘evolution’ and this of body, of emotion, of mind and, most importantly, of his own Souls ability to use them; thus we have over six billion individually different personalities and forms on the Earth today.

In this ALL we should be able to see the Oneness of God’s Creation and the separation of the Soul, the Reality of man, and the form through which he lives and through which the Life of the Soul is destined to be expressed. It is in this Light that we write most of what is produced on these essays and this too goes to yesterday’s post regarding the words of the Apostle James who tells us that we must be doers of the word and not hearers only. In the complexity of this idea we should see that when a man in form, a conscious personality, hears the call of his own Soul to the Good, the Beautiful and the True, that the time has come to heed that voice and thereby progress toward his ultimate goal which is the expression of the Life of the Soul through his personality consciousness, that is his consciousness in form, and not the Life of the creature whose mode is vanity. Vanity in this sense is a word which should mean to us the expression of the selfish lower nature in form. Interestingly, the Greek word which is translated as vanity here means, according to the lexicon: what is devoid of truth and appropriateness, perverseness, depravity, frailty, want of vigour²; which should lend some emphasis on the ideas of the apostle. Strong’s tells us that mataiotes means emptiness, futiltiy, frustration³ and these also should lend a hint of the nature of the carnal Life of the man in form without the influence of the  Soul. Vincent tells us of this word that it means: Vanity (mataiothti). Only here, Eph. iv. 17; 2 Pet. ii. 18. Compare the kindred verb became vain (Rom. i. 21 note), and the adjective vain (1 Cor. iii. 20; 1 Pet. i. 18). Vain is also used to render kenov (1 Cor. xv. 14, 58; Eph. v. 6; Jas. ii. 20). Kenov signifies empty; mataiov idle, resultless. Kenov, used of persons, implies not merely the absence of good, but the presence of evil. So Jas. ii. 20. The Greek proverb runs. “The empty think empty things.” Mataiov expresses aimlessness. All which has not God for the true end of its being is mataiov. Pindar describes the vain man as one who hunts bootless things with fruitless hopes. Plato (“Laws,” 735) of labor to no purpose. Ezek. xiii. 6, “prophesying vain things (mataia),” things which God will not bring to pass. Compare Tit. iii. 9. Here, therefore, the reference is to a perishable and decaying condition, separate from God, and pursuing false ends⁴.

We should be able to see that this vanity is not a pleasant thing and at the same time we should understand that it is a part of the natural world whose cause is God. Although it may not be seen as this by many, this is the message of Paul and the realization that he is trying to pass on to us who read his words. Stated simply in our view, Paul says that man, the True man as the Soul, is made subject to this vanity and that this is not a willing nor desired end; it is however a part of the purposeful plan of God Who also  gives to the man hope. More specifically, we should understand the idea of the God who gives as the Spirit and the Soul of man who subjects himself to the world of form which is in and of itself a great mystery; and then, being in form, is subject unwillingly to the ways of the world of things and ‘trapped’ in the illusion and the glamour which is the cause of the deception and the vanity. The whole of this encounter with the world goes on in incarnation after incarnation while the Soul that has taken on this Life in form works to free himself then from it KNOWING that the only way to freedom is through the ability to say as the Master did, I have overcome the world (John 16:33); this freedom is discipleship, this freedom is the Kingdom of God. This end is the reality of the apostles saying that “the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” as it is here in the world that we must be able to express that High Calling of a Son of God. We must remember here that as the Soul, the Christ Within, we are ALL Sons of God; we are ALL the same in essence and we are ALL divine, this IS our True nature and in this we should be able to see the duality in which we are living and speaking. We have spoken often of the destiny of man being in discipleship and his ability to attain the Kingdom which is the same as saying that he is destined to “overcome the world” and express the fullness of God through his form nature as did the Christ; Paul alludes to that same fate in his wording above saying that “the creature itself also shall be delivered“. He does not say can be but rather shall be.

In past posts it was our intention to deal with our saying at the top and we did not. In today’s post we did not intend to address these sayings at all except in passing but we intended to build upon the last post and the Quote of the Day as it is reflective of the teachings of the Master and how both effect ALL men. In going there we wound up in the middle of the apostles words to the Romans as they relate the reality of the Life of the Soul coming into form with the destined purpose of then redeeming the form and becoming again free. This is what these word do say to those of us who can see through the doctrines that have been built around them, those who can see more clearly the words of the Master and His Apostles because we are not blinded by the world of things and the illusion and the glamour that have for so long deceived us. More importantly, the realizations that come to us, the revelations that we may see, in the ideas that we have put forth here should tell us and confirm for us the reality of Life as the Soul and of Life in form and how the former is made to work through the latter. These are not easy things to understand and at best we can likely only get a glimpse of the Truths upon which we have touched.

We will continue with these ideas 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 leave this Quote of the Day again for today.

In accord with the ideas that we close with above we bring again to your attention the ideas by which a man should Live. This Quote of the Day is the realty of how we should focus our lives and in so doing, all the other things alluded to above will take care of themselves and this is a great part of the selfless attitude of the disciple and his ability to forsake ALL.

Values to Live By

A Love of Truth—essential
for a just, inclusive and progressive society;

A Sense of Justice—recognition
of the rights and needs, of all.

Spirit of Cooperation—based
on active goodwill and the principle of right human
relationships;

A Sense of Personal Responsibility—for
group, community and national affairs;

Serving the Common Good— through
the sacrifice of selfishness. Only what is good for all
is good for each one.

The world of the future depends on what each one of us chooses to do today.

• 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