ON LOVE; PART MDXLXI
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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. 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.
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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).
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At the end of the last essay we took a turn down a road that we seldom travel and that is the perceived ideas of the ‘end times’ that ARE included in the Master’s words. It has always been our view that such ideas and the way that much of the church dwells on them offer naught to the Christian save for a diversion from their need to Truly follow the Lord. We embarked upon this road not as a statement against this ‘end times’ pervasion of the Truth per se but rather as a tool to confront the surging popularity of ALL Christian supremacy movements regardless of their motivation. In the last essay we highlighted the white Christian nationalist movement as well as any of the Christian supremacy movements that revolve around the politics of being Christian in America and the political force that this should have. As we have often said, it IS upon the misreading and misunderstanding of a few words from Jesus that the whole of these movements is originally based and that they have spawned a political scheme makes them all the more egregious. Jesus tells us that “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6) but His words have been taken out of the context in which they were offered and made to stand alone as a commentary on Christianity. The failure of the church to separate the idea of the Christ from the man Jesus has allowed this Christian deception to continue for centuries and today the idea behind the Master’s words is used as a political tool as well as a religious and ecumenical one. It IS NOT our objective to get into the dynamics of this saying in this essay save to say that this verse IS a part of a dialogue in which Jesus tells His apostles that they KNOW the Way but that they DO NOT yet realize the fullness of the Truth. We will discuss this dialogue in depth in a future series of posts but here we ARE addressing the result of the misreading and misunderstanding of the Master’s few words that ARE become the highlight of much Christian theology. Our point in the end of the last essay was that in Jesus words, words that ARE found in some form in each of the synoptic gospels, IS a direct warning to His disciples in that time. We noted that this warning can also be applied to the modern day people who ARE True believers in the words of the Master as a caution about our times. We noted as well that that the events cited came to pass in their day and that the conflict was an internal one and NOT a world event which should allow us to believe the same, nation by nation and culture by culture, today. Finally we noted that the Master’s words that follow point us to the many conflicts that have consumed the world as the ideology of men overlooked the warnings and the result was much calamity. Era by era, century by century, religious supremacy resulted in the many “wars and rumours of wars” from the Crusades to the Reformation Wars to the more recent World Wars. We should understand here that fascism and Nazism ARE themselves religions however devoid of the idea of God as they might be. Jesus tells His apostles:
“For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened. Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matthew 24:5-24).
Let us begin with the first verse. The idea that “many shall come in my name” IS NOT to be understood literally but rather in regard to the meaning of the Greek word onoma which IS rendered here as name. Most ALL translations in our library render onoma as name but one, the Good News Translation, renders the idea as “Many men, claiming to speak for me, will come and say” and this IS the more accurate idea that we should try to see. This idea broadens the universe of men who ARE willing to claim that they speak for God and, to be sure, there ARE many in the church today. Strong’s simply defines onoma as: a “name” (literally or figuratively) (authority, character) 9a, leaving it to the reader to decide what the reference is. Thayer’s 9 on the other hand has a voluminous list of defining ideas offering meaning for many uses of the word in the New Testament; for our subject verse, Matthew 24:5. they ARE silent. Our lexicon, which generally aligns with Thayer’s offers us four ideas regarding the use of onoma; they begin with the simple saying that the meaning IS: name: univ. of proper names and here we assume that univ represents universally. This fulfills Strong’s idea that it means a literal name. Their second declared meaning however shows us a deeper idea that relates to the idea furnished by Vincent in the last essay where the subject was “baptizing immersing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost“. Here Vincent expands upon the literal idea saying that: The name, as in the Lord ‘s Prayer (“Hallowed be thy name”), is the expression of the sum total of the divine Being 4. While the idea should not be taken quite this far in our current verse we should be able to see the lexicon’s idea that: the name is used for everything which the name covers, everything the thought or feeling of which is aroused in the mind by mentioning, hearing, remembering, the name, i.e. for one’s rank, authority, interests, pleasure, command, excellences, deeds etc.2. The point that we ARE making here IS that this idea that “many shall come in my name” DOES NOT mean that men will come claiming to be the second coming of the Christ as many believe yet today.
John Gill shows us this idea of assuming the identity of the Christ saying that one will claim that they ARE here: by his orders, or with delegated powers and authority from him; but should assume the name of the Messiah, which was peculiarly his, to themselves; and take upon them his office, and challenge the honour and dignity which belonged unto him 8. Finally we come to Vine’s; one of their explanations of the use of onoma IS: for all that a “name” implies, of authority, character, rank, majesty, power, excellence, etc., of everything that the “name” covers 9b. In the combination of ideas from Vine’s, the lexicon and Vincent we should be able to understand that the idea is men who ARE positioning themselves as speaking for the Lord and having the ‘authority’ of the Lord to say and DO as they DO. This IS the warning and the caution. We should understand by this first verse in our selection that the whole of the Master’s words here ARE a warning and a caution. Matthew Henry, in regard to these verses says: What Christ here said to his disciples, tended more to promote caution than to satisfy their curiosity; more to prepare them for the events that should happen, than to give a distinct idea of the events 8. Can we see the point here?
Building upon this idea that “many shall come in my name” the Master tells his disciples, and us through them, that these will be “saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many“. First this idea of deception IS an important one which the Master repeats later to show that even they, as “the very elect” can be deceived. Claiming to be Christ should be viewed as we see above in the defining ideas for onoma which IS rendered as name; such will NOT likely be claiming to be an ‘incarnation’ of Jesus the Christ. To understand this we must divorce from the doctrinal idea that Jesus and Christ are the name of the Master. The Master should be understood as Jesus the Christ and this IS the way that the idea IS presented throughout the gospels but ignored by the doctrines of men. Vincent tells us in this regard that: To us “Christ” has become a proper name, and is therefore written without the definite article; but, in the body of the gospel narratives, since the identity of Jesus with the promised Messiah is still in question with the people, the article is habitually used, and the name should therefore be translated “the Christ” 4. While we accept Vincent’s explanation and can see the way that “the Christ” IS written in the gospels (and at times in Acts and the epistles), we disagree with two things; first that it represents the Master’s name and second that we should see him as “the Christ” because the identity of Jesus with the promised Messiah is still in question. The doctrines of men have made the name of the Master Jesus Christ but this was never the intent of the writers nor the idea presented in those times; they DO purposely refer to Jesus as “Jesus the Christ” (Matthew 16:20) and descriptively as “the Christ” (Luke 9:20). This IS further borne out by the definition of the Greek word christos which IS rendered as Christ and it IS in understanding this dynamic that we can better understand our own relationship to the Godhead and the reality of “Christ in you, the hope of glory” which IS “the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints” (Colossians 1:27, 26).
The meaning of christos IS simply anointed 9, 9a according to Strong’s and Thayer’s before they go into their doctrinal ideas of the Messiah, a word that IS seldom used in the New Testament except as a rendering for christos in some translations. This use of Messiah as the rendering of christos IS a doctrinal one used by some wherever the idea IS specifically framed as “ho christos” or “the Christ“. Perhaps the crossover from Christ to Messiah comes from John’s Gospel where we read that Andrew says to Simon, “We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ” (John 1:41) and that “The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things” (John 4:25). Taking all this to our subject verse where the Master cautions us that “many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” we should be able to see that such will be claiming the same anointing as had the Master. The idea of anointing goes back to the Old Testament where we read such things as “The LORD sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the LORD” (1 Samuel 15:1) where the prophet IS sent to anoint Saul. The context in which the word IS used tells us that it IS the Lord that anoints and in the New Testament the idea should be the same when we read that Jesus is the anointed….the anointed of God. We can conclude then that the Master’s message here IS that many will come proclaiming to have the same authority of God as did the Master, the reference to the name of Jesus the Christ, and that they will proclaim that they ARE so anointed by the Lord that they can speak for Him. How many have heard such claims on television and in sermons by preachers and pastors of churches? This, while not the ultimate reality of such deception, IS the caution that the Master offers us.
The next verse begins with an additive conjunction which should show us that it IS not those whose intent it IS to deceive that will speak of “wars and rumours of wars” but that this IS an additional warning. The Master says “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars” which in those days was a predictive idea regarding the upcoming sacking of Jerusalem. Since then however such “wars and rumours of wars” has been a constant drumbeat throughout the world and IS still one today. We KNOW that this IS happening, we constantly “hear of wars and rumours of wars” which brings us to the message for the True believer, the True follower of the Lord. He tells us we should “be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass” and here we should see the intentional separation that the Master advises between our lives here in this world and our spiritual understanding of the Truth of that Life. A Truth where He also instructs us to “Take no thought for your life” (Matthew 6:24). We should understand here that it IS because it IS the nature of men, their lives in vanity if you will, that “these things must come to pass” and while this seems to be a predictive idea, it IS in reality just fact. While we may believe that we have tamed the barbarism of eras past, we have NOT save for perhaps on an individual basis, a basis that IS important to the overall idea of fully ending such barbarism. We often call the times written of in the Old Testament barbaric and superstitious and they Truly were when we consider the way that the wiping out of entire populations, including women and children, ARE written into ‘scripture’. However, were the times of the centuries long Crusades, where there are estimates of up 9 million deaths, any better? Were the Mongol Wars where an estimated 40-60 million were killed? What of the Reformation Wars where estimates of deaths reach 8 million? This IS barbarism in the Christian era and much of it provoked by Christians.
We could go on to cite the many other battles between the Reformation Wars and the first World War but we should be able to see the point that barbarism was alive and well. Here then in the twentieth century we have the two great Wars called World War I and World War II; in these wars the barbarism of men took a turn away from mere hand to hand combat and the mass killing techniques of the day to early versions of today’s weapons in WWI such as tanks, artillery, mustard gas, submarines and aircraft dropping bombs from afar. We should be able to see that the barbarism of man gets ever greater as ‘scientific’ knowledge IS applied to warfare. World War II brought a whole new level of barbarism culminating in the use of the most deadly weapon yet achieved, the nuclear bomb; a device that could and did kill hundreds of thousands in a single attack. Barbarism was yet alive and well in the twentieth century where WW I killed an estimated 15-22 million while the death toll of WW II was between 70 and 85 million people.
In these later wars of the Christian era world domination and race were primary motivators and this trend has not ended but has rather morphed into a more territorial agenda. Today men fight in wars that DO NOT end in a winner, likely because the barbarism has been somewhat stayed through fear; a fear made possible by the use of weapons of mass destruction. The barbarism still exists however and in some parts of the world it IS on full display. In the ‘more civilized’ world however there is a pensive calm as the threats of conflict ARE still found in individuals that seek power and often at any cost. Returning to our point above that the world has staved off such barbarism on an individual basis, we should understand that the individual seldom seeks conflict as the world IS moving steadily toward a era of agape and the sense of respect that this brings. It IS the governments that institute wars; it IS governments that drag men into battle, most often against their will, and it IS governments that seek to train its armies in the newer forms of barbarism that exist to this day.
We often speak of the New Age that the Earth as a whole IS entering into and while this idea IS yet limited to esoteric and occult thinking, it IS in fact a reality that can be seen in the attitudes of men toward each other and the planet. As we say above, individuals DO NOT seek conflict and we should add here that save for the few governments that seek to control others, neither DO most countries in the world. We can see this in the United Nations and in the various relief organization that exist in the world today. We can see this in the climate accords joined by much of the world as a tool to protect our planet and future generations from what we have come to realize is happening. While there ARE these positive factors and many others supporting world peace and harmony in this New Age, there ARE yet those whose view of the past creates an atmosphere of denial and a desire to hold onto the status quo. When such people take power in any country, the result IS chaos, and when this chaos IS large enough to affect the world order, we have ever greater chaos….a True harbinger of war and a return to a new era of barbarism. This seems the state of the world today and here again we must understand the Master’s words saying “all these things must come to pass“. And while this IS True we must also understand that His words saying “the end is not yet” ARE equally True. In every era, when such signs of world chaos appear, certain men will predict the end times and today IS NO different. Here we should trust in the Master’s words saying “the end is not yet” and understand that it IS NOT such human action as “wars and rumours of wars” but rather the natural effect of Life upon itself. To understand this IS to understand the mysteries.
Few, if any, Truly understand the mysteries of Life in this world and fewer still can even glimpse the totality of Life that each of us IS such a miniscule part of. We can however extract our own individual measure of this revelation of the mysteries by our True Repentance and Transformation, by our changing our focus away from our little lives in this world and onto the Truth which IS embodied in the Master’s words and in the words of every True world religion that has NOT yet succumbed to the doctrinal whims of carnal men. It IS the doctrines of men that blur our vision of the Truth and to such a degree that we come to see those doctrines as the Truth. And, should we carefully read the Master’s words and the clarifying and amplifying words of His apostles we would be able to at least glimpse a measure of that Truth that had heretofore been obnubilated. It IS in this vein that we should read the Master’s words, words which we often repeat because of their importance, saying “This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mark 7:6-7). From our perspective these ARE some of the most important words from the gospels yet they ARE words that are seen as ONLY referring to the Jews in those days. The church has failed to realize that it IS the Master that has defined these words as prophecy; in the original text they ARE NOT prophetic as we discussed in the last essay. In Jesus’ defining these words as prophecy should we NOT believe that they should be prophetic going forward as well? And should we NOT be able to see that as the Christian religion has come to rely solely on its many doctrinal variations and to teach them as Truth, that we should be covered by this same idea of vanity? Alas, this however IS NOT the way that the church sees the Master’s words and this IS a major contributing factor to the blurring of the vision of men regarding the Truth. We should try to remember that the Truth IS NOT so much hidden from our view and that it IS through our nurturing and indoctrination that we ARE taught to NOT even look for it. The Master reflects on this in regard to the Pharisees saying “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch” (Matthew 15:14). Can we see the point here?
Returning to our text above, we should further reflect on the idea that “the end is not yet” and try to understand that it IS NOT “wars and rumours of wars” that will seal the fate of this world and this existance. Nor IS there any factual reality in the dreams of Daniel and the Apostle John; that they in some way portend what may happen as the world approaches the end times. This however has NOT stopped the doctrinal teachings of men from dwelling on such subjects and creating vast and fantastic scenarios regarding what may happen. We should understand that even within the church there IS much disagreement concerning each denomination or sects’ vision of what these words should mean. Most ALL these ‘scriptural’ ideas ARE allegorical and ARE based in dreams and visions of men who have recorded them without explanation or supplying any code for the interpretation of these allegories. We should put as much weight upon the various interpretations of Daniel and Revelations as we would put on purely fictional works like Dante’s Inferno. While both include ideas that we can see as Truth, they ARE NOT pictorial visions of the Truth. Here we should just go to the words of the Master where we read of the end times that “of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only” (Matthew 24:36). It will be in the natural working of the Grand Scheme of the Universe, the natural working of the Godhead, that will determine its own end and ALL the energy that men put into interpreting and believing and teaching about these end times IS just a waste of Time, a distraction from seeking the Truth, and pure folly.
In the meantime, in the time between now and then, “nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places“. This IS a factual reality that has existed for eons of time on this planet; such occurrences have never stopped nor will they and it IS in the very nature of our planet to produce such “famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places“. Similarly it IS in the very nature of men, in their carnal state of vanity, to produce situations where nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom“. ALL of this IS simply Life in this world which CAN NOT be escaped except through our ability to KNOW God and have access to His Truth. Individually we can be freed from our fear of such things as the Master here speaks of. They will still happen but we can, through our Repentance and Transformation, be free from the fear of living through such events. Through our Transformation we come to embody our measure of KNOWLEDGE and understanding which allows us to see such events in such a way that we see and KNOW that if such things mean the end of our lives, that we will carry on as Souls awaiting our next reality. Simply, we CAN NOT escape world events but we can deal with them as spiritual beings….without fear. What the Master IS showing us here IS both historical and futuristic, He IS showing us that these things will continue to happen ad infinitum and this because “the end is not yet“. At this point we should try to see Jesus’ remarks as a combined warning to His disciples about the current times as well as a futuristic warning. Insofar as the current warning is concerned, we should try to see that this too stretches a bit into the future. The sense of persecution embodied in the Master’s words saying “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake” begins now. The rulers of the Jews here begin to and continue to persecute the apostles and disciples because of the threat that they pose to their religious ideas.
Jesus’ words here ARE also futuristic, both in the near term regarding the sacking of Jerusalem and in the long term regarding the reality of the continuing reality that “nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places“. Perhaps it IS in regard to the near term, to the sacking of Jerusalem in 70 AD, that the Master tells His apostles that “All these are the beginning of sorrows“. This warning however IS NOT so much for them, they ARE deemed to understand some measure of the Truth, but for those who will be unavoidably involved in the coming conflicts. It IS in the upcoming ‘revolt’ that “many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many“. We should understand here that while these things ARE True concerning the revolt of the Jews against the Romans, they ARE also True in every instance where “nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom“. The next verses should show us the reality of what happens in war and how that war effects ALL who ARE willingly or inadvertently made a part of what IS happening. The Master tells us that after the revolt, and after most any war, that “ iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” and here we might add that the unscrupulous will ever take situational advantage at the end of such conflicts.
The Master next holds out hope and while His words end with a seemingly confusing note, we should try to see that the ideas here tend more to the spiritual understanding that to a carnal one. Jesus tells His apostles “he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come“. Two things of importance here; first is the message of hope and being saved. This idea of saved IS from the Greek word sozo should be understood in its literal meaning, that if you make it to the end you will be safe. There should be NO ideas of ‘salvation‘ as the idea IS doctrinally understood applied here. The next verse seems very much out of place in this context but we will nonetheless discuss it as though this IS where it DOES belong. The topic here IS “this gospel of the kingdom” and this IS where the spiritual understanding may be necessary. While the church may believe that whensoever their doctrinal ideas ARE “preached in all the world” that “then shall the end come“, this IS far from the reality. The Greek word rendered as the phrase gospel IS euaggelion and while this word can be understood to mean: a reward for good tidings and good tidings as the lexicon tells us, the meaning IS far removed from this when the subject IS that this euaggelion IS “of the kingdom“. This word has been sort of hijacked by the church and made to represent the individual teachings of the many denominations and sects and this IS what the church IS spreading “in all the world“. In reality we ARE NOT much closer to the Truth, the True “gospel of the kingdom” being “preached in all the world” than we were 2000 years ago. It IS doctrines that the church teaches and here again we must remember Jesus’ words saying “in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men“. Next we have the idea of this message being “preached in all the world“; preached IS rendered from the Greek word kerusso which means: to publish, proclaim openly 9 and in this usage the word idea has NO real relationship to ministry. The idea is that “this gospel of the kingdom” shall be proclaimed openly; it IS NOT indicative of the spread of Christianity as most ALL religions teach “this gospel of the kingdom” albeit in their own doctrinal ways, to their own cultures and in their own language. Can we see the point here? Can we see that in hijacking this idea the church has made this saying a part of their belief that it IS ONLY the Christian that can achieve the Kingdom.
The reality here IS that the “gospel of the kingdom” IS the same from every religious perspective; ALL have the Truth hidden away in their doctrinal presentation and readily visible to ALL that can see past the doctrines and into the Truth of each scriptural presentation. We should remember one more thing before we come to the end times again and that is the idea of nations. The Greek word here IS ethnos and while the idea may be extended to nations, or any grouping for that matter, the main understanding of it should be people. Two things here. First the Master IS NOT contradicting His later words saying “of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only“; this IS yet True as NO man KNOWS when the Truth of the “gospel of the kingdom” will have been proclaimed openly to ALL the world. Secondly, we should understand that the goal of our existence in this Earth IS to bring the Truth of the gospel into our heretofore carnal minds, it IS to “be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). When ALL have Truly had this experience according to their cultures and dispositions, when ALL ARE able to Transform and begin to see the Truth that IS the “gospel of the kingdom“, then the need for this carnal existence will come to an end….it becomes superfluous.
We should understand here that our interpretation of these words from the Master ARE offered as we see them against the backdrop of the churches’ doctrinal understanding. We may NOT be right; we may not have a sufficient measure of Truth to be able to discern the Master’s meaning. We DO however have sufficient measure to see past the doctrinal ideas and forge new ones that ARE NOT based in the ultimate self-centered selfishness of Christianity and the Christian view of the world as it exists yet today. We DID NOT have opportunity to blend our trifecta into this discussion so it IS here that we will end….with our trifecta of the Master’s words saying:
- “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).
- “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
- “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).
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 |
- 2 New Testament Greek lexicon on biblestudytools.com
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition
- 8 Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com
- 9 Thayer’s Greek Lexicon on blueletterbible.org
- 9a The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible on blueletterbible.org
- 9b Vine’s Expository Dictionary on blueletterbible.org
Those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road
Voltaire, Writer and Philosopher
