In the Beginning Was the Word

67 posts · 8 participants · started Feb 12, 2015, 3:35 PM

1. B

   BonitaParticipant
   Feb 12, 2015, 3:35 PM

   We are told early in the Foreword that ” . . .the Father followed the expression of his thought into the word of his Son.” (0:11.1) We are also told that if John had been referring to the Eternal Son, what he wrote about the Word, is correct.

   “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” (6:1.3; John 1:1)

   The Word is the expression, or interpretation, of the Father’s thought. (8:3.1; 8:4.1)  The Conjoint Actor is the execution of that expressed divine thought.(8:3.1) The Thought-God, Word-God and Action-God all exist. (8:0.1) The Divine Sons are the word of God. (10:3.3) It seems to me that the role of the Word is a fundamental part of reality.

2. M

   MaraParticipant
   Feb 12, 2015, 4:11 PM

   As I read the words on my monitor this morning, I thought wow! we need a topic on the Word, as in the Word of God and so on.  In the beginning-beginning, so to speak, was the thought.  Thought precedes word does it not?

3. K

   KerynMember
   Feb 12, 2015, 4:22 PM

   Great topic! I look forward to following this discussion. In paper 2, “The Nature of God”, we find this quote:

   (33.2) 2:0.2 The nature of God can be studied in a revelation of supreme ideas, the divine character can be envisaged as a portrayal of supernal ideals, but the most enlightening and spiritually edifying of all revelations of the divine nature is to be found in the comprehension of the religious life of Jesus of Nazareth, both before and after his attainment of full consciousness of divinity. If the incarnated life of Michael is taken as the background of the revelation of God to man, we may attempt to put in human word symbols certain ideas and ideals concerning the divine nature which may possibly contribute to a further illumination and unification of the human concept of the nature and the character of the personality of the Universal Father.

4. B

   BonitaParticipant
   Feb 12, 2015, 4:36 PM

   Mara wrote: Thought precedes word does it not?

   Yes indeed it does.  Words are the way our mind interprets and then communicates thought.  Words are an indication and expression of one’s thoughts and hence a revelation of the state of one’s mind.  Words are important.

   God’s thoughts are divine, but alone as the hypothetical I AM, there was no expression or communication of those divine thoughts.  They were theoretically isolated until the thought was shared and became the word.  The Eternal Son is the perfect divine expression of the first infinite and absolute thought of the Father.(8:3.1)  God is the initiating thought and the Son is the expressionful word.(6:8.3)

   The Sons of the Eternal Son are the living word, and our Creator Son is the word made flesh.

    

5. N

   nelsongParticipant
   Feb 12, 2015, 8:51 PM

   And words are a vane attempt to explain the thought.

   The thought is a best effort to help all post word beings try to conceptualize infinity – pre word and everything that follows.

6. E

   emanny3003Blocked
   Feb 12, 2015, 11:43 PM

   Keryn wrote:

   If the incarnated life of Michael is taken as the background of the revelation of God to man, we may attempt to put in human word symbols certain ideas and ideals concerning the divine nature which may possibly contribute to a further illumination and unification of the human concept of the nature and the character of the personality of the Universal Father.(2:.02)

   As humans we need word symbols, and note that in the quote above the key words are “attempt” and “human concept”. The Word of God is the Son and cannot be symbolized. There is no language for it. It is a Spirit relationship.

   God cannot be a symbol of Himself and therefore the Son is the interpreter of the Creative Thought. The Son is Spirit.

   Bonita wrote:

   The Sons of the Eternal Son are the living word, and our Creator Son is the word made flesh.

   Lets clarify LIVING Word, with a capital W, as not indicative of a symbol. Symbols are not living. The Son is a living interpreter of the Father, and The Spirit “acts” on that interpretation. The Creator Son is the “Word” incarnate. In order to incarnate, the “action” of the Third Source and Center is at play. The “flesh” of the human Jesus is the animation of the Father’s Thought and the Son’s Interpretation, made “flesh” by the act of The Spirit.

7. B

   BonitaParticipant
   Feb 13, 2015, 4:03 PM

   At the last supper Jesus said, “The word of the Father, as revealed in the Son, is indeed the bread of life.” (179:5.3) The Son interprets and reveals the thoughts of the Father to his creatures.  Jesus is known as The Word; the Word made flesh.

   The Word in Greek is logos, in Aramaic memra. Both were used to describe creation.  The universe was brought into existence by the power of God’s word.  But the Greek word logos also has a more philosophical meaning representing the ordering principle for the universe.  In a sense, the logos is equivalent to divine logic which gives order to the universe.  The Greek Stoics expanded upon that idea, teaching that the logos permeated all reality, including each individual.  The logos within each person provides the capacity for thought to come into harmony with the divine universe.  They asserted that when an individual turns away from the logos, they lose control over their thoughts; they become governed by passions and emotions, eventually becoming bestial in behavior.

    

8. M

   MaraParticipant
   Feb 13, 2015, 4:12 PM

   nelsong wrote:

   And words are a vane attempt to explain the thought.

   . . . as in feelings that lie too deep for words:

   99:5:9   Primitive man made little effort to put his religious convictions into words. His religion was danced out rather than thought out. Modern men have thought out many creeds and created many tests of religious faith. Future religionists must live out their religion, dedicate themselves to the wholehearted service of the brotherhood of man. It is high time that man had a religious experience so personal and so sublime that it could be realized and expressed only by “feelings that lie too deep for words.”

9. B

   BonitaParticipant
   Feb 13, 2015, 4:23 PM

   Mara wrote:

   . . . as in feelings that lie too deep for words:

   Great point Mara.  It brings to mind being told that it is our thoughts which guide us Godward.  If the Father is the first divine thought, then that makes sense.  And the fact that he comes to us as a Thought Adjuster also makes great sense.

   Then, we also know that the Spirit of Truth takes God’s thought and interprets it for us as word, in such a way as to reveal the deeper meanings and values within God’s thought as it pertains to us directly.

   This is what they mean by discovery, recognition, interpretation and choice.  We act upon the thought which has been revealed to us through the word.  And that is the same as doing God’s will.

10. E

    emanny3003Blocked
    Feb 13, 2015, 5:03 PM

    Mara wrote:

    99:5:9   Primitive man made little effort to put his religious convictions into words. His religion was danced out rather than thought out.

    I do not believe that this Melchizedek author understands dance and was probably never incarnated. Dance is an expression of thought that is beyond words.

    Michael’s bestowal was necessary for him to understand and experience the physical body and its reactions to emotions and rhythms.

11. M

    MaraParticipant
    Feb 13, 2015, 5:18 PM

    Bonita wrote:

    This is what they mean by discovery, recognition, interpretation and choice.

    See  196:3:10
    

    
12. E

    emanny3003Blocked
    Feb 13, 2015, 5:31 PM

    Mara wrote:

    See  196:3:10

    What are YOUR thoughts on 196:3.10?

13. B

    BonitaParticipant
    Feb 13, 2015, 5:41 PM

    Thanks Mara for including the link to the quote I referenced.  I had figured that everyone has heard me say that so many times already that I didn’t need to reference it.  But obviously, not everyone has read it, so thanks.

14. M

    MaraParticipant
    Feb 13, 2015, 5:41 PM

    106:9:11   Sooner or later all universe personalities begin to realize that the final quest of eternity is the endless exploration of infinity, the never-ending voyage of discovery into the absoluteness of the First Source and Center. Sooner or later we all become aware that all creature growth is proportional to Father identification. We arrive at the understanding that living the will of God is the eternal passport to the endless possibility of infinity itself. Mortals will sometime realize that success in the quest of the Infinite is directly proportional to the achievement of Fatherlikeness, and that in this universe age the realities of the Father are revealed within the qualities of divinity. And these qualities of divinity are personally appropriated by universe creatures in the experience of living divinely, and to live divinely means actually to live the will of God.

15. M

    MaraParticipant
    Feb 13, 2015, 5:48 PM

    2:7:6   Intellectual self-consciousness can discover the beauty of truth, its spiritual quality, not only by the philosophic consistency of its concepts, but more certainly and surely by the unerring response of the ever-present Spirit of Truth. Happiness ensues from the recognition of truth because it can be acted out; it can be lived. Disappointment and sorrow attend upon error because, not being a reality, it cannot be realized in experience. Divine truth is best known by its spiritual flavor.

16. M

    MaraParticipant
    Feb 13, 2015, 5:51 PM

    103:1:1   The unity of religious experience among a social or racial group derives from the identical nature of the God fragment indwelling the individual. It is this divine in man that gives origin to his unselfish interest in the welfare of other men. But since personality is unique — no two mortals being alike — it inevitably follows that no two human beings can similarly interpret the leadings and urges of the spirit of divinity which lives within their minds. A group of mortals can experience spiritual unity, but they can never attain philosophic uniformity. And this diversity of the interpretation of religious thought and experience is shown by the fact that twentieth-century theologians and philosophers have formulated upward of five hundred different definitions of religion. In reality, every human being defines religion in the terms of his own experiential interpretation of the divine impulses emanating from the God spirit that indwells him, and therefore must such an interpretation be unique and wholly different from the religious philosophy of all other human beings.

17. M

    MaraParticipant
    Feb 13, 2015, 5:53 PM

    3:1:12   The fluctuations of the Father’s presence are not due to the changeableness of God. The Father does not retire in seclusion because he has been slighted; his affections are not alienated because of the creature’s wrongdoing. Rather, having been endowed with the power of choice (concerning Himself), his children, in the exercise of that choice, directly determine the degree and limitations of the Father’s divine influence in their own hearts and souls. The Father has freely bestowed himself upon us without limit and without favor. He is no respecter of persons, planets, systems, or universes. In the sectors of time he confers differential honor only on the Paradise personalities of God the Sevenfold, the co-ordinate creators of the finite universes.

18. E

    emanny3003Blocked
    Feb 13, 2015, 6:09 PM

    Keep on reading words and you will never experience The Word.

19. M

    MaraParticipant
    Feb 13, 2015, 6:24 PM

    196:1:2   The time is ripe to witness the figurative resurrection of the human Jesus from his burial tomb amidst the theological traditions and the religious dogmas of nineteen centuries. Jesus of Nazareth must not be longer sacrificed to even the splendid concept of the glorified Christ. What a transcendent service if, through this revelation, the Son of Man should be recovered from the tomb of traditional theology and be presented as the living Jesus to the church that bears his name, and to all other religions! Surely the Christian fellowship of believers will not hesitate to make such adjustments of faith and of practices of living as will enable it to “follow after” the Master in the demonstration of his real life of religious devotion to the doing of his Father’s will and of consecration to the unselfish service of man. Do professed Christians fear the exposure of a self-sufficient and unconsecrated fellowship of social respectability and selfish economic maladjustment? Does institutional Christianity fear the possible jeopardy, or even the overthrow, of traditional ecclesiastical authority if the Jesus of Galilee is reinstated in the minds and souls of mortal men as the ideal of personal religious living? Indeed, the social readjustments, the economic transformations, the moral rejuvenations, and the religious revisions of Christian civilization would be drastic and revolutionary if the living religion of Jesus should suddenly supplant the theologic religion about Jesus.

20. E

    emanny3003Blocked
    Feb 13, 2015, 6:30 PM

    Very wordy. Your time is better spent thinking with your TA and not cutting and pasting. You cannot serve two Master. The time you take away from God is unwisely spent. Regurgitating text is time away from God even if the words are about God. These words are not God.

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