Monthly Archives: February 2012

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part XVIII

Without realizing the combination, we are continuing our discourse on “God is love” (1 John 4:8) as it is an Aspect of God and at the same time we are embarking on an attempt to properly understand our Quote of the Day from yesterday which has, at least for our first encounter, Love as its primary idea. With this in mind an let us look at these verses together in the body of our essay today; the verse from the Quote of the Day is: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish , but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Beginning with the the saying of the Master from the Gospel of John, let us look at the ideas of God and Love. Now we know that Love, especially in this context, is not that emotional attitude that we live with here in this Earth and that it must be seen as something much Higher and something that does not require emotion nor selection and something that operates freely under the Plan and the Laws that constitute that Plan. From the perspective of John 3:16 as well as our statement on the Aspect of God that says that  “God is love” we should understand that the Love that we speak of is a motivating power of the universe and, as such, it is universal in scope. No one escapes from the Laws of the Universe which are the Laws of God and this idea of Love is a primary aspect of this Law. It effects every part of this Wondrous Creation from the atom to the Solar System to the Galaxies that revolve around their central point and can be seen as the cohesive power that holds all things in Its Oneness. This is necessarily hard to grasp as so it should be as we are speaking here about an Aspect of God who is that One Boundless, Immutable, Eternal and Infinite Presence in whom, as Paul tells us, “we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

The word translated as Loved in this verse is the Greek word agapao which we have studied before but not from the perspective of God. We have seen the inadequacies of the translated word as it regards man and his interrelationships and this because of the popular use of the translated word. We have taken to use and Old English understanding of the Greek noun agape and we have taken advantage of the fact that the King James Version (KJV) alternately translates this as Charity, a word that has also lost its True meaning in popular culture but whose Old English meaning carries the greater meaning of our ideas on Love. Our ideas then are this combination of the older ideas of the English words Love and Charity and are two fold:

• First there is Love of God; not the Love that God shows to us but that which we show towards Him: we love whatever gives us pleasure and delight, whether animal or intellectual; and if our hearts are right, we love God above all things, as the sum of all excellence and all the attributes which can communicate happiness to intelligent beings. In other words, the christian loves God with the love of complacency in his attributes, the love of benevolence towards the interest of his kingdom, and the love of gratitude for favors received¹.
• Second is that Love that the Christ tells us that we need to have towards our neighbor and this we have defined as: In a general sense, love, 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 men¹

Between these two we can get the better understanding of Love as it affects humanity and see it as the universal idea that it is intended to be. We should understand in this that it is more of a duty and an responsibility than it is an emotion which would leave it pretty much stuck in the first part of the first point above: we love whatever gives us pleasure and delight, whether animal or intellectual. This understanding taken on its own leads only to that emotional attraction which is the basically the limit of the understanding in modern culture. We should note here that the idea of attraction is instrumental in ALL understandings of Love and is brought down to our level of understanding by the Great Power of the Love that God IS. 

So how then do we understand this idea that “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son“? Simply as the Aspect of God that this reveals; in His Oneness with this, His creation, Our God has given to us that which is dearest to Him if we can use such a term. This Son, the Christ, is the embodiment of this Love and so we should see that there is a twofold understanding to be had here. First His Love for the World, for His creation, which, from the Greek word kosmos, can be defined in a large range from mankind to the entirety of the Universe. In this can be seen in the understanding of the Oneness that this creation has with its Creator, God. It is well nigh impossible to even attempt to understand what this means in human terms as this is an expression of the relationship between God and His creation and one that we should understand is void of emotion and that is part of and likely IS the Plan of God. The Will of God interpreted as the Will to Love is probably the closest that we can come to any understanding of this Grande Phenomenon. Second is the Son, the Christ which is, in practical terms, the Love of God made manifest to men, made manifest within His creation. What can we see here in this but that this is a Gift of God and as can be seen from our discussion yesterday, this is the Gift of Light, giving us the ability to understand and to realize our place in the scheme of things. This is the Christ, He is the Love of God and He is the Light of the World. On a cosmic level the Christ is ever aligned as the Love Aspect of God and can be seen, as John says in the Prologue, as the One Who Manifests and in this respect is truly the only begotten. In the context of our saying above however we need to focus upon Christ Jesus because in the personal understanding of our verse which we can understand as God sending His Son into this world among men, we want to have a solid platform from which to proceed. We must remember, especially in sayings such as this, that there is a parabolic nature and a depth of understanding that is not readily discernible and in this saying there are many, one of which we have discussed above.

In this personal way, how can we understand the idea of “only begotten Son” in a way that is free from the separatist doctrines of the church for it is upon this saying that much of the Christian doctrines and dogmas are based. It is on this and a select few other sayings that the Christian churches declare that Christ is the only way and this is of course only in the defined dogma of the churches. When we properly understand Christ as the Love of God made manifest to men the thought of His being the only way takes on a different tone and can be removed from the small box into which the church has put the Christ. In trying to understand this we need also to focus on the reality of the Christ Within and it is here that we will begin. Jesus is a man, born of a woman upon this Earth; His Soul, His Christ Principal, is essentially the same as the Soul of every man and of this the Master tells us in His words that say to us that we can be as Him and do as Him and be Perfect as is the Father and the Son:

• “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do” (John 14:12).
• “The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40).
• “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

Can we see the relationships here? Can we understand that the Master is speaking to the disciple who is grounded in Love and in the Master and not to the man that is still entombed in the world. So we have the Soul, the Christ Within, that is intimately related to the Christ of God and has, in his reality, that same potential to manifest himself on this Earth. However, Christ Jesus is unique and we should note that this is the way that some versions interpret our saying; the Complete Jewish Bible for example says that: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only and unique Son“. The lexicon tells us of the Greek word monogenes that it means single of its kind, only² which we should see as a definition of unique. What then is this uniqueness that is Jesus the Christ? Simply put Jesus was able to come to Earth bearing  and expressing the full potency of the Love of God and in this way He is different that all of us, His brothers, who have not that ability. For us the Christ Principal, the Christ Within may be essentially the same but it does not have that ability to KNOW through its personality consciousness which is embedded in this world of form. For us we must sense the Light of the Christ Within and then follow Him and keep His words so to progress to a point where we can say with Jesus that “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

The “only begotten Son“; the “only and unique Son” can be seen as terms that reflect Christ Jesus’ essential divinity in form on this Earth and that this is from His birth. For us the road is clear and the directions are known because He told us the way and showed us the way that one must live in form. And this is our promise; that we are essentially divine as Spirits manifested as Souls which is taking on the personage of the Christ Within each and that it is this Christ Within that can and will be expressed through each man’s form Life; this is our destiny. The Master tells us that we are Sons of God and although these words never leave His lips as such, the reality is found in His teaching regarding the Fatherhood of Our God; it is in this teaching, that we cover in In the Words of Jesus parts 6-7 and in too many other places to reference, that we find our essential relationship to the Father. This idea is also given to us in the gospels and epistles although with some criteria and this because the writers are speaking to the man in form; the criteria in general is focus upon the Christ Within and that one must follow Him:

• “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:12). Remember that to believe on Him is to follow Him and to keep His words; it is in doing this that we elevate our personality conscious through the inflow of Soul Light and it is in doing so that we are accounted worthy of His Kingdom. In this we can say by degree that, “as he is , so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17).
• “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14). The understanding here is much the same as above; to be led by the Spirit is to live Life in this world through the glory of the Christ Within.
• “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19). In this saying is the culmination of Paul’s writing about man in form, the carnal man, as the creature. Can we see and understand that the “manifestation of the sons of God” is essentially the same as above, that in this is implied that one is “led by the Spirit of God“?
• “That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world“(Philippians 2:15). Paul is saying here to these disciples that they should not fall back and not let the ways of the world effect them but continue as the Master told us all and to “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
• “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:1). This is a complex statement that we will use to start our next post.

Can we see the thoughts set forth here by Paul and John and can we understand that they are speaking to men in form in this world who are acting the part of disciples and following the Master and keeping His words. On the level of the Soul we are all Truly Sons of God; in the flesh we are trying to bring that Soul Light to bear as we read in the words of John and Paul above.

We will continue with these points in the next post and perhaps get to our last point on the direct sayings of the attributes of God.

• God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1)

Note on the Quote of the Day