Monthly Archives: February 2012

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part X

Our last two posts have been largely about the subject of Love which we see as the primary emphasis of the teachings of the Master and which we qualify under the word GOODWILL. As we have said before, it is unfortunate that the world has not seen this reality in the Master’s words and as the intent of His teaching, choosing instead to justify its contrary actions as to be somehow covered within His commandments and His instructions. That we seem to have become stuck here on this idea of GoodWill is due to several reasons; first, I was reminded in listening to an audio recording of the teachings of the Tibetan that it is of prime importance to the Peace and Stability of the world today and that the proper use and degree of use of GoodWill in our interrelationships between men, groups, and nations, as the emphasis of their ideals can serve to hasten the Reappearance of the Christ. Second, in reflecting upon this and the overall theme that we are discussing, ON GOD, I was reminded of the words of the Apostle John telling us that “God is love” (1 John 4:16) and that in our attempt to understand and to explain something of God it is wise to include this singular defining statement.

There are other quotations from the New Testament regarding the Nature of God and others that cite some quality of God which should in turn be a quality of man; this idea being based upon man’s correspondence to God and our understanding of the Master’s teaching on being as He is which are covered in our first points below:

• “Father which is in heaven is perfect”  (Matthew 5:48). This is a saying that we have used in our essays several times and for several reasons the least of which is merely to note His perfection which is what we doing here and now. For us this signifies the end of our journey to the Kingdom as the Master is speaking to men regarding their actions as men and saying that perfection here on Earth as our entry into His Presence, This we have discussed frequently along with the the Master’s saying that “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). Our reference to day is to a Quality of God that is called by the Master perfection and in this word we should see the nature of God and the potential nature of man. Like many things the idea of perfection as noted in scripture is downplayed to take on a human degree and is often interpreted as mature. In this saying by the Master however the idea of being Perfect is being equated to being as God and we know that there is no reducing this to mature. For us the Nature of God and the objective of man can be found in this from Webster’s 1913 edition which tells us of Perfect that it means: Brought to consummation or completeness; completed; not defective nor redundant; having all the properties or qualities requisite to its nature and kind; without flaw, fault, or blemish; without error; mature; whole; pure; sound; right; correct¹. If we were to sincerely think about these defining terms we could likely come up with yet more based on our understanding and our vision of GOD.
• “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful” (Luke 6:36). Aligned with our statement above regarding our sincere thinking on this idea of Perfect, would we have included mercy as it is stated by the Master in this saying? Merciful is an interesting word in scripture and one that is not defined at all in the lexicon² and Strong’s adds only compassionate³ to the meaning. Vine’s relates the Greek word oiktrimon that is translated merciful here to the idea of pity; In this particular scripture reference Vine’s says that “pitiful, compassionate for the ill of others,” ……is used twice in Luke 6:36, “merciful” (of the character of God, to be expressed in His people)⁶. While Vine’s relates for us the reality of the need of our expression of this mercy, they do not adequately define it for us and, from the combination of these three source books, we have merciful, pitiful and compassionate as the ideas that we should attribute to God. While it is quite realistic to think these things of God, can we see that there must be something more? Vincent tells us that the use of this particular word for mercy, oiktrimon, emphasizes the the sympathy called out by special cases, being the feeling which is moved to pain at another’s suffering⁴. This also gives us still very little by way of understanding the Mercy of God. So how are we to look at this? Since the Master uses the words compassion and pity in other circumstances we should look elsewhere for our meaning here and since sympathy seems to be a rather human response we should likely discount this as well. Looking at the context in which the Master tells us this is the greatest clue to this Quality of God; Jesus tells us before this saying the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount as Luke recorded it for us. Since we can never see these words too often, we list them again here:
• “But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil” (Luke 6:27-35).
• So then, in reading all of this which precedes our subject verse, can there be any real doubt as to what the Mercy of God is and what we should be doing to replicate it? Can we see the idea of equality in the last statement and the Love in the ideas of kindness and the Master’s thoughts on one’s treatment of one’s fellowman and can we see the inclusion of the Golden Rule which is the fullness of our understanding of the Master’s command to “love thy neighbour as thyself” (Mark 12:30)? This then is merciful; that we Love our neighbor and treat all equally with the meekness and the serenity that is included in the Master’s words above. From our perspective of being “merciful, as your Father also is merciful“, we should see that quality of Love for ALL equally and without being asked; that we have a general sharing of the ALL of His creation with ALL in His creation.
• “God of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:32). This is not so much a quality as it is an understanding of the view of God on this, His creation of man. In this we should be able to get an understanding of the reality of man not being the body but being the Spirit and the Soul. The context of this saying is in debating the common beliefs regrading resurrection and the Master is here citing the ancestors, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and saying that even though these are dead and buried in the eyes of the people, they are alive in the eyes of God. We discuss this in more detail in In the Words of Jesus parts 68 and 110. We can read into this the idea, for us the right idea, that ALL are under God and ALL are living even though they be deceased and departed from the Earth. We see above that He is “kind unto the unthankful and to the evil“, and we understand this as the way of God with men on Earth;  we should see these same attributes as relates to the True Life, that of the Spirit as this is who the reference is made in saying “of the living“
• “The Lord our God is one Lord” (Mark 12:29). We discussed this saying in our last post and here we should add that it is a multifaceted saying by the Lord in the Book of Deuteronomy and the same can be said of the repeating of it by the Master. The outward appearance is that there is but ONE GOD and this is necessarily so; in our view this says that there is One Boundless, Immutable, Eternal and Infinite Presence. Esoterically, some defining words for God are There is one Boundless Immutable Principle; one Absolute Reality which, antecedes all manifested conditioned Being.  It is beyond the range and reach of any human thought or expression**. Aside from this idea of there being but ONE GOD we have also the idea that we address in the beginning of this series which is that the Trinity that we addressing is ever resolved into the ONE. The separation that we give as Father, Son and Holy Spirit are realities only in our view of God in manifestation and we should understand that behind this Trinity is yet the ONE GOD, undivided; GOD, simply stated, IS and this is the the other understanding from our saying. This understanding is amplifies by the words of God to Moses who, when he asked God for His name and who he could say had sent him, was told “And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you” (Exodus 3:14). In this all we should see the nature of man as well in that man is Spirit and all of his life is resolved into this one Spirit. The Soul and the phenomenal appearance, mind, emotions and form, of man are the manifestation of his Spirit; the reality of man is, like God, eternal and immutable and, as part and parcel of God we can sense ourselves as boundless and infinite also but these thoughts are well beyond our ken.

We have barely touched the surface of this gathering of ideas on the Nature of God and His Aspects and Attributes as they are reflected for us in scripture. Hopefully we have been able to glean some additional understanding of God and of ourselves from the above and we will continue with this in the next post citing these others scriptural references as listed below.

• God is true (John 3:33)
• God is a Spirit (John 4:24)
• God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34)
• God is faithful (1 Corinthians 1:9, 10:13)
• For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace (1 Corinthians 14:33)
• God is one (Galatians 3:20)
• For our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29)
• God is light, and in him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5)God is love (1 John 4:8)

Note on the Quote of the Day