IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 250

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part XXXVII

We concluded our look at the two verses that we were discussing, the one telling us that “God is love” (1 John 4:16) and that the way to dwell in God is to dwell in Love which we interpret at dwelling in His Kingdom and, just as the “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21) applies to man, it so also applies to Our Father in whose image and likeness man is created. Let us not here look at this as man in form but rather as man being Spirit and a Trinity with his lower aspect of form being like the lower part of the form of God which is this physical creation. Let us not forget also that this body that we see is made up of the elemental ingredients that are a part of the Earth, His physical creation, and here can be found likeness insofar as the body nature is concerned. However, we are not to even consider ourselves to be this body nature but to be the Life that it in this body and it is to this that the Master refers when speaking to the man who believes that He is this body; that is that the Life is within and that this Life is ever one with the Life that IS God. So we have here the Apostle John telling us that we must Live in Love, for that is the defining term that we take from dwell, in order to have Life in the Kingdom and we understand that to Live in Love is to express that Love that God IS in all that we do and especially in our interrelationships with our fellow man. Now this part should be apparent from the apostles saying a few verses earlier telling us that: “No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfectedin us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit” (1 John 4:12-13). As we discussed in the last post the idea of “one another” is rather open ended and without a specific meaning as to who another might be and, based on the overall teachings of the Master, should we not understand this in the broadest of ways and not in the narrowest thereby putting Our God in a sort of box. Round and about these verses and the similar sayings in the gospels we should understand the idea of another as everyman, and brother, in most contexts, as anyman, and both of these as each our neighbor. It is to these that we are to practice benevolence and GoodWill which help us to define that Love that we share with Our God.

The next saying that we were discussing is another linchpin in much of the Christian doctrine and on this we did spend some time in the last two posts. The common interpretation of “I am the way , the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6) is that the person of Jesus is the focus and that believing in Him in that affirmative way that He died for our sins and is the Son of God is the way to the Father. Without disputing much of this interpretation we expounded the ideas that the Way is not merely in the person of Jesus but in the Love that IS the Christ and we married these two verses together in a effort to see the similarity of the overall teaching…..that it is on LOVE. We see from that other saying that the Way to God is to Live in Love and we see in our understanding of the fact the Our God IS Love that the Christ is Love as well; we make no stretch here but we just are adding two seemingly disassociated verses together so that we can read through the parabolic nature of the scripture. The Way to God is Love and not only the Love of God by a man but the Love that IS God which is amply defined by the Master as Love for All. A few posts back we tried to define what Love is NOT; that it is not affection, it is not sentiment and it is not emotion of any kind such as passion. The Love that we speak of in relation to God cannot be any of these worldly terms that man uses to tell of his relationship with another as a personality. When we say that God is Love can this really mean any of these personality words? Love in the context of God is the Christ and the Christ is the Cause for all that is manifest; Love in the context of God is the ONENESS of all things with their Creator; Love in the context of God is God Himself; that Immutable, Eternal and Boundless being of whom man has no comprehension in his current state. It is because of  the deep mystery of all this that the Master tells us of this Love in a way that we can and eventually must understand it and this is in relationship to our fellowman. This LOVE is therefore the Way to God, this LOVE is the Truth in our existence and this LOVE IS the Life of God, for “God is Love“.

Continuing now where we left off yesterday speaking of the several random verses that we pulled from the New Testament regarding Love:

• “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” (1 John 4:10-11). Here again we have a verse that has greatly influenced the doctrines of the church for much of its history and has set the tone for the church’s understanding regarding the idea of vicarious atonement. Aside from this, these verses tell us that our understanding of Love should be that “he loved us” and that it is based upon this Love that He sent the Christ, in the person of Jesus, to show us the Way, to be the Truth and to exemplify the Life. The common understanding here is that propitiation means that God sent forth His Son to be a sacrifice for our sins and this can be seen as a valid perspective when we look at it from a strictly physical viewpoint. Jesus did come among us and His destiny was to die on the Cross and to suffer and, we can either see this as the vicarious atonement that it is made to be by doctrine or we can see this in the Light of the reality of the event. The Master came among us to teach us the Way of Love and to show us the Truth, that ALL can be done in Love, that a man can be “perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). He also came to show us, to teach us, of the reality of Life being in the world but not of the world; Life as a Son of God, as the Master who like the Father is equal to all, to the sinner and to the saint. As most things in the teachings of the Master and His apostles, the sayings of importance can all be related one to another with little effort as we have tried to do above relating this saying to the previous seemingly unrelated one and we should note that when the interpretation is not a valid spiritual perspective that this generally cannot be done and that the result is confusion and disagreement. Such is the idea of the vicarious atonement which relates one back to the Old Testament teachings on atoning sacrifice. This idea is nowhere in the words of the Master and only loosely derived from the ideas of the apostles. As with much of Christian doctrine there is little agreement on this within the church and a brief understanding of the various church positions can be found in this:
• In Christian thought, atonement is humanity’s reconciliation with God through the sacrifice of Jesus’ death. Human sin is thought to damage the relationship between people and God, but Jesus’ death enables humanity to “get right” with God. How does this work? Different Christian groups understand the atonement in different ways, many of which overlap. One way, the ‘ransom’ approach, draws on Mark 10:45, where Jesus says he gives his life as a “ransom for many.” The ‘Satisfaction’ or ‘Vicarious Atonement’ approach says that Jesus’ blood is payment to God for human sins. Since the penalty for sin is death, someone had to pay it; Jesus paid the debt in place of humanity, giving humans eternal life. This ties in with a view of the atonement as the fulfillment of divine justice. Though many liberal Christians find this view’s transactional language and emphasis on justice harsh, the ‘vicarious atonement’ view is held as truth among evangelcial Protestants and other conservative Christians. A more liberal view maintains that Jesus’ death was an example to his followers, not a form of blood sacrifice. Most Christians of any denomination would say Jesus’ death demonstrates God’s love for humankind.** 
• There are several definitions of this word propitiation which is seen as atonement above; Webster’s tells us that The act of appeasing the wrath and conciliating the favor of an offended person; the act of making propitious. (Theol.)That which propitiates; atonement or atoning sacrifice; specifically, the influence or effects of the death of Christ in appeasing the divine justice, and conciliating the divine favor. The World English Dictionary⁷ tells us that it means ( tr ) to appease or make well disposed; conciliate; [C17: from Latin propitiāre to appease, from propitius gracious] and the Word Origin & History* tells us of propitiation that it is late 14c., from L.L. propitiationem (nom. propitiatio) “an atonement,” from L. propitiare “render favorable,” from propitius “favorable, gracious, kind,” from pro- “forward” + petere “go to” (see petition). Earliest recorded form of the word is propitiatorium “the mercyseat, place of atonement” (c.1200), translating Gk. hilasterion. 
• Such is the problem with words and language. The ideas of this translation of propitiation are founded in the thoughts of the translators of the Septuagint from the Hebrew to Greek and their choice of words to translate words like mercyseat into a different form of this same Greek word. This we cannot go to far into this as we do not understand the languages nor their uses but will say here that much of the current doctrinal understanding of this word is a carryover from the Old Testament ideas of atonement. That Christ is sent to appease an angry God is not a sensible understanding and the teachings regarding the blood of Jesus being a ‘legal’ payment for the sins of humanity are not really supported except by vague reference to the Old. What is the real intent? Looking at this word as John uses it earlier “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2) we should get the idea that He IS the propitiation as in currently and now and this is not disputed by the time phase of our original verse above. When we see and understand the reality of Life we can see this a bit differently in that the reconciliation of man to God is repentance but, as we know, this does not work out in the varieties of church doctrine. We can also see in the English use of the word propitiation that there are the ideas of: from L.L. propitiationem (nom. propitiatio) “an atonement,” from L. propitiare “render favorable,” from propitius “favorable, gracious, kind,” from pro- “forward” + petere “go to” (see petition); can we see better understandings here than atonement only? Vincent tells us that propitiation in John refers to:
• The propitiation (iJlasmo>v). Only here and 4:10. From iJla>skomai to appease, to conciliate to one’s self, which occurs Luke 28:13; Hebrews 2:17. The noun means originally an appeasing or propitiating, and passes, through Alexandrine usage, into the sense of the means of appeasing, as here. The construction is to be particularly noted; for, in the matter of (peri> ) our sins; the genitive case of that for which propitiation is made. In Hebrews 2:17, the accusative case, also of the sins to be propitiated. In classical usage, on the other hand, the habitual construction is the accusative (direct objective case), of the person propitiated. So in Homer, of the gods. Qeo<n iJla>skesqai is to make a God propitious to one. See “Iliad,” 1, 386, 472. Of men whom one wishes to conciliate by divine honors after death. So Herodotus, of Philip of Crotona. “His beauty gained him honors at the hands of the Egestaeans which they never accorded to any one else; for they raised a hero-temple over his grave, and they still propitiate him (aujto<n iJla>skontai) with sacrifices” (5:47). Again, “The Parians, having propitiated Themistocles (Qemistokle>a iJlasa>menoi) with gifts, escaped the visits of the army” (8:112). The change from this construction shows, to quote Canon Westcott, “that the scriptural conception of the verb is not that of appeasing one who is angry, with a personal feeling, against the offender; but of altering the character of that which, from without, occasions a necessary alienation, and interposes an inevitable obstacle to fellowship. Such phrases as ‘propitiating God,’ and God ‘being reconciled’ are foreign to the language of the New Testament. Man is reconciled (2 Corinthians 5:18 sqq.; Romans 5:10 sq.). There is a propitiation in the matter of the sin or of the sinner.”⁴
• Again we see the ideas of reconciliation and also here of appeasing and again we offer that both of these are accomplished, not by the death on the Cross of the Master, but in each man’s repentance and of this the Master teaches much. Much of the church doctrines teach that the Christ atones for our sins and through Him we are forgiven for all that we ever have done and all that we ever will do. The implication here for some is that we can go on sinning and being forgiven so long as we ask. Where is the reality here? For us forgiveness is only found in repentance and that self forgiveness without repentance is extremely difficult because when we reach that point of knowing that we have done wrong it is only the change that is repentance which will appease us as Souls trying to overcome the wiles of the flesh.

Though we did not intend to go so far afield on this idea of propitiation, and in the closing out of our prior points, it is good because these are important points to properly understand. Atonement is a very strong doctrinal point in the church today and one that is, in our opinion and in our way, sorely misunderstood. While this type of understanding may have been useful in building this church of Christ, it has become a stumbling block for many today and this can be seen in the lack of a cohesive doctrinal understanding of it.

We will continue with our points on Love in the next post and here suggest that the Quote of the Day be seen as thought it is in this list as well as this is the Apostle Paul’s right understanding of the power and the use of Love by ALL and for ALL.  We will address more of our list in the next post.

• “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love“. (1 John 4:7-8)
• “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15)
• “For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” (1 John 3:11)
• “And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment” (1 John 3:23)
• “If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well (James 2:8) WHEN
• “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried , he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him”  MUST LOVE
• “For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law“(Romans 13:9-10)
• “But as it is written , Eye hath not seen , nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9)
• “Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. But if any man love God, the same is known of him” (1 Corinthians 8: 1-3)
• “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Galatians 5:14)
• “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23)
• “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ” (Ephesians 4:14-15)
• “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”  (John 14:21)
• “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. (John 15:10-12)
• “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching; Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth , let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another” (Romans 12:6-10)

Note on the Quote of the Day