Monthly Archives: March 2012

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part XXXVI

In yesterday’s post we treated the remaining ideas regarding our first saying that “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16) noting the relationship between the Master’s teachings on Love and this from John, we closed with that strong understanding by the apostle regarding the FACT that it is impossible to to Love God without the Love that we speak of here in this blog, Love for our fellowman. We then went on to our interpretation of the ideas intended by the Master in His saying that “I am the way , the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6) which are quite contrary to the ideas of most of the church. We discussed in prior posts how this saying is one of the great contributors to the separatist views of so much of the church; our view regarding Jesus saying that He is the Way embodies for us the inner revelation that the Christ, the Son of Our God who we know IS Love, is, AS LOVE, the way and not by His person nor belief in His person. This is a part of the great disconnect between the church and the right understanding of the teachings of the Christ. We made note here also of the triplicity, the Trinity that is apparent in these terms of the Master as the Love, the Son; the Life, the Father; and Truth, the Reality that IS or the Holy Spirit. Relating this to our chart of the Aspects of God and of man we can perhaps get a bit of insight into our sayings as  they stand in regard to this teaching by the Master.

Understanding that in reality all this is ONE, that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are essentially just names for the Aspects that govern the different potencies of God and that these aspects in man are a direct correspondence to those of God, we should be able to see this saying by the Master in this Light. Although He may speak of His own potencies in a different order, they are nonetheless the same:

• I am the Way: Speaking as the Son, the Christ; Jesus is telling us that it is through this potency, Love, that we can get to the Father, to His Kingdom.
• I am the Truth: Although the word Truth is not listed in our chart above we should be able to see this as the reality of what IS. This is the reality of this manifest universe which is Light and Activity and, for man, the Life within the form. Not only the form of the man but the Life that is beating through the entirety of His Creation and which is the reality of the Holy Spirit. It can be said that this Holy Spirit is the activity of the Christ Within in physical manifestation. Restated, this can be seen as the activity of that Love that IS God in His manifest creation. We have here a new introduction of ideas and terms which we will expand upon when we come to the Holy Spirit as the next Aspect of God in our series. There is much misunderstanding regarding the Holy Spirit in the world and it is an idea that is never explained in a way that one can comprehend.
• I am the Life: This is the fullness of the Nature of God which is carried into manifestation by the Son and perhaps here we can see some greater revelation in the saying by John in his Prologue that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.  All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1-4). In this we see the ONENESS of the Father and the Son; we see the Son as the manifestation of the Life that IS God and we see that in the Son is the Life that is God becoming the Light of the physical manifestation of God in Matter, the Holy Spirit.

If we can see the parabolic nature of this saying, that to get to the Father, to His Kingdom, we must go through Christ. Not the historic Christ however, but the Christ principal which is Love and the Christ Within which is the harbinger of Love to the personality consciousness. And, it is in the Christ and therefore the Christ Within that there is the Way, the Love of God, the Truth, the power of the Spirit of God in manifestation that is brought into one’s personality consciousness as the Light of the Soul, and the Life, the True Life which is the Life that IS the Spirit and not what we see as Life from the human perspective. When this is at work in one’s Life the Love, which is the Christ, becomes the activity of the Spirit of God in consciousness and the realization of the Life that IS. This brings us again to our rephrasing of the saying from John that:

Live in Love, Live in God

Live in God, God Lives in us

To close out this long discussion on Love for now let us look as some rather random sayings on Love from the epistles after looking once again at the commandments of the Master regarding Love in our interaction with our fellowman:

“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 12:28-34).

To this we always add the Master’s saying that has become known as the Golden Rule and which is the method by which one can understand the idea of to Love oneself as well as the method by which we can see how it is that we should Love our neighbour.

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12). or, as it is phrased in the Gospel of Luke “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” (Luke 6:31).

For us there should be a clarity here that allows us to see and understand the ideas of the Master as the Way. Knowing the relationship between keeping His words and the Kingdom we should be seeing this concept of Love as the only Way to Him and this because it is at the very top of the list of the Commandments of the Lord. Let us look now at some of the other Love verses from the gospels and the epistles with some commentary.

• “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous” (1 John 5:3). It is clearly stated that there is a direct connection between His commandments and the Love of God which we see as our instruction to bring that Love to ALL. In an earlier part of this epistle the apostle speaks of keeping His commandments in a different tone saying: “But who so keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him“. (1 John 2:5). Can we understand this? that the Love of God is that we keep His commandments and by keeping them is the Love of God perfected. We need here a bit of insight into John’s use of the term Love of God; Vincent tells us that: The phrase hJ ajga>ph tou~ Qeou~ the love of God, may mean either the love which God shows, or the love of which God is the object, or the love which is characteristic of God whether manifested by Himself or by His obedient child through His Spirit. John’s usage is not decisive like Paul’s, according to which the love of God habitually means the love which proceeds from and is manifested by God. The exact phrase, the love of God or the love of the Father, is found in 3:16; 4:9, in the undoubted sense of the love of God to men. The same sense is intended in 3:1, 9, 16, though differently expressed. The sense is doubtful in 2:5; 3:17; 4:12. Men’s love to God is clearly meant in 2:15; 5:3. The phrase occurs only twice in the Gospels (Luke 6:42; John 5:42), and in both cases the sense is doubtful. Some, as Ebrard, combine the two, and explain the love of God as the mutual relation of love between God and men. It is not possible to settle the point decisively, but I incline to the view that the fundamental idea of the love of God as expounded by John is the love which God has made known and which answers to His nature⁴. Now Vincent’s idea is valid in that it is the Love that we know of God; that universal, hold nothing back kind of Love which we understand as that Love that IS Christ and that permeates the entirety of His creation and which is intended to be freely given and freely received.
• “And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it” (2 John 1:6). Here is another saying by the apostle that is similar to the one above but which gives us a slightly different twist by telling us what that commandment is in relation to our fellowman and not just to Our God. This phrase “one another” is the same phrase used by the Master and in the same context without any definition as to who this might be. We should note that these words as used here are again words that can be interpreted either widely or narrowly. Again we see the idea here that Love is that “we walk after his commandments” and we know here that the commandment is “that we love one another“. This is His commandment as it is stated on the Gospel of John when the Master is speaking to His disciples alone and should be understood to be the same as the commandment from the synoptic gospels saying “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself“.
• “If a man say , I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen , how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (1 John 4:20). This saying was discussed in our post a few days ago and is a very hard saying by the apostle who is telling us that if we do not Love our fellowman that we do not Love God. This is a reality with which the world has not come to grips as so many proclaim that they Love God but at the same time fail to show this Love to others.
• “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him“. (1 John 4:16). This has been our main saying for several days and we have had a lot to say on this and have rephrased it as we read above. The reality here is that it is Love that brings us to God and it is Love that brings God to us; not the Love of God but our Love for all His Wondrous Creation.

There are several more listed below that we will take up in our next post where we will try again to finish with our thoughts on Love and move on to the Holy Spirit.

• “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins“. (1 John 4:10)
• “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 dowell (James 2:8)
• “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“
• “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 ismy 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)

Quite a list of verses on Love.

Note on the Quote of the Day