Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON GOD; Part CLXXXII
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GoodWill IS Love in Action
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“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Romans 8:1-13).
We spent our time yesterday on our favorite topic and the single most important thing for our own ‘salvation’ and progress on the spiritual Path and this is, of course, LOVE. Love is as well the single most important thing that can be spread to others by our actions and speech and and the single most important thing that we can teach others. Love is for us what we have defined it as saying: 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 men. This must include ALL men and all actions that each of us takes in our interaction with others. In today’s terms it is Respect, it is Tolerance, it is ALL those things that are listed by the Apostle Paul as the “the fruit of the Spirit” which He lays out so eloquently for us saying that this fruit “is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23). Have we noticed before that ALL these things are in regard to our interaction with others? ALL of the ideas that these words provide can be found included in any sincere and honest depiction of Love as the Master intended it. ALL of these words can be found in our own idea of LOVE as GOODWILL for if we call GOODWILL to be LOVE in Action then it must necessarily include that single most important saying for the man in the world as he tries to overcome the illusion and the glamour, the vanity if you will, of Life and to progress to that strait gate which opens into the Kingdom of God; that saying is:
“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).
and as it is framed in Luke’s Gospel:
“And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” (Luke 6:31).
This is the simple rule of thumb that can allow a man to move quickly through the illusion and the glamour and to that point of enlightenment and this is likely a most difficult thing to accomplish as it is this very illusion and glamour that will keep the man from this accomplishment. However, if one can keep these words in mind and reflect upon them at every interpersonal decision and in every interaction with others, much can be done. It is the glamour of one’s own Life, his beliefs and knowledge that creates that idea in man that he does not have to listen or to do as another says to do regardless sometimes of how valid a point is being made. It is glamour in one’s group life that creates that idea that his beliefs and his knowledge is superior to another’s. Regardless of where a man is in the social structure, he can always find cause to make his positions and his beliefs superior to another’s within the field of his interaction and this helps only to keep a man from the expression of GoodWill. It is the illusion too that hurts the man’s endeavor to overcome as he deceives himself in his own thinking and his belief that things are what they appear to be or, on a combined basis with glamour, that things are what he believes them to be. So this illusion and this glamour are the things to overcome in Life if a man is to do as the Master says and: “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); and, these are the very things that keep us from our goal.
The first logical step here is that a man should recognize that these things are the powerful forces in the everyday Life of a man which they are or can be; a man cannot overcome that which he does not recognize or admit. An essential part of this is in the realization of the Christ Within, of the Soul, as the reality of the man, it is in this realization one can understand how the powers of the world can deceive in such ways that one does not readily see himself as deceived. It is in this same realization that one can come to understand that he and his brothers are essentially the same and essentially divine and that ALL men are working out their ‘salvation’ in the way that suits them as incarnated Souls lost in the world of illusion and glamour. In this, and in recognition of one’s own emotional and mental dilemmas, one can understand that a brother who has gone astray has done so because he cannot, as a Soul, control the doings of the form Life and the personality and that his control is lost in the illusion and the glamour in which he lives in the world. In this recognition of ALL men as Souls we can see ALL men in our essential sameness, and, in the recognition of the effects of glamour and illusion in the world, we can Love our neighbour as the Master so instructs and this because of our understanding of this reality. The key to this interaction in Love is the Golden Rule which is the common name for the verses above.
We have been studying the Eighth Chapter of Paul’s Epistle to the Roman’s as is posted again today at the head of our essay. In the prior chapter however the apostle gives us his understanding of this dilemma that each of us faces especially as we reach that point of awakening and recognize the duality of Life in form. Paul’s perspective is in teaching these things and in using himself as a ready example of the difficulty that we speak of above and while it is in terms understandable to the people in his time, we should be able to see his point in our terms as we have been defining them as well. Paul says in part:
“For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would , that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin” (Romans 7:14-25).
In reading these passages we should remember our right understanding of the words that the apostle uses, that they are not what we may perceive them to be; that evil and sin are not the gross and criminal things only but they are the turning away from the ways of the Soul and of God and toward the ways of the world. We should remember also that we used the last verse in this chapter as our entry into the Eighth Chapter that we have above at the head of our essay as in this last line we see the reality of the Master’s teachings on God and mammon as this reality is at work in the man Paul. This entire depiction by the apostle is his story of his struggle with the duality of Life in form and this is the same duality that we all face. From the nature of his words and the tone of his argument, it appears that he is struggling still as he is writing this letter. While we cannot tell if he is still struggling as he depicts it here, we can KNOW that he is speaking factually of the task at hand for ALL who desire to follow the Master. As we say above these idea of evil and of sin should not be construed against our current understanding of these words; we have recently discussed the Greek word hamartia which is translated as sin and which we can accept in Strong’s definition of sin, wrongdoing, usually any act contrary to the will and law of God3. and our focus should be on the last part insofar as it is addressed above by the apostle and we should see that what he is saying is from the perspective of the personality consciousness, it is yet serving mammon as this is where the action of the lower man goes when he is not steadfastly attending to the things of God. We should be able to see the pains of living in the duality of Life in the world in nearly every verse and the acknowledgement as well that it is the vanity, the illusion and the glamour, which are in essence the sin, and that these factors overwhelm him; he tells us that these are “bringing me into captivity to the law of sin“. He tells us also, as he moves into the further explanations of the next chapter, that these actions in the world ARE NOT him in reality but they are rather the natural tendencies of Life in form and, as he adds for us later, this is because he, and we, are “made subject to vanity” (Romans 8:20) by the Plan of God.
Seeing the idea of sin as we define it above, we come now to the idea of evil. Like many words, the translation to evil can come from more than one Greek word and this is a part of the difficulty in understanding these ideas in English. Addressing the Greek word kakos which is here translated as evil we note the following:
- According to the lexicon kakos means of a bad nature; not such as it ought to be; of a mode of thinking, feeling, acting; base, wrong, wicked, troublesome, injurious, pernicious, destructive, baneful2. These ideas are rather non specific and run the range of not such as it ought to be up to pernicious. Which of these ideas can we see in the evil that the apostle would do or would be present with him. We cannot here justly include the things that the apostle did in his capacity as a Jewish leader because in these things he was, as a man, acting according to what he believed and he KNEW and while he may have done wrong, they may not measure up to the True ideas of evil as we understand it today and as we see in the next point.
- Today’s dictionary tells us that evil means: 1. morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life. 2. harmful; injurious: evil laws. 3. characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evil days. 4. due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character: an evil reputation. 5. marked by anger, irritability, irascibility, etc.: He is known for his evil disposition7.
- Strong’s tells us that kakos means evil, wicked, wrong, bad, a perversion of what pertains to goodness; as a noun, an evil thing can refer to any crime, harm or moral wrong3. These defining terms rather agree with the modern dictionary and our modern understanding which is seemingly not measured the same in the lexicon which gives wider latitude to the idea engendered by kakos. We should note here that the lexicon does not include evil in it definitions and we should ask here again which of the defining terms from Strong’s or the modern dictionary can we attribute to the apostle?
- Going back in time to our 1913 dictionary we find evil defined as 1.Having qualities tending to injury and mischief; having a nature or properties which tend to badness; mischievous; not good; worthless or deleterious; poor;as, anevil beast; andevil plant; an evil crop. 2.Having or exhibiting bad moral qualities; morally corrupt; wicked; wrong; vicious; as,evil conduct, thoughts, heart, words, and the like. 3.Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous; as, evil tidings; evil arrows; evil days1. Here we see the idea of evil as an inherent thing in a man, then an evil man, along with the exhibition and use of those qualities. Again, can we attribute these ideas to Paul?
- Vincent gives us a completely different perspective on the Greek word kakos which we take from two of his entries. From Romans Chapter 9 where the usage is different by the word the same, Vincent refers us to his entries in James and in John.
- In James Epistle Vincent tells us that the in the verse “For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work” (James 3:16) the word kakos, translated as evil is: Evil (fau~lon). An inadequate rendering, because it fails to bring out the particular phase of evil which is dominant in the word: worthlessness, good-for-nothingness. In classical Greek it has the meanings slight, trivial, paltry, which run into bad. In the New Testament it appears in this latest stage, and is set over against good. See John 3:20; 5:29; Titus 2:8. Rev., vile, which, according to its etymology, Lat., vilis, follows the same process of development from cheap, or paltry, to bad4.
- In John’s Gospel the verse that is used by Vincent is “For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved” (John 3:20). Here he tells us that Evil (fau~la). Rev., ill. A different word from that in the previous verse. Originally, light, paltry, trivial, and so worthless. Evil, therefore, considered on the side of worthlessness. See on James 3:164.
Can we see the confusion in the understanding of this word? Not only in its usage in the gospels and epistles but in the various ideas given by the ‘authorities’ on its meaning. No doubt there is evil and there is evil spoken of in the New Testament but this word and this usage do not measure up to the common understanding and it is in this realization that a man can come to the better conclusion, that he IS included in what the apostle is saying and what the Master is saying regarding sin and evil as these words do, in so many places, refer to the natural ways of man in the world and not to the extraordinarily bad things that a man can do to another.
In closing today I am reminded of the words of the boat captain during a whale watching excursion a few years back; he said that we would see whales and then proceeded to point out a dolphin while telling us that ‘all dolphins are whales but not all whales are dolphins’. Why does this matter? Because we can look at sin in the same way; ‘all crime is sin but not all sin is a crime’ and we can do the same with evil. When we can see that evil and sin are natural parts of the experience of the man in form and that in the normal state are limited to the focus and the attention of the Life on the things of the world, we will have come a long way in understanding so much more of what the scriptures actually say to us today.
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
Note on the Quote of the Day
Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful (Colossians 3: 12-15).
- 1 Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913
- 2 New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
- 3 Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible – 2001
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
- 7 Dictionary.com Unabridged based on Random House Dictionary – 2011
