ON LOVE; PART D
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GoodWill IS Love in Action
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“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 12:29-31).
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“Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:36-40).
Today is the five hundredth edition of essays with the subheading of ON LOVE and while many of the essays under this heading may not appear to be ON LOVE, ALL ARE as it IS Love that is behind ALL spiritual endeavor; there IS nothing else. Two thousand years ago the Master came among us as the Love of God made manifest to men and we should not take this idea lightly nor think that it is merely a trite saying from our perspective. Doctrine likely DOES NOT agree with our view here as they have taken the words of the apostles over the words of the Master in regard to His being here and many center their thoughts on these words: “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). This saying offers the foundation for the beliefs of many but there IS a greater reality in this idea which far surpasses the doctrinal pronouncements and this IS the Truth of believing, that it IS NOT merely an affirmation based in the mind and the emotions of a man but it IS Truly KNOWING Him and following Him and keeping His words; it IS ONLY in DOING that one will find the realization of eternal Life. We should try to see as well the reality of the idea of the “only begotten Son“, that this is by the nature of His birth into the world as the divine Soul of the Christ; this Truly DOES set Him apart but it DOES not eradicate the presence of other Sons of God who came before him as IS the premise offered in the glamour of the illusion created by the doctrines of men. We should add here that these quoted words from John’s Gospel are considered by most to be the words of the Master but we should note here again Vincent’s words that say: The interview with Nicodemus closes with John 3:15; and the succeeding words are John’s 4. This of course IS NOT the view of much of the church and this verse is called by some the most famous bible verse and it IS among the most quoted.
Vincent’s words are likely considered as radical by most and we should remember that he IS a renowned member to the church who was not afraid to offer his version of the truths of much of the scriptures that he wrote on. Vincent’d full comments on this are brief and we repeat them here so that the reader can decide on the merits of his argument: The interview with Nicodemus closes with John 3:15; and the succeeding words are John’s. This appears from the following facts: 1. The past tenses loved and gave, in John 3:16, better suit the later point of view from which John writes, after the atoning death of Christ was an accomplished historic fact, than the drift of the present discourse of Jesus before the full revelation of that work. 2. It is in John’s manner to throw in explanatory comments of his own (John 1:16-18; John 12:37-41), and to do so abruptly. See John 1:15, John 1:16, and on and, John 1:16. 3. John 3:19is in the same line of thought with John 1:9-11in the Prologue; and the tone of that verse is historic, carrying the sense of past rejection, as loved darkness; were evil. 4. The phrase believe on the name is not used elsewhere by our Lord, but by John (John 1:12; John 2:23; 1 John 5:13). 5. The phrase only-begotten son is not elsewhere used by Jesus of himself, but in every case by the Evangelist (John 1:14, John 1:18; 1 John 4:9). 6. The phrase to do truth (John 3:21) occurs elsewhere only in 1 John 1:6 4.
Whose words these are should not have any real effect upon how they are viewed and what they mean and while our position on this has become that these are the apostle’s words, they are still a large part of the doctrinal approach to Christ. Our greater point here is in the idea of Love, that the Master IS the Love of God made manifest to the world in the person of Jesus and we should be able to see this in the rational and logical breaking down of the Truth. If we believe that “God is love” (1 John 4:8) as the Apostle John tells us and if we believe that the Master’s own words saying “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30) are True, then the only logical conclusion IS that Jesus IS the Love of God. This IS a simplistic way of showing our idea here and the greater Truth is found in His words and His teachings of which there ARE none more important than the words at the top of our essay. These words from the Old Testament teaching of Jehovah ARE elevated by the Master to the position of being the Great Commandments as He tells us that “There is none other commandment greater than these“. We say again here that the approach of EVERY man to God MUST begin in Love as it stated in these Great Commandments and as is explained and clarified and amplified by so much of what the Master teaches and in the words of His apostles.
Returning to where we left off in the last post, we should try to understand that the words of our Tibetan brother ARE a statement of how a man comes to Repentance, how it is in his Dissatisfaction, disgust, distaste, and a deep fatigue with his plight in the world; with the lack of fulfillment that he gets. Here we should note that this dissatisfaction is a sense that one gets in the comparison of his Life to what he glimpses from the promptings of his own Soul and in this there is the basic requirement that one does glimpse these things over the clamor of his own Life in the world. Here we can see the value of scripture and of other literature that causes a man to ponder Truth as it IS in this pondering that the glimmer of Light is allowed to enter into one’s waking consciousness. Of course there ARE other ways for a man to come to this place where he can note his own dissatisfaction with Life in the world but unless he notes this in relation to the glimmer of Light from within, he is not likely to pursue the spiritual Path and may become ever more engrossed in his own plight as to cause depression and other psychic problems. It IS from within that True hope springs and this can happen regardless of ones religion or spiritual orientation although it IS likely wise to have some foundation for understanding that what one perceives to be Truth from within actually ARE so that his ‘vision’ does not lead him further down the path of destruction. This IS of course the value of the apostles’ words on the Wisdom from above and the fruit of the Spirit; these and other Truly inspirational sayings can greatly help a man to KNOW.
The Tibetan goes on to show us the Life of the aspirant as the Life of the man who comes to Repentance, to that decision to change the focus of his Life from the dissatisfaction of the world to those new glimpses of Truth from within and he explains a bit about the duality that the man will face as he IS vibrating between the condition of soul awareness and form awareness. This duality IS the plight of the aspirant and it IS his field of battle if you will; it may seem that at every turn one must decide the way to go, that one must choose between what the form may desire and what the Soul KNOWS is right and here is the processes of Transformation. The Tibetan tells us that this is the man that IS seeing double but this IS a state that IS in continual flux and the more the man chooses right over desire, the closer he comes to being Transformed and the less double vision that he will encounter. This IS the journey of the man on the Path to that strait gate that opens into the Kingdom and the man’s being “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). We should realize here that this is a personal journey and one that must be accomplished in the relative aloneness which we ALL share; no one thinks our thoughts nor ponders our plight but us ourselves.
And in this there come that other Truth that there IS none to help us on the Path to God and this is for many reasons foremost of which IS that NO ONE KNOWS where another Truly IS in relation to fulfilling his goal of realizing his own spiritual realty; and every man IS different. The Tibetan explains it this way: the Path is constructed by the aspirant as the spinner spins its web out of the centre of his own being. Can we understand this? Can we see the reality that only each man KNOWS and understands where he Truly IS in relation to God and only he KNOWS where it IS that he must travel, what he must accomplish, and in this we should try to see the reality of the Master’s words that tell us that “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). We should note here as well how the Master weaves this idea of the cross into His ideas on being accounted worthy and of discipleship as we read:
- “he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:38).
- “whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).
There is much said about the cross doctrinally that does not make sense in these sayings and we have discussed this in previous essays; the idea of the cross here has naught to do with the crucifixion nor with actual crosses of Roman punishment. The idea of the cross in this instance can be perplexing and while we can see this as that a man must carry his burdens, we are still left wondering just what this burden might be. Vincent has shown us that aside from his own doctrinal ideas regarding the cross of the crucifixion being used by the Master anticipatively which we DO NOT see here, that there is another component which he states as: His cross: his own. All are not alike. There are different crosses for different disciples. The English proverb runs: “Every cross hath its inscription” – the name of him for whom it is shaped 4. From these ideas, while not scriptural, we do get the idea of the personal nature of the cross and from the nature of the Master’s words we should try to see that ALL have one, ALL have a cross that he must bear. In our study of the Gospel of Thomas we came upon a similar saying to those regarding discipleship and being accounted worthy; in the fifty fifth saying we read: “Jesus says: Whoever does not hate his father and his mother cannot become a disciple of mine. And whoever does not hate his brothers and his sisters (and) will not take up his cross as I do, will not be worthy of me” (Thomas 55). Here in these words is the added idea of “as I do” which was alternately rendered as “as I have” and “in my way” and here we should be able to see that the crucifixion is surly NOT intended. Perhaps this idea of the cross is better understood by the gospel writers and that there IS meaning that is missed in the Greek and the Coptic words. Nonetheless, it is by the usage in all three gospels cited as well as that other command found in the three synoptic gospels that says: “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34) that give us the idea that it IS those things that one MUST DO for the Kingdom that ARE each man’s cross; what it IS that IS required to be in conformance with His words. One man may have carnal issues with sex while another with riches and yet another in expressing the reality of Love…There are different crosses for different disciples.
In this we should try to see then the parallel between the words from our Tibetan brother and the words of the Master on the idea of the cross; that each man MUST per force approach his own issues and solve them individually. NO man can accomplish these things for another; ALL is a matter of what IS in one’s own heart, what is the content of his own consciousness; what ARE his own thoughts, attitudes and actions as expressed in the Life of the man in the world.
The Christian world however is tied to this idea of the cross and as it relates to the crucifixion and doctrine seldom gets into the True meaning of these words; we will close here today with some ideas on this combination of words: cross and crucify. The Greek word rendered as cross is stauros and this IS the noun form of the word that is rendered as crucify, stauroo. From this relationship we should try to see the Master’s ideas above in combination with the words of the Apostle Paul who tells us:
- “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Galatians 5:24).
- “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed , that henceforth we should not serve sin” (Romans 6:6).
Can we see that in these sayings there IS NO actual death as IS suffered by the Master; here there is only the death so to speak of the carnal nature, the death of the ways of the man in the world. Can we see these realities in the Master’s admonition that one “deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me“. W,E, Vine wrote some interesting remarks in his dictionary as he defines cross and crucify together and tells us this about the word’s use as a noun:
denotes, primarily, “an upright pale or stake.” On such malefactors were nailed for execution. Both the noun and the verb stauroo, “to fasten to a stake or pale,” are originally to be distinguished from the ecclesiastical form of a two beamed “cross.” The shape of the latter had its origin in ancient Chaldea, and was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name) in that country and in adjacent lands, including Egypt. By the middle of the 3rd cent. A.D. the churches had either departed from, or had travestied, certain doctrines of the Christian faith. In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross-piece lowered, was adopted to stand for the “cross” of Christ.
As for the Chi, or X, which Constantine declared he had seen in a vision leading him to champion the Christian faith, that letter was the initial of the word “Christ” and had nothing to do with “the Cross” (for xulon, “a timber beam, a tree,” as used for the stauros, see under TREE).
The method of execution was borrowed by the Greeks and Romans from the Phoenicians. The stauros denotes (a) “the cross, or stake itself,” e.g., Matt. 27:32; (b) “the crucifixion suffered,” e.g., 1 Cor. 1:17,18, where “the word of the cross,” RV, stands for the Gospel; Gal. 5:11, where crucifixion is metaphorically used of the renunciation of the world, that characterizes the true Christian life; Gal. 6:12,14; Eph. 2:16; Phil. 3:18.
The judicial custom by which the condemned person carried his stake to the place of execution, was applied by the Lord to those sufferings by which His faithful followers were to express their fellowship with Him, e.g., Matt. 10:38 6.
There is much interesting information here although we disagree with Mr. Vine’s thoughts in the last part as this requires that He IS anticipating His fate in His current discipleship instructions and our perspective on this should be clear from above.
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
| Aspect |
Potency |
Aspect of Man |
In Relation to the Great Invocation |
In relation to the Christ |
|
GOD, The Father |
Will or Power |
Spirit or Life |
Center where the Will of God IS KNOWN |
Life |
|
Son, The Christ |
Love and Wisdom |
Soul or Christ Within |
Heart of God |
Truth |
|
Holy Spirit |
Light or Activity |
Life Within |
Mind of God |
Way |
Note on the Quote of the Day
This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.
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.
Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness
in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.
There is no fear in love;
but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.
He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
We love him, because he first loved us.
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?
And this commandment have we from him,
That he who loveth God love his brother also
1 John 4:16-21
Today’s Quote of the Day from the First Epistle of John is his reflection on God and on Love. John tells us that God is Love and, as we have discussed, Love is certainly as aspect and an attribute of the Godhead and one which is supremely represented by the Christ. John tells us further that without Love there is no relationship with God and likens the Truth of dwelling in Love to being in His Kingdom and in His Presence. He draws for us the idea of Love for ones fellowman being the prime prerequisite for Love of God for although one may say that he Loves God, it cannot be True unless he first Loves his fellowman. In John’s words the equation is certain: “he who loveth God love his brother also“. And, lest we forget that the idea of Love that the Master teaches in not the emotional attraction that we live with daily, we repeat again: LOVE is….
In a general sense love is 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’. To this we add the ever important High Ideal as taught by the Christ: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
- 6 Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, 1996
- ** A Treatise on White Magic or The Way of the Disciple by Alice Bailey ©1951 by Lucis trust
