IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 985

ON LOVE; PART DLXXIV

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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).

In the last essay we discussed the what we see as the conclusion to the Apostle James’ first chapter which ends in his thoughts about the man who IS a DOER of the word, the perfect law, which the Young’s Literal Translation frames for us as: “he who did look into the perfect law — that of liberty“. This IS the man who IS a DOER and, as we noted, the key words ARE NOT here in this idea so much as they are in the next words which, again from Young’s, tell us that this man who IS a DOER IS also the man that “did continue there“; this IS the reality of the disciple, the man who IS Truly blessed and we should understand that this being blessed IS a much deeper word than we understand from doctrine and from common usage. This man has accomplished the goal for which he was incarnated, he IS able to express the Love and the Power of the Soul through his own Life in the world consistently and without deviation….he has overcome the world. We should remember that these things ALL do work by degree and we are here reminded of the model provided for us in scripture through the Life of the Apostle Peter who IS a disciple when the Master is still with him but who at the same time was not complete until some time after the Master’s resurrection and ascension; and we should add here that he himself DOES NOT change, it IS his realization of the Light of his own Soul that continues to increase his KNOWING of his True nature and it is this that eliminates ALL doubt.

How this ALL works out in the Life of a man we DO NOT KNOW, we ONLY KNOW the ideas presented by the Master and His apostles and the stories of the lives of Peter and the Apostle Paul. And here, in James’ words we see yet a clearer picture of the expression of divinity by the man in the world from the perspective of keeping His words; we can see here that no matter how one may come to this point of expression, by consciously practicing every word or by the increasing Light based upon the intensity of his focus, ALL ends in the same place of discipleship and of being accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God. Here again we should see the ultimate reality of the idea presented by James, that the man continues in His words as this IS the Truth of the Way; this IS that place where the aspirant overcomes the sense of duality that has plagued him. In this we should see that this idea of being double minded IS a part of the journey and it IS this that must be overcome by the aspirant and the True seeker in the world. This IS the nature of the apostles words on temptation as it IS temptation that keeps the aspirant and the True seeker waffling or, as James tells us, being “like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed” (James 1:6). From the perspective of the aspirant, the disciple and the True seeker at any stage, the lessons on temptation are an important part of the journey; temptations DO come upon ALL men but it IS the man who IS ‘seeing double’, the man who IS in that state of duality where he KNOWS the Truth or some part of it but CAN NOT yet subdue the carnal nature enough to outright seize it, who Truly feels their effect.  This IS the man who has Repented and who IS in the process of Transformation and it IS in the completion of this Transforming that the man IS to be seen as “he who did look into the perfect law — that of liberty, and did continue there“.

Again we must remember that there IS NO True scale by which we are measured or, better, by which we measure ourselves; there IS only the seamless progress on the Path to the Kingdom of God and it IS likely that this experience has some different tone for each individual who takes this journey. Our point here in using this scale it ONLY to make this ALL a bit more understandable and we should understand that it IS likely that the point of discipleship, as compared to the point of being completely Transformed, will vary with every person based perhaps upon previous progress plus the nature of the personality equipment that he IS using. This idea of a scale is our way of making sense of the ideas presented by the Master and His apostles and, as we have posted previously, there ARE four parts to be accomplished, these two of Redemption and Transformation plus the more final ideas of Redemption and Transfiguration of which we can say little save what we can glimpse from scripture.

James’ lesson for us IS in achieving the state of perfection, the state of the completed disciple, and he tells us the nature of this man as “he who did look into the perfect law — that of liberty, and did continue there” and this he gives us at the end of his instruction on temptation and its potential results plus the reality of the True source of those things that a man must attend to, that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). As we proceed through his epistle, James offers a greater understanding from which we can KNOW temptation from Truth, from that Wisdom that we ask for. The apostle teaches us about the things of the world and although His words are not so clear, we can find the Truths if we look without selfish motive; we can see that NO variableness IS the constant effect of the Plan of God and that NO “shadow of turning” tells us that there IS NO darkness in what comes from God. Here we must understand darkness as the ways of the world, as the evil that the Master tells us of saying “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness” (Matthew 6:22-23). Here we must understand the True idea of evil, that it IS the ways of the world, and that if the Light that is IN the heart of the man IS only the things of the world, “how great is that darkness“. These parabolic words have much meaning that IS missed by most and we consider these in greater detail in In the Words of Jesus part 960.

James continues in his parabolic language telling us about hearing, speaking and wrath and we should note that NONE of these ideas should be seen as they appear. In hearing we should see perception and to be quick here is perhaps the way to quickly see temptation from Truth which uncertainty can be a problem for many who believe that they are hearing from God and the God Within but who are Truly hearing from their own personality. The personality, the mind and the emotions, offer to the consciounsess the things of the world while the Soul, the Christ Within, offers to the consciousness “Every good gift and every perfect gift“, the things of God; it IS to rightly discern these ideas that one should ask for that Wisdom to see clearly. Here again it IS the sense of duality which the aspirant faces that causes this need to rightly perceive one’s own thoughts and feelings, it IS here that a man should be “swift to hear“. In conjunction with this we can see the next idea of “slow to speak” and in this word speak we should see the whole of a man’s expression which can be words or thoughts or actions. We can expand upon our earlier ideas on this in saying that this slowness can be seen as patience, as NOT reacting to what one hears or perceives to be so without first being sure of what Truly IS perceived, this includes again that idea of asking for Wisdom as the apostle tells us: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5).

Finally the apostle tells to be “slow to wrath” which IS generally understood as anger but which we see as having a much deeper meaning and this because of the way that the wrath of God is spoken of; in this context anger simply does not work as our God IS Love. We can add here that the Master speaks against being angry and likens it to killing in the Sermon on the Mount. In these ideas we should be able to see that there is more to wrath than this common view or, rather that there is more to the idea enclosed in James’ use of this Greek word orge. In commentary upon this verse we read a comment from Tittmann and while we DO NOT KNOW who this man IS, he does give us some affirmation that our view of this idea that is rendered as wrath IS NOT anger; he says: not so much “wrath” is meant, as an indignant feeling of fretfulness under the calamities to which the whole of human life is exposed ⁸. If we can divorce the whole idea of wrath and anger as we understand these words and try to see that this Greek word orge refers to the ways of the world and the role of this in the Plan of God, we can see the apostle’s idea clearer; first to be “slow to wrath“, slow to participate in carnal Life especially as a reaction to wrong perceptions, then, in the next verse that tell us “the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God” (James 1:20), we  can perhaps have a greater understanding of the apostle’s intent.

There IS NO easy interpretation of this word and what we have said above and in the previous posts DOES make much more sense that do the ideas of wrath and anger as these are generally understood and we should note here that most bible translations DO render this word orge as anger. If we can consider this as we say, that “let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath” (James 1:19) IS a statement about what we perceive and how we act upon it; that we must be quick in KNOWING what we see, hear and think and slow in reacting while we wait to KNOW and slower as well when this reaction plunges us into thoughts or actions of the world, we can perhaps then find the greater meaning to the next ideas as well. As regards this word orge and the righteousness of God which we speak of above, this IS simply understood in that division between the things of the world and the things of God, that they ARE NOT compatible. Next, in these words that ARE rendered as filthiness and the “superfluity of naughtiness” we find again the same theme; that the aspirant, the disciple and the True seeker must stay away from the ways of the world which ARE the corruption and the darkness in his Life; here the rendering of filthy, while this may be in some way the presumed meaning of this Greek word, makes NO sense in the context of the apostle’s words for this man. Perhaps this and the prior words on hearing, speaking and wrath can, along with filthy, make sense to the man who IS NOT focused on the things of God, the man whose interests are in the world and this whether a ‘religious’ man or not, and, perhaps for this man the Truth of the apostle’s intent DOES NOT Truly matter and there is sufficient meaning for him in the common understanding.

Neither does the idea of  “superfluity of naughtiness” make any sense to the aspirant and the seeker; Vincent tells us that this is better as abundant malice ⁴ but this makes little sense in this context as well. In the whole of the saying: “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21) we should again see the idea of refraining from the ways of the world which is found in filthiness as corruption and in the “superfluity of naughtiness” by the alternate meanings of these words which we take from Strong’s ³ and from the lexicon ² as noted in IN the Words of Jesus part 982. Using these tools, it became our premise that these words have a different intent: NO prevalence or preference for malice or NO gain or profit by malice; in either event the idea IS again to refrain from this type of worldly thinking. Instead, the man who IS seeking God should “receive with meekness the engrafted word” which we understand as that the man should realize in his consciousness the Truth of the Christ Within, the Logos, and His words, as these flow forth from the Soul, that divine part of the man in form which IS engrafted, implanted, in his form in this world. 

As we said two posts back, language is an issue here in James Epistle as he uses words that are unique and which are used in unique ways and, as we have premised, this IS likely his own version of parabolic writing which always takes some measure of focus on the Truth, which IS focus away from the self and his interests, to rightly discern the writer’s intent. ARE we seeing clearly? We DO NOT KNOW; we DO KNOW however that the common understanding makes little sense to the aspirant and the seeker. Regardless of how we may view these words and ideas, regardless of how we see the apostle’s intent, the power of this entire chapter IS in the idea of DOING, the idea of being a DOER and not one that merely hears and perceives some degree of the word of God. And, as we began today’s essay, we must be consistent DOERS, we must “continueth therein” as it IS this man who IS the disciple and who IS accounted worthy of His Kingdom. This IS the reality of the words that James offers us, the deeper Truths and meanings which ARE the same ideas as the deeper meanings of the Master’s words where, on the surface, much of what He says can also be relegated to some carnal value; here for example we can look at the idea of “take no thought” or Jesus words on the treasure.

We can say that the apostle’s words may intentionally have two meanings but this would not be True in our view; for us the greater Truth is that there are ideas that are embedded in His words that are discerned by the man who IS aware of the Truth and who IS seeking that Truth and, for ALL others, James’ words remain just that: words which can be understood in any variety of ways but which, in this constricted view, do little to help the man to achieve. In our view these ideas from James ARE that Wisdom that IS asked for when they are rightly discerned in the Light of the Soul and this IS True of ALL that the Master says as well. And the obscurity of James words IS crowned by this next saying which, while it can have some meaning as it is expressed, makeS little sense in that context even when combined with some similar ideas in a later chapter; the apostle tells us:

“If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” (James 1:26-27).

Here the second part makes much more sense than the first but it too has a degree of mystery and both of these follow upon the idea that the man who keeps His words, the man who IS a DOER of the word, “shall be blessed in his deed” which IS where we began today. We must look at these final words in the context of ALL that came before which we again discussed today from the perspective of being a DOER;  it IS in the reality of the deeper meanings of ALL the ideas presented we will find the key to this idea of religion and the tongue; words that ARE NOT the simple ideas that they are thought to be.

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

Aspect of God	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.

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit (John 3:3-8)

Today’s Quote of the Day is in regard to the new birth which Nicodemus did not understand and which many today do not understand either. The words of the Master tell us of a total commitment to the Lord as the way to the Kingdom and these verses say that as well. This total commitment is being born again. The differences in language aside, we should try to see the relationship between these ideas of being born again which is the essence of discipleship for it is only in discipleship that one can Truly see the Kingdom. These are much misused ideas because they are seen from the perspective of the man in form and no from the perspective of the Soul living through form.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• 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
• ⁸ Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com